World According to George Smith

Money rules

2012-01-30T10:46:00.001-06:00

Slap!

Pow! KABOOM!

Crash! Cha-CHING!

Sounds of the season

are echoing across the land

as politicians lasso hearts

and minds of

voters with

moolah.

Florida

grows lettuce.

But the ‘lettuce’

of PACs is dirty

and dumbifies the voters by

spewing vitriolic messages of

lies, hatred, misdeeds

of fellow

GOPers.

Time to make changes

2012-01-30T10:12:00.002-06:00

Let’s play pretend.

Pretend for just for a minute I am a believer in the two-party system, that I believe that the Demogogues and Republicrats have all the good ideas, solutions and really, really care about the future of the country and its citizens.

Now, let’s pretend a bit more. Instead of an Independent, I am a full-fledged, registered, card-carrying Republicrat and I have to make a decision about whom to vote for in a primary – Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

What to do? What to do? First, after a bout of projectile vomiting followed by an intense migraine, I force myself into the voting booth and pull a level for … but, wait! Mitt is a superficial, smirky rich dude and Gingrich is a fraud, laughs at ethical matters and serial adulterer.

Let’s pretend I gain some sense of sanity … and turn around and walk out of the booth without voting for either one because of if this is the best the GOPers can do, I say to hell with it.

The state of politics today – the politics of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell and John Boehner – is an agitated state in which I do not wish to be a participating partner. It is time to change the way we look at politicians and take back this country.

That is possible only by the people rising up and passing amendments to the Constitution that will force the governance by elected officials to be directly in the direction as foreseen by the founders of this country.

The desired amendments:
1) Term limits for all federal officials – legislative and judiciary, from the House members to the Supreme Court. Eight years for House members (alternating terms with ¼ up for retirement every two years), and 12 for Senate and Supreme Court judges (1/3 up for retirement every four years).
2) PACs (companies/associations/special interests) are given same status as individuals, with firm, minimal limits on contributions. Elimination of anonymous ads – pro or con to a particular candidate or issue.
3) Balance the budget, no exceptions.

Every voter is sure to have a list of their own, but without real change in these three areas, there will be no substantial change that will benefit the country and its citizens. The only ones who really don’t want these changes are those who in public office or those that control them by taking advantage of the present laws.

GOP candidates falling on their own swords

2012-01-23T16:25:00.004-06:00

My grandfather had a saying that seems remarkably quaint in this world of instant and haphazard communication: “Answer me this….” he’d say before getting to the nut of the real question.

“Answer me this,” he once said to a 20-something grandson who’d grown a beard, “what kind of statement are you making by cultivating something on your face that grows wild on your a**?”

Well, here’s one for Republicans:

“Answer me this? What kind of statement are you making by running a bunch of candidates for president that have the collective common sense of a box of hair?”

Before the back-arching and chin-bobbing conservatives get their undergarments in a wad, I’ve voted Republican; I once entered a state senatorial campaign as a Republican. At heart I’m a glit-flittered Independent because I believe no party, and certainly no candidate, has all the answers to the important questions.

That said, this bunch of GOPers don’t have answers for anything. Period.

Are you kidding me? A spoiled rich kid. A serial adulterer with a gift for gab and a grab for graft. A goofball space cadet Libertarian cum Republican. A pretty boy who looks like he’d wet his pants if someone hollered BOO!

Let’s admit it: Barak Obama has not had a good three-plus years. He was handed lemons in 2008 and he made rotten lemons out of what was left by Bush, Inc. Obama’s domestic policy is non-existent or leans toward non-workable programs. He spent too much intellectual and political capital on health care reform.

But it’s hard to find fault with Obama’s foreign policy decisions and that’s why the Four Horsemen of the GOP Apocalypse are not talking much about that particular area of global interest.

Looking at it from a logical perspective, Mitt Romney cannot be elected. Despite his bottomless pockets, he’s too slick, too out-of-touch and too Mormon. Oh, shut up! Are you telling me that the anti-Mormon vote will not be a factor in this race? Political correctness be damned. He’s a Mormon and that’s the end of that and X-number of voters won’t vote for a Mormon. (What? John Kennedy was a Catholic and he was elected? What’s your point? Romney is no Kennedy.)

Despite his glibness and having the fastest tongue in the campaign, Newt Gingrich cannot be elected. For one thing, a newt is a salamander and no way does “President Newt” generate confidence. For another, he’s been married three times. Any conservative Christian that votes for him is gonna have to wear the “hypocrite” sign to church the Sunday after the election.

Ron Paul is 76, a doctor, author, U.S. Representative, and has more screws loose than a Korean car manufactured at quitting time on Friday afternoon. In his third run for the presidency (in 1988 he ran as a Libertarian), his domestic agenda appeals to a lot of voters, but his views on foreign policy would isolate this country, guaranteeing a major hike in unemployment … and we all know where that leads.

Rick Santorum, the winner of the Iowa Caucus (yawn!) is, first and foremost, a politician. He wants to cut government spending – Don’t we all? – and has been a vocal critic of earmarks. (Yea! That’s a point!) He is so “packaged” that wore a sweater vest as a homey touch in campaign stops. (Take back the point!)

And he’s a patented panderer for votes. In Florida a woman told him Obama was “an avowed Muslim” and instead of doing the right thing and saying, “Ma’m, you have your facts wrong,” he simply said, “I’m trying my best to get him out.”

The right-wing fringe will own Santorum if he’s the candidate.

So, okay, let’s assume Obama needs to go after one term. Which candidate will take care of that little chore in November?

That person simply is not in the GOPer lineup now.

ABO (Anybody But Obama) won't win the office

2012-01-16T15:44:00.000-06:00

GOPers,
are you
listening at all?
Mitt can not win
in a head-to-head
with Obama. Too rich,
too pandering, and
too darn
slick.

Obama,
at least,
has personal charm.
Mitt comes across as
an out-of-work peddler who
is selling snake oil
for what ails
every single
voter.

With
the field
now in evidence,
only hope to oust
Obama is for a third
party candidate to rise
like the phoenix
and offer
hope.

Agony of old age

2012-01-16T09:15:00.000-06:00

Old
is relative.
Feeling old is
avoidable with heavy drugs.
Does anyone have any I
can borrow? Just kidding!
Now, where's that
bottle of
tequila?

The apocalypse is upon us

2012-01-04T13:58:00.001-06:00

Egos
of sports
figures are huge.
Money and fame don't
guarantee a long life. Most
would settle on living
to at least
Ocho Cinco.
(Ouch!)

Politics, Iowa Style

2012-01-04T13:53:00.000-06:00

Bachman
out, slain
by own sword.
Perry licking fatal wounds.
Romney, Santorum, Paul leaders of
weakest pack in GOP
history. Voters left
sucking hind
teat.

Ah, politics!

2011-12-06T15:27:00.002-06:00

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.

A place where time stands still

2011-11-14T14:48:00.003-06:00

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.

2012 luku

2011-11-14T14:46:00.001-06:00

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.

A martyr deserves the best

2011-11-03T16:13:00.000-05:00

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!

Oh, my! The evils of politics

2011-11-03T15:56:00.005-05:00

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.

You can't choose your relatives

2011-10-03T07:02:00.001-05:00

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.

A lowku triage 2011- Expanded

2011-08-29T18:33:00.003-05:00

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.

A war we can’t win

2011-08-11T11:14:00.000-05:00

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.

Growing up on hallowed ground

2011-07-26T15:50:00.005-05:00

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.

The education system is broken. So, are we going to fix it?

2011-07-21T16:38:00.002-05:00

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.

The more things change …

2011-07-21T16:31:00.002-05:00

(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).

Alliteration, anyone?

2011-07-21T16:29:00.001-05:00

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.

Full circle

2011-07-02T06:52:00.008-05:00

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

2011-07-02T06:44:00.000-05:00

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.

Editorial appetizers, literary turnip greens

2011-06-21T15:32:00.003-05:00

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.

Political lowku

2011-06-21T15:30:00.001-05:00

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.

Sick days and vacation days

2011-06-06T14:35:00.000-05:00

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?

Hating hypocrites… and feeling good about it

2011-06-06T14:33:00.000-05:00

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.

Time and time again …

2011-06-01T08:27:00.000-05:00

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.

New battle cry for Texas

2011-05-31T15:21:00.000-05:00

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!”

Who are these people? And why do we care?

2011-05-31T15:13:00.000-05:00

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!

Oh, the inhumanity ... and stupidity!

2011-05-26T09:37:00.000-05:00

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!”

Touchy-Touchy

2011-05-26T09:35:00.000-05:00

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!

Lowku: Ode to apathy

2011-05-25T16:26:00.001-05:00

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!

Don’t make fun of religious beliefs

2011-05-25T16:24:00.001-05:00

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.

You can’t make this *&^( up!

2011-05-11T08:37:00.000-05:00

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 martyr deserves the best

2011-05-09T13:37:00.000-05:00

Give me a freakin’ break!

2011-05-09T13:21:00.001-05:00

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.

Jeers and cheers

2011-05-04T09:17:00.001-05:00

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.

Stupid is as stupid does

2011-05-04T09:14:00.001-05:00

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.

2011-04-20T10:35:00.000-05:00

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.

Taste the fine wine of life

2011-04-15T15:12:00.001-05:00

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.

Budget issue not that big of a deal

2011-04-08T15:10:00.000-05:00

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.

Scamming the Internet Spamming Scammers

2011-03-10T08:06:00.003-06:00

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

A horse of a different persuasion

2011-02-17T13:58:00.001-06:00

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.

Time to kill a few rumors

2011-01-27T16:13:00.001-06:00

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.

More unvarnished police news, please and thank you

2011-01-27T16:08:00.000-06:00

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.

More holidays, if you please

2011-01-27T16:06:00.001-06:00

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.

It’s not a petty thing if it drives you nuts

2011-01-27T16:02:00.000-06:00

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.

Hell froze over

2010-12-23T15:03:00.001-06:00

Sarah Palin took an IQ test and finally scored in the three-digit range.

