The myth of the 'lone wolf'

Since Wednesday's shooting at the Holocaust Museum, experts have been characterizing the lifelong anti-Semite, racist and white supremacist who committed the murder as a "lone wolf." It was an isolated incident, they say, and the elderly killer acted alone.

I say that's a myth.

Oh, I get the concept, as it relates to criminal investigations and profiling. I'm familiar with separatists' strategic move toward small cells, so-called "leaderless resistance." I know that it's impossible to prevent all violent acts carried out by motivated individuals.

The problem I have with the "lone wolf" theory is that it tends to paint a picture that begins and ends inside the head of the perpetrator -- and that's like blaming Chicago for fire.

It takes a spark.

For the second time in as many days, I'm going to quote the Ohio Constitution § 1.11, which contains an interesting phrase not found in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights:

"Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of the right..."

Our laws prohibit government from restraining or abridging speech, including objectionable and hateful speech -- and as I've said many times, that's exactly as it should be. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

Not all speech is responsible, however, even if permitted, and a right guaranteed can become a right abused.

There are consequences.

I accept the risks of this free society, the consequences of my constitutional rights, but I've yet to witness the merchants of hate, the Father Coughlins of our time, accept responsibility for tossing matches into tinder.

We should start telling the truth about that, even if they won't.

Today's questions
Was it pure coincidence that the vicious old man who murdered the museum security guard committed his act before he turned 89?

Did he come up with that number -- and the unparalleled evil it symbolizes -- what, on his own?

Still think he was a "lone wolf"?

Impressions: KSF Leather Holt

About six weeks ago, the folks at Michigan's Sharpshooter Sheath Systems and KnivesShipFree, an Oklahoma-based retailer, were brainstorming about ways to carry a small OtterBox -- y'know, one of those watertight and nearly indestructible plastic containers available in a wide range of sizes and colors. This is what they came up with:

It's called a Holt, which I've learned is what an otter's den is called. (Clever, that.) The KSF Leather Holt is offered in two sizes -- one to fit the OtterBox 1000, another for the larger OtterBox 2000 -- and essentially is two leather straps that form a cradle for the box. It's designed to ride on a belt, a pack strap or Sharpshooter's Baldric setup. The keeper strap fastens with a snap.

I got hold of a Holt 1000 (as well as an OtterBox 1000) yesterday. I'm impressed -- it's an exquisitely simple concept, executed very well. Typical of Sharpshooter's leather goods, it features high-quality leather, hardware and construction.

The strap on my particular Holt, compared to ones pictured above, has a bit less leather below the snap. That makes sense -- a smaller tab will be less likely, I think, to catch on brush and such. Running changes, when they improve a product, are good.

Expect to read about the KSF Leather Holt 1000 again on KintlaLake Blog. I've decided that the OtterBox 1000 is the perfect size for a grab'n'go survival kit or a tag-along first-aid kit. I haven't yet decided which one, but whatever I end up doing I'll post about it here.

Earlier post
Sharps: Heartland leather

Links
KnivesShipFree
Sharpshooter Sheath Systems
OtterBox
KnifeForums thread

Stupid is, evil does

Remember all the hand-wringing over a pair of Department of Homeland Security documents highlighting threats posed by homegrown extremism?
It was a couple of months ago when conservatives, neo- and otherwise, were declaring the agency's attention to radical right-wing groups an attack on free speech and states' rights. They called for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's head on a plate.

Their mindless frothing wasn't terribly credible, but in this political climate you'll have that sort of thing.

Reasonable people -- and by that I mean people who actually have read the documents and aren't ideologically impaired -- can talk through the relevant constitutional issues, and we can agree or disagree about whether or not our government is treading where it doesn't belong.

We just can't be stupid about this.

Homegrown extremism is real and it's growing. I don't need to read a government report to see that, and neither do you.

It doesn't matter if it comes from the radical right or the loony left -- and yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as left-wing extremism. Just this morning, in fact, media are reporting that Rev. Jeremiah Wright blames "them Jews" for blocking his access to Pres. Obama.

Wright is a racist idiot, sure, but that doesn't give us license to be stupid. We have to tell the truth, and the truth is that the most malevolent and widespread domestic extremism lives on the far right. DHS knows that. I do, too.

I mean, how many more clues do we need? For cryin' out loud, people, this ain't rocket science.

