The good-byes have been said. What was left is loaded. It was an excellent good run for 20 years and I did not see snow this fall and that's real fine by me but it's coming.
Thanks to Teresa Evangeline and Linda Brown for assisting me in keeping this event in perspective.
In an hour or two I will get in my car and drive away into a new life and it's just that simple.
Later and have a good one.
9/30/11
9/29/11
I Am Not A Mormon
And damn proud of it too.
Yea right. Credibility a big fat 0 straight outta da box. Plus who gives a shit - really.
9/28/11
Yup We're Crave'in Bacon
It's true - the whole crew wants bacon. Personally I've been craving bacon on a regular basis ever since last October when out in Utah we fixed this bacon that made the whole campsite reek all through the night. It was soooo good. I dont eat that much of it but every once in awhile gotta have some.
So I asked the crew and they're serious about da bacon as well. Andy didn't think 3lbs was enough because it's good cold too. So four pounds it is.
Sean is picking up this bacon he says is the best along with donuts. Timmy is bringing orange juice. I'm going in early to start cooking and when it's done everyone is going to have a smile on there face. This crew is the best ever I tell you.
Tara is coming to take me to lunch at 11:30.
Caddyshack bacon and a free lunch on a beautiful fall day in the Rocky Mountains. Yup it don't get much better.
So I asked the crew and they're serious about da bacon as well. Andy didn't think 3lbs was enough because it's good cold too. So four pounds it is.
Sean is picking up this bacon he says is the best along with donuts. Timmy is bringing orange juice. I'm going in early to start cooking and when it's done everyone is going to have a smile on there face. This crew is the best ever I tell you.
Tara is coming to take me to lunch at 11:30.
Caddyshack bacon and a free lunch on a beautiful fall day in the Rocky Mountains. Yup it don't get much better.
9/27/11
One Of The Things
Two decades is a long time and as the end time draws near there is one thing I will very much miss. I did not live in Steamboat Springs the whole time but worked here. 10,000 people is a lot of people but not all that many in respect to what is considered "big".
For years and of course now as well on a daily basis living life or going about daily business or routine it is inevitable you will run into someone you know and probably more than that just one. It may be someone you just saw somewhere else the day before or someone you may not have seen in a couple years but no matter what you will and are going to run across an acquaintance or two.
I enjoy the hell out of that and that is one thing when I move there will be little of and I know there will be a void instead of that type of interaction.
As much as I look forward to this change in my life it's going to be difficult to drive away.
For years and of course now as well on a daily basis living life or going about daily business or routine it is inevitable you will run into someone you know and probably more than that just one. It may be someone you just saw somewhere else the day before or someone you may not have seen in a couple years but no matter what you will and are going to run across an acquaintance or two.
I enjoy the hell out of that and that is one thing when I move there will be little of and I know there will be a void instead of that type of interaction.
As much as I look forward to this change in my life it's going to be difficult to drive away.
9/26/11
And The Elders Turned Their Heads In Shame
Personally I get a huge kick outta this. Good on these people!
Could not find anything on this in the Salt Lake paper this morning.
Could not find anything on this in the Salt Lake paper this morning.
So If They Can Do This
If this is true then I have a huge issue with all of it. Or is this a down town Yorker trying to be funny. I played golf with a fellow who grew up on Long Island just last Thursday. What an asshole!
The New York Police Department could take down a plane if necessary, Commissioner Ray Kelly said Sunday
You do not shoot down airliners with popguns street cops and swat teams carry and certainly even if you can bring a plane down over a populated area like NYC. That means missiles possibly?
I'm not sure what to think but if it's true then there needs to be a sit down and discussion about this.
I don't give a shit what city it is I do not want any to have weapons capable of doing so. What weapons do they have in their arsenal for ground attacks that also can be used against you and I.
I think he's a liar but just in case bama needs to check this out. WRONG - bama's on their side. He'll never give up one of his buds.
The New York Police Department could take down a plane if necessary, Commissioner Ray Kelly said Sunday
You do not shoot down airliners with popguns street cops and swat teams carry and certainly even if you can bring a plane down over a populated area like NYC. That means missiles possibly?
I'm not sure what to think but if it's true then there needs to be a sit down and discussion about this.
I don't give a shit what city it is I do not want any to have weapons capable of doing so. What weapons do they have in their arsenal for ground attacks that also can be used against you and I.
I think he's a liar but just in case bama needs to check this out. WRONG - bama's on their side. He'll never give up one of his buds.
9/25/11
No Way - Say No
I was shocked this morning when I read this. Yes it's tough out there in the middle of now where but your town survives. This would be such a negative and would more than likely fail. A casino is not the answer for damn sure.
My comment from the above article.
Don't allow this! A golf course would go broke and there aren't enough to sustain a casino. Yes there's not much revenue being generated and the economy sucks but what is out there is the best of Americana. This is the last place there should a gambling venue.
Start and promote a service that guides people that tells the many incredible storys of the area. There are weeks worth of adventure in this area for a variety of interests. Dinosaur National Monument for starters and Rangely with its petroglyphs and of course Browns Park with its more than just rich western history.
Find some fun outside rather than an atmosphere of unrealistic expectations of wealth that will never be fulfilled.
Promote the outdoors and the richness of the area rather than false nonsense.
Stop the damn dollars from rolling around in your eyes people and choose reality instead.
Oh My! I forgot - most Americans don't care for those things and would rather sit in front of a tube for that kind of reality or a ding ding machine that they willingly throw their money into.
My comment from the above article.
Don't allow this! A golf course would go broke and there aren't enough to sustain a casino. Yes there's not much revenue being generated and the economy sucks but what is out there is the best of Americana. This is the last place there should a gambling venue.
Start and promote a service that guides people that tells the many incredible storys of the area. There are weeks worth of adventure in this area for a variety of interests. Dinosaur National Monument for starters and Rangely with its petroglyphs and of course Browns Park with its more than just rich western history.
Find some fun outside rather than an atmosphere of unrealistic expectations of wealth that will never be fulfilled.
Promote the outdoors and the richness of the area rather than false nonsense.
