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A friend of mine writes:

“Sitting with our Mother, my 3 brothers and I, holding her hands and telling her she can go now. I have fixed her hair, applied full make up, donned her most beautiful robe.

She hasn’t opened her eyes in 3 days.

Although while turning her over to change the bedding I rammed her head into the railing of the bed. Lets just say she can FEEL pain! It didn’t help that I did the same thing to the other side of her head as well.

And when clipping her toenail, I cut her toe! I don’t mean to do these things.

She told me once, ‘Colleen, you only hurt the ones you love. Please Dear, stop loving me so much!’

I tried Mama…I did.”

After reading her pained prose, I was transported back to the early evening my mom died. The memory brought with it an old pang of guilt that I thought I’d laid to rest years ago.

Alas, no.

Everyone was gathered around her bed, her tiny frame curled on her right side, when I suggested we reposition her so she could see everyone. None of use were certain that Mom could see by this time, but we all knew she could hear us.

After telling her we were all there, and that we were going to move her, Deirdre and took her bed sheets and as gently as possible, used it to roll her onto her back. That’s when the dreaded moment began — her heart went into a compensating state, rapidly increasing in its beating.

Within three minutes, she began de-compensating — her heart failing, each spike on the overhead monitor becoming longer and longer between sounds. Then there was silence, that awful, gut-wretching forever silence that one know means there’s no return.

For the longest time afterwards, I emotionally beat myself in every way possible, convinced that she’d have lived longer had I not suggested moving her onto her back. While still feeling guilty, I do realize she was simply waiting for us all to gather to say good-bye before she left this physical world for the next.

So, yes, sometimes we do hurt the one’s we love — but most times, especially in situations like this — we also hurt ourselves unnecessarily. In the end, all I can say is that Mom knows we did our best for her in her passing minutes, and both she and God loves us anyway.

Word up for the Washoe County, the Nevada state and the Republican National Committees: the Democrats are kicking your arses when it comes to campaigning. Really!

Case in point, I work for a 50,000 watt radio station, which during the day covers most of Nevada and eastern California and at night blasts from Canada to Mexico, with hourly live newscasts.  Yet, none of you pin-heads are calling our news department to ask for interviews.

Well guess what? Your competitors are, and they’re sending fairly well-known names our way to get their message out.

Yeah, names like David Crosby and Stephen Nash. They’ve offered us interviews with folks like Marisa Tomei, Ice Cube and the vice-president’s son Beau, too.

Last week, our state held its 148^th birthday bash in Carson City. The RNC had John Ratsenberger, Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer out pumping hands and kissing babies on behalf of the candidates, but did anyone call the largest radio signal in Reno for a news interview?

That would be a big, fat, no!

No wonder Nevada is being carried by your competitors – you’re too busy bickering among yourselves, with those still carrying a torch for Ron Paul, to the south refusing to work with the north and the state committee arguing with the national committee. Meanwhile our news department, which prides itself on being non-partisan in its reporting, will continue to use what we get and this includes what your competitors sent us.

Frustrating!

The Republican National Committee is alleging voting machines in Nevada are flawed and improperly casting votes for President Obama. The RNC’s chief counsel says some cases have been reported of votes being placed for Obama when a voter cast a ballot for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

Similar claims were raised in the 2010 U.S. Senate race between Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Sharron Angle.

Nevada’s Secretary of State Ross Miller responds to the charges saying, “Preliminarily, it is nearly technically impossible to pre-program the voting machines in Nevada to vote for a specified candidate because it is not a centralized process and is tested individually by each of Nevada’s 17 counties.”  He also notes the chief counsel did not “provide any direct evidence” that any particular voter experienced ‘errors’ with their voting machines or any contact information to open an investigation.

This means no investigation needed by his office.

Finally, a civil rights group says Reno is one of 30 places where people may be intimidated into not voting. The Advancement Project says it will have staff and lawyers at polling places to aid people having trouble voting, claiming a lack of bilingual poll workers, adding only 29 of 525 the workers are bilingual compared to a 25 percent Spanish-speaking population expected to vote.

The Advancement Project has on its board Gerry Hudson, executive vice-president of  Service Employees International Union and Harry Belefonte, who is also listed as a board member of the progressive think-tank Institute for Policy Studies. Both the Advancement Project and the Institute for Policy Studies have been linked to George Soros, who openly funds progressive-liberal groups through his Soros Fund Management.

Nothing yet from Nevada’s Secretary of State or his office about this.

