Cane
imploded on
steady rumor diet.
Mitt is dragging party
down by not dropping out.
Newt is gaining ground.
Rest of pack
is ho-hum
pabulum.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
A place where time stands still
There's a place, a stretch of sacred ground, in Southwest Arkansas that was settled back in the early 1800s.
For more than five generations it has been called The Andres Place. Charles Montgomery and Nancy Ann Andres settled on a small rise near the front edge of 100 acres in the community of Sutton in 1870. They built a strong dogtrot house and raised a strong herd of raw-boned, tough children who, in turn, increased the size of the Andres herd mightily.
The land, once dotted with pine thickets separating fields of grassland and row crops, was left to tend to itself decades ago and a majority of the Andres Place became the Andres Thicket.
Over the past year, it has been a pleasure, nay, an obligation, to reclaim part of that land. With my wife Bobbie Jean McCarty Smith, we build a house of which the ancients would be very, very proud. The new house is a dogtrot, bigger than the original, but the fireplace is built from rocks and bricks from the original chimneys. A couple of pieces of furniture from that original house stand as proud sentinels the two main rooms.
An old single bedspring, once the haven of sweet dreams for a revered aunt, but discarded after it was no longer useful, stands in front of the house, a strong tree having grown up through it.
Over the past 100 years, the main road has changed course, like a river finding a smoother path to flow and grow. Old trails became overgrown and new trails were cut. It's important, as the ancestors knew and we are learning, to visit the land and view its wonders.
A corner cabinet made from wood rescued from a sway-backed, two-room house on the place, holds family relics and precious photos of family members ... those that are gone and those who hold a firm grip on the future.
To those that set the pattern for all the Andres blood kin, and their inlaws and outlaws, and for those who are new to the land and stories (and love them fiercely), history and a hope for the future abound in the place now called Bedspring Ridge on Andres Thicket Farm.
For more than five generations it has been called The Andres Place. Charles Montgomery and Nancy Ann Andres settled on a small rise near the front edge of 100 acres in the community of Sutton in 1870. They built a strong dogtrot house and raised a strong herd of raw-boned, tough children who, in turn, increased the size of the Andres herd mightily.
The land, once dotted with pine thickets separating fields of grassland and row crops, was left to tend to itself decades ago and a majority of the Andres Place became the Andres Thicket.
Over the past year, it has been a pleasure, nay, an obligation, to reclaim part of that land. With my wife Bobbie Jean McCarty Smith, we build a house of which the ancients would be very, very proud. The new house is a dogtrot, bigger than the original, but the fireplace is built from rocks and bricks from the original chimneys. A couple of pieces of furniture from that original house stand as proud sentinels the two main rooms.
An old single bedspring, once the haven of sweet dreams for a revered aunt, but discarded after it was no longer useful, stands in front of the house, a strong tree having grown up through it.
Over the past 100 years, the main road has changed course, like a river finding a smoother path to flow and grow. Old trails became overgrown and new trails were cut. It's important, as the ancestors knew and we are learning, to visit the land and view its wonders.
A corner cabinet made from wood rescued from a sway-backed, two-room house on the place, holds family relics and precious photos of family members ... those that are gone and those who hold a firm grip on the future.
To those that set the pattern for all the Andres blood kin, and their inlaws and outlaws, and for those who are new to the land and stories (and love them fiercely), history and a hope for the future abound in the place now called Bedspring Ridge on Andres Thicket Farm.
2012 luku
Political
circus usually
full of roaring
lions, elephants and donkeys.
2012 version is just full
of cold hot dogs
along with caravan
of dippy
clowns.
circus usually
full of roaring
lions, elephants and donkeys.
2012 version is just full
of cold hot dogs
along with caravan
of dippy
clowns.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
A martyr deserves the best
Obama
got Osama.
Don't mince words,
give the men their
due. Obama did his job
ordering Osama dead.
Osama did his --
died on
cue.
Osama
got Muslim
wish, died a
martyr, ascended into heaven
where virgins greeted him warmly.
Whoa! Where's the girls?
Who ordered all
the durn
sheep!
got Osama.
Don't mince words,
give the men their
due. Obama did his job
ordering Osama dead.
Osama did his --
died on
cue.
Osama
got Muslim
wish, died a
martyr, ascended into heaven
where virgins greeted him warmly.
Whoa! Where's the girls?
Who ordered all
the durn
sheep!
Oh, my! The evils of politics
Herman Cain's brief flash of light on the national political arena will start ebbing quickly not that "they" have uncovered some dirt on the conservative GOPer.
"They." You know "them," right? Those nefarious nabobs who delight in digging up dirt on those that throw themselves on the alter of Super Political Power and strive for the gold ring of the presidency.
Well, "they" have let leak that two women have accused Cain of sexual harassment when he was in the private sector. Pshaw and bother! That can't be right, right? It's just the left leading with a right cross and trying to knock the current golden boy out of the Republican lead?
Without going into too many cliches -- smoke/fire and all that -- it is safe to assume that Cain, who has changed his story more times than Bill Clinton in his sex scandal days, did do something that was not aboveboard. Despite his pompous and absolute denial of any wrongdoing, and hasty subsequent retreats from those absolute denials, the association which which he was associated did give at least one woman a year's salary as a settlement. Smoke/fire. Remember?
Cain, like most self-important people who think they can do no wrong, and if they do wrong they can hide or run from it, has dug himself a hole full of gasoline.
And, he can only blame himself for lighting the match and trying to blame the mess on the match manufacturer.
"They." You know "them," right? Those nefarious nabobs who delight in digging up dirt on those that throw themselves on the alter of Super Political Power and strive for the gold ring of the presidency.
Well, "they" have let leak that two women have accused Cain of sexual harassment when he was in the private sector. Pshaw and bother! That can't be right, right? It's just the left leading with a right cross and trying to knock the current golden boy out of the Republican lead?
Without going into too many cliches -- smoke/fire and all that -- it is safe to assume that Cain, who has changed his story more times than Bill Clinton in his sex scandal days, did do something that was not aboveboard. Despite his pompous and absolute denial of any wrongdoing, and hasty subsequent retreats from those absolute denials, the association which which he was associated did give at least one woman a year's salary as a settlement. Smoke/fire. Remember?
Cain, like most self-important people who think they can do no wrong, and if they do wrong they can hide or run from it, has dug himself a hole full of gasoline.
And, he can only blame himself for lighting the match and trying to blame the mess on the match manufacturer.
Monday, October 3, 2011
You can't choose your relatives
I don’t exactly know when I started thinking bad thoughts about my sister. But I know it was close to when she was born.
I was five and ready for a little something to play with that didn’t have anything to do with sock puppets or a broken Slinky.
Having my own personal, living, breathing play-pretty would be fun. Momma and Daddy and sundry relatives told me so and back then I tended to believe adults whatever they said.
Aunt Betty Ann scratched my head and said in a loud, clear voice: “Won’t it be fun to have a little brother or sister?” I’m sure I nodded yes, because Aunt Betty was pretty and she constantly told folks I was “the smartest thing in this world.”
Nanny, my grandmother, who referred to me as her “special trial,” told folks – some who knew us right well and some who didn’t – that “I love Butch a lot. Somebody has to.” She also said, “A little brother or sister is the best gift God can give a child.” Nannie obviously believed her God-gift logic and followed it to the letter, having given each of her children eight separate God-gifts.
In the five-year-old mental Mixmaster called “conscious thought,” I extrapolated Nanny’s God-gift theory to puppies and kittens and wondered if cats and dogs were happier because they had litters. Human babies, mostly came along as onesies. I couldn’t understand why Momma couldn’t have a litter so I could have lots of brothers and sisters to play with.
I decided I wanted Momma to have a litter and that was the end of it.
My grandfather, Daddy George, was partial to girls and ordered my mother to bring forth the family’s first granddaughter. After six grandsons, he was ready for a grandchild with indoor plumbing.
One night at the supper table, Momma asked: “How’d you like to have a baby brother or sister?”
“Don’t know. Never had one. Can I go play?”
I took my plate to the kitchen, went out the front door and crawled under the house and sat there, thinking. Five minutes later I was at the Lassiter’s, waiting on Billy to get through with dinner.
Billy was two years older and went to school. Learned. Sophisticated.
As we walked to the schoolyard park down the street I told him I was getting a new brother or sister.
“Your dad done knock your maw, huh?”
“Daddy never hit Momma. You take that back!”
“He didn’t hit her. He ‘knock’ her. That’s what married couples do when they want to have kids.”
I knew that Daddy never knock nobody, much less Momma. I didn’t know much about ‘knocking’ but I knew that me getting a baby sister or brother didn’t have nothing to do with nobody hitting anybody.
Billy wouldn’t shut up. He told me that babies came from the daddy knocking the mommy and that it took a while to know if there was going to be a baby or not and if there was, then the mommy’s belly got big, then bigger. (“It look so big you’d swear it’s gonna pop.”) And after a year or two, the mommy went to the hospital or to the back of the house and came back skinny, toting a baby.
I went home and when I walked in the kitchen, Momma was standing by the sink, washing dishes. I looked at her stomach. Iron-face flat.
“It’ll get bigger over the next several months, Butch,” she said, reaching out and ruffling my hair. “The baby will be growing in my tummy.”
I went to bed that night worrying about my baby brother or sister growing inside Momma. I didn’t know if I was more worried about the baby or Momma. To me, it seemed like a bad bargain for both of them.
You hear all kinds of clap-trap when you’re a kid. I was told about 113 times by well-meaning adults that my brother or sister was going to be coming from the cabbage patch. Or that Momma would wander off one day and find the baby in a hollow stump. The stork thing was the stupidest. We were in Hope, Arkansas. No storks to speak of. A few cow birds that looked like miniature storks. But, certainly, no storks.
Over time, it seemed like Momma was taking her own sweet time hatching the baby. There had been the end of fall, a whole winter and spring, and still no baby. My sixth birthday was close by and I wanted a new fishing pole and some proper bobbers made from red-and-white plastic, not the old cork ones that were so drab and unassuming so as to practically shout “Dumb!” or “Poor!”
Knowing grownups in general like I did, I figured they might try and sneak the baby in as my birthday present and rob me of the new fishing equipment. I let Daddy know first-up that would not be sufficient after he surmised the baby might come on my birthday.
“Don’t plan on sharing my birthday with your’s and Mommy’s baby. It’s my birthday and it’s going to share my birthday, and that’s that!”
Daddy grinned and clapped me on the back. “I’ll just tell your mother she’s not to have the baby on your birthday.”
“Good. Go tell her.”
Daddy was good at his word. Andrea Dale was born two days after my birthday, on June 5, 1951. I think I started disliking her the first time I saw her in the hospital. She had a forest of solid black hair that stood straight up from her head. Her face was red and scrunchy. Slight slits were stuck where eyes should have been.
She looks like a monkey, I thought. Actually, I said it out loud and was quickly hushed by a bevy of relatives nose-pressed to the glass in the nursery at the Julia Chester Hospital on Highway No. 4 South.
“She’s the prettiest little thing I ever saw,” Nannie said.
Old woman’s lost it, I thought.
“I think she’s precious,” Daddy George opined.
Him, too.
I found myself at the back of the relative herd, looking at backs of knees and assorted sizes butts that ran from XS to Triple X.
Better view than looking at the monkey girl.
Despite my fervent hopes and single-thought prayers, three days later we brought Momma home from the hospital.
I didn’t like the baby much. She was too little for me to hold; she couldn’t play for shucks, and mainly just slept, cried, and ate. Actually, I didn’t know if she ate or not. The baby would start squirming and then started bawling and Momma would get up and say, “I’m going to feed the baby” and walk toward the back of the house where there was no refrigerator or plates, glasses, spoons or forks.
I would look quizzically at Daddy. He just said, “She’s going to feed the baby.”
I was six but not stupid. “Feed it what? There’s nothing back there to eat.”
Daddy started coughing “Hack, hack h-a-a-c-c-k.” He saw my worried look. “I’ve got something caught in my throat. Sit down, Butch, and let’s talk.”
I’ll reiterate: I was six but not stupid. I knew “Sit down” and “talk” in the same sentence uttered by an adult to a kid was never a good thing.
Daddy took a deep breath and started in: “Babies are special and have to be fed in a special way.” He stopped and looked at the ceiling. I looked there, too. Nothing.
“Babies eat, or drink actually, mothers’ milk. Do you understand?”
“Not really. But I guess Momma can get milk at the store if you don’t pick it up.”
“That’s not what I mean. Birth is a miracle. When a man and woman love each other, they sleep together . . . ahhh, I really hate this . . . ”
That was two of us.
“. . . and anyway the man gives the woman a present and it makes a baby. Do you understand?”
“Not really. What kinda present?”
“Aggggggh! A seed. The man gives the woman a seed, and it grows in her tummy and it becomes a baby. Now, do you understand?”
I knew he wanted me to say yes, but since I didn’t understand, I said, “Not really. The baby, that baby that Momma took to feed in a room where there’s no food, came from a seed?”
“Yes. Lord God, yes.” He ruffled my head. “I’m glad we had this talk.”
He patted me on the head and went out the front door, muttering something about going to the store to get cigarettes. I told him there were two packs on the end table, but he didn’t answer.
I thought about what he had said and then went to the bedroom door. “Momma, what are you feeding the baby?”
“I’m busy. Go ask your father.”
Between you and me, I didn’t care if the baby starved.
I was five and ready for a little something to play with that didn’t have anything to do with sock puppets or a broken Slinky.
Having my own personal, living, breathing play-pretty would be fun. Momma and Daddy and sundry relatives told me so and back then I tended to believe adults whatever they said.
Aunt Betty Ann scratched my head and said in a loud, clear voice: “Won’t it be fun to have a little brother or sister?” I’m sure I nodded yes, because Aunt Betty was pretty and she constantly told folks I was “the smartest thing in this world.”
Nanny, my grandmother, who referred to me as her “special trial,” told folks – some who knew us right well and some who didn’t – that “I love Butch a lot. Somebody has to.” She also said, “A little brother or sister is the best gift God can give a child.” Nannie obviously believed her God-gift logic and followed it to the letter, having given each of her children eight separate God-gifts.
In the five-year-old mental Mixmaster called “conscious thought,” I extrapolated Nanny’s God-gift theory to puppies and kittens and wondered if cats and dogs were happier because they had litters. Human babies, mostly came along as onesies. I couldn’t understand why Momma couldn’t have a litter so I could have lots of brothers and sisters to play with.
I decided I wanted Momma to have a litter and that was the end of it.
My grandfather, Daddy George, was partial to girls and ordered my mother to bring forth the family’s first granddaughter. After six grandsons, he was ready for a grandchild with indoor plumbing.
One night at the supper table, Momma asked: “How’d you like to have a baby brother or sister?”
“Don’t know. Never had one. Can I go play?”
I took my plate to the kitchen, went out the front door and crawled under the house and sat there, thinking. Five minutes later I was at the Lassiter’s, waiting on Billy to get through with dinner.
Billy was two years older and went to school. Learned. Sophisticated.
As we walked to the schoolyard park down the street I told him I was getting a new brother or sister.
“Your dad done knock your maw, huh?”
“Daddy never hit Momma. You take that back!”
“He didn’t hit her. He ‘knock’ her. That’s what married couples do when they want to have kids.”
I knew that Daddy never knock nobody, much less Momma. I didn’t know much about ‘knocking’ but I knew that me getting a baby sister or brother didn’t have nothing to do with nobody hitting anybody.
Billy wouldn’t shut up. He told me that babies came from the daddy knocking the mommy and that it took a while to know if there was going to be a baby or not and if there was, then the mommy’s belly got big, then bigger. (“It look so big you’d swear it’s gonna pop.”) And after a year or two, the mommy went to the hospital or to the back of the house and came back skinny, toting a baby.
I went home and when I walked in the kitchen, Momma was standing by the sink, washing dishes. I looked at her stomach. Iron-face flat.
“It’ll get bigger over the next several months, Butch,” she said, reaching out and ruffling my hair. “The baby will be growing in my tummy.”
I went to bed that night worrying about my baby brother or sister growing inside Momma. I didn’t know if I was more worried about the baby or Momma. To me, it seemed like a bad bargain for both of them.
You hear all kinds of clap-trap when you’re a kid. I was told about 113 times by well-meaning adults that my brother or sister was going to be coming from the cabbage patch. Or that Momma would wander off one day and find the baby in a hollow stump. The stork thing was the stupidest. We were in Hope, Arkansas. No storks to speak of. A few cow birds that looked like miniature storks. But, certainly, no storks.
Over time, it seemed like Momma was taking her own sweet time hatching the baby. There had been the end of fall, a whole winter and spring, and still no baby. My sixth birthday was close by and I wanted a new fishing pole and some proper bobbers made from red-and-white plastic, not the old cork ones that were so drab and unassuming so as to practically shout “Dumb!” or “Poor!”
