Mt. Elbert Summit

I'm climbing the stairs of a small hotel in Colorado and have my own version of why this town is called Leadville. My feet feel like lead as I climb only one story into the thin air of a town that is already 10,300 feet above sea level. This is really not fun, I think with some irony.  I've come here to hike to the highest point in Colorado and The Rockies: Mt. Elbert. To summit a 14er as they say out here, because it's one of 53 Colorado peaks higher than 14 thousand feet above sea level.

It's not fun right now because I just arrived and I recognize the familiar effects of hypoxia: shortness of breath, rapid pulse, a dull ear to ear headache and some slight tunnel vision. That is, a narrowing of my field of vision due to less oxygen getting to the eyes.

I've experienced mild hypoxia many times before. In the military as part of training in a high-altitude chamber, nearly every time skiing, and two years ago in Cusco, Peru - a city at about the same elevation as Leadville. Cusco was an acclimation stop on the way to hiking Machuu Pichuu. I spent about two days there getting used to the high altitude, and it was pretty much the same: Feeling like crud, pushing the limit of Ibuprofen dosage and laying in bed a lot. But by day three of loafing around Cusco, I was feeling pretty good and ready for a five day hike in the Andes mountains.

On this evening on the last day of September, I am in Leadville, once again feeling altitude sick. I crash into bed and think with a little dread about the hike I have planned for the next day: 4000 vertical feet to a summit in about 4.5 miles. It is not technical. That is, no mountain climbing skills required. Just a heavy tread on comfortable shoes, 2 liters of water in a small pack and a desire to keep walking up into thin alpine air. 

In spite of plenty of the vitamin-I and water, my headache will not go away. Monday Night Football is on but I can't watch to the end. Even with tunnel vision, the Dolphin's offense tonight is not easy to watch, and I reach for the remote's off button. Maybe a long stretch of sleep will help.

36 hours ago, I came up with the simple plan: ride my motorcycle from my parent's house in Texas to Leadville and climb to the top of Mt Elbert. It is perfect fall weather for Colorado. Mountain temperatures in the 70's and the aspen leaves are aged and golden. There is newborn snowpack in silver-white vertical streaks from summits to timberline across the Sawatch Range - the region's highest peaks, roughly in the center of the state.

At 3 and 5 am I wake up again. Still noticeably hypoxic: a headache, and my pulse will not slow down. I've just about convinced myself that summiting a mountain today is out of the question and I half-sleep until almost 8 o'clock. Spending an extra day or two here is also impractical. I check out and pack up the motorcycle for a ride back to my home in Phoenix.

Like the Colorado weather, my attitude changes quickly during a double espresso in a downtown coffee shop. The headache of a few hours ago is nearly gone and I think that maybe the faster pulse is just caffeine and adrenaline. The decision quickly snaps the other way - go and climb the thing - or at least go as far as you can. You can't just say you came all the way to the Rockies to sleep in a Leadville hotel.

Three hours later I am well into climbing Mt. Elbert. The headache is gone and the other effects of high altitude are barely noticed except for one: short breath. I can respirate quickly and get enough oxygen to move one foot in front of and above the other. Just not for very long, and this is how it goes for most of the trek. I've spent the first hour hiking steadily and hardly stopping. Now I pause to rest and admire the view every 20-30 steps. Near the summit, it will be every 10 or so.

There are other climbers around and I can't help but compare my progress to theirs. I'm sure there are locals and ultra-trekkers who can easily race to the top. Thankfully, none are around today. I am not passed, nor do I pass by anyone. Slow and steady seems to be the common strategy for today's challengers of Elbert.

Did I say the weather in Colorado changes quickly? Exception this day. It is cool, clear and perfect. Not even much of a breeze to contend with as I march toward the top. I've left the forest of bristlecone and limber pine below at 12,000 feet. Now I'm looking at an exposed terrain of glacier-carved pinnacles patched with snow. The colors are grey shades to darkblood red, and everywhere scattered rocks, boulders and flatirons waiting to someday to rise, fall or both. Between them are layers of alpine grass matted by generations of snowpack and wind.