Extremists cower behind gods, birthrights and constitutions. Racists, anti-Semites and separatists inhabit the margins of both civilization and politics, and a free society allows for their existence. When Americans elected a black president with a foreign-sounding name, our laws granted extremists the right to spew paranoia and hate.

Our Constitution confers the right to speak, but our stupidity allows hate to thrive, walk among us and evolve inevitably into violence.

We get it all so horribly wrong because we misunderstand the First Amendment, which says,

"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...."

In my own state, the Ohio Constitution instructs,

"Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of the right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech, or of the press."

So it is, and so it should be -- government may neither restrain nor abridge the right of The People to speak in advocacy of or opposition to any matter or cause.

You and I, however, aren't similarly constrained. Individual citizens are free to drive the proselytes of hate from our midst.

In this nation of laws, we have every right to make evil unwelcome in our homes, our communities, our conversations and our correspondence. Acting as independent citizens, and without the slightest risk of affronting the free-speech rights of others, we may stand up and assert, "Your hate is unacceptable to me. Say what you want, but not here."

That's individual liberty at work. It's also our responsibility.

When we shirk that responsibility, ignoring the clues that litter free-but-hateful speech, we create the space for a law-abiding physician to be murdered in the name of the killer's god, while the doctor worshipped the same god. We permit an addled old bigot to commit the last of his many atrocities in the lobby of a museum that stands against history's greatest atrocity.

We turn our backs and let the Murrah Building fall.

Day after day across this country, homegrown hate prospers and festers, it assaults and it kills because we believe that we have to allow its disciples to shout in our faces. We do not.

I will not.

Earlier post
The impotence of indignation

Links
Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic & Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization & Recruitment (pdf)

Domestic Extremism Lexicon (pdf)

Of two generals

When I drew parallels between Lancaster, Ohio and the city of my birth in Monday's post, I forgot something.

One town is the birthplace of a famous (or infamous) Civil War general. The other has the distinction of being linked forever to a self-styled "general" who led an "army" of jobless Americans.

William Tecumseh Sherman, best known for his brutal campaign near the war's end, was articulate, if rough-edged, and an accomplished military commander. Some judged him to be insane, but more than once those who doubted his decisions saw them lead to victory on the battlefield.

Ulysses S. Grant often seemed to be the only one who believed in Sherman, and vice versa:

"Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other."

Through the wavy glass of history, Sherman is seen as a warmonger. The general's own words thwart attempts to simplify a complex man:

"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."

"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."

Sherman also had a thing or two to say about the media of his day.

"I think I understand what military fame is; to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers."

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are."

"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast."

The deeds and words of this son of Lancaster are remembered, and in some quarters reviled, to this day. Those of that other "general" are, to most living Americans, either unknown or forgotten.

Jacob Sechler Coxey was born in Pennsylvania in 1854, moving to Massillon, Ohio when he was in his mid-twenties. There he ran a scrap-iron operation and later owned a sandstone quarry and a lumber mill. By all accounts, he was a successful businessman.

Coxey fancied himself a populist, a reformer, a savior of the downtrodden working man. Politically, during his life he was an independent, a Democrat, a member of the Greenback Party and the People's Party and the Union Party and the United States Farmer-Labor Party and the Interracial Independent Political Party.

He ran for public office, including U.S. Senator and President, at least 20 times. He won only once, as a Republican, serving as Massillon's mayor from 1931 to 1933. He failed to win re-election.

Among his children was a son, whom he named Legal Tender Coxey -- an odd nod to the Greenbacks and a living symbol of his opposition to the gold standard.

Coxey's true and lasting legacy, however, is his citizen army. After the Panic of 1893, "General" Coxey, disturbed that the federal government was providing neither work nor wages for the unemployed, organized what he predicted would be an imposing march from Massillon to Washington.

A day before Coxey's Army was to set out for the nation's capital, according to The New York Times, things didn't look promising:

"Nearly 100 recruits for Coxey's Commonweal Army arrived today from different points. Most of them are tramps who camped in the woods surrounding the town overnight. A number of them slept in the lock-up, but were released this morning."

"It is now estimated that Coxey will start from Massillon with anywhere from 100 to 500 followers. Most of those here now to join the movement are hard-looking people, but up to the present time they have shown no disposition to be unruly."

A United Press reporter found the elusive Coxey and asked,

"'But how about the army, General? Isn't it time that some of your followers were beginning to join you here?'"

