Looks like "a pile of trash" to me too

- What's dis yere? A pile of trash?
- NO, fool. Dat be a memorial to Mike Brown, killed by the racist Ferguson police!

- But it sho looks like trash. Look, you can even see where it been burned.
- Hey, dat was an accident. Somebody din't know dat if you puts candles next to teddy bears and balloons, dey gonna burn.

- Well why it lyin' all down da middle ob de street like dat?
- Fool! Din't I tell ya, all dem Ferguson people racist! Some honky done drove his car into de memorial.

Well, I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder. But "a pile of trash" was what it looked like to Officer Timothy Zoll of the Ferguson MO Police Department. At least, that's what he told a reporter for the Washington Post who called what about a tip that the trash had been trashed on Christmas Day by an unsympathetic (and doubtless white) motorist.

The Post  quoted Officer Zoll as saying, "I don't know that a crime has occurred. But a pile of trash in the middle of the street? The Washington Post is making a call over this?"

Seems to Walt like a good question, but the Post characterized the comment as... wait for it... racist. But St. Louis radio station KMOX later reported that Zoll told its reporter he had been misquoted and actually said that the memorial might have been destroyed by a motorist unfamiliar with the area who had mistaken it for a pile of trash.

That explanation didn't wash with the cop's bosses though. They said yesterday that "the officer admitted to Department investigators that he did in fact make the remarks attributed to him, and that he misled his superiors when asked about the contents of the interview."

For his sins of racial insensitivity and political incorrectness, Officer Zoll has now been placed on unpaid leave, while the investigation into the dastardly crime continues. 


City officials were at pains to note that police Chief Thomas Jackson kept investigating the statement even after Officer Zoll initially denied making it. "The City of Ferguson wants to emphasize that negative remarks about the Michael Brown memorial do not reflect the feelings of the Ferguson Police Department and are in direct contradiction to the efforts of City officials to relocate the memorial to a more secure location."

A more secure location? Walt suggests the Ferguson Memorial Sanitary Landfill. And my suggestion has nothing to do with the identity or race of the dear departed who was being "memorialized". It's just that I am sick and tired of seeing these unsightly and pointless "memorials" that pile up on the site of any sudden and public death.

The practice of leaving flowers, candles, teddy bears, balloons, crudely lettered signs and other detritus at the scene of  the accident or crime is maudlin, mawkish and pathetic. Pointless, too.

The only people who are made better off by these empty gestures are the sellers of toys, flowers, candles and what-have-you. For them, a sudden death -- particularly of a child or other "innocent" -- is better than Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Christmas all rolled into one!

I don't know how, where or why this sloppy sentimental nonsense started, but I hope one day we'll see memorials, in the more dignified form of flowers and wreaths, confined to the cemeteries in which the victims are buried. Toys, balloons and suchlike dumped in the city streets deserve to be treated as... well... trash.

FAQs about WWW

Ed. here. The clock on the wall [calendar, surely! Walt] says we're nearing the year-end, so let's dip into the mailbag and answer some of the questions that have piled up since... errr... last time.

Rufus Leaking, of Knockemstiff OH, wants to know, wants to know how to become one of Walt's agents.
Well, Roof, sorry to dampen your enthusiasm, but all of Walt's agents are known to him personally, so first you have to get eyeball-to-eyeball with him -- no easy task now that he's making like a hermit. You might try going to Montréal to take in a Habs game. Walt will be the guy in the red sweater sitting next to the guy in the red sweater, who will be Poor Len Canayen.

Dick Hertz writes from Dinkytown MN, to ask why there aren't more comments following our posts.
That's a good question, Richard -- one which we ask ourselves every day. There are two possible answers. One is that the majority of our "readers" aren't reading so much as looking at the pictures and videos, such as the Swazi girls, the Asia Adult Expo and the guy in the Winnie-the-Pooh outfit.

The other possibility is that people hit the landing page, read the latest posts, and don't know how to open up the "comments" box. Here's how. Click on the headline of the post -- any post -- and that post will open up in a new window (or tab), with the comments box available at the bottom, right below the tags. You can comment as "Anonymous", or with your blog ID, or OpenID, or other IDs. Not difficult at all.

