Okay, Fellows, Listen Up...

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Today, friends, I’d like to address my words to the men in the audience, specifically the young men.

See, some among you have developed some strange ideas about the way things are and how they ought to be — particularly as those things pertain to the female gender.

What drew my attention to this subject was the brutal rampage of young Elliot Rodger, who, fueled by rage and a sense of thwarted privilege, stabbed three people to death in his Southern California apartment before taking to the streets, shooting two young women outside a sorority house, then killing another young man in a deli before turning the gun on himself.

Often, when this sort of thing happens, people are left wondering, “What would cause someone to do a terrible thing like this?” In Rodger’s case, however, he left plenty of explanation, including a 140-page written screed and a video recorded from inside his BMW. In both, Rodger chillingly describes the upcoming “Day of Retribution.”

His grievance? Women didn’t want to have sex with him.

His was the cry we’ve heard for years from unfulfilled nerds and other guys whose interaction with the females in their lives exist in that tortured limbo known as the “Friend Zone.”

“I’m the perfect guy,” Rodger says, “and yet you throw yourselves at these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman.” But most don’t go as far into the darkness as young Elliot when he concludes with, “I can’t wait to give you exactly what you deserve. Utter annihilation.”

This horrifying manifesto apparently struck a chord with some males. Some even put up fan pages for Rodger on Facebook. Some, inevitably, tried to put the blame on women.

“More people will die unless you give men sexual options,” claimed the website ReturnofKings.com, a mainstay of what’s known as, God help us, the Pick-Up Artist community (PUA for short). The subscribers to the PUA philosophy claim to use the psychological principles of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) to manipulate unsuspecting women (called “targets”) into sex. The techniques are collectively known as “game,” and they’ll teach them to you for the price of an instructional DVD (or several).

If Elliot Rodger had only had better “game,” some PUA websites insist, none of this would have happened, and did we mention we have a DVD to sell?

PUA claims to be the answer for every guy who’s ever wailed, “I’m a nice guy. I’m a gentleman. Why do all the hot women I know just want to be friends?” I suppose the PUA solution of becoming a manipulative, scheming sociopath is better than Elliot Rodger’s answer of killing people, but that’s not saying much.

Perhaps I can offer an alternative. Understand, I’m not holding myself out as some kind of Love Guru, but my time on this Earth has taught me a few things about life that I’ll just lay on you right now:

First, being a “nice guy” and a “gentleman” is the least that’s expected of you by the world in general. It’s the baseline. It doesn’t entitle you to anything other than the knowledge that you’re not a jackass. It certainly doesn’t entitle you to a woman. You need to bring something else to the conversation other than that bare minimum and your raw need.

If you want people (and hey, guess what, women are people) to be interested in you, then you need to be interesting. Do something. Be something. And by “be something,” I mean something more than a desperate horn-dog who sees every aspect of his life through the lens of “will this get me into bed with a woman?”

Oh, and if you’re being a “nice guy” and a “perfect gentleman” for no other reason than because you think it’s going to get women in bed with you, then I have a bit of sad news: You’re not really a nice guy or a gentleman. You’re just acting like one for advantage. Like the PUA’s “game,” this is the sort of thing sociopaths do.

Years of movies, TV, even video games have taught us the wrong lesson: that if we’re just good enough, nice enough, or persistent enough, every guy can get the hot babe of his dreams. When it doesn’t work out that way (see “not really a nice guy,” above), some get bitter and fill a thousand Internet message boards with misogynistic bile. Some turn to the codified sociopathy peddled to them by the PUA snake-oil salesmen.

Tragically, some, like Elliot Rodger, become violent. That’s not going to change until our attitudes do and we start thinking of women as people, not “targets” or rewards.

Review: TAKEDOWN, by Brett Battles and Robert Gregory Browne

Takedown by Brett Battles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Poe boys (Robert Gregory Browne and Brett Battles) are back with the second installment in the Alexandra Poe series. I really liked the first one, and I have to say this one is even better. The pacing is letter-perfect and the action scenes are crisper and more focused.