Knowing grownups in general like I did, I figured they might try and sneak the baby in as my birthday present and rob me of the new fishing equipment. I let Daddy know first-up that would not be sufficient after he surmised the baby might come on my birthday.
“Don’t plan on sharing my birthday with your’s and Mommy’s baby. It’s my birthday and it’s going to share my birthday, and that’s that!”
Daddy grinned and clapped me on the back. “I’ll just tell your mother she’s not to have the baby on your birthday.”
“Good. Go tell her.”
Daddy was good at his word. Andrea Dale was born two days after my birthday, on June 5, 1951. I think I started disliking her the first time I saw her in the hospital. She had a forest of solid black hair that stood straight up from her head. Her face was red and scrunchy. Slight slits were stuck where eyes should have been.
She looks like a monkey, I thought. Actually, I said it out loud and was quickly hushed by a bevy of relatives nose-pressed to the glass in the nursery at the Julia Chester Hospital on Highway No. 4 South.
“She’s the prettiest little thing I ever saw,” Nannie said.
Old woman’s lost it, I thought.
“I think she’s precious,” Daddy George opined.
Him, too.
I found myself at the back of the relative herd, looking at backs of knees and assorted sizes butts that ran from XS to Triple X.
Better view than looking at the monkey girl.
Despite my fervent hopes and single-thought prayers, three days later we brought Momma home from the hospital.
I didn’t like the baby much. She was too little for me to hold; she couldn’t play for shucks, and mainly just slept, cried, and ate. Actually, I didn’t know if she ate or not. The baby would start squirming and then started bawling and Momma would get up and say, “I’m going to feed the baby” and walk toward the back of the house where there was no refrigerator or plates, glasses, spoons or forks.
I would look quizzically at Daddy. He just said, “She’s going to feed the baby.”
I was six but not stupid. “Feed it what? There’s nothing back there to eat.”
Daddy started coughing “Hack, hack h-a-a-c-c-k.” He saw my worried look. “I’ve got something caught in my throat. Sit down, Butch, and let’s talk.”
I’ll reiterate: I was six but not stupid. I knew “Sit down” and “talk” in the same sentence uttered by an adult to a kid was never a good thing.
Daddy took a deep breath and started in: “Babies are special and have to be fed in a special way.” He stopped and looked at the ceiling. I looked there, too. Nothing.
“Babies eat, or drink actually, mothers’ milk. Do you understand?”
“Not really. But I guess Momma can get milk at the store if you don’t pick it up.”
“That’s not what I mean. Birth is a miracle. When a man and woman love each other, they sleep together . . . ahhh, I really hate this . . . ”
That was two of us.
“. . . and anyway the man gives the woman a present and it makes a baby. Do you understand?”
“Not really. What kinda present?”
“Aggggggh! A seed. The man gives the woman a seed, and it grows in her tummy and it becomes a baby. Now, do you understand?”
I knew he wanted me to say yes, but since I didn’t understand, I said, “Not really. The baby, that baby that Momma took to feed in a room where there’s no food, came from a seed?”
“Yes. Lord God, yes.” He ruffled my head. “I’m glad we had this talk.”
He patted me on the head and went out the front door, muttering something about going to the store to get cigarettes. I told him there were two packs on the end table, but he didn’t answer.
I thought about what he had said and then went to the bedroom door. “Momma, what are you feeding the baby?”
“I’m busy. Go ask your father.”
Between you and me, I didn’t care if the baby starved.
Monday, August 29, 2011
A lowku triage 2011- Expanded
Rick,
Sarah, Michelle,
nor the Pauls
can elicit a level
of excitement in enough voters
to make a Mitt
of difference in
the upcoming
election.
What
to do?
What to do?
GOP needs to go
back to the drawing board
and come up with
a new slate
of viable
candidates.
Honestly,
the current
crop of politicians
vying to wow voters
are spouters of pulpit palaver
with the convictions of
field mice. Please!
just start
over.
Layabouts
layabouts, layabouts
all, screwing the
voters while having a
ball, Promising the moon but
delivering only cheese, saying
whatever in order
to please.
Puhlease!
Christie
The answer?
Time up upchuck!
Can’t trust the future
On just happenstance or luck.
With all politicians just
passing the buck,
time to
regroup.
Limits
on tenure
is first chore
to rid our nation
of all the monied whores
that strangle our future
and much more.
Anger is
righteous.
Sweep
them out,
every last one,
the good with the
bad, time to be done.
Set new rules, let
voters have fun,
Let people
rule.
Sarah, Michelle,
nor the Pauls
can elicit a level
of excitement in enough voters
to make a Mitt
of difference in
the upcoming
election.
What
to do?
What to do?
GOP needs to go
back to the drawing board
and come up with
a new slate
of viable
candidates.
Honestly,
the current
crop of politicians
vying to wow voters
are spouters of pulpit palaver
with the convictions of
field mice. Please!
just start
over.
Layabouts
layabouts, layabouts
all, screwing the
voters while having a
ball, Promising the moon but
delivering only cheese, saying
whatever in order
to please.
Puhlease!
Christie
The answer?
Time up upchuck!
Can’t trust the future
On just happenstance or luck.
With all politicians just
passing the buck,
time to
regroup.
Limits
on tenure
is first chore
to rid our nation
of all the monied whores
that strangle our future
and much more.
Anger is
righteous.
Sweep
them out,
every last one,
the good with the
bad, time to be done.
Set new rules, let
voters have fun,
Let people
rule.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
A war we can’t win
Truth:
Stay in
Afghanistan a week,
a month, 10 years,
and nothing will ever change.
Our puny efforts has
no effect on
future of
region.
Warfare
by tribes
and assorted warlords
is basic culture of
those who live to fight
and live to die.
It’s a life
we can’t
understand.
We
are not
fighting for victory,
but for an honorable
way to bring our soldiers
home. Victory there is
not an option.
Reference: See
Vietnam.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Growing up on hallowed ground
Building a vacation/retirement house in the small community of Sutton, Arkansas, has been a very rewarding experience for me and my family. To many of us, the land we all walked as kids is sacred ground. I've never felt closer to Sutton, Daddy George, Nannie, Uncle, Worth, Martha ... and all of my relatives ... that I have in the past eight months or so.
One of my favorite songs is "Paradise," a song about a special place that has been ruined by civilization and progress. Not Sutton. It was special when my cousin Gary and I were building unfloatable rafts on the pond, when Jackie and an unnamed cousin peed on cousins Betsy and Baby Ann from the magnolia tree, when sister Andi Dale was called T-Ninesy, when we played baseball in CarnaLee Garrett's field, when we all -- at one time or another -- followed our grandfather Daddy George to the Sand Field or Duncan Field and walked every inch of fence line.
Special memories include watching our grandmother Nannie water her flowers from a pail in her little print dresses and Uncle France spending all morning get dressed up for homecoming. Everyone cousin of the Andres Clan can still see Aunt Martha sitting on the floor, making her books, and Uncle Worth talking cars till we all could just throw up.
It is still a special place today.
This little ditty is not supposed to be anything special ... just a little walk in the past to help me keep fresh in my mind the images that linger still. I know it helped make all Andres kin the folks we grew up to be.
Written as a song to tune of Paradise, a song written and recorded by John Prine and also recorded by Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakam, John Denver, Tom T. Hall, Everly Brothers, John Fogerty, Jackie DeShannon
Chorus
Cousins, won’t you go down to the home place
With Daddy George and Nannie, we walked the woods
Where we all grew up, loving our history
And the lessons they taught us did us much good.
There’s the old pond where Uncle France took us
Where we learned how to spit, fish, whittle and cuss
We’d come home wet covered with chiggers
And our mommas would gather and raise such a fuss
See the magnolia where we all learned to climb
And we all put our initials way up at the top.
And Butch and Jackie peed on girl cousins
We can still hear them all beggin’ us to stop
Uncle was swingin’ and Martha was fussin’
About cigarette smoke getting in her eyes,
Daddy George was sittin’ on front porch
Teachin’ his grandsons how to catch flies.
Uncle was sittin’ and pitchin’ big washers
And teaching dog Penny how to catch snuff
Nieces and nephews told him to stop it
And all the young ones couldn’t see it enough
Worth was a-hollerin’ to give him a big hug,
Thompson Boys wanted supper on Sunday night.
Nobody liked ‘em, but Nannie still fed ‘em
‘cause their mama had once treated her right.
And, Cousins, won’t you go on down to the home place
With Daddy George and Nannie, we walked the woods
Where we all grew up, loving our history
And the lessons they taught us did us some good.
On Sundays we marched to the Nazarene Church
In a big long line like a herd of wild ducks,
Squirming and fidgeting all during the sermon
Then headed back home for Sunday pot luck.
Smitty and Martha would eat green hot peppers
‘Til Smitty cried “Uncle” and Martha would grin,
Worth shoveled peas in his mouth with a shovel
And emptied his plate and start fillin’ it again.
Wild cousins would scuffle out in the front yard
While daddys and uncles egged them on,
Martha made books sittin’ cross-legged,
Worth tinkered with his car under the hot sun.
Chorus
We’d walk Memory Lane to go see the peddler,
We’d walk it again to pick up the paper and mail,
We’d visit Lambert’s store to get us a soda,
The smell of the outhouse sticks with us still.
Suuukkk, Cow! You could hear Daddy George holler
When time came to check on the small herd,
The grandkids would try and mock his loud call
The cows all ignored us, never hearing a word.
Cousins, you know we can walk with them still,
Go down to Sutton, walk hallowed ground
You can conjure up your own special memories
They’re all right there just waitin’ to be found.
One of my favorite songs is "Paradise," a song about a special place that has been ruined by civilization and progress. Not Sutton. It was special when my cousin Gary and I were building unfloatable rafts on the pond, when Jackie and an unnamed cousin peed on cousins Betsy and Baby Ann from the magnolia tree, when sister Andi Dale was called T-Ninesy, when we played baseball in CarnaLee Garrett's field, when we all -- at one time or another -- followed our grandfather Daddy George to the Sand Field or Duncan Field and walked every inch of fence line.
Special memories include watching our grandmother Nannie water her flowers from a pail in her little print dresses and Uncle France spending all morning get dressed up for homecoming. Everyone cousin of the Andres Clan can still see Aunt Martha sitting on the floor, making her books, and Uncle Worth talking cars till we all could just throw up.
It is still a special place today.
This little ditty is not supposed to be anything special ... just a little walk in the past to help me keep fresh in my mind the images that linger still. I know it helped make all Andres kin the folks we grew up to be.
Written as a song to tune of Paradise, a song written and recorded by John Prine and also recorded by Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakam, John Denver, Tom T. Hall, Everly Brothers, John Fogerty, Jackie DeShannon
Chorus
Cousins, won’t you go down to the home place
With Daddy George and Nannie, we walked the woods
Where we all grew up, loving our history
And the lessons they taught us did us much good.
There’s the old pond where Uncle France took us
Where we learned how to spit, fish, whittle and cuss
We’d come home wet covered with chiggers
And our mommas would gather and raise such a fuss
See the magnolia where we all learned to climb
And we all put our initials way up at the top.
And Butch and Jackie peed on girl cousins
We can still hear them all beggin’ us to stop
Uncle was swingin’ and Martha was fussin’
About cigarette smoke getting in her eyes,
Daddy George was sittin’ on front porch
Teachin’ his grandsons how to catch flies.
Uncle was sittin’ and pitchin’ big washers
And teaching dog Penny how to catch snuff
Nieces and nephews told him to stop it
And all the young ones couldn’t see it enough
Worth was a-hollerin’ to give him a big hug,
Thompson Boys wanted supper on Sunday night.
Nobody liked ‘em, but Nannie still fed ‘em
‘cause their mama had once treated her right.
And, Cousins, won’t you go on down to the home place
With Daddy George and Nannie, we walked the woods
Where we all grew up, loving our history
And the lessons they taught us did us some good.
On Sundays we marched to the Nazarene Church
In a big long line like a herd of wild ducks,
Squirming and fidgeting all during the sermon
Then headed back home for Sunday pot luck.
Smitty and Martha would eat green hot peppers
‘Til Smitty cried “Uncle” and Martha would grin,
Worth shoveled peas in his mouth with a shovel
And emptied his plate and start fillin’ it again.
Wild cousins would scuffle out in the front yard
While daddys and uncles egged them on,
Martha made books sittin’ cross-legged,
Worth tinkered with his car under the hot sun.
Chorus
We’d walk Memory Lane to go see the peddler,
We’d walk it again to pick up the paper and mail,
We’d visit Lambert’s store to get us a soda,
The smell of the outhouse sticks with us still.
Suuukkk, Cow! You could hear Daddy George holler
When time came to check on the small herd,
The grandkids would try and mock his loud call
The cows all ignored us, never hearing a word.
Cousins, you know we can walk with them still,
Go down to Sutton, walk hallowed ground
You can conjure up your own special memories
They’re all right there just waitin’ to be found.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The education system is broken. So, are we going to fix it?
Before I go off on a patented rant, let me say this: I love teachers, even married one. I think teachers should be paid a minimum of $70,000 a year because of their commitment and dedication to our children.
That said, education in general in this country is, on the International Education Suckability Scale, a rousing, romping 1.2 on a 10-point scale.
While I have an opinion and know how to use it, I also have credentials that give me the right to power-punch the existing education system and all of its auxiliary ills. I have a teacher’s degree and have taught at the high school, community college and university level.
That doesn’t qualify me for squat. What does is the fact that I have four children who were educated in high schools in Texas and Arkansas, to some degree; the oldest two have advanced degrees and are professionals of note.The youngest daughter is a college graduate and the youngest son is exploring the world before he tackles higher education. All four are outstanding and will succeed in life.
Part of the credit for the success of the oldest two goes to certain teachers, and certainly to former Superintendent Pat Smith, an old school (pun intended) administrator who demanded the absolute best from her staff and from the students under her care. But, honestly, the teachers got a lot of help from home. Both parents set rules about educational expectations, made sure the kids knew the rules and the consequences for failure to do their best.
And, tough love was administered when applicable … both at home and at school.
I will never forget the day my eldest, one of the smartest kids on the planet, was sent to Alternative School for being a registered smart aleck. Pat called me to give me advance notice and to implore me not to cut the boy’s head clean off.
When son-boy got home, I laid into him with verbiage more fitting to a tattoo parlor a block from a Naval Base. He smiled and said, “You don’t get it, Pop. I’m in heaven. In Alternative School there’s pregnant girls and Hispanics who are still learning English. Heck, I’m king of Alternative School.”
He wisely left when I was looking for the machete.
I’m happy now I didn’t decapitate him. He’s a tenured professor with a Ph.D. in the New York City University system.
But I digress.
Let’s go back to that paying teachers what they are worth part.
$70,000. A tidy sum. But I wouldn’t bat an eye about watching my tax dollars go to worthy teachers.
Operative word: Worthy. There are way too many teachers in our schools who are in it for the wrong reasons: Summer vacation, long holiday breaks, retirement program, etc.
The problem with schools today is multi-faceted: Schools systems, state and local district stupid rules, the lack of qualifications for school board members, and parents’ abdication of responsibility in the education process.
Let’s make it simple.
The voting public should create a hell storm for legislators and mandate that all stupid rules that have nothing to do with teaching basic core material be eliminated.
Eliminate all fluff courses (look at the local handbook on courses; you can identify them readily) and put resources into remediation of students who need help.
Reduce the number of administrators and of those administrators that are left, all must teach at least one course.
Slash each school’s athletic budget by half and put the money into resources, like corporate-sponsored laptops for each student entering high school.
Tap into the community’s retiree community and solicit student aides, tutors and mentors.
Get rid of all rules prohibiting school administrators from coming up with ideas for identifying those teachers who cannot teach nor motivate. One idea: Using unbiased outside consultants, observe classroom performances of teachers and act on recommendations. Only three grades given: Adios, needs improvement with a short timeframe for improvement, and whatever-you-are-doing-keep-it-up.
(Before the fiscal hawks have a meltdown, consultants don’t have to be expensive. Work up a swap program with a nearby community and use retired teachers – the good ones – as evaluators.)
And, go to year-round schools. Our society is to no longer agrarian and this asinine summer vacation system needs to go by the wayside.
Succeed or fail? Right now, the system is failing. If you can’t see that from local and national district test scores, from the remediation rate of college freshmen, and from the fact that the U.S ranking worldwide is falling faster than an anvil dropped from an airplane, then maybe remediation is needed by the person in your mirror.
That said, education in general in this country is, on the International Education Suckability Scale, a rousing, romping 1.2 on a 10-point scale.
While I have an opinion and know how to use it, I also have credentials that give me the right to power-punch the existing education system and all of its auxiliary ills. I have a teacher’s degree and have taught at the high school, community college and university level.
That doesn’t qualify me for squat. What does is the fact that I have four children who were educated in high schools in Texas and Arkansas, to some degree; the oldest two have advanced degrees and are professionals of note.The youngest daughter is a college graduate and the youngest son is exploring the world before he tackles higher education. All four are outstanding and will succeed in life.