Harry Reid and Bill Bellichick were sitting at a table at a fund-raiser and both cracked a sincere smile.

Hillary Clinton had a picture published in the newspapers where she didn’t look, tired or mad as a wet hen.

You can’t believe any of the above, but you can believe what’s below.

Despite the budget deficit that defies explanation and has more zeros than a Nolan Ryan no-hitter, the government – the one run by people we elected to serve our needs – is spending money on projects and programs that are mind-bogglingly stupid.

The government funded a $700,000 study by the University of New Hampshire to study greenhouse gas emissions in the dairy industry. The study concluded that “cows emit most of their methane through belching, only a small fraction from flatulence.”

There was no mention of BS in the report, literally or figuratively.

The provost of the university said the study was “not wasteful. It’s important.” Apparently, he said it with a straight face.

In case you think the University of New Hampshire is the lone recipient of dubious federal largess:

1) Wake Forest University received almost $150,000 to study “preliminary data on the efficacy of integral yoga for reducing menopausal hot flashes.” That’s gummitese to explain how meditation and exercise might ease menopausal symptoms. It’s a possibility that taking a shotgun and shooting the holy heck out of a bunch of man-shaped targets might do the same thing.

2) Wake Forest (those grant-writing little boogers!) also got more than $70,000 to study the effects of self-administering cocaine on the glutamate system on monkeys. College students are gonna get high on getting monkeys … well, high.

4) University of North Carolina-Charlotte received a whopping $760,000 grant to develop computer technology to digitally record the dance moves of performers. Interesting project, assuredly, but how is such a study the business of the federal government?

5) In the past several years, more than $1 billion has been sent to dead people to pay for prescriptions, wheelchairs, pay rent, and even to help defer heating and air conditioning bills. More money than oversight, for sure.

6) $21 million in federal funds goes to Lockheed Martin from NASA to advance research for supersonic jet travel. The first benefactors of this technology is expected to be business executives.

7) The government spent $2.2 million to help pay for a new irrigation system to a San Francisco Golf Course, a public course that the city council is considering closing due to a species of frog and snake that are endangered and live in the area.

8) Your tax dollars went to pay the expenses of five students of the University of California-San Diego to go to Africa to study and report on why “Africans vote the way they do” in elections? Is it possible that a similar study in the U.S. would have been more helpful?

9) A company called NanoGriptech has been awarded more than $400,000 to develop sports equipment (read football and baseball gloves) to develop a technology that mimics the sticky feet of geckos. The far-ranging plan is to develop a technology that will allow robots to climb difficult surfaces.

10) And, finally, Indiana University professions received more than $220,000 to study why young men do not like to wear condoms. Eeeeewwwwww!

Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. These are some examples of your tax dollars are work … and the attitude of those elected officials who approve such nonsense.

Let's talk 'stupid!'

2010-11-24T16:26:00.000-06:00

To quote that philosopher Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does.

On the International Abject Stupidity Scale (IASS), with 10 being Stephen Hawkings and 1 being a statement by the late Bubba June McClintock, who used to live just south of Marshall, who once said, “Hold my beer and watch this!”, there are a lot of folks in the 1 to 2 range.

To wit:

To all those folks that voted Bristol Palin as the best dancer on the newest version of “Dancing With the Stars,” a rousing, romping 1.

To all those hapless folks who pick up urban legend information from the Internet and pass it along as gospel, a single, solitary digit.

I don’t even have to tell you the score of the man who called the cops to complain about the performance … of the prostitute he hired to come to his hotel room.

To all those Democrats who think/thought Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi did a good job … aw, you know the score to that one.

To all voters who think that changing the makeup of the House of Representatives is going to do one single bit of good or make any significant positive change in the responsiveness of government … see the scoring of the item above.

The Federal Aviation official(s) who decided to approve “re-entry” into the earth’s atmosphere for planned commercial flights to outer space get a 1 and a big ol’ “DUH!” for that earth-shaking decision.

To the Transportation Security Authority screener who decided to pat down former presidential contender Ron Paul, who is so right-wing he can fly only in circles, and “touched his junk,” as the kids used to like to say, an incredulous .5.

But, then, there are some folks who score high on the scale.

Like the female passenger who recently decided to bypass the chance of a hard pat-down at the Los Angeles airport and went through security clad only in a black bikini.

It’s hard not to applaud the free-thinkers who circulate through our world who make the rest of us smile.

Oh, what the heck: Clapclapclapclapclap.

Mayoral repeat is best alternative

2010-11-12T11:27:00.003-06:00

Back in the day when I was writing a weekly column for the Cabot Star Herald, I gave then-Mayor Stubby Stumbaugh a lot of grief. And, even with years of hindsight, much of the criticism was richly deserved.

But, this time around, Stumbaugh, eagle tattoos and all, is the best alternative in the upcoming runoff election.

After losing a city council race, and getting his ears pinned back in a run for Congress, Stumbaugh has something to prove: He truly wants to make a name for himself in his hometown.

As most folks know who follow politics, power can be used for good or evil. Stumbaugh, who has been vilified for his bombastic nature and control-freak attitude, can change his image and do some good for Cabot.

There is no doubt he wants to be remembered for accomplishments which enhance Cabot.

With that attitude, and with the victory from a tight race as his foundation, he can be a positive change in our community.

Elections ’10: A year to forget

2010-11-08T15:20:00.001-06:00

Did you say you voted? I’m sorry. My condolences.

Those three short sentences are not a great way to win friends and influence people, for sure, but it’s the way a lot of voters felt after the elections.

This is not a lambasting of conservative whiners, er, winners, or political do-gooders, or liberal leaners; this is a eulogy for the benignly ignorant rat pack of folks who voted for the wrong people or stood on the wrong side of issues for the wrong reasons.

Be honest, now: Did you vote for a person you did not know, did not research his or her record and didn’t have a clue as to qualifications or stances on important issues that are pertinent to the office sought?

Did you cast a ballot for a candidate and the only thing you knew about him or her was what you read on a yard sign?

Did you vote for a person or issue based on the recommendation of a family member, friend or associate?

Did you cast a ballot based strictly on party affiliation?

If you answered yes to any of those questions … shame on you!

With an average of less than 50 percent of the eligible voters taking time to cast ballots in any election (except in the presidential election years), it is the saddest state of affairs that so few care about the future of the country that good, smart people won’t exercise their right to vote.

My son, 21 and very, very smart, didn’t vote because, as he put it, “What different does it make? They are all the same, regardless of party, regardless of promises. Politicians do what they want to do to enrich themselves. Nothing changes.”

Me: “All of them? They all are out to enrich themselves?”

Him: “Every single one. No exceptions.”

As have been observed by various people over the past few decades, I can argue with a stump and declare myself the winner, but it’s hard to argue with youthful logic of that caliber.

And, it’s hard to conjure up a single politician I have watched, studied and written about in the past 45-plus years that didn’t remove his or her nose out of the public trough until they were richer than when they were first elected.

As one political sage told me several decades ago: “Any politician that loses money being in public service is an idiot.”

While we can argue the degree of relative idiocy of politicians, it’s hard to imagine anyone believing that vast majority of politicos seek public favor without wanting money or power … and most want both.

Just as it’s hard to imagine that any vote just cast for any politician on any level will change a durn thing in the way governments operate.

To paraphrase Pogo:

2010-10-28T09:49:00.002-05:00

We are our own worst enemy

It’s been known for quite a spell, but now it’s a certified fact.

A large majority of Americans – 65 percent – would vote to replace every single elected member of Congress. A recent poll showed just how many Americans are throwing-up sick-and-tired of the games being played by those so-called public servants who care more about party affiliation and partisan politics that about fixing the ills of this country.

It is an educated guess that the 35 percent who would not vote to replace every elected official in the House and Senate are a relative, a government employee or a hard-line party know-nothing.

This country is in a helluva shape and has been for more than 10 years. Say what you want to about Bill Clinton – Go ahead! We’ll wait for the diatribe! – but under Clinton there was a balanced budget and he left office with a budget surplus.

I know, I know. I can hear those tongue-cluckers warming up their YB arguments. YB? You know, “Yes, but ….”

Yes, but … at least Clinton’s kept his corrupt behavior on a personal level, and did not drag down the entire country kowtowing to the special interest groups that really run this country.

It’s an old, old argument, but it never loses its truism value: What’s wrong with America is we started out with a country run by citizens and ended up with a government run by greedy politicians and special interest groups with more money than morals.

Let’s face it: The situation will not change as long as there are only two parties from which to choose. And that statement intentionally disqualifies the Green Party and the Libertarians from consideration; both fringe groups run more scary people for office than killers conjured up in a Saw movie.

The answer is simply not change for change sake. The answer is term limits for members of Congress. A constitutional amendment is the only way to fix that thorny situation since seated members of Congress are never, ever going to do anything to reduce their power or influence.

So, what are we waiting for?

Demand of those elected on November 2 to start the process for term limits. And don’t be surprised if your request is answered in a series of non-denial denials and political-speak nonsense.

Needed changes in the system will not be made by those elected; they can only be made by those who vote.

Those darn do-gooders

2010-10-18T16:32:00.001-05:00

A recent emailer recently wrote something positive about a group called "Conservatives for Quality Government."

In more that 45 years of covering the governmental process from a lot of angles, I can attest to one thing without equivocation: Any group with a high-falutin’ name with certain “key” words or “phrases” in its name is not reliable, has focused on a single-issue item, and are more “agin” something than they are “fir” it.

In the example above, I would automatically surmise that “Conservatives for Quality Government” are not conservatives and do not want quality government. Those high-sounders are, in fact, more than likely right wing-nuts who don’t want “quality” government, but want a government that agrees with their philosophy du jour.

Taking that logic to the next level, it’s a safe bet that “Concerned Citizens for…” anything – Quality Government, Quality Education, Safe Streets, Abolishing Drugs – are more interested in pushing their own personal agenda than they are in the societal Big Picture.