Stop the damn dollars from rolling around in your eyes people and choose reality instead.
Oh My! I forgot - most Americans don't care for those things and would rather sit in front of a tube for that kind of reality or a ding ding machine that they willingly throw their money into.
9/24/11
Coppers Out Of Control
From a friend - Injustice Everywhere touches on criminal cops from around the country.
I try to stay so far away from these guys I tell you. I can not tell you how much I hate these people who approach you with their hand on their gun. That really pisses me off.
I try to stay so far away from these guys I tell you. I can not tell you how much I hate these people who approach you with their hand on their gun. That really pisses me off.
- Eureka CA jury awards $4.5mil to family of man who died after badly beaten by 2 cops then denied medical care [0] bit.ly/n7R1c0
- Honolulu HI cop suspended while under investigation after accused of raping a mentally disabled shoplifting suspect [0] bit.ly/oiNN1S
- Dalworthington Gardens TX cop arrested on allegations he sexually assaulted woman after arresting then helping her [0] http://bit.ly/oJvUdH
- Charlotte-Mecklenburg NC police sued by man claiming cops fabricated evidence to falsely imprison him for 12yrs [0] bit.ly/qqS2Lm
- Los Angeles Co CA monitor report finds 1/2 of people shot for “reaching for waistband” were unarmed, numbers rising [0] lat.ms/nNU0CC
- Albuquerque NM settles class action suit for a rumored $150k by 13yr-old arrested by school cop for minor outburst [3] bit.ly/qermCk
- New York NY cops ordered to stop arresting people for public display of pot when pot is found during searches [0] bit.ly/oL0KGl
- Hackensack NJ cop suspended w/o pay after charged w/witness retaliation, lying to investigators & hindering arrest [0] bit.ly/q9v2Hg
- 2 New Orleans LA cops get probation/suspended sentences for roles in false arrest & false report, both resigned [0] bit.ly/pgOZzz
- Atlanta GA cop pulls gun on motorist when he mistakes man’s Toyota Camry for his Ford Explorer police SUV [0] bit.ly/nSvcjQ
- New Paltz NY cop indicted on felony grand larceny & workers comp fraud charges involving over $50k [0] bit.ly/psx7Cz
- Dallas TX cop suspended 20days w/o pay for refusing to help cop transport woman he didn’t think needed arrested [0] bit.ly/pTncWA
- Windermere FL police chief takes plea deal on 4 counts, dropping most serious charges for hindering child sex case [0] thesent.nl/nFx9yo
- 2 Bradenton FL cops subject of complaint by homeless man alleging they demanded ID w/o cause & threatened arrest [3] bit.ly/qxWvKv
- Nashville TN cop arrested on agg assault charges for attempting to strangle girlfriend until her dog saved her [0] bit.ly/q3fWu8
- Houston TX cop sentenced to 20yrs prison after pleading to stealing over $800k from police union over 7yr period [0] bit.ly/pUpuCD
- Broward Co FL deputy arrested on grand theft & official misconduct charges for robbing undercover posing as dealer [0] bit.ly/n4LafH
- Escondido CA settles suit for $20k to non-profit hired for FHA study but fired for criticism of police checkpoints [3] bit.ly/oDc0ho
- Milwaukee WI cop sentenced to 2yrs after sting op caught him taking $1k to help transport 4lbs cocaine & drug money [0] bit.ly/nav9ji
- Central Michigan Univ MI cop charged w/official misconduct for talking drunk college students into exposing breasts [0] bit.ly/r5UhsH
- East Point GA cop fired & charged w/theft by taking, violation of oath & false statements on unspecified allegation [2] bit.ly/nNuNlS
- 3 Houston TX cops apparently chatted on cruiser laptops about being high after eating arrested teen’s pot brownies [0] bit.ly/nQUH9C
- Austin TX cop suspended 90days, lied before video showed him being rude to resident who called about discarded hypo [0] bit.ly/ny2F4O
9/23/11
Not This Time
Last year we won this. Not even close this year and yours truly sucked bad. Our team which was weak to begin with consisted of five guys and we came in last.
We had bragging rights for a year anyway and have won it in the past. Other than that I know nothing as I was out well after dark last night and in town which does not happen that often.
We had bragging rights for a year anyway and have won it in the past. Other than that I know nothing as I was out well after dark last night and in town which does not happen that often.
9/22/11
Thieves In The Cornfield
It's true! There are literally millions of pigs in Iowa but what's interesting is that you never see one but they're easy to find. In some cases you can just follow your nose but no matter how you find them when you do there will be thousands of them. What to do what to do.
Rat Bastard Killers
How many have been released from prison and death row based just on DNA evidence? A couple hundred or more at least. How many more have been put to death based on lies from the prosecution/pulice or the wrong identification. Far too many. The prosecution will never admit they are wrong/human and send innocents to death just to prove that.
From what I heard about the Davis case it was obvious the probability of an innocent man being put to death was very high. No matter we'll kill his darkie ass anyway and they did just that.
This country thrives on a culture of death behind the disguise of an invisible sky being that has never existed that gives the killers the pretense that they can do no wrong.
From what I heard about the Davis case it was obvious the probability of an innocent man being put to death was very high. No matter we'll kill his darkie ass anyway and they did just that.
This country thrives on a culture of death behind the disguise of an invisible sky being that has never existed that gives the killers the pretense that they can do no wrong.
9/21/11
Another 35
I guess it's not going to change as long as this country continues it's decades old insane policy on drugs. It's what Merca wants so look the other way and turn the tb on for another dose of swill.
Masked gunmen blocked traffic on a busy avenue in a Gulf of Mexico coastal Veracruz city Tuesday and dumped the bodies of 35 slaying victims.
Masked gunmen blocked traffic on a busy avenue in a Gulf of Mexico coastal Veracruz city Tuesday and dumped the bodies of 35 slaying victims.
9/20/11
bama Wants What??
I want a pony too. He tries to take away much of this fine tasting gravy and these guys will drive their half a mil tractors and close to a mil combines out to DC and stick a pitchfork in his black ass that they hate anyway
9/19/11
Behind
That I am and have been nowhere on the internets so I know nothing and have little to say cept I need to leave for work and I will be around to visit later.
