"The Politics Of F TROOP": Hilarious article by Michael Tennant

Albie's Note: A few years back I got stuck working a hotel desk on Christmas Eve ... but through boredom (I had already seen Ralphie's and George Bailey's sagas many times), I came across this strange article about a retro TV show and it's political meaning.  I remembered this show from childhood (it was a great fave of my late father's)  so I couldn't help but read it.  As an ideological libertarian I found it funny but also downright profound!  Hope someone else out there enjoys it, too.

A Western Even Libertarians Can Love

by Michael Tennant

A brief discussion of the old TV western Bat Masterson, and westerns of that era in general, has been taking place on my favorite libertarian blog. Lew Rockwell was disturbed to find that a program of which he had fond memories actually perpetuated the myths of the noble Yankee white man and the ignorant, savage red man, while Ryan McMaken pointed out that the western myths had the added effect of increasing the public's acceptance of a large, centralized, corporate state. Thus did the discussion end largely in despair of finding a western series with which libertarians can be comfortable.
I hereby nominate for the most libertarian-friendly western TV series not a stalwart, deadly serious, white-hats-versus-black-hats drama like Gunsmoke but the 1965—67 situation comedy F Troop.
Now it might seem odd to suggest a series in which the central characters are, for the most part, members of the United States Army as a libertarian's dream. However, when one considers the particulars of the show, it becomes obvious that, as is often the case, comedy can tell the truth which drama shrinks from bringing to light.
First of all, the men of F Troop are a miserable lot of lazy bumblers, exactly the sort of people who in real life couldn't be employed anywhere except on the federal gravy train. Stationed at Fort Courage (the last word that could be used to describe the soldiers therein), Kansas, they include the exceptionally myopic lookout, Vanderbilt; the over-the-hill and slightly senile Duffy; the overweight immigrant Hoffenmueller; the eager but far from musically inclined young bugler, Dobbs; and the scheming Sgt. Morgan O'Rourke (played brilliantly by real-life Army cavalry vet Forrest Tucker) and his rather dim sidekick and partner in crime, Cpl. Randolph Agarn (Larry Storch). O'Rourke and Agarn are forever scheming to make money off the taxpayers' backs, ordering more supplies than necessary and diverting the excess to their own profitable ventures, including the local saloon. The commanding officer of F Troop is Capt. Wilton Parmenter (Ken Berry), a clumsy but well-meaning sort who accidentally continues his family's tradition of military heroism by sneezing in the midst of a retreat during a Civil War battle. His sneeze is misinterpreted as a command to charge, and the troops reverse direction and win the battle for the Union. (Okay, so this one thing makes him less than a hero to most libertarian readers, but since it was an accident, I'm willing to cut him some slack.) His "reward" is to take command of Fort Courage.
Now I ask you: Where else in popular culture could you find a more accurate portrayal of how the federal government, including its military, actually operates? People who couldn't find work in the private sector get sinecures on the government payroll and then do their level best to extract as much as they can out of the taxpayer, while the people in charge are incompetent dolts who would be just as useless in the private sector as their subordinates.
Whereas Gen. Sheridan, much to Lew's dismay, was featured positively in Bat Masterson, Gen. Custer fares much more poorly in F Troop. In the episode "Old Ironpants," Capt. Parmenter attends an officers' training school run by Custer. Upon his return to Fort Courage, accompanied by Custer, he bids the general adieu with the parting comment, "Good luck on your new assignment at Little Big Horn." Meanwhile, Parmenter has been transformed into a Custer clone, complete with goatee. He proceeds to treat everyone in Fort Courage like dirt, drilling the men to death and even trying to have his erstwhile girlfriend, Wrangler Jane (Melody Patterson-- yowzah!), arrested for the mere act of being friendly and speaking to him. (When O'Rourke tells Parmenter that he can't arrest Jane because she's a civilian, the captain replies, "Then draft her. Then arrest her.") The men and Jane have to "un-Custer" him in order to be treated like human beings again.
Now that's how to portray a mass murdering general — as a man who considers his own soldiers worthless objects that are beneath his dignity and entirely expendable. No wonder he had no trouble slaughtering Indians by the score (when they didn't get him first) and ordering his men on to certain death! As far as he was concerned, only one person, himself, and only one cause, the glory of the U.S. government, mattered. It certainly beats the glorification of Sheridan on Bat Masterson.
Finally, and probably unwittingly, F Troop demonstrates the glories of capitalism. Wrangler Jane, one of the most kindhearted and good-natured characters on the show, runs the local general store. O'Rourke and Agarn, for all their faults in skimming from the army for their own gain, run a profitable business in partnership with the local Indian tribe, the Hekawis. The Hekawis, while comic figures just as the soldiers are, are treated with a great deal of respect by their business partners, who often come to them for help. Best of all, it is precisely this partnership that keeps the relationship between the white man and the red man peaceful — not that the Hekawis seem particularly eager to fight, but it doesn't hurt that they stand to lose substantial cash if they disrupt the relationship. For example, in one episode Don Rickles guest stars as Bald Eagle, the renegade son of Hekawi Chief Wild Eagle. When he asks Wild Eagle if he will lead the Hekawis in an attack on the fort, Wild Eagle replies, "Not during big end-of-month sale." Thus we see that trade is a powerful deterrent to armed hostilities.
So let's hear it for the men (and woman) of Fort Courage! In their own highly comedic ways — and F Troop, as far as I am concerned, is one of the funniest TV series ever, especially in its first season — they show us the bad, the ugly, and the just plain inept of government and the good of free markets and respect for individuals, whether soldiers, civilians, or "Indians."