Money (think special interest groups, political action committees, and just plain too-rich-and-mean-to-die folks) runs his country, not the vote that each of us individually cast.

Most folks think their vote counts, but never stop to consider that their vote was purchased at some point.

Some votes are bought by tradition: “My grandpappy as a Democrat and that’s good enough for me!” Some are bought by one-issue platforms: “Whoever the NRA supports, count me in!” Some are influenced by the dumbest of reasons: “Did you see all the yard signs for the WASP county judge candidate? He must be all right!”

Some folks vote straight ticket ballots. It’s hard not to feel sorry for those who do not have enough matter in the brainpan to research and vote for the best candidate, not ones selected by simple R and D labels.

In a perfect world, there would be no party affiliations about which to ponder. Voters would cast ballots for a person based on experience, deeds and ideas and the ability to communicate those to a mass audience.

Unfortunately, we have become a nation of lethargic dreamers walking in a deep rut. We might want a better system and a better cast of characters from which to choose, but, as a whole, we don’t want to exert ourselves to make necessary changes.

When it comes to politics, we have forgotten two age-old truisms:

1) When a person runs for public office, at some point in the race – and assuredly after the race, if elected –that person will lie.

And,

2) A rut is simply a grave with both ends open. So get out of it as soon as you are able.

Poor, pitiful us

2010-10-12T15:24:00.000-05:00

It’s a simple, complex sentence, really.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Okay, we all understand all that. It’s the law and … well, big whoop.

But what about another “Congress shall make no law …” that the Constitution framers forgot.

Congress shall make no law that affects the citizenry that does not equally affect the elected members of Congress, and all elected and appointed officials of the federal government.

Where’s that law, huh?

And,

Congress shall pass no law that uses taxpayer money to enrich its members, relying on the goodwill and fairness of the American people to set salaries for elected officials.

Elected officials think, nay, believe, they are better than average citizens and they prove it every time they pass a law that benefits them and excludes the citizens.

For example: Congress is not governed by the Social Security laws. If they were, do you think there would be a problem with Social Security?

Congress passes laws in virtually every session that binds the country’s citizens to the will and whim of the elected, but excludes the elected from the boundaries of those very same law.

Why do they think they can do that? Because they can and the people allow it. And, those that we put in office will continue to do so because the people of this country have become a pack of sheep, dutifully, blindly, following the bell sheep to the slaughter pens.

It is amazing to think that there are people out there who truly and honestly believe that slashing the Democratic majority in Congress will change one single thing in the way government is run.

It won’t. It will change the faces and positions of the main power brokers, but it will not change the way members of Congress enriches themselves on the backs of the taxpayers.

This is a trick question, now, so pay attention: Can you name one politician who went to Washington and returned home with less money than they went there with? Forget ending a sentence with a preposition! This is serious and grammar rules be damned.

The system – Demogogues, Republicrats, TeaHee Partiers … they are all the same, all spouting political pabulum and selling it as steak. And we keep paying steak prices for gruel.

Poor, ignorant, misguided, bamboozled … us.

‘Generation gap’ or ‘logic skewed?’

2010-10-07T13:57:00.000-05:00

I admit to entering the World of the Web later than many. I first got on the Internet in 1992, after accepting a job that requiring not only knowing what it was but how to maneuver in it.

As a research tool, there’s nothing better and the old investigative reporter / editor urges are best satisfied by a good, heapin’ helpin’ of googling.

I volunteered – or better said, my company volunteered me – to be a test dummy for a new way of receiving information while on the go: Internet via cell phone modem. That was in 1998.

I signed up for Facebook in ’06 and now admit to being a faddist. I don’t know why I signed up, and cheerfully acknowledge I have “friends” I don’t even know. But I am a horrible member of Facebook Nation.

I very seldom check my page, and, as my oldest daughter tells me, I relish in being a Phantom Facebooker. “You can not stay silent for months at a time,” she chided me one time on my page, “gallop in and make some snide comments and then disappear.”

Of course I can. It is what I do. It is my job.

The point is I don’t see the point in people telling me what they are eating for breakfast (“Cream of Wheat with fresh peaches.”), what meeting they are going to attend (“Rotary today. Again!”) or that they are “going to beddy-bye.”

I am tempted to jot down notes about bowel movements but I don’t want to write it, much less edit the durn thing.

Somehow, within the last 18 months, I started texting. I began texting by hating texting but, like brussell sprouts, I agreed to try the new art form of communication because, well, hey, as my son said, “Everyone is doing it.”

I’m not good at texting either, because after being in the writing profession in one way or another for 45-plus years I can’t send messages that are not grammatically correct.

Well, yes I can, and do frequently. My iPhone knows when someone is finger-challenged and has a program that “corrects” mis-strikes of the keyboard. That’s how a message I sent about a friend’s kidney “stone” came out “kindly store.”

A good friend sent a message that she wanted to meet me at the “intercourse.” I figured out it was “intersection” but regretted the fact I had to think about the “true” meaning rather than just accept the message as a divine gift.

Texting is becoming a real problem. Just ask the administrators in schools across the country.

It’s not only a time-consumer, it’s dumbing down our society.

According to a new survey out of Texas, more than 42 percent of teenagers say they text during class. Eighty percent of those kids say they have never gotten in trouble.

Two things wrong here: Cell phones allowed in classrooms and teachers who overlook the obvious.

And then there’s “text lingo.” Lol. u. b4. 2.

stpd. ignrnt. grmaticly ncorek.

What’s to do? Get the parents involved, naturally.

Wait, that might not work. The same survey revealed that almost 70 percent of students admitted to receiving text messages from parents while in class.

gsh. wat 2 do.

Say it ain't so!

2010-09-23T08:14:00.001-05:00

It’s a common theme, but that doesn’t make it any less true: Abject stupidity has no boundaries.

Oh, the Colonel’s shame
Kentucky Fried Chicken, the folks that one time brought its customers the “side breast” in a cluck bucket (which was half a breast and part of the back), now has a new gimmick – Bunless Double Down sandwiches.

Of course, their marketing gurus had to come up with a catchy, memorable campaign. These marketing geniuses are paying college students to wear fitted sweatpants with “Double Down” in large letters across the posterior.

You guessed it! All of the students are female and comely, as my grandmother used to refer to as girls who were “pretty as all get-out.”

If this New Age marketing ploy works, look for the Colonel to be handing out halter tops to promote the company’s “Big, Bigger, Biggest Breasts” promotion.

Politicos expound
All you can see and hear these days are the words of would be politicians wanting to stay in Congress or go to Congress claiming they are for change for change’s sake. Change is needed, they decry in everything from health care to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the welfare system to immigration to Social Security.

All most people want is for a politician to run on a single plank of an important platform: Congress shall pass no law that does not apply to members of the federal government, and make retroactive any laws which subvert the intent of this law.

Period.

Now, go forth and find someone running for election who will 1) Promise to support such a law, and 2) introduce such a bill and push it vigorously.

Good luck on finding any takers.

And, finally …

The way it now stands, the GOPers will regain control of the House, and possibly the Senate.

That will not solve a single problem plaguing this nation.

The Grand Opulent Partiers will only perpetuate the divisive culture of the House and Senate as party politics become even more prevalent and more ingrained in the political arena.

The Demagogues have the most ineffective leadership of any party in recent history. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are empty suits who have the political social skills of warthogs.

The GOP leadership – Mitch McConnell and his Cast of Incompetents – is no better.

Clean sweep and start over?

Anybody?

Everybody?

Celebrities? Pshaw!

2010-09-22T09:46:00.000-05:00

Somebody please explain to me how we changed from a country whose citizens embraced “heroes” to one who drools spittle after “celebrities?”

On second thought, never mind. The thought of Nimrod No. 1 trying to explain this cultural phenomenon to Nimrod No. 2 gives me a migraine.

Let me see if I can get this straight: Paris Hilton in a celebrity because:
A) She’s richer than a Saudi prince.
B) She’s pretty in an Anorexia Calendar pinup sort of way.
C) She can walk a red carpet for anything from the Oscars to Emmys to Charity Event for the Venetian Blind without turning her ankle in her four-inch heels.
D) All of the above.

Paris Hilton is an airhead with money. Yet, millions of Americans and members of the world community follow her every movement like she was a tennis ball at Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Just recently, she was found with cocaine in her purse, which she said wasn’t her purse, but was borrowed. She was arrested and used the photo opportunity at the police station to “vamp” it up.

Earlier photos of her show her carrying the exact same purse, so she admitted she lied. She finally ‘fessed up and pleaded guilty and received a year’s probation.

A few weeks later she flew to Japan and after six hours of questioning by immigration officials, she was denied entry into the country because of her drug conviction.

Yea! for Japan. At least one country has guts and brains when dealing with celebrity druggies.

Hilton is 29 years old and thinks the world owes her homage. She is the picture-perfect example of bimbo, and to show she is one, she doesn’t care what all the little people think of her.

She is not just a bimbo, however. She has so much money, a new term needs to be coined (pun intended) for her ilk: $imbo.

Speaking of celebrities …

Lindsay Lohan is a druggie alcoholic who used to be cute and could, quite literally, act herself out of a paper bag.

She’s had two DWI convictions and three visits to drug rehabilitation centers. Now, she’s going to jail because he cannot raise above her spoiled-brat persona and proved it by busting her probation requirements.

Lady Gaga is a female doofus who does a bad Madonna knockoff in her singing and stage presence. Her real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.

Forbes magazine listed her as fourth on the list of the 100 Most Powerful and Influential celebrities in the world.

Yikes! Even Forbes has bought into the celebrity-is-everything myth.

Just think: Celebrities wouldn’t be celebrities if everyone would just ignore them.

And it is written: The nutcases will rise up and protest

2010-09-10T09:47:00.000-05:00

You gotta love those Good Book-lovin’ church people.

You know, the fervent but wrong-headed dingdongs who believe in freedom of religious expression as long as it’s connected to their core beliefs.

