JASPER SCHURINGA — HERO

If everything is as it appears on Saturday, December 26, 2009, according to Fox News, we have a true Hero to thank for keeping Christmas 2009 from becoming “12-25-09″ in our memories. A cowardly crackpot religious zealot terrorist homicidal maniac cretan apparently tried killing around 300 people on a Delta/Northwest flight about to land in Detroit. It seems that this worthless excuse for a living organism wanted to be some kind of “hero” in the afterlife, the kind who gets waited on hand and foot by a bunch of fawning mindless virgins as a reward for comitting senseless slaughter in this life. As the blithering fool was getting his weapon into action, a Dutch film director named Jasper Schuringa smelled smoke, heard a popping sound, bounded over four fellow passengers and discovered an infernal device hidden beneath a blanket and between the dirtbag’s legs. Flames were rising. The Hero Schuringa grabbed the weapon, started beating out the flames by hand and was soon joined by flight crew personnel. Then, the Hero subdued the villain. The aircraft landed and the forces of evil had lost their latest despicable gambit, no innocent lives taken on the day the Christian world celebrates the birth of Jesus. We should all line up to shake the Hero Schuringa’s hand and hope he wins every Best Director award from now on — but a Congressional Medal of Honor might be more appropriate. As to the villain of the piece, let’s waterboard him or skateboard him or snowboard him until we recover every scintilla of useful information about the global terrorist network from his warped brain, then give him a fair trial — something his vile masters would not understand. If he’s convicted, kill him mercifully and be done with him. Enough of guys like him; never enough of guys like the Hero Schuringa.

I SPILLED CATSUP ON MY HOMEWORK!

I SPILLED CATSUP ON MY HOMEWORK – HONEST!!!

Well, that’s not really true.  I apologize for being away from the website for so long, but Sharon and I were up against the wall with two large projects that had serious deadlines and a number of installments of our monthly columns in DILLON BLUE PRESS and GUN WORLD, the column on swords in the bi-monthly KNIVES ILLUSTRATED and a new column which will appear once each month in GUN DIGEST THE MAGAZINE.  The January 4^th issue of GUN DIGEST THE MAGAZINE is just out, with that first installment, as this is written.

Also, by way of explaining my absence here, I must admit that I take a while to warm to technology – things like working within a website.  But, I’m trying!

One of the projects which we just completed is something fans of John Rourke, “THE SURVIVALIST,” should appreciate, a book liberals who believe the government can protect them from all harm will thoroughly dislike.  We wrote this for Krause/Gun Digest Books, but it’s not a gun book.    The title isSURVIVE! THE DISASTER, CRISIS AND EMERGENCY HANDBOOK and it will be in your bookstores and available in all the usual on-line places in March of 2010.  As the expression goes, the book is “profusely illustrated” with Sharon’s original photography and a goodly number of public domain photos, as well.  There is one segment on firearms, but even your non-gun-owning friends or readers where firearms ownership is essentially prohibited can still benefit from the rest of SURVIVE! since the book addresses preparing as best as possible for both natural and man-made disasters with some – we hope — good, common sense advice that will help to get you through to the other side of whatever disaster may befall.  Spencer likes it that I call myself “professionally paranoid.”  Well, read this book!       

I’m going to try to gang together some responses to e-mails we’ve gotten and will endeavor to do more personalized responses with things a little less backed-up.  We’ve had a question from Sean about THE TAKERSnovels and several other people have asked about books in “THE SURVIVALIST” series.  The questions have related to availability.  We have been absent from the E-Books market for a time since the firm handling our novels as E-Books sold and we will be selling the books through one new master source which supplies various other sources.  It’s not as confusing as it sounds.  Simply put, in another few months – once we thrash out some confusion with ISBN Numbers (the bar codes) – sixty some of our books will be available as down-loadables once again.  That said, I don’t know if we’ll get into Kindle or not.  Time will tell on that.  Someone write that last sentence down; it sounds very quotable!

The nice folks at Graphic Audio are still releasing more and more of their full-tilt audio dramatizations of “THE SURVIVALIST,” and these must be selling pretty well since they keep sending us checks!

As to actual book- books, Sharon and I are well aware of the fact that some books in “THE SURVIVALIST” series sell for extraordinarily high prices.  As mentioned, we’re going to have a “yard sale” on the internet to hopefully make some titles available.  Yard sales are best held in the Spring, so look for more information about this then.

Speaking of books, Sharon and I just completed our most recent novel, the current title WRITTEN IN TIME, a science fiction/time travel/semi-autobiographical/sort-of western/techno-thriller. We’re doing a final edit on it and the book should be out sometime in late 2010 or early 2011.  We’ll keep you posted.

