(Note: For those interested, Mattie Somer Smith, a graduate of Marshall High, gave birth on May 25 to Colton Andres Cummins. Mattie is executive director of the Brain Injury Association of Arizona. Her and her husband Kyle live in Mesa, AZ. Since I am first-time grandfather, this column is dedicated to my grandfather, the late George Logan Andres of Sutton, Arkansas.)
My grandfather, Daddy George Andres, a south Arkansas pineywoods philosopher with magnolia-leaf clusters, didn’t have much truck with politicians.
He was a political kingpin for two counties in the Natural State back in the day when sweet gum sap was chewed more than Wrigley’s. Daddy George was a justice of peace for a long piece and held court with the likes of Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, and U.S. Sens. J. William Fulbright and John McClellan.
Daddy George, by then into his 90s, told a young man named Bill Clinton that he had a way of “stirrin’ up a crowd,” which was not an oxymoron.
Even though he was elected umpteen times to the Nevada County Quorum Court, he did not consider himself a politician. He only worked for Democratic candidates – Republicans were a scarce and closeted breed 40 years ago – and then only for those candidates whom he considered “too good to be in politics."
He was a story-teller and often regaled relatives with political stories, never stopping to say which ones were true. The matter or truth vs. myth or plain-out lies didn’t matter as the stories flowed off the front porch of his shotgun-style house. The beauty was in the story telling; facts would just have gotten in the way of a good story.
A couple of Daddy George stories come to mind:
-- There was this little feller who told his daddy in a clear, loud voice: “Daddy, I know what I want to be when I grow up?
“What’s that, Son,” his daddy said.
“I want to be a politician.”
“Sorry, son,” the daddy said, putting a hand on the little tyke’s head and ruffling his hair. “You can’t be a politician. You’re a Christian.”
-- A young man running for state office once showed up on my porch,
trying to get me to support him. It wasn’t so much as I was important, but that I knew a lot of folks and some thought I knew a little about politicking.
He was a nice, young man and he made a fine speech. To tell you the truth, he cut a fine figure of a man.
After his pleadings, I told him I couldn’t support him. He wanted a reason but I couldn’t tell him the truth. The truth would have been cruel, to tell you the truth.
It wasn’t his education; he was one smart feller. He spoke well and made a good impression and all.
He couldn’t win because of the way he was dressed: No voter could trust a politician who wears brown shoes with a blue suit.”
And finally,
-- A politician is like a duck. You can thump either one on the head real hard and neither one will be a bit smarter from the experience.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Time ... colors
If
time were
a color, make
it flared golf pants,
used car lot flag banners,
a paint store explosion,
Tammy Bakker's eyeshadow,
and Christmas
M&Ms.
time were
a color, make
it flared golf pants,
used car lot flag banners,
a paint store explosion,
Tammy Bakker's eyeshadow,
and Christmas
M&Ms.
All together now: LET’S GO CRAZY!
Why don’t we all just mutually agree to have a snit fit? To go crazy and not push back from the Cliff of Absurdity?
A growing number of Americans have already taken the plunge.
The Arizona law aimed at curtailing illegal alien activity in the state has been met with praise and criticism in heaping helpings of emotion usually reserved for The Big Four of Controversial Topics: Religion, Politics, Capital Punishment, Abortion.
Various groups are calling for a boycott of the state; the Fox News shriekers, with Glen “Always Silly But Getting Sillier” Beck leading the charge, praise the governor and legislators for their foresight and wisdom. In many cases, it’s a re-creation of Dumb and Dumber.
Beck used to be entertaining – like Rush Limbaugh in his day – but has become a caricature of his former self – like Rush Limbaugh. Beck’s newest anti-Obama and anti-anything-Democrat is … well, giggling. The man actually giggles on national TV!
Illegal immigration is a problem and has been for decades. It is not a new problem, but one which has become a target of the far-far right, which views any block that is not considered conservative as a threat.
One Florida company has developed a product to assist illegal Hispanics in the U.S. to “fit in.” Zubi Advertising has developed the Gringo Mask, which allows – according to product information – an illegal “to put your best white face forward.”