Part of the credit for the success of the oldest two goes to certain teachers, and certainly to former Superintendent Pat Smith, an old school (pun intended) administrator who demanded the absolute best from her staff and from the students under her care. But, honestly, the teachers got a lot of help from home. Both parents set rules about educational expectations, made sure the kids knew the rules and the consequences for failure to do their best.
And, tough love was administered when applicable … both at home and at school.
I will never forget the day my eldest, one of the smartest kids on the planet, was sent to Alternative School for being a registered smart aleck. Pat called me to give me advance notice and to implore me not to cut the boy’s head clean off.
When son-boy got home, I laid into him with verbiage more fitting to a tattoo parlor a block from a Naval Base. He smiled and said, “You don’t get it, Pop. I’m in heaven. In Alternative School there’s pregnant girls and Hispanics who are still learning English. Heck, I’m king of Alternative School.”
He wisely left when I was looking for the machete.
I’m happy now I didn’t decapitate him. He’s a tenured professor with a Ph.D. in the New York City University system.
But I digress.
Let’s go back to that paying teachers what they are worth part.
$70,000. A tidy sum. But I wouldn’t bat an eye about watching my tax dollars go to worthy teachers.
Operative word: Worthy. There are way too many teachers in our schools who are in it for the wrong reasons: Summer vacation, long holiday breaks, retirement program, etc.
The problem with schools today is multi-faceted: Schools systems, state and local district stupid rules, the lack of qualifications for school board members, and parents’ abdication of responsibility in the education process.
Let’s make it simple.
The voting public should create a hell storm for legislators and mandate that all stupid rules that have nothing to do with teaching basic core material be eliminated.
Eliminate all fluff courses (look at the local handbook on courses; you can identify them readily) and put resources into remediation of students who need help.
Reduce the number of administrators and of those administrators that are left, all must teach at least one course.
Slash each school’s athletic budget by half and put the money into resources, like corporate-sponsored laptops for each student entering high school.
Tap into the community’s retiree community and solicit student aides, tutors and mentors.
Get rid of all rules prohibiting school administrators from coming up with ideas for identifying those teachers who cannot teach nor motivate. One idea: Using unbiased outside consultants, observe classroom performances of teachers and act on recommendations. Only three grades given: Adios, needs improvement with a short timeframe for improvement, and whatever-you-are-doing-keep-it-up.
(Before the fiscal hawks have a meltdown, consultants don’t have to be expensive. Work up a swap program with a nearby community and use retired teachers – the good ones – as evaluators.)
And, go to year-round schools. Our society is to no longer agrarian and this asinine summer vacation system needs to go by the wayside.
Succeed or fail? Right now, the system is failing. If you can’t see that from local and national district test scores, from the remediation rate of college freshmen, and from the fact that the U.S ranking worldwide is falling faster than an anvil dropped from an airplane, then maybe remediation is needed by the person in your mirror.
The more things change …
(Note: Marshall, Texas, as noted by Bill Moyers, is a place where my heart returns when it is in need of a goodly serving up of memories.)
Twenty years ago I left Marshall after a decade of living, loving and laughing in my favorite town on earth. Every community ... EVERY community ... has its share of smiley times and warts. Marshall is no exception. Observations from long distance reveal the following:
THINGS THAT REMAIN THE SAME
1) Marshall is still a stable population town. As the old joke goes, seems like every time a baby is born, some man leaves town. And it’s still a town where the only population growth is in the cemetery.
2) A majority of local politicians still think they are omnipotent and that the public is a herd of dunces that needs to be treated like mushrooms…kept in the dark and covered in, well, euphemistically speaking, fertilizer.
3) The town still is in need of a few good funerals to get it untracked and on a progressive path.
4) The progressive volunteer spirit of community activists – those that are visible and many more who work behind the scenes – is as active as ever.
5) The next generations of movers-and-shakers are following in the steps of their predecessors, some immersing themselves in good works, some working from the perspective of maintaining the family history linked to greed, turf, territory and ego.
THINGS THAT HAVE CHANGED
1) Downtown is more vibrant with new restaurants, shops, events and attractions.
2) Downtown doin’s have grown exponentially. Fun on the streets!
3) The total aura and majesty of Wonderland of Lights declined dramatically, but is now on the uptick.
4) The FireAnt Festival has become “just another festival.”
5) The Courthouse Museum finally is living up to its potential.
6) Downtown bathrooms are looking like they will be a reality.
7) Ms. Chuck Wilson is still plying her personal form of racism in order to maintain her high Look-At-Me!-I’m A Black Leader! profile.
8) At one time, City Hall officials had a clue. With a few exceptions, officials now advocate and hold firm to a know-nothing philosophy.
9) King Richard is no longer holding court.
10) The local media no longer leads the charge to help create a better community, but seems content to sit back, observe and comment.
11) The resurrection of Weisman’s into a gathering place is a true wonder.
But the most drastic and visible change, and also the biggest (pun intended) change is the fact there’s definitely more cleavage in the area now than there was “back in the day.” (See photo gallery at easttexastowns.com).
Twenty years ago I left Marshall after a decade of living, loving and laughing in my favorite town on earth. Every community ... EVERY community ... has its share of smiley times and warts. Marshall is no exception. Observations from long distance reveal the following:
THINGS THAT REMAIN THE SAME
1) Marshall is still a stable population town. As the old joke goes, seems like every time a baby is born, some man leaves town. And it’s still a town where the only population growth is in the cemetery.
2) A majority of local politicians still think they are omnipotent and that the public is a herd of dunces that needs to be treated like mushrooms…kept in the dark and covered in, well, euphemistically speaking, fertilizer.
3) The town still is in need of a few good funerals to get it untracked and on a progressive path.
4) The progressive volunteer spirit of community activists – those that are visible and many more who work behind the scenes – is as active as ever.
5) The next generations of movers-and-shakers are following in the steps of their predecessors, some immersing themselves in good works, some working from the perspective of maintaining the family history linked to greed, turf, territory and ego.
THINGS THAT HAVE CHANGED
1) Downtown is more vibrant with new restaurants, shops, events and attractions.
2) Downtown doin’s have grown exponentially. Fun on the streets!
3) The total aura and majesty of Wonderland of Lights declined dramatically, but is now on the uptick.
4) The FireAnt Festival has become “just another festival.”
5) The Courthouse Museum finally is living up to its potential.
6) Downtown bathrooms are looking like they will be a reality.
7) Ms. Chuck Wilson is still plying her personal form of racism in order to maintain her high Look-At-Me!-I’m A Black Leader! profile.
8) At one time, City Hall officials had a clue. With a few exceptions, officials now advocate and hold firm to a know-nothing philosophy.
9) King Richard is no longer holding court.
10) The local media no longer leads the charge to help create a better community, but seems content to sit back, observe and comment.
11) The resurrection of Weisman’s into a gathering place is a true wonder.
But the most drastic and visible change, and also the biggest (pun intended) change is the fact there’s definitely more cleavage in the area now than there was “back in the day.” (See photo gallery at easttexastowns.com).
Alliteration, anyone?
Milquetoast
monkeys masquerading
as mouthy, magnanimous
mannequins, messaging mundane myths
to mankind, melancholy macro metaphors
and meandering maxims meaningful
to munificent muggles
manifesting methodical
masochism.
monkeys masquerading
as mouthy, magnanimous
mannequins, messaging mundane myths
to mankind, melancholy macro metaphors
and meandering maxims meaningful
to munificent muggles
manifesting methodical
masochism.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Full circle
In 1870-71 Charles Montgomery Andres and his wife Nancy Ann Waddle Andres started construction on a dogtrot house on a small rise in what was then Hempstead County, Arkansas. Fourteen decades later his great-grandson, George Sidney Smith, and his wife, Bobbie Jean McCarty Smith, started construction of a dogtrot on the same location.
Rocks and bricks from the first structure's two fireplaces will be combined into the Smith's fireplace. Wood from a two-room cypress house on the property was salvaged and made into furniture -- corner cabinet, wine rack/table, mantle and hanging artwork -- for the new structure.
The Smiths retirement home was built to accommodate visits by their extended families, and especially for their grandchildren: Bryan, Jordyn, Brayden and Colton, and great-niece Jayden.
(NOTE: The date on the photo is in error. The picture was taken June 25, 2011.)
God's special gift
I don’t exactly know when I started thinking bad thoughts about my sister. But I know it was close to when she was born.
I was five and ready for a little something to play with that didn’t have anything to do with sock puppets or a broken Slinky.
Having my own personal, living, breathing play-pretty would be fun. Momma and Daddy and sundry relatives told me so and back then I tended to believe adults whatever they said.
Aunt Betty Ann scratched my head and said in a loud, clear voice: “Won’t it be fun to have a little brother or sister?” I’m sure I nodded yes, because Aunt Betty was pretty and she constantly told folks I was “the smartest thing in this world.”
Nanny, my grandmother, who referred to me as her “special trial,” told folks – some who knew us right well and some who didn’t – that “I love Butch a lot. Somebody has to.” She also said, “A little brother or sister is the best gift God can give a child.” Nannie obviously believed her God-gift logic and followed it to the letter, having given each of her children eight separate God-gifts.
In the five-year-old mental Mixmaster called “conscious thought,” I extrapolated Nanny’s God-gift theory to puppies and kittens and wondered if cats and dogs were happier because they had litters. Human babies, mostly came along as onesies.
I decided I wanted Momma to have a litter so I would have lots of brothers and sisters to play with.
My grandfather, Daddy George, was partial to girls and ordered my mother to bring forth the family’s first granddaughter. After six grandsons, he was ready for a grandchild with indoor plumbing.
One night at the supper table, Momma asked: “How’d you like to have a baby brother or sister?”
“Don’t know. Never had one. Can I go play?”
I took my plate to the kitchen, went out the front door and crawled under the house and sat there, thinking. Five minutes later I was at the Lassiter’s, waiting on Billy to get through with dinner.
Billy was two years older and went to school. Scholarly. Sophisticated.
As we walked to the schoolyard park down the street I told him I was getting a new brother or sister.
“Your dad done knock your maw, huh?”
“Daddy never hit Momma. You take that back!”
“He didn’t hit her. He ‘knock’ her. That’s what married couples do when they want to have kids.”
I knew that Daddy never knock nobody, much less Momma. I didn’t know much about ‘knocking’ but I knew that me getting a baby sister or brother didn’t have nothing to do with nobody hitting anybody.
Billy wouldn’t shut up. He told me that babies came from the daddy knocking the mommy and that it took a while to know if there was going to be a baby or not. If there was, then the mommy’s belly got big, then bigger. (“It look so big you’d swear it’s gonna pop,” he said.) And after a year or two, the mommy went to the hospital or to the back of the house and came back skinny, toting a baby.
I went home and when I walked in the kitchen, Momma was standing by the sink, washing dishes. I looked at her stomach. Iron-face flat.
“It’ll get bigger over the next several months, Butch,” she said, reaching out and ruffling my hair. “The baby will be growing in my tummy.”
I went to bed that night worrying about my baby brother or sister growing inside Momma. I didn’t know if I was more worried about the baby or Momma. To me, it seemed like a bad bargain for both of them.
You hear all kinds of clap-trap when you’re a kid. I was told about 113 times by well-meaning adults that my brother or sister was going to be coming from the cabbage patch. Or that Momma would wander off one day and find the baby in a hollow stump. The stork thing was the stupidest. We were in Hope, Arkansas. No storks to speak of. A few cow birds that looked like miniature storks. But, certainly, no storks, and nothing big enough to carry a baby.
As the months passed, it seemed like Momma was taking her own sweet time hatching the baby. There had been the end of fall, a whole winter and spring, and still no baby. My sixth birthday was close by and I wanted a new fishing pole and some proper bobbers made from red-and-white plastic, not the old cork ones that were so drab and unassuming so as to practically shout “Dumb!” or “Poor!”
Knowing grownups in general like I did, I figured they might try and sneak the baby in as my birthday present and rob me of the new fishing equipment. I let Daddy know first-up that would not be sufficient after he surmised the baby might come on my birthday.
“Don’t plan on sharing my birthday with your’s and Mommy’s baby. It’s my birthday and it’s going to stay my birthday, and that’s that!”
Daddy grinned and clapped me on the back. “I’ll just tell your mother she’s not to have the baby on your birthday.”
“Good. Go tell her.”
Daddy was good at his word. Andrea Dale was born two days after my birthday, on June 5, 1951. I think I started disliking her the first time I saw her in the hospital. She had a forest of solid black hair that stood straight up from her head. Her face was red and scrunchy. Slight slits were stuck where eyes should have been.
She looks like a monkey, I thought. Actually, I said it out loud and was quickly hushed by a bevy of relatives nose-pressed to the glass in the nursery at the Julia Chester Hospital on Highway No. 4 South.
“She’s the prettiest little thing I ever saw,” Nannie said.
Old woman’s lost it, I thought.
“I think she’s precious,” Daddy George opined.
Him, too.
I found myself at the back of the relative herd, looking at backs of knees and assorted sizes rear-ends that ran from extra-small to Triple X.
Better view than looking at the monkey girl.
I was five and ready for a little something to play with that didn’t have anything to do with sock puppets or a broken Slinky.
Having my own personal, living, breathing play-pretty would be fun. Momma and Daddy and sundry relatives told me so and back then I tended to believe adults whatever they said.
Aunt Betty Ann scratched my head and said in a loud, clear voice: “Won’t it be fun to have a little brother or sister?” I’m sure I nodded yes, because Aunt Betty was pretty and she constantly told folks I was “the smartest thing in this world.”
Nanny, my grandmother, who referred to me as her “special trial,” told folks – some who knew us right well and some who didn’t – that “I love Butch a lot. Somebody has to.” She also said, “A little brother or sister is the best gift God can give a child.” Nannie obviously believed her God-gift logic and followed it to the letter, having given each of her children eight separate God-gifts.
In the five-year-old mental Mixmaster called “conscious thought,” I extrapolated Nanny’s God-gift theory to puppies and kittens and wondered if cats and dogs were happier because they had litters. Human babies, mostly came along as onesies.
I decided I wanted Momma to have a litter so I would have lots of brothers and sisters to play with.
My grandfather, Daddy George, was partial to girls and ordered my mother to bring forth the family’s first granddaughter. After six grandsons, he was ready for a grandchild with indoor plumbing.
One night at the supper table, Momma asked: “How’d you like to have a baby brother or sister?”
“Don’t know. Never had one. Can I go play?”
I took my plate to the kitchen, went out the front door and crawled under the house and sat there, thinking. Five minutes later I was at the Lassiter’s, waiting on Billy to get through with dinner.
Billy was two years older and went to school. Scholarly. Sophisticated.
As we walked to the schoolyard park down the street I told him I was getting a new brother or sister.
“Your dad done knock your maw, huh?”
“Daddy never hit Momma. You take that back!”
“He didn’t hit her. He ‘knock’ her. That’s what married couples do when they want to have kids.”
I knew that Daddy never knock nobody, much less Momma. I didn’t know much about ‘knocking’ but I knew that me getting a baby sister or brother didn’t have nothing to do with nobody hitting anybody.
Billy wouldn’t shut up. He told me that babies came from the daddy knocking the mommy and that it took a while to know if there was going to be a baby or not. If there was, then the mommy’s belly got big, then bigger. (“It look so big you’d swear it’s gonna pop,” he said.) And after a year or two, the mommy went to the hospital or to the back of the house and came back skinny, toting a baby.
I went home and when I walked in the kitchen, Momma was standing by the sink, washing dishes. I looked at her stomach. Iron-face flat.
“It’ll get bigger over the next several months, Butch,” she said, reaching out and ruffling my hair. “The baby will be growing in my tummy.”
I went to bed that night worrying about my baby brother or sister growing inside Momma. I didn’t know if I was more worried about the baby or Momma. To me, it seemed like a bad bargain for both of them.
You hear all kinds of clap-trap when you’re a kid. I was told about 113 times by well-meaning adults that my brother or sister was going to be coming from the cabbage patch. Or that Momma would wander off one day and find the baby in a hollow stump. The stork thing was the stupidest. We were in Hope, Arkansas. No storks to speak of. A few cow birds that looked like miniature storks. But, certainly, no storks, and nothing big enough to carry a baby.
As the months passed, it seemed like Momma was taking her own sweet time hatching the baby. There had been the end of fall, a whole winter and spring, and still no baby. My sixth birthday was close by and I wanted a new fishing pole and some proper bobbers made from red-and-white plastic, not the old cork ones that were so drab and unassuming so as to practically shout “Dumb!” or “Poor!”
Knowing grownups in general like I did, I figured they might try and sneak the baby in as my birthday present and rob me of the new fishing equipment. I let Daddy know first-up that would not be sufficient after he surmised the baby might come on my birthday.
