Obama Sits At The Children's Table

When I cast my ballot for Obama, I sure did not envision him starting three wars and starting shit with the Russians.  Fortunately, he lost both Syria and Ukraine while they were still in the attempted war stage according to Pepe Escobar.  Libya is another story, but let's talk about the Ukraine for a moment.  

I completed a Bachelor's Degree in History from a prestigious university, and a Master's in Library and Information Science from one of the top Universities in the world.  I know a thing or two about the history of the United States during specific periods, and a bit about modern Latin America.  While I took a one year survey in Russian history as an undergrad, I know very little about Russia, and even less about the Ukraine and other places in Eastern Europe.  But what I do know is exponentially more than 98% of Americans.  So give me a little respect here.  

The Ukrainians that had been here for some time and assimilated between 1890 and 1985 are not the Ukrainians that I am about to talk about.  I have had some experience with established Ukrainians but my contact with them has been limited.  My dealings with them have not been particularly noteworthy. My only lasting impression was that they were not very friendly.  A little cold.  

Since the dissolution of the USSR, I have personally met about a dozen Ukrainians who have come over since 1990.  Let me say at the outset that I do not like to make blanket statements about groups of people, especially people like Ukrainians that I am not too familiar with.  The following observations are limited only to the dozen or so that I have personally met and done some business with on some level or another.  Let me tell you what I observed.  

Firstly, each and every one of the Ukrainians went through great lengths to explain to me that they were not Jews.  I am not usually interested in another man's religion.  All of these people without exception wanted me to know they were not Jews and furthermore questioned me about any prospective Jewishness.  It made me feel very uncomfortable.  The assertions.  The questions.  The outright anti-Semitism when they discovered that I was Catholic and let them keep talking.  Or spewing hate, rather. 

Then they wanted to talk about how they hated Russians.  By that time, they understood that I had a rudimentary degree of knowledge about their history and that I knew that they were not Russian and furthermore hated the Russians almost as much as they hate the Jews.  So these are the people on the ground that we are supporting and that the Russians are opposing.  To call all of the Ukrainians that I am talking about Fascists would be an understatement.  They are more like National Socialists or Nazis.  

I am sure there are many upstanding individuals from the Ukraine are tolerant and not anti-Semitic.  I have not met any personally over here, however.  

Secondly, I had a certain kind of work that I was doing for each of these people.  It always takes about a year to complete the task that they paid me to do.  Over the course of the year, there is nothing to talk about.  It is something that I always disclose at the outset, and on my contract, I always have them initial that they understand that the process takes one year.  Each and every one of the Ukrainians that I entered into a contract with were not satisfied and made it very hard to do my job.  I spent more time putting out fires than doing what I was paid to do.  When it was done, they were NEVER happy.  I am glad I am in a different business these days.  You know what I am trying to say.  

I am sure that the prospect of NATO getting control over Sebastapol is worth supporting nazi gangsters over.  No wonder Obama sits at the children's table, and the adults in the room like Putin are able to stop his GW Bush style wars when they are still attempted wars.  At least that has been the case in Syria and in the Ukraine.  

Brand Park South Elevation of Mt. Tongva (not the fire road)

Mt. Tongva can be approached from all 4 elevations, but the southern one is by far the shortest and the steepest.  It is akin to climbing an industrial staircase and if you are able to run, it is going to take you about a half an hour to reach the summit even thought the actual distance is not too great.  In contrast, the South Beaudry Fire Road is five miles from the top to the trash dump in Brand Park.  Some people may consider this more of a scramble than a hike, but I have been accustomed to running up and down.  It took me a couple of years to work my way up to the fitness level necessary to run this little trail.

As for the scenery, you are going to get a pretty good view of Glendale and the North end of Griffith Park as well as the Verdugos.  The entire area is exceptionally dry and the only other thing you will encounter on the trail is vegetation and scenery.  Very few people take this route, and instead opt for the much easier fire roads and the Eastern approach which is steep, but not nearly as steep as the West ridge leading up the South side of Tongva.