Coxey's reply, as reported by the Times, typifies the idealist:

"'Oh, they'll be coming in to-morrow,' Gen. Coxey replied, as he has replied every day for a week past. 'I expect that to-morrow's sun will rise upon an assemblage of at least 10,000 members of our army. They will be marshaled up on the circus grounds, from which point the start is to be made Sunday at 12:30 P. M. sharp.'"

The army, such as it was, did make its march to Washington, its general arriving with some 400 grimy protesters in tow. Once there, Coxey promptly was arrested and spent 20 days in jail -- for walking on the grass.

Was the movement a failure? Hardly. Coxey's trademark pitch -- that the government issue $500 million in paper currency and spend it on public projects, putting the unemployed back to work -- often is credited as the seed of FDR's New Deal. It wouldn't be far-fetched to view it as an ideological ancestor of today's Recovery and Reinvestment bonanza, either.

It's argued that Coxey, his rag-tag "Commonweal for Christ" Army and their marches laid the political foundation for Social Security, unemployment insurance and Labor Day -- not to mention serving as inspiration for L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

And who hasn't shown up at a picnic, potluck or Thanksgiving dinner to hear someone refer to table-crushing bounty as "enough food to feed Coxey's Army"?

Lancaster and Massillon, two old working-class towns, each with a general on its résumé. So which has the better claim?

Perhaps I'm swayed by my childhood memories of secret visits to a place the locals called "Coxey's Quarry," a place where my father once played when he was a dirt-poor farm boy and the owner was mayor. All things considered, I'm going to rule this one a tie.

The Battle for Gauley Mountain

West Virginia's state quarter entered circulation in 2005. The coin bears the image of the New River Gorge Bridge, that BASE-jumping mecca and for many years the world's longest steel-arch span. There in the background, downstream from the iconic bridge rises Gauley Mountain, one of the soft-shouldered sentinels standing watch over the Gauley, New and Kanawha Rivers.

During the Civil War, Gauley Mountain was at the center of numerous pivotal skirmishes. The Ohio Infantry's 12th Regiment famously scaled its slopes on the night of August 24th, 1861, as Union forces fought to establish a line of fortifications along the high ridges of western Virginia.


Ultimately the Union prevailed in the difficult campaign, never letting Confederate elements advance much more than a cannon shot past the western bank of the Ohio River. Now, almost 150 years later, a new struggle is joined.

This fight isn't on Gauley Mountain. It's a battle for Gauley Mountain.

Within the next few months, this symbol of Wild & Wonderful West Virginia is slated to disappear, obliterated by a coal-mining method called "mountaintop removal." Think of it as strip mining on steroids.

First, the forest would be clear-cut and the mountain's flanks scraped bare of life. Next, explosives would reduce hundreds of vertical feet of Gauley Mountain to rubble to be hauled away or pushed into the adjacent valleys. Finally, a massive dragline would work the exposed coal. The resulting overburden would be dumped into the valleys, choking rivers that sustain life and livelihoods -- permanently.

Small mountain towns would wither and, for all practical purposes, die. The wild Gauley River, a popular fly-fishing destination and one of the most technical whitewater runs in North America, would be damaged beyond repair. Far beyond the confluence of the Gauley and New Rivers -- a watershed that includes the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi -- ecology and commerce would suffer as well.

I don't give a rat's red ass how much we need the coal, and I don't care how precarious the global economy is. The price is too high.

When New Hampshire's state symbol, the Old Man of the Mountain, collapsed three years after appearing on that state's quarter, the Great Stone Face fell to the forces of Nature. This is different.

This is wrong.

Watch the video. Sign a petition. Learn more at Appalachian Voices and iLoveMountains.org.

Mud River, before & after

Discovering Lancaster

Thanks to the pooch-screwing episode I alluded to in my May 29th post, members of the KintlaLake family now spend a few hours each evening in Lancaster, Ohio.

We haven't often visited this city of 35,000, even though it's not far away. Trips outside our rural-suburban village tend to take us northwest toward metro Columbus rather than southeast into much smaller Lancaster -- and that's a shame, really, because in many ways it's quite an intriguing place.

To put a fine point on it, Lancaster is inescapably red, white and blue -- as in redneck, white socks and Blue Ribbon Beer. Patriotic? Damned right, ultra-conservative and proud to claim Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman as its favorite son.