Early in my career as a radio-music jock at KPOD in Crescent City, I used to sign off every evening with what was known at the time as a “signature song.” I’m not sure if there are any stations left anymore that allow their talent to do this sort of thing, if there are, I haven’t heard them.

The song I selected was “Wildfire,” by Michael Martin Murphy. He wrote the tune in 1968 with a fellow by the name of Larry Cansler and it appeared on Murphy’s 1975 album, “Blue Sky –Night Thunder.”

The first time I heard the song, I fell in love with it for its imagery —

She comes down from Yellow Mountain
On a dark, flat land she rides
On a pony she named Wildfire
With a whirlwind by her side
On a cold Nebraska night

Oh, they say she died one winter
When there came a killing frost
And the pony she named Wildfire
Busted down it’s stall
In a blizzard he was lost

She ran calling Wildfire [x3]

By the dark of the moon I planted
But there came an early snow
There’s been a hoot-owl howling by my window now
For six nights in a row
She’s coming for me, I know
And on Wildfire we’re both gonna go

We’ll be riding Wildfire [x3]

On Wildfire we’re gonna ride
Gonna leave sodbustin’ behind
Get these hard times right on out of our minds
Riding Wildfire

In a 2008 interview with writer Vernell Hackett, Murphy talked about the origins of the song and the context in which in was written.

“I was working on a concept album called The Ballad of Calico for Kenny Rogers with my friend Larry Cansler. I was in my third year of college at UCLA, but I was living in the mountains in California. I would drive down to Larry’s apartment in Los Angeles and sleep on his floor, because we would work sometimes 22 hours a day on the album.

The night “Wildfire” came to me, Larry went to bed and I went to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. I dreamed the song in its entirety. I woke up and pounded on Larry’s door and said, “Can you come down and help me with this song?”

His wife got up and made us coffee and we finished it in two or three hours.

The song came from deep down in my subconsciousness. My grandfather told me a story when I was a little boy about a legendary ghost horse that the Indians talked about. In 1936, author J. Frank Dobie identified this ghost horse story as the most prominent one in the lore of the Southwest.

We were working on my album Blue Sky – Night Thunder at the time, and my producer Bob Johnson said, “I don’t see how that song will fit in with the rest of the material for that album.”

I asked him if I could record it as an album cut, because I felt very strongly about it.

We recorded the song at Caribou Ranch in Colorado, ten thousand feet up in the Rocky Mountains. After we recorded the song, Bob said, “You know it came out better than I thought it would. Let’s play it for the kitchen staff here and see what they think.”

They loved it, so Bob said, “OK, we’ll release it as the first single.”

I can’t tell you that I understand what the song means, but I think it’s about getting above the hard times. I’ve had people tell me they wish they could ride that mystical horse and get away from their hard times, whatever they are. I also think a lot of it is wrapped up in my Christian upbringing.

In the Biblical Book of Revelation, it talks about Jesus coming back on a white horse. I came to be a Christian when I was five or six years old and I was a cowboy kid with Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, so when the preacher told me that Jesus would come back for me on a white horse, I was all wrapped up in that.

In the ghost story, the horse is a symbol of the Savior, in the same way C.S. Lewis used animals in The Chronicles of Narnia. When I lived in California in the late 60s, a lot of my friends were into the culture of the day—drugs and free sex—and I felt out of place there.

After “Wildfire” came out and was a hit for me, I was able to move back to Texas. So not only was a song I dreamed my most famous song, it also helped me get back to my native state.

People always ask me if I have a horse named Wildfire, and up until a few years I did not. I always said I’d never name a horse after the song. But when I got my Palomino mare, she was exactly what I always dreamed Wildfire to be, so gave her the name to my most famous song.”

Even today, if “Wildfire,” comes on the radio, I find myself belting out the lyrics and painting pictures in my mind from the words as I sing them.

Perhaps you’ve watched the new CBS television series, “Vegas.” The shows main characters Sheriff Ralph Lamb, is based on a real person.

The show depicts his battle with Vincent Savino, a ruthless Chicago gangster who plans to make Las Vegas his own. Dennis Quaid plays Lamb in the series and Michael Chiklis portrays Savino.

Lamb was sheriff for 18 years, longer than any Clark County sheriff. He forged a rural department into an effective urban one, and was largely responsible for merging the sheriff’s office and the Las Vegas Police Department into the single police agency dubbed Metro.

His grandfather died working cattle, when a horse bucked him off. Later, Lamb’s father met the same fate in 1938, while working as a pick-up rider during Tonopah’s July 4th rodeo.

The deceased Lamb left 11 children, one so young that the father died with a telegram in his pocket announcing the boy’s birth. The future sheriff was only 11.

