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Those who are anointed as supreme leaders from birth are rarely tempted to be thoughtful human beings.

 

Another anointed supreme leader of North Korea has emerged this week to continue the great works of his father and grandfather.

 

Japan occupied Korea during World War II. When the war ended in 1945, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel with the USSR controlling the north and the USA controlling the south. The Koreans were not consulted.

 

While the Korean people were happy to be liberated from the Japanese, they objected to foreign rule being imposed over the peninsula. To make matter worse, the Soviets and Americans were unable to agree on a joint trusteeship over Korea. Thus, in 1948, separate governments were established in the north and the south.

 

Tensions and border skirmishes eventually led to the Korean War in 1950 when the North Korean Army stormed across the 38th parallel in an attempt to reunify the country under their communistic political system.

 

In 1953, an armistice was signed by North Korea, China and the United Nations thereby ending the conflict. A demilitarized zone was established at the 38th parallel, separating North Korea and South Korea ever since.

 

North Korea was led by Kim Il-Sung from 1948 until his death in 1994. He had delegated domestic matters to his son, Kim Jong-Il.

 

In 1997, Kim Jong-Il was named General Secretary (leader) of the Korean Worker's Party.

 

According to the official North Korean news agency, "The Korean people regard it as their most worthwhile life to uphold Secretary Kim Jong-Il and live in perfect harmony with him. He is the great teacher who teaches them with the noblest political integrity and a tender-hearted benefactor who brings their life into full bloom. As they are in harmonious whole with him, they are enjoying a life based on true conscience and obligation."

 

Gee whiz, North Korea sounds like a wonderful place to live. It's too bad they had to kill an estimated two million civilians and imprison 200,000 "dissidents" in slave labor camps, where they are tortured, starved, raped and murdered, in order to create a perfectly splendid environment.

 

In a closed-society, adhering to universal truths and seeking individuality become acts of treason. Such is life in a harmonious whole.

 

Officially, North Korea is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). However, it's anything but democratic. It's a totalitarian state, dominated by the Korean Worker's Party which embraces Marxism-Leninism.

 

Elections are held every five years for members of the People's Assembly. To avoid confusion, in every district voters are offered only one candidate.

 

Kim Jong-Il had been the leader of the DPRK ever since his father died in 1994. He stood 5'2", but wore platform shoes and whipped his hair skyward to make himself appear taller.

 

While building the fifth-largest military in the world, he ravaged the economy with political mismanagement -- creating famine, fuel shortages, lack of electricity, etc. To make up for it, mass "performances" involving throngs of people participating in parades or choreographed dance routines were introduced to foster national unity.

 

To generate income, the DPRK encouraged opium cultivation and invested $10 million in an intaglio printing press, the same type used by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which produced $15 million per year in counterfeit U.S. currency. The drugs and counterfeit currency were passed through foreign nations via diplomatic pouches.

 

As the leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong-Il had amassed a personal fortune of $22 billion. Although his people were dying of starvation, he dined on fresh lobster shipped in from Japan and enjoyed fine cognac. He also loved children's cartoons, especially Daffy Duck, and had one of the largest collections of pornography in the world.

 

While grooming one of his sons to take his place, he seized and confined all triplets born in the DPRK in special state facilities to be closely monitored because he believed a triplet may someday topple his regime.

 

Kim Jong-Il was an arrogant, creepy, delusional, paranoid, deranged lunatic. On December 17, 2011, he died of heart failure at age 69.

 

Soon thereafter, Kim Jong-Il's youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, in his late 20s, was introduced by the official North Korean news agency as their new supreme ruler, calling him "the outstanding leader of our party, army and people" and have named him "the Great Successor."

 

Perhaps he will also inherit his father's Daffy Duck cartoons and extensive collection of pornography.

 

When delusional fanatics are at the top, there is no limit to the oppression.

___________

 

Quote for the Day – "One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution -- one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship." George Orwell

___________

 

Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where the only cure for cynicism is counter-cynicism.

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1) “The world is more like it is now than it ever was before.”

A) George Carlin

B) George Bush

C) Arnold Schwarzenegger

D) Dwight D. Eisenhower

E) J.D. Salinger

 

2) "A boy's best friend is his mother."

A) John Lennon

B) Bugs Bunny

C) Luke Skywalker

D) Norman Bates

E) Jack Nicholson

 

3) "Solutions are not the answer."

A) Richard Nixon

B) Groucho Marx

C) Vladimir Putin

D) Hillary Clinton

E) Captain Kirk

 

4) "I'll be back."

A) Sitting Bull

B) Gypsy Rose Lee

C) Frank Sinatra

D) Jane Fonda

E) The Terminator

 

5) "To improve is to change -- to be perfect is to change often."

A) Greta Garbo

B) Muddy Waters

C) Willie Mosconi

D) Tiger Woods

E) Winston Churchill

 

6) "Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much."

A) D.B. Cooper

B) John Wayne

C) Herman Melville

D) Johnny Carson

E) Elmer Fudd

 

7) "Always take hold of things by the smooth handle."

A) Thomas Jefferson

B) Hank Aaron

C) Erma Bombeck

D) Jasper Lamar Crabbe

E) Daniel Boone

 

8) "Sometimes I feel like a fire hydrant looking at a pack of dogs."