The intolerance of certain philosophical tendrils connected to major religions is astonishing to those who believe it’s okay to believe what you want to believe, that the Golden Rule should be applied in every situation and that my personal freedom to follow the religion of my own choosing is a right that should be extended to everyone.

Then, there is stripped nut-screw or two that throw that belief all asunder.

A small Florida church, with a congregation of less than 50 members, led by the not-so-reverend Terry Jones caused a worldwide brouhaha when he announced a Quran (Koran) burning. (It’s a small church filled with feather-headed know-nothings, for gosh sakes!)

It was Jones’ intention to send a message to the godless Muslims that there is only one holy book and it didn’t start with the letter Q, er, or K.

Presidents of countries – including Barak Obama – appealed to the preacher not to burn Muslim holy book. Government and military officials (including Gen. David Petraeus) and the FBI requested the plan be cancelled, noting that it might put lives of U.S. soldiers in further jeopardy in Muslim countries.

Jones first said he would not hold his burn-the-book rally, but then hedged and said he might. He didn’t say God is telling him what to do, but it is plan the god-publicity might have a hand in his final decision.

As sure as chickens don’t have lips, other headline seekers came out of the woodwork. Pastor Bob Old of some smaller-than-a-teacup Tennessee church said he was going to burn the Quran. His reason: “They worship a false god. They have a false text, a false prophet and a false scripture.”

Tolerance, get thee behind Old Bob and those of his ilk.

And a spokesman for the good ol’ Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, said if other churches don’t burn the Quran, they sure as hell will.

The Westboro clan is known for protesting at funerals of American soldiers.
Oh, and they believe that God is punishing Americans for being tolerant of homosexuals.

One thing is for certain: The fanatical side of the Muslim faith has a lot of company in the hairball section of life … the fanatical side of fundamental Christianity in America.

Small-town thinking certainly not confined to small towns

2010-09-02T07:58:00.000-05:00

It is a fact of STA (small-town American) that a few people run most local government or public entities – school districts, communities, counties. It is a truism with few exceptions.

Lonoke County and some of the towns that are included in it are perfect examples of how the intellectual gene pools have been drained to the point of single digit IQs making major decisions.

For years Lonoke County has been wrestling with trying to mesh the need for a new jail with incoming revenues. Finally, a couple of years ago, the county Quorum Court buckled down and approved the construction of a new jail.

That jail is scheduled to open in February 2011. Maybe.

The “maybe” comes as a result of small-brain / small-town thinking.

The county is building the jail, but apparently the cost of operating it – an estimated $1.3 million a year – was never fully considered nor explored.

The citizens of Lonoke County have elected officials – County Judge Charlie Troutman, Sheriff Jim Roberson, and Justices of the peace Mike Dolan, Mark Edwards, H.L. Lang, Tim Lemons, Roger Lynch, Alexis Malham, Jeannette Minton, Larry Odom, Bill Ryker, Adam Sims, Jodie Troutman, Barry Weathers and Sony Moery – that are supposed to be looking out after the interests of the citizens.

In this case, somebody – everybody! – apparently went to sleep.

It is the county judge’s primary responsibility to be the planner, organizer, coordinator and budget overseer for the county. The judge, running for re-election, apparently didn’t do his homework and advise the JPs on what would be needed. Neither did Roberson and neither did anyone else.

Where to come up with the money?

The county budget committee will have to solve that thorny problem. But it would behoove the county judge and the county sheriff and all the JPs to start thinking … and quit assuming.

A (quote) state-of-the-at jail (end quote) with insufficient money to operate it.

What a maroon of a situation!

Stealing a newspaper honest-to-goodness crime

2010-09-01T09:33:00.000-05:00

As a 50-year veteran of newspaper wars, I prided myself on always being upfront and honest and truthful in all respects.

In writing more than 3,000 editorials and 2,000 columns in those years, I fully acknowledge the remote possibility of slipping up occasionally and bending the truth into a pretzel, if not busting it all to pieces.

I was talking “newspapering” recently with a long-time East Texas publisher and I was rambling on about something or other and he said, “What was the real scoop on the column you wrote about newspaper theft?”

Well, there were three actually and two happened in Marshall.

Any newspaper can expect a seven-to-eight percent theft from newspaper racks. That’s a pretty good universal number for the percent of thieves that read papers. That number is a given and is figured into circulation budgets.

Back in 1989, the rack thefts at the News Messenger skyrocketed one summer, with daily theft surpassing 20 percent. I teamed up with the circulation director and rigged up a sting: We took quarters out of racks, painted the edges with fingernail polish (Passionfruit, as a recall) and replaced them in the coin bins.

It was obvious the next day when we went through the rack collection bags that many of the doctored quarters were missing.

Before we had a chance to decide on a course of action, we adjourned to Burger King for lunch. Upon arrival, the manager welcomed us and said, “If you’d been a few minutes earlier, (a staff member) could have bought your lunch. He brought in enough quarters to feed the lunch crowd.”

Part of the lunch money included quarters with the edges painted in Passionfruit.

Back at the office, we confronted the circulation employee, had him return all the quarters (three bags full in his trunk), invited him to write a check for the difference of seven-eight percent of theft and what it had been running the past month … and terminated his employment.

Never did a firing feel so good.

The second such theft report in Marshall was even more bizarre.

The Messenger, every Sunday morning, experienced a 90 percent theft rate … at one rack. It was located front and center at a local restaurant.

One Sunday I staked out the restaurant and watched as a stream of customers came up to the rack and put in the correct change, opened the door and took out a handful of papers. There were originally 50 papers in the rack and only $5 in the coin collection tray when I checked.

I went inside the restaurant and went to a meeting room in the back. A herd of men were sitting, drinking coffee, slamming down eggs and reading stolen News Messengers.

Being as it was a pre-church meeting of a men’s Sunday School class, I announced I was there to pass the collection plate to get money for the papers that were inadvertently stolen from the rack outside. I passed a blue-striped plate and dollar bills were piled high in no time.

“Don’t make me come back here,” I said, smiling, as I exited. No more theft problems from that rack … ever.

Later in my career, the paper at which I was publishing sponsored a “Little Cutie” photo contest (or some such titled money-making gimmick), and the official entry blank was included in a full-page ad. Unlimited entries were allowed, but no copies were to be counted.

That stipulation guaranteed a high degree of theft. We went to the trouble of printing rack cards telling would-be thieves the penalties for stealing newspaper.

The theft that day surpassed 50 percent.

The following day I wrote a front-page column about the theft, and advised the readers that every single rack paper was printed with a special scan code that, if the entry form was turned in for the contest, could be pinpointed as stolen … and prosecution would be vigorously pursued.

The phone rang off the wall that day with readers saying their spousal units “might” have inadvertently picked up extra copies and they’d like to come down and make restitution. The front desk took in more than $200 that day.

In my convoluted thinking, sometimes white lies are justified. And, despite what newspaper professionals like to think, some readers are dumber than a box of hair.

Circumference of Me

2010-08-20T09:28:00.002-05:00

Fourth in a series

You’re terrified? Good!

If you are just starting off on your career journey, you are probably thinking every day that you are living on the edge of your abilities. Or, you may be a long-term employee thinking exactly the same thing.
You’re not.

If you are like a huge majority of workers, you are ensconced in a mile-wide comfort zone, not daring to step near the edge of your experience and abilities.

Growth is rarely gained by standing on solid ground.

You may not recognize it now, but your abilities will not grow and your experiences will be contracted unless you live on the edge. Taking steps – even tiny, baby steps – past the edge of your self-imposed comfort zone is absolutely necessary for personal and professional growth.

You know why you don’t venture closer to the edge: It’s a fear of failure, of biting off more than you can chew, of not gathering moss on your personal rolling stone, and a bevy of other clichés.

Fear of failure is not fatal; it’s also not conducive to progression within the office ranks. If you feel you are watching your life drain out of your frame of opportunity, you have two choices: Step back into more familiar surroundings and possibly stifle unseen opportunities, or step closer and get sucked away into a whole new universe of opportunity.

Of course, it’s frightening; going from the known to the unknown always is. We all like knowing what’s behind the veil of uncertainty in business or in life. Once you set foot in uncharted territory, you at a position where your heretofore-accepted limits are no longer valid.

It’s a time for reflection, reviewing goals and setting new ones, and working to mesh your unspoken dreams with your new reality. You have faced your fears and taken decisive action to change that, which is within your power to change.

You are not the same person you were before you made a conscientious decision to actively seek change. You chose evolution over sameolution. The fact remains, without experimentation, without exploring the depths of your potential, without expanding your knowledge base and business acumen, you cannot climb higher on the success ladder.

That which terrifies you also creates an opportunity for growth.

Some ‘WHOA!’ stories

2010-08-20T09:26:00.001-05:00

A recent “Whoa!” writing effort pinpointed items in society that cause common sense advocates to stop and say, “Whoa!” A few emails indicated that "Whoa!" was a fun reading.

In all honesty, this type of computer fodder is as easy falling off a log. To those of the younger generation, it's easier than the beginner’s stage of Halo.

1) Whoa! In Canada, making a marijuana bust can be hazardous to one’s health. Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided a suspected marijuana “grow-ops” field in British Columbia and found it guarded … by at lest 14 bears. That’s “bears,” as in “people-eating mammals.”

The bears were kept in the vicinity of the marijuana crop by heapin’ helpin’s of dog food left especially for them. Also found at the property were a pot-belly pig and a raccoon. Officers said the swine and coon were friendly, and the bears were not considered a threat, and one even said the bears “were quite tame.”

In the U.S. pit bulldogs are guard animals of choice. Canadian marijuana growers obviously have a lot to learn.

2) Whoa! According to a poll (if you believe in polls and that they are fair and balanced), 24 percent of Americans believe President Barack Obama is a follower of the Muslim faith. The same number believe that George W. Bush attacked Iraq in good faith and Dick Cheney is not the devil.