Lamb served in World War II in the Pacific with Army intelligence. He aspired to become a FBI agent, but the family’s immediate need for income put college out of the question even with the GI Bill.

So he hired on as a Clark County deputy sheriff and soon became chief of detectives.

Lamb departed the force in 1954 to form a detective agency with another ex-policeman. Their best-known client was Howard Hughes.

Lamb ran for sheriff in 1958 against Butch Leypoldt, and lost. But in 1961, when Leypoldt was named to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the Clark County Commission appointed him to the unexpired term.

He won the election to a full term in 1962.Lamb’s administration brought in a modern crime lab, a mobile crime lab, and the city’s first SWAT team, which was kept secret until one of its snipers killed a bank robber who was threatening to shoot a hostage.

His most important contribution was helping form the Metropolitan Police Department. In the early 1970s, both the Las Vegas Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff’s Department struggled with jurisdictional problems.

People called the wrong agency to report crimes in progress, delaying police response. Both agencies were strapped for staff, yet used a lot of it duplicating record-keeping and administrative functions.

Unlike most efforts at consolidation, the Metro legislation slid through the Nevada Legislature with ease, and Lamb ended up in charge of the joint agency. Most people attributed that to Lamb’s political muscle, since  his brother Floyd was a senator and his younger brother Darwin a county commissioner.

One of Lamb’s efforts at efficiency, however, helped cost him the post that seemed made for him. It was called the Task Force, and was an élite unit of experienced officers, handpicked by Lamb himself.

If burglars became particularly aggressive, the Task Force set up sting operations buying stolen goods and then busting the sellers. Then it moved on to attack some other kind of crime.

It made life miserable for crooks. When a hotel building boom brought in a new crop of hoods trying to gain a foothold in casinos, Task Force officers identified and kept track of them.

Lamb believed it worked like a charm. But many of his officers hated it, seeing the Task Force as an arrogant outfit, hogging the glory and leaving the real work to everybody else.

Then there was Joe Blasko. A controversial Las Vegas officer known for beating up suspects — one died — Blasko ended up in Metro’s organized crime unit after the merger. In 1978 he was accused of leaking information to mob boss Tony Spilotro, and Lamb fired him, but the damage was done.

The longtime sheriff was also weakened by his 1977 indictment for income tax evasion. The IRS attempted to prove Lamb spent more money than he earned as sheriff in such activities as building a home, complete with guest house and horsemanship facilities; proving it would mean Lamb had concealed income and evaded the taxes on it.

They also tried to prove certain loans, including one for $30,000 from casino owner Benny Binion, were never meant to be repaid and were, therefore, taxable income. However, U.S. District Judge Roger D. Foley acquitted Lamb of all charges.

He said the IRS had failed to prove that anybody paid for the building materials, so they probably were gifts, not subject to taxation. Similarly, said Foley, it was up to the government to prove that Binion’s loan was never repaid, and it failed to do so.

But Lamb was politically wounded, and didn’t recover. The following year he lost a bid for re-election, by a landslide, to his former vice-squad commander, John McCarthy.

He made another bid in 1994 but lost.

There is no such thing as coincidence. Everything happens for a reason and in its season.

Take for instance the removal of Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette, the commander of the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group from his ship – mid deployment – and sent back to the homeport in Washington state.  The Stennis deployed from Bremerton, four months ahead of schedule, in late August to maintain a dual-carrier presence in the Middle East.

The U.S. Navy won’t say why, but there seems to be a lot of guessing.

The top guess is there was some sort of sexual misconduct, or personal misconduct involving alcohol.  Sources close to the situation both on the ground in Libya and in Washington, D.C. say, it more than likely has something to do with Benghazi.

This falls in line with reports urgent requests from the CIA annex for military back-up were called for during the attack, but the CIA was directed to “stand down.” Furthermore, these sources independently suggest Gaouette moved the fleet closer to Libya during the Benghazi attack, preparing to launch armed aircraft for air support – against orders.

Again, this is speculation. Neither the Navy, nor the Pentagon will discuss the case.

A Caliphate is the first system of government established in Islam where officials govern according to Sharia or religious law. With that said, on September 9th, 2012, Israel’s Home Front Defense Minister Avi Dichter warned that the Muslim Brotherhood has co-opted the “Arab Spring” with the goal of creating a “caliphate” to span the Middle East.

“What started in Tunis and continued in Egypt is ongoing in Syria, and will threaten Jordan and other Arab countries,” Dichter said. “The Brotherhood already has an outpost in the Palestinian territories, in the form of Hamas.”