A) Daffy Duck

B) Joe Namath

C) Bill Clinton

D) Buddy Hackett

E) Lady Gaga

 

9) "As long as you're going to be thinking anyway, think big."

A) Donald Trump

B) Brittney Spears

C) P.T. Barnum

D) W.C. Fields

E) Madonna

 

10) "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

A) Cool Hand Luke

B) Lois Lane

C) Blanche DuBois

D) Batman

E) Boris Karloff

 

11) "You can't process me with a normal brain."

A) Barack Obama

B) Dan Quayle

C) Bob Dylan

D) Fox Mulder

E) Charlie Sheen

 

12) "A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me."

A) Mick Jagger

B) Abraham Lincoln

C) Jerry Lewis

D) Jerry Lee Lewis

E) Davy Crockett

 

13) "Death is not the worst that can happen to men."

A) Jerry Seinfeld

B) Vlad the Impaler

C) Wonder Woman

D) Geronimo

E) Plato

 

14) "You can't trust anybody with power."

A) The Lone Ranger

B) Newt Gingrich

C) Mahatma Gandhi

D) John the Baptist

E) John Quincy Adams

 

15) "I'd just like to be treated like a regular customer."

A) Elvis Presley

B) Hulk Hogan

C) Johnny Depp

D) Eleanor Rigby

E) Pee Wee Herman

 

16) "I have high expectations for the future because the past was highly overrated."

A) Carl Sagan

B) Bart Simpson

C) Barbara Walters

D) Jay Leno

E) Sylvester Stallone

 

17) "Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great."

A) Oprah Winfrey

B) Sid Caesar

C) Cher

D) Shirley MacLaine

E) Joe Biden

 

18) "It is better to be alone than in bad company."

A) Minnesota Fats

B) Kim Kardashian

C) Carl Jung

D) George Washington

E) Jeremiah Johnson

 

19) "The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground."

A) Buddha

B) Johnny B. Goode

C) Doris Day

D) Dr. Phil

E) Rhett Butler

 

20) "The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have."

A) Vince Lombardi

B) Hugh Hefner

C) Lindsey Lohan

D) Crazy Horse

E) Teddy Roosevelt

 

________________

 

ANSWERS: 1-D, 2-D, 3-A, 4-E, 5-E, 6-B, 7-A, 8-C, 9-A, 10-C, 11-E, 12-B, 13-E, 14-B, 15-A, 16-E, 17-C, 18-D, 19-A, 20-A

 

SCORES:

20 -- You are either a liar or a cheater or incredibly lucky

16-19 -- You need to get a life

10-15 -- Very good

5-10 -- Not bad

4 -- Random answers yield the same results

3-0 -- You are below random (a.k.a. a loser)

___________

 

Quote for the Day -- "He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked." Voltaire

___________

 

Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where hypothetical questions get hypothetical answers.

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When I was a student at the University of Minnesota in 1969, I decided to hitchhike to Miami over spring break.

 

On a Tuesday morning, I called my friend Scott in Miami and told him I'd be there by the time he got off work on Thursday. He bet me $20 I wouldn't make it in time, adding extra incentive to my idiotic plan.

 

I packed a small suitcase, made a sign with "MIAMI" on it and had my father he drop me off on a straight stretch of highway 12 just east of the Twin Cities at about noon.

 

A half hour later, two guys in a beat-up Ford picked me up. We crossed the river into Wisconsin and exited the freeway a couple of miles later at River Falls.

 

Very few cars entered this particular ramp so I walked back onto the freeway hoping to make it to the next interchange, about a mile away, before the highway patrol grabbed me. As I was marching up the next exit ramp, a truck driver pulled over, picked me up and gave me a ride all the way to the south side of Chicago.

 

I had intended to head south on highway 41 but the truck driver inadvertently dropped me off one exit too early. I was now stuck in Hammond, Ind., in a predominantly minority area, carrying a suitcase, just as the bars were closing. Incredibly, a local police patrol car pulled up and gave me a ride over to highway 41.

 

I stood in the rain, along highway 41, in the dark, staring at a deserted road. I had driven to Miami years earlier on highway 41, but now that the interstate freeway system had been completed most of the through traffic went down I-65 instead.

 

Lucky once again, a truck driver picked me up out of the downpour.

 

At daylight, I found myself on I-24 near Paducah, Kentucky, far from highway 41. A young girl in a Volkswagen picked me up and gave me a ride two miles down the road. She left me at such a bad location I was forced to walk the two miles back to where I started.

 

Eventually, a state trooper came by and chased me off the freeway.

 

I hiked over to a state highway and stood there for a couple of hours. There was a car full of rowdy young punks that had gone back and forth past me many times, always giving me the evil eye. Just as they were about to come by again, a uniformed Army captain in a Triumph convertible pulled up and gave me a ride.

 

The captain dropped me off at the entrance to Fort Campbell and pointed out where I could catch my next ride, which came along shortly thereafter. I was now seated next to a young man with an open case of beer in the front seat between us. We shared a couple of beers and he dropped me off in the middle of Nashville.

 

A fellow wearing a neck brace picked me up in Nashville and we made it into Atlanta where we were rear-ended in a freeway pile-up.

