Dangerous dispatches

There’s dangerous….and then there’s bar pool. But then there’s challenging your girlfriend to a game of bar pool and you increase the level of danger to something resembling DefCon 4.

Truth is, while I’m definitely a fool for love, I was never much of a pool player. As often as I frequent the local bars and gin mills in my New York hometown, I’ve relegated the pool table to something only those with skills attempt. By skills, I mean those men and women who grew up with a pool table in their basement or in their recreation room and who therefore know what their doing.

Pool, like skiing, skating or even bowling, is a sport to which one is doomed to mediocrity unless having first been first introduced to it at an early age. Say age five, for instance. Anyone like me who has only dabbled on occasion in the barroom pastime is relegated to being the one person no one wants to partner up with or play against, unless forced to do so. Which, of course, means that for years I avoided the pool table out of simple fear. Who wants to humiliate oneself in front of an entire bar of scantily clad women and burly men?

It wasn’t until recently that I realized that no matter how poor my pool playing skills, I can still be taught to play a competent game. Like an old dog who defies the odds, it actually is possible for me to learn some new tricks. I might never have known this had my significant other of the past six months, a New York artist/college professor by the name of Gina, not encouraged me to pick up a pool cue and shoot a game or two.

Anyone who’s ever spent time with a visual artist who regularly shows their work in some of the most respected New York galleries, knows full well that the last place on earth you might catch them passing the time is inside some seedy bar, slamming back a couple of Buds while playing back to back games of 8-ball. But that’s what this particular artist calls fun. And since I consider hanging out in some of the world’s most dangerous, if not despicable, dives where some of the greatest fun you have is with your clothes on, I naturally accepted the offer.

But before I go further, there needs to be some clarification on just what constitutes bar pool culture. First of all, bar pool is entirely different from pool hall pool. In a pool hall, the players are a different caliber than that of the barflies who frequent the corner gin mill. Pool halls are made for serious players who abstain from alcohol while engaging in complicated games of “billiards” the likes of 9-ball, bank pool and one pocket.

The men and women who frequent pool halls understand the physics behind cue sport trickery like “cuts shots,” “double shots,” and “two-rail reverse shots.” What’s more, they aren’t afraid to attempt them with an entire crowd of revelers watching over them. They often team up and compete in leagues and are knowledgeable about only the best pro tables, what they cost, their ability to maintain a level balance and more. They also store lots of useless cue sports trivia inside their gray matter. Did you know that Mary the Queen of Scots was wrapped up in her billiards cover when she died? Did you further know that Shakespeare was a big billiards fan, having coined the infamous phrase, “Let’s to billiards?” Even Thomas Jefferson snuck a pool table into his Monticello mansion, even though it was against the law to engage in the gambler’s sport in the new America. Mozart, Abraham Lincoln, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Dickens, Tolstoy and even Immanuel Kant loved to play pool. I break, therefore I am. So why should it be so shocking that my gifted artistic girlfriend should love to pass the time over a pool table?

Bar pool can be found in just about any drinking establishment that sports a pool table. Preferably an old Brunswick model that harkens back to the 1960s or 70s, is horribly out of balance, its cues warped, its bumpers worn out, its green felt having long faded and now stained with all manner of liquor, beer and Buffalo chicken wing hot sauce. Upscale cocktail lounges, country clubs, sushi bars, hotel lobbies, TGIF Fridays and all manner of upscale eateries do not count. Nor does playing at home, even if you’re pounding a few Vodkas with your best buds over a gimmicky billiards game like “Screw Your Neighbor.”

Bar pool is played in low-lit juke joints, gin mills, road houses, grilles, and shacks usually patroned by a blue collar clientele like iron workers, cement contractors, roofers, laborers, factory workers, bikers, ex-cons and more. We’re talking joints with simple, no-nonsense names like “Tommy’s,” “Thatcher Street,” “Jillian’s,” “Olympic Bowl,” and “Andy’s.”