At 2:15 I arrive at a smooth peak on the mountain that I have been looking up at for 30 minutes. But it is a "false summit." I see more climbing needed along a bouldered ridge line to the real thing. It looks depressingly far away but my sense of scale is wrong. The silhouette of a hiker nearing the top rises from a shadow. I realize I am only 5 minutes or so from success. The step up and rest cycle continues just a few more times.

Two other climbers are nearby and I ask them for quick photo next to a tattered American flag marking the summit. Then I spend a few minutes looking at the other 14er peaks along the Sawatch range. To the north is Mt. Massive, Turquoise Lake, Leadville. To the south, the Collegiate Peaks and in every direction a sky of crisp, cloudless blue.

This early in the season, the snow is just inches thick and it is warm enough to slowly melt. The liquid will fall only one of two ways at this point along the Continental Divide. East to the valley headwaters of the Arkansas river or west to the tributaries of the Colorado. Only one of two ways.

I take a few short breaths and turn back down the trail. Three hours of downhill to go. But I'm smiling and grateful for good weather, health and a choice in a coffee shop that lead this way.

Tailhook 1991 - Another Generation of Bad Reporting

Easier access to what we often call "the news" can lead to dark consequences when those reports under the banner of CNN, Fox and the others lead to simply false narratives.

Here is one grandchild of a false narrative whose bloodline began in 1991:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/21/us/military-suicide-rape/index.html?iref=allsearch

Obviously the events of the world, when they have an aspect that involves improper conduct involving sexual relations, get internet-reader attention. Notice how the writer of the CNN article, Moni Basu, ties together three incidents of the last 22 years to allege a pattern. He includes a loose, drive-by summary of the Tailhook 1991 incidents:

"Two decades ago, at the Navy's "Tailhook" convention in Las Vegas, drunken aviators assaulted female recruits."

You can read about that scandal on Wikipedia, if you're not familiar at all or it's been a while:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailhook_scandal

The Wiki article (which is pretty fair and accurate, by the way) makes no mention of "female recruits," because none were there. This was simply concocted by author Basu as a way of alleging a pattern that ties together incidents in the last three decades involving inappropriate behavior by members of the military in positions of authority.

There is no doubt that sexual assaults occur in the U.S. armed forces and everywhere else in life. They will happen in the military more often because of the closer contact between the sexes in the course of doing their everyday training and jobs. No one should ever condone inappropriate and criminal behavior. When it happens, every effort should be made to stop it and prosecute when appropriate.

Creating false narratives through inaccurate or intentionally deceptive reporting will never, in the end create a positive outcome. Reporters like Moni Basu from CNN owe the millions of readers of his work the benefit of accurate information, especially when facts are so easily found on internet sources.

Wikipedia doesn't always get everything right. But it can be a great source of screening out anything that is so obviously wrong.

Coffees and Triggers

I'm writing this in a Salt Lake City Starbucks. According to the company's CEO, Howard Schultz, this is not a 'gun-free zone." He would just rather you not bring your guns inside the stores whether you have the legal right to or not.

This is, I suppose, the most recent example of a business owner dancing on the head of a pin when it comes to wide-ranging public opinions on a very controversial subject and making money. There are so many ways to fall these days, I honestly don't know how some of these guys do it.

I get no comfort from his altruistic request. Everyone around me seems so very pleasant and civil and isolated into his or her own world. This is a wonderful thing. 150 years ago, a group of people sitting within a building in the American West would be doing many of the same things happening around me now. Eating, drinking, reading, talking. Some or most would have one other thing on their minds that we don't think about much anymore except occasionally when reading the awful stories about Newtown or the Navy Yard: self-protection.

We have evolved and civilized to a point where a place like Starbucks seems like the safest place in the world. Because it generally is. A citizen of the West in the 1860's, on the other hand, would always be slightly occupied with these thoughts: where might the enemy come from? where is my weapon? is it ready to fire?