Like the writers of a great TV show, the authors do a good job of weaving the plot of this "episode" in with the overall story arc of Alexandra Poe's search to find out the truth about her missing father and murdered mother, and like great TV, the end of this story leaves you gasping to find out what happens next time. Recommended.


View all my reviews

Suppose They Had a Revolution and Nobody Came

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Those wild and wacky wingnuts are at it again!

What are those zany scamps up to this time? Why, trying to overthrow the government, of course! Unfortunately for them (and hilariously for citizens of the non-crackpot variety), the government didn’t seem to notice.

It happened (or more accurately, didn’t happen) last weekend, at an event called Operation American Spring, OAS for short. OAS was the “brainchild” of a former U.S. Army colonel named Harry Riley. On his website, Riley laid out his plan to “restore the Constitution.” In fine military fashion, Riley broke the op down into three “phases.”

1: OAS would “field millions, as many as 10 million, patriots” who would assemble on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., “spiritually/ Constitutionally armed” to replace the “current government.”

2: One million of the 10 million (Riley later told Alan Colmes that the count could go as high as 30 million) would remain on-site “as long as it takes to see Obama, Biden, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, Pelosi, and Attorney General Holder removed from office.”

3: “Those with the principles of a West, Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson, Lee, DeMint, Paul, Gov. Walker, Sessions, Gowdy, Jordan, should comprise a tribunal and assume positions of authority to convene investigations, recommend appropriate charges against politicians and government employees to the new U.S. attorney general appointed by the new president.”

Yes, there’s nothing that says “restoring the Constitution” like a minority of disgruntled voters overthrowing a freely elected government because they didn’t like the election result, then establishing an unelected tribunal to arrest and punish those they designate as political undesirables. Reign of Terror, anyone?

The coup wouldn’t be easy, Riley warned.

“It will be painful,” he said, “and some people may die because the government will not be nonviolent; some of us will end up in a cell, and some may be injured.”

A fellow named Terry Trussell, who identified himself as OAS’s “chief of staff,” told the “Patriot Nation” radio show that “if things got bigger,” the administration could “pull in drones,” but confidently predicted that “when the government destroys the capital just to get rid of us, I think it’s going to work to their discredit.”

Well, yeah, I guess that would be true. If, that is, the basic premise of the statement weren’t bat-spit crazy.

So the big day, May 16, rolled around, and — well, not much happened. From the live feed that the OAS people thoughtfully set up on the Internet, it looked like about 200 people showed up. It was kind of hard to tell, because for a long time, the camera was apparently lying on its side.

What could be seen in the feed, and in various photos posted from the event, was small knots of people (mostly older, almost exclusively white) milling around aimlessly, shouting a lot, and most definitely not being slaughtered by Obama’s Killer Drones.

“It’s a very dismal turnout,” 61-year-old Jackie Milton, the head of Texans for Operation American Spring, glumly told The Washington Times. One “patriot” was even more poignant; he stood in front of the camera and screamed “Where you AT?” over and over.

It is true that, in advance of the coming of the OAS wavelet, the president and Mr. Biden actually did flee the White House — all the way to a local Shake Shack, where they had a nice lunch and talked to reporters about raising the minimum wage. From the pictures, a lot more people showed up at that event than at the Mall.

Faced with this kind of embarrassment, some OAS supporters took to Twitter, with a variety of excuses for the poor turnout that were so lame that #Americanspringexcuses became a trending topic all its own.

30 million "patriots" descend on DC disguised as empty chairs! Clint Eastwood was proud! #OperationAmericanSpring pic.twitter.com/PbTxMUbCIB
— KHARY PENEBAKER (@kharyp) May 17, 2014

Some posted photos of massive crowds on the Mall, only to have others note from a cursory examination of the signs and clothing that the pictures were from civil rights marches from 40 years ago.

My personal favorite was the often-repeated “well, a lot of these patriots have jobs.” Possibly, but here’s a thought: When the horrible tyranny under which you claim to suffer isn’t enough to make you ask for a personal day to overthrow the government, then maybe the tyranny isn’t so horrible after all.