It's cold and there will be a frost for sure.
Have a good one.
It's cold and there will be a frost for sure.
Have a good one.
9/18/11
It Is A Real Countdown Now
A quickly done and terrible video showing what I will be seeing when I wake up the morning of 10/1/11. I'm excited/happy and glad this all came together the way it did. This will be a fine place to live and with the work done the last two+ days this is ready to go. All I have to do is bring groceries. A couple minor issues but no big deal.
Have a good one everybody!
Have a good one everybody!
9/17/11
I Am/TheyAren't/And They Won't
bama says -
Americans need to be ready to "pay their fair share" to narrow the deficit, previewing his proposals to Congress that are expected to include more taxes on the rich.
That's expected from this man and I expect as usual the rich will pay little if any more than they do now. And there is no mention of corporations.
Then there's this -
The White House has conducted a regulatory overhaul to eliminate old and overlapping rules across U.S. government agencies. It was broadly welcomed by the private sector including major groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
If it good for the Chamber then only a dummy can't understand who this won't be good for.
We're so screwed.
LINK
Americans need to be ready to "pay their fair share" to narrow the deficit, previewing his proposals to Congress that are expected to include more taxes on the rich.
That's expected from this man and I expect as usual the rich will pay little if any more than they do now. And there is no mention of corporations.
Then there's this -
The White House has conducted a regulatory overhaul to eliminate old and overlapping rules across U.S. government agencies. It was broadly welcomed by the private sector including major groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
If it good for the Chamber then only a dummy can't understand who this won't be good for.
We're so screwed.
LINK
9/16/11
Everyone Had Fun Except For The One Guy
Talk about a couple low-life bastards. I suppose too that many in this society think this is funnier than hell.
9/15/11
Out And About
In Denver to do a bit of business and then head south for 180 to begin setting up my new place. It rained from the tunnel all the way down and through the night and is going to rain again soon. This place needs all it can get and there was actually a bit of the white crap along the way as well. That's a huge WHOOPEE for some but not this guy.
I get the pleasure of driving through Colorado Springs. It's been years since I've taken this route. I will be sneering and flicking off the mega-churches on the way by for those of you who feel like I do.
Later. OF
I get the pleasure of driving through Colorado Springs. It's been years since I've taken this route. I will be sneering and flicking off the mega-churches on the way by for those of you who feel like I do.
Later. OF
9/14/11
Thanks Again You Dick
So if this repug puke can win in this "heavily Democratic district" what in the hell do you think is going to happen when their machine really ramps up nationwide between now and Nov 012?
9/13/11
Secretary Saladbar To Dedicate New Dinosaur Visitor Center / The Real Story You'll Not See Elsewhere
As you know I've been hanging out here a bunch and want to explain what really happened with this dedication and opening.
On Sept. 28, Salazar will be the keynote speaker at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new 7,595-square-foot visitor center.
Note the date of Oct. 4 as that was the planned opening date that never changed. What Saladbar tried to pull was bull shit. 300+ invitations were sent and all the other things that needed to be done were in preparation. This is a big deal folks I tell you. People who work there are fired up and rightfully so. This is going to be soooo cool. You have the best people in the world working on things like this.
Salazar after the fact wanted the opening to be changed to suit him. It couldn't be so he had to be accommodated for his photo op on the 28th and make it seem like this was the plan all along. Nobody will hardly be there and it will a lot more extra work on the part of many to get this done.
Kenny boy is a wheel now. A sheepherder to the Secretary of State for the USA. Anyway you know what dogs do to wheels.
On Sept. 28, Salazar will be the keynote speaker at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new 7,595-square-foot visitor center.
Note the date of Oct. 4 as that was the planned opening date that never changed. What Saladbar tried to pull was bull shit. 300+ invitations were sent and all the other things that needed to be done were in preparation. This is a big deal folks I tell you. People who work there are fired up and rightfully so. This is going to be soooo cool. You have the best people in the world working on things like this.
Salazar after the fact wanted the opening to be changed to suit him. It couldn't be so he had to be accommodated for his photo op on the 28th and make it seem like this was the plan all along. Nobody will hardly be there and it will a lot more extra work on the part of many to get this done.
Kenny boy is a wheel now. A sheepherder to the Secretary of State for the USA. Anyway you know what dogs do to wheels.
9/12/11
Grand Junction Nutters Love Their Dishonered Commanders
That they do and in this case it's Navy Capt. Owen Honors who had his ass kicked off the bridge of the carrier Enterprise for making movies that included anti-gay slurs and simulated masturbation.
Did that bother anyone out there in Nutter Junction? Hell no.
In act they prayed and cheered and waved their flags with even more gusto.
Honors lied his ass off when he said "I'm not anti-gay. I'm an inclusionist," he said. "I could care less if you are gay or straight or black or white."
And the crowd of nutters bleated even louder.
From a couple years ago - Out Flagged in Junction
Did that bother anyone out there in Nutter Junction? Hell no.
In act they prayed and cheered and waved their flags with even more gusto.
Honors lied his ass off when he said "I'm not anti-gay. I'm an inclusionist," he said. "I could care less if you are gay or straight or black or white."
And the crowd of nutters bleated even louder.
From a couple years ago - Out Flagged in Junction
9/11/11
My Very Short 911 Story
Today 9/11/11
Osama is gone but not much has changed. There are guns all over the country "protecting" us and after two weeks or more of ramping up by media the flags of false patriotism are flapping harder than usual on the 10th go around.
Not many flag wavers talk of what else was lost in those 10 years. That wouldn't be patriotic ya see. Go read Cujo too. He's even more sick of it then me or maybe not.
Originally posted on 9/11/08
On that morning seven years ago Bradley came into the shop and told me what happened. I went over to the chump house(pro shop) and watched for a short period of time and said in a very loud voice for the several dozen there to hear clearly "there go our rights" and walked out.