 

After much delay, I drove the injured fellow to his friend's apartment and made it to highway 41 where I caught a ride with a hillbilly in a pickup who talked continuously but I never understood a word he said. At about 4:00 a.m., he dropped me off at a truck stop on a rural road in South Georgia where I eventually got a ride to an on-ramp on I-75 from a trucker who was very reluctant to take on a passenger.

 

A preacher in a Cadillac pulled up and drove me down to the Boca Raton exit in Florida, trying to convert me all along the way.

 

Next, I got a ride with hippie couple in a clunker Oldsmobile, but they were short of money to exit the turnpike tollbooth so I gave them two dollars and had them drive me within a block of Scott's place.

 

I found the key under Scott's mat and let myself in. Before I could open one of his beers, he showed up from work. It had taken me 53 hours to get there and I literally made it by less than 10 minutes to collect the $20 bet.

 

I was young and adventurous and stupid. I'll never hitchhike again, not even for $20.

 

The following year, I headed down to Miami in my new Gremlin during spring break. I had a collision with a deer and spent spring break in a motel near Beloit, Wis., waiting for a radiator to be delivered from Milwaukee.

 

Spring break is for the young at heart and feeble of mind -- if you need a break, take it close to home.

 ___________

 

Quote for the Day -- "Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's Party.'" Robin Williams

___________

 

Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where April showers lead to mud.

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I was recently contacted by members of my high school 50th reunion committee, whereby they requested that I write a piece for the reunion booklet.

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WHERE WERE YOU IN 62

 

In 1962, I was a senior at Robbinsdale High School in Minnesota, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. The following events took place that year.

 

Jan 1 -- The University of Minnesota Gophers beat the UCLA Bruins 21-3 in the Rose Bowl football game in Pasadena, California. The temperature at game time in Pasadena was 72 degrees. The temperature outside our house in Brooklyn Center was 13 below zero. Whatever I was going to do with the rest of my life included outdoor temperatures that would not be prefixed with a minus sign.

 

Jan 3 -- Pope john XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro.

 

Jan 10 -- A volcanic eruption in Peru destroyed 7 villages and killed 3,500 people.

 

Jan 23 -- Jackie Robinson (1919 - 1972) became the first black man elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

 

Jan 26 -- The USA launched a missile (Ranger 3) to land scientific instruments on the moon. It missed the target by 22,000 miles. Apparently, the target wasn't big enough.

 

Feb 3 -- President Kennedy banned all trade with Cuba, except for food and medical supplies.

 

Feb 7 -- President Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba.

 

Feb 10 -- The USA exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for a USSR spy held by the USA.

 

Feb 14 -- First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted a televised tour of the White House.

 

Feb 18 -- Robert F. Kennedy declared that U.S. troops would stay in Vietnam until communism was defeated. Goody, goody. I would be drafted in April of 1966 to help defeat global communism and spent 8 fun-filled weeks of basic training in Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, learning how to stand at attention and clean toilets. There were 7 graduates from Robbinsdale High School in my basic training company, including Eric "Buzzard" Fermstad, David Lamey and one of Pat Digatano's brothers.

 

Feb 20 -- John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. The flight lasted 4 hours and 56 minutes. "I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets." John Glenn

 

Feb 26 -- The U.S. Supreme Court disallowed racial separation on public transportation.

 

Feb 28 -- The Joint Chiefs of Staff approved a plan to "lure or provoke Castro into an overt hostile reaction against the USA." Paranoia will destroy ya.

 

Mar 2 -- Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors scored 100 points against the New York Knicks. He was very tall.

 

Mar 2 -- President Kennedy announced the USA would continue above ground nuclear testing. No big deal. It simply makes a loud noise, vaporizes anything near it and sends a toxic cloud of radioactive debris into the atmosphere. But not to worry -- the prevailing winds blow toward Utah.

 

Mar 6 -- The USA promised Thailand assistance against communist aggression.

 

Mar 9 -- The U.S. military Advisors in South Vietnam officially joined the fight against the communists. The prevailing (incorrect) assumption, almost always when it comes to war, was that it would be over soon.

 

Mar 10 -- The Philadelphia Phillies moved to a motel during spring training in Clearwater, Florida, because their hotel refused to admit black players.

 

Mar 17 -- The USSR asked the USA to pull out of South Vietnam. Apparently, we declined.

 

Mar 21 -- A female black bear was ejected from a B-58 bomber over Edwards Air Force Base in California, in a special capsule with parachute, and survived. No big deal -- Doug Deeble, from the RHS Class of 1962, would have done it for free, twice.

 

Mar 29 -- Jack Parr hosted the NBC TV Tonight Show for the last time, to be followed later by Johnny Carson. Parr was occasionally erratic and highly emotional, much like my ex-wife during full moons. "Looking back, my life seems like one long obstacle race, with me as the chief obstacle." Jack Parr

 

Apr 9 -- WEST SIDE STORY was named best picture at the 34th Academy Awards. Sophia Loren and Maximilian Schell won the acting awards. In the late 1970s, I studied screenwriting in Hollywood. Ernest Lehman, who wrote WEST SIDE STORY and many other prominent movies, was one of the instructors I was blessed to study under.