Several types of watering holes are suitable for housing a good game of bar pool. There’s the bikini bar, where the bartenders are extremely attractive, scantily clad women. There’s the bowling alley, which always houses a big bar with a pool table that no one uses until late at night, after the lanes have shut down. Then there’s the local bar that’s strictly for getting drunk. Such places might also sport a dart board, a couple of TVs and a jukebox that no uses except on Friday for drunken line dancing. These establishments usually charge a dollar (in quarters) for the privilege of playing a single game. The standard etiquette that must be followed for any would-be pool player from Portland, Maine to Portland Oregon, is that one should respectfully set one’s quarters onto the table in order to play the winner of the previous game. Failing to abide by that one strict rule can easily get one’s nose broken in several places if not careful. Man or woman.

But it’s in this kind of “Barbary Shore” rough-neck environment that my classically trained, Master of Fine Arts-holding, college prof girlfriend wants to spend her evening. As a beer drinker, I should be happy. But what I’m about to find out is that it’s not only the bar and its inebriated tough-guy clientele that pose the danger. The real danger is about to come from Gina herself. Turns out, she doesn’t like to lose under any circumstance. Not even to the one man she has promised her heart. Under that creative shroud lies the heart and mind of a savage competitor and a famished wolf all dressed up in a Soho artist’s tall black boots, leggings and miniskirt.

Or so I’m about to find out the hard way.

Maybe the Delta ticket issuer is aware of his suspected-terrorist-who-can-fly status, but how is he or she to know that inside his underwear, Abdulmetallab is storing enough high-explosive powder and charges to bring down a passenger jet?

Most of the six hour, fifty minute flight proves uneventful. That is until the final 10 minutes, when a flight attendant begins to smell smoke. That acrid smoke is coming from the 80 grams of high-explosive charge which has turned into an incendiary device immediately after Abdulmutalleb triggered what turns out to be a faulty detonator. The fire that spreads from his BVDs to his assigned seat spread fast, from floor to baggage compartment.

Chaos at 30,000 feet ensues.

Flight attendants scream, passengers panic, children cry. Even the pilot sounds “nervous” when loudly and forcefully he exclaims “Emergency Landing” over the intercom.

Subdued by brave and vigilant passengers, the now badly burned, would-be Al Qaeda bomber does not fight back. As the fire is doused, the flight captain puts the pedal-to-the-metal and guns the plane into a near nose-dive for its emergency landing. It might be a terrifying, if not traumatic, way to end an overseas flight, but at least the 277 passengers and crew make it to Detroit in one piece.

In a next-morning interview for US national television, an obviously shaken Director of Homeland National Security, Janet Napolitano, is quoted as saying, “the system worked.” Feigning confidence, she adds, “Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took the appropriate action…So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.”

Not surprisingly, when an outraged America hears these words coming from the very woman who is supposed to be heading up our most coveted security agency, an amended statement is promptly issued. But this time, instead of claiming the system worked, Napolitano admits the sad truth: “The system failed miserably.”

Why?

Because there is no system for preventing terror in the skies. Not when you must rely on civilians to fight trained bombers. There is no system when your program of security is based entirely upon the principal of waiting until a terrorist attack occurs first. Then, and only then, do we react. Had average citizens not responded appropriately and selflessly to the flight 253 crisis, nearly 300 people would have become casualties of the ongoing terror war. “War” being the key word here.

While the US has been hunkered down trying to pass socialized medicine, the “War on Terror”—and it is a world war—has been pushed to the back of the priority line. Fact is, while the Obama administration placidly ignores the hostile Muslim radicals who hide behind God to justify their murderous raison d’etre, they have been able to re-organize and devise new plans and strategies for attacking the West. How do we fight this terrorist war in the skies? How do we defend ourselves without making it up as we go?

While the academics and left wing politicos ponder enemy-friendly solutions like trying to understand what motivates their anger towards us, more and more bombers are “on their way.” That is according to Abdulmutalleb, who revealed to officials just days ago that Al Qaeda is gearing up to hit more Americans who fly. According to Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar, “They know that this is a weakness and an Achilles’ heel in our airport security system.” But if our airport security system is our Achilles’ Heel, than an undermined, understaffed, underpowered, and inept Department of National Homeland Security is our soft underbelly.