A number of people have contacted us concerning holsters.  As many of you know, we had a holster business for several years and we have been away from that business for seven years or so.  There is a company which may be producing some of the designs, but is so swamped with its own designs that when I wanted a Pocket Natural for my Crimson Trace LaserGripped Guardian .380, it took about ninety days and I had to wet-mold the holster myself.  This firm might also produce the flap holster some of you have asked about.  At the moment, there’s not much more I can tell you.  If they get the production going, you’ll learn about it here.

Greg Neal, whose name you’ve seen here in our debate concerning “The Prisoner,” has asked me who I think of as a good spokesperson for Constitutional conservatism from among the Republicans.  That’s a loaded question.  The best answer I could think of right now would be Sarah Palin, whose conservatism seems to truly come from the heart and the head.  But, for my money, I’d be very happy seeing Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney or Newt Gingrich in the top spot on a ticket and Sarah as a V.P. candidate who would be allowed to speak her mind.  I really don’t care if telling the truth about the Democrats offends someone – so long as it’s the truth.  For what it’s worth, as soon as Sharon and I figure out who we think has the best chance to unseat the guy living in the White House and his buddy, trust me – we’ll be shouting that name to the housetops and from the housetops.  We have to remember that the reason #44 is who he is has a lot to do with how early on the Democrats started vulturing their way toward the 2008 election.  If we want to take America back from the leftists – and, by God, we need to, we have to – then we need to learn from what the Forces of Darkness did in terms of timing, and get ourselves a candidate we can all get behind and support as quickly as possible. 

Speaking of President #44, Sharon and I have had printed a bumper sticker and a business card explaining it.  The bumper sticker – available soon from us – reads “86-44-12.”  The back of the matching business card reads, “86 is a term dating back at least to the 1930s and means to discard or dump something… 44 refers to the current person serving as President of The United States… and ’12 is short for 2012, the year of the next Presidential Election, when we will have the opportunity to 86 Number 44.”   And, that’s what we’ve got to do at the ballot box, 86 that guy and, in 2010, 86 as many leftists in Congress as possible.  I’ve never met #44 and wouldn’t want to.  From all accounts, he seems to be a good husband and father.  He’s a terrible President because he wants to change America to conform to his Secular Progressive Leftist vision.   He and his pals may want that; the rest of us don’t.   I’ll be happy to see him enjoy a long and happy time on pension after being a one-termer in The White House.  Let’s get our brains and consciences in gear and help #44 to get going on that pension!

GOD BLESS AMERICA and MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HANUKKAH and there’s no such thing as a “holiday tree” or “winter vacation” or any of the rest of that leftist revisionist politically correct stupidity!  If you believe in the God of Jews and Christians, don’t be afraid to say it and say it loudly!  Respect other religious beliefs; but, respect your own, as well.

McGOOHAN’S NUMBER SIX IS STILL NUMBER ONE

Sharon and I warily but eagerly watched AMC’s re-working of the landmark mid-1960s television series entitled, “THE PRISONER.” We should have been more wary. Jim Caviezel, Ian McKellen and the rest of the cast – especially actor Lennie James, who did a marvelously affecting performance as “147,” the cab driver — deserve credit for a job well-done. Individual scenes within the six-part mini-series were quite nicely accomplished. The problem with this production was that whoever conceived its plot seems to have been philosophically more in tune with the administration of The Village than championing individualism. For that reason – the overall theme – this new version of “THE PRISONER” was horribly disappointing.

I generally ascribe to the idea that, if I can’t write or say something positive, I won’t say anything at all. But the message found in those original seventeen episodes of “THE PRISONER” is too important to let this new mini-series masquerade under its name. In the new mini-series, “6”ends up working for the betterment of human kind. Disillusioned by man’s shallowness, he comes around to the idea that he shouldn‘t just be thinking of himself, but should think of others. Yadda, yadda, yadda. The original Number Six would not let himself be broken and took pride in his stubbornly held individuality. Sure, he’d help people. He was a good guy. But, he wouldn’t presume to re-mold other lives because he didn’t have the right to do that, any more than his adversaries had the right to re-mold him.

Number Six fiercely proclaimed, “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered!” While “6” has no philosophical baseline Sharon and I could discern. He’s a decent fellow and, eventually, comes around to the idea of being socially productive. He sells out without realizing it. Those who would decry individualism in the name of the greater good may deserve to live in the sort of society they wish to create. The rest of us don’t.