It's hard to mistake Lancaster for anything but what it is -- a faded industrial town, still holding on to the Anchor Hocking glass company. Like other county seats in this part of the country, it has its cluster of 19th-century government buildings, its stately houses lining shaded hilltop avenues and a Main Street that feels warmly familiar to Americans who grew up in the Midwest back when I did.

And that may be the source of Lancaster's appeal -- for better and for worse, this is a town that hasn't quite escaped the 1960s.

Neon signs older than I am beckon customers to donut shops, diners and shopping plazas. Along U.S. 22, dozens of old structures remain as roadside reminders of days when this was the main route from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh. Nearly all of these buildings -- once motor lodges, filling stations or general stores -- have found new purposes, but their heritage shines through the vinyl siding and landscaping.

To say that Lancaster reminds me of my birthplace in northeast Ohio would be an understatement. Both are gritty blue-collar towns, almost identical in size and surrounded by farmland. One has Zane's Trace and the Scioto River, the other the Lincoln Highway and the Tuscarawas. They share a stubborn resistance to the glitz and gloss of progress. Both feel like home.

On our near-daily trips to Lancaster, Mrs. KintlaLake and I usually have an hour or more to relax, grab a bite to eat and do a bit of exploring. Our dining options aren't limited to fast-foot chains -- independent family restaurants, hot-dog stands and greasy spoons abound. Tooling aimlessly around town, we've become fond of playing a nostalgic game of, "I wonder what that used to be?"

Last night, hell, we even found an honest-to-god drive-in theater.

The events that drew us into Lancaster aren't something we would've wished for, certainly. Still, imperfect circumstances have presented us with a chance to discover a fascinating old town, a place we'd overlooked until now -- and that's something we welcome.

Sharps: Suggestion box

Dear W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Company:

First of all, I'm a lifelong fan of W.R. Case pocketknives, tracing back to the Case pen my dad carried even before I was born in the late 1950s.

These days I'm a user, not a collector. I write about knives (among other subjects), and I find myself recommending the Victorinox Farmer and old-design Soldier to people looking for a basic four- or five-blade "camper" pocketknife. I've even suggested a few knives that are no longer made -- like an old Ulster BSA, a Remington (Camillus) R-4 Utility and the military-issue Camillus Demo.

I wish I could recommend (and own, and use) a comparable Made-in-USA pocketknife as an alternative to the Swiss-made Victorinox -- spear-point blade, caplifter/screwdriver, can opener and awl (and possibly a saw). I know that Case offers the Jr. Scout, but it's relatively small and its price is much higher.

I'm not proposing that W.R. Case try to compete model-for-model and blade-for-blade with Victorinox -- I'm simply suggesting that your company consider producing a basic four- or five-blade pocketknife in the classic "camper" or "scout" pattern, with a street price under $40.

Thank you for your time, for your hard work, and for proving every day that the American worker still turns out great sharps.

Cordially,
KintlaLake

Dodged a bullet

Today we made a bit more progress toward our move, hauling two SUV-loads over to our soon-to-be digs.

On my second trip, while letting the TrailBlazer coast down a hill just north of our house, I glanced at the speedometer -- 37mph. Since that was 12mph over the posted limit, reflexively I looked up at the rearview mirror.

A sheriff's cruiser was right on my back bumper. Shit.

The possibility of getting a speeding ticket wasn't what concerned me. See, at that moment I happened to be hauling virtually all of my family's home-defense inventory -- half of our hardware and 95% of our software, a very heavy load. Even though everything was locked and nothing was loaded, I began to imagine having an interesting conversation with a uniformed county employee.

I also found myself reconsidering the bright red ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ decal affixed to my rear window.

The cruiser turned right a half-mile later. I continued on to my destination without detention, paying close attention to my speed.

Note to self...

Sixty-five years on

Most of us can be forgiven for not fully grasping the importance of June 6th, 1944.

What's unforgivable, regardless of our age, is lacking the will to understand.

Our parents and grandparents told us the stories -- I know mine did. I was born half a generation afterward, but I knew men who fought in that war and came home bearing its scars. One of my junior-high teachers had survived the terror of Omaha Beach, his passion and purpose apparent to all who knew him.

They told their tales softly, wistfully, of fear and resolve, duty and sacrifice. At home and in service abroad, of a nation united.