The company has the masks in two varieties: A blue-eyed sandy hair-colored white guy or a green-eyed, blonde-haired white woman. The product guarantees that “you won’t look like a suspicious, potentially illegal alien” and notes that “green card not included.”
The firm is not making light of the problem with illegal immigration, according to the company founder, but intends to start a dialogue about the absurdity of the Arizona law. The agency is one of nation’s leading Hispanic ad agencies.
And, if Arizona has not heaped its plate with enough self-imposed-grief, the state’s notorious sheriff, Maricopa County’s Joe Arpaio, is insisting Mexico officials apologize for an ad which appeared Arizona’s largest newspaper recently.
The ad, which Arpaio described as “threatening,” shows a man wearing camouflage clothing peering through binoculars with the words: In Sonora we are looking for people from Arizona.”
“Are they threatening us?” the dim-bulb sheriff asked. “Do they not want us to go to Mexico for tourism?”
Duh!
The same questions could be asked for Arizona’s absurd attempt at corralling Hispanics who “appear” to be illegal immigrants.
A growing number of Americans have already taken the plunge.
The Arizona law aimed at curtailing illegal alien activity in the state has been met with praise and criticism in heaping helpings of emotion usually reserved for The Big Four of Controversial Topics: Religion, Politics, Capital Punishment, Abortion.
Various groups are calling for a boycott of the state; the Fox News shriekers, with Glen “Always Silly But Getting Sillier” Beck leading the charge, praise the governor and legislators for their foresight and wisdom. In many cases, it’s a re-creation of Dumb and Dumber.
Beck used to be entertaining – like Rush Limbaugh in his day – but has become a caricature of his former self – like Rush Limbaugh. Beck’s newest anti-Obama and anti-anything-Democrat is … well, giggling. The man actually giggles on national TV!
Illegal immigration is a problem and has been for decades. It is not a new problem, but one which has become a target of the far-far right, which views any block that is not considered conservative as a threat.
One Florida company has developed a product to assist illegal Hispanics in the U.S. to “fit in.” Zubi Advertising has developed the Gringo Mask, which allows – according to product information – an illegal “to put your best white face forward.”
The company has the masks in two varieties: A blue-eyed sandy hair-colored white guy or a green-eyed, blonde-haired white woman. The product guarantees that “you won’t look like a suspicious, potentially illegal alien” and notes that “green card not included.”
The firm is not making light of the problem with illegal immigration, according to the company founder, but intends to start a dialogue about the absurdity of the Arizona law. The agency is one of nation’s leading Hispanic ad agencies.
And, if Arizona has not heaped its plate with enough self-imposed-grief, the state’s notorious sheriff, Maricopa County’s Joe Arpaio, is insisting Mexico officials apologize for an ad which appeared Arizona’s largest newspaper recently.
The ad, which Arpaio described as “threatening,” shows a man wearing camouflage clothing peering through binoculars with the words: In Sonora we are looking for people from Arizona.”
“Are they threatening us?” the dim-bulb sheriff asked. “Do they not want us to go to Mexico for tourism?”
Duh!
The same questions could be asked for Arizona’s absurd attempt at corralling Hispanics who “appear” to be illegal immigrants.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Idiots walk among us
There are idiots in Texas.
That’s not harsh, just truthful. But the statement doesn’t take into account there are also idiots in other states.
Arkansas. Mississippi. New York, Arizona. Pick one, pick ‘em all. Pick any one of the other 46 states.
Idiocy has nothing to do with Intelligence Quotient, geographical location, basic political or religious affiliation, gender, or sexual orientation.
A link to idiocy (or idiotic actions, at least) can be made through alcohol or drug consumption, wired-in or manufactured prejudices, brainwashing, fanaticism in most any mental arena … or attendance at rassling matches and the belief the action is real.
It is a truism that examples of idiocy can be observed in any statements or actions by politicians in Washington-on-the-Deficit, and any person who desires to become one of those twisted gomers.
But, for now at least, Texas holds the Idiocy Crown.
