I hate to put sad on top of sad but...

I just came from over Brown Sugar's way and I want you all to read about a fallen police officer that was/is a friend of hers. Since being out here I've learned to personalize the men and women in uniform. We have gotten to the point were we have dehumanized people that are in uniform becasue the represent something we don't like. We need to learn to seperate the person from the profession and the profession from the problem.

This is Tommie - Barium

This post I'm not sure where it fits on the timeline of Tommie. I know it was during my Junior year after I finished getting grounded. But, it happens after some of the other events in Junior year. This post just seem to "fit" here so I'm going to run with it.

I don't know if this is how you spell his name, I'm sure someone who went to high school with me can correct me if I was wrong. Barium was one of the coolest kids in school. I mean this guy was on another plane of existence cool. You know how you have levels of coolness it ranks from dork all the way up to Jock/Prom Princess well this guy was beyond that. He was on some Fonzie level shit. I mean this guy could part the hallways like Moses. He was that cool.

I remember being in Algebra II or Trig or something like that and they put the school on lockdown. Hell, when I was in school we didn't worry about school shootings and all that other crazy crap. I mean it was weird to see the teacher lock the door but that was about it. I just remember my teacher having this pale look on her face. Then we heard girls crying and people screaming all over the place. It was pandemonium.

Come to find out Barium put a gun to his head pulled the trigger and spread his noodles all over the weight room. I remember everyone waking around dazed. It was like everyone had been hit over the head with a cartoon mallot and has stars and birds floating around their heads. I saw the coach who tried to talk Barium out of killing himself. The coach was there when he pulled the trigger. I think he still had blood on him at the time. Two other people maybe teachers were trying to console him but at that stage I think he was inconsolable. He wasn't crying or anything but, I could tell that he was searching his mind to ask why Barium would do this and where he went wrong in preventing him from doing it. If I could describe his face in one word that word would be soulless.

Barium had a girlfriend named Tracy. Now then the word on the street was that she told him that she wouldn't go to the prom with him and that's why he killed himself. I remember his friends just laying into her calling her a bitch and telling her that she killed Barium. I think the Principle or vice-Principle or both I can't really remember had to protect her and put her in the office until her Mom came or something. It seemed like everyone wanted a piece of her. I felt so bad for her and that was the first time I had ever felt pity for another person. I knew it wasn't her fault; they were blaming her for something she had no control over. I don't think she was the same after that. How could she be?

Ludacris has a song on one of his albums talking about the situation. Someone that raps with him obviously went to school with me around at that time I think the name of the song is Growing Pains. I only mention it because whoever is rapping about it calls Tracy a bitch in the song and sort imortalizes the moment on wax. While I don't have a problem with the word bitch in my music usually I quite enjoy it. I find it unfair in this case because it is such a distortion of the truth.

She had done nothing more than be a 16 or 17 year old girl and the world, well the high school world blamed her for that. She was one of the cutest girls in school as well but the next year I could tell she changed. She too was part of that "Way cooler than I could have ever dreamed of being" crowd but, when she came back for senior year she was sullen and withdrawn. I would say half dead almost, she was still cute but not the same person. The weight of the world is hard on anyone but it's especially hard on a young girl being blamed for someone's death.

As I said, suicide is never that simple. I remember my Mom going to Barium's Mother's house with a pie because when people die you bake a pie. She came back and told us about what his mother knew. Barium was a fifth year Senior. Being a fifth year senior in college is cool, in high school, not so good. It appeared that he was on his way to being a sixth year senior. He had problems reading and she also had a bunch of emotional problems that are probably typical of someone with suicidal tendencies. It's just one of those things that you can never hope to understand. I mean this guy was 18 or 19 years old and decided to end it? I look back at 19 today and say there is so much more life that he missed out on, if only he would have tried.

At the time I didn't feel sorry for him. I was confused and a bit angry with him. I mean again I never knew him I knew of him just like all kids know of the most popular people in their school. Knowing them doesn't mean that you'll ever interact with them. I couldn't understand why this guy, the most popular guy in school would do that to himself. He had everything I ever wanted. If I could have had half his coolness I would have been in hog heaven. I would have given my right arm to be as cool as him. I mean he was just that cool and he blew it for nothing. I couldn't feel pity for him because he experienced NOTHING like I did and yet he chooses to end it when he had everything. I wondered why he took that route and it never occurred to me to take that route yet by my approximation I had much more of a reason too if you compared what he "had" and what I "had" but it was never a thought. The idea of killing myself I thought was abhorrant, alien in nature.

I think it was because of my military background. I knew and I know today that everything and everyone is temporary. It's all a phase from one stage to the next. You don't like the stage you are in now? Keep pushing, you'll move on and away from the problems. Of course for me that usually meant a physical relocation but it was also mental. When things got bad for me I moved away if not in body than in spirit. I just never could (can?) wrap myself up into someone to that level. I could never depend on someone for my existance like he did.

I didn't go to his funeral. I was like what was the point? I didn't really know him there was no reason to fake like he and I were best buddies as many in school were doing. EVERYONE had a Barium moment. Oh, Barium tied his shoe by my locker! Oh, Barium, folded my paper to turn into the teacher for me! Oh, Barium combed his hair right by my cousin and then he said, "Sup." We were such good friends.

I didn't have a Barium moment and I knew most of the people around me didn't either. Hyper-popular people travel in small popular clouds and 95% of the school didn't make that cut. I think I didn't go in protest. I refused to fake morun a person I didn't know.

His death however brought me clarity. I realized then that nothing is what it seems on it's face. Everyone has problems, everyone has trials and tribulations, our challenges may not be the same but we all have them and we can't let them beat us down to the point were want to take ourselves out of the puzzle. That's what I got from him; his death gave me life or at least inspired me to believe in my own abilites.

I knew from then on out that I would live my life to the fullest who cares what anyone else thinks because when it's over it's over and all you become is a someone's vague memory and their fate will become the same as yours so when its all said and done ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

In closing Tracy I don't know where you are or what you are doing but, I wanted to let you know that I'm sorry everyone called you those nasty names, and I'm sorry that I stood by and let them do that to you, I'm sorry that I never asked you if you were ok or if you needed anything, I surely thought it every time I saw you but, I never had the courage to say it to you. I'm sorry for that, I hope you can forgive me for not being there when I should and I hope you can forgive us for not treating you with kindness and compassion when you more than anyone else had the most reason to mourn.

Barium, I feel sad now that you are gone, I didn't then I didn't know how to feel sorrow. I wish that we could have seen your pain, I wish we could have seen past your coolness and saw that you were someone that wanted to go places and do things and that all you wanted to get over that insurmountable hump known as high school.
I wish I could have been there for you to tell you it's not that hard. I wish we wouldn't have idolized you so. If we didn't treat you as the Messiah then we would have seen you for the boy you were and somebody, anybody could have held out their hand and given you that help. We failed you, I failed you and I'm sorry.


God Bless you both.

This is Tommie - Practice Common Sense.

My Dad knew what time it was and was hell bent on keeping me away from shaming the family by knocking some chick up. Well his desire to keep me from sex ran counter to my desire to have sex. So we were locked in mortal combat for the good part of the next 2 years. He would make curfews and I would summarily break them. I would get yelled at then grounded and the cycle would repeat itself about once a month. See what my Dad didn't understand (Or maybe he did) was this was the first time that people actually liked me and with ridding myself of the soul sucking blight of Jason gave me as sense of confidence that I had never felt before I was high off the power. Looking back on it the old coot was right. I mean it really is a matter of respect you don’t go around fucking in people’s homes if you want to do that you get your own place. I can see the old man’s logic today but back then I was young and horny I didn’t have time for his nilly-willy “life lessons”. “Outta my way Pops! I got sausage links to deliver!

My Dad would go about setting up series of traps. He would mark my car tires with chalk to see if it had moved. He designed these wild cable and pulley systems to make noise when I opened the door alerting him to what time I EXACTLY came in the house. And all other sorts of wild contraptions, I think I was driving him insane.