Oh, here's another letter from the same guy... "What happened," he asks, "to the comment I submitted in which I called Walt a 'racist asshole'?"
Well, gee...  couldn't you figure that out? Comments are moderated by, ahem, me! If  you cast aspersions on Walt, Poor Len or even me, I won't publish them. That's my right -- nay, my duty! -- as Editor! Bwuhahahaha... And by the way, if you include a hyperlink to your blog or anything else I don't like, I won't publish that either.

Cy Clone, from Superior Bottom WV, asks if there is any way to contact Walt other than by posting a comment.
Hi Cy! Been talking to Dick, have you? You're welcome to send an e-mail to Walt at the usual address. If you haven't been paying attention, that address would be frereuntel@yahoo.com.

Finally... Gloria Inexcelsis writes from Lick Fork VA, wanting to know if we -- Walt, Len or Ed. -- are real people.
No, Gloria, we're not. But then, who is?

In a PS to her letter, Ms Mundi tells us that she became ill on the local bus on December 15th. Sick transit Gloria Mundi. Hope you're feeling better, dear.

Footnote: The towns and hamlets mentioned are all real. You could look them up...

Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year

Walt, Poor Len [and Ed.]

wish all our readers a

and for 2015

Peace and Prosperity

Book review: "A Better World for All"

"A Better World for All" -- great title for the Christmas season, even better as a resolution for the New Year. But how to achieve a better world for all? Is the power of prayer our only hope? NO! says Ron McPherson, the author of a new book (or booklet -- just 64 pages) bearing the aforementioned title.

A Better World for All is the "Reader's Digest version" of Mr. McPherson's first opus, Freedom's Dawning, reviewed by Walt way back in 2010. See "'Facilitism': a better answer?"

What Mr. McPherson articulates in these books is a modern version of the Utopian ideal propounded nearly five centuries ago by St. Thomas More. Mr. McPherson argues that his system, Facilitism, can deliver to us a world without poverty, with far less stress, free healthcare, free education and... wait for it... no taxes! It will be, he tells us, a healthier world, a friendlier world, a happier world.

Skeptical? Sure. But we've tried everything else -- capitalism, socialism, communism and every combination and variant of those "isms" -- and nothing has worked. But, you may say, isn't capitalism working? Even in one of the few remaining Communist countries, China, they're now practising "capitalism with Chinese characteristics". Whereas in the United States it's socialism with Democratic characteristics. How's that working out?

The root of the problem, Mr. McPherson argues -- indeed, the root of all evil -- is money! [Haven't we seen this movie before? Ed.] Yes, others have said that if there were only more money, everyone would be fat and happy. Major C.H. Douglas, the pioneer of the British "Social Credit" economic reform movement, proposed a "National Dividend" to distribute more money (in the form of debt-free credit) equally to all citizens, to help bridge the gap between purchasing power and prices. This would be coupled with a price adjustment mechanism, which he called the "Just Price", which would forestall any possibility of inflation.

Printing more money turned out to be the wrong answer. In 1936, the Social Credit government of the Canadian province of Alberta, printed "prosperity certificates" in an attempt to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. The federal government took umbrage, saying only it had the right to print (and thus create) money. Canada's Supreme Court agreed and that was that.

But printing money is not Mr. McPherson proposes in A Better World for All. Think about it. Who uses cash money nowadays? The world runs on credit, which is to say, bookkeeping entries made by the banks. The "dollars" created by the Fed, for instance, don't really exist in the form of cash. Can you imagine how many dollar bills it would take to stand for the trillions of dollars in the USA's national debt?

Nor are US dollars back by anything. Once upon a time you could exchange a paper dollar for a silver dollar, or even a (very small) piece of gold. Not any more. It's all credit -- more accurately, debits and credits on bank computers all over the world.

So, Mr. McPherson asks, why don't we just do away with money? It's the kind of question that might provoke a certain amount of skepticism, not to say laughter, but the author thoughtfully provides a methodology for doing just that.

When I say "thoughtfully", I mean that literally. Facilitism is a system that Mr. McPherson has been thinking about and writing about for years. It deserves consideration. Walt recommends that you get A Better World for All -- click here to explore the Facilitism website -- and give it yours.

Meanwhile in France... another Muslim "lone wolf"

It seems to be open season on cops and soldiers, not just in the USA and Canada, but in Europe too. If it's not blacks, it's Muslims...or black Muslims...or Muslim blacks. No wonder they're nervous!

