Aurelio, friend of crime lord Viggo Tarasov’s former employee John Wick, himself works for The Continental. Aurelio hits Iosef, the idiot son of Viggo Tarasov. If you do that, you die. Period.
But Aurelio did do this, and easily owns up to it, not because he’s challenging Viggo, but because he’s confident that his smacking down of Viggo’s son was the right thing to do. Sometimes you just gotta do the right thing and be joyful in owning up to it even in absolutely forbidden circumstances.
Viggo, hearing of Aurelio’s smacking down of his son Ioseph, calls Aurelio on the phone, not knowing what his own son Ioseph had done to John Wick, the most efficient hitman in the world:
Aurelio: Aurelio speaking.
Viggo Tarasov: I heard you struck my son.
Aurelio: Yes, sir, I did.
Viggo Tarasov: And may I ask why?
Aurelio: Yeah, well, because he stole John Wick’s car, sir, and, uh, killed his dog.
Viggo Tarasov: [pause… pause… pause…] Oh.
Sorry. Just had to share that. This kind of thing has happened to me so very many times. It happens a lot if you just don’t compromise. That conversation would go something like this in my life, a fictional example:
Restorationist Priest: Father George speaking.
The Bishop of Rome: I heard you were faithful to Jesus.
Restorationist Priest: Yes, Holy Father, I was.
The Bishop of Rome: And may I ask why?
Restorationist priest: Yeah, well, because there’s a general apostasy, so I had to step up.
The Bishop of Rome: [pause… pause… pause…] Oh.
It’s not that I’m a man of focus, commitment, sheer will… something others know very little about, and it’s not that I’m so capable at slaying men at will with a pencil, that is, with words on a blog… No.
Any “no compromise” attitude is had simply because I know I’m a terrible sinner and that Confession has been my salvation. I know the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus and I want others to know that same goodness and kindness. That insistence on no political correctness gets one into trouble. No, that’s not quite right… it’s the joy of that insistence on no political correctness that gets one into trouble. One gets called up, called in, called out… but then it’s all good: “Oh.” Jesus is good. He’s the Shepherd. And He let’s the sheep know that He’s in charge, a great relief. Go to Confession.
I’ve gotten quite a number of hints that I haven’t been posting enough about Laudie-dog and Shadow-dog. Today’s the day.
Laudie-dog, the fiery-orange dog as the fire-dog was captured in the picture above was last evening. For about the last six months she’s become quite a bit more frail in her old age of eleven to twelve years. She gets super-pampered, of course. She’s the princess! Treats have recently been hand-delivered by a guy who, in his 28 year military intel career, once was in the habit of messing around with DISA across from the NSA. Laudie-dog very much likes both the shish kabob and the bacon treats, as does Shadow-dog.
Meanwhile, Shadow-dog is forever the dance-of-death-dog, as was captured in the picture below early this morning. His shadow seems to be more solid than himself as he dances the death of the rope he’s ripping to shreds. The rope, mind you, is 1.5 inches in diameter, and three feet long but with five huge knots, bringing the real length to six feet and weighing in at just over two pounds, the average weight of a full grown Timber Rattler or Crotalus horridus horridus. The rope itself, being ripped about like this at lightning speed, can just about break your leg if it hits you as you walk by. I know. And Shadow knows this as well. He’s proud to report his advances as a martial artist with his arsenal of weaponry.
Shadow is at the perfect age, at the top of his defense game over against the constant flow of druggies around the house, but is also the perfect gentle-dog with me. He’s now inside with me at night, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t perfectly aware of what’s going on outside. The other night, for the first time, he went ballistic at the front door and then came running through my little rectory to get me, insisting that I follow him as he barked at the front door. That scared off whoever was there. Now they know not to mess with this house at night.
Maybe. In Kansas the other day, a cop was at home for a quick nap, cruiser in the driveway. Someone, awaiting the opportunity for terroristic threat logistics, grabbed the cop’s puppy silently, perhaps a baseball bat to the head to keep it quiet, removed the dog to another location, beheaded the puppy, brought the body back (not the head), smashed the house open to dump the dog inside (blood everywhere, of course), then fled, knowing the cop was inside and would come to that door but would be stopped.
Stats are that anyone who does that to an animal will do that, will already have done that to human beings. Here’s the puppy, just before all that, alive, just like a little Shadow-dog:
Marcus is the Lone Survivor Navy SEAL guy, married, with kids, your normal Texan. Back Stateside, provided a service dog, he named the dog after his team: D.A.S.Y. That is:
Danny = Daniel Phillip Dietz Jr: Navy Cross, Purple Heart – 25 years old (RIP)
Alexson = Matthew Gene “Axe” Axelson: Navy Cross, Purple Heart – 24 years old (RIP) – [Note that one of Marcus’ kids is named Axe, after Matt Axelson. That should tell you something]
Southern Boy = Marcus Luttrell: Navy Cross, Purple Heart – Lone Survivor
Yankee = Michael Patrick “Murph” Murphy: Medal of Honor, Purple Heart, Silver Star – 24 years old (RIP)
It’s not just that the dog murderers shot DASY. No, no. They also beat DASY’s brains out with a baseball bat. Stats are that anyone who can randomly do that to a dog is also doing that human beings, usually a defenseless partner, usually children, only those who are much weaker than they are, you know, because, as always, guys like these are total cowards. They hit DASY in the middle of the night. In the 911 call played out above we find out that they have also called 911 on themselves so as to be saved from the guy whose dog they murdered. Meanwhile, Marcus, gentleman that he is, had already called 911 so that Law Enforcement and the American justice system would be put into action properly. As Marcus says of himself, he’s no murderer, but rather someone who supports Law Enforcement and the American justice system. That’s why he served in the Military. Yes.