Well, at when December came I turned 17 on Dec 17th so I was going to party like it was 1999. So when New Year's Eve came along my Dad told me to be home by 1:15am. In hindsight PLENTY of time more than enough time to be honest with you. Even today I'm rarely out of the house after 1:15 am. I could see in his face that he had drawn a line in the sand well guess what old man I can draw lines too. So what time does my stupid ass come home?

About 3:30 am.

Well that's not the bad part, I come around the corner and I see that the lights are on downstairs and the TV is on. That means that my Dad is up. I was like fuck! To be god honest all that happened that night was that I feel asleep over there and I woke up late. I wasn't drinking or anything. I didn't drink until I got to college there was no way I'd even think about drinking near my Dad. So here is the kicker. I come in the house and my Dad is sitting on the sofa in his underwear and he says to me, “Where have you been son?”

What was my response? Out.
On top of that I said it in a tone that was like don't question what I do old man.

That was my first, worst, and last mistake.

My Dad jumped across the sofa like a black underwear ninja or something. You’d be shocked at how strong and spry an enraged 40 year-old man can be. I know I was. He either grabbed me by my neck or my shirt or lifted me up to the ceiling. I don't really remember it was all a blur. I do remember him lifting me off the ground and then he started yelling something I don't really know. I passed out from pure fear. When I woke up I was in my bed I don't know how I got there or what all I know is that my brother said to me, “Tommie I don't know what you did but Dad kicked your ass.”

So later on that day we had our traditional New Years' Day supper. My Dad as usual did his basic prayer where he thanked God for us making it together as a family one more year and that he continue his blessings on us for the next year. Then he finished by saying and God; please don't make me kick my son's ass next year like I did this year.

After that I was grounded for 3 months. I had been grounded before and I had been yelled at before but this time the old coot was serious. I didn't really expect him to stick to his word on that one. I figured that he would go on for a week or two and then it would be all over. No dice, this guy was harder than a diamond racquetball court. One other thing about my family we like to play with each other and in our house everyone takes turns being it. It's all in good fun, unless it's your turn. Well my Dad had this caveat that I couldn't drive but if any of my buddies wanted to come over and pick me up they could. Every now and again my girlfriend would come by and drop off a sundae or something but she was given implicit instructions to not drive anywhere with me. My Dad thought of everything. Well the bastard knew I didn't have any fucking friends with a car. So I just going to school and work for 3 months and that's it. I don't remember much about that time besides the fact that I couldn't wait till April 1st.

This is the Iraq I moved here for.

'Pleasure marriages' regain popularity in Iraq
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — In the days when it could land him in jail, Rahim Al-Zaidi would whisper details of his muta'a only to his closest confidants and the occasional cousin. Never his wife.

Al-Zaidi hopes to soon finalize his third muta'a, or "pleasure marriage," with a green-eyed neighbor. This time, he talks about it openly and with obvious relish. Even so, he says, he probably still won't tell his wife.

The 1,400-year-old practice of muta'a— "ecstasy" in Arabic — is as old as Islam itself. It was permitted by the prophet Mohammed as a way to ensure a respectable means of income for widowed women.

Pleasure marriages were outlawed under Saddam Hussein but have begun to flourish again. The contracts, lasting anywhere from one hour to 10 years, generally stipulate that the man will pay the woman in exchange for sexual intimacy. Now some Iraqi clerics and women's rights activists are complaining that the contracts have become less a mechanism for taking care of widows than an outlet for male sexual desires.

The renaissance of the pleasure marriage coincides with a revival of other Shiite traditions long suppressed by the former regime. Interest in Shiite customs has accelerated since Shiite parties swept Jan. 30 elections to become the biggest bloc in the new National Assembly.

"Under Saddam, we were very scared," says Al-Zaidi, 39, a lawyer from Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. "They would punish people. Now, all my friends are doing it."

A turbaned Shiite cleric who issues wedding permits from a street-side counter in Sadr City says he encourages permanent marriages but gives the OK for pleasure marriages when there are "special reasons." The cleric, Sayid Kareem As-Sayid Abdullah Al-Mousawi, says he grants licenses for muta'a in cases where the woman is widowed or divorced, or for single women who have approval from their fathers.

Shiites, Sunnis split

"Clerics who blessed them were hounded by security during the previous regime," he says. "I can assure you, these (muta'a) marriages are flourishing in (Shiite cities) Najaf, Karbala and Kadhamiya in an amazing way. There are a lot of hotels (patronized) by Shiites who approve of such marriages."

Shiites and Sunnis both permit men to take more than one permanent wife, but the rival branches of Islam are deeply split over pleasure marriages.

Most Shiite scholars today consider it halal, or religiously legal. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest religious authority in Shiite Islam, sets conditions and obligations for muta'a on his Web site. ("A woman with whom temporary marriage is contracted is not entitled to share the conjugal bed of her husband and does not inherit from him ...")

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and other Shiite lawmakers have said they want Iraq's new constitution to use the sharia, or Islamic law, as its basis. That could give muta'a formal legal protection. Sunni Arabs and Kurds, who are mainly Sunni, oppose the idea. But the practice is growing among Sunnis and Shiites alike.

Sunni scholars fear that giving official sanction to pleasure marriages — many of which are only verbal agreements between the couple — are little more than legalized prostitution that could lead to a collapse of moral values, especially among young people.

"We have reports about one-hour pleasure marriages that are flourishing among students," says Sheik Ali Al-Mashhadani, a Sunni imam at the Ibn Taimiya mosque in Baghdad. "I'm advising parents to watch their sons very carefully, particularly those who are in the colleges and universities."

Short-term marriages were considered idolatry by Saddam's ruling Baath Party in the 1970s and '80s, says Kamal Hamdul, president of the Iraqi Bar Association. Muta'a were punishable by fines or prison, he says. Couples took the practice underground, meeting in out-of-the-way apartments and hotels — and rarely telling even family members.

Pleasure marriages began to resurface after the fall of Baghdad in 2003. One reason is that Shiites, 60% of Iraq's population, have a greater ability to shape social mores than they did under Saddam, a Sunni Arab whose top aides were also Sunnis.

Payments to women vary

A woman agreeing to a pleasure marriage that involves a one-time encounter might be able to count on about $100. For a muta'a that runs longer, she might be paid $200 a month, though the amounts vary widely and can depend on whether she has children.

Zeinab Ahmed, 31, lost her husband in a car accident five years ago. She says she has considered entering into a muta'a contract with a man, but the stigma attached has kept her from doing so.

"All my friends who have done this have told me they got married in this way just to meet their sexual desires," Ahmed says, "but later on they started to love that man, and he does not accept to get married permanently. ... Most of the men, at the end of the contract, they feel contempt towards the woman."

Contracts for pleasure marriage strongly favor men.

Married women can't enter a muta'a, although a married man can. Men can void the contract at any time; women don't have that option unless it's negotiated at the outset. The couple agrees not to have children. A woman who unintentionally gets pregnant can have an abortion but must then pay a fine to a cleric.

Women's rights activists are concerned. Salama Al-Khafaji, a Shiite lawmaker who supports the concept of sharia law but advocates for women's rights, calls the re-emergence of muta'a an "unhealthy phenomenon."

With the right intentions, she says, muta'a can serve the noble purpose of helping divorced and widowed women. But too many men are using temporary marriages to exploit women for sex, she says. Her solution is to reinforce the importance of permanent marriages with work programs for newlywed couples and education campaigns.

"A woman who practices muta'a does not usually feel comfortable about it," Al-Khafaji says. "People these days are creating excuses to practice these acts."

Al-Mousawi, the Shiite cleric, says the practice of pleasure marriages is open to abuse and misinterpretation. He says he is particularly troubled by kiss-and-tell men. "After they've finished with the woman, they've told their friends about her beauty and given a description of her body, which is something absolutely unacceptable in Islam," he says.

Al-Zaidi, the Sadr City lawyer, says his motivations are spiritual. In 2002, he says he persuaded a Sunni widow to enter into a one-year muta'a with him, even though at first she refused.