Not here, not today though in 2013. The enemy is a million to one odds away and we are very happy and comfortable in soft chairs with expensive coffee drinks. He is out there, though. Raging quietly somewhere about a perceived injustice or blasting away thousands of computer generated humans on a video screen for hours at a time, considering the real thing. The fact that one of these monsters doesn't walk through the front door right now is simply bitterly good luck.

My safety at this moment is not based on access to a concealed weapon, because I don't have one. My choice, completely. It is based on very long odds in a very free society and my location. Another mass shooting on another military base will probably lead to another law or two. But it won't help other citizens of this country who live in places where guns are fired and people die every single night.

Decisive Action. Maybe. Sort Of

Crisis averted last night, I suppose. 'Peace in our time' as an infamous prime minister said after meeting a madman seven decades ago.

One thing that should be clear about this entire fiasco is that the Syrian government in place has and will continue to destroy property and kill people in the civil war. If they don't, they will lose and be destroyed themselves.

The necessary distraction has been created for them to remain. The world will focus on a probably false-commitment of agreeing to give up some of their arsenal (chemical munitions) while the Russians strengthen the position of Assad and his henchmen. Advantage, barbarians.

Two years ago, Obama said that this dictator "must go." Now it seems probable that our current president will be gone first.

I listened to a lot of commentary on both sides after Obama's speech last night. Here is one thing the president's supporters seemed unable to explain: If our position is righteous (implicit) and congressional approval is necessary (stated by the president), then why not have a vote anyway? An approval of force resolution wouldn't automatically make bombs fall out of the sky. Obama could win the legislative approval and still choose not to strike. He could say that thanks to John Kerry's diplomacy, cool heads have won the day. The country would be relieved that no one dies with our weapons. The right would think we still look strong. The left would be happy with peace at any price. Everyone would win. Well, everyone except the average Syrian.

The sad answer to this question is that Barack Obama could not convince the majority of Congress to trust him with a military strike. Not in this place. Not at this time. So we are left with what we had last night. A fairly persuasive argument to punish a foreign government for very bad behavior. Just not right away. Maybe soon. Or never. Hard to say.

Watching the president's speech for the first half was admittedly, inspiring. Then, it seems as if, in the middle of it all, we were told, "You know what? Hold on a second. Let me get back to you on all this..." Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC finally got off the media hamster wheel for a moment by suggesting the whole thing was a little "schizophrenic."


This will change to the other direction, someday. Maybe by a future president who is much more averse to tying his own policies in knots through delay, indecisiveness and abject ignorance. The tragedy is that this future leader may be wrong next time but being desperate not to look weak like a certain predecessor, he or she chooses to lead us rapidly into a genuine abyss.



“Almost all things have been found out, but some have been forgotten.” - Aristotle

Invitations and Choices

Opening up the mailbox these days can be an occasionally jarring experience. Just as I'm getting used to regular invitations from AARP to join that over 50 club, I recently noticed a letter from a different organization offering membership: the United States Marine Corps. Except it wasn't sent to me. It was addressed to my son, who just turned 17.

I examined the envelope. It was smartly designed and inviting to a young man beginning to think about his future - with offers of free gifts just for talking to a recruiter. It reminded me of an advertisement I'd seen for the Army almost 40 years ago in Boys Life magazine. I remember it vividly to this day. Nothing in the ad looked like the army. No olive drab. No tanks. No rifles. Just a full page ad showing twelve pictures of one guy kissing twelve different girls. "With the Army's delayed enlistment program, you now get 12 months to say goodbye." Hey. Sign me up. Except I was only 14, so those girls and the army would have to wait.

I can't say for certain that reading those pages led me toward serving in the military, but they probably helped. By 1982, my first year in college, I was on my way to becoming an officer and completed Army basic airborne parachute course.

I would go on to finish several programs of military training over the next 13 years. But something special stands out in my thoughts of that first school and those three weeks in the heat of North Georgia. I'd never seen anything like it before. All I remember of day one was green and yelling and sweat and a towering First Sergeant that didn't like the length of anyone's hair. I was hooked and though I switched from Army to Navy, I went on to serve in the military until 1995.