3) Whoa! The last U.S. combat brigade is leaving Iraq. Good news, right? For those soldiers, absolutely. For the people of Iraq, it’s a different tale. But it’s a safe bet that tribal warfare will break out in that country within the next year and that another dictator of the Saddam Hussein ilk will be running the place.

One thing about the American military and the civilian leaders: They don’t mind making the same mistakes over and over and over ….

4) Whoa! Almost 400 million eggs have been recalled due to an outbreak of salmonella. First, lettuce, then strawberries, then broch…brocol…cauliflower, and now eggs.

Never had this problem back in the day before television and video games. Think about it.

5) Whoa! Hard line conservatives see nothing wrong with mass emailing anything derogatory about the president. It takes virtually no effort to go to snopes.com and find out whether or not such stories are true.

Yet many believe passing along untruths is somehow helping “the cause,” whatever that may be.

An idea whose time has come

2010-08-12T08:47:00.000-05:00

Are you sick and tired of the endless yammering about illegal aliens, how to control the slippery hordes, what to do with them when they are captured within the U.S. borders without proper papers, and how to pay for the get-the-hell-out program?

Well, join the verbal fray!

No one – no liberal, conservative, redneck immigrant hater or immigrant activist – has a clue how to solve the problem.

It’s time for a surefire solution. So, of course I have one, so here goes.

Surefire Solve-the-Illegal-Immigrant Plan

This plan includes four key steps:

1) Find every single illegal alien in the country by Christmas.
2) Throw their illegal hinnies out of the country.
3) Tell them if they come back, they will be horsewhipped with a piece of bobwire, regardless of age or gender. (I know it’s “barbed wire,” but I’m mad and don’t care.)
4) Fine every business that hires illegal aliens $1,000 per person for the first offense; second offense, the penalty escalates to $25,000 per illegal worker and confiscation of every flat screen TV and Lazyboy recliner the lawbreaker owns. The gummit would then sell the confiscated stuff and the revenue would go directly to reducing the national debt.

The second offense penalty would insure there would be no need for a third offense penalty.

Of course, the plan has problems, but so does every other plan thus far presented. Three of the four planks in the platform above are perfectly legal … about three more than any other plan thus far offered.

Acknowledging the bobwire beatings are a bit over the top, it is still proffered just so those aginners can throw something in the plan out.

So, let’s all push to get this plan passed.

And, when all the illegal immigrants are out of the country and the crops are not being picked, and the chickens are not being plucked, and the offerings at fast food restaurants are going bad, and buildings are not being cleaned, and landscaping chores are being left undone … we can all take a collective breath and be amazed at the abject stupidity that sometimes encapsulates the best of intentions.

The winds of change blow … well, sorta funny. As soon as people start getting hungry because there’s no fresh farm produce, or consumer goods escalate like the dickens because labor costs soars, there’ll be a solid clamoring to allow any ol’ immigrant who’ll work to make our lives easier and living it cheaper to cross the borders.

The situation would be laughable if it were not so darn pitiful.

Gimme spam!!

2010-08-06T12:11:00.000-05:00

I’m probably one of only a handful of people who enjoy getting spam. The email kind, not the canned meat.

While both can be nasty, scammers can be fun if you like playing with idiots who think plying their con games on the Internet is fun.

For more than three years I have been corresponding with scammers from a score of countries and find it quite interesting to see what motivates them. Well, actually, what motivates them is easy: Money. But hooking them into a scheme of my choosing can be more fun that braiding a box of multi-hued hair.

The most interesting thing about foreign scammers is that they do not know much about American culture, television icons, holidays or religions. I have related how I could not send money on a certain day because of the National Sucker Day Observances, or how I had to meet with Pastor Ernest Borgnine of the Hairy Nest Pentacostal Church in Janehathaway, Arkansas to discuss my ‘truss” fund.

They believe me when I relate how I was injured in an accident involving a mini-van of lawyers going to a Tort Convention, or de-legged by a runaway auger drilling for corn oil, or how I went to the circus and a clown car jumped the railing and whopped the crowd.

They believe my daughter is named Vienna Sousage Smith or Dorito Chippette Smith or Suzette Smith Saliva, and my Swedish nurse is Gotchme Bigguns, and my business secretary is Pepito Bismol.

All they care about is getting some money for myriad reasons – usually shipping a truckload of jewels or security bonds, or valuable coins, bank transfer information.

Occasionally, a sick scammer claims to have died, and their barrister/lawyer takes up the cause. Countering with my own lawyer – Duke Wayne, Sonny Bono, Henry Winkler, et al – is a good way keep an even playing field.

Do I ever receive anything from the scammers? One day the mail brought in more than $385,000 in fraudulent money orders – in $2,000 and $3,000 demoninations – from Wal-Mart, Circle K and some convenience store chain from the Northeast. I notified the FBI and the nice lady agent to whom I reported the scam was not enthusiastic. She advised me to burn the money orders.

I am planning on handing them out as party favors at some point in the future.

Over the past year or so I have received checks in various amounts -- $196,000, $52,538, $98,000 – and all are official checks on real companies. In every instance, they could be cashed with no questions asked … until law officers showed up at your door with engraved handcuffs.

The “hook” for the scammers is that they want you to deposit the checks and send them anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of the deposited money, which you are supposed to transfer to a foreign bank. And, you keep the rest for your trouble.

Simple. And illegal.

It is estimated that more than $3 billion a year is bilked from U.S. citizens from such scams.

If the scammers would just learn who Ernest Borgnine was or know that Milburn Drysdale was a TV character, not a real banker, think how much more time they would have to skim more money from their greedy targets.

As for those $2,000 and $3,000 fraudulent money orders? I am planning on handing them out as party favors at some point in the future.

Believe it! World is crazier than ever

2010-08-05T15:10:00.001-05:00

How crazy is this old world?

Crazy is as crazy does.

The following are “WHOA” moments, you know, those events that cause people with common sense to go “whoa” and shake their collective heads in disbelief.

WHOA! 1: A carnival recently came under political and judicial heat for having a dart-throwing game. The object of the throwing darts? A photo of President Obama. The very least the vendor could have done was have a photo alongside of Mitch McConnell. Give the carnival-goers a choice, for gosh sakes.

WHOA! 2: A New Jersey block gathering, part of the National Night Out anti-crime project, was the scene of a murder. A 39-year-old man was arguing with another party-goer and was shot in the head. Seems like the shooter didn’t get the anti-violence memo. There is no report that when he was apprehended he said, “Opps. My bad!”

WHOA! 3: Social Security is in the red. Seriously. But all the SS-drawing Baby Boomers don’t have to panic just yet. There’s enough money in the trust fund to last a while longer. If there’s not, the application line for Wal-Mart greeters is going to lap the parking lot.

WHOA! 4: The U.S. Postal Service posted (pun intended) a $3.5 billion loss in the last fiscal year. How can that be? FedEx and UPS are making money, but the ugly stepchild of the U.S. Gummit loses more money than the entire payroll of the Miami Heat? Has the government never heard of “house-cleaning” to turn a business around?

WHOA! 5: The law is the law, dadgummit. And any lawbreaker should be punished. Right? Even if the lawbreaker is a seven-year-old girl. Right?
Julie Murphy of Oregon City was cited by county inspector for not having a business license … for her lemonade stand. The temporary license cost $120, which, at 50 cents a glass, means that Julie would have to sell … let’s see, divide the five into the 2 and carry the 10… no that’s not right …. Anyway, she’d have to sell a bunch of durn lemonade.

The stupid public officials actually used “public safety” as the reason for shutting down the entrepreneurial tike.

Which brings me to …

WHOA! 6: It was about 1986 at the FireAnt Festival in Marshall. I was strutting around doing my chairman thing, glad-handing vendors and watching Patti at the Chamber and Janice McPherson do all the work, when I was buzzed about an emergency on the south side of the courthouse.

Seems the county health gomer was telling a Karnack vendor she had to shut down her stand. Her muscadine and pawpaw jelly weren’t prepared in an approved kitchen and “public health was at risk.”

I couldn’t believe the public servant was serious but, Shoot!, he assured me he was. I tried to reason with him, argue with him, even told him to go check on real lawbreakers, but he wouldn’t budge.

So, as my friends (and my detractors) know, I pulled a “George.”

Asking the lady how much merchandise she had on hand, she quickly did a count and I wrote her a check for $320 dollars or some such and hired her at $5 an hour to “sell” my merchandise for the remainder of the festival.

Then I turned to the health inspector: “This merchandise is now mine. I’m responsible for it. And I’m going to sell it through my contract agent, whom I am relieving of any legal responsibility for its sale.

“Issue your stupid citation or arrest me because we’re not shutting down.”

As he thought about it, I said quietly, “I can just see the headline in the News Mess: Publisher turns jelly seller, cited by county official.”

With his face the color of muscadine jelly, he stomped off the square.

I ended up with about 12 jars of jelly at the end of the festival and ate on that batch for the next four or five years.

Best durn jelly I ever had, too.

Had the sweet taste of righteousness tinted with just a hint of so-there!

Circumference of Me - Part 3 of a multi-part series

2010-07-30T14:23:00.003-05:00

By George S. Smith and Steve Burnett

3 Know thyself

Who are you? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Are you happy doing it, and, if not, why are you doing it?

Okay, so you work for a business or association and you have a five-word title, or aspire to having one – manager/senior manager/director/vice president and general manager of something and something. The company has you lined up to be on an MBO plan and, sometime in the future you may be eligible for a car allowance, stock options … and more.

You have arrived. Or plan to do so quickly.

Before you get too cocky, check your image in the mirror. Do you see an aura of success (regal purple with gold piping, perhaps) encapsulating your body? A competent manager with a reassuring smile that bespeaks volumes of positive accolades from co-workers and high-level management? Confidence you can sell by the pound?

Let’s take it for granted: You are a confident manager or well on your way of becoming one. Your walk, talk, and mannerisms portray success for all to see.

Look at me! Please! Now! I am the picture of success! If not yet, soon!

But, confidence aside, you have weaknesses. If this is a revelation, you are already in trouble. Everyone has weaknesses.

