… Are evil, and should be buried.

Trust your fox.

LawDog

I graduated from the Panhandle Regional Law Enforcement Academy 06 AUG 1993.

I retired from law enforcement 14 APR 2020.

It was a good ride. There were fun moments, tearful ones, times that broke my heart, and moments of exultation.

There are ghosts who whisper from the shadowed corners of my bedroom at 4am — ones that I never would have thought would be there; and others who probably should be there, but have never showed.

I have seen the ten thousand ways that man is inhumane to man; but I have also seen the nobility in everyday people, and that has been a rare and precious gift.

But it was time for me to go, and given the recent events, I probably didn’t retire too soon.

So, on to the next phase in my life. I think — and Herself agrees — that I should probably try being serious about this whole Writing Thing.

We shall see.

20+ years. Bloody hell.

LawDog (ret.)

Folks who follow me on Facebork often ask about my predilection for Vulpes vulpes, which  — considering the number of foxes memes I make — is a completely valid question.

The answer is many-fold. 

The first is that I simply like foxes. The are cunning, resourceful, and adaptable; having spread to every continent on this little green dirtball with the exception of Antarctica — and if you wait until they get the plotting and logistics done probably that frozen hell, too.

They are efficient hunters, surprisingly good fighters; and are featured in many mythos — usually as a Trickster figure.

What really endeared them to me was watching a mated couple outside the barracks at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Every evening the male would come trotting back to the den with a mouthful of dead rodents — very much with the air of a guy in a red flannel suit heading home after an exhausting day at the office — where he’d be greeted with a nuzzle by the lady of the den, and they’d feed the pups.

Something about that contented domesticity during a very chaotic period of my life sang to me.

Years later a friend bought a carved soapstone fox totem and gave it to me, and for years I carried that little carving, or others that my mother found, to remind me to be adaptable; that cunning (done properly) was usually better than force; and that when it came down to fighting, to be sneaky, vicious, and unpredictable.

It doesn’t hurt, I suppose, that I am a red-headed, slender-framed male of average height, as far as the fox comparisons go.

However, the biggest reason for the fox memes is that Facebork is one of the levels of Social Media Hell, and making fox memes keeps me out of trouble with Zuckerborg and his legion of easily-offended uber-minions.

This has been your Monday what-the-hell-am-I-gonna-post edition. Have another fox:

LawDog

I can’t write if there’s music with words in it being played.

My mind takes the words coming in my ears, and completely blocks the words coming out of my fingers.

However, when I’m writing and I hit a point where the words are jumbling together trying to come out, I find that if I step away from the screen, and listen to some music away from my writing area, it sometimes resets things, and the words start coming out in order again.

When I was writing ‘Blood On The Sand’, my initial story was supposed to end in the souk, eating tajine with Bob Reno, but the words started piling up, so I went into the backyard to pace with my Pandora app on my phone.

This song came up, and I listened to it three or four times before coming back inside and writing the final scene.

Rather proud of the last bit. Some folks have offered that it’s a bit cheesy, but I’m a sucker for the old pulps, where the good guys are good; the bad guys lose; and there’s at least a chance of happiness no matter how crappy things are.

LawDog

Banging around the Intartubz this morning, and Google has my number because an advert for this little gem popped up:

Filletzall.

That, Gentle Readers, is a fillet blade designed to be mounted on the reciprocating saw in your shop.

Two things immediately crossed my mind:

1) Having broken down a deer by the side of the road with some friends (Hi, Kelly!) and a sawzall — why didn’t I come up with this genius idea?

2) Southern boys were involved.

Now I have to find a cheap battery-powered sawzall before the big catfish start running.

LawDog

… Watching people get what they’ve been begging, no: crying out for.

We note with some amusement the recent happenings in the city of Portland, Oregon, where the decidedly pro-Socialist, if not full on-pro-Communist, little bugsnipes have been besieging Federal assets in that city since at least the pre-COVID contretemps over unlawful immigration.