POETRY BREAK #4: "The Quitter" by Robert W. Service

POETRY BREAK #4: 

"The Quitter" by Robert W. Service

Albie's note: Need some kind of a pick-me-up? We’ve all probably had moments of very real discouragement in our lives... moments when we feel seriously tempted to pack it in and just give up. As hokey as it sounds, it really is precisely at those times we should simply  grit our teeth and keep truckin'. Proverbs tells us  "For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again" [Prov. 24:16]

Quitting is the easy thing to do. It’s that "keep-going-on" thing that’s hard. According to this old poem, your reaction to difficulties determines your mettle...  Drive on!



The Quitter


When you’re lost in the Wild, and you’re scared as a child,
      And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you’re sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle
      To cock your revolver and... die.
But the Code of a Man says: “Fight all you can,”
      And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow...
      It’s the "hell-served-for-breakfast" that’s hard.

“You’re sick of the game!” Well, now, that’s a shame.
      You’re young and you’re brave and you’re bright.
“You’ve had a raw deal!” I know — but don’t squeal,
      Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It’s the plugging away that will win you the day,
      So don’t be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it’s so easy to quit:
      It’s the keeping-your-chin-up that’s hard.

It’s easy to cry that you’re beaten — and die;
      It’s easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight —
      Why, that’s the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
      All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try — it’s dead easy to die,
      It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.

ROBERT W. SERVICE  [1874-1958]
from the book RHYMES OF A ROLLING STONE, 1912

Count your blessings-- YOU are RICH!

"YOU ARE RICH!"

From the standpoint of material wealth, Americans have difficulty realizing how rich we are. However, going through this little “mental exercise” suggested by Robert Heilbroner can help us to count our blessings. Imagine doing the following, and you will see how daily life is for as many as a billion people in the world.

1. Take out all the furniture in your home except for one table and a couple of chairs. Use blankets and pads for beds.

2. Take away all of your clothing except for your oldest dress or suit, shirt or blouse. Leave only one pair of shoes.

3. Empty the pantry and the refrigerator except for a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt, a few potatoes, some onions, and a dish of dried beans.

4. Dismantle the bathroom, shut off the running water, and remove all the electrical wiring in your house.

5. Take away the house itself and move the family into the tool shed.

6. Place your “house” in a shantytown.

7. Cancel all subscriptions to newspapers, magazines, and book clubs. This is no great loss because now none of you can read anyway.