To him, pleasure marriages are legitimate in God's eyes. They bring responsibility and formality to what would otherwise be squalid and sinful, he says. "There is a noble goal in this kind of marriage," says Al-Zaidi, still married to his first wife and has five children. "It's to eradicate moral corruption."

In the past, some muta'a contracts have been struck when permanent, legal marriages were not possible.

Ayad Muhammed Ali fell in love eight years ago with a woman who walked into his Baghdad tailor shop. She was a widow with two young sons whose husband, a member of an underground group outlawed by Saddam, had been executed by Saddam's men. The woman also was richer than Ali, so her family would never have consented to a legal marriage.

The lovers agreed to a yearlong muta'a in 1993 and have renewed their contract every year since, he says. In the decade after their muta'a, the couple never dared meet in the open. In April 2003, the month U.S. forces swept into the capital, they began meeting in public places for the first time, he says.

"I was always so afraid someone would find out and I'd go to prison," says Ali, 29. "Now, I'm not afraid. My only fear is her family."

Contributing: Mona Mahmoud

I'm trying to find out why these guys didn't rise up against Saddam earlier. I mean he was holding out on the God approved side nookie! I tell you this much, I'm sure religious prostitution wasn't in the President's mind when was thinking of regime change. I'm telling you if this place can have a little less bombing and a little more balling it might be a-ok!

And we are the infidels!

Swedish Company: "We've found the perfect device to counter rape!!"

Disregard my last post. I've just upped the strangeness bar.

FemDefence

-This post is Hooker approved.

www.imaginarygirlfriends.com

You all have been with me a long time and every so often I send you all on a trip down some of the dark alleys of the internet. I always think I've found the the cream of the corp in pure digital strangeness but today my friends I think I have found the one. This is the ultimate in internet strangeness. I mean you can HIRE a fake girlfriend. Think of all those years of guys making up girlfriends and now with the internet you can!

Yes, if you are ever in the need for a commited relationship with none of the commitment or relationship this is the place for you.

This is Tommie - She likes me, she really likes me

Well, let me think ok, here we go basically being too black for white folks and too white for black folks I was pretty much devoid of any confidence when it came to girls whatsoever. I could never get up the courage to ever go up to one and actually speak to her. People made me feel ugly or even if they didn't I was sure I would hear something like "I would like you but..."

But there was this girl in school named Daria we well that’s not her real name but if you met her she would remind you of the character Daria Morgandorffer. She was cute I guess but, I was more attracted to her being smart as hell. She was also on the social outs so that made her a bit more approachable I suspect. Her Mom was a teacher and wanted the best for her daughter. She took opera lessons and stuff. She was VERY smart and I liked being around someone that was smart. She had lost her father in the 5th grade I think and she was still very bitter about that. When I think about it now I think that had something to do with the way she was. At any rate she was extremely sarcastic while she was religious she could respect the fact that I wasn't. She is one of the few people I've ever met in life who was religious but wasn't sanctimonious about the whole affair. I mean this was the perfect girl for me she hated life and everyone in it just as I did!

If I could only get her to like me then we could get married and rule the world with our awesome intellect culling all the people who thought they were cool but were really jerks from the face of the planet.

Well at the end of the 10th and the summer of the 11th grade (we are going back a bit) we talked over the phone and we got cool and close and then she said it. She thinks she likes me. I was like wow. Someone actually likes me and not with that if only you were white or if you didn't sound white. I didn't know what to do with myself. So we would hang out and stuff and I'd go over to her house and pick her up so we could go to Dairy Queen (it's a fast food restaurant but, they serve a lot of frosted treats) and she would get a banana split. It was cool so after a while we started going together. I don't know how it happened it just happened.

Oh wait! Yes I do, she said if we go together for 6 months then we can have sex. 6 months in teenage years was an eternity but like I always say I'm not a quitter. If I can see the reward then I can work for it. Hell as far as I was concerned that was a sucker's bet. It's not like anyone else liked me hell it wasn't like anyone was even interested in me so all I had to do basically was stay alive for 6 months and I was in.

Well between hanging out with J and his friends and seeing her I was starting to form the beginning of my power base. That is is in part what helped me to face Jason.

So now then lets flash-forward to about November 1990 I was in ROTC and I used to be the Drill team captain we used guns to march with but I preferred Sabers and our Captain allowed me to take a few ROTCers and have my own team. We used to practice all the time and one day we got done early. I decided I would go over to her house before I went home. I gave her a call to see if she was there and she said yeah come by and that her Mom was gone. Well, ok I never really gave much thought to the idea so I get over there and she is dressed in this sexy see thru nightgown and it's like 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I'm thinking, I like this but isn't she supposed to be more dressed?

She said, "Do you know what day it is?"

"Wednesday?"

She said, "No, we've been together for 6 months now."

Well stuff apples in my mouth and call me a pie! I started counting after she did and my ship has come in early! Being quick of wit like I am I wasn't one to argue I learned early on let a woman have her way when you get the chance, it doesn't happen very often. Unlike my first time I had a real plan for her. The way I felt I knew I had one chance if I didn’t’ get it right I’d never have another chance with a woman again. I mean if I couldn't get the nerdist girl in school off what chance did I have with any girl?

I think one of the world’s best-kept secrets is that geeks and nerds make the best lovers. Why do you ask? Well they say a virgin wrote the Kama Sutra... all that time thinking about sex, imagining sex, dreaming about sex, coupled with a desire to make a girl happy? Use your imagination and that’s exactly what I did. I did a lot of reading and watching porn when I could sneak it. I figured long ago that I'd be a lame for the rest of my life and I figured if I had one skill this would be the one. I guess it worked and after that day everything changed.

1. I started having sex a lot.
2. My Dad and I became bitter enemies

Don't get caught in Pakistan

The #3 Al Queda guy was caught in Pakistan. All I'm saying is DAMN. They beat the brown off that motherfucker. I always thought that was something old grandmothers just said...

before




after

Report: Army knew Tillman died from friendly fire

WASHINGTON (AP) — Army officials knew within days of Pat Tillman's death that the former NFL player had been killed by fellow Rangers during a patrol in Afghanistan but did not inform his family and the public for weeks, The Washington Post reported.

A new Army report shows that Gen. John P. Abizaid, the theater commander in Afghanistan, and other top Army officials were aware an investigation had determined the death was caused by an act of "gross negligence" four days before a nationally televised memorial service, the Post reported after reviewing nearly 2,000 pages of documents it had obtained.

Tillman, 27, turned down a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He was taking cover behind a boulder along a canyon road near the Pakistani border when a firefight erupted at twilight on April 22, 2004.

The Post reported on its online edition Tuesday night that troops on the scene said they were immediately sure Tillman was killed by a barrage of American bullets.

The documents show that officers erroneously reported that Tillman was killed by enemy fire, destroyed critical evidence and initially concealed the truth from his brother, also an Army Ranger, who was near the attack, the Post reported.

The memorial service in San Jose, Calif., took place May 3, 2004. The Army announced May 29 that Tillman likely died because of friendly fire.

Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, who prepared the report, concluded there was no official reluctance to report the truth.

...Right


I've been a bit reluctant to speak on each and every issus that comes up from the war. I have gotten to the point that it is wasted effort. Either you think we were absolutely right or absolutely wrong . There is no middle ground on this anyone who knows me knows my political views on the Afghan and Iraqi wars. The fact I view them as two different wars tells you how I feel about it.

I'm no cat in a tinfoil hat but...



Do the people that run this show really expect us (well expect me) to believe that they didn't have an excellent PR story in Mr. Tillman and if certain "inconsequential" details were omitted that just HAPPENED benefit the administration’s position at a time where the mood in America was leaning against the tide of the Iraq war? A war, which the administration made pains to insure to the American people knew was the same war.

I'm no negative nancy...



You are going to have to feed me a few more freedom fries before you get me to believe that there was no attempt to deceive the American public and more importantly the Tilman family. I mean I'm not upset that he was killed due to friendly fire. War is ugly business and in the fog of war the body will react before the mind. It is a risk everyone fighting the war has to deal with. He died doing his job.