In the 65 years since D-Day, through conflicts cold and searing hot, our leaders have conjured threats and tyrants designed to inspire Americans to rise as they did during World War II, and yet we've never quite matched the commitment of The Greatest Generation.

To be sure, the valor of our men and women in uniform has never diminished, never wavered. What bears remembering, however, and what we must understand, is that this nation never faced the danger it did on June 6th, 1944 -- not before and not since.

We should never, ever lose sight of that.

Above the beaches of Normandy, today 9,000 graves stand in silent testimony to the men who saved the world. We cannot overstate what they did, nor can we extend to them the full measure of honor they so clearly deserve.

All we can do, with humility and gratitude, is try to understand.

Poor man's PowerBar

As far as I know, it's been more than 30 years since Pop-Tarts were available in Concord Grape.

Today, a two-pack of Frosted Blueberry will have to do, but damn, how I miss good old Concord Grape.

The impotence of indignation

Columbus, Ohio is Middle America, USA, home to nearly two million people. For simplicity's sake, you may consider it my hometown.

Derided by some as inconsequential or at best overrated, Columbus and its patchwork suburbs always have been viewed as relatively conservative and football-crazed, a fine place to raise a family. It's never been as perfect or as perfectly boring as the stereotypes imply, of course -- like many metro areas across the Midwest, it's simply a decent place to live with lots of room for improvement.

These days, being labeled a "cow town" is the least of our concerns. In addition to high unemployment, a painful budget crisis and embarrassingly low high-school graduation rates making national headlines, there's a much darker blotch on Columbus:

"Nuradin Abdi was convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up an Ohio shopping mall. Iyman Faris was convicted in 2003 of planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Christopher Paul was convicted in 2008 of conspiring to use explosives against targets in the U.S. and Europe.

"All three terrorists worshiped and socialized at a small mosque in Columbus, Ohio, and, according to David B. Smith, an attorney for Faris, were part of a larger group of jihadists and extremists who frequented the mosque.

"The FBI now is investigating reports of links to that same mosque by Muslim-convert Abdulhakim Muhammad who allegedly shot and killed one soldier Monday and critically wounded another in a drive-by attack on a Little Rock, Arkansas, recruiting station...."

The seeds of terrorism -- or, to borrow the term invoked yesterday by Pres. Obama, "violent extremism" -- have taken root right here in the Heartland.

This isn't about Muslims, though, and it's not about tens of thousands of displaced Somalis who live on the city's northeast side. It's about a sleepy citizenry that's cleared the land where evil now grows.

Columbus is paying a high price for its contentment, and not just at a small mosque preaching radical Islam. The hateful tentacles of Christian extremism, the equivalent of "jihad for Jesus," reach beyond long-established rural enclaves to cast dark shadows on our suburbs. Thousands of our youth are infected with meth, heroin and indiscriminate violence.

Our complacency makes all of this possible. Our self-absorbed ignorance allows it to continue.

At the KintlaLake dinner table one evening, shortly after this blended family came together, the younger spawn let out with a loud belch. As my wife and I glared at him, the older boy responded with a belch of his own, louder and longer than his brother's. They giggled.

"That's disgusting," Mrs. KintlaLake scolded.

More belching, more giggling. At that age, I guess, "disgusting" is something of a compliment.

After dinner, I suggested to my wife that classifying such behavior as "unacceptable" might be more effective. Once we took that approach, the spawns' mealtime eruptions ceased.

Our communities face scourges of extremism, violence and hate. We're swimming in effluent spewed from narcotics pipelines. In response to these evils, all we seem to offer is, "that's disgusting."

Righteous indignation won't get the job done. Only by declaring evil unacceptable -- and then acting on that declaration -- will we reclaim our communities.

To those who would take my suggestion as an excuse to amplify their hatred or magnify divisions: Go to hell. Yours is precisely the curse we seek to remove.

When we get it right, we'll accept Christians and Muslims but reject extremism in the guise of any religious faith or ideology. We'll welcome a drug-rehab clinic in the center of town and yet be wholly intolerant of a crack house, even if it's on the other side of the tracks. We'll actively guard our borders against illegal immigration while embracing anyone who's here legally -- whether they tend our lawn, befriend our kids or live next door.

The difference between disgusting and unacceptable is the difference between righteousness and reclamation. Without being naive, it acknowledges that a simple-minded obsession with race, religion or affiliation blinds us to the facts we need to survive.