With another air attack seemingly imminent in the near future, here are just a few state-of-dire-emergency steps I propose we undertake to make things more immediately safe:

- Barack Obama must get tough. He must issue a live broadcast in which he makes an international declaration of war on Al Qaeda and all radical Muslim fundamentalists, including the countries and organizations that harbor them. A similar declaration was made during the Bush administration, but Mr. Obama needs to reiterate it and do it now. The Western world needs to know he’s willing to fight evil Muslim fundamentalists, not empathize with them or, at the very least, ignore them.

- Transfer the Department of National Homeland Security to the military. Put the war experts in charge of fighting this new kind of war.

- Without question, place at least two Air Marshals aboard every flight possible, along with at least one bomb-sniffing dog. The move will take up at least two airline seats that would otherwise generate income, but a modest rise in ticket price will more than pay for it.

- Work closely with European counterparts, including the military, to weed out suspected terrorist suspects and place them in an accessible data base much like the one that already exists. But in this case, under no circumstances should a suspect be allowed to fly unless placed under restraint and accompanied by armed guards.

- Institute Emergency Social Profiling. This will, of course, anger a lot of Civil Libertarians, but what’s the one thing the terrorists have in common? They’re all Muslim. Naturally, most of these people are peace-loving and are ashamed of what the radicals have done to their religion. But the “bad apple” rule applies here. Airports need to screen for the Muslim faith and then respectfully make an educated guess as to whether or not the passenger poses a threat.

- Install full body-scan machines in all international airports. This is actually being accomplished in America and Europe, but thus far it’s slow going.

- Reinstitute and/or maintain Patriot Act wiretap provisions so that emails, cell phones and other types of personal communications belonging to suspected terrorists can be accessed by law.

Whether you agree with any of these suggestions or not is up to you. But I do invite you to comment at will. The point here is not that I’m hateful of Muslims, or siding with conservatives (I’m an independent), or don’t support basic human rights. The point is that we’re at war with radical fundamentalists who will stop at nothing to see Westerners and Jews slaughtered both on the ground and in the air. The point also, is that thus far, the Obama administration’s observance to national and international security is “catastrophically” weak.

I hope that before another evil man like Umar Abdolmutallab is able to sneak aboard a passenger jet full of innocent civilians and this time, succeed in blowing it out of the sky in the name of Allah, that Obama realizes that what he’s dealing with is as serious as the Nazi threat the world faced so many decades ago. There’s simply no place for peace, love and understanding when it comes to Muslim murderers. Perhaps we had to resort to racial profiling during World War II, but it was a necessary evil that aided in the destruction of a far greater evil. One that, like radical Muslim fundamentalism, will succeed at wiping out entire races of peace-loving people if left unchecked.

Pronounced dead at 11:47, the monster that was Kenneth Biros had, just ten minutes before, been the first man in the history of the United States penal system to be forcibly injected with a single-drug dose of sodium thiopental, which caused his circulatory system to stop. The ten minutes it took to administer death came as a surprise to prison officials, who were told to expect the execution process to take upwards of 30 minutes.

Biros had been convicted for the murder and gruesome dismemberment of Tami Engstrom, a 22-year-old Ohio native. Moments after his final appeal had been denied, and as the needle was about to be pushed into the vein, Biros had a few select final words for the small crowd of witnesses: “Now I’m paroled to heaven. I will now spend all of my holidays with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Peace be with you all, Amen.”

Biros’s execution became major news when it was decided by Ohio prison officials that he would be the guinea pig for the new method of lethal injection which is designed to replace the more popular three-drug killer cocktail of sodium pentothal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Administered in stages, the first drug is meant to paralyze the convict while the second two stop the lungs and inevitably the heart. The procedure is also said to be painful if not agonizing. For that reason, it’s also thought to be inhumane.