“Don’t plan on sharing my birthday with your’s and Mommy’s baby. It’s my birthday and it’s going to stay my birthday, and that’s that!”
Daddy grinned and clapped me on the back. “I’ll just tell your mother she’s not to have the baby on your birthday.”
“Good. Go tell her.”
Daddy was good at his word. Andrea Dale was born two days after my birthday, on June 5, 1951. I think I started disliking her the first time I saw her in the hospital. She had a forest of solid black hair that stood straight up from her head. Her face was red and scrunchy. Slight slits were stuck where eyes should have been.
She looks like a monkey, I thought. Actually, I said it out loud and was quickly hushed by a bevy of relatives nose-pressed to the glass in the nursery at the Julia Chester Hospital on Highway No. 4 South.
“She’s the prettiest little thing I ever saw,” Nannie said.
Old woman’s lost it, I thought.
“I think she’s precious,” Daddy George opined.
Him, too.
I found myself at the back of the relative herd, looking at backs of knees and assorted sizes rear-ends that ran from extra-small to Triple X.
Better view than looking at the monkey girl.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Editorial appetizers, literary turnip greens
News items of interest:
1) Texas lawmakers urge Gov. Perry to run. Well, duh! They want Perry to run for the same reason some Arkansans wanted Bill Clinton to run … to get him out of the state.
2) What was NBC thinking? The network omitted the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance during its coverage of the U.S. Open. Even thought the two words were not in the original Pledge, the phrase was added almost 60 years ago. The network issued a formal apology and should be forgiven for its gaffe. Well, okay, boycott NBC for a couple of weeks if it’ll make you feel better.
3) Tiger Woods did not compete in the U.S. Open. Tiger … who?
4) Some states are trying to collect taxes from Internet sales. Only about 15 years later than they should have. Hard for local merchants to compete with a no-tax competitor.
5) Doug Hutchinson, a character actor who was in “The Green Mile” and other movies married a 16-year-old aspiring country-western singer. Hutchinson is 51. “True love can be ageless,” the actor said. True. So-called true love can also be stupid.
6) Portland, Oregon flushed eight million gallons of drinking water because a man was caught on camera urinating in one of its reservoirs. That decision was made in spite of the fact urine is a sterile substance and that a bladder full of urine in eight million gallons would be so diluted as to do … nothing!
In addition to the lost water, it costs the city $8,000 in sewage fees. Gosh, think about what fish do in water. And raccoons … oh, heck, just give me a glass of tea, no, wait, coffee … uh huh. Aw, make it milk!
7) An Internet dating site dumped 30,000 people because they were ugly. Well, it’s about time!
8) A New York sun worshiper landed in the hospital with third-degree burns after the underwire in the top of her two-piece bathing suit became superheated. As my aunt stated one time: Turn around is about play. Some men get superheated just seeing women in two-piece bathing suits.
9) A 21-year-old man set up a rendezvous via smartphone texting with a 12-year-old girl and went to meet her … in his buggy. The man, a member of the Amish sect, have varying degrees of latitude for modern conveniences and can, apparently, use cell phones for work. The young man had more than 600 texting messages with the girl so, presumably, that is a lot of work. Amish sexter? That’s a moronic oxymoron if there ever was one!
10) Texas lawmakers – with the placid backing of Gov. Rick Perry – are going to take up the “no groping” bill by airport security. Stupidity does, indeed, go directly to the bone. The feds have control of airport security – not Perry, not the leggies. So, you can expect the feds to threaten again to cancel any and all flights into and out of Texas if this piece of clap-trap legislation passes. Threaten? Yes! Follow through this time if necessary? Absolutely! Look for Perry to pontificate this bill for his own political purposes. How sad.
1) Texas lawmakers urge Gov. Perry to run. Well, duh! They want Perry to run for the same reason some Arkansans wanted Bill Clinton to run … to get him out of the state.
2) What was NBC thinking? The network omitted the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance during its coverage of the U.S. Open. Even thought the two words were not in the original Pledge, the phrase was added almost 60 years ago. The network issued a formal apology and should be forgiven for its gaffe. Well, okay, boycott NBC for a couple of weeks if it’ll make you feel better.
3) Tiger Woods did not compete in the U.S. Open. Tiger … who?
4) Some states are trying to collect taxes from Internet sales. Only about 15 years later than they should have. Hard for local merchants to compete with a no-tax competitor.
5) Doug Hutchinson, a character actor who was in “The Green Mile” and other movies married a 16-year-old aspiring country-western singer. Hutchinson is 51. “True love can be ageless,” the actor said. True. So-called true love can also be stupid.
6) Portland, Oregon flushed eight million gallons of drinking water because a man was caught on camera urinating in one of its reservoirs. That decision was made in spite of the fact urine is a sterile substance and that a bladder full of urine in eight million gallons would be so diluted as to do … nothing!
In addition to the lost water, it costs the city $8,000 in sewage fees. Gosh, think about what fish do in water. And raccoons … oh, heck, just give me a glass of tea, no, wait, coffee … uh huh. Aw, make it milk!
7) An Internet dating site dumped 30,000 people because they were ugly. Well, it’s about time!
8) A New York sun worshiper landed in the hospital with third-degree burns after the underwire in the top of her two-piece bathing suit became superheated. As my aunt stated one time: Turn around is about play. Some men get superheated just seeing women in two-piece bathing suits.
9) A 21-year-old man set up a rendezvous via smartphone texting with a 12-year-old girl and went to meet her … in his buggy. The man, a member of the Amish sect, have varying degrees of latitude for modern conveniences and can, apparently, use cell phones for work. The young man had more than 600 texting messages with the girl so, presumably, that is a lot of work. Amish sexter? That’s a moronic oxymoron if there ever was one!
10) Texas lawmakers – with the placid backing of Gov. Rick Perry – are going to take up the “no groping” bill by airport security. Stupidity does, indeed, go directly to the bone. The feds have control of airport security – not Perry, not the leggies. So, you can expect the feds to threaten again to cancel any and all flights into and out of Texas if this piece of clap-trap legislation passes. Threaten? Yes! Follow through this time if necessary? Absolutely! Look for Perry to pontificate this bill for his own political purposes. How sad.
Political lowku
GOPers
vying for
prime political positions,
posturing as prideful pundits
do when pretending to preach
their powerful positions from
pontification pulpits. Public
prays for
peace.
vying for
prime political positions,
posturing as prideful pundits
do when pretending to preach
their powerful positions from
pontification pulpits. Public
prays for
peace.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Sick days and vacation days
It’s a personal choice, really, this being proud of not missing work because of illness.
In the past five-plus years, I have missed work due to accident, illness, or Mondayitis exactly eight times. I have accrued more than 50 days in sick time, time which I probably will never use and most certainly will never be paid for the unused time.
The company for which I work does not pay for unused sick time. I understand company policies, rules, regulations, esoteric whims and human resource mandates.
What I don’t understand is why employees don’t take sick time when they’re sick and why, if employees don’t take sick time, companies don’t pay them for unused days? (Looking in the mirror and asking myself that question.)
It is estimated that billions of dollars remains in company coffers because workers don’t take allotted sick time, or companies don’t pay for unused time. Billions.
Same holds true for vacation days. It is estimated that Americans did not take vacation time in 2010 that valued at more than $60 billion. In this case, however, the vast majority of companies carry over the unused days or offer a buy-out for the leisure time spent on the job.
The policy differential seems a bit skewed … a worker earns vacation, does not take it and gets it accrued or gets paid the for unused days. The same worker earns X number of sick days a year, does not take them and ends up with … a bunch of sick days sitting on the corporate books.
Sounds like a congressional hearing topic from this angle.
Also sounds like some workers need to wise up and stay home when they are ill.(Looking in that mirror again.)
As a footnote: The average American worker got 18 days of vacation last year and took 14 days off. Workers in Great Britain received 28 days and took 25. French workers got 37 vacation days and took an average of 35.
Federal workers in the U.S. get more holidays than most companies care to give.
Fairness. Will it ever be in style?
In the past five-plus years, I have missed work due to accident, illness, or Mondayitis exactly eight times. I have accrued more than 50 days in sick time, time which I probably will never use and most certainly will never be paid for the unused time.
The company for which I work does not pay for unused sick time. I understand company policies, rules, regulations, esoteric whims and human resource mandates.
What I don’t understand is why employees don’t take sick time when they’re sick and why, if employees don’t take sick time, companies don’t pay them for unused days? (Looking in the mirror and asking myself that question.)
It is estimated that billions of dollars remains in company coffers because workers don’t take allotted sick time, or companies don’t pay for unused time. Billions.
Same holds true for vacation days. It is estimated that Americans did not take vacation time in 2010 that valued at more than $60 billion. In this case, however, the vast majority of companies carry over the unused days or offer a buy-out for the leisure time spent on the job.
The policy differential seems a bit skewed … a worker earns vacation, does not take it and gets it accrued or gets paid the for unused days. The same worker earns X number of sick days a year, does not take them and ends up with … a bunch of sick days sitting on the corporate books.
Sounds like a congressional hearing topic from this angle.
Also sounds like some workers need to wise up and stay home when they are ill.(Looking in that mirror again.)
As a footnote: The average American worker got 18 days of vacation last year and took 14 days off. Workers in Great Britain received 28 days and took 25. French workers got 37 vacation days and took an average of 35.
Federal workers in the U.S. get more holidays than most companies care to give.
Fairness. Will it ever be in style?
Hating hypocrites… and feeling good about it
If you are sick and tired of listening to congressmen pontificate about cutting the federal deficit, think … hypocrites.
Late last year, as the federal budget was floundering and the deficit was rising, members of Congress from both parties were giving bonuses to staff members.
House member gave more than $21.5 million more on their office payrolls for the last quarter of 2010 than they spent on average for the fourth quarter for the last three years.
Wait, it gets worse.
Defeated and retiring lawmakers paid an average bonus of about $4,000 to staff members. Returning lawmakers paid an average $2,300, according to LegiStorm, a Washington-on-the-Deficit watchdog group that tracks congressional pay.
The money came out of the average $1.5 million allocated to each office for expenses including salaries, travel and bottled water purchases — money that, if unspent at the end of the year, goes back to the Treasury, thus helping reduce the deficit
Topping the list was … want to hazard a guess which party, GOPer or Demogogue?
Chances are you guessed wrong. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) paid out more than $200,000 in bonuses. Rep. Doris Matsui of California paid her staff an average bonus of just under $9,000 and said “these are young people who are working very hard ta very moderate pay.”
The average staff members earn between $30,000 and $60,000 a year.
All together now: Elected officials just don’t get it.
Late last year, as the federal budget was floundering and the deficit was rising, members of Congress from both parties were giving bonuses to staff members.
House member gave more than $21.5 million more on their office payrolls for the last quarter of 2010 than they spent on average for the fourth quarter for the last three years.
Wait, it gets worse.
Defeated and retiring lawmakers paid an average bonus of about $4,000 to staff members. Returning lawmakers paid an average $2,300, according to LegiStorm, a Washington-on-the-Deficit watchdog group that tracks congressional pay.
The money came out of the average $1.5 million allocated to each office for expenses including salaries, travel and bottled water purchases — money that, if unspent at the end of the year, goes back to the Treasury, thus helping reduce the deficit
Topping the list was … want to hazard a guess which party, GOPer or Demogogue?
Chances are you guessed wrong. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) paid out more than $200,000 in bonuses. Rep. Doris Matsui of California paid her staff an average bonus of just under $9,000 and said “these are young people who are working very hard ta very moderate pay.”
The average staff members earn between $30,000 and $60,000 a year.
All together now: Elected officials just don’t get it.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Time and time again …
It’s June 2011.
And here we are all a-twitter about who the heck is going to run in the presidential primary elections in 2012.
Is this what we have come to? Would-be king- and queenmakers running for an office years before the election, like Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin have done?
As the state holding the first primary next February, Iowa is already attracting attention. Chris Christie was there recently, meeting with potential backers and turning up the conservative heat factor. Who’s Chris Christie? Exactly.
For the record, he’s the governor of New Jersey. To make a blanket statement with no semblance of reality: Finding an honest politician in New Jersey is like finding a virgin working a shift in a New Orleans strip joint.
Christie made some points early with ultra-fiscal conservatives by erasing a huge state deficit but the accolades may have been premature. The state Supreme Court has ordered him to spend more money on education and the state’s credit rating has been downgraded.
Lesson 101 for conservatives: Some things you cut, other things you don’t.
Other pols who have already tromped through Iowa or are planning to shortly include Romney, Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, John Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain.
Don’t worry if you don't know half of those names. Don’t bother looking them up. You’ll just be wasting your time.
A statement to remember: If this is the best the Republicans can do, Obama is a shoo-in for re-election.
Cutting the budget
Cutting the federal budget should not be a big deal … if we could get the politics out of the process.
Step 1: Order all federal agencies (Education is the only exception) to cut 10-15 percent of their budgets within 30 days with orders to cut from the top down, and, initially, without cutting services to citizens.
Step 2: Put every federal official on the exact retirement plan that covers everyday Americans.
Step 3: Declare one-year moratorium on foreign aid. No exceptions.
Step 4: Pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq by year-end. No dilly-dallying.
Step 5: Form an independent commission of large and small businesspeople to go through federal budget with an eye on cutting all duplicate services and errant programs, as well as surplus people, equipment and other assets.
Step 6: Declare a two-year moratorium on major projects that only affect a small area – city, county, state. If the people of Florida want a high-speed train, then let the people of Florida fund it.
Step 7: Run government like a business. If you don’t have the money, don’t spend it.
Step 8: Have quarterly reviews of Steps 1-7 and adjust as needed.
Folks, we’re smarter than this. And, it’s time to start acting like it.
And here we are all a-twitter about who the heck is going to run in the presidential primary elections in 2012.
Is this what we have come to? Would-be king- and queenmakers running for an office years before the election, like Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin have done?
As the state holding the first primary next February, Iowa is already attracting attention. Chris Christie was there recently, meeting with potential backers and turning up the conservative heat factor. Who’s Chris Christie? Exactly.
For the record, he’s the governor of New Jersey. To make a blanket statement with no semblance of reality: Finding an honest politician in New Jersey is like finding a virgin working a shift in a New Orleans strip joint.
Christie made some points early with ultra-fiscal conservatives by erasing a huge state deficit but the accolades may have been premature. The state Supreme Court has ordered him to spend more money on education and the state’s credit rating has been downgraded.
Lesson 101 for conservatives: Some things you cut, other things you don’t.
Other pols who have already tromped through Iowa or are planning to shortly include Romney, Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, John Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain.
Don’t worry if you don't know half of those names. Don’t bother looking them up. You’ll just be wasting your time.
A statement to remember: If this is the best the Republicans can do, Obama is a shoo-in for re-election.
Cutting the budget
Cutting the federal budget should not be a big deal … if we could get the politics out of the process.
Step 1: Order all federal agencies (Education is the only exception) to cut 10-15 percent of their budgets within 30 days with orders to cut from the top down, and, initially, without cutting services to citizens.
Step 2: Put every federal official on the exact retirement plan that covers everyday Americans.
Step 3: Declare one-year moratorium on foreign aid. No exceptions.
Step 4: Pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq by year-end. No dilly-dallying.
Step 5: Form an independent commission of large and small businesspeople to go through federal budget with an eye on cutting all duplicate services and errant programs, as well as surplus people, equipment and other assets.
Step 6: Declare a two-year moratorium on major projects that only affect a small area – city, county, state. If the people of Florida want a high-speed train, then let the people of Florida fund it.
Step 7: Run government like a business. If you don’t have the money, don’t spend it.
Step 8: Have quarterly reviews of Steps 1-7 and adjust as needed.
Folks, we’re smarter than this. And, it’s time to start acting like it.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
New battle cry for Texas
In case you’ve been in a hole for the past month or so, the Texas House of Representatives did everything it could live up to the image of a bunch of nincompoops sitting in a pool of gasoline and playing with matches.
The House voted 138-0 to pass HB 1937 to make it a “criminal act for security personnel to touch a person’s private areas without probably cause as a condition of travel or as a condition of entry into a public place.” The bill was headed to the Senate where it was expected to breeze through without much comment or nay votes.
Without much hesitation, the federal government stepped in and said that it would cancel all flights in order to ensure the safety of passengers and crew.
The government basically did what it had to do to: 1) Keep airports open, and 2) ensure safety of travelers and airline employees.
Of course, the blustering from legislators was at nuclear-force levels. Rep. David Simpson’s staff said the Department of Justice had “thrown down the gauntlet” in using start language to oppose the bill.
Are passengers supposed to be thrilled at airport pat-downs and scans? Absolutely not. So far, have they proven effective in maintaining security and safety of travelers? Yes, definitely.
Simpson, who is either planning a run for a higher state office, or is a goofy as an addled barn rat, actually compared the battle against the feds to the Texas revolutionary war against Mexico.
Somehow “Save our genitals from pat downs!” just does not have the short-term and long-term visceral impact as does “Remember the Alamo!”