When you arrive at the top, there is a radio tower and views of the San Gabriels and sometimes a glimpse of the Three Saints when the air quality is decent.  You are going to enjoy this workout, as it will strengthen your legs, core, and mind.  To reach the trailhead, go up the paved road past the Doctor's House and when you get to the fork in the road, keep going up past the dump and up to the little trail that leads up to the area with the dozen large pine trees and benches.  Before you get to the switchbacks leading up to that area, there is a steep embankment to the left with a narrow dirt path leading straight up.  It is steadily steep almost the entire way up.  When you are almost at the top, keep to the left.  Enjoy.

Kamala Harris and Open Carry vs Concealed Carry in California

At the outset, I want to express my admiration for Kamala Harris.  I do not believe that California has ever had a more qualified Attorney General.  She is the antithesis of some of the two-balled bitches that preceded her such as Dan Lundgren.  Although most black attorneys in law enforcement positions are Toms, I believe her Tom Factor is rather low.  I do not want to discuss my reasons in detail because they exceed the scope of this article.  I think that despite being the top law enforcement employee in the State, I would actually want to buy her an ice cream or something and have a friendly but brief chat with her.

Many of the Deputy District Attorneys that work for Los Angeles County are among the most unethical individuals that I have ever encountered.  I am not making blanket statements because some DDA's are fine, dedicated individuals.   Most are not.  Especially the African Americans.  They are among the most incompetent, self hating and bitter attorneys that have ever been admitted to the bar.  Shame on them for contributing to the demise of their own race by participating in drug crime prosecutions. Harris checks out in my opinion.  She is not a Barak Obama or Susan Rice-like insecure, affirmative action pinhead standing with her dick in her hand while the adults in the room laugh at her out loud.  If I were standing in her shoes, I would visit more criminal court rooms and talk to defendants, judges and all the other parties and court personnel.  I would travel from Del Norte to Imperial, but spend the bulk of my visits to counties where they should stop giving people the shaft and start a medical approach to treating substance abusers and people that repeatedly get busted for theft crimes to support their habits.

But anyway, I am way off course.  This post is supposed to be an appeal to legalize open carry in California in consideration of the recent San Diego case and Harris' decision to appeal it.  First of all, we are all adults here.  Some of us have been employed in some aspect of the criminal justice system or one of its many tentacles, so we can just call a spade a spade for god fucking sakes.  Take gun crime, for instance: Plenty of registered gun owners use their firearms in crimes of passion, violence, and stupidity.  However, there is no way that anyone can dispute that nearly all gun crimes are committed by individuals that could not give a flying fuck about any gun laws, including gun control.  The only thing that criminals in California have to do with gun laws is breaking them.  Of course a felon cannot lawfully possess a firearm.  That sure does not seem to stop them.  Many felons conceal carry or carry in their cars.  The idea of obtaining a license and waiting 15 days would be absurd to them.  They get their weapons through straw buyers, theft of lawfully purchased guns, and the saturated black market in Los Angeles.

In the 19th Century, open carry was common in cities like Boston.  A robber would have to carefully consider whether or not it was worth it to steal someone's wallet.  Or to enter a business and restrain the owner while a theft crime was taking place.  If men wore a pistol, you would of course have some fools who would be talking a lot of shit, but when the shit hits the fan, a real fighter is going to take that gun away from the guy and stick it up his ass.Then you will have your George Zimmerman sociopath bullies and people who mentally torment others and would use legal open carry to terrorize their opponents.  So many bugs would have to be worked out.  Obligatory biometric safeties would eliminate many of these problems. Open carry seems to work pretty well in rural counties, and it is virtually shall issue in many places.   Trinity County, with a population of around 12k people has less problems and less violence than LA so it is like apples and oranges.
I am sure it could eventually be successful.  There would have to be stiff penalties for carrying while under the influence of alcohol, that is for sure, but I am optimistic that open carry is a better option than concealed carry in the Golden State.

Open carry became illegal in the late 1960's because of intense fear of the Black Panthers being able to possess loaded rifles in Sacramento within firing distance of Governor Reagan.  It did not present a great deal of problems prior to that.  Open carry was not traditionally a threat to public safety since California became a state.

