The No. 2 officer at U.S. Strategic Command, who was suspended from his position because of a criminal investigation, is suspected of using counterfeit gambling chips in a poker game at a western Iowa casino, law enforcement sources said.
Stratcom commander Gen. Robert Kehler suspended Vice Adm. Tim Giardina from his duties as deputy commander on Sept. 3, according to Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a Stratcom spokeswoman.
She said Kehler had also recommended to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Giardina be reassigned from his post.
...
Two U.S. officials familiar with the case said it involved "issues with gambling," and one of the officials added that misleading statements were also involved.
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David Dales, a special agent in charge with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), told ABC News that in June his agency began an investigation centered on the introduction of counterfeit poker chips in a poker game at the Horseshoe Council Bluffs Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa. That city is located across the Missouri River from Omaha, Neb., which is near Stratcom's headquarters.
Dales said the use of counterfeit chips is "pretty rare" and constitutes "a Class D felony in the state of Iowa." Dale would not characterize the amount of chips used in the game, but described it as "a significant monetary amount."
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A defense official said there is nothing to indicate there's been any compromise of Stratcom's mission or classified material in the matter involving Giardina.
Stratcom, based at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Neb., oversees the military's nuclear units and weapons.
I admire the industry and creativity of those on the internet who see this as part of the cover for President Obama's "purge of the military," but I have my doubts. It seems more like another object lesson that just because someone has risen to a position of high authority doesn't mean that he is not a jackass and a scoundrel.
Paul Walker (1973-2013), "majored" in marine biology; appeared on some NatGeo shark show
When I conduct psychological evaluations for people applying for Social Security Disability, here's what I can count on if the claimant is between the ages of 18 and 29 years old: When I ask them what their plans are for the next couple of years, they will say (pick one):
1. "Don't have any -- I sorta live day by day." [modal response]
2. "Get my own place, go to college, I want to do like forensic science, be a crime scene investigator."
3. "Get my own place, go to college, I want to be a marine biologist."
The first answer has the benefit of being honest, and rather insightful, considering the YOLO attitude that landed you in my consulting office. The second answer is attributable to the popularity of CSI and its spin-off shows. But don't worry, I doubt that most crime labs are populated by people whose disability claims were rejected. At least I hope that most police departments disqualify applicants who have a criminal record or who have not graduated from high school.
The last answer is increasingly popular, which I suspect is due more to Shark Week than to the inspiring instruction in biological science in our public schools. "Marine biologist" seems to have the cachet that used to be reserved for "astronaut" or "polar explorer". I have been noticing a lot of mentions of marine biology in current advertising, e.g. the proud parents of a new "marine biology" graduate get her an awesome cell phone plan. When the star of the moronic Fast and Furious movies died, fittingly (not "ironically"), in a fiery car crash, much was made in his obits of his dabbling in marine biology at "several" community colleges. (If you're interested, this would be the appropriate Introduction to Marine Biology textbook at a California community college.)
Well, if you are dreaming of becoming a marine biologist, might I suggest instead that you drop out of school, buy a guitar, and start submitting demo tapes to record companies? Because there are a hell of a lot more successful rock musicians than there are marine biologists. I suspect that there is a special circle of hell reserved for college administrators who created a "Marine Biology" program at their crappy little college just to attract marginal students who never miss "Shark Week" but who otherwise would not have gone to college. In five or six years, less than half of them will have graduated, and all of them will be swimming (ouch) in debt.
If that doesn't dissuade you, check this out refreshing tirade by an actual marine biologist (Source):
"So you want to be a marine biologist? Well sonny,
or sonnette, as the case may be, why don’t you just sit down and let a real
marine biologist give you some damn good advice. And wipe that smirk off your
face, sit up straight and for goodness sakes stop fidgeting! You’d think you had
lice the way you are carrying on. You do? Oh well, never mind.
First of all there are three really, really
bad reasons to want to be a marine biologist. If you have even an inkling that
these are yours, please run away as fast as possible, ‘cause neither you nor we
will be happy.
Three Really, Really Bad Reasons to
Want to Be a Marine Biologist
Reason Number One: "I want to be a marine biologist so
that I can talk to dolphins."
Believing this is simply the Kiss of Death. This is the
verbal equivalent of reaching down your throat, pulling out your own intestines,
wrapping them around your neck and choking yourself. When we hear this our
impulse is to thwack you a good one on your keester with the frozen haddock we
keep within arm’s reach just for this occasion.