For the record: the Federal agents conducting arrests and detentions in Portland are neither “Nameless” nor “Faceless”, and the agencies they belong to are not “Anonymous”. Every picture I’ve seen of these agents have their agency patches in clear view, as well as an ID number, but that is neither here nor there.

What just kicks over my giggle box is the fact that the protesters in Portland — these young people and their handlers who are so enamored of the centralized Big Government which is necessary for the social programs they are screaming so passionately about …

… Don’t seem to realize that kind of government inevitably comes with a side of secret police.

Every government that is big enough, and powerful enough to take enough money from enough citizens to give you that free healthcare, and that free college, and that Universal Basic Income, and that Student Loan Forgiveness, and all the other tax-funded “free” stuff that those little Marxist numpties in Portland are screaming for has a KGB, or a Stasi, or a Ministry of State Security.

Just as sure as night follows day; as sure as nits make lice; and as sure as Death — every Socialist Utopia has a Gestapo lurking somewhere.

So.

How are you liking your free trial of Socialism, Portland?

Weren’t expecting the whole “Nacht und Nebel” thing, were you? Aww.

I’m willing to bet that if you’d taken a history course or three and actually listened, instead of searching the texts for something to be offended by, or outright burning the books, you just might have seen this coming.

And the really fun part is:  all of these arrests and detentions by BORTAC and the USMS? They ain’t a patch on what a real secret police would do to you.

Ask the kids in Hong Kong, although you’ll need ouija board to do so, I’m afraid.

Sigh. Y’all are shrieking for Socialism, but when you’re faced with the shadow of the hem of the garment of the omelette-making that real Socialism requires … you squall like kicked pups.

Pitiful.

LawDog

Well, hopefully the world has decided to quit (metaphorically) working my liver and kidneys like a speed-bag.

Firing this place back up, I think. I need to concentrate on my writing, and Facebork is too much of a time suck.

I’ve pruned out the links on the sidebar, added some more.

Long-time Gentle Readers will notice a lot of the law enforcement stuff that was on the sidebar is gone, I’m trending away from law enforcement, with pertinent news regarding that situation to be released in a bit.

All law enforcement stories are still here, never fear.

Those of you who know me on Facebook probably have a pretty good idea what that news is, but I’m keeping it under my Stetson for a bit. I promise to let everyone know when it’s the proper time.

Sharp eyes will also note the addition of a Donations button on the left. The LawDog Files will never put ads up — I can’t stand reading a site where I have to click out of an advert every ten seconds, and I refuse to inflict that on my Gentle Readers — but it has been rammed into my thick skull that a small ‘Donations” button isn’t intrusive, and apparently a good lot of you think I need one, so it’s up.

We’ll see how long it lasts.

LawDog

I was banging around Facebook and wound up answering a variation of the question:  “What gun for hippopotamus”*, which kind of sent me down a bit of a rat-hole.

That map should be of the old SEDCO site that my father cut out of the Nigerian jungle. It is where my father launched a man-pig (and the tree he was laired under) into orbit with a backpack full of gelignite; where the engineers gave us the best 4th of July ever, and where we watched Brigadier-Captain Azikiwe drift down the river in a sinking boat.

The island marked “Ultralog Global Control” is where we released Squeaks the Battle Mongoose after we found out we couldn’t take him to the States; and the river around it is where we freed Electro the electric catfish, for the same reason.

I realize that nothing lasts forever — particularly in the jungle — but there’s nothing left of what dad built.

And that really sucks right now.

I’m given to understand that the AdCAP site on Saadiyat Island is even worse — apparently Abu Dhabi turned the whole island into a playground for the ultra-rich — but I never really had the same fondness for Abu Dhabi that I did for Nigeria.

Little punch in the gut to see the SEDCO site covered over with a suburb.

LawDog

* The answer starts with ‘4’ and ends with ‘Rigby’ or ‘Nitro Express’.