Looking back it seems a bit odd but I just knew. Called my long time PC buddy and we talked about what we had said for years that something like this was bound to happen and it did that morning. This event was not a surprise to us.
Finished out the work day turning the radio on only a couple times for unending speculation that served no purpose. Went fishing for six hours on a beautiful day in the Rockies catching so many it was easy to not think about what was to come.
Sat down in front of the tube at 9 o'clock and watched the nightmare that continues to unfold to this very day.
Today 9/11/10
The nightmare referred to is not as bad but is still there. The major damage has been done and Osama gloats whether he is dead or squatting in a cave.
Osama is gone but not much has changed. There are guns all over the country "protecting" us and after two weeks or more of ramping up by media the flags of false patriotism are flapping harder than usual on the 10th go around.
Not many flag wavers talk of what else was lost in those 10 years. That wouldn't be patriotic ya see. Go read Cujo too. He's even more sick of it then me or maybe not.
Originally posted on 9/11/08
On that morning seven years ago Bradley came into the shop and told me what happened. I went over to the chump house(pro shop) and watched for a short period of time and said in a very loud voice for the several dozen there to hear clearly "there go our rights" and walked out.
Looking back it seems a bit odd but I just knew. Called my long time PC buddy and we talked about what we had said for years that something like this was bound to happen and it did that morning. This event was not a surprise to us.
Finished out the work day turning the radio on only a couple times for unending speculation that served no purpose. Went fishing for six hours on a beautiful day in the Rockies catching so many it was easy to not think about what was to come.
Sat down in front of the tube at 9 o'clock and watched the nightmare that continues to unfold to this very day.
Today 9/11/10
The nightmare referred to is not as bad but is still there. The major damage has been done and Osama gloats whether he is dead or squatting in a cave.
9/9/11
Ringee Dingee Dingee
Called India today two times because my phone was not working. The second because it was too frustrating the first time. The second was worse but I stuck with it and it got fixed.
I could not understand and was just plain pissed off a couple times as was he.
It took awhile and when it was over I offered up the best apology I could muster trying to explain the anger was not at him. This is not his fault or any of the others that do this job. The whole time I was thinking about the people in our government who enabled promoted and encouraged this to happen.
India or wherever if there are jobs people will take them. What shitty jobs these must be dealing with unhappy people who can't understand you.
While in Ghana at Tongu Ranch became friends with a man who worked there. His name was Alfred Zokli and he was an Ewe as everyone else was. One day early on he said to me in perfect English - "Mr Tommy. I try so very hard but I just can't hear you."
Just saying.
I could not understand and was just plain pissed off a couple times as was he.
It took awhile and when it was over I offered up the best apology I could muster trying to explain the anger was not at him. This is not his fault or any of the others that do this job. The whole time I was thinking about the people in our government who enabled promoted and encouraged this to happen.
India or wherever if there are jobs people will take them. What shitty jobs these must be dealing with unhappy people who can't understand you.
While in Ghana at Tongu Ranch became friends with a man who worked there. His name was Alfred Zokli and he was an Ewe as everyone else was. One day early on he said to me in perfect English - "Mr Tommy. I try so very hard but I just can't hear you."
Just saying.
Good On Those Who Don't Forget
POS Alberto G. was in Denver and I applaud those who called out his continuing war criminal status.
MAY WE NEVER FORGET!
MAY WE NEVER FORGET!
9/8/11
Pulice Compassion - But
The others will pay.
"We have a lot of compassion for this young lady," he said. "We just don't feel it's in anyone's interest to charge her, and we don't want to add that extra stress."
How do you think the other three feel? They're all pretty much grown up and there is an allure of trains and doing just what they tried to do. This girl did this on her own and a very unfortunate accident occurred.
I'm just saying that many times people do not need to be charged when a tragedy occurs. Take 'em in the office and chew their asses out so they never try crap like this again. If thery give the cops any shit then write the tickets.
All of these people learned their lesson with this.
"We have a lot of compassion for this young lady," he said. "We just don't feel it's in anyone's interest to charge her, and we don't want to add that extra stress."
How do you think the other three feel? They're all pretty much grown up and there is an allure of trains and doing just what they tried to do. This girl did this on her own and a very unfortunate accident occurred.
I'm just saying that many times people do not need to be charged when a tragedy occurs. Take 'em in the office and chew their asses out so they never try crap like this again. If thery give the cops any shit then write the tickets.
All of these people learned their lesson with this.
Unnecessary Deaths In The Cornfield
In this case it happened in a grain bin that was being emptied.
At 15 or 16 this guy came close to losing his life in a similar incident. It scared me so much I refused to enter again and wouldn't go near one unless it was empty. Accidents like the one above happen far too often and it doesn't have too.
At 15 or 16 this guy came close to losing his life in a similar incident. It scared me so much I refused to enter again and wouldn't go near one unless it was empty. Accidents like the one above happen far too often and it doesn't have too.
9/7/11
The Three Imbeciles On Iraq Troop Withdrawal
I think you three peckerheads should go on a walkabout in and around Fallugah and check them gains out - otay?
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., issued a statement Tuesday that they were "deeply troubled" about the drawdown level. "This is dramatically lower than what our military leaders have consistently told us over the course of repeated visits to Iraq that they require, and that is needed to support Iraq in safeguarding the hard-won gains that our two nations have achieved at such great cost," they said in the statement obtained by NBC News.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., issued a statement Tuesday that they were "deeply troubled" about the drawdown level. "This is dramatically lower than what our military leaders have consistently told us over the course of repeated visits to Iraq that they require, and that is needed to support Iraq in safeguarding the hard-won gains that our two nations have achieved at such great cost," they said in the statement obtained by NBC News.
9/6/11
A Post Office Or The Other
Without question in small towns across this country post offices are the life blood of the community in many cases.
With post office's closure, Searsboro surrenders
Hate to be an ass but this is what you get and deserve for the most part for your support of the very people who had intended to do this kind of crap all along. Now there are hurt feelings but you still think 911 was caused by Saddam. You think the rag heads are still after "our freedoms" and this country's safety and security is in constant jeapordy plus you love our wars - everyone of them enough that you never will say "STOP"!!