If asked to name your Top 5 weaknesses, personality or professional traits that could prohibit you from climbing the tenuous business ladder more than a few additional rungs, what would you say? Have you given any thought to your weaknesses and, if so, are you confident enough to voice them aloud? (In a room with a closed door doesn’t count.)

If your idea is a good one … will you let it be known?

More importantly, do others – co-workers, supervisor, top management – know your weaknesses? Are they waiting/hoping that you have what it takes to minimize weaknesses or turn them into strengths? Or, do they simply not care one way or the other?

Far too many managers don’t take the time, nor have the inclination, to focus on the personal traits that have helped carve the personal career path that led to their present position. And, those same managers are usually not interested in a self-analysis to determine if those basic traits will allow them to reach future personal and professional goals.

To be a success, a self-analysis is not only a fundamental right of passage, but also a necessity. There is nothing tougher than for a person to go through a personal self-analysis. The mere suggestion may be a scary as thinking about sliding down a giant razorblade naked.

Some psychologists claim an objective self-analysis is impossible. It is in their best interest to think that and promote that premise. The psychologists are right in one respect: There are people who can’t see their own weaknesses; therefore they believe they don’t exist. They are wrong, but these are the same people who won’t admit to ever making a mistake.

While an extremely uncomfortable undertaking, looking at one’s self with an objective eye in the psyche mirror is possible. It takes a strong heart, a stronger will, a solid mind, a strong sense of self-worth, and the understanding how stripping away personal veneer can be a cathartic experience, not an embarrassing one.

Take a chance, strip away your emotional veneer and see what lies underneath.
Spend the time and emotional commitment to analyze yourself before someone with a bigger title does it for you.

Next: You’re terrified? Good!

Circumference of Me -- Part 2 in a multi-part series

2010-07-30T14:02:00.005-05:00

By George S. Smith and Steve Burnett

Positives from negatives

There are times in everyone’s life when things don’t make sense. Familiar sights and sounds seem out of focus and muffled; systems which only yesterday were business, non-profit association, education, and corporate comforters miraculously resemble a patchwork quilt with the Drunkard’s Path design; policies which once seemingly protected you are suddenly – like the cat of homespun legend – stealing your breath away and smothering your creativity.

Sometimes when something is broken, the pieces are better than the whole.

When your personal world – your professional portrait, familiar processes at home and work, predictable market trends – breaks apart, when conflicts diminish reason, take comfort in the fact that there are pieces always left. Don’t discard those pieces, don’t throw away relationships that might prove helpful to your and your business; they are a part of you. Take the pieces and play with them. Put them back together to create a new picture that will benefit the changed you. Take the pieces and make a you collage.

Take a giant step in the direction of change: Put your brain in neutral. Of course, it’s hard to do. Your brain does not normally recognize commands to go into neutral mode because that makes no sense. The brain is a pattern-loving organ, and with your brain in neutral, there are no thought-patterns being created. Your thinking self yearns to make sense of events, people, and opportunities; it wants to reason its way out of an economic ditch, catastrophic relationship, or a job that simply sucks.

Putting your brain in neutral does not mean “not thinking.” It means selective thinking about things that, when viewed from your personal or professional lives, are “neutral.”

One manager confided that her personal neutral mode consisted of closing her eyes in a quiet moment and concentrating on a single thought: A turtle walking at the edge of a tranquil pond. In a personal form of meditation or bio-feedback, the woman simply takes a minute or less and “walks” the turtle in her mind – silently saying “Turtle. Turtle. Turtle.” with each step. This form of non-sense calms and relaxes this particular manager, enabling her to put her creative brain in neutral and resulting in a refreshing pause.

It’s the paradox of non-sense that, through this neutral process, it’s possible to direct your brain to find to new patterns and conclusions. The exercise can generate new thoughts that inspire mental-inventions and creates a personal need to succeed despite all obstacles.

Now is as good a time as any to explode yourself with mental dynamite and reinvent you. It’s the perfect time for reinvestment of creative energy, setting new goals, dreaming new dreams, strengthening your personal will, and reorganizing your organizational structure to find a positive use for the tired, old, broken and scattered pieces of the truisms of your yesterday.

When things break – in your personal life, in your job, in the market – huge amounts of negative and positive energy are released. The energy has to go somewhere. You have choices on where to direct the energy, but doesn’t it make sense to direct it to enhance the positive side of life?

That’s the premise and reason for the Circumference of Me, directing stray thoughts into a living, breathing, growing example of how you can change your life through the appreciation and development of a very special personal tool: Personal thought leadership.

Take charge of your thoughts. Take charge of your life.
Next: Know thyself

Circumference of Me -- Part 1 of a Multi-part Series

2010-07-30T11:25:00.003-05:00

George S. Smith Steve Burnett

Author bios
Steve Burnett, president of the Burnett Group, a management, brand, and communications consulting company in New York City, is a professor of communications design at the Pratt Institute. His company’s clients are a Who’s Who of global brand names. He’s also an accomplished artist, and is creator of the “whimsy” style of art.

George S. Smith, director of communications services for Topcon Positioning Systems, is a former newspaper editor and publisher, community development consultant, and national motivational speaker. He has taught management courses at the college level and has been a certified online instructor in strategic management and critical thinking.

Burnett and Smith are co-founders of Whimsy Creations, LLC, a firm that develops unique fund-raising products that involves mixing “whimsy” drawings and poetry for small, non-profit organizations.

They say …

Joe Ford
Former Chairman and CEO, Alltel Corporation
Partner, Westrock Capital Partners

Just when you thought you had seen the latest and greatest message about what steps people need to take to become great managers, along comes the Circumference of Me.

If you have read other books on management theory or practice, fine, but you need to read this one. It has been my pleasure to work with both of the authors on projects ranging from global communications to brand awareness to internal and external communications practices. They do not just talk a good game; they know their business.
Consider yourself warned: This is not your typical management book. The Circumference of Me is about … you.

It does not present the safe-at-all-costs practical side of corporations, management practices, and expected behaviors for employees. There is no do-this-or-else business theory included, nor is there the predictable management truisms speckled with visual word-posters designed to build Spirit, Enthusiasm, Motivation, Optimism, or Team Building.

Circumference of Me will give you a view of the various steps necessary to rise to the challenges of being a manager -- or a better manager – and create the environment for you to realize your potential through its unique presentation and content.

Kevin Dial
Director of Operations
CBIZ Medical Management Professionals

The Circumference of Me is a classic example of pull/push marketing. Most of us know – or think we do – what we want and who we are; it is the stopping to look and the prompting and pulling out of us that is usually needed more than the simple act of pushing an idea into us.

There is a fine line between teaching and shaping someone’s understanding and motivating their will to act. I believe an effective teacher has to do both and there is a nice balance in the lessons of this book.

There are two words to describe this book: Fresh and creative. The illustrations are directly connected to the writing and help the reader create a mental image.
Circumference has many mini-lessons about life and about business, to not only think about, but to remember and use.

This book creates a pathway to dream about things that really stir us up and make us better at what we do and not just create traditional goals. Encouraging that in people is very important and Circumference of Me shouts that message loud and clear.

John Trotti
Editor
Grading & Excavation magazine

At first, Circumference of Me seems to be an awful lot to chew, particularly for one who has "been there and done that" with varying degrees of success and satisfaction.

It was hard for me to want to let go of one thought and move on to the next. This is validation of the idea that "It's not a goal...it's a mission, so it's the journey that counts."

Smith and Burnett have found a way to draw the reader into their concept of management philosophy without a bunch of guideposts. Instead, the reader enters as a wanderer and quickly finds himself engaged.

Circumference reminds me of Rome, a city where you can walk the same streets day after day, a hundred times, and never become jaded...never feel that it's lost some of its freshness.
While it reminds me of areas where I've missed the mark, it also lets me check off the things I've done correctly; both are good exercises for the mind and spirit.

John Wallace
Retired director - Verizon Communications

Welcome to the world of George Smith and Steve Burnett-- where whimsy consistently opens the door to profound and practical insights.

Burnett crafts illustrations that are simple yet stunning, capturing the essence of chapters in minimal brush strokes. Smith paints word pictures like few others can, exploring life circumstances from a unique and insightful perspective.

The chapter-ending takeaways offer common sense that is, unfortunately, far too uncommon in business and government today.

Just read it. Put it into practice. You will be glad you did.

Bobbie Jean McCarty
Elementary Principal
Commerce (Texas) Independent School District

As schools have sought to meet the public demand for more accountability, educators have searched for ways to merge the principles of management in the business world with that of the educational realm. During 40 plus years as an educator and administrator I have read numerous “management” books and had yet to find one that could be so applicable to the educational community.

Circumference of Me is an exception to this. Build upon the principle of self-development and the dynamics of relationships, the authors have managed to connect the principles of business while reflecting the central component of effective educational institutions: First you teach the child. Without knowing and being comfortable with oneself, an educator cannot reach the heart of a student. The ability to have effective interpersonal skills impacts and extends beyond the classroom to the staff, parents, and community.

The whimsical drawings are wonderful for those who need more than the written word to grasp the total meaning of the thought. As any good piece of children’s literature, the illustrations should reflect the words of the author. The drawings by Steve Burnett are more than illustrations; they are intuitive and thought provoking in and of themselves.

Circumference of Me is an easy-to-read book, perfect for those who feel rushed, with great and lasting application to those in the field of education.

SECTIONS

Foreword
Circumference of Me
Unconditional Wisdom
Unconventional Wisdom
Processed Advice
Afterword

Foreword

Each chapter of The Circumference of Me was designed with someone just like you in mind, someone who wants to explore the realistic depths of his or her abilities, to think not only about realities but also about perceptions and how they influence our lives.

Circumference is designed to provide guideposts to enable you to improve your business self, enhance the understanding and expansion of your leadership abilities, develop a sense of the importance of the synergies that are possible if your business and personal lives are in sync, and to be as successful and personally fulfilled in whatever business you choose.