Of course most criminals conceal carry illegal handguns.  There would be no scientific way to predict how many crimes could be prevented by open carry, but I have no doubt that it would be a lot.  People in the 19th Century were not victims of armed robbery with the same frequency that they are in this day and age.  I can see the potential for an answer to the average wait time for the police of sometimes as long as an hour, open carry could solve a lot of problems and crimes.  The primary goal of regulating and requiring coursework and annual testing would certainly reduce the number of individuals that may attempt to act like Charles Bronson.

The current laws enable your law abiding citizen to ride with a pistol grip equipped shotgun anywhere inyour vehicle provided that it is unloaded.  You can carry a box of buckshot next to the gun and a couple of shells in your pocket legally.  With practice, the gun can be loaded and ready for action in a few seconds anyway.  It is tantamount to open carry in your vehicle.  It would be easier to shoot if it were already loaded, but effective nonetheless.  We do have the right to bear arms.

I would like to carry around a medium framed pistol and a couple of extra magazines.  The 10 shot capacity limit here in California is fine by me.  Three magazines is 30 rounds and more than enough for almost any situation.  Most of us without a psych history, a history of child abuse, and no felony convictions should be allowed to open carry our pistols.  I do not see it as an imminent threat to the safety of Californians and is far less expensive and problematic than issuing thousands of conceal carry permits in our State.

La Tuna Canyon Park

La Tuna Canyon Park  

La Tuna Canyon Exit off 210 FWY near Tujunga 

I had passed by here numerous times on the way to the shooting range, vowing each time that one day I would stop and run up that steep trail and back down again.  Today was that day.  You head up a paved fire road until you see the first big dirt hill.  This is a steep path, at times you can hold your arm out and touch the hill but there are a few segments where it evens out and you can catch your breath.  It is not as difficult as the face of Tongva Peak, for instance, but it is still a challenge.  The scenery of the 210 Freeway below, the Crescenta Valley, and the San Gabriels about 2 miles in front of you is good, but the other side is a little bit more interesting as you can see the DTLA Skyline.  Here, the best views are at the top.  There are a few canyons with old growth oaks and some nice, lush, green sycamores totally worthy of a hug if you are a filthy hippie and listening to the Jerry Garcia Band on your I-Pod.  I did not see very many people hiking at the time I went, but the area is heavily used by other recreation enthusiasts.  You can bring your dogs here and let them run around off the leash and nobody will give a shit.  Your children can safely run amok here too.  The usual cast of characters, mostly ravens and hawks, was flying overhead.  The run down was noteworthy in that there are plenty of good places to land and not a lot of loose dirt and rock.  You can get going pretty fast and still be safe.  On a final note, I picked a tick off my forearm.  It did not bite me, but I am sure it was planning on it.  Take the necessary precautions. 

The Poetic Silence of Justice Clarence Thomas

I read an article in the New Yorker this morning that made my Mexican blood boil.  It was another attack upon Clarence Thomas.  As an individual who has never had any respect for authority or the law, I have never much cared for the Supreme Court.  I always figured it was a facade created by the Harvard Graduates in charge of the CIA to give the fools their tartar sauce.  But Clarence Thomas can never do anything right, and every single word that he ever utters will be held beneath contempt by all of the fake ass fuckers writing in the New Yorker.  Because what is right for Blacks is always thought up by white elites with a smattering of elite black input.  If you don't tow their line, you had better shut the fuck up.  I understand what he is doing by staring at the ceiling.  He understands his place more than any other black professional in the country.  I do not agree with his interpretation of the law, but feel he is far less of a Tom than Obama.  Thomas certainly does not possess a great legal mind like Justice Marshall unarguably possessed, and I personally believe that it nothing less than an abomination that he sits in that fucking courthouse but I believe that he should be treated with slightly more respect than a leper.  

Colombian Food Fabricated Entirely From Cocaine HCL

La Fonda Antioquena  

Dude, it is on Melrose about 3 blocks West of Western.  North Side of the Street 

My wife and I split the Marulanda Platter which contained fried bananas, a large piece of pan-fried round steak, a large, well-seasoned chorizo, beans, rice, arepa, chicharron and avocado.  It was made entirely out of cocaine served on a plate made out of super hardened cocaine.  Even the green onion salsa was fabricated from pure cocaine.  How they do it, I do not know.  My daughter got the plato Raul Ruiz.  It was a steak sautéed in cocaine topped with a fried egg.  Her boyfriend got the stewed beef that looked a bit like the FARC version of rope vieja.  I think it may have been called the plato Trabajador.  He also liked the empanadas which were also made out of 100% grade "A" cocaine.   We appreciated the Romancing the Stone movie posters and the Che portraits.

