Seven, there were seven .... waiting for eight

Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson are gaining in influence in my world, a locale generally dominated by John Browning and Samuel Colt. These men were gun makers / inventors, for the edification of the uninitiated. The seven revolvers here are Smith & Wesson -- each and every one. They are waiting for the eighth to make its appearance and fill the rack to its capacity. The eighth is en route at this very moment, making its way from New York state to Minnesota. Upon its arrival, the rack will be full and complete, and another cycle will begin.

This is a strange, weird, odd post, so it deserves strange, weird, odd music. Who better, what better than Warren Zevon (rhetorical remark, no question, no answer necessary .... but, first ....)

Sic semper tyrannis

It is ironically fitting (perhaps, poetically, too) that Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz would leave the earth in November -- the same month John Fitzgerald Kennedy departed fifty-seven years earlier. Kennedy left on November 22, 1963 -- Castro on November 25, 2016. It would have been absolutely spooky had their deaths been the same date of the month since their lives were very much intertwined through economic, military and, some claim, personal warfare.

If the words within that paragraph form a mystery to you and you are curious, do a bit of research. History is fascinating. Whatever .... good bye and good riddance, El Caballo ....

Hmmmm .... interesting, for we doubters ....

From a conservative viewpoint, many of Donald Trump's Cabinet and White House selections are looking good. Obviously, dedicated liberals / progressives will not agree, but I am beginning to think there is method to the madness of our "potty mouth" president-elect:

Mike Pompeo, congressman from Kansas to head the CIA. West Point graduate, first in his class with military experience in Europe .... good .... hard core right politically .... wish he had some "spook" experience, but all-in-all a good choice

Mike Flynn, retired Army lieutenant general to be Trump's national security adviser, formerly headed the Defense Intelligence Agency .... great variety of intelligence and special military operations experience .... registered Democrat, but military hawk .... great choice

KT McFarland, former national security analyst, to be deputy national security adviser to the president .... brilliant strategist and analyst and negotiator, who can lay on the charm as a counterbalance to Flynn's hard core, in-your-face style .... she is a super choice, and probably will replace Flynn in a few years after he has figuratively cut too many people off at the knees ....

Jeff Sessions, senator since 1996 from Alabama, to be attorney general, strong conservative record on judiciary, immigration, military .... good to potentially great choice

There are others I sort of think of as fine choices, but who puzzle me a bit in some instances, and of whom I have no real opinion .... in short, some I really am not enthused about and it is a wait-and-see game with them: Nikki Haley, governor of South Carolina as ambassador to the United Nations (this role really puzzles me since she has no relevant background); Betsy DeVos, businesswoman and philanthropist as education secretary; Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee as White House chief of staff .... all right, there have been more, but we will stop with those for now ....

As a fascinating footnote, to me, anyway, DeVos has a brother, Erik Prince, who is a former Navy SEAL officer and the founder of Blackwater, the (now defunct) private military / security firm which had thousands of civilian "contractors" paid by the United States government doing adjunct military work in places like Iraq. Again, a bit of history worth researching for those interested in the depth of federal government duplicity and intrigue at home and abroad.

The end of November -- or one, long paragraph

Usually, I am pleased when November passes because I am one month closer to spring. This year, though, I have a nostalgic sense about November -- maybe because the weather has been mild (better rain than snow); maybe because it is one of those years when I sense my life changing and going in a new direction; maybe because it is the month of the end of World War I and Veterans Day .... of an afternoon in a park in Minneapolis I was never in before and never have been since with a girl named Sandy Daniels when we both were sort of young .... of John Kennedy and his death .... of Thanksgiving .... of the last day of my last deer hunt in Michigan woodlands along the rocky shore of Lake Superior, with wind howling in tree tops and five-foot snow drifts encircling tree trunks, then finally walking out along a logging trail as gathering dusk melted into absolute darkness; maybe because it is the month when the northern world was in its death throes just before being reborn again and again during epochs before Christmas ever was dreamt of in the minds of mortal men. Oh, well, maybe you understand the swirling drifts encircling me, maybe not, but you can see behind my eyes if you look closely .... November = metamorphosis, it would seem, this year .... there is no substitute for having been around the block once or twice .... hang in there, baby ....