The House voted 138-0 to pass HB 1937 to make it a “criminal act for security personnel to touch a person’s private areas without probably cause as a condition of travel or as a condition of entry into a public place.” The bill was headed to the Senate where it was expected to breeze through without much comment or nay votes.
Without much hesitation, the federal government stepped in and said that it would cancel all flights in order to ensure the safety of passengers and crew.
The government basically did what it had to do to: 1) Keep airports open, and 2) ensure safety of travelers and airline employees.
Of course, the blustering from legislators was at nuclear-force levels. Rep. David Simpson’s staff said the Department of Justice had “thrown down the gauntlet” in using start language to oppose the bill.
Are passengers supposed to be thrilled at airport pat-downs and scans? Absolutely not. So far, have they proven effective in maintaining security and safety of travelers? Yes, definitely.
Simpson, who is either planning a run for a higher state office, or is a goofy as an addled barn rat, actually compared the battle against the feds to the Texas revolutionary war against Mexico.
Somehow “Save our genitals from pat downs!” just does not have the short-term and long-term visceral impact as does “Remember the Alamo!”
Who are these people? And why do we care?
Amy Childs.
I know I’m supposed to know who she is.
January Jones, too. And Imogene Thomas, Kelly Rowland, Katie Price, Eva Herzigova, Scotty McCeery, Johnny Rockett, Bethenny Frankel, Lauren Conrad, Kim Kardashian and Ashley Simpson.
But, People Magazine love a duck, I don’t know these people. Well, not quite true, I have heard of Kim Kardashian. She’s the daughter of the Kardashian lawyer fellow who was O.J. Simpson’s good friend and was one of the trial lawyers who helped set up the scenario that put the murderer back on the street.
But the question is: Why is his daughter considered a celebrity?
People, Us, Galmour, Sluts R Them – all of the top chick lit magazines – tell me page after page that some people I have never heard of are celebrities. Some names I know, some I think I made have heard of, but most I don’t.
I know Paris Hilton because she’s rich and slutty and has been arrested umpteen times for being rich and slutty. I know Lindsey Lohan because she too is rich and slutty; she’s also a druggie and has made headlines by making slutty and druggie her profession.
I’m supposed to know Jennifer Rovero too, but I don’t. A former friend chided me because I didn’t know Jennifer Rovero was once Hilton’s girlfriend. I had not a clue who she was until the friend owned up to the fact Rovero’s a former Playboy playmate. Oh! That Jennifer Rovero! Why didn’t you say so?
When I was recently ranting about non-celebrity celebrities, someone told me Keeping up with the Kardashians was a TV reality show. I threw up in the back of my throat and wanted to take John Prine’s advice and blow up my TV. But then I heard that the Head Fem Kardashian was married to Bruce Jenner, a childhood friend of mine. You know, Olympic champion, fella on a Wheatie’s box!
So, I tuned in. Oh, my, Bruce! What have they done to ye? Someone should have told me that ol’ Bruce had died and the embalmer had messed up his face so badly it looks like the covering of a paper egg.
There comes a time when reality is no longer in my comfort zone and Bruce Jenner’s face proved to be my breaking point.
I cancelled my subscription to People. I took the refund and put it in my truck console. I only draw a little out time and again when I go to the supermarket and see that Us or People have a cover story on someone important … like Blanket Jackson.
He’s so cute!
I know I’m supposed to know who she is.
January Jones, too. And Imogene Thomas, Kelly Rowland, Katie Price, Eva Herzigova, Scotty McCeery, Johnny Rockett, Bethenny Frankel, Lauren Conrad, Kim Kardashian and Ashley Simpson.
But, People Magazine love a duck, I don’t know these people. Well, not quite true, I have heard of Kim Kardashian. She’s the daughter of the Kardashian lawyer fellow who was O.J. Simpson’s good friend and was one of the trial lawyers who helped set up the scenario that put the murderer back on the street.
But the question is: Why is his daughter considered a celebrity?
People, Us, Galmour, Sluts R Them – all of the top chick lit magazines – tell me page after page that some people I have never heard of are celebrities. Some names I know, some I think I made have heard of, but most I don’t.
I know Paris Hilton because she’s rich and slutty and has been arrested umpteen times for being rich and slutty. I know Lindsey Lohan because she too is rich and slutty; she’s also a druggie and has made headlines by making slutty and druggie her profession.
I’m supposed to know Jennifer Rovero too, but I don’t. A former friend chided me because I didn’t know Jennifer Rovero was once Hilton’s girlfriend. I had not a clue who she was until the friend owned up to the fact Rovero’s a former Playboy playmate. Oh! That Jennifer Rovero! Why didn’t you say so?
When I was recently ranting about non-celebrity celebrities, someone told me Keeping up with the Kardashians was a TV reality show. I threw up in the back of my throat and wanted to take John Prine’s advice and blow up my TV. But then I heard that the Head Fem Kardashian was married to Bruce Jenner, a childhood friend of mine. You know, Olympic champion, fella on a Wheatie’s box!
So, I tuned in. Oh, my, Bruce! What have they done to ye? Someone should have told me that ol’ Bruce had died and the embalmer had messed up his face so badly it looks like the covering of a paper egg.
There comes a time when reality is no longer in my comfort zone and Bruce Jenner’s face proved to be my breaking point.
I cancelled my subscription to People. I took the refund and put it in my truck console. I only draw a little out time and again when I go to the supermarket and see that Us or People have a cover story on someone important … like Blanket Jackson.
He’s so cute!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Oh, the inhumanity ... and stupidity!
New battle cry for Texas
In case you’ve been in a hole for the past week or so, the Texas House of Representatives did everything it could live up to the image of a bunch of nincompoops sitting in a pool of gasoline and playing with matches.
The House voted 138-0 to pass HB 1937 to make it a “criminal act for security personnel to touch a person’s private areas without probably cause as a condition of travel or as a condition of entry into a public place.” The bill was headed to the Senate where it was expected to breeze through without much comment or nay votes.
Without much hesitation, the federal government stepped in and said that it would cancel all flights in order to ensure the safety of passengers and crew.
The government basically did what it had to do to: 1) Keep airports open, and 2) ensure safety of travelers and airline employees.
Of course, the blustering from legislators was at nuclear-force levels. Rep. David Simpson’s staff said the Department of Justice had “thrown down the gauntlet” in using start language to oppose the bill.
Are passengers supposed to be thrilled at airport pat-downs and scans? Absolutely not. So far, have they proven effective in maintaining security and safety of travelers? Yes, definitely.
Simpson, who is either planning a run for a higher state office, or is a goofy as an addled barn rat, actually compared the battle against the feds to the Texas revolutionary war against Mexico.
Somehow “Save our genitals from pat downs!” just does not have the short-term and long-term visceral impact as does “Remember the Alamo!”
In case you’ve been in a hole for the past week or so, the Texas House of Representatives did everything it could live up to the image of a bunch of nincompoops sitting in a pool of gasoline and playing with matches.
The House voted 138-0 to pass HB 1937 to make it a “criminal act for security personnel to touch a person’s private areas without probably cause as a condition of travel or as a condition of entry into a public place.” The bill was headed to the Senate where it was expected to breeze through without much comment or nay votes.
Without much hesitation, the federal government stepped in and said that it would cancel all flights in order to ensure the safety of passengers and crew.
The government basically did what it had to do to: 1) Keep airports open, and 2) ensure safety of travelers and airline employees.
Of course, the blustering from legislators was at nuclear-force levels. Rep. David Simpson’s staff said the Department of Justice had “thrown down the gauntlet” in using start language to oppose the bill.
Are passengers supposed to be thrilled at airport pat-downs and scans? Absolutely not. So far, have they proven effective in maintaining security and safety of travelers? Yes, definitely.
Simpson, who is either planning a run for a higher state office, or is a goofy as an addled barn rat, actually compared the battle against the feds to the Texas revolutionary war against Mexico.
Somehow “Save our genitals from pat downs!” just does not have the short-term and long-term visceral impact as does “Remember the Alamo!”
Touchy-Touchy
Genitals,
patted gently
by employees of TSA,
raise a major ruckus in
Texas Legislature. All to
no avail. Feds
say 'hands
off'!
Legislature
expects to
retaliate with program
about rights of individuals.
Slogan: 'You can touch my
genitals when you pry
my cold, dead
hands off
them!
patted gently
by employees of TSA,
raise a major ruckus in
Texas Legislature. All to
no avail. Feds
say 'hands
off'!
Legislature
expects to
retaliate with program
about rights of individuals.
Slogan: 'You can touch my
genitals when you pry
my cold, dead
hands off
them!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Lowku: Ode to apathy
Apathy
ranks high
in the election
of public officials everywhere.
Local voters are no different,
no better, no worse.
but their non-decisions
affect them
personally.
Rules
have changed.
If you didn’t
vote in recent elections,
then your right to bitch
has been totally rescinded.
In plain language:
just shut
up!
ranks high
in the election
of public officials everywhere.
Local voters are no different,
no better, no worse.
but their non-decisions
affect them
personally.
Rules
have changed.
If you didn’t
vote in recent elections,
then your right to bitch
has been totally rescinded.
In plain language:
just shut
up!
Don’t make fun of religious beliefs
I work hard at forcing myself not making fun of any religions. Because, actually, I’m hedging my bets about which religion is right and which is way ooooooutttttt there.
I have some do’s and don’ts about my personal beliefs. For example, I don’t believe the Bible, or any holy book for that matter, really teaches that men should have multiple spousal units. Shoot, most of us can’t handle one with staying in trouble all the time.
And I don’t believe that if I blow myself up in a crowd and kill umpteen people that I am a martyr and will have a bevy of virgins waiting for me in that religion’s rendition of heaven. As the old-timey gospel song says, “I wanna go to heaven, I just don’t want to go right now.”
I do make fun of televangelists of just about any religious persuasion – from Jim Bakker to Jerry Falwell, from Jimmy Swaggart to Joel Osteen, from Oral Roberts to Ernest Ainsley. I don’t apologize for the fact that I find that oldies and newbies really funny at times. It all boils down to the fact that I’ve always had a problem with people telling me to send money to God and then giving me an address in Dallas or Charlotte or Hollywood.
I believe in Judgment Day, but believe it is on an individual basis, not on a Saturday in May. That’s want a large number of kooks around the world believed this last week
A group of so-called Christians proclaimed that May 21 was Rapture Day. That’s the word from Harold Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer who founded the Family Radio Network. Camping broadcast his message of Rapture-ing around the world … and a bunch of people bought it.
Camping wanted to be jerked to Jesus on a certain time and hour with true followers of the Christian faith. It did not dissuade some folks that Camping also predicted the end of time in 1994 … but when time marched on 27 years ago, some convenient oh-well excuse led the way to the 2011 prediction.
Simply, if Jesus returned to Earth last Saturday, he did it incognito and probably wanted to see what the fuss was all about.
Who believed this claptrap? Marie Exley, for one. Marie left her home in Colorado last year to join Family Radio's effort to publicize the message, just returned from a lengthy overseas trip that included stops in the Middle East, where she put up billboards in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.
Before Saturday she said, "I decided to spend the last few days with my immediate family and fellow believers. Things started getting more risky in the Middle East when Judgment Day started making the news."
The prediction has been publicized in almost every country, said Chris McCann, who works with eBible Fellowship, one of the groups spreading the message. "The only countries I don't feel too good about are the `stans' -- you know, Afghanizatan, Uzbekistan, those countries in Central Asia," he said.
McCann spent Saturday with his family, reading the Bible and praying. His fellowship met for the last time earlier last week. ”We had a final lunch and everyone said goodbye," he said. "We don't actually know who's saved and who isn't, but we won't gather as a fellowship again."
On the other side of the religious spectrum, a host of Rapture Parties were held, betting the Glory Train wouldn’t show up before the party was over. It turned out to be a good, sound bet.
At least one entrepreneur found a way to make some money off the rapture story. Bart Centre from New Hampshire founded “Eternal Earth-bound Pets a couple of years ago and pledged to take care of pets left behind when their owners ascended into heaven.
At more than $100 a pet, he garnered more about 260 clients. That’s $26,000.
And there are those who think God doesn’t have a sense of humor.
I have some do’s and don’ts about my personal beliefs. For example, I don’t believe the Bible, or any holy book for that matter, really teaches that men should have multiple spousal units. Shoot, most of us can’t handle one with staying in trouble all the time.
And I don’t believe that if I blow myself up in a crowd and kill umpteen people that I am a martyr and will have a bevy of virgins waiting for me in that religion’s rendition of heaven. As the old-timey gospel song says, “I wanna go to heaven, I just don’t want to go right now.”
I do make fun of televangelists of just about any religious persuasion – from Jim Bakker to Jerry Falwell, from Jimmy Swaggart to Joel Osteen, from Oral Roberts to Ernest Ainsley. I don’t apologize for the fact that I find that oldies and newbies really funny at times. It all boils down to the fact that I’ve always had a problem with people telling me to send money to God and then giving me an address in Dallas or Charlotte or Hollywood.
I believe in Judgment Day, but believe it is on an individual basis, not on a Saturday in May. That’s want a large number of kooks around the world believed this last week
A group of so-called Christians proclaimed that May 21 was Rapture Day. That’s the word from Harold Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer who founded the Family Radio Network. Camping broadcast his message of Rapture-ing around the world … and a bunch of people bought it.
Camping wanted to be jerked to Jesus on a certain time and hour with true followers of the Christian faith. It did not dissuade some folks that Camping also predicted the end of time in 1994 … but when time marched on 27 years ago, some convenient oh-well excuse led the way to the 2011 prediction.
Simply, if Jesus returned to Earth last Saturday, he did it incognito and probably wanted to see what the fuss was all about.
Who believed this claptrap? Marie Exley, for one. Marie left her home in Colorado last year to join Family Radio's effort to publicize the message, just returned from a lengthy overseas trip that included stops in the Middle East, where she put up billboards in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.
Before Saturday she said, "I decided to spend the last few days with my immediate family and fellow believers. Things started getting more risky in the Middle East when Judgment Day started making the news."
The prediction has been publicized in almost every country, said Chris McCann, who works with eBible Fellowship, one of the groups spreading the message. "The only countries I don't feel too good about are the `stans' -- you know, Afghanizatan, Uzbekistan, those countries in Central Asia," he said.
McCann spent Saturday with his family, reading the Bible and praying. His fellowship met for the last time earlier last week. ”We had a final lunch and everyone said goodbye," he said. "We don't actually know who's saved and who isn't, but we won't gather as a fellowship again."
On the other side of the religious spectrum, a host of Rapture Parties were held, betting the Glory Train wouldn’t show up before the party was over. It turned out to be a good, sound bet.
At least one entrepreneur found a way to make some money off the rapture story. Bart Centre from New Hampshire founded “Eternal Earth-bound Pets a couple of years ago and pledged to take care of pets left behind when their owners ascended into heaven.
At more than $100 a pet, he garnered more about 260 clients. That’s $26,000.
And there are those who think God doesn’t have a sense of humor.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
You can’t make this *&^( up!
A man with a Yemeni passport tried to break down a cockpit door on an airliner. Witnesses said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is the greatest) as he banged against the door. He was, of course, arrested upon landing.
A spokesman for the family said, “Maybe he was looking for the bathroom.”
Plausible. Many of the Earth’s inhabitants have prayed or praised the God of their faith while looking for a bathroom.
Please, just cool it!
The political palaver in Washington-on-the-Deficit is mind-boggling in its abject stupidity.
President Obama recently got into the thick of the word-war by mocking GOPers who are constantly clamoring for better border security. “Maybe they’ll want a moat. Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat,” he told a gathering in El Paso.
Maybe, just maybe, we ought to take vote a moat and alligators to protect American citizens. Bet you a barrel of nickels the vast majority of Americans would want that moat and alligators … built around Washington to protect us from elected officials.”
I’ll have the special, please.
A man in Augusta, Georgia in a state of dehydration was found at his home by an air conditioner repair. The home in this case was the roof of a Waffle House.
Cops and firemen assisted the man down from his “home.”
Living on the roof of a Waffle House?
Well, it IS called a “house.”
No Western influence here
One of Osama bin Laden’s many sons says the family may sue the U.S. for killing his father. He claims his father’s burial at sea “demeans” his family.
Oh, wow, let us conjure up some tears before continuing.
(Tried. Nothing.)
For one of his interviews, bin Laden’s fourth eldest son of the al-Qaeda leader chose his wardrobe carefully. On a t-shirt he was wearing were two words … and they were not “Alluha Akbar.”
Rather, “Calvin Klein.”
Fashion statement over substance, mayhaps?
A spokesman for the family said, “Maybe he was looking for the bathroom.”
Plausible. Many of the Earth’s inhabitants have prayed or praised the God of their faith while looking for a bathroom.
Please, just cool it!
The political palaver in Washington-on-the-Deficit is mind-boggling in its abject stupidity.