 

Apr 16 -- Walter Cronkite became the new anchorman on the CBS Evening News. "And that's the way it is." Walter Cronkite

 

Apr 20 -- The New Orleans Citizens Committee gave free one-way rides to blacks to move north. By the way, I write monthly articles for a magazine in the New Orleans area.

 

Apr 24 -- The first satellite relay transmission of a television signal.

 

Apr 25 -- The USA performed a nuclear test on Christmas Island. It was one of 105 nuclear test explosions the USA conducted in 1962 and 1963. The residents of Christmas Island, who had been relocated elsewhere, were not pleased.

 

May 9 -- A laser beam was successfully bounced off the moon for the first time. The residents of the Moon, who were not relocated, were not amused.

 

May 11 -- The USA sent combat troops to Thailand.

 

May 15 -- U.S. Marines arrived in Laos.

 

May 19 -- Marilyn Monroe sang happy birthday to President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden. "It's all make believe, isn't it?" Marilyn Monroe

 

May 19 -- Stan Musial broke the Nation League record for hits with 3,431.

 

May 31 -- Adolph Eichmann, Nazi war criminal, was hanged.

 

Jun 3 -- A CIA memo from a briefing with Attorney General Robert Kennedy revealed that $150,000 was offered to U.S. mobsters to assassinate Fidel Castro. They would have done it for free since Castro closed their Havana gambling casinos.

 

Jun 6 -- On high school graduation day, 620 highly educated souls received their Robbinsdale High School diplomas on the new football field. The more adventurous ones boarded a passenger train soon thereafter for the annual train trip to Waseca. Those in charge, laughingly referred to as responsible adults, assumed if we were all confined on a moving train it would lesson the trouble we could get into. Many of us, including me, had smuggled a flask of liquid spirits aboard to ease the tension and celebrate our escape from mandatory schooling.

 

Jun 11 -- Three federal prisoners escaped from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. Their whereabouts remain unknown.

 

Jul 6 -- The USA tested a 104 kiloton nuclear device in Nevada. It blew a hole 1,280 feet wide and 320 feet deep. If the world ever needs instant large holes, give the USA a call.

 

Jul 10 -- Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during a demonstration in Georgia. "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Jul 18 -- President Kennedy installed an audio taping system in the White House.

 

Aug 5 -- Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home. It was ruled a suicide (overdose of drugs). "Dreaming about being an actress is more exciting than being one." Marilyn Monroe

 

Aug 5 -- The USSR set off an atomic bomb as part of a new series of tests.

 

Aug 10 -- My birthday. I am now 18 years old. I had a piece of chocolate cake and later celebrated with a Lucky Strike. I would give up the cigarettes in a couple of years but still have a chunk of chocolate on birthdays.

 

Aug 16 -- The Beatles dropped drummer Pete Best and took on Ringo Starr. "Everything government touches turns to crap." Ringo Starr

 

Sep 1 -- The United Nations announced the world population had now reached 3 billion people. Today it is 7 billion. But that's okay because we're all broke anyway. Turn out the lights, the party's over.

 

Sep 1 -- In Iran, 10,000 people died in an earthquake.

 

Sep 10 -- I enter the University of Minnesota, home of the mighty gopher, as a math major, trying to decide between becoming an architect or a mining engineer. Ironically, I become neither. I would spend a couple of future decades as a computer programmer and manager, followed by another couple of decades as a professional bum (wandering adventurer, independent computer contractor, mountaintop hippie, gold prospector, novelist, desert rat, newspaper columnist, college instructor, reclusive hermit, etc.) while trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

 

Sep 11 -- The Beatles record their first single for EMI, titled "Love Me Do."

 

Sep 17 -- The U.S. Justice Department filed the first federal suit to end public school segregation.

 

Sep 24 -- The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the University of Mississippi to admit its first black student, James Meredith.

 

Sep 25 -- Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson in the first round of the world heavyweight boxing championship in Chicago.

 

Oct 4 -- Crayola Crayons changed the name of the color "Flesh" to "Peach."

 

Oct 16 -- The Cuban missile crisis began. The USSR was sending ships to Cuba (containing ballistic missiles). The USA set up a naval blockade. The standoff lasted 13 days. Part of the undisclosed reason it ended was a private communication between Kennedy and Khrushchev, whereby Kennedy proposed to remove USA missiles in Turkey in exchanged for the USSR removing their missiles from Cuba.

 

Oct 17 -- The New York Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants in 7 games to win the World Series in baseball.

 

Oct 20 -- The Chinese Army invaded northeast India during a border war in the Himalayan Mountain region. Some 3,000 Indian soldiers were killed. It lasted about a week.

 

Oct 25 -- John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in literature. "Any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming." John Steinbeck

 

Nov 6 -- Saudi Arabia abolished slavery.

 

Nov 10 -- A folksinger from Hibbing, Minnesota, named Bob Zimmerman changed his name to Bob Dylan. "All I can do is be me, whoever that is." Bob Dylan

 

Nov 29 -- France and Great Britain embarked on a joint venture to build a super sonic passenger jet called the Concorde.

 

Dec 2 -- The first appearance of the Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones) at a London nightclub.

 

Dec 5 -- President Kennedy, Secretary of Defense McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor discussed plans for stockpiling nuclear weapons to deter the USSR. The USA will have oodles of them, then the USSR will have oodles of them, then the world will be at peace forever. Brilliant idea, pinheads.