Meanwhile, John Wick’s dog, called Daisy, is an obvious reference to Marcus Luttrell’s DASY, as there are another dozen parallels as to how this film series is all about an alternative ending to the dog-murdering, surely to point out how, instead, Marcus is above the fray of mere vengeance. And that makes Marcus a hero to me, that is, not someone to render hero-worship (that being a sickness), but rather someone whose example I try to follow in my own life.
Meanwhile, my own Shadow-dog and Laudie-dog were both poisoned the other week. They survived, but only because, as I found out later, the perp was interrupted by my good neighbor just before I got home. Continuing to inquire about what the poison could have been, the substance has been narrowed down to that which has a lot more lethality to it than what I originally thought it might be. In this case, as far as the dogs’ owner goes, myself, I’m guessing that the perp knows well that I myself am a relatively easy target, so very much unlike our run of the mill citizen of Texas, the great Marcus Luttrell, and the later fictional John Wick. That I was considered to be an easy target was the opinion of an Army sniper here in town, the one who now owns Jenny the Jeep. We all know how lethal a Navy SEAL can be, but what about John Wick? Take a look at this short analysis of the skills of John Wick and his director at just a 1/4 speed (stunning attention to detail):
Anyway, yours truly, obviously a “weak target”, who’s never pulled a trigger on anyone for any reason, is given over to being at the ready to defend those who are successfully being unjustly aggressed in a deadly manner right in front of me, say, during a mass shooting in my church, but that defense is not comprehensive of Shadow-dog nor Laudie-dog. Sorry for you who are just as much dog-lovers as me. They have many times put themselves on the line for me, but still… Mind you, murdering my dogs right in front of me is going to raise some intensified situational awareness by way of the all focusing adrenaline. I’ll be 360ﾟat the ready to send off – if need be in unrepeatable circumstances – two to the spinal column and one to the brain box into any number of targets, you know, if I’m fired upon and am actively being hit, set on fire with my lungs being singed, stabbed repeatedly to bleed-out parts of the body, you know the drill. I have done up a bit of scenario drills. The aim, so to speak, would be merely to neutralize not any aggressor(s), but any ultra deadly threat actively being delivered by any aggressor(s). You take out such a threat, not necessarily any aggressor(s) bearing any such threat. Just to be clear. The relatively speaking freakoid record for yours truly which I’ll never repeat again (no target ammo in these USA to keep up the skills…) from a locked holster at a randomly set Competition Electronics’ Pocket Pro II shot timer is – for the two plus one drill – 1.01 seconds. Slow for those mentioned above, of course. And now I’m much, much slower than that.
My neighbors and I have noted how the local cowardly thugs and buffoons carry bowie knives, machetes, baseball bats, lead pipes, heavy chains, pistols, shotguns, (sniper) rifles. Whatever. They look tough, well, laughably, but all that “toughness” only means that they are cowards, always in packs, always almost incapable of even standing up without falling over. The local thugs and buffoons have expressed disdain for dogs to me and have three times stated that they will kill the neighbor’s sweet dog by coming back with a baseball bat to beat that that puppy’s brains out (witnessed). Yep. But, I know, the last thing a thug and buffoon will carry with them is any violence or threats of violence they have ever done or made. Thier own evil is not on their own radar. So, no real ongoing threat. Not in the least.
Having said that, I should add that Laudie-dog was shot in the neck with a pellet gun just under her left ear the other year, and that wound is still festering enough for Shadow-dog to tenderly offer some dog-medic treatment for quite a few minutes even now, with Laudie-dog very appreciative with all that tender care:
The Vet didn’t want to do anything with that ongoing wound just yet. Meanwhile, as I have sometimes said, Shadow-dog is himself well aware of the hurt coming from pellet guns, having been the victim already four times. We’re all happy that, as a wolf-dog, he has fully three coats of fur, all the more thick and heavy around the neck. A bit more worrisome, however, is that his doghouse – next to the house – was hit by a 9mm bullet. I changed out the doghouse so as to confuse the idiot perps a bit. Confusing idiot perps is easy, unless they are not on drugs, unless they are determined just to be evil outside of any evil wrought merely for political correctness with thug peers. Some of the druggies are not druggies at all, but deal only with money and suppliers, keeping track of suppliers, enforcing debt collection. They are likely to be just a bit more dangerous, though I doubt that even they know how to work any safeties on guns, or how to load up a magazine and lock it in, or even whether or not there are any bullets in whatever gun. However, if you yourself get shot in a totally unprovoked attack, you can judge in that very nanosecond that a deadly threat is presently being delivered and if this is in turn judged not to be an accidental discharge but someone continuing to fire at you, the self-defense you render over against such an unprovoked attack is not only justified, but is certainly a contribution to the exercise of the virtue of justice.