And why is that? It is because, and please listen
carefully, while you may want to talk to dolphins, dolphins do not want to talk
to you. That’s right. Mostly, dolphins want to eat fishes and have sex with
other dolphins. And that pretty much cuts you out of the loop, doesn’t it? Oh, I
know that there are the occasional dolphins that hang around beaches, swim with
humans and seem to be chummy, but these are the exceptions. You don’t judge the
whole human race by the people who attend monster car rallies, do you?
Just be honest with yourself. If you want to talk to
dolphins you don’t want to be a biologist. What you really want to do is explore
your past lives, get in touch with the Cosmic Oneness and conduct similar-minded
individuals on tours to Central America looking for evidence that We Are Not
Alone. Our experience is that people who feel this way last about 6.5 minutes in
any biology program.
Reason Number Two: "I want to be a marine biologist
because I really like Jacques Cousteau."
That’s nice. We really like Jacques Cousteau, too. But,
drinking thousands of gallons of red wine while scuba diving around the world
does not make you a marine biologist. It makes you a wonderful and effective
spokesperson for the sea, and gives you a liver with the consistency of a
chocolate necco wafer, but it does not make you a marine biologist.
Reason Number Three: "I want to be a marine biologist
because I want to make big bucks."
Okay, here’s the bottom line. By Federal law, marine
biologists have to take a vow of poverty and chastity. Poverty, because you are
not going to make squat-j-doodly in this job. Just how squat is the doodly we
are talking about? Well, five years after finishing my PhD I was making slightly
less than a beginning manager at McDonalds. Ooh, a 36 year old guy with 13 years
of college and 5 years of post-doctoral experience making just about as much as
a semi-literate 19 year old with pimples the size of Bolivia, who can speak
perhaps 3 words at a time before the term "you know" enters the
conversation.
And chastity because, well, who’s going to date a
marine biologist? The smell alone tends to dissuade a large proportion of the
opposite sex."
By the way, to the best of my knowledge, Jacques Cousteau was not an alcoholic.
Grace Kelly, more of a marine biologist than Paul Walker
I had a lot of jobs in a somewhat knockabout youth...The best was waitressing...At the Holiday Inn on Route 3 in New Jersey, long-haul truckers on their way to New York would stop for breakfast. They hadn't talked to anyone in hours. I'd pour coffee and they would start to talk about anything—the boss, the family, politics.
I learned from them what a TSA agent told me many years later: "Everyone's carrying the same things." I had asked the agent what she'd learned about people from years of opening people's bags and seeing what was inside. She meant her answer literally: Everybody's carrying the same change of clothes, the same toiletries. But at the moment she said it we both understood that she was speaking metaphorically too: Everyone's carrying the same burdens, the same woes one way or another. We have more in common than we know.
“But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.”
That might be the best summation of what I have learned as a psychotherapist: Everyone's suffering, and the suffering is compounded by the misapprehension that suffering is abnormal and that happiness and contentment are the norm. One major personal benefit I have gained from practicing psychotherapy is this: I don't envy anybody.
I used to think that this was from Philo of Alexandria, but apparently it is more recent:
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is in the midst of a great struggle."
In a recent survey, 78 percent of University of Illinois students surveyed did not know the author of the phrase “of the people, by the people, for the people.” America is losing its memory. We are denying [children] the type of education that imparts love of learning and prepares graduates to become effective workers and informed citizens.
...
Only one in four American students of higher education can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.*
...
In 237 years life of America, we have done very little to protect and preserve and nurture the gift of America, the gift that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and other patriots gave us. We submit that every American child by the fifth grade ought to memorize George Washington’s Farewell Address, The U.S. Constitution and John Adams’ Inaugural Address.
The author might mistakenly believe that all American 5th graders already have memorized Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address, and that's why he left them off the list. But most kids move on from elementary school in this country without having memorized the multiplication table.
There's a lot of talk these days about higher education reform, with special emphasis on how little students learn while they are at college. Well, by the time kids have been through 12 years of public education, most of them are pretty well ruined for learning. If we are to have higher education reform, it will have to start with high school reform, and that can't happen without elementary school reform.
*The five freedoms are freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition for redress of grievances.
