A Fine Example of the Self Defense Mindset

http://salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8K0S26O1.html

Nurse Strangles Intruder With Bare Hands

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September 08,2006 | PORTLAND, Ore. -- A nurse returning from work discovered an intruder armed with a hammer in her home and strangled him with her bare hands, police said.

Susan Kuhnhausen, 51, ran to a neighbor's house after the confrontation Wednesday night. Police found the body of Edward Dalton Haffey 59, a convicted felon with a long police record.

Police said there was no obvious sign of forced entry at the house when Kuhnhausen, an emergency room nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center, got home from work shortly after 6 p.m.

Under Oregon law people can use reasonable deadly force when defending themselves against an intruder or burglar in their homes. Kuhnhausen was treated and released for minor injuries at Providence.

Haffey, about 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, had convictions including conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, robbery, drug charges and possession of burglary tools. Neighbors said Kuhnhausen's size -- 5-foot-7 and 260 pounds -- may have given her an advantage.

"Everyone that I've talked to says 'Hurray for Susan,' said neighbor Annie Warnock, who called 911. "You didn't need to calm her. She's an emergency room nurse. She's used to dealing with crisis."

I'm sorry that she had to do this without the physical and psychological distance a firearm would have given her. On the other hand, good for her. She did better than most people would have.

Fine Leatherwork

I just received two superb examples of the leatherworker's craft from Chas Clements of Denver. The first is a book weight modelled after the classic from St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM. It's made from soft leather (elk hide?)and nicely outlines a page from a typical hardback. The other is a soft sap, a slightly larger version of his standard Bouncer's Pal.

It's hard speak too highly of Chas' work. His pieces are very well constructed, almost over-engineered. The choice of materials, quality of craftsmanship and attention to detail are all top-notch. He also does other leather goods - cases, belts, holsters and the like.

Is This the Face of the Urban Future?

Back on August 11th there was a bank robbery in Tacoma. This isn't really news unless you live there. It wouldn't be except that the three people arrested were Army Rangers. That got me thinking. The diagnosed rate of stress disorder for returning vets is about 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 depending on whose statistics you believe. Returning veterans are finding it difficult to get work where "difficult" means an unemployment rate of fifteen percent for younger vets. There have already been a couple cases of soldiers and Marines coming back with their urban warfare reflexes intact - unable to deal with American cities as anything except a war zone. At the same time wages are a smaller fraction of GDP than at any time in the last 47 years. Real wages are at best holding steady while benefits are shrinking and vacations are disappearing. In short, it is not a good time to be a returning veteran from Iraq.

This would be bad enough if the military had its usual high caliber of recruits. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. The only way the Pentagon has been able to maintain manpower has been by "stop loss" - keeping servicemen and women after their hitch is up - stretching the National Guard and Reserves beyond reason, calling up the Individual Ready Reserve and lowering standards.

How are they lowering standards? The Army has tempered its policy of zero tolerance towards fascists and neo-Nazis. They are getting into the military with the specific goal of getting combat skills. More recruits are getting in with criminal records of a sort that would formerly have disqualified them from the Service. The Army has even upped the proportion of Category IV recruits, high school dropouts and those who score in the lowest third of the AFQT from two percent to twelve. In a military which increasingly relies on complex skills and advanced technology this is alarming.

What's the problem? A bunch of guys who aren't too smart will end up carrying rifles. A few people with criminal records will learn to fear their sergeants so much that they'll turn into soldiers, Marines, airmen or sailors. During WWII and the later parts of the Vietnam War the military would take almost anyone.

Aside from the implications for the nation's defense I'm afraid that it means serious trouble for law enforcement. Sooner or later they will come back. Most will reintegrate into society. But there will be a large number of unemployed or unemployable young men and women with professional experience in urban warfare. More than the regular number will be pre-disposed towards crime or violent political extremism. If our last extended war is any indication many of them will be badly psychologically damaged. It sounds like the makings of a perfect storm. It won't happen all at once, but I predict that we will be paying for the current war for years through professionally executed violent crime. Bank robberies may be only the beginning. Home invasions done by groups with combat experience clearing houses? Criminal gangs who are better trained than the police who oppose them? It sounds bad. So far it hasn't been part of the national consciousness.

I'm afraid that that will not last.

A Weekend of Sera, or Boil Me In Dit Da Jow

This weekend was Guru Plinck's second annual Sera weekend. It's primarily for his students although others are sometimes invited and generally welcome. This year was a little bit smaller than last time. It was still an excellent event. A couple people from out of town showed up, notably Bobbe Edmonds from Seattle.

