Short Tidbits For Your Consideration

The sword I keep near my desk, just in case gladiator games break out at my house.

La Macha Grande

Someone in the media made the ridiculous comment that 110 pound woman can have the same upper body strength as a 200 pound man. All I can say is that's why they have weight divisions in boxing, and this person obviously watches too many Hollywood movies where 90 pound women knock out 250 pound men with one punch in the jaw. Each time I see that happen in a movie I just shake my head. I never realized that some people actually believe it.

You're An EXTREME Redneck When......

1. You let your 14-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.
2. The Blue Book value of your truck goes up and down depending on how much gas is in it.
3. You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws.

4. You think a woman who is out of your league bowls on a different night..
5. You wonder how service stations keep their rest-rooms so clean.
6. Someone in your family died right after saying 'Hey, guys, watch this'.

A Dumb Criminal

Some brilliant police work has led to an arrest in a convenience store hold up in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Authorities say James Newsome walked into the store brandishing a pistol, and wearing an orange hardhat with "James Newsome" written on the front.

Strip Searching

According to opinions in the lower courts, people may be strip-searched after arrests for violating a leash law, driving without a license and failing to pay child support. Citing examples from briefs (does briefs mean underwear taken in a strip search?) submitted to the Supreme Court, Justice Breyer wrote that people have been subjected to “the humiliation of a visual strip-search” after being arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal, and riding a bicycle without an audible bell. (Everyone knows all dangerous felons have noisy mufflers, and what is a bicycle bell?)

Books of the Latham Curse

Comments

Vietnam: The Liberty Bridge

(This entry has had a lot of comments, and I'm glad it can help bring Nam vets together or to help find each other. If you have a comment, please attach your name to the comment or from this point forward it won't be published. I've received many comments that are phony and obviously made up, submitted by anonymous submission. I do screen all comments. Click the photo to enlarge. Semper Fi.) This is the Liberty Bridge (click to make larger) in Quang Nam Province in Vietnam during July of 1968. Of the 14,000 Marines killed in Vietnam, 10,000 were killed in Quang Nam Province. (Figures in comment section show a little under 7000 KIA in Quang Nam.) This was late in my tour on July 2. The bridge had been blown once again by the enemy to isolate the Marine base at An Hoa. I was a 50 caliber machine gunner on a convoy to resupply the An Hoa Firebase. I called this the River Styx because it had a ferry boat. Once you crossed the river you entered a nightmare hell on earth cal...

The Jesus Moth

Photo taken through a window screen. I had just gone over the first print copy of The Bad Season on July 22, 2006. I walked over to the window and saw this moth on my outside air conditioner unit. It was the most bizarre thing I had seen in a long time. I retrieved my digital camera and snapped a picture through the glass and the window screen before going outside in a failed to attempt to capture the moth. I contacted a moth expert. He told me what kind of moth it was, but added that he had never seen one with a cross on its back like this one. I call it the Jesus Moth, the Crusader Moth, or maybe the Infidel Moth. The syndicates wanted me to give it to them for free. They said they don't take pics from non-employees because "we would actually have to pay you for it." Hmm, what a novel concept, getting paid for something. I offered to swap for a syndicated story about my book. They refused. So I copyrighted the entire pic (the one below is a fragment from that p...

Help Solve This Murder From June 2000 (Update)

(I've done an update to keep this story in the public eye. Ohio has just released a list of what will probably end up being close to 2000 unsolved homicides. Southwestern Ohio has at least 500 crimes on that list. There had been no activity on this story since Ohio detectives came to see me in 2009 and asked me about my theory. I don't know if they followed up on what I told them, but a statement in the comment section makes me believe someone knows more about the crime than what has been released to the public by police.) At home, George Gibson, age 47, is found dead inside the tiny first floor bathroom, as if trying to escape his killer. A veterinary pathologist and a twelve year employee at Proctor and Gamble, he appeared to be caught by surprise while at the kitchen table and tried to escape into the bathroom. Gibson was shot nine times, seven small caliber bullets to the head and two to the chest. One of his three pet Bernese mountain dogs was shot to death on the f...

Dennis Latham: Life, Fiction, and the Pursuit of Madness

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