It is, in a single phrase, a take-away tool kit of ideas. Regardless of whether you own your own business, or where you now sit in a professional organizational chart, or if you are just starting a professional career, you will take something positive away from the Circumference of Me.

There are fifty-five chapters in this book and some of them – guaranteed! – will speak directly to you. As you peruse the Content Page, or check out the individual chapter headlines, you will quickly be able to identify the chapters that interest you at this point in your career.

When you start reading the book from the front, or when you start selecting chapters to read at random, you will begin to ask yourself questions:

Why did this chapter heading interest me?

What is the intent of the chapter and how can I use it?

Will this chapter give me advice to advance my career? Make me a better employee?

Better manager?

What was the take-away lesson?

Would that work in my organization?

What would people think if I tried that at work?

This book is not a cure-all for the Business Blahs. It is only one small piece in the multiple building blocks that make up your life. The individual chapters are tools to put into your business or association tool belt and pull out when needed. It is designed not to change the way you view your professional world, but to create a need to think about your business world and explore different options that might lead to success.

With its mixture of unique visuals and around-the-corner word images, Circumference of Me encourages you to take the different shapes and parts that appeal to you so you can think about you in a different way. You can take familiar patterns in your life and, using the ideas in this book, discover the possibilities that exist when you change integral parts and shapes. Like Lego building blocks, by using the ideas, thoughts, real-life examples, and advice in these pages you can take diverse pieces and design options for various pathways you choose for your life.

The chapters are designed to stimulate thoughts about how each individual looks at themselves and provides images – in drawings and words – to enable them to start to contemplate their personal shape and how they can start corralling the errant pieces of their professional lives and rounding off the corners to create a symmetrical Circumference of Me.

There are pieces of all sizes and shapes in this kit from which to choose. You can read them all or mix-and-match to suit your mood. You decide which parts are crucial to defining your personal Circumference of Me. Or you can use the individual chapters to create new boundaries on which to build your career … and life.

The challenge is to open your mind, to think, and learn; the challenge is accepting; the challenge is in your personal ability to view yourself from an analytical point of view and, where necessary, to change that which you decide needs changing.

Speaking of the truth ….

2010-07-27T08:21:00.001-05:00

A truism is something that is true. It does not become true simply because one says, thinks or believes it is untrue.

A truism is truth, unvarnished and naked in its simplicity.

Everyone has a few supposed truisms hidden in their mental and verbal arsenal. Some are true, some aren’t. Over the past several decades, a list of truisms, started during a pique of skepticism and nurtured in negativism, has grown appreciably.

The fact the following list mainly deals with politics and personalities and should surprise no one. If it does, you need psychological help.

Truisms – No dispute accepted nor tolerated

1) If Congress were to be on the same retirement system as non-elected folk, there would be no problem with Social Security.
2) If the Green Party would nominate candidates that looked and acted quasi-normal, the party might elect a few politicians.
3) A Republican who follows his/her party line 80 percent of the time ain’t worth a cup of dog drool.
4) Democrats, ditto.
5) Anyone who blames Obama for every ill this country is facing is dead-dog wrong.
6) Anyone who blames George W. Bush for 100 percent of the mess Obama inherited is dead-dog wrong.
7) There is no logical reason why IRS filings should not be limited to what information can fit on a postcard.
8) A majority of politicians in Washington are bought and paid for by lobbyists.
9) A majority of lobbyists in Washington have the brains of an earthworm, the ethics of a New Orleans pimp and the conscience of a born-again terrorist.
10) Anyone who votes a straight party ticket has as much common sense
as a demented mole. No party is right 100 percent of the time.
11) Term limits for Senators and members of the House are essential to
reforming politics.
12) There are more people driving cars in the United States with
handicapped stickers than there are handicapped people in the world.
13) Sarah Palin’s main attribute is that she has a memorable accent and is
as perky as all get-out.
14) Dick Cheney is not the devil. The jury is still out on Karl Rove.
15) Obama is a citizen of the United States, is not a Muslim and can not
help what his parents named him.
16) Henry Waxman has the ugliest nose in Washington. Strike that. Make
it “the world.”
17) Nancy Pelosi is the worst Speaker of the House of Representatives
since the last one.
18) More people vote “against” a certain candidate for any office than
vote “for” any candidate.
19) The concept of “justice for all” in this country is a myth. If you’re
rich, you can take advantage of the system; if you are poor, you get
to meet Big Wanda or Big Bubba in the prison shower up close and
personal.

And, one for the road:

20) The “value” of a human life is decreasing constantly and criminals are allowed to literally get away with murder, literally and figuratively. Lawyers are allowed to manipulate the judicial system to benefit them and their clients and judges think lenient sentences for heinous crimes are somehow “justice.”

Want a good rant? Fine! Here!

2010-07-15T10:23:00.001-05:00

Land of the free. Home of the brave.

Yeah! Right! (Proving once and for all that two positive can make a negative.)

America today is more like the home of the freebie, home of the greedy.

Look around you. What in name of Jezebel’s housecat has happened to our country?

One word: Politics.

It’s bad enough we are limited to two lame parties with screeching leaders with less common sense than a herd of demented rhesus monkeys, but we have a mindless population that follow those leaders like blindfolded kindergarten rejects.

We elect leaders who claim to have our best interests in mind, when, in actuality, their personal interests and those of their monied minders are paramount. We elect those leaders expecting them to make changes and all they do is raise taxes and spend time figuring out how to emerge from politics richer than when they went in.

We elect the yahoos and yahooettes to make our country a better place in which to live and all they do is spend tax dollars like they print the durn things at projects on which any competent businessperson would take a pass.

We vote for Bert and Beulah Bureaucrat. We smile as they sally forth to do battle with the Budget Dragon … and then add to the burden with pet projects of dubious nature so they can get re-elected for bringing home tax dollar-sponsored projects.

We make fun of members of the opposite party from our beliefs or raisin’s while lauding the attributes of favorite politicians without ever realizing that they are the same mutant critters with different political labels.

There is absolutely no difference in a Democrat who pushes a welfare program for which there is no need, or a Republican who wants a tax break for big business. It’s all politics and the shifty voting moves are to get the respective officials re-elected.

It’s politics and it’s shameful.

Rant over. Now go on back out and re-elect those good politicians that are doing right by you and this country.

Salmon River Trip - 2010

2010-07-09T09:48:00.004-05:00

Colin and Kay Kelly of Canada. Two of the most memorable people one could ever hope to meet. Thanks for the laughter, fun, education and friendship!
George and Brandie

Salmon River Trip - 2010

2010-07-09T09:46:00.003-05:00

Nature ... and man combine to make a riverside art exhibit.

Salmon River Trip - 2010

2010-07-09T09:40:00.004-05:00

Teagan Jean,
Homecoming Queen,
Thinks she's nice,
but she's so mean!!!!

Go! Team!!!

Teagan, thanks for all the help in camp!!!

Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip - 2010

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Salmon River Trip -- 2010

2010-07-08T10:58:00.002-05:00

Oh, the tragedy and irony

2010-06-18T09:46:00.005-05:00

It’s no wonder people hate BIG Business and the obscene lobbying efforts of major alliances.

Within the past several weeks newspaper around the country ran a color, one-page advertisement paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. That is the informational, educational and lobbying arm of the “the people of America’s oil and natural gas industry.”

The self-serving ad made several points worth repeating:

1) "The people of America’s oil and natural gas industry are working to help BP (British Petroleum), which owns the spewing well, and the authorities respond to the (Gulf of Mexico) spill."
2) “Clearly, there will be lessons to be learned….”
3) “… we are fully committed to doing everything humanly possible to understand what happened and prevent it from every happening again.”
4) The institute has “already assembled the world’s leading experts to conduct a top-to-bottom review of offshore drilling procedures, from routine operations to emergency response.”

Somebody give me a hanky. I am crying here.

The ad appeared before BP’s CEO Tony Hayward testified before a Congressional committee(or who didn't testify, depending on your point of view), who, if he is to believed, is not in charge of anything at his company and does not make decisions that could adversely affect his company and the world’s environment. Hayward was so bored at the Congressional hearing he kept checking his watch.

“I can’t answer that question,” was uttered by Hayward time and again. He might as well ‘fessed up and declared, “I won’t answer that question.”

If Hayward was the hearing’s mute, then the HIC (Hearing Idiot Child) was Texas Rep. Joe Barton. Barton actually apologized to Hayward for the White House’s “$20 billion shakedown” of BP, following BP's promise of up to $20 billion in restitution for businesses ruined by the underwater oil well blowout.

One would think Barton was snorting BBQ sauce when he apologized to Hayward for saying the White House’s “shakedown” of BP was a “tragedy.”

On the International SIASD Scale (Stupid Is As Stupid Does), with a 10 being Dan Quayle and Joe Biden and 1 being Stephen Hawkins, Barton is way north of Quayle and Biden.

The “tragedy” in regard to Barton’s statement -- which he retracted six hours later -- is that voters in a Texas congressional district elected that mental doofus to Congress.

Back to the main point: In case you missed the irony in the ad message … the ad was paid for by the Institute, which is financed by the oil and gas industry, which gets its money from YOU!

The next time you need to fill up at the gas pump, give a one-fingered salute to a BP station as you drive by. It won’t do any good, of course. But, then again, it can’t hurt either.

If I don't blow my own horn ... who will?

2010-06-16T11:52:00.002-05:00

The following is a unpaid commercial rift with ego-enriched facts.

George S. Smith of Cabot was recently named the 2010 Public Relations Person of the Year by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM).

Smith, director of communication services for Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS), a global leading developer and manufacturer of precision positioning equipment, joined TPS in 2005.

Topcon is the largest company in the world focused exclusively on positioning control and machine control products, software and applications for the survey, civil engineering and construction industries.

AEM, headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has offices in Washington, D.C., Canada, Europe and China and provides services to almost 1,000 members in the agriculture, construction, forestry, mining and utility industries.