Blame it on stupid rules and those that interpret those rules.
A third-grader in Brazos Elementary School in Orchard was given a week’s detention for possession ... of a Jolly Rancher.
Say it ain’t so!
It’s so. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch when a teacher confiscated a Jolly Rancher (flavor unspecified) from her lunch tray. The superintendent for the district – Jack “No Candy in My School, Dagnabbit!” Ellis – stated that the district was abiding by state guidelines that banned “minimal nutrition” foods.
Ellis is an idiot -- one, for believing the State of Texas, in passing a law about the importance of nutrition meant that elementary school kids were to be punished for having a piece of candy were to be punished, and, two, for making such as asinine statement to justify an idiot-based action.
The Texas Public School Nutrition Policy website specifically states the policy does not restrict what foods/beverages parents may provide for their own children’s consumption.
Brazos school’s principal Jeanne Young said the problem was that another student provided Leighann the candy. Wow! Orchard has an idiot-in-waiting backing up the superintendent.
An elementary school principle friend in Texas when told about this incident, said: “Are you serious?” The titled school marm then said, “We use candy for counting exercises. It’s a great motivator. M&Ms are good…but, oh, those Hersey Kisses, those are the best.”
She refused to acknowledge whether or not the teachers “might” eat mistakes in the exercise.
There is no level in our society where common sense does not get lost in protocol, rules and misinterpretation or miscommunication.
But when people make stupid mistakes and try to explain them away rather than saying, “That was just dumb and I promise never to do it again,” it moves into the realm of idiocy.
Which brings up Common Sense Rule No. 114: Ignorance you can do something about. Stupidity goes straight to the bone.
That’s not harsh, just truthful. But the statement doesn’t take into account there are also idiots in other states.
Arkansas. Mississippi. New York, Arizona. Pick one, pick ‘em all. Pick any one of the other 46 states.
Idiocy has nothing to do with Intelligence Quotient, geographical location, basic political or religious affiliation, gender, or sexual orientation.
A link to idiocy (or idiotic actions, at least) can be made through alcohol or drug consumption, wired-in or manufactured prejudices, brainwashing, fanaticism in most any mental arena … or attendance at rassling matches and the belief the action is real.
It is a truism that examples of idiocy can be observed in any statements or actions by politicians in Washington-on-the-Deficit, and any person who desires to become one of those twisted gomers.
But, for now at least, Texas holds the Idiocy Crown.
Blame it on stupid rules and those that interpret those rules.
A third-grader in Brazos Elementary School in Orchard was given a week’s detention for possession ... of a Jolly Rancher.
Say it ain’t so!
It’s so. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch when a teacher confiscated a Jolly Rancher (flavor unspecified) from her lunch tray. The superintendent for the district – Jack “No Candy in My School, Dagnabbit!” Ellis – stated that the district was abiding by state guidelines that banned “minimal nutrition” foods.
Ellis is an idiot -- one, for believing the State of Texas, in passing a law about the importance of nutrition meant that elementary school kids were to be punished for having a piece of candy were to be punished, and, two, for making such as asinine statement to justify an idiot-based action.
The Texas Public School Nutrition Policy website specifically states the policy does not restrict what foods/beverages parents may provide for their own children’s consumption.
Brazos school’s principal Jeanne Young said the problem was that another student provided Leighann the candy. Wow! Orchard has an idiot-in-waiting backing up the superintendent.
An elementary school principle friend in Texas when told about this incident, said: “Are you serious?” The titled school marm then said, “We use candy for counting exercises. It’s a great motivator. M&Ms are good…but, oh, those Hersey Kisses, those are the best.”
She refused to acknowledge whether or not the teachers “might” eat mistakes in the exercise.
There is no level in our society where common sense does not get lost in protocol, rules and misinterpretation or miscommunication.
But when people make stupid mistakes and try to explain them away rather than saying, “That was just dumb and I promise never to do it again,” it moves into the realm of idiocy.
Which brings up Common Sense Rule No. 114: Ignorance you can do something about. Stupidity goes straight to the bone.
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