One thing that is striking about that Army ad from Boy's Life is that it would never get published today. Not with the political correctness running rampant through the military and Washington DC these days. There is a near pathological effort to deny the reality that males and females in close working situations develop bonding relationships that can go beyond military tasking or mission. Of course there are rules that prohibit this. But it happens anyway. Add in the off-duty time, parties and alcohol and you get what we have today. Much more opportunity for physical and sexual contact which will obviously turn into both real and falsely alleged assaults. What happens to senior officers who point this out? Who talk about a culture of "hooking up" in the civilian world that they see happening around their own kids? These officers and opinions are carpet bombed with expressions like "blaming the victim." U.S Senators, representatives and talk show hosts grow livid and see this as another battle in the so-called "war on women."

So what do I say to my own kids if they are considering serving in the military? I suppose there will have to be a good conversation there. Issues such as sacrifice, hard work, commitments away from family will be discussed. But also the topics of career choices, alcohol, fraternization, and ultimately, is this best for you?

I've thought about this a lot. Experienced several years around a military that is evolving to include females in many more roles. We are moving toward a day when they will be allowed in every combat role. At that point, we will have to decide that, as a nation, if the draft is again necessary, will we include women? In equal proportions to men? Will we really want to fight that way? My guess is the answer will be, no. The policies will change. Quickly- because there are enemies of America out there who will not go to war with the same equal opportunity theories that we are now obsessively embracing. They will simply want to see us die - in numbers that will be higher because we were less prepared that we maybe should have been.

I think less about the question are my son and daughter ready for the military, than is the military ready for them? Will the skills they need to survive a battle be effectively taught, or will time be squandered with instruction on "diversity appreciation" or "how to recognize and prevent harassment?" If and when they sign up and get a little time to say goodbye, can we all say to them that the training they get will focus on just two things: winning the fight and returning home safely?

Asiana 214 - How About No Comment

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/epic-ktvu-fail-anchor-reports...

"When you think about automation, it can do a lot, it can assist the pilots. But there are two pilots in the cockpit for a reason" - Deborah Hersman / National Transportation Safety Board, this week

"Tim, there is a trash can in the kitchen for a reason." - My mom, 1972

Anyone who has ever followed aircraft accident investigations since the birth of cable TV and the 24 hour news cycle should know exactly what NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman is doing, and its not just scolding. She is auditioning for her post-government job as an "expert" regarding air-accidents for MSNBC, Fox or one of the other chattering news channels.

There is really no earthly reason to comment or speculate on anything at this point. Volumes of facts are hidden now but will eventually be known. There may be pilot error or there may not. What is sure, though, is that partial conclusions and hints as to the reason for an accident made on a official basis and then repeated/interpreted/twisted by the media will be remembered forever. And that is a tragedy. Because those ideas may be dead wrong and the gift of technologies that lead us to the truth are more than compromised. They are corrupted- all for the sake of a quick answer.

Many months will pass before this accident is figured out. Good people will work very hard to come up with the reason for lives lost and damaged over the weekend. Soon enough, an extraordinarily safe industry will be made even safer.

But in the meantime, along with the victims, other good people may be harmed. Recklessly, because one government official in a highly responsible position wants to someday be another crash-expert-on-call with CNN. Our lawmakers will not stop this. The media, in it's unquenchable thirst for new information, speculation and conclusions, certainly won't either. Especially when those speculations come from the media's food source: the people we are supposed to trust who carry badges, sport large yellow letters on their jackets, and get to be the ultimate deciders of cause. Unfortunate behavior by people who hold the power to ruin lives as quickly as an airplane out of control.

Evening Parade at the Marine Barracks - Washington D.C.