President Obama recently got into the thick of the word-war by mocking GOPers who are constantly clamoring for better border security. “Maybe they’ll want a moat. Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat,” he told a gathering in El Paso.
Maybe, just maybe, we ought to take vote a moat and alligators to protect American citizens. Bet you a barrel of nickels the vast majority of Americans would want that moat and alligators … built around Washington to protect us from elected officials.”
I’ll have the special, please.
A man in Augusta, Georgia in a state of dehydration was found at his home by an air conditioner repair. The home in this case was the roof of a Waffle House.
Cops and firemen assisted the man down from his “home.”
Living on the roof of a Waffle House?
Well, it IS called a “house.”
No Western influence here
One of Osama bin Laden’s many sons says the family may sue the U.S. for killing his father. He claims his father’s burial at sea “demeans” his family.
Oh, wow, let us conjure up some tears before continuing.
(Tried. Nothing.)
For one of his interviews, bin Laden’s fourth eldest son of the al-Qaeda leader chose his wardrobe carefully. On a t-shirt he was wearing were two words … and they were not “Alluha Akbar.”
Rather, “Calvin Klein.”
Fashion statement over substance, mayhaps?
Monday, May 9, 2011
A martyr deserves the best
Obama
got Osama.
Don't mince words,
give the men their
due. Obama did his job
ordering Osama dead.
Osama did his --
died on
cue.
Osama
got Muslim
wish, died a
martyr, ascended into heaven
where virgins greeted him warmly.
Whoa! Where's the girls?
Who ordered all
the durn
sheep?
got Osama.
Don't mince words,
give the men their
due. Obama did his job
ordering Osama dead.
Osama did his --
died on
cue.
Osama
got Muslim
wish, died a
martyr, ascended into heaven
where virgins greeted him warmly.
Whoa! Where's the girls?
Who ordered all
the durn
sheep?
Give me a freakin’ break!
What has happened to this country when personal philosophies cloud common sense, rational thought and simple reasoning?
I received an email from a near-relative the other day who was ranting about President Obama taking credit for Osama bin Laden heading due UP to meet that bevy of Muslim virgins. “The liberal news media doesn’t get it! Obama used information from President Bush to get bin Laden. Yet Obama doesn’t give Bush credit!”
Whoa! Back up. Of course, the collected intel from the past decade could have contained a germ or two of information that could have assisted in the location of the dirty little al-Qaeda coward. But let’s not forget that it was Obama who ramped up the search for bin Laden; it was Obama who told the CIA to make it a top priority to located the man; it was Obama who ordered the raid that resulted in him deader than a doorknob.
And, Tea Party wingers, it was Obama that Dick “Shoot Anything that Moves” Cheney praised for the mission, and that former President George Bush complimented for a successful mission.
Of course, the U.S. attack team carried out the mission, a mission that never would have been ordered if Obama did not give his explicit approval.
You don't have to like the man who is president of the United States. But have enough class to say “good job” when his order is responsible for the death of this country Public Enemy No. 1.
On that note …
In the U.S. the Freak-Out Alert is at an all time high.
In the past week, stupid people are leaving notes with the word “bomb” in restrooms of plans, stupid people are wandering off into subway tunnels causing major panic, bomb threats diverted plans, stupid people were arrested for videotaping TSA procedures at an airport ….
And the list continues.
Where are we going to get the message: Bomb scares are never funny. Testing a safety system is never a smart idea. Freakin’ out over an innocuous event is as dumb as a square bowling ball.
Be aware of your surroundings. Be cautious. But, above all, don’t go something stupid.
And, on that note …
Those that rant and rave about the security procedures at domestic airports, be thankful for the extra scrutiny. If they had been in place before 10 years ago, 9/11 might have been prevented.
I received an email from a near-relative the other day who was ranting about President Obama taking credit for Osama bin Laden heading due UP to meet that bevy of Muslim virgins. “The liberal news media doesn’t get it! Obama used information from President Bush to get bin Laden. Yet Obama doesn’t give Bush credit!”
Whoa! Back up. Of course, the collected intel from the past decade could have contained a germ or two of information that could have assisted in the location of the dirty little al-Qaeda coward. But let’s not forget that it was Obama who ramped up the search for bin Laden; it was Obama who told the CIA to make it a top priority to located the man; it was Obama who ordered the raid that resulted in him deader than a doorknob.
And, Tea Party wingers, it was Obama that Dick “Shoot Anything that Moves” Cheney praised for the mission, and that former President George Bush complimented for a successful mission.
Of course, the U.S. attack team carried out the mission, a mission that never would have been ordered if Obama did not give his explicit approval.
You don't have to like the man who is president of the United States. But have enough class to say “good job” when his order is responsible for the death of this country Public Enemy No. 1.
On that note …
In the U.S. the Freak-Out Alert is at an all time high.
In the past week, stupid people are leaving notes with the word “bomb” in restrooms of plans, stupid people are wandering off into subway tunnels causing major panic, bomb threats diverted plans, stupid people were arrested for videotaping TSA procedures at an airport ….
And the list continues.
Where are we going to get the message: Bomb scares are never funny. Testing a safety system is never a smart idea. Freakin’ out over an innocuous event is as dumb as a square bowling ball.
Be aware of your surroundings. Be cautious. But, above all, don’t go something stupid.
And, on that note …
Those that rant and rave about the security procedures at domestic airports, be thankful for the extra scrutiny. If they had been in place before 10 years ago, 9/11 might have been prevented.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Jeers and cheers
Time to pull some doozies out of the old Opinion Hat and cast some jeers and cheers.
JEER: Mother Nature gets the natural raspberry for her repeated assault on the South with a string of tornados that left hundreds dead.
CHEER: To those who survived and immediately went to work putting their lives back together and to the thousands of volunteers who are working to assist in the clean-up and recovery effort simply because it’s the right thing to do.
JEER: Donald Trump and every single person that thinks he’s a viable candidate. He is a loudmouthed braggart who couldn’t win an election for Head Cat Stroker without payoffs. He’s only in the discussion for president because every other Republican candidate – announced and unannounced – are so very weak.
CHEER: To every potential voter who has already disregarded Trump and pushed him rightfully into a third party: the Blowhard Party.
JEER: To anyone who truly believes that the Constitution of the United States gives citizens the rights to assault weapons, explosive devices and weapons of mass destruction.
JEER: To all the Americans who became so infatuated with the Prince Andrew and Lady Kate wedding. Hey, “royalty” is just a term; no real power connected to it.
JEER: EXXON earned nearly $11 billion in the first quarter of 2011! $11 billion! The company had the audacity of saying it had no control over the price of oil. But it didn’t say it had control at the gas pump. Gas bags!
JEER: To all the addle-headed conspiracy theorist who could not get it through their dunderheads that President Obama was born in Hawaii.
CHEER: Can’t think of any offhand. Let’s go back to Jeer.
JEER: Lindsay Lohan is scheduled to teach acting classes at homeless shelter as part of her community service for being stupid … over and over again. And, who said she can act, anyway?
JEER: To President Obama and every single member of Congress for their inability to run government as a business with one simple rule: You can’t spend money you don’t have. Period.
JEER: Mother Nature gets the natural raspberry for her repeated assault on the South with a string of tornados that left hundreds dead.
CHEER: To those who survived and immediately went to work putting their lives back together and to the thousands of volunteers who are working to assist in the clean-up and recovery effort simply because it’s the right thing to do.
JEER: Donald Trump and every single person that thinks he’s a viable candidate. He is a loudmouthed braggart who couldn’t win an election for Head Cat Stroker without payoffs. He’s only in the discussion for president because every other Republican candidate – announced and unannounced – are so very weak.
CHEER: To every potential voter who has already disregarded Trump and pushed him rightfully into a third party: the Blowhard Party.
JEER: To anyone who truly believes that the Constitution of the United States gives citizens the rights to assault weapons, explosive devices and weapons of mass destruction.
JEER: To all the Americans who became so infatuated with the Prince Andrew and Lady Kate wedding. Hey, “royalty” is just a term; no real power connected to it.
JEER: EXXON earned nearly $11 billion in the first quarter of 2011! $11 billion! The company had the audacity of saying it had no control over the price of oil. But it didn’t say it had control at the gas pump. Gas bags!
JEER: To all the addle-headed conspiracy theorist who could not get it through their dunderheads that President Obama was born in Hawaii.
CHEER: Can’t think of any offhand. Let’s go back to Jeer.
JEER: Lindsay Lohan is scheduled to teach acting classes at homeless shelter as part of her community service for being stupid … over and over again. And, who said she can act, anyway?
JEER: To President Obama and every single member of Congress for their inability to run government as a business with one simple rule: You can’t spend money you don’t have. Period.
Stupid is as stupid does
Here’s some handfuls of stupid for you:
Stupid issue No. 1
The White House says the photograph of a dead Osama bin Laden is "gruesome" and that "it could be inflammatory" if released.
"Inflammatory?" Nothing we do or don't do is going to make the fanatical Muslims less or more fanatical. Who cares if they are "inflamed?" What are they gonna do? Blow themselves up twice?
You can't appease people who think suicide is some sort of religious ceremony and think that a bevy of virgins are going to be waiting for them on the other side.
Stupid issue No. 2
From a Facebook posting: Why give Obama credit for getting bin Laden? Didn’t the military do that?
It’s called military protocol. President Obama ordered bin Laden to be a high priority target and ordered the assault.
Stupid issue No. 3
From a Facebook posting: George Bush would’ve made sure the military got all the credit for getting bin Laden.
Bush sent Obama a congratulatory note praising the efforts of him and the military. Classy act. Bush, at least, understand the role of the commander in chief in such secret undertakings.
Stupid issue No. 4
Donald Trump said he still believes there is a good chance Obama was not born in Hawaii.
To quote you, The Donald, you’re fired!
Stupid issue No. 5
Some Native Americans are blasting the U.S. military for using a specific code name for the bin Laden mission: Geronimo.
Taken from a different perspective, it’s a complement. “Geronimo was a warrior chief who used a small band of Indians to fight a hated enemy and was successful time after time. What would they rather the mission be named? Custer?
Stupid issue No. 6
Some news organizations question whether or not newspapers should publish photos of a dead bin Laden.
While this is always a personal policy call by news organizations, it’s a slippery slope, for sure. The mainstream news media entered an era of decorum in 1967 when newspapers all over the world ran a photo of the car accident in which actress Jayne Mansfield was killed. Not only was Mansfield’s decapitated head sitting where the windshield had been, but some newspapers pointed it out by cutline information and an arrow just in case the casual viewer might miss it.
Today, thank goodness, pictures that are published for shock value only are relegated to the supermarket tabloids.
Stupid issue No. 1
The White House says the photograph of a dead Osama bin Laden is "gruesome" and that "it could be inflammatory" if released.
"Inflammatory?" Nothing we do or don't do is going to make the fanatical Muslims less or more fanatical. Who cares if they are "inflamed?" What are they gonna do? Blow themselves up twice?
You can't appease people who think suicide is some sort of religious ceremony and think that a bevy of virgins are going to be waiting for them on the other side.
Stupid issue No. 2
From a Facebook posting: Why give Obama credit for getting bin Laden? Didn’t the military do that?
It’s called military protocol. President Obama ordered bin Laden to be a high priority target and ordered the assault.
Stupid issue No. 3
From a Facebook posting: George Bush would’ve made sure the military got all the credit for getting bin Laden.
Bush sent Obama a congratulatory note praising the efforts of him and the military. Classy act. Bush, at least, understand the role of the commander in chief in such secret undertakings.
Stupid issue No. 4
Donald Trump said he still believes there is a good chance Obama was not born in Hawaii.
To quote you, The Donald, you’re fired!
Stupid issue No. 5
Some Native Americans are blasting the U.S. military for using a specific code name for the bin Laden mission: Geronimo.
Taken from a different perspective, it’s a complement. “Geronimo was a warrior chief who used a small band of Indians to fight a hated enemy and was successful time after time. What would they rather the mission be named? Custer?
Stupid issue No. 6
Some news organizations question whether or not newspapers should publish photos of a dead bin Laden.
While this is always a personal policy call by news organizations, it’s a slippery slope, for sure. The mainstream news media entered an era of decorum in 1967 when newspapers all over the world ran a photo of the car accident in which actress Jayne Mansfield was killed. Not only was Mansfield’s decapitated head sitting where the windshield had been, but some newspapers pointed it out by cutline information and an arrow just in case the casual viewer might miss it.
Today, thank goodness, pictures that are published for shock value only are relegated to the supermarket tabloids.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Politicians
announce for
presidential run for
myriad reasons: Ego being
the most powerful, followed by
a thirst for power.
Few want to
work for
change.
Change
can’t come
if people won’t
stand up and proclaim
with righteous indignation that change
must come in order
for system to
benefit the
masses.
Special
interests run
this country, just
ask any honest politician.
Oh, never mind, those critters
are endangered. Time for
people to take
back their
country.
announce for
presidential run for
myriad reasons: Ego being
the most powerful, followed by
a thirst for power.
Few want to
work for
change.
Change
can’t come
if people won’t
stand up and proclaim
with righteous indignation that change
must come in order
for system to
benefit the
masses.
Special
interests run
this country, just
ask any honest politician.
Oh, never mind, those critters
are endangered. Time for
people to take
back their
country.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Taste the fine wine of life
Time
bottled up
is not time
wasted, but time contained.
Open the bottle, let it
breathe. Taste the fine
wine of a
good life
lived.
bottled up
is not time
wasted, but time contained.
Open the bottle, let it
breathe. Taste the fine
wine of a
good life
lived.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Budget issue not that big of a deal
Balancing the federal budget is no big deal. Seriously. If the Demogogues and Republicrats could get past their party label and egos and start working together to run the country as a business, then it, really, no big deal to balance the budget.
Here, from the consonants and vowels of one versed in small business operation and global business finances, are the steps the president and Congress should do to accomplish that in short order.
1) Start with the assumption that the federal budget must be cut by 10 percent. Period.
2) Have every department and agency head prepare a new budget showing those cuts …without cutting a single federal employee that has face-to-face interaction with the public. The only exception would be the Department of Education, and that with this caveat: Quit throwing money away on sunshiny programs and get the nation’s schools back to the basics of formative education. You know, reading, writing, etc.
3) Mandate a 10 percent cut in the number of federal workers, which equates to about 96,000. That would save more than $5.7 billion annually. Exception: See No. 2. These cuts would be to patronage jobs in mid-management and phony-baloney job titles like “under-assistant to the assistant to the director.”
4) Gather those new budgets and hmmmmm over them a while, saying, “This looks good.” Then hand them back with a smile and say, “Now, cut 5-10 percent more.”
5) Curtail every single federal aid program until the needs of our own people are met. Period.
6) Declare a two-year moratorium on every single local project. The new rule is: If it is needed locally, then local people can pay for it. (Think about it: Why should people in Arkansas help pay for a subway system in Boston? Or a levee in New Orleans?) Excluded would be emergency situations involving natural disasters or major events (water shortage) that could affect human life.
7) Declare the welfare system a disaster and disgrace. Form a bare-bones agency modeled after the Depression Era Civilian Conservation Corps. It’s work for welfare or do without. Exceptions are those who are physically unable to work or handicapped. (Obese and lazy are not exceptions.)
8) Get our troops out of Iraq by Thursday. Get our troops out of Afghanistan by next week. Exception: There is no exception. The allied troops can stay in those two nitflicked countries for a week or 50 years and when we do pull out, it’s going to Allah in a hand basket. It’s called historical precedence. Get out now and don’t look back. The Middle Eastern warfront is like Vietnam, only sandy.
9) Make a law that mandates elected officials receive exactly the same benefits as the unwashed masses … no more, no less. That means every person with a first name of Sen. or Rep. goes on Social Security and Medicare. (That solves the endless chaotic chatter about the sky-is-falling Social Security program.)
10) Flat tax. Everybody who makes over $25,000 a year pays. No exceptions.
11) Get rid of the tax code. Straight-line reporting: Income x % = tax owed. Exemptions: Child and other current house residents, and state and local taxes can be deducted.
12) Term limits. With term limits, federal office holders don’t have to worry so much about pleasing corporations and individuals with deep pockets.
‘Nuff said.
Here, from the consonants and vowels of one versed in small business operation and global business finances, are the steps the president and Congress should do to accomplish that in short order.
1) Start with the assumption that the federal budget must be cut by 10 percent. Period.
2) Have every department and agency head prepare a new budget showing those cuts …without cutting a single federal employee that has face-to-face interaction with the public. The only exception would be the Department of Education, and that with this caveat: Quit throwing money away on sunshiny programs and get the nation’s schools back to the basics of formative education. You know, reading, writing, etc.
3) Mandate a 10 percent cut in the number of federal workers, which equates to about 96,000. That would save more than $5.7 billion annually. Exception: See No. 2. These cuts would be to patronage jobs in mid-management and phony-baloney job titles like “under-assistant to the assistant to the director.”