However, it could be coming to a neighborhood near you.

A 2001 raid in Switzerland uncovered an Islāmic plan on infiltrating, subverting and ultimately defeating the U.S. and its Allies. Eighty file boxes full of evidence, submitted during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial, and are still being withheld by the Department of Justice.

During the trial, brought by the Justice Department in 2007 and again in 2008, it was found the “charity” had funneled more than $12 million to the terrorist organization, Hamas. Prosecutors were able to convict five Islamists, including a founding board member of CAIR.

Strangely, “subject matter experts” were later called in who said the documents were inadmissible as evidence. These experts have yet to be identified and the grounds on which they based their conclusion explained.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration, which has had visits from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Whit House, continues to stonewall Congresses requests to release the documents. Furthermore, the blueprints show how American-Islāmic operatives from groups such as the Council on American-Islāmic Relations (CAIR) and the Islāmic Society of North America (ISNA) have been able to subvert both the U.S. and Israel.

For instance, Dr. Nabi Fai, director of the Kashmiri-American Council, exposed as a member of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a Pakistani intelligence agency officially listed by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, received over $1 million from the Pakistani government to give to the various political campaigns. In the end, he contributed to the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Senator Dick Durbin among others.

Then there’s Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remarks to the United Nations General Assembly. He stated the present global, democratic leadership represented an oppressive international world order.

“The current world order is discriminatory and based on injustice,” he said. “There is no doubt that the world is in need of a new order and a fresh way of thinking, an order in which man is recognized as God’s supreme creation.”

Remember — Senator Joe McCarthy is still demonized for sounding the alarm about Communist infiltration within the U.S. – and he was eventually proved right.

Let me bitch and complain for a bit. It’ll make me feel better – promise.

Generally, I’d write about this sort of crap in my personal journal, but not today. Nope, this time I’m gonna publically shame me – or so I think.

After getting up this morning, I weighed myself.  I’m a hefty two-hundred and five pounds.

My first thought, “Holy shit!”

For years I’ve been battling a broken lower back, so exercise is difficult. Walking is even a strain on my vertebrae.

But I know I must do something – anything – which is better than nothing and nothings the one thing I’ve been doing the most.  But not today – I went for a stroll around the local neighborhood park.

In my youth, grade school through high school and even into my 20’s I was fast. At one point my top speed was clocked at 26.8 miles per hour.

I doubt I could go any faster than 6 miles an hour, if tested.

As a kid, I did a lot of running. In fact I could go for hours and hours and never realize how far I’d gone.

But that was running without a real purpose. I was jus’ a kid at play, having fun and doing what ever I could to keep from working my chores.

In track, I enjoyed the sprint, 100 and 220 yard dash and the 440 Relay. Long distant running was not my forte , as I saw it as work – and ask any long-distant runner – they’ll agree it is work.

When I was in the service, I could walk miles on end, hour-after-hour, through any weather condition, over any terrain. Today, though I found that walking half-a-mile or less in five-inch tall grass is an effort.

It wore me out, causing spasms in my lower back, so severe; I had to stop after one lap. Then I sat in my truck for 15 minutes waiting for the pain to subside.

But all is well that ends well – I’m home now — enjoying a Guinness Dark Draught.

 

Nevada needs to keep the Federal Government out of its business.  The state’s legalization of gambling in March of 1931 helped transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination during the Great Depression.

But to many that’s ancient history. And jus’ last week I reported:

“Governor Brian Sandoval is backing efforts for a federal law to regulate online poker, saying Internet gambling goes beyond what individual states can regulate, which is a split from the National Governors Association. Sandoval said the legislation is worth considering as Nevada would stand to gain if Internet poker is legalized.”

There is no need to involve the Federal Government and it’s over-use of regulations in Nevada’s quest to become the center of online gaming around the world. It’s obvious that Sandoval, a former federal Judge, Attorney General, and Gaming Commission Chairman and state legislator doesn’t understand or even grasp the concept of the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Give free enterprise an opportunity to succeed.

One day Bluejay saw Deer mixing some mush for her family. Now Deer had broken her leg and was allowing the marrow to run into the acorn mush.

When Bluejay tasted this mush she found it delicious. She thought she had learned something, and went home very proud.

The next morning, when she mixed her mush, she broke her own leg, too. But, unfortunately to her grief, instead of marrow, blood ran into the mush.

When Bluejay saw she was not successful, she got very angry. In a fit of rage she pulled her tail feathers out and put them on her head.

As a result of this temper tantrum, Bluejay has worn a topknot ever since.