The battle for individual freedom has never been more important than it is right now. Never has the concept of individualism been more under attack. Sharon and I raised our children on the world view of Patrick McGoohan’s Number Six. McGoohan and George Markstein – co-creators of the original – composed a wonderfully entertaining, sometimes funny, always enlightening hymn to human freedom. This six episode re-envisioning played a much different tune.

TIME TO STAND UP FOR INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY?

WILL WE “BE SEEING YOU?”

By

JERRY AHERN

Two weeks ago, Sharon was browsing through TV Guide and noticed that the Independent Film Channel (IFC) was running the original 1967 series “The Prisoner,” the brainchild of the seriously brilliant Patrick McGoohan – actor, director, producer, writer, two-time Emmy winner and thinker.  Sharon and I first watched the saga of “Number Six” when it was new to the USA and aired as a summer replacement series. This was in 1969.  It was produced for British television in 1967.  There were seventeen episodes, each an hour in length when shown with commercial interruption, as the series was intended to be seen.  Over the intervening years, “The Prisoner” has shown up on Public Television and in the home video market.  It’s available on DVD and, one of these days, Sharon and I’ll stop promising ourselves to buy “The Prisoner” and actually buy it. 

Although totally different one from the other, one wouldn’t be stretching credulity to say that Patrick McGoohan’s “The Prisoner” is to television what Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is to literature.  McGoohan’s masterpiece is that good.   McGoohan – who created, produced, acted in and directed much of “The Prisoner”—threw in everything, clues galore to what was really going on.  Everything from the id, the ego and the superego to superspy action comedy to a psychologically quirky western is included as Number Six resigns from British Intelligence, is knock-out gassed, kidnapped and awakens in “The Village.”  The Village is run by “Number Two.”

At this juncture, if you are unfamiliar with this classic, you might be asking, “Who is Number One?”  Oddly enough, that’s what Number Six continually asks when the various Number Twos – they don’t last long, failing in trying to break Number Six – demand to know why he resigned. Number Six will not reveal any information, because he does not know on whose side the mysterious Number One’s malevolent minions happen to be.  Number Six defiantly proclaims, “I am not a number, I am a free man!” 

This is heady stuff for television.  As this is written on October 4^th, IFC has only run the first six episodes, three each Friday night.  They will run the remaining episodes ganged together.  Or, you can go to AMC’s website and see the episodes.  AMC, on November 15, 2009, will be showing the new original mini-series version of “The Prisoner,” starring Jim Caviezel as “Six” and Ian McKellen as “Two.”  If the new mini-series will be even almost as good as the original, it will be a landmark television event.  If the in-your-face individuality or death philosophy of McGoohan’s original is made “politically correct,” it will be very sad. Hopefully, “Six” will truly be “Number Six,” the ultimate rugged individualist who will never break.

McGoohan’s Number Six is undiminished.  “The Prisoner” is just as resonant today as it was when Sharon and I were first impressed and inspired by it forty years ago.  If you believe in individual liberty and despise big, intrusive government, you owe it to yourself to see the original McGoohan series.  And, you owe it to McGoohan’s memory – he died after a short illness at age eighty, on January 13, 2009 – to give the new mini-series a chance.  Number Six was wonderfully quotable. Picture, if you will, the leading Congressional Democrats trying to push their socialist agenda and a defiant man seething with controlled rage shouting, “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered. My life is my own.”  As my old high school creative writing teacher Jim Norris used to say, “Good stuff!”   As they say in The Village, “Be seeing you!”

MY SEECAMP .32

For I truly don’t remember how many years, I’ve been carrying a Seecamp .32. When we had the holster business, the first Pocket Natural front pocket holster we made was for a Seecamp .32 and I still use a holster that was handmade for me by two guys who worked for us. Now, I have other small handguns, of course, small handguns that I truly like. For example, the North American Arms Guardian .380 with Crimson Trace LaserGrips is a terrific handgun that I carry a lot. The NAA Pug .22 Magnum is a fine ultra-close range handgun.

My little Seecamp was with me the other day when my son-in-law and I went to The Firing Lane in Bogart, Georgia, to do some of the testing on a couple of firearms that’ll be showing up either in my GUN WORLD column, “Field Issue,” or my DILLON BLUE PRESS column, “Ahern Under The Gun.” Like a lot of people who write gun articles, I shy away from gun cleaning until absolutely necessary. My little Seecamp .32 hadn’t been cleaned in three years or so and the magazine had been loaded with the same Winchester Silvertips for two or three years. I put the magazine in the pistol – the gun was unloaded to take it into the range, of course — chambered a round and fired out the magazine without a hitch. I loaded the pistol after the range session and it’s in my pocket as I write this. That Seecamp .32 is a good gun.