I’m not advocating Mob Rule here, but since the Governments seem to be allowing the Mob to run rampant, perhaps others in our society should start taking matters into our own hands a bit, if only to stop the wholesale destruction of our history….

Perhaps it is time for some upstanding citizens to start defending those monuments the Mob hates so much, and that the police are choosing not to defend.

Since the police are standing by while Mobs of Black Lives Matter (or those claiming to be) are tearing down monuments. Perhaps we should stand between them and the Mob. A line of people, perhaps carrying signs (conveniently) stapled to a Louisville Slugger shaped handle. Of course, things could get somewhat …Kinetic…in the ensuing argument, but that might not be a bad thing, as long as no one died or was too seriously injured.  Not advocating violence here, but a line of people standing around these monuments, simply saying”no” and refusing to let them pass with their ropes and sledgehammers and crowbars might be a good thing.

If some folks then got bruises, it might make the others think.

We have what we have in this country because we protect it. We pay our police offers (via taxes) to do that protecting…normally. If, however, the police choose to stand by and allow a Mob to wantonly destroy our public treasures, then perhaps we, as a population need to step up.

I’d much rather the police do so, mind you. They are trained and have the tools to (more or less) properly restrain the miscreants. We don’t. But needs be when the police are absent or fail to act.

Yes, this also makes Us a Mob. But a mob bent on protecting rather than destroying.

The real reason these people do what they do is because they are no stopped nor disciplined for doing. Like a child or a puppy that is never disciplined, they never learn right from wrong.

A bit of Hickory Shampoo might teach them, if the police choose not to stop them.

Again, not advocating that we hunt them down or anything, simply that we stand in their way as they try to do illegal acts.

What happens then is up to the Mob themselves.

That the Left told us not to judge an entire group based on the actions and behavior of just a few?

Of course, that was Muslims. Followers of the Koran, the word of Mohammed the Prophet….a downtrodden minority group.

But they won’t give the same consideration to cops…police, the enforcers of the laws of the country. They are a reviled group, hated by those folks who don’t think that the rules apply to them. Instead, they judge all cops on the behavior of a few.

If you remove the Left’s double standards, they’d have no standards at all. 

So I am FINALLY getting it correct.

I can now (more or less) do a proper hold and (mostly) figure out the proper method of entry.

This has been my stumbling  block for a few moths: Flying a hold that looks something like the shape it should. Correcting for wind was just something that I could not do well.

VFR pilots have the ability to reference something on the ground to correct their flight path when it is windy….not so when IFR. Flying a hold (a more or less rectangular pattern referenced to a specific point) when one has no references except a couple of needles in a dial on your instrument panel was something that I simply could not Grok. I could fly a great hold (one that looks like a racetrack like the Indianapolis 500 track) in a no wind situation…that was easy…add in a brisk wind, and it became ugly (at least when I was flying).

Finally, after a fair bit of work, lots of frustration, lots of conflicting advice from other pilots and (did I mention?) a whole lot of frustration, it seems to have gelled for me.

Saturday, I and my instructor took off and flew on an instruction flight. There was a cloud layer (broken or worse) at 2400 feet, but we found a hole in the clouds and climbed VFR to the tops..about 6400 feet. Since we were flying in a northeasterly direction, we had to go higher..(Odd thousands plus 500 for VFR) and so 7500 it was…

The ground temp was about 74 degrees. At 7500, it was about 52 Fahrenheit. Cold for just a t-shirt. Had to actually open the heater vent to keep warm.

I did intersection holds three times along the way to the Keeler VOR (ELX), and then spent 30 minutes doing assorted holds at Keeler….this time with a layer of clouds under me. I finally seem to be getting the visualization of the geometry correct. (Finally!).

This was a great breakthrough for me. The rest of the tasks in IFR flying are actually pretty simple (for me, at least) The En-Route portion is pretty easy. Flying approaches to a runway?..cake. Filing a flight plan? child’s play. Flying on instruments alone? Easy-Peasy. Cross check of the instruments and instrument interpretation and cross check? As easy as walking on a level sidewalk…..

Soon, I will take my checkride…

Remember what it stands for.

(let me be clear, up front….I DO NOT advocate the destruction of ANY monuments nor statues)

So if I were so inclined, would the police stand by and allow me to smash, pull down , deface with paint, or otherwise vandalize the MLK statue in Washington DC?

Or, if that one is too sacred (and protected because it is on Federal property….)

Then can I deface, smash, break, topple or spray-paint graffiti on this one in Atlanta? That one should be fair game, as the Confederate statues were also on State Property…..

(All those Confederate (and other) statues that were destroyed over these past few weeks by Black Lives Matter “protesters” were on state or city property)

Why no arrests for this wanton destruction of public property? Would there be arrests if the MLK statues were destroyed in a similar manner?

Why is it OK for some people to destroy some statues?
Where are the police? Why aren’t they stopping this? Is someone in charge keeping them from intervening? If so, who?….and why?

If some “rednecks”, flying Confederate flags from the backs of pickup trucks drove into the Georgia State Capitol grounds and put a chain around the neck of the MLK statue and pulled it off the pedestal and took sledgehammers and broke the casting….would they be arrested and (hopefully) prosecuted? *(Hint: the only thing that prevents this from happening RIGHT NOW is the respect for the rule of law)…

If not, then what is the difference? Or is it simply that some forms of protest are approved and others are not? Some groups have “approved grievances” and methods of expressing it while others do not? Who decides what is approved?

