My father passed away on this day, February 11th, 2009.

I find it difficult to believe that his passing occurred two years ago.

My wife and I received the call from my brother a short time after 3:30 in the morning — when my father had died.

I thought that the pain would gradually go away and, to a degree, it has.

Yet, on the other hand, his passing is as fresh to me now as then.

He was a member of The Greatest Generation. Those who made so many major sacrifices for our great nation, kept us safe in our beds, and kept the country uninvaded. Their incredible sacrifices. Though they didn’t necessarily want to do so. He fought in B-17s. He trained in B-25s. It was almost the perfect triumvirate: his brother Jim signed up for the Army; his youngest brother Bill enlisted in the Navy (and had the USS Yorktown sink underneath him). My father went for the Army Air Force.

If you want to digest the quintessential document of sacrifice, read “With The Old Breed” by Eugene B. Sledge. Astounding. Simply astounding. Or perhaps the superior (but lesser read) Bert Stiles book: “Serenade To The Big Bird.”

They didn’t want to be there, they feared, they wanted to run away. And yet they persevered.

God bless you, Dad.

I think about you every day.

And I write this post through a film of tears. My throat constricts. I still miss you terribly.

You would have been 91 this year.

BZ

[Both photos are not prototypical; they are of my father as an instructor, and in flight school. Click photos to expand. -BZ]

I would deign to suggest the only “mental retards” are in the video. However, evidently perfectly emulating their Idol, Mr Obama, they are likewise resoundingly Tone Deaf and have yet to determine the temper of the times.

The Left want to raise the debt ceiling and, at the same time, won’t consider real budget cuts. The United States budget expires on March 4th.

Simultaneously, the GOP seems to be, overall, remarkably silent on the matter. I don’t see McConnell and Boehner calling for radical cuts or the outright elimination of cabinet positions. So far, only $32 billion dollars have been put up for cuts. Less than 1% of the proposed budget. Less than 1%. That is, budgetarily speaking, a globule of phlegm in the bucket.

This is occurring whilst, at the same time, Mr Obama is attempting to project himself as more the “centrist” — I’m sure you’ve been reading all the media hype about Mr Obama The Centrist, centrist here, centrist there, all over the DEM/MSM. As Politico writes, Mr Obama is indeed playing the media like a perfect Stradivarius. And some voters are buying it.

Mr Obama, the New and Improved Centrist. Perhaps he did learn something from Willie J.

But again, GOP, myself and many of my fellow bloggers — and the recent November voters — are broadcasting in what I call “the clear.” And the message is clear. Those in DC need not only to stop the spending, but to start the cutting. NOT raising a budget isn’t a “budget cut” as portrayed by politicians. A cut is a cut. Nothing less will do.

There are those who are saying and writing that a failure to increase the debt ceiling will cause the American economy to completely collapse.

George Will said:

I know of no other developed nation that has a debt ceiling. This is a purely recurring symbolic vote to make people feel good by voting against it.

The trouble is it’s suicidal if you should happen to miscalculate and have all kinds of people voting against it as a symbolic vote and turn out to be a majority. Because if the United States defaults on its sovereign debt, the markets will be — well, it will be stimulating.

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in January: “The debt ceiling is not something to toy with. If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.” Goolsbee also noted that the impact of blocking a debt ceiling raise on the economy would be “catastrophic” and would bring on “a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008.”

The sky would indeed fall.

Concurrently, we all know that the Debt Bomb has been hurled from the national bomb bay, and it is set to impact at some point. There is no avoiding it.

The bomb is falling, but those politicians on the ground, instead of seeking mitigation or firing a Patriot missile or utilizing the CIWS, are instead gazing longingly at their own navels, rife with corruptive lint. They know, by the way: they have their own bomb shelters into which they shall duck, and will predominantly not be harmed. They have “theirs.” YOU are on your own.

All of this reminds me of a divided group of passengers aboard the RMS Titanic arguing as to how to arrange the deck chairs for proper aesthetic visual impact, whilst the bow drops precipitously into the Atlantic.

And still: the House will vote, next week, on possible blockage to funding ObamaKare. The House, of course, won’t have the requisite courage. Votes votes votes! Perceptions!

Curiouser and curiouser, I say.

Question: do we raise the debt ceiling, or do we refuse and risk “Armageddon”?

BZ

I hadn’t thought about this in a while, but comments made by some men I recently overheard made me want to archive my thoughts on the subject.

Whilst conducting my solo afternoon repast at a popular and trendy lunch spot last week (most of their food sucks and is fit for miniscule herbivores; the soup, however, is great when it’s cold outside), I chanced to overhear a group of men — sotto voce — offer their comments on a young blond woman who had just entered the establishment and joined the line to order.

Before we proceed with the comments, I should care to delineate the nature of both parties: the men, young, in their mid-to-late twenties and — the woman — in her early 30s, about 5’9″ tall, with very long blond hair, attractively curled down to the small of her back, very thick and purposely, perfectly casual, with Revos, French-manicured white nails, pouty lips and — in your writer’s humble opinion — rail thin.

This chick had no hips, no thighs, no calves, no breasts — but was exquisitely tanned with, admittedly, beautiful hair. At her estimated 5’9″ height, I would guess she weighed perhaps 100 or 105 pounds — at most.

She was about as appealing — to me — as a 6-foot chunk of Douglas Fir, standard or better.

She did have, as I observed, veins throughout the exposed portions of her body: on her hands, on the tops of her feet, on her exposed arms. The cheeks on her face were drawn, with high and fashionable cheekbones, though she had no cheeks on her ass to speak of. When she turned her neck, vertical lines appeared under her prominent jaw.

She reminded me of a significantly-taller Holly Hunter whilst playing “Saving Grace.” Check here:

The table of dudes oooh’d and aaaah’d over her overall approach. They whispered amongst themselves excitedly.

Frankly, she turned my stomach. If I wanted a living female example of Gray’s Anatomy, or Bodies, The Exhibition — then I’d choose her. Absent that, I couldn’t be more repulsed.

I want my women with curves. And I submit this: the bulk of American Men want their women with curves as well.

Unfortunately, most American Women don’t realize this and/or don’t listen to what their men say.

Women are held to a Standard that WOMEN set for themselves — not what MEN want.

Men DON’T want “Twiggy”:

They don’t want their women to look like Dachau survivors.

I am proud to say that all of my former girlfriends and wives weren’t rails. They were actual women and exhibited their womanly traits. They were the prototypes of their gender, to their credit. No matter what they think of me or me of them, I cannot dispute that they were more “woman” than the bulk of their peers. They were and are exceptional.

Again, no matter what they think of me.

My wife is no less.

She and my former girlfriends/wife possess the Classic Hourglass Figure.

I loved them and adored them because of it. I didn’t try to remake them. I accepted them then and now for who they were/are/shall be.

No one is perfect. Least of all me.

But the “ideal” that is promulgated by American and Euro Media? That is a standard that can’t be matched by mortal humans. Which results in skewed anticipations on both sides of the aisle.

I love my women with curves.

Real Men want Real Women with curves.

Plain and simple.

BZ

In truth, it was a hard-fought and close game. There were a number of times when I believed the game could go to either team.

P.S.