 

Dec 26 -- Eight people from East Berlin escaped to West Berlin by breaking through the gates with an armored plated bus. Live free or die.

 

 Dec 31 -- USA military spending rose to $55 billion in 1962.

 

The top 10 songs from 1962 were:

 

1) Stranger on the Shore -- (Acker Bilk)

2) I Can't Stop Loving You -- (Ray Charles)

3) Mashed Potato Time -- (Dee Dee Sharp)

4) Roses Are Red, My Love -- (Bobby Vinton)

5) The Stripper -- (David Rose)

6) Johnny Angel -- (Shelley Fabares)

7) The Loco-Motion -- (Little Eva)

8) Let Me In -- (The Sensations)

9) The Twist -- (Chubby Checker)

10) Soldier Boy -- (The Shirelles)

 

For most of the Class of 62, it was a year to start life over once again. And for many of us, it wouldn't be the last time we start life over once again either.

 

If you are still alive, your mission in this life is not finished.

___________

 

Quote for the Day -- "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." John F. Kennedy

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Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee, and the ghosts of Ron Dickerson and Jerry Anderson.

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On July 4, 1947, an extraterrestrial craft crashed near Roswell, New Mexico.

 

The wreckage and dead alien bodies were soon transported to Wright-Patterson Air Base in Dayton, Ohio. Cover stories were established with the media and the truth was kept from the public.

 

Apparently, a lone extraterrestrial (ET) survived the ordeal.

 

It was the beginning of the Cold War between the USA and the USSR -- paranoia was rampant in high levels of government and the military establishment.

 

Over the next few months, the federal government created the Atomic Energy Commission, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Council, the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

On September 24, 1947, President Truman created Operation Majestic-12 (MJ-12), a Top Secret intelligence operation that was responsible directly to the President of the United States. This committee of 12 esteemed specialists was commissioned to deal with all matters concerning UFOs and extraterrestrials.

 

The original 12 members:

 

1) James V. Forrestal -- became Secretary of Defense in July of 1947.  He resigned in March of 1949, a month before he supposedly committed suicide at Bethesda Naval Hospital. One year later, he was replaced by General Walter Bedell Smith (Eisenhower's Chief of Staff and former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow).

 

2) Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter -- became the first director of the CIA (created in September of 1947). He publically disclosed that UFOs were real and "through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."

 

3) General Nathan F. Twining -- commander of the Air Material Command (based at Wright-Patterson Air Base in Ohio). On July 8, 1947, he made a two-day trip to New Mexico due to a sudden important matter. He was responsible for creating Project Sign, a UFO study group.

 

4) General Hoyt S. Vardenberg -- Air Force Chief of Staff. He ordered the destruction of the original Project Sign reports affirming that UFOs were real.

 

5) Dr. Vannevay Bush -- a scientist who organized the Office of Scientific Research and Development in 1943, which led to the production of the first atomic bomb.

 

6) Gordon Gray -- Assistant Secretary of the Army in 1947, promoted to Secretary of the Army in 1949. He became a special assistant on national security affairs to President Truman.

 

7) Dr. Detlev Bronk -- a biophysicist and physiologist who was a medical advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission and Chairman of the National Research Council.

 

8) Dr. Jerome Hunsaker -- an aviation designer who was the Chairman of the Departments of Aeronautical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

9) General Robert M. Montegue -- was the base commander at an Atomic Energy Commission facility in New Mexico in 1947.

 

10) Sidney W. Souers -- a retired rear admiral who was the first Director of the National Security Council in 1947.

 

11) Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner -- was an electrical engineer who headed a study that created the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group.

 

12) Dr. Donald Menzel -- an astronomer who was a director of the Harvard College Observatory.

 

Also in 1947, the Air Force created Project Blue Book to determine if the UFOs were a threat to national security. Project Grudge was another operation performing the same tasks. These programs studied approximately 12,000 reported sightings and determined that 90 percent were either explainable phenomena or hoaxes. The remaining 10 percent were considered legitimate Alien encounters.

 

Over the next couple of years, the lone surviving ET from the Roswell crash had been in contact with his home planet (called Serpo). Communication (in English) between Serpo and scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory had been established.

 

In July of 1952, there was a massive UFO flyover of Washington, D.C., on two consecutive weekends -- strange objects on radar, moving at incredible speed, visible sightings of orange discs. Jet fighters were scrambled from Newcastle Air Force Base in Delaware. When the fighters approached, the objects disappeared. When the fighters ran low on fuel and returned to base, the objects reappeared.

 

Fear and paranoia of an alien invasion caused additional pressure on those involved to maintain a high level of security and secrecy.

 

In 1953, President Eisenhower created a program called Project Gleem, later called Project Aquarius, to be controlled by the National Security Council and MJ-12. It was funded by the CIA (black budget). Its purpose was to collect intelligence data from UFO sightings, Identified Alien Crafts (IAC) sightings and contacts with Alien Life forms.

 

Additional contact between ETs and USA authorities occurred -- a meeting was arranged.