4) Gather those new budgets and hmmmmm over them a while, saying, “This looks good.” Then hand them back with a smile and say, “Now, cut 5-10 percent more.”
5) Curtail every single federal aid program until the needs of our own people are met. Period.
6) Declare a two-year moratorium on every single local project. The new rule is: If it is needed locally, then local people can pay for it. (Think about it: Why should people in Arkansas help pay for a subway system in Boston? Or a levee in New Orleans?) Excluded would be emergency situations involving natural disasters or major events (water shortage) that could affect human life.
7) Declare the welfare system a disaster and disgrace. Form a bare-bones agency modeled after the Depression Era Civilian Conservation Corps. It’s work for welfare or do without. Exceptions are those who are physically unable to work or handicapped. (Obese and lazy are not exceptions.)
8) Get our troops out of Iraq by Thursday. Get our troops out of Afghanistan by next week. Exception: There is no exception. The allied troops can stay in those two nitflicked countries for a week or 50 years and when we do pull out, it’s going to Allah in a hand basket. It’s called historical precedence. Get out now and don’t look back. The Middle Eastern warfront is like Vietnam, only sandy.
9) Make a law that mandates elected officials receive exactly the same benefits as the unwashed masses … no more, no less. That means every person with a first name of Sen. or Rep. goes on Social Security and Medicare. (That solves the endless chaotic chatter about the sky-is-falling Social Security program.)
10) Flat tax. Everybody who makes over $25,000 a year pays. No exceptions.
11) Get rid of the tax code. Straight-line reporting: Income x % = tax owed. Exemptions: Child and other current house residents, and state and local taxes can be deducted.
12) Term limits. With term limits, federal office holders don’t have to worry so much about pleasing corporations and individuals with deep pockets.
‘Nuff said.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Scamming the Internet Spamming Scammers
For the past several years, my daughter -- Mattie Somer Smith Cummins -- and I have been hooking up with Internet scammers. The effort has resulted in more than 200,000 words ... and some of the funniest correspondence since Al Gore invented the Internet.
The book is in final editing stage and here is an unedited excerpt.
From: Dora Saki
Subject: ALL ABOUT MY LIFE
To: George Smith
Hello My darling,
How are you today? I hope you are doing pretty well. For me here is very cold here in Senegal. Like i think i told you before, i lost my parents.My late father Dr Oliver Saki was a minister of Works and Housing in my country. And he was also the managing director(Olive industrial company LTD) in Abidjan the capital of Ivory Coast my country before the rebels attacked our House one early morning killing my mother and my father as a result of civil war in my country. It is only me that survived the attack because i was in school then and i managed to make my way to a nearby country Senegal where i am staying now in refugee camp.. I am real suffering this moment. It is a great hell and less freedom here in refugee camp. And in this camp we are only allowed to go out every Friday of the week(once in a week). It's just like one staying in the prison and i believe by God's grace i will come out here soon. I don't have any relatives now whom i can go to, all my relatives ran away in the middle of the war, the only person i have now is Rev. Steve who is the pastor of the (Christ the King Inter'l Churches) here in refugee camp Senegal. He has been very nice to me since i came here but i am not living with him rather i am staying in women's hostel because the camp have two hostels one for men the other for women.
Here is the Pastor's Telephone number to reach me ( 00221777053160 ) if you call tell him that you want to speak with me and he will send for me in women's hostel. As a refugee here i don't have any right or privilege to any thing be it money or whatever that might be against the law of this Muslim country. As i told you before i want to go back to my studies because i only attended second year in university before the tragic incident that lead to me being in this situation occured.
My darling I want to confide in you and please listen to this, i have my late father's statement of account and death certificate here with me which i will send to you later because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money in one of the leading banks here in Senegal which he used my name as the next of kin. The amount in question is US $2.2M ( Two Million Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ). So i will like you to help me transfer this money to your account and from it you will send some money for me to get my travelling documents and air ticket to come over and meet you. I kept this secret to people in the camp here, the only person that knows about it is Rev.Steve because he is like a guardian to me.
So in the light of above, i will like you to keep it to yourself and please don't tell anybody about this because i am afraid of loosing my life and the money if people get to know about it. Remember i am giving you all this information due to the trust i have in you. I like honest and understanding people, a true visionary and hardworking. My favourite language is English but our language is french, but i speak English very fluently. Meanwhile, i will like you to call me like i said i have a lot to tell you. Already I have made up of my mind not continue to stay in this camp again! I will be waiting to hear from you soonest.Have a nice day.
Yours lovely, Dora.
MY REPLY
Dear Darling:
I have prayed about helping you. Most of the praying was at the Jehovah's Leanfeed Pentacostal Church in Barleyville. It is a church founded by born-aginners who were gastronomically challenged. You know, big ol' good uns that field dressed out at about 350 pounds and thought of a mile-long buffet as a snack. I used to be one of them hummers but after I went on the grapefruit diet, I lost more than 200 pounds. My wife got tired of eating grapefruit and left me. (That's supposed to be a joke, but she really did.)
My praying resulted in a decision: I will help you soonest!
Anyway, I couldn't help but notice that you didn't answer any of my querying questions in my last email. Why is that? I appreciate your information and especially about your plight. Plights is terrible!!!! I've had some in my life, for sure.
Here's part of what I wrote earlier and would like some commenting commentary:
Dora, from your photo you are gorgeous! For another, I don't believe I can help you. I am older ... a lot older ... and am not in the best of health, due to the wreck I had several years ago. You are 22. I have shoes that are 22, for God's sake.
I am live quietly on my ranch in Arkansas, watching a herd of illegal aliens tending to my herd of thistle-eating cattle and guinea hens and horses. I still get around, if you know what I mean, (there are always women who want something from me) but nothing like I use to.
For one so young, you are so insightful!!!! The world is not a bed of roses, but it is full of saw vines, pigfish spines and meadow muffins.
I would like nothing better than to have a serious relationship with you ... Hell! With anyone! ... but I have nothing much to offer other than my 4,700-square-foot house with a pool and hot tub, sauna, 650 aces in farm subsidy heaven, and a tender, generous heart.
I look at your picture and remember when, maybe, I could have been someone of whom you could be proud. This shell is no longer that person.
I will answer your questions below simply because you asked.
Likes? I like life, not at it is, but as it was. I am going to have a spine operation this fall and hopefully that will help me get back into traveling shape. Nothing I like better than traveling to foreign countries and sighting the seas.
Dislikes? Spam (the meat and the email kind), liver, brussell sprouts and anyone who would harm children and animals. Oh, I hate any bed sheets that are less than 1,000 thread count. Scratchy bastards!
What do I do for a living? Well, I used to be in the investment business, but don't have to do that anymore. I like watching the ebb and flow of stocks that I follow. Hobbies? I surf the Internet and occasionally check on a frisky site or two or look for bargains on eBay or look up recipes so I can get my online gourmet chef's certificate. I love massages and have three rubber-downers come by once a week. Very relaxing.
I am older, I said, and with my physical condition, life is not much fun.
Just looking at your picture gave me the biggest thrill I've had in ages. Seriously, do you know how beautiful and sexy you are?
For that, and your nice letter, thank you.
George "Bubba" Smith
NOW, I said I would help you and I would. My word is my word and I abide by it even when I wish I couldn't.
I tried calling Rev. Steve and he didn't answer. Some woman who spoke some sort of foreign language with a foreigner accent answered and I thought she said should could do my laundry on Tuesday but that can't be right. I do laundry on Saturday.
How much money do you need to get to Arkansas? I can get it out of my truss fund because a truss can't help my condition anyhow. How will I get it to you? What guarantee do I have you will actually come if I send you the money? Do you have to tithe some to Rev. Steve?
I will help but help me understand how and send me the information I asked for earlier.
George "Bubba" Smith
The book is in final editing stage and here is an unedited excerpt.
From: Dora Saki
Subject: ALL ABOUT MY LIFE
To: George Smith
Hello My darling,
How are you today? I hope you are doing pretty well. For me here is very cold here in Senegal. Like i think i told you before, i lost my parents.My late father Dr Oliver Saki was a minister of Works and Housing in my country. And he was also the managing director(Olive industrial company LTD) in Abidjan the capital of Ivory Coast my country before the rebels attacked our House one early morning killing my mother and my father as a result of civil war in my country. It is only me that survived the attack because i was in school then and i managed to make my way to a nearby country Senegal where i am staying now in refugee camp.. I am real suffering this moment. It is a great hell and less freedom here in refugee camp. And in this camp we are only allowed to go out every Friday of the week(once in a week). It's just like one staying in the prison and i believe by God's grace i will come out here soon. I don't have any relatives now whom i can go to, all my relatives ran away in the middle of the war, the only person i have now is Rev. Steve who is the pastor of the (Christ the King Inter'l Churches) here in refugee camp Senegal. He has been very nice to me since i came here but i am not living with him rather i am staying in women's hostel because the camp have two hostels one for men the other for women.
Here is the Pastor's Telephone number to reach me ( 00221777053160 ) if you call tell him that you want to speak with me and he will send for me in women's hostel. As a refugee here i don't have any right or privilege to any thing be it money or whatever that might be against the law of this Muslim country. As i told you before i want to go back to my studies because i only attended second year in university before the tragic incident that lead to me being in this situation occured.
My darling I want to confide in you and please listen to this, i have my late father's statement of account and death certificate here with me which i will send to you later because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money in one of the leading banks here in Senegal which he used my name as the next of kin. The amount in question is US $2.2M ( Two Million Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ). So i will like you to help me transfer this money to your account and from it you will send some money for me to get my travelling documents and air ticket to come over and meet you. I kept this secret to people in the camp here, the only person that knows about it is Rev.Steve because he is like a guardian to me.
So in the light of above, i will like you to keep it to yourself and please don't tell anybody about this because i am afraid of loosing my life and the money if people get to know about it. Remember i am giving you all this information due to the trust i have in you. I like honest and understanding people, a true visionary and hardworking. My favourite language is English but our language is french, but i speak English very fluently. Meanwhile, i will like you to call me like i said i have a lot to tell you. Already I have made up of my mind not continue to stay in this camp again! I will be waiting to hear from you soonest.Have a nice day.
Yours lovely, Dora.
MY REPLY
Dear Darling:
I have prayed about helping you. Most of the praying was at the Jehovah's Leanfeed Pentacostal Church in Barleyville. It is a church founded by born-aginners who were gastronomically challenged. You know, big ol' good uns that field dressed out at about 350 pounds and thought of a mile-long buffet as a snack. I used to be one of them hummers but after I went on the grapefruit diet, I lost more than 200 pounds. My wife got tired of eating grapefruit and left me. (That's supposed to be a joke, but she really did.)
My praying resulted in a decision: I will help you soonest!
Anyway, I couldn't help but notice that you didn't answer any of my querying questions in my last email. Why is that? I appreciate your information and especially about your plight. Plights is terrible!!!! I've had some in my life, for sure.
Here's part of what I wrote earlier and would like some commenting commentary:
Dora, from your photo you are gorgeous! For another, I don't believe I can help you. I am older ... a lot older ... and am not in the best of health, due to the wreck I had several years ago. You are 22. I have shoes that are 22, for God's sake.
I am live quietly on my ranch in Arkansas, watching a herd of illegal aliens tending to my herd of thistle-eating cattle and guinea hens and horses. I still get around, if you know what I mean, (there are always women who want something from me) but nothing like I use to.
For one so young, you are so insightful!!!! The world is not a bed of roses, but it is full of saw vines, pigfish spines and meadow muffins.
I would like nothing better than to have a serious relationship with you ... Hell! With anyone! ... but I have nothing much to offer other than my 4,700-square-foot house with a pool and hot tub, sauna, 650 aces in farm subsidy heaven, and a tender, generous heart.
I look at your picture and remember when, maybe, I could have been someone of whom you could be proud. This shell is no longer that person.
I will answer your questions below simply because you asked.
Likes? I like life, not at it is, but as it was. I am going to have a spine operation this fall and hopefully that will help me get back into traveling shape. Nothing I like better than traveling to foreign countries and sighting the seas.
Dislikes? Spam (the meat and the email kind), liver, brussell sprouts and anyone who would harm children and animals. Oh, I hate any bed sheets that are less than 1,000 thread count. Scratchy bastards!
What do I do for a living? Well, I used to be in the investment business, but don't have to do that anymore. I like watching the ebb and flow of stocks that I follow. Hobbies? I surf the Internet and occasionally check on a frisky site or two or look for bargains on eBay or look up recipes so I can get my online gourmet chef's certificate. I love massages and have three rubber-downers come by once a week. Very relaxing.
I am older, I said, and with my physical condition, life is not much fun.
Just looking at your picture gave me the biggest thrill I've had in ages. Seriously, do you know how beautiful and sexy you are?
For that, and your nice letter, thank you.
George "Bubba" Smith
NOW, I said I would help you and I would. My word is my word and I abide by it even when I wish I couldn't.
I tried calling Rev. Steve and he didn't answer. Some woman who spoke some sort of foreign language with a foreigner accent answered and I thought she said should could do my laundry on Tuesday but that can't be right. I do laundry on Saturday.
How much money do you need to get to Arkansas? I can get it out of my truss fund because a truss can't help my condition anyhow. How will I get it to you? What guarantee do I have you will actually come if I send you the money? Do you have to tithe some to Rev. Steve?
I will help but help me understand how and send me the information I asked for earlier.
George "Bubba" Smith
Thursday, February 17, 2011
A horse of a different persuasion
I wish to make a pronouncement, several, in fact.
I’m not a liberal.
I’m not a conservative.
I’m an independent with fiscally conservative leanings.
I think Big Government is too big and the only ones who can change that won’t because they feel powerless. (Hint: You, me, the voters.)
I am for civil rights. Heck, I love civil rights, especially when they pertain to me.
And, I distain nutcases regardless of party affiliation, political bent, or something important like … hairstyle.
One of the biggest nut jobs around today goes by the name of Glen Beck. He is Rush Limbaugh clone, although a skinnier, shadow version of the first angry conservative pundit. Beck likes to take folks to the lick-log for disbelieving the political pabulum he spews on his television and radio shows. He seems to have a new target for this righteous indignation every day or two, and sometimes the target does not really seem to matter.
For example, Beck recently stated he will no longer use the Google search engine because of what he claimed were the site’s ties to government agencies and its so-called involvement in the uprising in Egypt.
Say, huh?
Spread that manure a little more smoothly, if you please.
Seriously, the man said, “There’s a strange thing going on with this search engine and our government and we all have to choose who we do business with.” (Without splitting too many fine hairs, the correct grammar for that statement would be …”to choose with whom we do business.”)
Personally, I like Google. I have used it for years and not once have I felt it was being used to overthrow this or any other government.
Not to let the Google matter drop after one stupid comment, Beck explained further: “I’m really not sure that I want my search engine involved in government overthrows, good or bad.”
It’s a major jump from scary to stupid, but Beck did it with aplomb and graceless energy.
The devoted followers –and believers -- of people like Beck are sheep, being led down a path of ridiculousness while trying to fervently embrace philosophical kinship with a minor celebrity and larger-than-life demagogue.
God protect us from the Glen Becks of this world. But, then again, if He was even interested in this mess, He’d already done something about it.
I’m not a liberal.
I’m not a conservative.
I’m an independent with fiscally conservative leanings.
I think Big Government is too big and the only ones who can change that won’t because they feel powerless. (Hint: You, me, the voters.)
I am for civil rights. Heck, I love civil rights, especially when they pertain to me.
And, I distain nutcases regardless of party affiliation, political bent, or something important like … hairstyle.
One of the biggest nut jobs around today goes by the name of Glen Beck. He is Rush Limbaugh clone, although a skinnier, shadow version of the first angry conservative pundit. Beck likes to take folks to the lick-log for disbelieving the political pabulum he spews on his television and radio shows. He seems to have a new target for this righteous indignation every day or two, and sometimes the target does not really seem to matter.
For example, Beck recently stated he will no longer use the Google search engine because of what he claimed were the site’s ties to government agencies and its so-called involvement in the uprising in Egypt.
Say, huh?
Spread that manure a little more smoothly, if you please.
Seriously, the man said, “There’s a strange thing going on with this search engine and our government and we all have to choose who we do business with.” (Without splitting too many fine hairs, the correct grammar for that statement would be …”to choose with whom we do business.”)
Personally, I like Google. I have used it for years and not once have I felt it was being used to overthrow this or any other government.
Not to let the Google matter drop after one stupid comment, Beck explained further: “I’m really not sure that I want my search engine involved in government overthrows, good or bad.”
It’s a major jump from scary to stupid, but Beck did it with aplomb and graceless energy.
The devoted followers –and believers -- of people like Beck are sheep, being led down a path of ridiculousness while trying to fervently embrace philosophical kinship with a minor celebrity and larger-than-life demagogue.