BBC News reports that police in the town of Joue-les-Tours, in central France, shot and killed a black man who attacked them with a knife while shouting "Allahu Akbar!" ("God is great!" in Arabic). The man, a French citizen born in the tiny African country of Burundi, injured three cops before being send to paradise.

Now get this! The BBC's Lucy Williamson reports from Paris that investigators are focusing on whether radical Islam played a role, and have launched an inquiry into "attempted murder and criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorism organization". Gee, do ya think?

In the video embedded on the web page, Grainne Harrington says the attacker appears to have acted alone -- the usual "lone wolf" story -- which would appear to be at variance with Lucy's report. However, other reports suggest the attacker's brother was known to have expressed a desire to travel to Syria. So, a conspiracy then?

Further reading on WWW:
"Canucks admit 'lone wolf' shooters 'were influenced by ISIS'"
"Charles De Gaulle warns about Muslim immigration"

UPDATED! NYC cop killings - a little detail we shouldn't mention

Walt is reading the AP report of the "assassination" -- Police Commissioner Bill Bratton's word -- of two New York cops by someone the lamestream media is being careful to call a "lone gunman".

"Targeted for their uniform" -- Commissioner Bratton speaking again -- were New York City police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. They were sitting in their patrol car in the crime-ridden Bedford-Stuyvesant ghetto of Brooklyn, when they were shot in the head by 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a Georgia boy with a long history of arrests on various charges, including robbery, shoplifting, carrying a concealed weapon, disorderly conduct and obstruction of a law enforcement officer.

In other words, the shooter was "known to police". And, if anyone had been paying attention, they might have known that he was out to kill a cop or two. He'd written on Instagram: "I'm putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours, let's take 2 of theirs." He used the hashtags #Shootthepolice #RIPErivGardner [sic] and #RIPMikeBrown.

Eric Gardner and Mike Brown. Yes. They were too large black men who were killed, rightly or wrongly, by white cops. Officers Liu and Ramos were, respectively, Chinese and Hispanic. What about Mr. Brinsley? From his first name, you might think that he was Muslim, either by birth or conversion. We don't know.

Well, was he black? Errr, yes, but you have to dig deep into the AP account to learn that. Commissioner Bratton confirmed that the suspect made "very serious 'anti-police' statements" online, but declined to get into specifics of the posts. He professed ignorance of Brinsley's motive, saying they were still trying to figure that out!

However, two city officials with direct knowledge of the case -- one a senior city official and the other a law enforcement official -- confirmed the posts to Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity, since they were not authorized to speak publicly on the topic!

When white people kill black people, they're racists -- even when acquitted by grand juries -- but when black people kill white people, a politically correct pall of silence descends from on high. Welcome to the new, "post-racial" America!

Further reading: "Justice for Zemir Begic!"

Update and !!! - Word just in from Tarpon Springs FL that a police officer -- almost certainly white -- has been shot and killed by a suspect... errr... Well, let's wait and see. But if the cop-killer turns out to be black, school's out! (I got that line from Howie Meeker.) [Who he? Ed.]

Weekend smiles: Phyllis Dillerisms

Ed. here. Walt has gone Christmas shopping. Let's take a weekend break with some of stand-up comedienne Phyllis Diller's best lines, courtesy of seldom-heard-from Agent 71.

Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age. As your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.

Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.

The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public.

Best way to get rid of kitchen odors: Eat out.

A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.

I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford. Then I want to move in with them.

Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.

Aim high, and you won't shoot your foot off.

Any time three New Yorkers get into a cab without an argument, a bank has just been robbed.

We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.

Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room.

You know you're old if your walker has an airbag.

I'm eighteen years behind in my ironing.

What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.

The only time I ever enjoyed ironing was the day I accidentally got gin in the steam iron.

I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about short and cheap?

Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.

My photographs don't do me justice. They just look like me.

There's so little money in my bank account, my scenic checks show a ghetto.

I admit, I have a tremendous sex drive. My boyfriend lives forty miles away.

My mother-in-law had a pain beneath her left breast. Turned out to be a trick knee.

Tranquilizers work only if you follow the advice on the bottle - keep away from children.

I asked the waiter, "Is this milk fresh?" He said, "Lady, three hours ago it was grass."

The reason the golf pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing.

You know you're old if they have discontinued your blood type.

Footnote: Phyllis Diller's real name is Phyllis Ada Drive. Just thought should know.