It's your own damn fault. Damn you for your stupidity when the real facts of the matter are there. You have to look just a little bit but you prefer to be dummy's at the rest of our expense.
With post office's closure, Searsboro surrenders
Hate to be an ass but this is what you get and deserve for the most part for your support of the very people who had intended to do this kind of crap all along. Now there are hurt feelings but you still think 911 was caused by Saddam. You think the rag heads are still after "our freedoms" and this country's safety and security is in constant jeapordy plus you love our wars - everyone of them enough that you never will say "STOP"!!
It's your own damn fault. Damn you for your stupidity when the real facts of the matter are there. You have to look just a little bit but you prefer to be dummy's at the rest of our expense.
9/5/11
Labor Day - The Reason For It And The Innocent Men Who Went To Their Death
9/5/11 - Another year has flown by and this country continues to welcome misinformation and lies about unions and socialism and other things that originate from huge corporations including media. The mood of this country has many of the same traits as it had at the time of these murders at the hands of the powers that were in Chicago at that time.
2010 - The same post from last year in it's entirety (and the year before that). A piece that tells a very important story and why I get the day off to go explore because men like these died so I could do just that.
In this country there are not many who know why we celebrate this holiday but the story told below explains and we should all take pause now and then and remember those who came before us whether it's this or any number of other stories of people who sacrificed so our country could be a better place to live in.
Remembering the Haymarket Martyrs
By Charles SullivanInformation Clearing House' -- -- Every now and then events transpire that cut through the rhetoric, the carefully contrived images purveyed in the press and historical texts, and reveal a nation’s dark soul in ghastly detail. Such an event occurred in the streets of Chicago on May 4, 1886, and continued through November 11 of 1887. They were set in motion years before.
05/16/06 "
At noon on that day four of labor’s most courageous warriors: Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel were hanged for a crime they did not commit. A fifth man, Louis Lingg, was slated to share the fate of his comrades but he cheated the hangman and the state of his innocent blood when he exploded a dynamite cap in his mouth from his jail cell just hours before the execution. The explosive had been smuggled in to him by an anarchist comrade. Another anarchist, Oscar Neebe, has sentenced to fifteen years of prison and hard labor. Three others had their death sentences commuted to life sentences.
In the U.S. only a relative few working class people know that Labor Day, originally May Day (May 1) originated with the hanging of these men. The rest of the world celebrates their heroism on May 1; however, the U.S. does not officially recognize their sacrifice by honoring them with a national holiday. Virtually every worker worldwide owes a tremendous debt to the Haymarket Martyrs, who provided the impetus and paid the ultimate price for many of the benefits that all workers, including the rank and file and upper management, now enjoy.
Those were tumultuous times not only in Chicago but all across America, when revolution was in the air and nationwide strikes crippled the burgeoning economy. In Chicago alone 400,000 were out on strike protesting not only reductions in wages but also demonstrating for the eight hour work day—one of the central organizing principles of the anarchist’s political philosophy. The Chicago anarchist movement that took root in 1884 was both strong and effective. Its leaders were skilled organizers and eloquent orators.
The Chicago police of the day were corrupt and routinely moved on the strikers at the behest of the business community, prodded by the daily newspapers. In those days companies had their own militias which were used to put down worker insurrections with coercion and violence. They also hired Pinkertons to intimidate and kill workers in order to prevent strikes and to maximize profits. But when the strikers began organizing militias for their own protection the state legislature outlawed them. The business militias, however, were allowed to continue their grim work, leaving the workers without protection and vulnerable. Strikers were routinely beaten, imprisoned and killed by their employers and the police.
On May 4, 1886, several unarmed strikers were shot dead by the Chicago police and hundreds were brutally beaten, including innocent bystanders at the McCormick Reapers Works. August Spies witnessed the affair with horror and righteous indignation. His comrades were being murdered in the streets and the killers did so with impunity. It seemed that all the forces of Chicago were arrayed against the working people.
An outraged August Spies organized a peaceful rally the following evening at the Haymarket Square. After beginning in clear moonlight, the weather suddenly turned cool and threatened rain, after a crowd of 3,000 gathered to hear the orators in the gathering gloom of the chilled night air. Standing upon a hay wagon near a lone street lamp the speakers berated the Chicago police for their indiscriminate killing of unarmed workers. Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, a just and honest man, was in attendance. Satisfied that the gathering was peaceful and nearing conclusion, Mayor Harrison informed the chief of police, John Bonfield, who had sanctioned the shootings and mass beatings of the previous day, not to march on the group or disrupt their meeting.
It was getting late and the cold was penetrating when Albert Parsons and most of the speakers left the rally to warm themselves at Zephf’s Hall. Acting without legal authority, John Bonfield gathered a troop of 180 armed policemen and ordered them to disperse the dwindling crowd. After a mild verbal confrontation, Samuel Fieldon, who was speaking to the crowd when the police arrived, agreed to peacefully disperse. As Fieldon leaped down from the hay wagon, an unknown assailant hurled a stick of sizzling dynamite into the crowd of policemen. One officer was killed and six others died in the ensuing mayhem as the result of the panic stricken police firing indiscriminately into the fleeing crowd.
A reign of terror soon swept over Chicago in the aftermath of the Haymarket bombing. The press and the city’s business men, always hostile to the strikers, blamed the anarchists and the socialists and cried for their blood. The principal anarchists were quickly rounded up and put into jail, except for Parsons who, though far from the site of the incident, knew that Chicago’s business men demanded his head and skipped town.
Demonized in the press and the business community, the anarchists were immediately tried, convicted and executed in the Chicago Tribune and other daily newspapers even before any evidence was gathered. The judge presiding over the trial did nothing to conceal his prejudice and hostility toward the accused. Twelve impartial jurors could not be found, so those who openly proclaimed the guilt of the accused were paid to judge the case. During the early stages of the trial Albert Parsons dramatically walked into the courtroom and took his place at the side of his comrades to face his fate with them.