What does upset me is the fact that there is a has been a consistent movement in my government to deceive the American people and then once these individuals are caught with their hands in the cookie jar with crumbs all over their mouths they have this no harm no foul attitude and the American people just go back to living in ignorance.

They spend more time trying to figure out if Angelina Jole can fuck Brad Pitt or how many kids Michael Jackson can jack-off with 6 pills, 1 bottle of wine, and one hand tied behind his back, or if some dork should really marry a woman who ran off to "get it together" until she ran out of cash that is or how funny Laura Bush is (HA HA HA you are such a comedian thank goodness your approval ratings are double that of your husband's or we wouldn't know who to put up there. Laura you are hot keep this up and you could be the next Lenny Bruce).

Maybe it's my belief system that makes scoffs at tradition or giving passes to people in power just because they are in power. I don't know. Why is our government so afraid to give us the truth? It's like the people in office don't trust their own people to process information and come up with a rational reaction. I mean we elected them to office I can't see why they don't trust us. Or maybe I do.

This is Tommie - How to turn a very bad day to a very good day

Well during that summer between 10th and 11th grade J and I hung out and got closer as we did we plotted our plan to move to the top of the social food chain. He got job at the local grocery store and told me to come up there and work with him. That's were I got my ideas on how work and employment go. I may have gotten one, maybe two jobs in my entire life on my individual merits. Every job I have gotten has been from whom I know. And as a result I make sure that people I know get jobs as well. Almost all of my good friends have gotten a job where I worked. That is by design because I have a need to reward my friends for being my friends and that's how I've always done it and that's how I will continue to do it.

At any rate J had a lot of friends that went to a school in another district called Banneker these guys were maybe a year or two older than us but he used to live in the neighborhood with them so I hung out with them and became cool by extension. They weren't geeks like J and I (and when I was in high school being a geek or a nerd wasn't the cool thing to be called you all can thank me for my sacrifice later). They were cool and they were smart as hell as well, I had never met people before that were Black and cool and smart until then I didn't think it was possible. Two guys in particular really amazed me a guy named Mike and another guy named Ed. They were fucking branics, they were cool, and they knew actual girls.

So I spent a good portion of the summer hanging with them learning their mannerisms. How they talked, how they walked and most importantly hanging around these guys I learned the art of joanin’. That’s what we called it in Atlanta some people call it snaps, or the dozens. I wasn't great at it at the time but I could hold my own. Plus the fact that I had stone skin I could take more punishment than most. The thing about these guys was that they grew up with one another and they were outright brutal when they were joanin' on one another but, it was all in fun. I took that brutality of it but I had no plans on doing it for fun. I had one goal and one goal only and that was crushing anyone that ever crossed me. People that know me know that I can be outright mean when it comes to getting on people. I've realized that if you outright humiliate someone or make him or her feel foolish then they tend not to bother you anymore. It's all part of my defensive reaction. Like I said earlier I look for people's strengths and weakness I look for there likes and dislikes and I will use them to my advantage. I'm always looking to size people up mentally in the event I have to go up against them. I know it sounds Machiavellian but it's the survival instinct that I had to develop to survive.

Well school starts up in the fall and here we are back in school. Well I had this great plan to snap back a Jason but as I have come to realize what you would like to think is not always in line with reality. Jason had me totally shook I would get nervous anytime he came around because I knew I was just one bored moment away from being his source of entertainment for the day. So for about the first quarter of Jr. Year I was still taking it in the pooper from him. Then one day I just snapped, I'll never forget this day I had just a bad day.

My cafeteria was like any other cafeteria it was mini-caste system it was separated by grade and social status of course since I didn’t rank socially I was at the outcast table next to all the retard kids. I was just frustrated it was at lunch and I was sitting there I'm not sure if I was by myself or not I just know that he came by and said to me "What happened in the news today trapezoid head". It was a scene out of an after school special.

I thought to myself he must have been running out of material, I haven't brought a newspaper to school since the beginning of 10th grade and in all honesty I didn't want to be bothered that day. He said a few other things and his pack of hyenas were of course laughing as usual (I still have no idea where he got them from were they hired help?). Well, I wasn't listen to him or looking at him I was so used to his garbage that it didn't phase me but, today just wasn't that day. I looked at him dead in his eyes and said, “Jason really why are you here bothering me today? Shouldn't you be in the gym stacking basketballs with your feet or something?”

I spent a lot of time watching him and learning him. I knew that he was extremely sensitive about his big lips and long fingers. The kid had alien-like digits. And then I heard it, the most glorious sound in the world.

OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH,

The tide had turned a bit I could tell he was a bit shocked that I would dare speak to him but, now he was forced to engage me. He came back with some old tired and wack things he always would say but, I had clearly heard everything he had to say and he couldn't phase me anymore.

I said, “The reason God made you so tall is so your fingers and lips won't drag the ground.”

He was hot, I could tell he was furious and I couldn't have been happier. We went back and forth for about 10 minutes and all I know is that I finished him off with a classic yo' mama.

I said, “I did read the paper today and it has your mom in it. I didn't read the whole thing but, it was something about women that ho for skittles or skittle coupons or something like that.”

OHHHHHHH

The crowd went nuts on that one. I think I went a bit too far I know he probably wanted to hit me but, if he did he wouldn't be able to play ball. So he sucked it in. I don't think I ever saw him at lunch or dealt with him again. Maybe we were on two different lunch schedules I don’t remember but I do know after that day I rarely saw him. If I did he actively ignored me, which was fine I actively ignored him too. This is when my life started to turn around and I started becoming the person I am today.

PS: Thank you

Oh yeah this spot passed 7500 views on the 1st of May right after midnight. This whole thing has just been crazy to me and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been coming to this little spot every so often and checks on me.

From the Peanut gallery - 05/03/2005

Q:
WHAT is that woman doing in that picture?

A:
Uhh what does it look like? Showing her pussy of course. My God people I thought there were animal lovers around here, I see I was wrong. A woman shows her pussy and then everyone gets all uptight.

Q:
Is that picture one of your women?

A:
Ha, ha, ha, got paranoid? No, this is just a random image I got off the Internet.

Q:
How do you pick the questions for the Peanut Gallery?

A:
Generally more than one person asks a variant of a question. So when I get a lot of the same types of questions I'll post them up.

Q:
Why does this Matlock guy hate you and Toker so much?

A:
Why does he hate Toker I can't say, they have probably had long standing issues and Toker's blog didn't help matters. It probably confirmed what he already felt.
As for me I have no clue from his post on my blog he assumed (incorrectly) that that I was talking badly about the Marines here doing their job and I suspect that was enough for him. Again from what I can tell he is a creature of emotion and when you think emotionally you make things bigger than they really are.

I never make excuses for or try to figure out why someone likes me or doesn't like me. Too much energy wasted. If someone doesn't like me fine, I'm not in the business of making friends. My goals in life are not tied to the number of people that like me.

Q:
What do you do that you couldn't make any money once they took your computer stuff? I didn't get that part.

A:
I'm here in Iraq as an observer. I collect performance data (metrics) on the Command and Control systems my company designed. At the time I had three months of data collected on sites all over Iraq. With my computer and memory devices gone I had no way to do my job. Thankfully my company understood about the situation but still I was here potentially for 3 to 4 months without a computer or anything to collect my data. I had various automated scripts that I had generated to collect my data as well as notes on how to service parts of the system. Without that information I was pretty much dead weight.

I could get another computer and service manuals but it would take weeks and I would still not have my past data to make any sort of performance evaluations.

The thing that pissed me off truth be told is that the troops here in Iraq depend on me and people like me to get that data processed and make changes in the system so the War can run smoothly. When I don't get it right there is a potential that someone's child doesn't make it back to the states.

That is my priority and why I'm here so these guys can make it back home in one piece. Unfortunately he doesn't take this war as seriously as I do.


Q:
Did you get your stuff back?

A:
Yes, I got my stuff back after about 45 days. I took all my research data off and formatted the drive for good measure.