The large floors of our old venue in St. John's have mostly been walled in, and the Capoeira school which had offered to host the event evaporated. The people at The Place to Shoot and Portland Thai Boxing & Martial Arts were kind enough to rent us their facility on very short notice. A local barbecue joint, known as Honey B's or Loiusiana Ed's depending on how long you've been in Portland, provided dinner Saturday at a very reasonable price.

It was sort of like Guru Plinck's regular classes, except that it lasted fifteen hours. Sensitivity drills, fundamentals, footwork, handwork, body mechanics, distance, timing, juru-juru and ground fighting. There was more emphasis this year on strong limber legs and working low to the ground. As the Guru says "Your martial arts are only as good as your base". What was almost completely missing in the stand-up portion of the program was technique. Most of us were his students. The rest all had strong martial arts backgrounds. We already have more technique than we'll ever use. The emphasis was on developing skill and understanding so that we can make what we have work.

Everyone seemed to have a great time and learned a lot. We're looking forward to next year, maybe on a more convenient date.

Tactics - Play to Your Strengths

While looking something else up I came across an interesting news story about the great magician David Copperfield. This April he was in the Palm Beach area after the last of six shows. Four young robbers with guns approached him and two of his female assistants. The women gave over their money, cellphones and passports. When the criminals went for Copperfield he showed them his pockets and concealed his valuables by sleight of hand. The robbers drove away. One of the assistants got the license, and the malefactors were captured soon afterwards.

It's a funny story. It has some important lessons for self defense.

First and foremost, the magician and his companions kept their cool and didn't do anything to escalate the situation. It would have taken very little for four teenagers with guns to turn it into a bloodbath. The bad guys got what they asked for and left. That's about the best you can hope for in that situation. Yeah, they were taken off guard at first. They thought the robbers wanted autographs. But they recovered well and didn't panic.

Copperfield's act has included mentalist tricks. Many of these rely on the ability to remember things seen only fleetingly. It would be reasonable to assume that this helped them catch the license number.

Even more important was pitting his strengths against their weakness. Copperfield is a world class illusionist. He put what he is good at - sleight of hand and playing to an audience - against their mental weakness. He captured their attention and used his professional skills to control the situation in an unrehearsed, completely improvised act with a hostile audience on a stage he didn't prepare. Not many performers have chops like that. The article doesn't say so, but I'd be willing to bet that he used his abilities at handling an audience to de-escalate the situation.

This wasn't self defense as most people think of it. There's a lot more of Her Wits About Her than Put 'em Down, Take 'em Out. It wasn't dramatic. The robbers weren't heroically disarmed until the police caught up with them. It was a brilliant success accomplished with the best tools at hand. I'm only sorry he wasn't able to pull a rabbit out of his pocket and make the robbers disappear.

New Bird Flu Initiative

The President has announced a bold new initiative to combat bird flu.
He has begun bombing the Canary Islands and will continue next week with Turkey.




Actually, there is good news on the bird flu front. Trials of a new vaccine appear promising.

H.L. Mencken, Theodore Roosevelt and Herman Goering

Henry Louis Mencken was one of the greatest journalists ever to bang out a story on a Smith-Corona. Skeptic, humanist, misanthrope, muckracker and uncomfortably accurate witness of the human condition he is best known for his scathing coverage of the Scopes trial. He's been dead half a century but still provides some of the best commentary on the American political character.

I just ran across a particularly prophetic bit of Menckenia from On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe:

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

From Theodore Roosevelt, the last honest President the Republican Party produced:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

And finally, from Herman Goering's last interrogation/interview by Gustave Gilbert author of Nuremberg Diary:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Comics of Note

Six years ago Scott McCloud wrote in Reinventing Comics that if there were to be a future for the medium it would be in the Internet. Newspaper comics were mostly tamed and boring. The promise of comic books was never fulfilled. He's probably right. These days it seems like everyone has a webcomic. Most of them follow Sturgeon's Revelation, "90% of everything is crud."

There are nuggets in the gravel. Some writers have moved completely to electronic distribution. Phil Foglio puts up three pages a week of his lovingly drawn Steampunk epic Girl Genius and only puts it onto dead trees as collections. It's also kept him to a schedule, something he used to have trouble with. Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, Tentacle Monsters and the Women Who Love Them would never see print but maintains a huge online following of hentai fans and other happy perverts. Bill Holbrook straddles both worlds. Safe Havens and On the FastTrack are syndicated. Herdthinners is an online comic and subsists on donations, subscriptions and collected volumes.

My two favorites are poles apart from each other.

Brooke McEldowney turns out a page a day of 9 Chickweed Lane, a fanciful slice of life about a grandmother, mother and daughter. Chickweed just won the National Cartoonist Society’s Award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip, quite an accomplishment for a newspaper comic that appears in no newspaper. His tri-weekly effort Pibgorn is currently replaying A Midsummer Night's Dream in a Roaring 20s urban setting. Cut loose ten bucks and look through the archives. It's well worth it.

Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman have offer a very different and much darker vision. Every week the chatty populist online Smith Magazine publishes another installment of Shooting War. In 2011 blogger/journalist Jimmy Burns is detailing the abuses of Eminent Domain under the McCain Administration when he catches a terrorist bombing live on video. The strip follows his later adventures as a journalist in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Mogadishu. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Lappe and Goldman have been declared enemy combatants, stripped of their citizenship and extraordinarly renditioned somewhere terrible for this bitter incisive critique of American foreign policy.

Back Home

We got back a couple hours ago to excited dogs, haughty cats, a torpid snake and a toad who is still frightened of everyone. The trip lasted just long enough. We were beginning to get tired of riding the train.

Most of what happened was typical vacation stuff - dead boring to anyone who wasn't there. We did notice something very interesting in the fifteen plus years since we took the Empire Builder . There are a lot more waterfowl. There were ospreys, geese and herons galore on the Columbia River Gorge. There were no ospreys the last time we made the trip. Plenty of geese, ducks and even pelicans in Montana and North Dakota. What in the world are pelicans doing in North Dakota? There were swans several places. I don't remember the last time I saw flocks of wild swans.

What's responsible for this? Who knows? Maybe we just picked the right time of year, although it isn't the season for anything to migrate. Perhaps there was more water than usual. Maybe the years have undone the effects of DDT and some of the other pesticides that were destroying waterbird eggs. In any case they added beauty to the trip and further convinced us that rail is a better way to travel. If we'd taken the plane we would have seen clouds, circular fields, mountains, square fields and the airport. We got to see the Northern Prairies all green on the way out and brown on the ride home, spectacular mountains and a chance to see the disappearing glaciers of Glacier National Park.

The Empire Builder is one of Amtrak's best lines, one of the few that survived the budget cuts more-or-less intact. It was on time both ways over a two day trip. The train was comfortable, and the service staff were unfailingly professional. Our cabin attendant said that it's a mark of distinction to be assigned to that line.

Amtrak Blues

This is the first year that Tiel has been able to get two weeks of vacation together, so we're taking a long-delayed train trip. It was going to be Portland-Chicago-New Orleans, but that's just not going to happen any time soon. We're visiting people in upstate New York and coming back with a side-trip to Grand Rapids to see Chuck Pippin and Mushtaq.

A lot of people have bad things to say about Amtrak, and some of it is true. Cheap oil and effective lobbying by the airline industry have left us with a starved passenger rail system that can hold its head up proudly with, say, Bulgaria. But that's a rant for another time. Even with its problems Amtrak still provides a really wonderful experience.

We left Friday afternoon on the Empire Builder. It's one of the most beautiful rides you could ever take. It starts with a ride through the Columbia River Gorge. There's a point part way up when the Douglas fir forest switches suddenly, in less than a mile, to scrub oak, juniper and sagebrush. We missed the Ponderosa pine near Spokane. Night fell about the time we reached Pasco. Pasco gets its name from the Pacific Steamship Company which took freight as far up the river as deep water ships could go.

We were in Montana by morning and went through Glacier National Park during the nicest part of the day. Go there while the eponymous glaciers are still there. The ice is retreating quickly and could be gone inside twenty years.

North Dakota? Flat with loess carved into fantastic shapes by wind and water. Minnesota? Flat. Lots of lakes.

The train arrived in Chicago miraculously on time. The waiting room for the Southbound trains resembles a badly-designed feed lot. Sixteen hours later we arrived in Albany-Rennsalear.

Amtrak isn't up to Japanese or European standards, but it's still very nice. The seats are large and recline. The view is beautiful. The ride is comfortable. It's a bit less expensive than flying, and you don't leave feeling like you've just survived the Middle Passage - otherwise known as flying coach.

I managed to get a good deal on an economy sleeper for the first leg of the trip. The privacy is nice. The shower is very welcome. But it really isn't that much more comfortable. If there are cancellations we might be able to get one on the way back.

Amtrak Blues? It's a damned fine album by Alberta Hunter. Not many can claim to have gotten their chops in the 'teens, had a red-hot jazz career through the early fifties and come back in the seventies. And only one of the is Ms. Hunter.

How couldI have forgotten?

Outside of Buffalo, NY the train stopped. Two police (FBI? Local?) in plain clothes, pistols exposed, got on the train. They went to a group of people and asked if each was a US citizen. They checked passports and took away one guy off with a Ghanian passport. One officer said to the other "The others are in the dining car. We'll have someone get them."

What happened? Who can say? There was something very Centerforce or KGB about the whole thing.