With the impossibility of a fair trial, and the irrational fear that Chicago’s ruling elite felt toward immigrant social agitators, the men were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. Predictably, the trial was a farce, a media circus and a travesty of justice. The jury consisted of businessmen, their clerks and a relative of one of the dead policemen. Not a single working man or woman was selected for the jury.
No evidence was produced to link any of the accused with the bombing during the trial. None of them were at or near the scene of the crime. No evidence was brought forth to demonstrate that the anarchists had conspired to incite violence that evening. But they were anarchists and socialists, a threat to capital, and they were bound to hang for their political views.
State attorney Julius Grinnell openly declared that anarchism was on trial. By hanging the anarchists, Grinnell reasoned, the sacred institutions of society would be saved. In essence, free speech and the right of peaceful assembly were also on trial. Laws to protect the rights of suspects were suspended and new precedents established to hasten their conviction. The real agenda of Chicago’s business community, however, was to put an end to the successful drive for the eight hour work day and to permanently demonize organized labor. It would require another fifty-one years for the eight hour work day to become law as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Just a few hours prior to the execution Albert Parsons wrote a friend that “The guard has just awakened me. I have washed my face and drank a cup of coffee. The doctor asked me if I wanted stimulants. I said no. The dear boys, Engel, Fischer and Spies, saluted me with firm voices. Well, my dear old comrade, the hour draws near. Caesar kept me awake last night with the noise, the music of the hammer and saw erecting his throne—my scaffold.” Parsons remained awake most of the night singing one of his favorite songs, “Annie Laurie” in a soft, melancholy voice filled with emotion.
More than 200 reporters gathered to witness the execution, as did the citizenry. None of the friends or relatives of the anarchists were permitted to attend. Albert Parson’s wife, Lucy, and their children were not permitted to bid their beloved husband and father a final farewell. Lucy Parsons was arrested in the attempt and taken to jail in another part of the city.
A few minutes before noon the four men were paraded onto the gallows scaffold. A reporter described the scene, “With a steady, unfaltering step a white robed figure stepped out…and stood upon the drop. It was August Spies. It was evident that his hands were firmly bound behind him beneath his snowy shroud.” Another reporter wrote, “His face was very pale, his looks solemn, his expression melancholy, yet at the same time dignified.” Fischer, Engel and Parsons followed in orderly procession. Another reporter noted that Parsons “Turned his big gray eyes upon the crowd below with such a look of awful reproach and sadness as it would not fail to strike the innermost chord of the hardest-heart there. It was a look never to be forgotten.”
The nooses were placed around the men’s necks and muslin shrouds placed over their heads. The executioner took up the axe that would in a moment cut the rope and spring the trap doors upon which the four men stood, sending them into ancestry. There was apprehension in the air thick as soup. Four innocent men were about to be executed by the state. Just then a “mournful solemn voice sounded.” It was August Spies speaking his final words, “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.” Next, George Engel shouted in his native German tongue, “Hurrah for anarchy!” Adolph Fischer chimed, “This is the happiest day of my life.” Just as Albert Parsons began to utter his final words that began, “Harken to the voice of the people,” the executioner’s axe fell. The trap doors sprung open with a bang and the four men jerked violently on the end of their ropes and then dangled in the air.
None of them died quickly of broken necks, as was supposed to happen; they violently twisted and strangled to death over a period of several minutes, some of them kicking and writhing in agony. The captains of industry celebrated the death of the anarchists while the workers mourned for their fallen comrades. But the dream of the eight hour work day, while strangled, did not die with the Chicago anarchists. It lived on in the lives of Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Mother Jones and Big Bill Haywood, who were inspired by the Haymarket Martyrs and went on to organize.
Some 600,000 workers turned out for the anarchist’s funeral. Lucy Parsons was inconsolable in her grief and spent the remainder of her life continuing the work that she and Albert had begun years before in Texas and later Chicago. This was the event that precipitated the eight hour work day, the internationally celebrated May Day, and Labor Day in the U.S. It is tragic that so few working class people are aware of the tremendous price that the Haymarket Martyrs paid for the freedoms that so many of us take for granted today.
On June 26, 1893, newly elected Illinois Governor John Altgeld set the remaining anarchists free and cleared the names of the hanged. Altgeld, a fair minded man, after examining transcripts of the trial and reams of related documents declared that all of the anarchists were innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. Altgeld concluded that the hanged men had been victims of “hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge.” Later, evidence came to light that the dynamite may have been thrown by a police agent working for police captain Bonfield, as part of a conspiracy hatched by local business men to discredit the entire labor movement.
The state sponsored murder of the Haymarket anarchists, while particularly poignant, is by no means an isolated incident in American labor history. In the spring of 1886 America was on the verge of becoming something other than what she was. A new dawn in which working class people were on a par with business elites was almost within grasp and the eight hour work day virtually assured. Had justice prevailed that year in a hot Chicago courtroom and the normal procedures of the law followed, America would have been a very different place; a more just and peaceful future than the one we have now would have been possible and likely.
The entire Haymarket affair betrays the violent nature of capital and reveals its modus operandi. Aside from all the rhetoric about free speech and democracy, it exposes who runs the country, who makes the laws and who enforces them. It is capital, not we the people that are running things. Time and again the ugly side of America has been revealed when the status quo was threatened with real democracy. And it will happen again until the class struggle is finally resolved with just outcomes. The judgment of History has exonerated the fallen victims of predatory capital and indicted the real perpetrators of crimes against humanity, but who go unrepentant and unpunished.
Until millions of ordinary working class people awaken to the kind of country America really is, the death of Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel will have been in vain. Workers the world over owes a great debt to these courageous men, whose lives, strangely, are celebrated abroad but scarcely known here. Unless we remember these men and honor what they did for us their sacrifice will have been in vain. We owe them nothing less and much more.
Author’s note: I urge those who wish to know more about these events to read labor historian James Green’s recently published book “Death in the Haymarkett: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America.”
Charles Sullivan is a photographer, social activist and free lance writer residing in the hinterland of West Virgina. He welcomes your comments at earthdog@highstream.net
2010 - The same post from last year in it's entirety (and the year before that). A piece that tells a very important story and why I get the day off to go explore because men like these died so I could do just that.