Q:
Do you think that NCIS is still looking at your blog?

A:
Without a doubt. I'm loquacious, I'm sure they are peeping in every so often to make sure I'm still playing for the team. Agent Smoother didn't come off as an Internet guy stated he liked my work so he may just check just to check, I wouldn't know. I assume that I'm being monitored at all times.


Q:
Any recourse against that Matlock guy?

A:
None that I'm aware of. Again they didn't out and out name him and say Matlock said this. I pulled it all together from what I had already known. Everything boils down to him.

Q:
Why aren't you GS-13 types owning punks like Matlock?

A:
No need. In the long run what would that gain me? If I want to piss Matlock off all I need to do is keep doing what I'm doing and that is an excellent job for the USMC and for the people of the United States of America. Small people hate success.

Q:
Learn how to spell MacGuyver b*tch. ;)

A:
Black MacGuyver doesn't need to spell.

Q:
Most of the GS people I had to deal with were total asses, good to see it isn't a requirement.

A:
I don't give a shit about my GS rating truth be told. If you have to rely on it to get things done then you can't get things done.


Q:
They didn't give you a full body cavity search?

A:
No, but that didn't mean I didn't ask!

Q:
Wow...A VERY good read there. Good to see everything turn out all right for you and your sense of humor is still intact.

A:
Again the situation to me was like beads of water to a duck. I've lived a life where I've had to retain my sense of humor to stay level. He isn't the first person to try and stop me from being successful and he won't be the last.

Q:
So are you mad?

A:
I was once everything was said and done, but that was months ago. I look at it like this, what would it gain me to get in this guy's face and tell him off. First off the guy is a trained killer. I may be a lot of things but I am not stupid. A person who willing lie on me to satisfy his own needs and has the physical capacity to do harm to me would if given the opportunity. I look at it as a fortuitous thing, if he knows it or not or cares this event made me a better person. I've been in a situation where someone has attempted to take my life and now one where someone has attempted to take my freedom, and he used the power of the government of the United States to do it and failed. How do you think that makes me feel? I think I'll put my balls on e-bay when I get home. They are brass.

Q:
Pretty awesome read, Tommie. Hopefully that Matcock guy gets fucked.

A:
Whatever happens happens. I don't wish ill on him just because he wished ill on me. He has charted his course and hopefully he too one day will learn from this and will become better for it. That is what I would hope.

Q:
So let me get this straight when black people move into a neighborhood all the white people move out. Is America that simple?

A:
Yes. I've gotten several emails from readers who are from more homogeneous countries. They don't live a in an environment that relishes in diversity like the great United States of America. So to help them understand I have provided illustrations of how white flight works.

See here are white people all happy. Imagine they have just finished watching an episode of Friends or The OC.

Now then my illustration isn't to scale. They usually move faster than what I drew.


In reference to my "This is Tommie - Ya’ll Hear that Nolia Clap?" post.

Q:
If someone from New Orleans were experiencing your blog then they would be highly offended.


A:
Funny you should say that because someone from N.O. showed up to my board and then posted that entry on his New Orleans board. Pretty much all the people there agreed with what I said. You have to live in New Orleans in order to understand it. New Orleans is a predatory town. In New Orleans the strong feed on the weak. New Orleans creates two types of people predators and survivors.

On top of that the word Nigger, nigga, or niggers doesn't have the same effect that it used to. Some fool convinced some in the Black community that it is a word of pride.
“What up Nigger!”
“Where my Niggas at?,”
“What's that nigga doing?”
“Them niggers crazy.”

All that sounds real and cool and shit. Replace it with coon.

“What up Coon!”
“Where my Coons at?”
“What's that Coon doing?”
“Them Coons crazy.”

Doesn’t look so cool now does it?

People don't feel insulted with Nigger but coon, coon let's you know what I'm talking about. Coon is old school hate. The sad thing is people don't realize it is the same word.

As any reader knows I have a diverse vocabulary and I know the impact of each and every word I choose. I choose every word on this site and in real life carefully. I never say anything without a purpose or a reason.

Q:
Blogging is therapeutic don't you think?

A:
For some I would say yes, for me no. I have two reasons that I'm writing this blog.

It is a record of my life for my family in the event I die. I don't want them to have questions about what I thought or the person I was. I also didn't want people to send me up as some sort of saint. I'm a mix of good things and bad things.

Q:
What are you doing for Mother's Day for your Mother?

A:
Giving her a call and telling her I love her. Pretty much what I do every Mother's Day.

Q:
That's it?

A:
Yes, that's it. As I have said before my family doesn't get off the materialistic sides of these holidays. For us talking and communication and telling each other that we care is what we find the most joy in. I find this question somewhat funny, if you look at the things I've done over the past 6 months I've surpassed what 85% of what most Americans do for their parents but still I'm a "bad" child or an inconsiderate child because I'm not sending my Mom an I ♥ Mom pendant from Kay Jewelers. That benefits Kay Jewelers not me or not my Mom. That's how we look at it. The only holidays that have importance to us are Christmas, Birthdays, and Anniversaries.


Q:
Are you lonely there yet?

A:
Lonely in what way? No I'm not really lonely. Bored but, not lonely.


Q:
Lonely like being there has made you realize the importance of close relationships

A"
Oh I realize the importance of close relationships I have them with my family. I've never really gained close relationships with people that aren't my Mom, Dad, or Brother. I didn't start having close relationships with anyone until I was in college.

Q:
How is your family?

A:
They are fine. My brother just sent me a movie of my nephew, last time I saw him he could barely walk now that little boy is scooting about like someone lit a fire under his ass. Kids grow so fast. As for my folks they are just eager for me to come home.

Q:
Have you been thinking more about God?

A:
Probably not. If I do I think about God I think about him more for others than myself.


Q:
Would you say due to the fact of only being close to family (at least mostly) that you are an introvert?

A:
No if you ask people around me I'm very much an extrovert. When I say close to family that means who I trust. My life has been such that I don't trust people that aren't related to me. I've never seen any good come of it and the people that I do trust that are not related to me I treat them as I would family.

Q:
Well name one person you are close to that isn't related to you.

A:
I can name two off the bat T-Dog and T-Money. T-Money was the only person that was there for me when I was at my lowest, he made sure I ate when I didn't have money to eat, he made sure I made it to work when I didn't have a car. He made sure I had money in pocket even sometimes when he didn't have for himself. T-Money treated me like family even when he had no need to and I'll always be grateful for that. If it weren't for T-Money I wouldn't have made it, I would have lost what little I had. I've got plenty of stories with T-Dog but, I'll save them for later we aren't to that bridge yet.

Q:
You seem like those columbine boys?

A:
No, I didn't blame the world because I couldn't get it together I just knew where my problem was. I mean if I just wanted to kill him that would have been easy. I had access to a gun and bullets but that would have been too easy. I have a penchant for the grandiose. If I ever do something it's going to be spectacular. Any geek off the street can shoot a gun you don't even need opposable thumbs do to it. But to break into someone's locker and set up an explosive to detonate remotely, that takes timing and planning and foresight (it also takes a real disdain for the sanctity of human life but that is splitting hairs). To me it wasn't about killing him but more about showing my "superior" intelligence in doing it.

If you notice as a child I would cry when confronted by a situation I didn't like but, the by the time I was a teenager that sadness turned to anger. I chalk it up to that influx of testosterone that comes with adolescence. One of the things I decided for myself when I left New Orleans was that I'd never cry for myself again. I'd never waste time feeling sorry for myself. If I couldn't Escape, Evade and Entrench then I'd Improvise, adapt and overcome. I went from being a whiny pussy to going to a loathing pussy but, a pussy nonetheless. There was more for me to see before I got it right.

Q:
I was in high school with you, you didn't want to kill me did you?

A:
Ha, ha, ha. No, but I made you think.


Q:
Good to hear you didn't get fucked over on this. I wouldn't want to see threads here by you with titles like "The large tattooed man from Cellblock C winked at me. GAF what should I do?"

A:
Me too, me too.