 

On February 20, 1954, President Eisenhower (and others) met with a contingent of ETs at Muroc Air Base (now called Edwards Air Force Base) in the Mohave Desert in California. Eisenhower supposedly had been on a visit to a dentist in Palm Springs. Secrecy was of upmost importance. Five Alien craft had landed. Discussions ensued. The ETs offered technology but wanted certain things in return. Various accounts of the results of this meeting make it difficult to determine the outcome. Some of the USA participants didn't trust the ETs, feeling it was a ploy to gain trust, then perhaps attack.

 

On February 22, 1954, the USA installed 60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain.

 

Life goes on.

 

Many encounters with extraterrestrial entities have occurred prior to and after July of 1947. These events have been withheld from the public. Advanced technology has been gleaned from these encounters and also withheld from the public, kept within the hidden domain of elite rulers for elite purposes.

 

Those who rule Planet Earth conduct business in secrecy. Those who seek to expose the truth are ridiculed. And those who follow blindly suffer the consequences.

 

On September 21, 1987, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations where he emphasized how drastically our planet would change if we were under a threat from an alien civilization. Perhaps he was preparing us for the day of disclosure.

 

We dwell on a small planet of an average star (the sun) in an insignificant galaxy (Milky Way) that is merely one of zillions of galaxies, in a far corner of a vast universe, that may be only one of many universes. We are not alone.

 

The most basic question is not what's best for the planet -- it's who should decide what's best for the planet.

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Quote for the Day -- "Our pleasures were simple -- they included survival." Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where ignorance is bliss.

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A friend of mine called me the other night asking me to look something up on the Internet for him. He doesn't have a computer, primarily because he's too cheap to buy one and has friends, like me, to pester whenever he needs a favor. Since he helped me start my car back in 1971 he thinks I owe him a life of servitude.

 

Basically, someone called him a "four flusher" and he didn't know what it meant. So I looked it up for him. It turns out that a four flusher is a person who makes a false claim (one who bluffs). The term was derived from poker where four cards of the same suit are worthless whereas five cards of the same suit is a flush, which will beat three of a kind and a straight. Someone betting with only four cards of the same suit would be bluffing.

 

The very next evening I received a phone call from a friend who told me the phrase "lickety split" came up in a recent conversation and he was wondering how such a phrase came into existence. This person is not cheap, unlike most of my friends, and owns a computer. But he's a very busy guy and probably didn't want to waste his time on trivial matters so he contacted me to waste my time on trivial matters for him.

 

In doing so, he also suggested that I should look up the origin of some common expressions, such as "smart as a whip," "a New York minute," "cute as a bug in a rug" and so forth. Instead, I told him his New York minute was up and I had more important things to do, such as take the bull by the horns, reinvent the wheel and catch some Zs.

 

In my dictionary, "lickety split" means "at great speed."

 

According to extensive Internet research, "lickety split" was a term used by the Puritans in the 1600s but no one apparently has any insight on how it started.

 

The term became prominent in the 1830s and 1840s. The earliest known appearance in print was in 1843. Other terms such as "lickety click," lickety cut," "lickety brindle," "lickety smash" and "lickety switch" were also in use at the time meaning the same thing.

 

Many others terms from the same era also have similar meanings, including "quick as greased lightning," "in a jiffy," "like a house afire," "hell bent for leather" and "immediately if not sooner."

 

Apparently, everyone was in a hurry back then.

 

During my Internet explorations, I also learned that "Lickety Split" is:

 

* A lip gloss that is "fruity, sweet and sassy, and it gives your lips a little kiss of color"

* An alchemy yarn produced and marketed by The Yarn Company of New York City

* An educational game for children, ages 6 and up, made by Gamewright

* A 27' racing sailboat manufactured by Morgan Boat Builders

* A raft trip on the Kern River in California offered by Sierra South Sports

* A night club in Philadelphia

* A rock-and-roll band

* A recipe for lasagna published in BETTER HOMES AND GARDEN

* A company in San Diego that makes balloons 

* A card game involving 2 to 4 players fast grabbing from a deck of 60 cards

 

Jeepers creepers, I now know more about "lickety split" than I ever wanted to know.

 

Personally I don't like doing things at great speed – I prefer to "take a slow boat to China."

 

Time to end this nonsense -- 23 skidoo.

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Quote for the Day -- "Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, 'be fruitful and multiply' -- but not in those words." Woody Allen

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Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where silence is golden.

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Many climate scientists now agree that global warming, primarily cyclical in nature due to fluctuations in solar activity, could trigger a new ice age in the Northern Hemisphere. Some of them believe this potential catastrophic event has already been set in motion.

 

In March of 2004, NASA reported that views from orbit “clearly show a long-term decline in the perennial Arctic Sea ice.”  Scientists at NASA and elsewhere worry that melting ice will dump enough freshwater into the North Atlantic to interfere with ocean currents.

 

Receding ice cover in the Arctic exposes more of the ocean surface, causing more moisture to evaporate, leading to more rainfall and snowfall in the northern latitudes.

 

The oceans circulate water in a pattern called the “Great Ocean Conveyer.”

 

Saltwater is denser (heavier) than freshwater. The surface water needs to sink to drive the Conveyer. Sunken water flows south along the ocean floor toward the equator, while warm surface water from the Tropics flows north to replace the water that sank. An increase of freshwater could prevent the sinking of North Atlantic surface waters, stopping the circulation.