The 911 call at the top of this post is after the initial nanosecond of the actual murder of DASY, and Marcus himself was not shot at or attacked with any baseball bat: the perps, the cowards, ran away. The way Marcus brought DASY’s attackers to justice honors those after whom DASY had been named.
May Danny, Axe and Yankee rest in peace. Amen.
And thanks, Marcus, for setting a standard to strive after.
BTW, the comments section after that YouTube 911 call are some of the best on the internet, not because of the hilarious ones (there are a lot) but because the occasional one which is in obvious solidarity with Marcus in a way that could only be done by someone who likewise has suffered for all that is good, who has likewise seen his close friends taken out in front of him. Quite sobering, really. And we need that in these crazy anti-American times we now live in here in these United States of America.
And, yes, it is in God that we trust. Always. Everywhere. In every situation. Amen.
After my passport numbers went up on line from my favorite travel agency, these hits about my itinerary overseas above were then followed by the same from the FBI’s national research center near Fairmont / Clarksburg WV (CJIS), the largest institution of the agency for centralized info on criminal justice. This is something new, as I’ve learned to expect just a visit from the George Bush Center for Intelligence with a server named so as to be seen. Courteous. I can feel the love! But what changed so as to occasion CJIS?
FBI-Atlanta was kind enough to let me know the other week that I’m involved with the DARPA – COMPASS program. That may have replaced my original decades old perpetual interdepartmental cannot-be-unmasked-for-more-details program of tracking that Main State and later the FBI described to me with a letter and then an alternative identity (effectively a third!) without me asking for it. The COMPASS program carries a certain risk. A target of COMPASS, i.e., a person of interest, can be such because of being at risk or as constituting a risk. Since I’ve always been treated extraordinarily well, I’m guessing I’m in the at risk category, and COMPASS, as DARPA’s new toy, is the now by far the most effective mathematical analysis prediction “machine” (if you will) concerning individuals somehow in the midst of gray zone activities. It’s much easier to just throw me in the mix and forget about it along with the now small multitude of ambiguous characters. That’s what COMPASS is for: easing the burden of work, doing more with less.
In that case, I’m guessing that the tracking promised by Main State in the early 1990s has been delegated to the usual CAPPS systems which continuously updates passenger name records (PNR) for everyone on any given flight manifest. If there’s a high enough risk score attached to that PNR, an inquiry is automatically sent along to the TSA of DHS and, when they are frustrated at being locked out as to why there is a high score, they send the inquiry along. It’s imagined that CJIS can come up with a reason for the high risk score, and, pushing a bit more when that’s found to be untrue, the inquiry is simply overruled by Main State and I’m cleared for the flight, all updating in the COMPASS spreadsheets for use in their surely infallible algorithms. ;-)
So, it’s highly doubtful that there will be a pesky no-fly list notification while, ticket in hand, I attempt to get a gate and confirmed seat assignment at Hartsfield-Jackson international terminal. After all, I’m forever “accompanied”, to use Pope Francis’ terminology, on flights since as long as I can remember, back into the 1980s. I’ve never been on any SSSS or TSDB lists as far as I know, though in 1990 and then again in 2009 some entirely expected fun was to be had at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion. Smiling chutzpah always wins the day.
The last time I went through the TSA shake down in Atlanta the agents instead stepped waaaay back and let me and my carry-on stuff pass totally unchecked despite plenty of metal in the carry-on stuff and literally many pounds of surgical metal holding my leg together. When I protested their lack of concern about the carry-on stuff and all the metal I had on me they instead said that it didn’t matter, and that I could go through, that I’m good, because their checking me didn’t matter. That just left me bewildered. Less checking than for the pilot, the only other guy in line. It’s not like they were busy…
My seating is always switched out at the last second so as to place me with diplomats (with their usual retinue) or with various branches of the military or with Federal Air Marshals or of other reps of institutes and agencies, always. Or maybe these are the only people who fly these days. One memory in particular regards a most polite and well mannered diplomat who enlisted my help to get safely to the Excelsior in Rome, a kind of beyond the star system hotel next to the U.S. Embassy, reminiscent of the “Continental” of John Wick fame. Goodness!
My usual unusual accompaniment during the flight should be more interesting than the usual interestingness.
Some would wish good luck, good fortune. No. Life has nothing to do with such imagined things as hoped by the creators of the all-power-encompassing COMPASS program, which, ironically, is based entirely on chance, luck, the demon goddess “Fortuna.” What a living hell that is…
Instead, everything has come together seemingly miraculously, in the Providence of our Lord, with the ministrations of the angels, to ensure that what needs to be done is accomplished. But after that, it seems to me, I’ll be quite on my own. But that’s O.K. That’s also according to the will of the Lord. And I’m happy with that.
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 