Another right wing attempt to overturn the election has failed, because, despite the drama-queen ranting of the worshippers of “West, Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson,” etc., normal people look around and, for the most part, see things as getting better. They may not be completely happy, but unlike the deluded misfits of OAS, they’re not unhappy to the point of treason.

Running the Big Con

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

A man and a woman sat across the table from one another in a nondescript diner off the main highway. The man was older and grizzled-looking, while the woman was young and blonde, with the fresh-faced, innocent look of a high school cheerleader.

“I’ve been watching you, kid,” the man said. He saw her alarmed look and raised a hand. “Not like that. But I’ve seen you work. You’ve got instincts. You’ve got a real feel for what it takes to be a grifter, to work the big con. Once I teach you a few basic techniques, you could make a lot of money in this business. You interested?”

She leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowed. “I’m listening,” she said.

The man ignored her cautious tone. “First,” he said, “You’ve got to show authority. People will believe anything if they think it’s coming from someone who knows. You can be wrong, dead wrong, but you can never look like you’re unsure. Never back down, never apologize, and make anyone who questions you seem like they’re the idiot. Get some guys on your crew with fancy degrees or some former military guys. Doesn’t matter if they have any idea what they’re talking about, as long as they can spin a good line of patter that supports your con.”

“Sounds expensive. And I don’t know if I want to cut that many people in on the job.”

“Kid,” the man said, “this is the big time. You can’t think small.”

The woman nodded. “OK. I guess you’re right.”

“Well, I am, but even if I wasn’t, you see how quick you were to agree with me? That’s because the key to being a confidence man — or woman — is, well, confidence.”

The woman laughed. The man noticed she was beginning to relax and smiled to himself. He was the best, and he knew what worked.

“Second,” he said, “you’ve got to use fear.”

“Fear?”

“Fear,” he said. “You’ve got to know how to scare the rubes. Make them think that someone’s getting an advantage that they’re not getting. Or that someone’s going to get what’s theirs. Fortunately for you, it’s really easy. Most people live their lives terrified of just that. They’re like that squirrel-rat creature in those “Ice Age” movies, trying to hang on to his acorn. There’s a lot of money in fear for folks like us. Which brings me to my third point.”

He held up three fingers.

“Make the mark feel like he’s something special,” he said. “Make him feel like he’s getting information from you that no one else has. Stuff that anyone but the two of you is too dumb to know or too scared to talk about. You make the mark feel like he’s part of this special group. Combine that with the whole fear thing I just talked about, and pretty soon he’ll believe it’s the two of you against everyone else.”

“Yeah,” the woman said. “I get it. Make them seem like you’re their real friend and it’s everybody else who’s the con man. Then isolate them so that your voice is the only one they hear.”

“Exactly,” the man said. “You do that right, you can get the mark to turn against his own family if he thinks they’re trying to talk him out of listening to you. If all else fails, don’t be afraid to be a bully. Anyone tries to tell the rubes something different from what you want them to hear, cut them off. Don’t let them talk.”

“Wow,” she said. “That sounds kind of … I don’t know …”

“Kid,” the man said impatiently, “what did I tell you about thinking small? This is high stakes, big-money grifting we’re talking about here. You can’t afford to be soft. Don’t tell me I was wrong about you.”

The woman thought for a long moment. In his mind’s eye, the man could almost see the wheels turning in her head until all the windows in her mental slot machine came up in dollar signs.

“So,” the man said finally. “Whaddya think?”

The blonde woman smiled. “I’m in.”

“Great,” the man said. “I think you and me are going to make a lot of money in this business, kid.”

He stood up and extended a hand.

“Welcome to Fox News.”

Devils and Dust -Cover and Jacket Copy

"You bring death," the voice said, "and Hell follows with you."

Relentless bounty hunter Jack Keller returns in DEVILS AND DUST, the long-awaited fourth installment of the critically acclaimed series.