Q:
Well at least your life didn't turn you into one of those dudes who can't even holler at a female, or doesn't hang out at all.

A:
Yeah, it could have been me but as you will see in some upcoming episodes where my attitude changes. However at this time I had 0 self esteem when it came to girls. I was always told when I went to white schools "I would like you if you weren't black." and when I went to black schools. I heard "I would like you if you didn't sound like a white boy". As it usually is with women you can't win for losing. So after a while I paved my own trail. The funny thing is to me that I've never really fit in with whites or Blacks but, I understand them both and I understand the game. To me I really have no real identity. The book The Invisible Man is my favorite book because it described how I felt about myself and about life.


Q:
Did you guys work or has the storm put a hold on everything?

A:
Sand doesn't stop killing.

Q:
What college did you attend?

A:
Tennessee State University

Q:
Any clubs?

A:
No.

Q:
Extra activities (women don't count)?

A:
No.

Q:
What were your studies?

A:
Computer Science

Q:
Well what did you do it sounds like you were pretty boring in college.

A:
What I did in college you said didn't count.

Q:
HA! This tabs thing works - you fucking rock - awesome!

A:
Well, I'm here to help. I really want to make people that use the Internet smarter.

Q:
Is there even a reason to use Internet Explorer?

A:
Unfortunately yes, but I'll save that for another lesson.


I'll leave you all with a conversation I had with my Dad right before I posted this


Son, I love you. Every father should be so lucky to have sons like I have.

- Dad

Yeah they should but you lucked up.

- Tommie

The holy rath of God hath returned.

It's insane out here. I have found one thing that is worse than a sandstorm. A sandstorm mixed in with high winds, lightning, and hail. I was going to chow and I was getting pelted in the face with hail and rocks and pieces of trash that wasn't secured. It is like the world has gone mad out there.

Here are some more photos that represent what it it looked like around here at about 4 pm.







This post is Saint approved.

Tommie doing his part for the internet once again

Today my friends we will learn about firefox and tabbed browsing. I have so led you all astray. Giving you firefox without tabbed browsing is like giving Luke a lightsaber and not showing him the 'on' button.

Extensions like the word says extends the functionality of the bowser. That means it gives you more useful options.

The first thing we will learn about is tabbed browsing.

With IE if you want to look at two different webpages at the same time you have to open two intances of IE like this.



Now then that is fine if you are working with two pages but what if you are doing a search on something flowers native to Amsterdam? Well of course you would go to your favorite search browser and type in flowers native to Amsterdam which will give you several results. Like this.


To open all those results that would mean you would have to open 30 IE windows! As you well know that can be confusing as hell when you are switching back from one window to the next it's all very jumbled. Firefox we do the same search and we have the option to 'open with in new tab'


Now then if you click on all the search options you see up top that in each tab there is a different webside. Could you imagine trying to put those all on your desktop? On top of that I've never left the search screen so I can go to page 2 and not lose the search results I've already gotten. Pretty neat huh?


Now then you can make Firefox automatically do that by changing the configuration file or config file for short. What you do is type about:config the url text box. This give you a list of all the configurable items in Firefox. Looks daunting, huh?


Well don't worry about that becasue we know where we are going. Below the url text box is a text box named filter. In that box we are going to type browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs (you can actually copy and paste this value to save time) as you can see below Firefox filters your results. Your setting is probably set to false. Double click on that value and switch it to true.



Now then close your browser and re-open it. We will now go to Tools->Options



Then select Advanced. Don't be scared Advanced won't hurt you. If you're scared go to Church. Scroll down to Tabbed Browsing and make your options look like the ones in this picture.



Now then close your browser and re-open it. Now when you click on a link it will open in a new tab. It's great when you go to news sites or you have mutiple sites/links you want to look at, at the same time.

This is Tommie - My first time

There isn't really much to say about this, it was the same year maybe a few weeks later and there was another girl in the neighborhood she was going to the 9th grade and this time I carefully verified. This girl was fast, and I'm not saying, fast in the girls are dirty because they like sex and boys aren't kind of way. I'm saying this girl had WAY more experience than any one adolescent should reasonably have. Heck I'd be impressed if a woman twice her age could do what she did. She had a trick for your ass. We were down in my basement (learning my lesson from outdoor activity) and she had brought some condoms over with her. Now this is the kicker, remember this girl is 14 or 15 years old she put the condom in her mouth and then unrolled it with her mouth on my penis. Regardless what you think that, THAT is a marketable skill. I don't really remember much about the sex I just remember thinking,

"YES, YES, YES I'm not a virgin anymore! I don't have to lie!"

The reason this girl was so skilled is because she had to be because she was ugly as sin. Yea, yea I know what you are saying if she was so ugly then why did you do it? I was a boy of few options and beggars can't be choosers.

Now then here is my parents dark little secret that they don't want people to know. They are two of the most image conscious people I know. As you all know God doesn't like ugly and they are the right and left eyeballs of God. Truth be told I don't blame them. They knew their son was an ugly ducking and when ugly ducklings don't get attention they will cling to the first thing that gives them said attention.

On this one my Mom took the lead she said, "That girl is NOT allowed at our house anymore Tommie she is TOO fast for you and she has no respect for our home."

I see it for what it is. They didn't want me arm and arm with a gulla-gulla. They may say we wanted you to focus on you studies and you weren't responsible enough for sex and she was too fast for you. All of which would have been true, but the real reason is they didn't want an ugly girl in the house. That's what I got from it and as a result I won't let a woman come to my house unless I know she will pass my parents ugly test. Every woman that has been to my parents’ house since then has been a drop dead gorgeous woman. Not many women that I have been with have even seen my parents’ house. I would say less than 10%. If you aren't cute then you aren't with me and if you aren't gorgeous you don't meet my parents. It's not my rules it's theirs. Sorry. Some people may say that's kind cruel but me I thank them everyday because if it wasn't for their rules I could be hugged up with Alice the Goon right now.

Needless to say she never came back to the house.

This is Tommie - My first attempt

Well in our new neighborhood I was the 16 and the oldest kid there and there was this girl that lived down the street she when to Riverdale. She said she was in the 9th grade I she was fine. She would come over during the after school and she would let me touch her boobies. It was quite the thrill, even today I still have that "Oh my God I can't believe she is letting me do this" when it comes to boobie touching.

Oh how a young boy's dream comes crashing down.

One day we were out on the backyard patio and she was straddling me with her boobies out. Oh man, good times. However I didn't notice the garage door opening or the door opening.

My Mom had come home and had what I would consider a life experience. Just like no child wants to think of their parent as a sexual being I think it goes ten fold for a parent and twenty fold for a parent of the opposite gender. So my Mom come into the kitchen and sees me tuning into Tokyo with this girl. I think she went into shock. She dashed past the kitchen and went upstairs. When I saw the blur, which was my Mom, passed by I figured I was in trouble I told her she is going to have to go and I braced for some trouble. But, my Mom didn't say anything to me. My Dad came home and he had some words with me about appropriate and inappropriate behavior with young women and basically the young lady was not allowed to be over when they weren't at home.

It was fully braced for a double shot of Mom and Dad but it never came. I think my Mom was trying to come to grips with what she saw. Something that I don't thing she fully became comfortable with until I got out of college and I figure my Dad had to put up that strong front but, I know he was doing back flips in his mind thinking "That's my boy all man!"

Well that wasn't what stopped me. I found out later a few days later she did go to Riverdale. Riverdale Elementary the girl was 12 and in 6th grade. Oh God, I feel creepy even thinking about it. That being said she never came over again.

Hey did I ever tell about the time I was detained in Iraq and a prime suspect in a treason case...

Yeah, funny story that, let's see where should I start. I was here writing some thank you cards and shipping out some gifts to family I was just talking to Ken about how well things were going and I needed to stock up on my Karma because I'm sure in the near future I'm going to blow it. We had a good laugh about that and I dropped the gifts and cards in the mail. Usually we stay up all hours of the night but I was feeling particularly good that evening and I said I was going to call it an early night.