For those not familiar with Evening Parade, let me describe it this way: Very very few of us will ever be able to see what a United States Marine does best. We will never be locked up in an embassy with an angry foreign crowd outside, protected by Marine sentries on duty. We won't be on a foreign beach as the steel and human tide of an amphibious assault commences and The Corps goes to work. We won't stand next to a Marine artillery weapon as it roars and spins salvation over the heads of comrades engaging an enemy downrange. We will never be on the flight-line of a forward airbase as Marine aviators and their support crews launch jets and helicopters into a hostile night sky. We will, in short, probably never be found among the most threatening people and places on earth wanting only to turn towards home while the Marines will head the other direction. Where they are needed most. Toward the fight.

What we are able to do, with a little luck and patience, is attend an event that U.S. Marines arrange, practice and execute very well: Evening Parade.

Every friday evening in the summer at the "oldest Post in the Corps"  Marine Barracks 8th and I, Washington D.C., we are afforded the honor of seeing some of our finest in military uniform: The United States Marine Band, The United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps, the Marine Corps Color Guard, the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon, and Ceremonial Marchers.

It is a ceremony that lasts 90 minutes - from twilight to dark on the parade grounds of the post. It is inspiring to those who currently or have ever served in the military and to everyone else who benefits from the sacrifices of these good men and women. It's been performed since 1934 and on the list of our country's best military demonstrations, it should be the absolute last one that ever goes away. From "Welcome..." to the last note of Taps fading away in the darkness, you will be moved and proud and thankful for all the United States Marines can do.

http://www.barracks.marines.mil/Parades/EveningParade.aspx

Home-Built Micro Smoker

I've already got a gas grill. It works fine. Seemed like a larger container than necessary to smoke foods efficiently, and sometimes I have an afternoon to spend on the porch with charcoal, applewood, beer and a book.

To make a smaller oven for smoking,  I bought two stainless steel chafing dishes from the local catering supply store. A small wire cooling rack fits nicely to hold whatever you are smoking. Cast iron fire box is on the left.

Pre-lit charcoal briquettes and wood are placed in the firebox:

Soon to be dinner is seasoned with some dry-rub. There is foil covering the wood chunk to prevent flames:

A lid made from the other chafing dish, the same size. Two L-brackets and wood from an old broom make the handle. Offset a little for circulation:

Added another wood chunk. Now we're cooking:

A few hours later. Smoker temp just above 200 and meat temp around 140.

The inside is a nice salmon-color and much of the fat is rendered away by the smoking :

A New World of Baby Making

"...it's a buzz kill on dates when you feel compelled to ask the guy sitting across from you, clutching his craft beer, "So do you think you might want kids someday?" 

"In my case, egg freezing gave me the confidence to go back on Match.com at nearly 40 and proudly tell men "I can have kids whenever I want. It feels so nice not to have to rush relationships." Eight months ago, I met a wonderful 45-year-old single dad who wants more kids and wanted to hear all about my frozen eggs. Four hours after meeting at a New York wine bar, we were kissing in Central Park in a warm September foggy mist. I don't know if it is me or the eggs, but I am more relaxed in this relationship than I have ever been in my life."

These quotes came out of a recent Wall Street Journal article by Sarah Richards on the topic of freezing her eggs before committing to a man and having a baby. I thougth it was a fairly provocative essay for the Journal and imagine it got a lot of letters.

When I was a single guy, sitting through those many dates and beers, hardly anyone ever asked me if I might want to have kids some day. Maybe they did consider it a "buzz-kill." Or maybe they simply assumed I was a typical male of the species and (if they thought me worthy) the answer was probably yes. Even when I met the right woman, we only discussed it in the most general terms, ("two would be fine, I guess") before marriage. Then after a couple of anniversaries and in our mid-30's, it seemed like the right time. Today we have a couple of great kids. I think for many or most people it happens this way.

So there was something a little cold and mathematical in that essay by Sarah Richards. She spent a lot of money to delay having a baby from 38 to her mid 40's and relieving the anxiety over it all. Her choice, I guess and that's fine. A lot of us spend money keeping brown in our hair. Thank goodness for a free society with laboratories seeking profit.