It charts our road to ruin, and it shows us the way home.

Sharps: A plan comes together

As I've said before, a firesteel is one of my must-have pieces of kit. Generally I like to carry it with my knife, and not long after I got my RAT RC-4 I started thinking about how I might add a firesteel loop to its standard-equipment sheath.

One day I stumbled across CustomKydex and queried Kiah, the proprietor, about making just that one small piece for me. (Most of Kiah's plastic is more fantastic, much more elaborate and very cool.) The answer was yes, I replied with my specs, and my RAT and I sat by the mailbox.

While we were waiting, I used triangular files of two different sizes to remove the coating from the jigged section of my RC-4's spine. The firesteel requires a square-cornered striker and bare metal works better, so some of the black stuff had to go unless I wanted to strike with the knife's sharpened edge (which I don't). Thus modified, it works perfectly.

Kiah's handiwork arrived in today's mail, and it's exactly what I wanted. It took only a few minutes to install the loop between the RAT's Kydex sheath and MOLLE back. A pair of longer Chicago screws, which Kiah supplied, hold it in place. The loop is sized just right, too, tight enough to hold the firesteel securely by friction alone. (It'll loosen up a bit as the firesteel wears, naturally.)

As a package, it looks like it came that way from the factory -- it's simple, inexpensive and elegant. I'm liking it a lot.

(In case you're wondering, yes, it's raining out by my woodpile today.)

Earlier posts
Sharps: RAT Cutlery RC-4P MB
Sharps: Heartland leather

Links
CustomKydex
RAT Cutlery Co.
BladeForums thread

Deal or no deal?

The U.S. auto industry is on the skids. Two of the former "big three" American automakers are in bankruptcy, and last month sales of the three largest Japanese marques declined nearly 50% compared to a year ago. Any spin we hear about May's numbers being better than April's is promoting a mirage -- the uptick can be traced to short sales of excess inventory, nothing more.

The industry's survival -- indeed, the very future of American manufacturing and transportation -- doesn't hinge on new designs or streamlined operations. It depends solely on commerce. Either Americans will buy enough new vehicles to keep these companies afloat, or we won't.

That's as obvious as it is simple, but it also puts millions of citizen-consumers in a tough spot.

Right now, manufacturers and dealers are clearing the decks, blowing product off their lots at unheard-of discounts. These "deals" are hard to resist -- witness the increasing number of shiny new vehicles sporting temporary tags -- and the federal government pledges to backstop manufacturers' warranties (in theory, anyway). For buyers who have the cash or credit to seize the moment, what's not to like?

First, with manufacturers' futures uncertain, resale values are in the toilet and a vehicle's immediate depreciation is higher than ever. Cash-on-the-barrelhead buyers are taking an enormous hit before the odometer turns double digits, and for those who buy on credit, low-low-low interest rates don't come close to offsetting the huge drive-away loss.

Second, as the industry tries desperately to retool itself, hoping to attract the elusive Consumer of Tomorrow, manufacturers will amputate models and brands that don't fit into their plans. Owners of these orphaned vehicles will find parts harder to get, and authorized service inevitably will be less competent.

Finally, it's clear that we're headed for a smaller auto industry with leaner manufacturers, fewer dealers and service facilities and a network of parts suppliers that has no choice but to shrink. For consumers, the inconvenience of having to travel farther and wait longer will be exacerbated by the much higher cost of parts and service, especially on orphaned models.

Yes, I'm saying that now is a lousy time to buy a new car or truck -- with a few exceptions.

To find one of those exceptions, a buyer might consider models that have, for whatever reason, been around for five or ten years without significant mechanical changes. Forget styling -- I'm talking about engine, drivetrain and electrics. An established vehicle will have spawned a more reliable supply of parts (including salvage) and developed a larger number of experienced mechanics.

None of that erases the cost of depreciation, however. That's why, if I were in need of a car or truck right now, I'd buy used. My criteria would be the same as if I were looking at a new vehicle -- that is, I'd limit my search to long-running models.

In addition to avoiding big instant depreciation, I'd pay considerably less in sales tax and insurance premiums. If I lived in a jurisdiction that taxes motor vehicles as property (like real estate), I'd save money there, too.

