Practice makes perfect

Practice makes perfect

For years and years I listened to and heeded my grandfather's advice, my football coach's admonishments, my guitar instructor's rants, and my college drawing teacher's mantras.

Practice makes perfect.  Over and over again.  And again. And yet again. And ya know what?  All those folks were right. Practicing a task at which one wishes to achieve proficiency is the only way to get it right.

This past summer I took to the stage of our local opera house and spent the ensuing months through three plays rehearsing and  re-rehearsing my lines, my blocking, and yes my singing 'til I had it right.

So, as one who has, literally, practiced and practiced and practiced what has been preached to me I have a word of advice for some very dedicated employees of our federal government.  Those brave men and women of the FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, CIA, DOJ, Park Police, Whistle Blowers, Snitches, and wanna be heroes of our American-way need to understand the practicality of practice.  Now, along with the thought of teaching this methodology comes the necessity of encouragement.  It is not enough to stand by and repeat over and over again the proverbial phrase, "practice makes perfect" each of you need to learn the art of encouragement for with the properly placed tone of encouragement great strides can be achieved.

Yes, with the right amount of encouragement individuals will follow your sage wisdom and indeed take practice to heart and do so with gusto!  And gusto is what we're all about here in the old US of A.

Some of you are, at this point asking, "What the heck is he talking about?"  Some are probably hoping I will get to the point shortly as they have a hard time understanding all these big words strung together.  And so I shall.

Lately I have listened to an ever growing number of news reports about how our wonderfully vigilant law enforcement folks have been able to thwart potentially disastrous terrorist attacks on the unsuspecting citizens of our beloved heartland.  Believe me when I say, Thank you all so very much for an ever increasingly difficult job being well done.  Thank you for keeping us safe and whatever it is you do to find these freakin' weirdos keep it up!

But! It has come to my attention that you find these folks, and convince them you're the real bad guys and set them to take the fall before they're trotted off to the pokey where we'll eventually spend a zillion dollars of our hard earned cash on prosecuting these nut cases.

But, you did nothing to encourage them to practice before you had them show up in a fake truck with a fake bomb and fake detonator to then not blow up a real building!  So I have a couple of thoughts for you.

Planning is key here.  When you find one of these nitwits in whatever darkened alley, deserted woodland park, transvestite leather bar or wherever it is these cranially misshapen people go you seem to start off with several basic assumptions.  This is very wrong and needs to be addressed.  First you assume they can drive a van or truck loaded with heavy explosives.  You assume the educational system they briefly encountered taught them to read.  You assume they can both drive a push a detonator switch at the same time.  And most importantly you are assuming they can actually park a vehicle!

My God! That, my ever vigilant heroes is a heck of a lot of assumptions.

So, let’s see what we can do to make the whole thing work much better and this is where my initial comments come in.  Yes, you got it…Practice makes perfect!  You spend a heck of a lot of time and money on these joojoobees without actually knowing if they have the cerebral capacity and eye hand coordination necessary to carry out the fake act in the first place.

Some of the hardest hit individuals in our current economic state of affairs are the men and women of this country who toil each day on the family farm.  Government subsidies are way down and these hearty men and women who feed us could use a little help.

So, let me make a couple of suggestions.  

First make some type of financial arrangements with these farmers all across America for occasional temporary use of about, oh say 15 – 20 square

acres.  Next get in touch with some of our government agencies who purchase and use vans for a variety of whatever it is they have a variety of chores for that involve using vans.  Buy their high mileage vans.  Purchase a few old replacement road signs and stick ‘em in the ground around the acreage you’ve ‘borrowed’ from the farmers.

OK, now we’re ready.

Now go out to wherever it is you find Faruk or Amed, or whatever it is these wannabes call themselves.  Convince one you’re a true blue evil jihad son-of-a-gun and you want to help him blow the hell outta something.  Now this is where the encouragement part comes in.  He’s gonna be shy and a little introverted ‘cause he’s probably not ever blown the crap out of anything before.  That’s OK. That’s to be expected mainly because he’s still suckin’ air so even if he has done this before he’s obviously not very good at it.

Encouragement is key her.  Don’t be judgmental.  Tell him it’s OK you understand and that you’re gonna help him make sure he gets it right.

You and your back up team pick up good ol’ Quasi Stupa-Menlo and head out to the wide open countryside.  On the way you explain the need to for accuracy, timing, steadiness, etc.  All the while encouraging him that he’s gonna do great.

Now when you arrive at Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s Farm do a couple of run throughs with the van empty so he gets the feel of it.  Ask him to park in front of a couple of the signs to make sure he can read and properly park.

OK, now give him the final instructions, load the van with the bomb, hand him the detonator, point him in the direction of those 15-20 acres tell him where he should park and when he should hit the detonator and remind him one final time, “OK, Quasi, remember, practice makes perfect”.

BOOOM!  Done. 

If for God’s sake he doesn’t get it.  Run him through it again.  Most of them will get right on the first try.

Millions of dollars will be saved in wasted prosecutorial clap trap, America’s farmers are back to making a decent living.  If you use enough explosives things should pretty much be vaporized so clean up is easy.   We get all those old crappy vans off America’s roadways and eventually, maybe these

mentally limited folks realize that perhaps trying to freakin’ blow up pieces and parts and folks here in the US just isn’t a very good idea.