How about some more math: If you are close to 50 when the baby is born, are you ready, willing and able to be "the worst parent ever" when they hit those teenage years?  The image of a fifty-something playing catch with his small child is fine and cool but how is it going to be handling teenagers a decade later? I'm in the middle of it now. Those young adults are tough and heartbreaking and wonderful. They are not listening and they truly are. They are as challenging or more than anything I have ever done.

Is well past middle age the best time to be a parent when the going is arguably the toughest? Will you be healthy enough for it? Will you be ready for immersion in the life of a teenager when you are officially a senior citizen?  Will you (and this question should apply to every-age parent) not give up?  I know the answer for many people will be yes.

Talk about that over those glasses of wine. Or at least after you make out. Just some time before the eggs thaw.

Updates on Ted Baze's Condition

July 7,2013
Dad is getting slowly better each day! He is back home now and will celebrate his 79th birthday next week! Thank you very much for checking and sending wishes for better health. We are very grateful for all your friendship and support.

Laundry Room Remodel

The Before Picture

Note the previous owner's use of orange in the room: Formica countertop, cabinet door knobs, pastel paint. Also, it is hard to tell in this picture but the washer and dryer sit about 2" below the rest of the tiled floor. I decided to fill that in to make the entire floor even.

All appliances, cabinets and sink removed. Now it is easier to see the floor below the w&d that I filled in with concrete. About 2 60# bags worth.

Tile installed. New upper cabinets with undermount lighting. Glass mosaic backsplash, Why? About a hundred bucks in materials. Why not?

The after picture. Every bit of orange exterminated

The opposite side of the room. The screen-door-looking-thing is storage for an ironing board.

Lined with cedar so the room smells nice!

Is the US Health Care System Abused?

Of course, most people don't abuse the health care system. Most people don't run red lights, either. For sort of the same reasons. First - it's wrong. That stops 90 percent of us. Second - people don't like risk and if you feel healthy, why chance a bad collision? Why give a doctor the opportunity to say  "I found something wrong"? I get an insurance-covered well check every year, but it is something I'm getting a little cynical about. If I was offered a 'free' checkup for my car at my local repair shop, I'd feel the same way.

Let's talk about another group: the uninsured, emergency room dwellers. They are mostly in very bad shape and this is where the "skin in the game" crowd misses the point.

Sure they have to be taken care of - we have evolved to a level of human decency that demands it.
But the resources to help them are not limitless. Can I please suggest allocating those resources in an efficient way without drawing the ire of  MSNBC and the rest of the "shame on you" class?

I want that person next to me on the bus to be healthy. Period. If she is pregnant, then double my interest in knowing she is healthy. But what if she is having a normal pregnancy and for whatever reason she claims to have pain every month, goes into the emergency room and requests an ultrasound. Every month it is nothing and she keeps coming back.What do we do about people like this? She is not a bad person. Wants the best for her child. I think we can all agree on this. But she can't have all the medical care she wants, either. None of us can.

Can we get away from the "you just hate poor people / no I don't" arguments? The money is available. The best medicines are there. But like it or not, there is a bottom to the well. We need to figure out how to share it and make it last.

Investment Advice

After all, you are on the internet. Is there a better place to find it?

Keeping track of my company's stock price is easy. We all used to do it once a day with a newspaper. Our eyes must have been much stronger to find it printed within the financial section. Now it's just a screen tap or a few keystrokes away.

Beneath those stock quotes on my financial webpage are the "headlines." Actually that word is in capital letters because where else but on the World Wide Web does something that isn't exactly true have to be so conspicuously mis-labeled?

Mixed in with what used to be considered "news" - that is, a reporting of events that are allegedly fact checked and edited - are opinions and what you might have been looking for when you started reading this blog: investment advice.

Check out this article from "Motley Fool" in Friday's 1/25 Yahoo news:

One Company to Avoid...

I found it under the stock quote from my own company: LUV. If you skip through the article to the paragraph discussing Southwest, you will find interesting advice and would doubtless be, a fool to use it.