I'd also have more choices for service. Instead of being tied to authorized facilities (dealers), my options would include small independent garages and mechanics, and that'd keep more of my money in my own community.

Of course, there are undeniable down-sides to buying used. Dealers are local businesses, and avoiding them would cause some to suffer and perhaps fail. And in the big picture, the national picture, I'd be declining to participate in the revitalization of the American auto industry, at least to some degree. By not spending money on a new vehicle, I wouldn't be supporting the automakers and the jobs that depend on their survival.

Worst of all, ultimately my actions could hasten the erosion of the nation's industrial base.

Even knowing that, I'm not of the opinion that it's somehow my patriotic duty to make ill-advised personal financial choices. Far too many such choices have been made already, on my behalf, by my elected officials.

My family comes first, my community second. Those are the priorities that will guide my decisions.

As we've seen, capitalism relies on commerce, not high finance. We have a much better chance of rebuilding our national economy if we start at the bottom and work up -- beginning with citizen-consumers making smart choices, close to home.

发嗡嗡声的东西

Today, now-bankrupt GM confirmed that it'll sell Hummer to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery -- a Chinese company.

Just shoot me.

You're welcome to call me xenophobic, isolationist or protectionist -- hell, you can call me a cab, but please, just shoot me first.

I've never owned a Hummer but I drove one for a day, a sort of celebrity perk. A dealer in upstate New York decided that if I drove it around I'd attract attention to his business, and I happily obliged him.

Mostly, I attracted passengers. (Ten, as I recall.) This was 1998, when there was no numeric model designation -- it was just a Hummer, impossibly big and barely domesticated. I loved the size, the engine, the heft, the ability to inflate and deflate the tires while rumbling down the road.

The air conditioning sucked. The giggle factor was off the charts.

Oh, screw eco-hostility and dirty looks -- this was a Hummer, for crissake. As long as I had the scratch to pay for the fillups, I couldn't possibly have cared less.

I thought that someday I might build my Garage Mahal and own one of these quintessentially American brutes. Alas, my personal financial ship sailed and now, it appears, so has Hummer.

Damn.

Cordage: Farmer's friend

It took me just fifteen minutes this morning to turn out a basic tether for my new Victorinox Farmer.

This is what I'd call a medium-sized survival lanyard, packing about ten feet of intact paracord into a relatively tidy bundle. It's woven in a double (overlapping) cobra stitch, with a spring clip on one end and a split ring on the other. Nothing complicated, nothing fancy.

No skull beads this time.

The knot, by the way, is a figure-eight-on-a-bight. Depending on my mood, it seems, I tend to go back and forth between that and a stevedore knot, which essentially is a figure-eight with an extra wrap.

Later I'll do a simple paracord fob for the Farmer, maybe capturing a tiny firesteel, for those times when I want something less bulky. If I had this lanyard to do over again, I might make it with a shorter run of double cobra, but as-is it'll serve my EDC purposes just fine.

Any questions?

"If you're going to be engaged in a world conflict such as we are, such as the global war on terrorism, if you don't have a place where you can hold these people, your only other option is to kill them. And we don't operate that way." (Dick Cheney, speaking today to the National Press Club)

"I can't find a good reason to disagree -- at least not with the first sentence, anyway." (KintlaLake, wondering if he'll go blind if he keeps quoting himself)

Sharps: Cheap therapy

I think it was sometime on Friday afternoon that I decided to retire my Wenger Basic Camper from my everyday-carry rotation and treat myself to a new Victorinox Farmer.

A red one.

The Wenger, a 20-year-old Euro-only model engraved with my name, is still quite serviceable although it's not really very stout. It's simply always there on the nightstand when I fill my pockets every morning. Sure, I could've gone back to my old-style Victorinox Soldier, but to be perfectly honest, I was looking for an inexpensive pick-me-up.

I placed my order with FelineVet on Saturday morning, and shortly thereafter I got a message from Tim saying that he'd ship today.

To my surprise, it arrived today. Same-day USPS shipping from California to Columbus? Now that's service (and quite impossible, of course -- my package ended up making Tim's Saturday shipment).

Now that I have a Farmer of my own, I can confirm that it's my kind of multi-blade pocketknife. It officially becomes my regular EDC knife tomorrow morning. And before week's end, I believe I'll give it a new paracord lanyard.