Why is vandalism allowed in many cities when it is a protest by liberal groups? 

So we went into town for a meal and to walk around the “entertainment” district on Friday night.

Planning a small meal and maybe some ice cream on a beautiful Friday evening. Temps were in the 70’s with a  mild breeze. A perfect evening to be out, especially since the restaurants are still dealing with the (poorly thought out) restrictions due to the supposed Covid-19 “crisis”.

Anyway, the wait time  was about 50 minutes for the pizzas we had ordered, so we walked a few blocks to the ice cream parlor…we are adults, so we can eat our dessert first…and we did. As we walked, we observed a whole passel of “Black Lives Matter” folks staging a protest on the town square. Maybe 50 people. Peaceful, but still.

“Staging”. I said. And “Staging” I meant….I use that word deliberately, as it was quite obvious that there was a set play being executed. The chants were all in unison, and they changed regularly and on cue….The protesters….or actors, if one were to be truthful, did their chants, and then did their “I Can’t Breathe” pantomime (and then the chant that followed)…… then the whole bit where they lay on their stomachs and clasped their hands behind their backs for 8 minutes…..

It was theater, and not terribly good theater at that. It impressed no one but the participants. Most of the passers-by were amused, and not swayed by the theater. Police were present, but stayed away and were watchful and not looming nor intimidating. (the cops here are pretty decent in the main). There was more support for the police than support for the (mostly white and young) protesters.

Strangely, for a “Protest”, once the script was over, the participants peacefully left the area. It just ended. Like it was staged. A performance where the participants cast left after their part was finished. Weird.

The question I have is…who wrote the playbook? The entire protest was, as I said, obviously scripted. Few people could miss that. The only people that were impressed were the protesters. But it was obviously a set piece…performance art, as it were. Someone wrote the script that the protesters were following. Someone saw to it that the script was distributed to at least a few people in the crowd. Who wrote the script? Who set the others in the crowd to lead the rest? Almost as if the entire cast had practiced beforehand…

This was not a spontaneous thing. It was a set piece. Well executed (if not particularly well written) theater.

I wanna know…..who wrote the script?

By the way, the pizza, cooked in a  wood fired stone oven, was frikkin’ delicious, as was the evening and the setting in which we dined.

Or, rewriting it, anyway.

First there was the (once) failed attempt to banish all “Confederate” statues. (even though many of them are mis-targeted) that was reanimated in the current riots protests.

Second there was the attempt to ban Gone with the Wind.

Are they gonna demand that we get rid of all UnaApproved literature? 

Books, films. are they gonna demand the destruction of every copy of  every film that depicts slavery, or reinforces the stereotypes of the black culture and the (sometimes poor) treatment of black people by whites?

How about the parodies? “I’m Gonna Get you Sucka”? “Blazing Saddles”? The entire “Foxy Brown” genre? Lots and lots of printed books? (Not that much of the Mob has bothered to even READ a book) that make FUN of the stereotypes.

Thing is, the Mob had destroyed or defaced confederate era statues and monuments…even when those monuments were of abolitionist or in memorial of black regiments that fought against slavery. Unmindful hatred led these fools to destroy ALL monuments that were from that era, no matter who they honored. (Not that the Confederacy and their war against the North was entirely about slavery,  moreso an economic war, but don’t ever let history get in the way of uneducated hatred, after all….). Many of the monuments that were defaced had nothing to do with slavery, yet defaced they were, in blind, unfocused hatred.

I doubt that the Mob will be able to understand the concept of satire in movies, if they even care.

The Mob has now even gone after the band “Lady Antebellum” because they have the word in their name that (some) people associate with slavery.

How much history are they gonna rewrite or outright edit out? How much will it take to appease the uneducated?

So far this year, the death toll is nearly 200 black people killed.
In Chicago. That’s just in the City of Chicago.
94 percent by other black people.

Similar results in every large city.  Black people killed in job lots by other black people. (202 is not a aberration, every year is similar in most large cities)

If “Black Lives Matter” so much, then…..why are black people killing each other? At a rate that is nearly 20-1 over other people (including cops) of all other races combined?

Odd, innit, that they are all upset about the 6% of black people killed by races other than African, but they completely ignore the rest….Nearly 94%….. that are killed by BLACK PEOPLE.


Where are the marches, the vandalism, the LOOTING in protest for those folks…the ones that are killed by other black people?

Seriously, isn’t it a bit disingenuous to protest the very small percentage of people killed by police, and other races and TOTALLY ignore the fact that most deaths of black people are at the hands of  other people with more melanin than the average Amish dude?

Address that, and then maybe you can get my attention for the rest of your message.

Chicago bans all “large outdoor gatherings” like Taste of Chicago and the Air and Water show, claiming Public Health issues related to Covid-19. (which, statistically, is not that terribly contagious),

Yet, oddly, Mayor Lightfoot and many other city leaders encouraged the Black Lives Matter George Floyd protest crowds. Which put just as many people in just as close (if not closer) proximity to strangers as the crowds at Taste of Chicago, and certainly closer than the crowd at the Air and Water Show.

It is almost as if these leftist Democrat mayors and governors are trying to damage the municipalities and states they are supposed to be leading.

Coincidentally (or not) the economic damage leads well into the below referenced “Rules for Radicals” strategy that many leftists like Mayor Lightfoot and Governor Pritzker and may others were steeped in during their college years.

If you like tinfoil as a material for a chapeau, then you might think that there is something to their mishandling of the “Covid Crisis” during “these Uncertain Times”….and that the results they are getting are no accident.