In this country there are not many who know why we celebrate this holiday but the story told below explains and we should all take pause now and then and remember those who came before us whether it's this or any number of other stories of people who sacrificed so our country could be a better place to live in.
Remembering the Haymarket Martyrs
By Charles SullivanInformation Clearing House' -- -- Every now and then events transpire that cut through the rhetoric, the carefully contrived images purveyed in the press and historical texts, and reveal a nation’s dark soul in ghastly detail. Such an event occurred in the streets of Chicago on May 4, 1886, and continued through November 11 of 1887. They were set in motion years before.
05/16/06 "
At noon on that day four of labor’s most courageous warriors: Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel were hanged for a crime they did not commit. A fifth man, Louis Lingg, was slated to share the fate of his comrades but he cheated the hangman and the state of his innocent blood when he exploded a dynamite cap in his mouth from his jail cell just hours before the execution. The explosive had been smuggled in to him by an anarchist comrade. Another anarchist, Oscar Neebe, has sentenced to fifteen years of prison and hard labor. Three others had their death sentences commuted to life sentences.
In the U.S. only a relative few working class people know that Labor Day, originally May Day (May 1) originated with the hanging of these men. The rest of the world celebrates their heroism on May 1; however, the U.S. does not officially recognize their sacrifice by honoring them with a national holiday. Virtually every worker worldwide owes a tremendous debt to the Haymarket Martyrs, who provided the impetus and paid the ultimate price for many of the benefits that all workers, including the rank and file and upper management, now enjoy.
Those were tumultuous times not only in Chicago but all across America, when revolution was in the air and nationwide strikes crippled the burgeoning economy. In Chicago alone 400,000 were out on strike protesting not only reductions in wages but also demonstrating for the eight hour work day—one of the central organizing principles of the anarchist’s political philosophy. The Chicago anarchist movement that took root in 1884 was both strong and effective. Its leaders were skilled organizers and eloquent orators.
The Chicago police of the day were corrupt and routinely moved on the strikers at the behest of the business community, prodded by the daily newspapers. In those days companies had their own militias which were used to put down worker insurrections with coercion and violence. They also hired Pinkertons to intimidate and kill workers in order to prevent strikes and to maximize profits. But when the strikers began organizing militias for their own protection the state legislature outlawed them. The business militias, however, were allowed to continue their grim work, leaving the workers without protection and vulnerable. Strikers were routinely beaten, imprisoned and killed by their employers and the police.
On May 4, 1886, several unarmed strikers were shot dead by the Chicago police and hundreds were brutally beaten, including innocent bystanders at the McCormick Reapers Works. August Spies witnessed the affair with horror and righteous indignation. His comrades were being murdered in the streets and the killers did so with impunity. It seemed that all the forces of Chicago were arrayed against the working people.
An outraged August Spies organized a peaceful rally the following evening at the Haymarket Square. After beginning in clear moonlight, the weather suddenly turned cool and threatened rain, after a crowd of 3,000 gathered to hear the orators in the gathering gloom of the chilled night air. Standing upon a hay wagon near a lone street lamp the speakers berated the Chicago police for their indiscriminate killing of unarmed workers. Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, a just and honest man, was in attendance. Satisfied that the gathering was peaceful and nearing conclusion, Mayor Harrison informed the chief of police, John Bonfield, who had sanctioned the shootings and mass beatings of the previous day, not to march on the group or disrupt their meeting.
It was getting late and the cold was penetrating when Albert Parsons and most of the speakers left the rally to warm themselves at Zephf’s Hall. Acting without legal authority, John Bonfield gathered a troop of 180 armed policemen and ordered them to disperse the dwindling crowd. After a mild verbal confrontation, Samuel Fieldon, who was speaking to the crowd when the police arrived, agreed to peacefully disperse. As Fieldon leaped down from the hay wagon, an unknown assailant hurled a stick of sizzling dynamite into the crowd of policemen. One officer was killed and six others died in the ensuing mayhem as the result of the panic stricken police firing indiscriminately into the fleeing crowd.
A reign of terror soon swept over Chicago in the aftermath of the Haymarket bombing. The press and the city’s business men, always hostile to the strikers, blamed the anarchists and the socialists and cried for their blood. The principal anarchists were quickly rounded up and put into jail, except for Parsons who, though far from the site of the incident, knew that Chicago’s business men demanded his head and skipped town.
Demonized in the press and the business community, the anarchists were immediately tried, convicted and executed in the Chicago Tribune and other daily newspapers even before any evidence was gathered. The judge presiding over the trial did nothing to conceal his prejudice and hostility toward the accused. Twelve impartial jurors could not be found, so those who openly proclaimed the guilt of the accused were paid to judge the case. During the early stages of the trial Albert Parsons dramatically walked into the courtroom and took his place at the side of his comrades to face his fate with them.
With the impossibility of a fair trial, and the irrational fear that Chicago’s ruling elite felt toward immigrant social agitators, the men were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. Predictably, the trial was a farce, a media circus and a travesty of justice. The jury consisted of businessmen, their clerks and a relative of one of the dead policemen. Not a single working man or woman was selected for the jury.
No evidence was produced to link any of the accused with the bombing during the trial. None of them were at or near the scene of the crime. No evidence was brought forth to demonstrate that the anarchists had conspired to incite violence that evening. But they were anarchists and socialists, a threat to capital, and they were bound to hang for their political views.
State attorney Julius Grinnell openly declared that anarchism was on trial. By hanging the anarchists, Grinnell reasoned, the sacred institutions of society would be saved. In essence, free speech and the right of peaceful assembly were also on trial. Laws to protect the rights of suspects were suspended and new precedents established to hasten their conviction. The real agenda of Chicago’s business community, however, was to put an end to the successful drive for the eight hour work day and to permanently demonize organized labor. It would require another fifty-one years for the eight hour work day to become law as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Just a few hours prior to the execution Albert Parsons wrote a friend that “The guard has just awakened me. I have washed my face and drank a cup of coffee. The doctor asked me if I wanted stimulants. I said no. The dear boys, Engel, Fischer and Spies, saluted me with firm voices. Well, my dear old comrade, the hour draws near. Caesar kept me awake last night with the noise, the music of the hammer and saw erecting his throne—my scaffold.” Parsons remained awake most of the night singing one of his favorite songs, “Annie Laurie” in a soft, melancholy voice filled with emotion.