8. Leave only one radio for the whole shantytown.

9. Move the nearest hospital or clinic ten miles away and put a midwife in charge instead of a doctor.

10. Throw away your bankbooks, stock certificates, pension plans, and insurance policies. Leave the family a cash hoard of ten dollars.

11. Give the head of the family a few acres to cultivate on which he can raise a few hundred dollars of cash crops, of which one third will go to the landlord and one tenth to the moneylenders.

12. Lop off twenty-five or more years in life expectancy.


By comparison, how rich we are! And with our wealth comes responsibility to use it wisely, not to be wasteful, and to help others.

Think on these things.


-Steve Williams, from THE GOSPEL TRACT HAVESTER, November 2008

Cool Stuff From Library Books #11: "THANKSGIVING DAY--1941" by Stephen Vincent Benet

THANKSGIVING DAY--1941 

 by Stephen Vincent Benet

There are many days in the year that we celebrate, but this one
is wholly of our earth. Three hundred and eighteen years ago,
long before we were ever a nation, a handful of men and women who
wished to live for an idea and were willing to die for it, first
set this day apart as a day of thanks. They were neither rich nor
powerful, those men and women of Plymouth; they had bought the
very ground they stood on by the deaths of their nearest and
dearest. After three years of toil and suffering, they had made a
small settlement and planted a few cleared fields. Behind them
lay the ocean; before them, the untamed forest. They had come a
long way to stand between sea and forest; they had left all ease
and security behind them. Even so, they could not know whether
their experiment in freedom would succeed or fail; they could not
even be sure that Plymouth Colony would live through the next
winter. It is hard for us to realize that; it was what they
faced, under all their courage. Nevertheless, cut off from all
they had known, alone beyond our knowledge, they gave thanks in
humble sincerity for God's mercies and the gift of corn.

Today, one hundred and thirty million Americans keep the day they
first set apart. We all know what Thanksgiving is--it's turkey
day and pumpkin pie day--the day of the meeting of friends and
the gathering of families. It does not belong to any one creed or
stock among us, it does not honor any one great man. It is the
whole family's day--the whole people's day--the day at the turn
of the year when we can all get together, think over the past
months a little, feel a sense of harvest, a kinship with our
land. It is one of the most secure and friendly of all our
feasts. And yet it was first founded in insecurity, by men who
stood up to danger. And that spirit is still alive.

This year it is and must be a sober feast. And yet, if we know
our hearts, as a people, we can be grateful--not in vainglory or
self-satisfaction, but for essential things. Let us speak out
some of the things that are in our hearts.

We are grateful to those before us who made this country and
fought for it, who hewed it out of the wilderness and sowed it
with the wheat of freedom. We are grateful to all Americans, of
all kinds and sorts and beliefs, who stood up on their hind legs
and protested against injustice, from the first plantings till
now. We are grateful to the great men, present and past, who have
risen from our earth to lead us, and to the innumerable many
whose names are not in the histories but without whose laughter
and courage, endurance and resolution, all our history would have
been in vain.

We are grateful for our land itself--not for its material
resources or the plenty of its fields--but for its vast diversity
under the great bond of union. We are grateful for Connecticut
elm and Georgia pine, for the big stars over Texas and the bread
of the Middle West. We are grateful to little towns with common
place names where people get along with each other, not because
they are told to, but just because they believe in getting along.
That's the way we like to have it, and mean to have it. We are
grateful because we believe that all those who would confuse and
divide us with counsels of class hatred, race hatred, despair and
defeat know little of the temper of our people. We are grateful
to all the others, to every good neighbor, to each man and woman
of good will.

We are grateful to those who guard the far-flung outposts of our
nation--to the men on the lonely sea patrols, on the high patrols
of the air. To the men in the camps, to the men on the ships, to
the men of the air, to all those who keep watch and guard, we pay
our tribute today. Nor can that tribute be paid in fine words
alone. These are our own men we have summoned--it is the business
of all of us to back them with the firm resolution of a united
nation. And that shall be done.

Most of all we are grateful, under God, for the spirit that walks
abroad in this land of ours--the spirit that has made us and kept
us free. It is many years indeed since men first came here for
freedom. The democracy we cherish is the work of many years and
many men. But as those first men and women first gave thanks, in
a dark hour, for the corn that meant life to them, so let us give
thanks today--not for the little things of the easy years but for
the land we cherish, the way of life we honor, and the freedom we
shall maintain.