God protect us from the Glen Becks of this world. But, then again, if He was even interested in this mess, He’d already done something about it.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Time to kill a few rumors
Rumors are just lies told with supposedly insider knowledge. The rumor mills never stop, regardless of location.
So, for the record, here’s some rumors that have no validity and I take this opportunity to slap them down with a vehement spirit.
1) Sarah Palin will not run for president in 2012. Neither will Mike Huckabee. Neither will 12 politicians we don't know who have a good chance of winning the presidency.
2) The wife of the top Taliban spiritual leader was quoted as saying in an interview that she thinks President Barack Obama is “one hunky dude.”
3) Wal-Mart is going to revert to its traditional roots and pledges to provide exemplary customer service.
4) Soccer is a communist plot to keep good athletes from participating in football, baseball and basketball.
5) Those little stickers placed on fruit and vegetables are part of a terrorist plot to poison Americans. (I hate them durn things!)
6) Computers in all stores are always totally accurate in reading prices and weights.
7) When most adults say “it’s bout the kids” in regard to education, sports or extra-curricular activities, it’s always – always – about the kids.
8) No one in government has ever paid an individual to cast a vote a certain way or work to get others to vote likewise.
9) There are monied folks in this country who work hard behind the scenes to get certain candidates elected simply because they believe in good government without personal gain.
10) A recent assault by American warplanes near the Pakistani border with Afghanistan killed more than 15 sheep, leaving Osama bin Laden without a date for the 10th Annual Terrorist Prom.
So, for the record, here’s some rumors that have no validity and I take this opportunity to slap them down with a vehement spirit.
1) Sarah Palin will not run for president in 2012. Neither will Mike Huckabee. Neither will 12 politicians we don't know who have a good chance of winning the presidency.
2) The wife of the top Taliban spiritual leader was quoted as saying in an interview that she thinks President Barack Obama is “one hunky dude.”
3) Wal-Mart is going to revert to its traditional roots and pledges to provide exemplary customer service.
4) Soccer is a communist plot to keep good athletes from participating in football, baseball and basketball.
5) Those little stickers placed on fruit and vegetables are part of a terrorist plot to poison Americans. (I hate them durn things!)
6) Computers in all stores are always totally accurate in reading prices and weights.
7) When most adults say “it’s bout the kids” in regard to education, sports or extra-curricular activities, it’s always – always – about the kids.
8) No one in government has ever paid an individual to cast a vote a certain way or work to get others to vote likewise.
9) There are monied folks in this country who work hard behind the scenes to get certain candidates elected simply because they believe in good government without personal gain.
10) A recent assault by American warplanes near the Pakistani border with Afghanistan killed more than 15 sheep, leaving Osama bin Laden without a date for the 10th Annual Terrorist Prom.
More unvarnished police news, please and thank you
It’s a visceral thing, not a cerebral thing, this penchant for most humans to stare at those life-occurrences that repulse us. You know, the car wreck, ambulance in attendance. The house afire. The report of a drowning or hatchet murder or bombing.
It’s that same urge that makes reading the police report in some newspapers literary fodder for many readers.
A perusal of the police report in a community newspaper recently had some juicy tidbits – possession of marijuana, disorderly conduct, public intoxication, and the like. But what could serve as good back fence gossip was watered down by the legalese thrown into the report. To wit: Somebody named Charlene was charged with failure to maintain financial responsibility; a Billy Joe was charged with DWI and driving while license invalid with previous conviction; and Kevin was charged in Waskom with speeding.
What’s the real story? Where’s the guts, the info, the beef? Did Charlene stick it to a local merchant and not pay her bill? Was Billy Joe staggering-drunk or just tipsy? Did he blow a 2.4 on the breathalyzer? And was Kevin going 110 in a 30 mph. zone or just seven miles over the limit?
Police reports can be very entertaining. At several papers it was my pleasure to serve as editor and/or publisher, the court/cops reporter was instructed to take down the charges exactly as written by the arresting officer. Some were quite memorable.
In Las Cruces, New Mexico, this was the report by a citizen: “Mrs. XYZ reported a ‘strange’ man standing in her front yard urinating on her water meter. He was gone by the time officers arrived.”
In Mountain Home, Arkansas’ Baxter Bulletin: “The resident at XYZ East Main reported her cat had locked her out of the house. Officers went to assist and found she was using the key to her garage to try and gain entrance. No cat seen at the scene.”
In Selma, Alabama: “Councilman XYZ reported that at 2 a.m. every day for the past week someone had thrown a sack of dog crap in his yard. He wanted extra patrols in the area.”
Again, in Selma: “A report filed of a naked woman running down the middle of Highway XYZ. All officers on duty responded. An aggressive search of the area uncovered no naked woman.”
All police reports are interesting reading on some level. But most can certainly be improved by less editing and more “reality.” It stimulates the imagination, you know.
It’s that same urge that makes reading the police report in some newspapers literary fodder for many readers.
A perusal of the police report in a community newspaper recently had some juicy tidbits – possession of marijuana, disorderly conduct, public intoxication, and the like. But what could serve as good back fence gossip was watered down by the legalese thrown into the report. To wit: Somebody named Charlene was charged with failure to maintain financial responsibility; a Billy Joe was charged with DWI and driving while license invalid with previous conviction; and Kevin was charged in Waskom with speeding.
What’s the real story? Where’s the guts, the info, the beef? Did Charlene stick it to a local merchant and not pay her bill? Was Billy Joe staggering-drunk or just tipsy? Did he blow a 2.4 on the breathalyzer? And was Kevin going 110 in a 30 mph. zone or just seven miles over the limit?
Police reports can be very entertaining. At several papers it was my pleasure to serve as editor and/or publisher, the court/cops reporter was instructed to take down the charges exactly as written by the arresting officer. Some were quite memorable.
In Las Cruces, New Mexico, this was the report by a citizen: “Mrs. XYZ reported a ‘strange’ man standing in her front yard urinating on her water meter. He was gone by the time officers arrived.”
In Mountain Home, Arkansas’ Baxter Bulletin: “The resident at XYZ East Main reported her cat had locked her out of the house. Officers went to assist and found she was using the key to her garage to try and gain entrance. No cat seen at the scene.”
In Selma, Alabama: “Councilman XYZ reported that at 2 a.m. every day for the past week someone had thrown a sack of dog crap in his yard. He wanted extra patrols in the area.”
Again, in Selma: “A report filed of a naked woman running down the middle of Highway XYZ. All officers on duty responded. An aggressive search of the area uncovered no naked woman.”
All police reports are interesting reading on some level. But most can certainly be improved by less editing and more “reality.” It stimulates the imagination, you know.
More holidays, if you please
I’m a selfish guy. Always have been.
If somebody has something I want part of it, or access to it. I like to share things that other people have. I don’t mind giving up some of my stuff – halfees, so to speak – but I want the same thing in return from others.
On some things, however, I don’t like to share: Food and my wife are top on my list. If you would like a bite of my hamburger or a French fry off my plate, I would rather buy you a burger or fries than cut myself short on the caloric intake portions.
There's one city in which I used to be publisher of the local paper which gives its employees 12 holidays. In my present work station, I get seven. I want 12. Or, more precisely, 12 more than I now get. Now, the city is considering giving the employees four more days for a total of 16. I have upped my “wants” list to 12 new holidays, which are already designated as “special days” by the Commission for Special Days, or some other titled government entity.
The four that the city is considering adding are: President’s Day, Good Friday, Emancipation Day and Columbus Day. I like all those days and want to be off too, even though I don’t know when some of those holiday are.
The federal government gives our public servants 10 holidays, including the normal ones, plus Martin Luther King Day and Veterans Day (The born-and-bred southern employees probably think of it as celebrating the birthday of Robert E. Lee.)
Come to think of it, I want more days than that. There are ton of special days that have significance of a high nature that should be considered for time off.
Examples:
Poetry Day – January 13. Write a poem about a gnome before you go home. (I missed this one but will pick it up next year, for sure.)
National Freedom Day – February 1. Who is against freedom, for gosh’s sake? And why shouldn’t we be free for this day? (Next year, promise!)
National Peanut Butter Day – March 1. (What better protein stuffing fun is there, anyway?)
National Phone Day – April 4. Celebrate the day the first telephone was installed by calling every contact in your cell phone and say, “God bless that Bell guy!”
Hawaiian Lei Day – May 1. Celebrate by getting Lei-ed.
Yo-Yo Day – June 6. Let’s all grab a yo-yo and forego work for much needed exercise.
International Joke Day – July 1. Make it a good one and take the day off.
Play in the Sand Day and Hulk Hogan’s birthday – August 11. Combine the two and do WWF stuff in the sand. Or in Quikcrete if it’s not raining.
National Blueberry Popsicle Day – September 2. Nice way to greet the fall season. Where can you get a blueberry popsicle, anyway?
World Teacher Day – October 5. If there ever was a day that deserved its own holiday, this is it.
Button Day – November 16. Don’t know why there is such a day but it would be good to take off a day to rest up for Thanksgiving.
Eat a Red Apple Day and National Pie Day – Combine the two commemorative days into one and eat a red apple pie. Take off this day to slice, bake and eat.
This is just 12 extra holidays and that’s 27 fewer than Japan employees have and 41 fewer than workers in Europe.
We deserve more holidays because, goshdarnit, we’re Americans and work too hard as it is.
If somebody has something I want part of it, or access to it. I like to share things that other people have. I don’t mind giving up some of my stuff – halfees, so to speak – but I want the same thing in return from others.
On some things, however, I don’t like to share: Food and my wife are top on my list. If you would like a bite of my hamburger or a French fry off my plate, I would rather buy you a burger or fries than cut myself short on the caloric intake portions.
There's one city in which I used to be publisher of the local paper which gives its employees 12 holidays. In my present work station, I get seven. I want 12. Or, more precisely, 12 more than I now get. Now, the city is considering giving the employees four more days for a total of 16. I have upped my “wants” list to 12 new holidays, which are already designated as “special days” by the Commission for Special Days, or some other titled government entity.
The four that the city is considering adding are: President’s Day, Good Friday, Emancipation Day and Columbus Day. I like all those days and want to be off too, even though I don’t know when some of those holiday are.
The federal government gives our public servants 10 holidays, including the normal ones, plus Martin Luther King Day and Veterans Day (The born-and-bred southern employees probably think of it as celebrating the birthday of Robert E. Lee.)
Come to think of it, I want more days than that. There are ton of special days that have significance of a high nature that should be considered for time off.
Examples:
Poetry Day – January 13. Write a poem about a gnome before you go home. (I missed this one but will pick it up next year, for sure.)
National Freedom Day – February 1. Who is against freedom, for gosh’s sake? And why shouldn’t we be free for this day? (Next year, promise!)
National Peanut Butter Day – March 1. (What better protein stuffing fun is there, anyway?)
National Phone Day – April 4. Celebrate the day the first telephone was installed by calling every contact in your cell phone and say, “God bless that Bell guy!”
Hawaiian Lei Day – May 1. Celebrate by getting Lei-ed.
Yo-Yo Day – June 6. Let’s all grab a yo-yo and forego work for much needed exercise.
International Joke Day – July 1. Make it a good one and take the day off.
Play in the Sand Day and Hulk Hogan’s birthday – August 11. Combine the two and do WWF stuff in the sand. Or in Quikcrete if it’s not raining.
National Blueberry Popsicle Day – September 2. Nice way to greet the fall season. Where can you get a blueberry popsicle, anyway?
World Teacher Day – October 5. If there ever was a day that deserved its own holiday, this is it.
Button Day – November 16. Don’t know why there is such a day but it would be good to take off a day to rest up for Thanksgiving.
Eat a Red Apple Day and National Pie Day – Combine the two commemorative days into one and eat a red apple pie. Take off this day to slice, bake and eat.
This is just 12 extra holidays and that’s 27 fewer than Japan employees have and 41 fewer than workers in Europe.
We deserve more holidays because, goshdarnit, we’re Americans and work too hard as it is.
It’s not a petty thing if it drives you nuts
When I was working at various newspapers, I was sometimes accused of being petty, of wielding the journalistic pen and using strong arm tactics worthy of a dictatorship in a Third World country.
Denying that makes no sense, just as the accusations, then and now, make no sense. People believe what they want to believe.
Always a proponent of pithy editorial comment that was aimed at creating an environment for thought, I, and a majority of editors that passed through the News Messenger doors, wrote editorials and columns to create a bias for action.
That does not mean those written words didn’t create some heartburn in some folks. Some were assuredly meant to do just that.
I can only conjure up one column that was, in my opinion, then and now, petty. It wasn’t about any politician, or local group, the local school system, postal service, city administration, or any subject that most folks might consider to be fodder for pettiness.
I remember going on a tangent more than 20 years ago about a pet peeve of mine and more than one person told me I was being petty and petulant. If something is so severely intimidating and irritating that it makes you want to take a 2x4 and beat some poor stranger, then, in my opinion, it is certainly not a petty matter.
It is my personal belief that every single person on this planet with an IQ over 12 has at least one pet peeve. My main pet peeve is those stupid little paper stickers applied to fruit and vegetables in grocery stores.
You know. Those little red-and-white or green-and-white stickers with the dumb numbers that are attached to the skin of fruit or vegetables with a mixture of Super Glue and Quikcrete.
Certain fruits – pineapple and kiwi come to mind -- used to be exempt due to outer skin covering, but even those has succumbed to the insidious SSP (Stupid Sticker Program).
Yeah, yeah, I know why they put them on there: Inventory control. I don’t care. It’s not rocket science to look at existing batches of veggies and fruit and order when the stash gets low. That’s the way it was done for centuries before scanners, and it by gosh worked.
As a consumer, it’s a rip off. The stickers add additional weight to the item and I don’t want to pay the extra freight, so to speak. The stickers may be lightweight, but the psychological weight is very, very heavy.
And, the stickers cost money and, assuredly, that cost is passed on via higher consumer prices.
Those stickers are the same thing as … well, parsley. Who needs parsley? Who eats parsley? Yet consumers are forced to spend millions of dollars a year buying parsley that has the nutritional value of mucous and is used strictly for decoration.
I propose a two-prong approach to dealing with this problem: First, join the organization GASOFAV (Get All Stickers Off Fruits and Vegetables). Protest quietly by removing every sticker from offending supermarket items or, for the more adventuresome activist, switch kiwi stickers onto cantaloupes.
Join this fledgling group and help get stickers off fruits and veggies and then we move on to ousting parsley.
If I had my druthers, I would druther see little red-and-white stickers on my mashed potatoes than parsley. The stickers simply taste better.
Denying that makes no sense, just as the accusations, then and now, make no sense. People believe what they want to believe.
Always a proponent of pithy editorial comment that was aimed at creating an environment for thought, I, and a majority of editors that passed through the News Messenger doors, wrote editorials and columns to create a bias for action.
That does not mean those written words didn’t create some heartburn in some folks. Some were assuredly meant to do just that.
I can only conjure up one column that was, in my opinion, then and now, petty. It wasn’t about any politician, or local group, the local school system, postal service, city administration, or any subject that most folks might consider to be fodder for pettiness.
I remember going on a tangent more than 20 years ago about a pet peeve of mine and more than one person told me I was being petty and petulant. If something is so severely intimidating and irritating that it makes you want to take a 2x4 and beat some poor stranger, then, in my opinion, it is certainly not a petty matter.
It is my personal belief that every single person on this planet with an IQ over 12 has at least one pet peeve. My main pet peeve is those stupid little paper stickers applied to fruit and vegetables in grocery stores.
You know. Those little red-and-white or green-and-white stickers with the dumb numbers that are attached to the skin of fruit or vegetables with a mixture of Super Glue and Quikcrete.
Certain fruits – pineapple and kiwi come to mind -- used to be exempt due to outer skin covering, but even those has succumbed to the insidious SSP (Stupid Sticker Program).
Yeah, yeah, I know why they put them on there: Inventory control. I don’t care. It’s not rocket science to look at existing batches of veggies and fruit and order when the stash gets low. That’s the way it was done for centuries before scanners, and it by gosh worked.
As a consumer, it’s a rip off. The stickers add additional weight to the item and I don’t want to pay the extra freight, so to speak. The stickers may be lightweight, but the psychological weight is very, very heavy.
And, the stickers cost money and, assuredly, that cost is passed on via higher consumer prices.
Those stickers are the same thing as … well, parsley. Who needs parsley? Who eats parsley? Yet consumers are forced to spend millions of dollars a year buying parsley that has the nutritional value of mucous and is used strictly for decoration.
I propose a two-prong approach to dealing with this problem: First, join the organization GASOFAV (Get All Stickers Off Fruits and Vegetables). Protest quietly by removing every sticker from offending supermarket items or, for the more adventuresome activist, switch kiwi stickers onto cantaloupes.
Join this fledgling group and help get stickers off fruits and veggies and then we move on to ousting parsley.
If I had my druthers, I would druther see little red-and-white stickers on my mashed potatoes than parsley. The stickers simply taste better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