I wake up the next day feeling more relaxed than I ever had the entire time I was here. It was weird I had a sense of inner peace that I'd never felt before. Well Ken had flipped his schedule and was on his way to bed and I was going to cover the day. He was logging off for the day when two men came in the office. They asked looked at Ken with their hands on their guns and asked if he was Thomas Johnson. We said no I am. Then they said NCIS we need you too step away from the computer and don't touch anything we have a search warrant relating to the possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information and the unauthorized intentional access to government computer systems. Ken and I looked at each other like what the fuck.

So they asked Ken to leave the office and they asked me if I would mind taking a ride with them to their office. In my mind I'm like do I mind? It was as if I had the option to say no. Well let me describe my two new friends one who we will call Special Agent Smoother was the lead investigator he was an older gentleman and he was the "good" cop if you will and Special Agent Giggles was the "bad" cop he was a younger gentleman who had a constant look on his face like you told the world's funniest joke...about his dead mother. So they escorted me out and tell Ken to lock the door and basically take a hike, he can't go to our room or in the office so he had to stay in the MP's office next door to us. Armed guards secured both places. The MPs who I had become friends with were looking like what the hell is going on and Ken had this hopeless look on his face like he wanted to save me.


Well we get into the interrogation room and Smoother tells me that at this time I'm not under arrest just a suspect in a crime that and both offences can put me in federal prison for 20 years. Then he says to me before you say anything I want to let you know you are a suspect in a crime and as a suspect you have the right to an attorney before you answer any questions. I'm thinking to myself where the fuck am I going to get an attorney from around here? It's not like Lionel Hutz lives around the fucking corner. Any lawyer that I could get around here was playing for the team as it were and not my best defense. I hadn't done anything wrong and besides I knew that they were coming eventually and I knew what they would be asking so I was pretty much ready. So I said I'll talk and at that point he takes my fingerprints and mug shot which were sent to the FBI.

Here is the situation I met a Marine out here that I called Toker. I won't go into details you can read about him here. Needless to say one of my skills is the ability to size up a person in six hours or less, about duration of an elementary school day. That was about as much time to decide my alliances in school. My rogue's galleries are implementations of that skill. Basically it is a snap shot of a person that I have observed for six hours. I've done this with everyone I know and for the most part I've never been surprised by how they act. Outside of other military brats who I avoid on principle there has only been one other person I've never been able to figure out but to be fair I don't think she can figure herself out.

That is neither here nor there, what happened is this someone from Toker's unit found my blog and the link to his blog from that they saw that on his blog he was talking
about people in his unit...senior people specifically him. Well this particular individual who we will call Matlock, because of his superior legal skills, was no fan of Toker and scoured his blog for any OPSEC violations. Well Matlock believed that one was found and instead of handling it on the NCO level he took it to the CO. The CO when faced with such allegations had to act and sent it up the chain. Well in this search for OPSEC violations Matlock wandered over to my blog and of course from my
description of Toker Matlock thought we were thick as thieves. Since he was looking for dirt he took some of my entries to the CO and claimed they were OPSEC violations as well. On top of that Matlock alleged that Toker "hacked" into the domain that my computer resided on then hacked my computer and placed this classified file on my
computer. The only problem with this is Matlock had no fucking clue what he was talking about or who he was dealing with. He just had an overriding desire to stick it to Toker and as far as he was concerned because I was "fond" of Toker I could get it in the ass too.


Here was my great crime. When I first got into country I was working with Toker and his unit. In trying to build camaraderie with my new co-workers I downloaded a file of an AC 130 gunship attacking some Taliban targets at the beginning of the Afghan War. Somewhere in the October 2001 range, you can find files like this all over the Internet. While I'm sure they were classified at one point and time they are so easy to find today that I don't think anyone even blinks. So I show the file to members of Toker's unit as a matter of fact Matlock was one of the first people to see it. It confuses me how he could have forgotten that little fact. No matter, it's his problem now.

Well all the people at the unit that saw it loved it and they wanted copies for themselves. So Toker saved it on their unclassified shared directory so people could get it they wanted it. NCIS had been reading my blog for weeks trying to gather information and wanted to see if what I was talking about was classified data. Since I've spent my entire career in Information security I have a good idea of what does and doesn't constitute OPSEC.

I left and when back to my home base forgetting to get a copy of the file for myself. So I emailed Toker a few days later and asked him if he could email me the file. He tried and the file was too big. Since he and I were on the same Domain he provided me with the path to the file and I saved it to my computer. No harm no foul case closed.

Let me explain domains in a simple form. Think of a domain as your house. Within your house you have access to everything in your house and you can move it around freely. There is nothing wrong with that. You next-door neighbor lives in another house, (domain) the only way you can go to into their house is if they give you
permission. If they don't give you permission and you go in anyway that is a crime.

Now then lets talk about physical and logical separation. Let's say you have two
homes one in New York and one in California they are both your domains but they are physically separated So these homes are physically separated but logically they both
belong to you, you can access them anytime you want, and you can move things around if you choose. Everyone who lives in your house lives in your domain and has access to all the common (shared) areas of your domain (living room, dining room, kitchen, bathrooms etc.) if you have a book in your room and someone asks for it then you place it on the kitchen table then tell them they can find the book on the table that isn't a crime two people who live in the same house that share a book are not committing a crime. This is basically what happened here Toker put a file in the shared area for me to get since we were on the same domain.

Because we were physically separated SA Smoother thought that we were on different domains thus a crime committed but after explaining to him that we were on the same domain a lynchpin in this case fell apart. Then when I told them about the file and any descriptions of that file were not part of any active operations then the second part of the lynchpin fell apart. On top of that nothing in my blog ever discussed any current missions. They asked me about some of the descriptions of events on my blog and I told them much like I've told every reader on my blog is that not everything I write is to scale. The ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘why’ are always changed and are very rarely exact. My stories are just to give a feel to people who are not here what it is like or what a possible situation is like. For them to get Toker, I had to be complicit in a crime. No crime was committed so the case went away. Toker had a host of other legal issues that he was dealing with that they didn't let me in on.

You could see the anger and flat out confusion in Smoother's face. Giggles was still processing the funnies about his mom. They wasted weeks of surveillance on my
blog and they came up with nothing. Well after Agent Smoother realized that Matlock just wasted their fucking time his attitude changed toward me a bit. He became a bit more talkative and we talked about his wife and his son who was about my age. And then he asked me how my family was doing. I said huh? He said how is your family coping with the loss of your cousin. Of all the things he said to me, the crime I was alleged of doing, the years I was looking at, the idea of never seeing freedom again, that was what floored me. Here was this guy that I had never seen before in my life and he knew things about me, personal things and the thing was that I could tell it was a natural concerned for my family and not something to get in with me. This man spent weeks reading my blog and gleaming every bit of information out of it. He knew pretty much everything about me he took notes on me. That was the first time in decades that I felt open and unprotected. It was the most sickening feeling that I've had in my life and it is something that I'm going to have to cope with when I get back stateside. There are hundred of people now who know every detail about me. I've never been a person who liked people to know things about me. I’ve prided myself on not being known. We talked about some other blogs that were linked to me, on of the reasons I got rid of all the links was due to guilt by association. I get people who want me to read their blogs all the time and when I first started doing this I had a rule. If someone liked my work and they had a blog I would post a link up to their blog regardless of content. There were some blogs that I didn't like or agree with the content but, if they liked me enough to tell me then I would link to them it was only fair. Again I didn't always agree with people and I thought that some blogs and bloggers were out and out fakes (a fact confirmed by Agent Smoother) but I realized that a whole bunch of people were getting wrapped into Matlock's problem with Toker. As a result I removed the links.

Well, as you can see they had a search warrant that they had to execute as part of procedure. By this time they felt they had enough information to know that I wasn’t guilty of anything. But, they had to execute the search warrant and this by far was the worst part. I had just started getting books from some of my readersnof the blog. So on my desk as big as day was this book “Google Hacking: Explore the Dark Side of Googling”.