Seppi Esfandi and It Never Pays To Be A Good Samaritan These Days

A few months ago, I came home from a night hike and parked my car up the street.  While walking to my building, I noticed my next neighbor struggling to assist her very drunk boyfriend get up the stairs.  As a resident of Los Angeles, I never bothered to introduce myself, and had never said anything more than hello and goodbye to this lady for the entire four months that she lived next door to me.  I had seen the boyfriend a few times, and a couple of times, I saw him parking his giant Ford F-150.  He was in his late 20's and if I were to guess his occupation at the outset, I would have thought he was a firefighter or something.  This particular evening, he probably had probably drank a case of beer by himself.  He was struggling, rocking, and rolling each time he climbed a stair and almost fell each time he took a step forward.  

I asked if I could be of assistance, and positioned his arm over my shoulder and held his waist to steady him up the stairs.  I continued to hold him as she opened the door, walked him into her living room and helped him sit on the couch.  Just as I turned to walk out of the house, I got a fist smashed into my ear and then another in the small of my back.  The guy called me a faggot, and pushed me into the closed door.  The neighbor was screaming at him, and the guy across the hall came out of his apartment and called the LAPD.  I was able to recover and turn around and face the guy I had attempted to help and kicked his knee out.  When he was on the ground, I continued to snap kick him in the torso, then moved around and began to kick him in the head.  The guy was not small and at least 20 years my junior.  If not for the alcohol, I could have easily been killed.  The neighbor continued to scream.  The guy was far from being knocked out, so I helped him along by bashing his face with a scented candle.  

About 30 minutes later, I was sitting in the interview room at the police station on Vermont and Olympic.  The fine Desk Sergeant  at the Vermont Station told me he was going to get everything straightened out, and encouraged me to tell my version of what had happened.  I told him that I had nothing to say and that he could discuss the case with my lawyer.  The bail for assault with a deadly weapon was 50,000, double for the allegations of great bodily injury, and then I found that they had also charged me with burglary for using a candle to pummel this stinking bag of paraquat. 

The monster truck driving guy I had assaulted was indeed a firefighter.  Even though I had attempted to be a good Samaritan, I had landed in felony hot water.  I am a non-confrontational dude who never puts a finger on anyone unless someone puts a finger on me.  I would never injure someone unless my safety was in danger.  While I have been in fights before, I had never started one, and had never faced a trial for defending myself.  

As you can imagine, a firefighter gets preferential treatment from the Court because they are first responders.  If you are unlucky to defend yourself against one, it is the same as fighting a cop.  It was a complicated matter.  Seppi was recommended to me by the son of the former presiding judge of the LA Superior Court.  When I initially spoke with him, he did not promise me the moon and the stars, but explained what he was going to do clearly and concisely and told me at the outset how much I was going to have to pay him.  

He sent an investigator over to interview the emergency room staff, and one of the RN's present told him that the "victim" had to be hogtied when they were stitching him up and that a spit mask had to be placed over his head.  After subpoenaing the medical records from the emergency room, Seppi discovered that the firefighter's BAC was .32 at the time of the incident.  It was at this point in time that the District Attorney announced that they would not be moving forward with the case.  

I have zero respect for our criminal courts.  It is more of a fucking joke than in Mexico.  It is nothing but a liar's contest, and actually think you would get better results if you replaced all the judges, prosecutors and court personnel with tic tac toe playing chickens or a Commodore Vic 20.  But if you are one of the few who can afford a competent, experienced criminal attorney, the nightmare is going to end a lot quicker, and you are not going to be suffering the consequences of a felony conviction because you defended yourself against a belligerent, drunk, muscleman firefighter who sucker punches you when you attempt to help.  Next time I see someone drunk and struggling to get up the stairs, I am going to walk away and let them choke on their own vomit.  People of the State of California: 0 David A.: #1!