Ah, Tom Waits knows what it is to love a Borderline...
Well, they're lining up to mad-dog(2) your Tilt-a-Whirl(3) Three shots for a dollar, win a real live doll All the lies that you tell, I believed them so well Take them back, take them back to your red house For that fearful leap into the dark(4) Oh well, I did my time in the jail of your arms Now Ophelia(5) wants to know where she should turn
Tell me, what did you do, what did you do the last time? Why don't you do that? Well, go on ahead and take this the wrong way Time's not your friend Do you cry, do you pray, do you wish them away? Are you still leaving nothing but bones in the way? Did you bury the carnival, with the lions and all? Excuse me while I sharpen my nails
And just who are you, who are you this time? You look rather tired, are you pretending to love? Well, I hear that it pays well How do your pistol and your Bible and your sleeping pills go? Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes? Well, I fell in love with your sailor's mouth(6) and your wounded eyes You better get down on the floor, don't you know this is war Tell me, who are you this time? Tell me, who are you this time?
(1)Who Are You?: - Barney Hoskyns (1999): You've said that you tend to bury directly autobiographical stuff. What about Who Are You? Should we know who that's about? Tom Waits: "Gee, I dunno. I think it's better if you don't. The stories behind most songs are less interesting than the songs themselves. So you say, "Hey, this is about Jackie Kennedy." And it's, "Oh, wow." Then you say, "No, I was just kidding, it's about Nancy Reagan." It's a different song now. In fact, all my songs are about Nancy Reagan."(Source: "Mojo interview with Tom Waits". Mojo: Barney Hoskyns. April 1999) - Tom Waits (1992): "It's a cynical song; the kind of stuff you'd like to say to an old girlfriend at a party. Who are you this time? Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes? A thing you'd like to say to anybody who maybe raked you over the coals." (Source: Bone Machine press kit, Rip Rense. Late 1992) - Waits might be paying tribute to Bob Dylan's "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands" (Blonde on Blonde, 1966). Tom Waits (1991): "All of Bob Dylan's songs are carved from the bones of ghosts and have myth and vision . . . 'Desolation Row,' 'From a Buick 6,' 'Ballad in Plain D,' 'Restless Farewell,' 'Visions of Johanna,' 'Boots of Spanish Leather ,' 'Dark Eyes.'" For me, 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" is a grand song. It is like Beowulf and it 'takes me out to the meadow.' This song can make you leave home, work on the railroad or marry a Gypsy. I think of a drifter around a fire with a tin cup under a bridge remembering a woman's hair. The song is a dream, a riddle and a prayer." (Source: "The Impact Of Dylan's Music 'Widened the scope of possibilities', by Robert Hilburn. Los Angeles Times. May 19, 1991)
(2)To mad-dog: v. [1990s] (US Black/ prison) to stare at intensively and theateningly (cf. bad eye). [mad dog, such animals fix their targets with an unwavering, aggressive stare] (Source: "Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang". Jonathon Green. Cassel & Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-304-35167-9)
(3)Tilta whirl: A tilt-a-whirl is a standard American carnival ride. Riders are strapped to the inside of a cylindrical section, which spins at a high speed. The ride then is lifted up on a metal arm, and the whole thing tilts in different directions (Submitted by Russell Fischer. Raindogs Listserv discussion;ist. September, 2000)
It is interesting that JFK was celebrated as the first modern president, the first truly hip president, and yet the parts of him we celebrate most are actually the old virtues. He lied to get into the military, not to get out of it. He was sick, claimed to be well, and served as a naval officer in the war. In the postwar years he was in fairly constant physical pain, but he got up every day and did his demanding jobs. He played hurt. He was from a big, seemingly close family and seemed very much the family man himself. What we liked most about him wasn’t hip.
And he was contained. He operated within his own physical space and was not florid or mawkish or creepily domineering in his physical aspect.
For generations after him politicians imitated him—his mannerisms, his look, his hair.
...
If they had to imitate anything I wish it was how distanced, ironic and modest JFK was in the physical sphere. He didn’t hug the other pols on the platform, he didn’t give a big man-hug to the others on the dais, he didn’t kiss everyone and point at the audience and give them a thumbs-up. He didn’t act, he just was. Like a grownup. Like a person with dignity. Like a person with public boundaries who is an actor but not a phony.