Earlier posts
Sharps: Errata & addenda
Sharps: A modern-day Soldier
Sharps: Rite of passage
Sharps, Part I: In the pocket

Links
Victorinox
Swiss Army
FelineVet
Secret Order of Swiss Army Knives

May thirty-first

Yesterday the Obamas jetted off to Broadway to take in a show, and this morning their critics are in full cry.

My wife and I, over our morning coffee, talked about why our new first family's R&R always seems to kick up such a fuss. Even though I know it's due largely to a loyal opposition that's fresh out of substance, I suggested that it also might be because we're coming off a president that basically hunkered in his bunkers for eight years.

On further reflection, however, and after hearing Mrs. KintlaLake observe that George W. Bush was no less cloistered than his predecessors, it occurred to me that it's been more than 40 years since an American President spent this much time, official or otherwise, in public.

The Kennedy assassination changed everything. Memories of American life before that November day in Dallas are outside the experience of most people, including my wife.

I remember.

Personally, I'm okay with Pres. Obama's high profile -- he's doing what a leader should do. Spending a few (or a few hundred thousand) taxpayer dollars on transportation and security to whisk the first couple to New York City for a date every now and then is bound to provoke criticism, but it doesn't bother me one bit.

Our government is the servant of The People. It can't truly serve unless it's visible and, in my view, it serves best when it walks among The People -- even when it must be accompanied by a security detail.

So goes the nation
Nine years ago, General Motors common stock was worth almost $95. It closed on Friday at seventy-five cents a share.

At one time the world's largest industrial corporation, GM could boast more than 600,000 workers in 1979 and now employs just 74,000. Dozens of its plants are silent and dark. Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars have been thrown at GM, and the company has pumped much of that money into its overseas operations.

From "What if GM Did Go Bankrupt?" in Business Week:

"...investors are clearly starting to ponder the unthinkable. The price of GM's credit-default swaps, which are insurance in case the carmaker can't pay back its loans, have soared in the past month. They now cost a premium of 12 percentage points of the value of the debt that they insure, four times what they cost in January. Few people believe that Washington would help bail out GM, as it did with Chrysler [in 1979]. Investors, suppliers, and employees, meanwhile, are starting to imagine how a GM bankruptcy would unfold and taking steps to defend themselves if it should happen. Some suppliers, for example, are trying to get shorter payment terms from GM in exchange for lower prices."

That article, by the way, was published in December of 2005.

Tomorrow, at long last, reality will bite -- hard. An already disemboweled company is about to become leaner. The auto industry's supply chain will shrivel, and the fate of GM's 500,000-plus retirees is about to serve as an inescapable precursor of what can (and likely will) happen to Social Security and Medicare.

None of us has ever seen anything like this.

Prepare-by-numbers
I'm an occasional reader of Jim Rawles's SurvivalBlog. I don't adopt everything I read there, certainly, but there's no denying that it's among the most comprehensive repositories of citizen-survival information and opinions. It's worth a visit.

A recent guest article, "Creating a Crisis Decision Matrix," caught my attention. Basically, it takes a more structured, empirical approach to assessing one's personal preparedness, specifically what I called "The Lay of the Land" in a post last March.

This matrix is a useful tool. I recommend it.

By any other name
In and around our now-fallow garden plot, a handful of wild rose bushes are heavy with pink and crimson blooms. Yesterday afternoon my wife brought me a bouquet of the faintly fragrant flowers, gathered in a water glass she hadn't yet packed.

A few minutes later, she brought me a second bouquet, and then another. The third vase, which she placed lovingly on my desk, held a half-dozen tight pink buds.

When I stepped into my office early this morning and turned on the light, I saw that the buds had opened overnight -- in the dark.

On difficult days -- and these days surely are -- I'll make a point of remembering that.

Images: Burst mode

In Monday's photo of the honor guard's 21-gun salute, sharp eyes may have spotted the spent shell being ejected from the first gunner's Mossberg 500 (enlarged in the left-hand photo, below).

I had my camera set to shoot continuously during the three volleys, and I'm always interested in what gets captured during those split seconds -- momentary puffs of smoke, fleeting facial expressions and so on. In a few frames from this series, I happened to catch the fourth gunner having a bit of an issue (right).

I'm no scattergun guru, but on platforms I'm more familiar with I'd call that kind of FTE a "stovepipe." No harm done, considering this was ceremonial fire. Still, I'm sure it made one fellow a tad cranky.