From the book: We Stand United and other Radio Scripts [1940-1942] 

Albie's note: 

I like old Benet's thoughts in this radio address. 

Thankfulness is vital to any nation of people.  

Here's hoping you and yours have a great holiday!

PEACE. 

"You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' 

You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, 

you would not be satisfied if it were doubled." 

--Charles Haddon Spurgeon  

BOOK REVIEW: "The Valiant Ones" by Norman A. Fox

BOOK REVIEW: 

"The Valiant Ones" by Norman A. Fox

A collection of eleven classic pulp-era western stories dealing with the courageous men and women-- including explorers, soldiers, and settlers-- who opened the American West...

"The cowards never started and the week died on the road,
 And all across the continent the endless campfires glowed.
 We´d taken land and settled-but a traveler passed by-
 And we´re going West tomorrow-Lordy, never ask us why!"

From WESTERN WAGONS by Stephen Vincent Benet 

The above quote stands in the flyleaf of Norman A. Fox's 1957 collection ONLY THE VALIANT.  Its words form a fitting introduction to this collection of Fox's best magazine western fiction from 1946 to 1951.  

Assembled by the author himself a scant 2 years before his untimely death at age 48, this is one of the better single author collections of western fiction I have ever encountered [and I rather avidly collect western short story collections.]

What makes any short story collection great is first and foremost variety.  In fact, this one thing is what keeps most western story collections sadly separated from a cohesive overall quality.

This collection, however, is just about perfect in assembling stories devoted to conveying different aspects of the frontier experience.  "Saddlebag Sawbones" tells of a range-land physician standing off a group of outlaws; "The Fitness Of Sean O'Fallon" tells of an unlikely hero of the original Pony Express; "Homesteader's Wife" realistically depicts the bleakness, sorrows, and occasional joys of  a small time rancher's better half; and "Only The Dead Ride Proudly" is a much-anthologized tale set against the real-life backdrop of the river steamboat that carried the wounded from Custer's last stand to Fort Abraham Lincoln in record time.

I really like Fox's writing, by the way.  He may not be a  prose master along the lines of all-time western greats like Ernest Haycox, Dorothy Johnson or Verne Athanas, but his ability to write descriptions of setting and landscape, as well as his rendering of action scenes, is easily as competent as his pulp-era contemporaries Luke Short and Peter Dawson [and yes, that's a pretty substantial compliment coming from me.]

Beyond the writing itself, there is much to be said in favor of Fox's compelling story-telling, which is filled with realistic situations and well-drawn characters.  A really nice character study is "Old Man Owlhoot," a "modern" western story about a reporters's search for the truth about a Montana old-timer who claims he rode with Kid Curry in the wild days of the northwest.  It is an unusually heart-felt story succeeds in suggesting the inherent dignity that can be found in even the simplest characters that populate our world.

So all in all I highly recommend THE VALIANT ONES. If you like western short stories, It is an entertaining collection of tales that is well worth finding and checking out. 


PEACE

POETRY BREAK #3: "Watermelon Time"

"WATERMELON TIME"

1891

by James Whitcomb Riley

 (October 7, 1849 – July 22, 1916)

Old watermelon time is a-comin' round again,
   And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me,
For the way I hanker after watermelons is a sin--
   Which is the why and wherefore, as you can plainly see.

Oh! it's in the sandy soil watermelons does the best,
   And it's there they'll lay and waller in the sunshine and
       the dew
Til they wear all the green streaks clean off of their
       breast;
  And you bet I ain't a-findin' any fault with them; are you?

There ain't no better thing in the vegetable line;
  And they don't need much 'tendin', as every farmer
     knows;
And when their ripe and ready for to pluck from the vine,
  I want to say to you they're the best fruit that grows.

It's some likes the yellow-core, and some likes the red.
  And it's some says "The Little Californy" is the best;
But the sweetest slice of all I ever wedged in my head,
  Is the old "Edinburg Mountain-sprout," of the west...