 

Evidence developed from tree rings and ice cores indicates that the Earth’s climate has shifted abruptly in the past. As the world warmed at the end of the last ice age, melting ice sheets appear to have caused a sudden halt to the Conveyer, creating ice-age-like conditions for the next 1,300 years called the “Younger Dryas.”

 

Without the warmth the ocean currents deliver, Europe’s average temperature would drop 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Portions of eastern North America would also drop in temperature but not quite as much.

 

These types of abrupt climate changes could result in massive crop failures, leading to global food shortages.

 

A secret report commissioned by the Pentagon in 2004, leaked to the press four months later, warns that climate change over the next 20 years (or less) could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.

 

In what is described as a contingency scenario, the report warns that major European cities will sink beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a frigid climate by 2020. Dwindling food, water and energy supplies throughout the planet will generate global anarchy. The report concludes, “Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life. Once again, warfare would define human life.”

 

Whether a catastrophic global climate change will occur in the near future is uncertain. If it does happen, it will take two to three years (perhaps as long as a decade) to unfold, a very short period of time in geological history but plenty of time in human existence to prepare for the consequences.

 

If this scenario occurs, there will be food shortages, followed by a Mad Max reality of civil mayhem.

 

Be prepared (Boy Scout motto) -- avoid living near the ocean, avoid living in or near a big city, have a reliable source of fresh water and keep plenty of non-perishable food in store. Plus, lots of ammo. In self-survival, anything goes.

 

We live in precarious times. Man’s inhumanity to man continues to haunt the world and the whims of the universe are mostly beyond our control.

 

Mother Nature is indifferent to the survival of mankind -- we can only hang on and go along for the ride.

 

Keep your powder dry and your nose to the wind.

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Quote for the Day -- "Instead of working for the survival of the fittest, we should be working for the survival of the wittiest -- then we can all die laughing." Lily Tomlin

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Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and an imaginary girlfriend named Lois Lane.

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An emergency phone operator received a call one afternoon from a hunter who was very distraught.

 

“My hunting partner just passed out and keeled over,” the hunter said in a panic.

 

The emergency phone operator told him to calm down and check for vital signs.

 

“He’s not breathing,” the hunter observed. “I think he might be dead.”

 

“First of all, let’s make sure he’s dead,” the emergency operator said.

 

There was a short pause, followed by a gunshot.

 

“Okay, now what?” the hunter asked when he got back on the phone.

 

While the above joke may be amusing, there’s nothing amusing during hunting season to those of us who live in rural areas and wonder if the next errant bullet is headed our way.

 

Recently, 12-year-old Lindsey Duffield of Browns Valley, Minn., was riding a white mare named Princess along the driveway of her grandfather’s farm on the edge of town. A shot rang out. A short time later, Lindsey’s leg became moist and cold, soaked with blood. Princess had taken a 12-gauge slug in her shoulder and later died. The hunter had been sitting 200 yards away. He said he thought it was a deer.

 

Similar incidents happen every year during hunting season. In Minnesota, a 14-year-old girl was killed when a bullet penetrated her house as she was sitting in her bedroom, practicing the violin. A hunter in Wisconsin shot another hunter perched high in a tree stand. In Pennsylvania, a woman was gunned down while sitting on the deck of her cabin, drinking a cup of coffee. When I was a teen-ager, a friend of mine was shot in the back of his head and killed by another hunter in his own party.

 

I now live in northern Arkansas where some of the “sportsmen” are just as irresponsible. A couple of years ago, a Little Rock man shot a llama in a fenced pasture in the next county, claiming he thought it was a deer. If you can’t tell the difference between a llama and a deer, please stay in the city where you belong.

 

A few years earlier, some "sportsmen" were driving down my road and shot a neighbor’s dog that was sitting in its own driveway as they passed by.

 

When I first moved into my present home several years ago, I spotted three hunters approaching my place in my backyard at sunrise. Even though they were less than 40 yards from my back door, they continued walking toward me, each carrying a high-powered rifle. I went outside and told them they couldn’t hunt on my property. They became very indignant and told me the previous owner had allowed them to hunt there. After I told them I didn’t care what arrangement they had with the previous owner, they walked out onto the main road. One of them looked menacingly at me and fired a round into the air before leaving the area. I guess it was his way of saying he was displeased I wouldn’t allow him to wander on my property and fill the air with stray bullets.

 

The following year, another sportsman (or perhaps the same one) shot up my mailbox. He hit it twice. Apparently, he wanted to make sure it wasn’t really a deer after all.

 

Later that year, another sportsman (or perhaps the same one) discarded the remains of a deer carcass in the middle of the road at the end of my driveway.

 

In November of 2004, Chai Soua Vang, 36, a Hmong (Laotian) immigrant from St. Paul, Minn., was sitting in a tree stand on the private property of Bob Crotteau in northern Wisconsin waiting for a deer to wander by.

 

Eventually, Crotteau and his deer hunting companions arrived at the scene on ATVs. Crotteau verbally admonished Vang for trespassing and demanded that he leave. The previous year, Crotteau had been forced to confront Hmong hunters several times on his posted property and was clearly upset he had to do it again.