Agent Smoother asks me if this is my book and I'm like "Fuck!" that's in my mind. I say yes. He thumbs through the book and then puts it down then looks on my shelf and see my books on learning German, Arabic, and Spanish. He looks at me again and says you are going to be quite the linguist I see. This isn't a complement from someone who is accusing you of unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

I respond well it's my belief that you should know at least the basics of the native language of the people you interact with. He said that's a good thing an then he goes
into this story about his interaction with a cabbie that he underestimated but, come to find out that the guy knew like five or six languages.

Agent Giggles hasn't said anything he is just observing the room and observing me seeing if I'm making any sudden movements or if he can read anything on me. As much as they are watching me, I'm watching them. Well after they go through my books and stuff they start to back and tag all of my electronic equipment. All my memory sticks, computers, hard drives, music CDs, tutorial CDs everything. This is the part that actually made me mad. Matlock's accusations was now starting to cost me money.

Basically they were taking every piece of data that I had relating to my job. All of my own personal music CDs and pretty much everything I need in order to function in Iraq. They said they had to send back state side for it to get analyzed for classified information. I asked how long and this was the first time Giggles had anything to say, "As long as it takes"

I said I could have figured that out by myself Agent Obvious! IN MY MIND. It came out like "I understand, you all have to do what you need to do and I'm happy to help."

Well after the bagged ever piece of evidence which was every piece of electronic/digital equipment I had. We had to go to my room. At my room was an armed guard. I foundout later that there was an APB out on me and that they were authorized to use force in order to detain me. I laugh to myself when I think about that because as far as threatening Black men go, I rank right between Will Smith and Cuba Gooding Jr.

We get in my room and the Smoother asks me the strangest question I have ever heard in my life. He asks if I have any snakes or any other poisonous critters in my room. Surely they didn't gleam that off the blog. I'm thinking what is he thinking? Like I have two attack rattlesnakes loaded on my arm to launch out and make my escape.

DEAL WITH THESE COPPERS! Whoosh! Whoosh! ARRRGH!

Matlock couldn't have been that off the mark. I say no I don't and he goes to tell me about one time he was on an assignment looking for some drugs or something and they went to this guys house. The guy was getting jumpy when people went to near his garbage can so Smoother went to search the garbage can and was met by several pit vipers. Needless to say I would assume you only have to live that experience one time in order to ask it every time after that.

Well while they are searching my room for stuff and as they suspected they didn't find anything because I keep everything but clothes and toothbrushes in the office. So after they search my room they take me back to the office. I tell Smoother if you need anything else let me know I'll be happy to help. He said that wouldn’t be necessary, we won't be seeing one another again. Even though I haven't seen Agent Smoother I'm sure NCIS and at least one other federal law enforcement agency checks this blog daily just to make sure that I'm still playing by the rules.

So I get back in the office and Ken who looks like he just had a heart attack asked me if everything was ok. I just looked at him for a second. HE didn't have the look of a co-worker; he had the look of a father that couldn't help his son. He looked so relieved at that moment. I told him everything was ok and he gave me this big hug. It was a real hallmark moment. It was a stressful time for the two of us. So I was free to go no harm, no foul, with the exception of the fact that I had no computer or any memory devices so basically Matlock screwed my check.


Now then let's look behind the curtain.

I knew that some sort of questioning was coming because when I found out when Toker first got in trouble he was ordered not to speak to me anymore. What really let me on, and if you want to talk about OPSEC, was when an anonymous poster wrote some tirade on my blog.

I knew exactly who it was and what it was about so if I had done something illegal I would have known right then and there that I was being watched and I would have covered my tracks. Anonymous basically blew their whole case by out and out lying about what he knew, implicating me in a non-crime, and alerting a prime suspect in a federal crime that he was being watched.

Good job on that one Matlock thank Christ you are on our side.

But the kicker is this one here. Matlock started emailing people that came to my blog. Well of course all the emails he sent out came to me with his name and everything. So much for anonymous huh? Matlock's problem is that he was too zealous and makes the mistake everyone does when they think with emotion, they miss critical details, he made the mistake of underestimating his opponent thinking that I was some KBR trash that washes his clothes or cleans his toilets. Reading is fundamental.

If he would have looked behind the Black skin and the nappy afro he would have seen that my GS grade is 13 which happens to be unlucky for him and also makes me rank equivalent to an O-5 or Lt. Colonel there are people that will spent their entire life in the service and not reach the status of GS-13. Why am I where I am? Because I'm one of the best to ever do it. I've spent my career in information assurance and there are very few weapons or surveillance systems that haven't had my fingerprint on in the last 8 years. This isn't bragging this just is. What pissed me off is that my integrity was questioned, my word is the only currency I have and I value it more than anything. But, its ok I'm still here and Matlock can hate me everyday for it. Motivation.

But the cool thing is I got this nifty document that say the United States of America VS. Tommie Hustle. That is kind of cool how many people do you know that go up against the United States of America with just his own wit, grit, charm, and integrity and win? Well now you know at least one.



Tommie Hustle AKA the Black MacGuyver

Bugs Bunny --- To the EXTREEEEEEEME!!!

You may or may not know but WB plans to update Bugs Bunny and pals to make them more 'hip' and accessible to the younger generation. Anyone who as seen these partial birth abortions has been sickened to the core. As fan of all things cartoon I am reviled. I'd rather see the old WB cartoons with the racist overtones over this crap at least they were funny.


At any rate a well-intentioned critic of the new direction of Bugs Bunny has created his own homage, if you will, to Bugs' new direction. I found it hilarious and I think my readers will too. However I do suggest headphones if you are so brave as to click onto any of my links at work or if you have small children that you would prefer not to traumatize.



This post is Streetpreacher approved

This is Tommie - Reinforcements

Well let's see. After the gun incident we moved to our new house and that is the house that my parents currently live in today. The thing about the new house was that it was in a different school district. The school my brother and I should have gone to was called Riverdale High. My parents gave us a choice (well me a choice) of what school I wanted to go to. We lived in the area before when I was in elementary school and I knew that a good majority of the kids I went to school with then would be at Riverdale. Central and South Clayton County hadn't started White Flight at that moment and was still about 80 to 90% white. Knowing the people as kids I had no desire to be back in school with them. White people from the South were mean and ugly enough as small children, I knew I didn’t want to get into it with them as near adults. Also, I had Black teachers at North Clayton. Not all of my teachers were Black but some of them were and as I said I could see a difference between the way Black teachers treated me and how White teachers treated me. I was sticking with the Black teachers because I fared better when I did. Plus who was to say I wouldn't have to deal with another Jason or something worse. I was tired of running and on top of that I'm not quitter. I wasn't going to be scared of him or anyone else and I refused to let him beat me.

The sad thing is that my brother wanted to go to Riverdale and part of me thinks he may have had a better high school experience than he did if he did go there but, my Mom didn't want to have to fight her battles on two different fronts so since I was the oldest I won out.

After the winter break I met this kid named J. I don't know how we met he was super smart and was in the gifted classes I think there were only 4 other people in his class and they stayed in the same room all day I they let him out for Science and Math classes. All I know is that he liked video games like I did, he drew like I did, he read like I did, he had the same outlook on Christianity like I did and best of all he was born a day before I was. And on top of that he was Jason's former whipping boy before I showed up so we had a common enemy. So after talking to him for a while and getting to know him school didn't seem so bad. I still had terrible luck with the girls. Years of rejection had pretty much shattered any self-confidence I had when it came to girls; I was either too white or too black either way I was lame. Plus it didn't help that the star basketball player made jokes on me every chance he got. With J around it wasn't so bad. It was really one of the first times that I had a friend or at least an ally.

Ok I changed my mind May is going to suck.

It seem someone around here doesn't know the meaning of 7 minute Navy Showers! As a result the Camp Commandant has closed the showers indefinitely. It wouldn't be so bad if it was December this is coming up on the hottest part of the year.

That's it! I'm never having sex again.

I saw this French AIDS prevention ad that has given me the real deal heebie-geebies.

HELL YES!

It's finally May!