You don't want no pumpkins nigh your watermelon vines--
  'Cause, some-way-another, they'll spile your melons,
     shore;--
I've seed 'em taste like punkins, from the core to the rinds,
   (Which may be a fact you have heard of before.)

But your melons that's raised right and 'tended to with
     care,
  You can walk around amongst 'em with a parent's
     pride and joy,
And thump 'em on the heads with as fatherly a air
  As if each one of them was your little girl or boy.

I joy in my heart just to hear that rippin' sound
  When you split one down the back and jolt the halves
     in two,
And the friends you love the best is gethered all around--
  And you says unto your sweetheart, "Oh, here's the
     core for you!"

And I like to slice 'em up in big pieces fer 'em all,
  Especially the childern, and watch their high delight
As one by one the rinds with their pink notches fall,
  And they holler for some more, with unquenched
     appetite.

Boys take to it natural, and I like to see 'em eat--
  A slice of watermelon's like a frenchharp in their
     hands,
And when they "saw" it through their mouth such music
     can't be beat--
  'Cause it's music both the spirit and the stomach
     understands.

Oh, there's more in watermelons than the purty-colored
     meat,
  And the overflowin' sweetness of the water squished
     betwixt
The up'ard and the down'ard motions of a feller's teeth,
  And it's the taste of ripe old age and juicy childhood
     mixed.

For I never taste a melon but my thoughts fly away
  To the summertime of youth; and again I see the dawn,
And the fadin' afternoon of the long summer day,
  And the dusk and dew a-fallin', and the night a-comin'
     on.

And there's the corn around us, and the lispin' leaves and
     trees,
And the stars a-peekin' down on us as still as silver
     mice,
And us boys in the watermelons on our hands and knees,
  And the new-moon hangin' o'er us like a yellow-cored
     slice.

Oh! it's watermelon time is a-comin' round again,
  And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me,
For the way I hanker after watermelons is a sin--
  Which is the why and wherefore, as you can plainly see.

Taken from the collection

FARM RHYMES [1921]

POETRY BREAK #2: "WHEN THE MISSISSIPPI FLOWED IN INDIANA"

WHEN THE MISSISSIPPI FLOWED

IN INDIANA 

by Vachel Lindsay

Albie's note: Vachel Lindsay [1879-1931] was a great and undervalued American poet whose raucous, almost musical verse is totally unique in American letters.  A mystical and dreamy fellow who died a suicide in 1931, Lindsay enjoyed great fame in his lifetime but is all but forgotten today.  I love this poem about childhood and books, which  first appeared in The Red Cross Magazine in 1919 under the title "The Cave Of Becky Thatcher."  I especially like the phrase "the soul's deep Mississippi."

Hope you enjoy it, too.

 "WHEN THE MISSISSIPPI FLOWED  IN INDIANA"

Inscribed to Bruce Campbell, who read Tom Sawyer with me in the old home 

Beneath Time's roaring cannon
Many walls fall down.
But though the guns break every stone,
Level every town: —
Within our Grandma's old front hall
Some wonders flourish yet: —
The Pavement of Verona,
Where stands young Juliet,
The roof of Blue-beard's palace,
And Kublai Khan's wild ground,
The cave of young Aladdin,
Where the jewel-flowers were found,
And the garden of old Sparta
Where little Helen played,
The grotto of Miranda
That Prospero arrayed,

And the cave, by the Mississippi,
Where Becky Thatcher strayed. 

On that Indiana stairway
Gleams Cinderella's shoe.
Upon that mighty mountainside
Walks Snow-white in the dew.
Upon that grassy hillside
Trips shining Nicolette: —
That stairway of remembrance
Time's cannon will not get —
That chattering slope of glory
Our little cousins made,
That hill by the Mississippi
Where Becky Thatcher strayed. 

Spring beauties on that cliff side,
Love in the air,

While the soul's deep Mississippi
Sweeps on, forever fair.
And he who enters in the cave,
Nothing shall make afraid,
The cave by the Mississippi
Where Tom and Becky strayed.