More than 200 reporters gathered to witness the execution, as did the citizenry. None of the friends or relatives of the anarchists were permitted to attend. Albert Parson’s wife, Lucy, and their children were not permitted to bid their beloved husband and father a final farewell. Lucy Parsons was arrested in the attempt and taken to jail in another part of the city.
A few minutes before noon the four men were paraded onto the gallows scaffold. A reporter described the scene, “With a steady, unfaltering step a white robed figure stepped out…and stood upon the drop. It was August Spies. It was evident that his hands were firmly bound behind him beneath his snowy shroud.” Another reporter wrote, “His face was very pale, his looks solemn, his expression melancholy, yet at the same time dignified.” Fischer, Engel and Parsons followed in orderly procession. Another reporter noted that Parsons “Turned his big gray eyes upon the crowd below with such a look of awful reproach and sadness as it would not fail to strike the innermost chord of the hardest-heart there. It was a look never to be forgotten.”
The nooses were placed around the men’s necks and muslin shrouds placed over their heads. The executioner took up the axe that would in a moment cut the rope and spring the trap doors upon which the four men stood, sending them into ancestry. There was apprehension in the air thick as soup. Four innocent men were about to be executed by the state. Just then a “mournful solemn voice sounded.” It was August Spies speaking his final words, “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.” Next, George Engel shouted in his native German tongue, “Hurrah for anarchy!” Adolph Fischer chimed, “This is the happiest day of my life.” Just as Albert Parsons began to utter his final words that began, “Harken to the voice of the people,” the executioner’s axe fell. The trap doors sprung open with a bang and the four men jerked violently on the end of their ropes and then dangled in the air.
None of them died quickly of broken necks, as was supposed to happen; they violently twisted and strangled to death over a period of several minutes, some of them kicking and writhing in agony. The captains of industry celebrated the death of the anarchists while the workers mourned for their fallen comrades. But the dream of the eight hour work day, while strangled, did not die with the Chicago anarchists. It lived on in the lives of Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Mother Jones and Big Bill Haywood, who were inspired by the Haymarket Martyrs and went on to organize.
Some 600,000 workers turned out for the anarchist’s funeral. Lucy Parsons was inconsolable in her grief and spent the remainder of her life continuing the work that she and Albert had begun years before in Texas and later Chicago. This was the event that precipitated the eight hour work day, the internationally celebrated May Day, and Labor Day in the U.S. It is tragic that so few working class people are aware of the tremendous price that the Haymarket Martyrs paid for the freedoms that so many of us take for granted today.
On June 26, 1893, newly elected Illinois Governor John Altgeld set the remaining anarchists free and cleared the names of the hanged. Altgeld, a fair minded man, after examining transcripts of the trial and reams of related documents declared that all of the anarchists were innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. Altgeld concluded that the hanged men had been victims of “hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge.” Later, evidence came to light that the dynamite may have been thrown by a police agent working for police captain Bonfield, as part of a conspiracy hatched by local business men to discredit the entire labor movement.
The state sponsored murder of the Haymarket anarchists, while particularly poignant, is by no means an isolated incident in American labor history. In the spring of 1886 America was on the verge of becoming something other than what she was. A new dawn in which working class people were on a par with business elites was almost within grasp and the eight hour work day virtually assured. Had justice prevailed that year in a hot Chicago courtroom and the normal procedures of the law followed, America would have been a very different place; a more just and peaceful future than the one we have now would have been possible and likely.
The entire Haymarket affair betrays the violent nature of capital and reveals its modus operandi. Aside from all the rhetoric about free speech and democracy, it exposes who runs the country, who makes the laws and who enforces them. It is capital, not we the people that are running things. Time and again the ugly side of America has been revealed when the status quo was threatened with real democracy. And it will happen again until the class struggle is finally resolved with just outcomes. The judgment of History has exonerated the fallen victims of predatory capital and indicted the real perpetrators of crimes against humanity, but who go unrepentant and unpunished.
Until millions of ordinary working class people awaken to the kind of country America really is, the death of Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel will have been in vain. Workers the world over owes a great debt to these courageous men, whose lives, strangely, are celebrated abroad but scarcely known here. Unless we remember these men and honor what they did for us their sacrifice will have been in vain. We owe them nothing less and much more.
Author’s note: I urge those who wish to know more about these events to read labor historian James Green’s recently published book “Death in the Haymarkett: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America.”
Charles Sullivan is a photographer, social activist and free lance writer residing in the hinterland of West Virgina. He welcomes your comments at earthdog@highstream.net
9/3/11
US + Libya = Torture City
Well no shit Cisco! This ain't news. It was known this country was sending innocents there and to other country's as well to do the bush killers dirty work.
Nobody except some like us gave a shit then and even less could care squat now. Our new Merca continues to be a work in progress.
The Bush administrations sent terror suspects to Libya for interrogation, despite that country's reputation for torture, according to documents found in the abandoned office of Libya's spy chief.
Nobody except some like us gave a shit then and even less could care squat now. Our new Merca continues to be a work in progress.
The Bush administrations sent terror suspects to Libya for interrogation, despite that country's reputation for torture, according to documents found in the abandoned office of Libya's spy chief.
9/2/11
Repug Twit Wants Peace Corps Out Of China
Oh mercy - the yellow ones are being taught English the universal language. There must be demands made to bama to get them out now!
The Peace Corps has always played a teaching role wherever they are and it's just that simple.
Ya know it's kinda like fostering friendships and relationships between people and country's instead of invading and killing.
Peace monkey!
The Peace Corps has always played a teaching role wherever they are and it's just that simple.
Ya know it's kinda like fostering friendships and relationships between people and country's instead of invading and killing.
Peace monkey!
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