 

Vang, who had been charged with criminal trespass over a similar incident in 2002 on another property in the same vicinity, was apparently upset as well. He opened fire on the hunters, most of whom were unarmed at the time, with his SKS assault rifle.

 

When it was all over, six hunters were dead and two lay wounded.

 

Later that day, Vang was arrested without incident by a game warden. When first questioned by local authorities, Vang claimed that one of the two survivors, Terry Willers, did the killings (including murdering his own daughter).

 

However, investigators quickly ruled that scenario out after examining the scene. Vang then recanted his story and insisted he was fired upon first.

 

During the trial in September of 2005, the two survivors, Terry Willer and Lauren Hesenbeck, described how Crotteau had verbally confronted Vang about trespassing. When Vang started walking away, he removed the scope from his rifle, turned around and opened fire on the hunters. As some of them scattered, Vang reversed his orange jacket to camouflage, chased them down and shot them in the back.

 

Vang's courtroom account of the incident was virtually the same, except he testified that Crotteau shouted racial slurs at him, thereby disrespecting him and deserving to die. He also claimed that someone fired a shot at him first. Both Willer and Hesenbeck denied under oath that anyone had fired a shot at Vang.

 

According to his own testimony, Vang had reloaded three times and fired more than 20 rounds.

 

Robert Crotteau, 41, construction business owner -- dead (shot once in the back)

Joey Crotteau, 20, construction worker (Robert Crotteau's son) – dead (shot four times in the back)

Denny Drew, 55, car salesman – dead (shot once in the chest)

Allan Laski, 43, lumber yard manager – dead (shot three times in the back)

Marl Roltd, 28, auto mechanic – dead (shot once in the head)

Jessica Willers, 27, nurse (Terry Willer's daughter) – dead (shot twice in the back)

Terry Willer, 47, construction worker – wounded (shot in the neck)

Lauren Hesenbeck, 48, car dealership manager – wounded (shot in the shoulder)

 

It took the jury only three hours to return six first-degree murder verdicts. Vang was sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole, the maximum penalty available in Wisconsin.

 

Vang had lived in the United States for more than 20 years, had been hunting since 1992 and had previously been chased off of private property for trespassing. He knew the rules but chose to ignore them.

 

I have eight acres in Arkansas and previously owned six acres in Arizona. In both places, I've been forced to chase armed intruders (hunters) off my property, even though the property was posted and I lived there.

 

Inconsiderate hunters put rural property owners in an awkward, dangerous position when they trespass without permission. Irresponsible behavior by idiots toting dangerous weapons with the capacity to launch a bullet a great distance with deadly results is a nightmare for those of us who enjoy living far from the maddening crowd.

 

Chai Soua Vang will rot and die in prison, probably still demanding to be respected.

 

But respect is not something you're entitled to – it's something you earn.

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Quote for the Day -- "After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral -- When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut." Will Rogers

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Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and the ghost of Terry Hawkins.

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On August 18, 2000, Jean Beliveau celebrated his 45th birthday. His small neon-sign business had gone bankrupt, so he decided to run around the world to try to escape the emotional pain in his life.

 

"Stupid is as stupid does." Forest Gump

 

He left his home in Montreal, Canada, and ran all the way to Atlanta, Georgia. At that point, he continued his trek, but at a slower pace, walking instead of running.

 

Over the next 11 years, Beliveau walked 46,600 miles, across 64 countries.

 

He started out with $4,000 in his pocket. But as he travelled, his girlfriend continued financial support, sending him about $4,000 each of the 11 years.

 

Along the way, Beliveau was mugged in South Africa, ate insects in Africa and snakes in China, was escorted by soldiers in the Philippines, spent a night in jail in Ethiopia (for no apparent reason) and went through 53 pairs of shoes.

 

Occasionally, he slept under bridges and in homeless shelters. But most of the time it was strangers who supplied much of his food and places to sleep.

 

"It was the poorest people who gave me the most," Beliveau declared. "I knocked on the doors of the privileged, asking them and they refused. Some even threatened me. The poor shared what they had."

 

Not surprising -- those who lust for luxury and bling-bling usually don't want to share it with others. But those who are content (sufficient) with modest surroundings are often willing to help others in need. It's human nature -- greed is based on fear and the acquisition of possessions becomes of primary self-importance to those who never seem to have enough personal wealth.

 

At some point along the way, his girlfriend, Luce Archambault, suggested to Beliveau that he could use his adventure to promote non-violence toward children (in support of a United Nations proclamation).

 

Beliveau returned to square one (Montreal) on October 17, 2011. It would become the longest uninterrupted walk around the world.

 

Pardon my cynicism, but hiking for 11 years around the entire planet to promote non-violence against children is a lot like masturbating 1,000 times to end world hunger -- it makes no sense and it smacks of self-indulgence.

 

Accomplishing the task was quite remarkable, but don't spoil it by trying to mold yourself into a hero. You did it because you chose to escape your problems rather than overcome them, not because you had any intention of healing mankind.

 

During my mid life crisis many moons ago, I once had 22 shots of whiskey to promote world peace -- apparently, it didn't work.

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Quote for the Day -- "Everything is within walking distance if you have the time." Steven Wright

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Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where running away from problems usually creates additional problems.

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