Keller’s been in exile, living a quiet life in the desert, since his disappearance after the cataclysmic events of 2008’s award-winning SAFE AND SOUND. Now his old friend and former employer Angela has tracked him down and needs his help. Oscar Sanchez, Angela’s husband and Keller’s best friend, has disappeared while investigating what happened to the sons he was trying to bring to America. If anyone can find Oscar, Keller can, but along the way, he has to confront his own demons and his unresolved feelings for Angela—now his best friend’s wife.

Keller’s quest takes him from a corrupt Mexican border town to a prison camp in the swamps of South Carolina and pits him against human traffickers, violent drug lords, and a vicious group of white supremacists perpetuating an evil as old as civilization itself in the name of God. All of them are about to learn a hard lesson: if Jack Keller's after you, he's bringing Hell with him.

Another Benghazi Fizzle

 The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion
Another month, another Benghazi fizzle.

It seems that the Raging Republican Right is trying once again to create an administration-destroying scandal by politicizing the tragic deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, during an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

Problem is, every new “bombshell revelation” they come up with turns out to be a dud.

The most famous one was the “60 Minutes” story by correspondent Lara Logan, in which a supposed eyewitness with a tale of personal derring-do and betrayal on that night was revealed within days to have been a fraud who’d told an entirely different story to his employers.

After that, you’d think the Benghazi Cult would be too embarrassed to even bring it up again. But that would assume that these people have the capacity for embarrassment. Caught spreading a lie, their reflex is to just yell the lie louder and look for a new one to spread.

They thought they’d found another “smoking gun” in the testimony of retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Lovell, who testified before Rep. Darrell Issa’s Kangaroo Court (aka the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee) that we “should have done more” to rescue the embattled ambassador and his staffers.

When questioned about what forces exactly were in place that could have reached the scene in time to save lives, Lovell took the Way of the Weasel: “The discussion is not in the ‘could or could not’ in relation to time, space and capability; the point is we should have tried.”

In other words, we should have tried something, even if we knew it wouldn’t work.

Nevertheless, Fox News immediately touted Lovell’s testimony as “incredibly damning.” At least until later in the day, when Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, specifically asked if Lovell was saying that “we could have, should have done a lot more than we did because we had capabilities we simply didn’t utilize.”

“That is not my testimony,” Lovell replied.

At that point, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, a California Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, had to try to save the “Obama left them to die” narrative by throwing Lovell under the bus and impeaching the Republicans’ own witness.

“General Lovell did not serve in a capacity that gave him reliable insight into operational options available to commanders during the attack, nor did he offer specific courses of action not taken,” McKeon said. 

On the heels of that failure came another supposed bombshell, an email released by the White House from Ben Rhodes (no relation), whose job title is “deputy national security adviser for strategic communication.” In other words, he’s a spin doctor.

His job, like the job of such PR guys in every single administration, is to try to put the most positive face on things for the president he works for. So his email suggested doing just that. He suggested several goals for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s upcoming appearances on Sunday morning talk shows, one of which was “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”

We now know that this assessment of the attacker’s motivations was incorrect, or at least incomplete. But we also know that the “attack as a reaction to the video” theory was based on actual assessments the CIA had sent the White House nine hours before the Rhodes memo. It wasn’t just made up out of whole cloth. It was wrong, but that’s the information they had at the time.

If your idea of a Great Scandal That Will Bring Down the Mighty is the revelation that a mid-level White House PR guy tried to do PR for Sunday morning shows that almost nobody watches anymore, using the information available at the time that came from the CIA — well, then, scandals just ain’t what they used to be.

What’s truly baffling and infuriating about all this that there’s plenty to criticize about what led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. There are legitimate criticisms about our lack of preparation and our failure to have more assets within striking distance to deal with a sudden attack in a volatile region. There’s also the excellent question of whether we should have even been in Libya in the first place (something, you may remember, that I wasn’t in favor of).

But that’s not sexy or dramatic enough for the Benghazi Cult. They’re twisting themselves in knots trying to find some kind of base betrayal on the night of the attacks themselves or some kind of cover-up afterward.

Once again, their Obama Derangement Syndrome blinds them to a legitimate problem, which is why their Benghazi narrative never gains any traction outside the right-wing bubble.