Apparently the author talked to a few LUV employees in a bar. They expressed their "extreme dislike of the company and the way it treats its workers." Of course we are all entitled to our opinion. But try this next time you are at a party. Tell someone you hardly know that you're really unhappy with your auto mechanic, or doctor or the health club you belong to. Like me, most people might listen patiently for a few minutes. Then try telling us how you feel you're being "mistreated" by these same people or businesses. I'm sorry, but I see my wife waving at me across the room...

Part of my point is this: We all have choices in life. Who you work for is very important . Airline employment is unique in that it is extremely seniority-based. We join one and usually stay on as long as we can. We work less as time passes (more vacation time) and get paid more. Doesn't exactly seem like it makes sense from a management point of view, but that is the system. I guess it works, except when some guy shows us all a chart (from the internet, no doubt) that claims to show that more money has been lost in the history of the entire airline business than made.

The potential to be tied for much of one's working life to one airline is a double-edged sword. Longevity with a quality company makes you a fortunate worker, but it can be a nightmare when the company fails and you are stuck or leave to start over with another.

Which leads me to four or five unhappy employees in the bar. They work for an arguably in-between company at the moment. A lot is changing for them. They get a constant datastream of news and opinions off the internet. One or two may see the world coming to an end. The other three or four take the path of least resistance and nod in agreement. Ever try being the one person being positive in that group dynamic? Most people hardly think it worth the effort.

I have to defend the company I work for. A few years ago I lost a nephew to gun-violence. I needed a couple of days off to attend the funeral. Although my labor contract did not cover leave for a nephew's funeral, my supervisor arranged it. And a couple of weeks later I received a condolence letter from the Southwest CEO. Of course, events happen and decisions are made that negatively affect me as an employee. But mistreated? Are you kidding? Never ever, not even close.

And what about the guy listening to grumpy employees in a bar? I suppose he got what he deserved, wasting a few minutes of his life  - listening to their opinions, digesting them as germane company data and then regurgitating them into a bucket of financial blog. It appeared last Friday in the "HEADLINES" (!) and now gets to float there for a news-less weekend like bad gas in church.

Buy or sell those stocks with all that web-info at your fingertips. Motley Fool is clear that the blogs (like mine) are just opinions and unedited. Read them and use them if you wish. Then head off to the bar and find a tool that is useful (relative to the internet) for stock picking: It's called a dartboard.

Disclosure: I own and regularly buy LUV. Also, in 5 minutes I became a credentialed Motley Fool blogger.

Do You Believe?

Once again, we have been innocently, comically and completely misled by the mainstream media. Thank goodness for the internet. If you haven't read the Deadspin.com article on Manti Te'o, it is an absolute must.

All humans tend to be 'go-along' consumers of news. If it is said and heard enough times with a reasonable tone, we buy it. When it is proven to be untrue and suddenly blows up, nobody can believe they were duped. They swear it won't happen again. Until it inevitably does.

When significant sections of your own government fabricate or perpetuate a dishonest narrative, the ultimate result is a corrosion of our ability to believe anything. Or worse. Do you think every German or Japanese citizen in World War 2 was evil? Of course not. Do you think their leaders did everything they could to make them believe?

My friends on the left are consumed by the idea that our biggest problem right now is access to "assault rifles," lack of federal backgound checks, and high capacity magazines. Ugly images of  "military-style" weaponry conjoin with the horror of the events at Sandy Hook Elementary. Now, they say, our main focus should be to restrict access to tools that efficiently kill. Trouble is, those same tools are designed to defend and whether you like the wording or not, their ownership is afforded protection by our constitution.

Consider 9-11. Not 2001, but 2012. It is a fact that one of our ambassadors and his colleagues were murdered on this sacred anniversary. A week later, a direct representative of our government was publically spinning the story that the violence in Libya that day was a result of a Youtube video. Innocent mistake or lie, it was, we now know, not true. No doubt, though, one more conscious effort to get us all to believe.