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LL – Passport Photo – 1973 (more balls than brains) |
I spent the morning looking at some old photos that I scanned into the computer some time ago. There is no subtext or political message beyond the fact that we all change. Sometimes I look at the young man that I once was and wonder what I would have thought if I’d known what lay between there and here. Clearly, back then my hair was black as a raven’s wing and now it’s white as snow.
In 1973:
Richard Nixon began his second term in office and officially ended the Viet Nam War with the Paris Peace Accords – though the Secret Wars would continue to smolder in Southeast Asia. And the Watergate Scandal hearings began in Congress. Nixon ordered the Attorney General to dismiss the Special Prosecutor (Archibald Cox). The more things change, the more they remain the same. Gerald Ford succeeded Nixon as President and made Henry Kissinger the Secretary of State.
The Drug Enforcement Administration was founded as a component of the US Department of Justice with an eye toward ending drug trafficking…
On October 6, Egypt and Syria launched the Yom Kippur War against Israel. The war ended twenty days later.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army bombed Whitehall and the Old Bailey in London.
2013:
The White House is rocked with scandal as Barack Obama, the first post-American president tries to hide monumental corruption with lies and obfuscation. IRS Scandal, Benghazi Scandal, Fast and Furious, attacks on the press, etc. The Attorney General is tasked with investigating himself.
Syria is locked in a brutal civil war and Egypt transitions from rule by a military strong man to rule by the Muslim Brotherhood as the Arab Spring backfires completely. Iran completes its construction of nuclear weapons to use on Israel (maybe on Yom Kippur?).
In 1973, Muslims weren’t blowing things up as much as they are today in the US, but Black September was very active — blowing things up almost everywhere else. There was a Red Brigade blowing things up back then but today the only real communists left are tin-pot dictators in North Korea, Cuba and Burma.
In 1973, nobody would have thought that the US would embrace a utopian socialist, metrosexual leader who would champion collectivist programs while Russia did the opposite.
Forty years — Then and Now
obama? Lies and corruption? Oh my! Say it ain't so.
Not much has really changed has it?
One good change I think is the rise of citizen journalists. There are many more skeptics as well as supporters of the left. Blogging has taken it's place in the flow of information since Drudge/Clinton. Sounds like Durbin and many in Congress would like to tamp that down a bit, but I think the genie is truly out of the bottle on that one.
As for the mideast – it feels like it is on the very cliff's edge . . . I suspect the bad actors there will make their move with Obama in office simply because he has no core, no moral strength. This will be their best chance to take out Israel since Carter – I believe they'll take it.
'73 – damn, time goes fast . . . .
It's a sad world when Russia's president is more of a Capitalist and more of a leader than the sitting US president.
Awesome passport photo, btw. The eyes, the window to the soul, have not changed.
Tempis Fugit, my friend.
I think that Obama would like to eviscerate the citizen journalists with the IRS or with some sort of concerted DOJ effort, but as you say, they can't stuff the genie back into the bottle.
I was an arrogant little SOB back then.
You haven't changed a bit …. cough cough …
I wuz gonna say grumpy YOUNG man into a grumpy OLD man, but I won't go there… 🙂 And don't forget the Khymer Rouge and Japanese Red Army… and I'm not even going to get into the South American ones… But it the bigger picture, the only real change is how far down America has come…
It would be fun to step back into the young skin if only for a moment — but I can't say that I'd want to go through all the BS again in the same way that I did the first time.
We have a jiz-swallowing commie running the show. Which Nixon, for all of his sins, was not.
(mugshot) That was the face those people you met when you were in and around the President's Helicopter (Marine 1) recalled.
Ya look pretty much the same… just all the color has drained out of your hair.
Obie is no leader. He is a ruler (in his own mind) and only hears what is positive toward him.
I would not call you an arrogant little SOB, but when I looked again at your picture I heard myself say "that is a young man with a lot to prove".
I remember in '73…wait, I don't remember anything from '73…
Speaking of Putin. I was in a hotel in Moscow when hotel security told me "the boss" was coming. A couple of generals from countries ending in -istan were there too. Then Putin came in with two guys. No advanced security team…no security team. The hotel was packed with weapons…including one on me…and Putin came in with nothing. He fears nothing.
TRUE!!!
Can we trade the Russians? Let them have their man, Obama?
The first post-American President.
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