A longtime Arkansas newspaper editor and publisher, Smith is a former vice president of Alltel Corporation, having served as vice president of media services for five year. TPS operates its marketing services operation from a Cabot office.

Smith was selected for the award by Publications in Construction and Agriculture (PICA), an AEM subgroup. PICA selects the annual winner of the award as an “outstanding example of best practices in media relations.”

The criteria used in the selection process include reliability, accuracy of content, quality of information provided, trustworthiness, integrity and level of experience about their company, products and industry.

Lawrence Buser, editorial director for Baum Publications’ nine trade magazines in the U.S. and Canada, presented Smith the award at the AEM’s annual trade show exhibitors education meeting in Las Vegas, May 18-19.

Buser said, “There is no one working with the AEM trade publications who is more responsive than Topcon’s George Smith. Without exception, he instinctively knows what individual publications want and need, and provides timely and relevant information that is educational and informative to our readers.”

Smith said, “To be honored by one’s peers is special; to be honored by people to whom one provides service is extra-special. Receiving this award is very humbling, and focuses the high level of importance that Topcon places on media relations.”

Smith praised Dennis House, vice president of media services, and Staci Fitzgerald, TPS communications specialist, both Cabot residents, for their commitment to ensuring Topcon is providing “worthwhile information in a timely manner to trade publications that cover the industries TPS serves.”

In the three-plus years Smith has been directing external communications efforts for TPS, the annual number of application and jobsite stories about the company in global trade publications has increased from 32 in 14 different publications in 2006 to more than 160 in 45 publications in 2009.

What has gummit wrought?

2010-06-16T11:50:00.000-05:00

The more things change ….

In reading an article recently, some phrases starting jumping off the page like a frog in a hot skillet.

 “The plain fact is that the integrity of our government is threatened by a group lobby claiming to speak for millions of Americans.”

 “The recent pay increase voted by members of Congress caused a popular explosion that sent many Congressmen back to private life….”

 “Part of the problem is that Congress does not understand what it is spending. Enormous office buildings have been erected, connected by costly underground passages.”

 “Congressmen speak to empty (seats).” A real debate on the floor has almost ceased to be. Congressmen pass their days in their private offices (and in meeting after meeting after meeting) ….”

 “The forefathers of this country, when they framed out Constitution, were thinking in terms of a small nation ….They did not have the luxury or foresight to visualize a nation of (300 million) people occupying a whole continent ….”

 “Had they anticipated such an outcome, they would no doubt have (implicated the following):

“The president shall be elected for a term of six years and shall be ineligible for re-election.

“Members of the Senate shall be elected for a term of 12 years and shall be ineligible for re-election.

“Members of the House of Representatives shall be elected to a term of three years and the alternate Congressional elections shall synchronize with presidential elections ….”

 “Most voters take no interest in the choice of their legislators. Congressmen are chosen by the votes of small majorities ….”

 “If these are permanent habits of our democracy, it is difficult to see how government of the people through its elected representatives can succeed ….”

The punchline? The source of the article is the Atlantic Monthly magazine, 1935.

As it is written … read it and weep.

Growing up in Sutton, Arkansas

2010-06-15T10:33:00.003-05:00

A gathering of the clan
creates memory swirls:

Pitterpattering of rain on distorted window panes;
ummm-yeah smell of cornbread sizzling in a hot skillet;
taste of well water two days after a spring shower;
sleep-inducing sound of a darting dirt dauber;
taste of buttermilk and cornbread mixed in a tall jelly glass
with just a touch of pepper, gently swirled
to make an abstract pinwheel in black and white;
a walk up the lane to the Duncan field
where the cattle thieves were hung and buried, disputing
the site of the graves,
as always,
not know exactly where they were “turned under,”
but, still, knowing exactly where they were “turned under”;
smell of honeysuckle in July, the scent accented by a syncopated orchestra
of field bees, covering the tangled vines like a moving blanket;
fishing in the farm pond and picking out the good fishing spots
according to age seniority, then arguing about why the fish wouldn’t bite;
milking the cows, allowing a calculated stray stream to hit a cousin’s foot,
and being intimately involved in a cow-chip fight when the milking was done;
trips to town on Saturday afternoons for ice cream
and rock-hard apples eaten on street corners,
killing time while the grown-ups do their business –
cash checks,
buy groceries,
dicker the price of Hope Diamond watermelons,
look at but seldom buy store-bought clothes;
games of Rook at sunset around the scarred, tipsy, small kitchen table,
big folks and their little clan-clones all playing hard,
always to win and cheating when one knows he will get caught,
loving each other when the catching is done,
laughing at the over-bidding,
whopping and hollering when the over-bid is made;
smell of eggs, fresh sausage and homemade biscuits on Sunday morning;
tangy scent of Aris Hair Oil intermingled with Old Spice After Shave lotion
as family members prepare for church;
the too-short walk up the lane,
three generations, walking in unison to the asbestos-sided
Nazarene Church to hear a sermon on sin
(all the visiting preachers were against it)
located south of Lambert’s Store, north of the T-road;
singing all-too-familiar songs to the rhythm banged out
by a strong-wristed woman playing an out-of-tune piano;
hearing Bible stories –
Samson and Delilah, Job and his Trials,
Moses and the Ten Commandments,
Jonah and the Whale;
Sunday dinner with a goose-necked preacher,
and ending up with just a wing and a back simply because we had “company”;
games of one-hole washers,
horseshoes,
kick-the-can,
buck-buck,
cowboys and Indians,
cops and robbers,
hide-n-seek;
roping chickens, delighting in watching them screech and run in circles;
a rooster named Old Red spurring early-morning risers en route to the outhouse;
stories from Uncle France, who lied about most things,
including, maybe, the origin of his own name,
but was loved by almost everyone who ever listened to his tales;
bedtime stories told while snuggling deep in down mattresses
covered by flannel sheets and handmade quilts;
going to sleep to the sound of crickets, hoot owls, night birds,
and the occasional coyote yelp;
Nannie slipping grandkids money before they left;
Daddy George never watching loved ones drive away.
And the most important memory of all: the knowledge that
love surrounded you every minute of every day.

Memory swirls.

Circumstances of Me

2010-06-15T10:26:00.004-05:00

A quartet of business bugaboos derails more projects, more careers, and more companies than all other factors combined: Turf, territory, title, and ego.

Let’s get one thing straight quick: Every successful manager in history has a strong ego and sense of self. Every one of them understood and appreciated the necessary boundaries of division of labor within a company and tried to mesh their operations or project goals with the company’s mission. Every single one of them sought advancement in the corporate ranks.

Having a strong ego is part of the developmental make-up of every successful manager. But having a big ego is not the same as being confident in one’s abilities and being to view one’s accomplishments and potential in a realistic spotlight. It’s a fact that many managers are not as good as they think they are; many managers sell their attributes short, and; many potential great managers have not developed the attitude nor temperament to believe in their own abilities.

An uphill climb can bring personal and professional rewards.

A strong ego, tempered by realism, is priceless to a steady, uphill climb on the corporate ladder. But developing an ego as a positive personality trait, like the making of a fine wine, must be constructed under strict parameters, with little room for experimentation.

Confidence is just another word for ego … minus the obnoxious gene.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!

2010-06-15T10:23:00.000-05:00

Life doesn't have to be this hard

2010-06-15T10:18:00.000-05:00

When is a politician like a duck?

2010-05-28T07:49:00.002-05:00

(Note: For those interested, Mattie Somer Smith, a graduate of Marshall High, gave birth on May 25 to Colton Andres Cummins. Mattie is executive director of the Brain Injury Association of Arizona. Her and her husband Kyle live in Mesa, AZ. Since I am first-time grandfather, this column is dedicated to my grandfather, the late George Logan Andres of Sutton, Arkansas.)

My grandfather, Daddy George Andres, a south Arkansas pineywoods philosopher with magnolia-leaf clusters, didn’t have much truck with politicians.

He was a political kingpin for two counties in the Natural State back in the day when sweet gum sap was chewed more than Wrigley’s. Daddy George was a justice of peace for a long piece and held court with the likes of Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, and U.S. Sens. J. William Fulbright and John McClellan.

Daddy George, by then into his 90s, told a young man named Bill Clinton that he had a way of “stirrin’ up a crowd,” which was not an oxymoron.

Even though he was elected umpteen times to the Nevada County Quorum Court, he did not consider himself a politician. He only worked for Democratic candidates – Republicans were a scarce and closeted breed 40 years ago – and then only for those candidates whom he considered “too good to be in politics."

He was a story-teller and often regaled relatives with political stories, never stopping to say which ones were true. The matter or truth vs. myth or plain-out lies didn’t matter as the stories flowed off the front porch of his shotgun-style house. The beauty was in the story telling; facts would just have gotten in the way of a good story.

A couple of Daddy George stories come to mind:

-- There was this little feller who told his daddy in a clear, loud voice: “Daddy, I know what I want to be when I grow up?

“What’s that, Son,” his daddy said.

“I want to be a politician.”

“Sorry, son,” the daddy said, putting a hand on the little tyke’s head and ruffling his hair. “You can’t be a politician. You’re a Christian.”

-- A young man running for state office once showed up on my porch,
trying to get me to support him. It wasn’t so much as I was important, but that I knew a lot of folks and some thought I knew a little about politicking.

He was a nice, young man and he made a fine speech. To tell you the truth, he cut a fine figure of a man.

After his pleadings, I told him I couldn’t support him. He wanted a reason but I couldn’t tell him the truth. The truth would have been cruel, to tell you the truth.

It wasn’t his education; he was one smart feller. He spoke well and made a good impression and all.

He couldn’t win because of the way he was dressed: No voter could trust a politician who wears brown shoes with a blue suit.”

And finally,

-- A politician is like a duck. You can thump either one on the head real hard and neither one will be a bit smarter from the experience.

Time ... colors

2010-05-25T11:23:00.002-05:00

If
time were
a color, make
it flared golf pants,
used car lot flag banners,
a paint store explosion,
Tammy Bakker's eyeshadow,
and Christmas
M&Ms.