Says Ty Alper, Associate Director for the Death Penalty Clinic at California’s Berkeley School of Law about the introduction of the single injection method: “This is a significant step forward. Paralyzing inmates before executing them so we can’t tell whether they are suffering is a barbaric practice, and Ohio should be commended for stopping it.”

Back in 1998 when I was doing research for what would become my first crime novel, I had the very good fortune of being allowed behind the walls of Green Haven Prison and Sing Sing Prison by a former maximum security prison warden whose memoirs I was ghosting at the time. This wasn’t your garden variety prison tour I was being offered. Because of my close professional relationship to the ex-warden, I was able to head into the bowels of the prison, where the most violent offenders were locked up in cages within cages.

I was also allowed to enter into Green Haven’s execution chamber where the electric chair was once housed (after being relocated from Sing Sing). With the electric chair now stored in a museum, what had replaced it was a simple black vinyl covered gurney. Behind it was a machine which would administer the lethal injections by means of remote control.

I can recall standing inside that small, sanitary, concrete floored room where men had been put to death. I placed my hand on the gurney and was even invited to lie down on it, which I did. The sensation of looking straight up at the bright, blinding, white overhead light was not one I would forget anytime soon.

I recall asking the warden what it was like to see an execution take place. He’d been mandated to witness more than a few in his days as a warden. Execution by electric chair, he admitted, was gruesome and violent. In one instance, a man’s skull cap caught fire while he was still alive. But when I asked him if he thought lethal injection a more humane method, the tall, African American man shook his head. He’d also witnessed more than one lethal injection executions in neighboring states. During all three, he explained, the convicts seemed to be convulsing and choking. One even bled from the nose and mouth.

The final lethal injection straw for Ohio came with the botched execution of Romell Broom who now bears the distinction of being the only inmate in history to walk away from his own execution. How can this be? After a medical doctor and a handful of nurses couldn’t find a vein in Broom’s arms that was willing to take a needle, even after a record “18 puncture attempts,” the execution was called off. Talk about a bad day at the office.

But it was immediately following that capital punishment train wreck that Ohio officials called for a change from the three injection protocol to the single injection. They also called for a backup plan, in light of Broom’s new lease on life. In this case, if the veins will not cooperate, executioners can inject a powerful toxic chemical mix directly into a muscle in lieu of the bloodstream.

Feel sorry for these poor souls who must undergo the horrible lethal injection procedure? Think it’s inhumane to put another human being to death regardless of how that death is administered? Think capital punishment in the modern world is a barbaric ancient practice?

Take the case of the aforementioned Broom. According to an Ohio prosecutor who helped put the murderer away, “In all cases it is more humane than what these murderers did to these innocent victims…Broom brutally raped and murdered a 14-year-old child by plunging a knife seven times into her chest. They ought to have him in a waiting room, and as soon as this procedure is deemed successful (with Biros), they should bring him in and put him on the table before they put the equipment away.”

Did the God-fearing Biros deserve to die via an untested means of lethal injection?

Consider his crime. After luring a drunken Tami Engstrom into a “cabin” located behind his house, Biros proceeded to rape and beat the married woman. He also began to stab her repeatedly. All totaled, the coroner would discover 91 separate stab wounds, some of which were inflicted after death. But Biros, wouldn’t stop there. Needing a means of disposing the body, he mutilated the corpse by dismembering it. As the story is recounted in a website devoted to the grisly murder, “her head and right breast were hacked off. Her naked torso had been eviscerated, the anus, rectum, bowels, bladder, and sex organs removed as well. Later investigators discovered Tami's intestines, black leather coat, and shoe in a swampy area near a set of railroad tracks.”

Maybe a humane means of lethal injection is too good for men like Biros and Broom. Maybe, in the end, it would be easier to tie them up to stake and subject them to a firing squad. Perhaps we should make a return to the gallows. No matter what method of execution we utilize for these killers, one thing is for certain: not a whole lot of time should be spent considering how painful it is for them. I’m sure the families of the victims would agree.