Royal Reflections—mostly biographical, posting events, places and people over my life over seventy years and more, narratives on communication, politics, military service, federal civil service
I’ve had this document, an anonymous email, for several months. I don’t remember the date I received it or who sent it. Regardless of its authenticity and its accuracy in projecting the future of the United States, the work is well written and if true, should give us pause to contemplate our future and to perhaps consider possible solutions to avoid following the problems that are destroying some European nations. Recent events have altered the e-mail’s message, specifically the 2012 presidential election, but its message still rings true.
In addition to passing this writing on, I will quote Abraham Lincoln. In 1858 he was nominated by the Illinois Republican Party to the United States Senate, and later was elected to the presidency of the United States. In his acceptance speech to the Senate nomination, he said in reference to slavery that, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He lost the election to the Senate but two years later he became the president of the United States, and following his election President Lincoln guided the nation through four brutal years of civil war to bring the two factions together.
Today our nation is again divided against its self. How many years will we need to reunite ourselves and become a whole nation again?
The following dissertation is the anonymous email I received:
Let’s take a stand
If you read ancient history you will find that every nation since Christ’s day has died of old age in about 250 years. Rome was the exception, because they were a warring nation from Christ’s birth until 500 years later, when Rome dominated the European/Asian/African continents. Not a pretty picture.
I think this is the best email ever, but you decide on November 6, 2012. This is the best explanation of what is happening in America that I have heard. Please pass it on. It may actually make folks think.
CAN THE USA SURVIVE GIVEN THE FOLLOWING?
The folks who are getting free stuff, don’t like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.
The folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop, and the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting.
The people who are forcing the people to pay for the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff are being mean, prejudiced and racist.
The people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff, and giving them the free stuff in the first place.
We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than there are people paying for the free stuff.
Now understand this: All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded. The reason? The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.
Thomas Jefferson said it best: “The democracy (Republic) will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who are not willing to work.”
The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 235 years ago. The number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff. We have one chance to change that on Nov 6th, 2012. Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it.
ELECTION 2012 IS COMING
A nation of sheep breeds a government of wolves.
I’M 100% for PASSING THIS ON
Let’s take a stand:
Obama: Gone
Borders: Closed
Language: English only
Culture: Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before Welfare
NO freebies to: Non-Citizens
Only 86% will send this on. Should be 100%. What will you do?
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money—Margaret Thatcher
Note:I realize that certain changes have come about since I received this email, but the basic points are the same. The election of 2012 is over and at the time of this posting none of the points of the message have changed. Perhaps our nation will somehow manage to close the divide and become as one again, if not in the coming four years then perhaps in future elections. I have serious doubts that either will occur.
The various segments of the government of the United States and its military components thrive on acronyms. The people in those segments breathe, eat, sleep, love, work and worship acronyms. The Supreme Court of the United Status (SCOTUS) has just approved the health act created by the President of The United States (POTUS). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is now the law of the land. It desperately needs an acronym that will readily identify the law, something other than ACA. That acronym is already in use by numerous associations ranging from the American Canine Association to Opryland’s American Cornhole Association—Opryland’s ACA banner is shown below. The event features Corn Toss, Cornhole, Bean Bag and Bean Toss. This is their invitation:
“Join us for the first ACA end of summer tournament. $10,000 first place prize, over $20,000 in total prizes. Food and live entertainment.”
When ACA is voiced it sounds similar to one clearing one’s throat—try it and I believe you will agree that it is a no-brainer. Just use it several times in one sentence and you’ll find that your throat is clear and your listeners are grossed out. Conference attendees will frequently voice it just to clear their throats without offending others.
I have spent a considerable amount of time researching acronyms used by our military services and our government’s Civil Service. Click here for a comprehensive listing of units that have their names scrunched into a usable acronym, one that is easy to remember and which identifies the various units.
Just as an aside, if the horde of reporters assigned to cover Supreme Court activities should need an acronym I’ll suggest this one—just add an R to SCOTUS, the acronym for the Supreme Court Of The United States. The Supreme Court reporters of the United States would become SCROTUS, a monumental saving of time in television reporting as well as ink and paper in recording the Court’s activities. I offer that freely without any thought of compensation for violation of copyright laws, just as I offer CACA as the acronym for the new Affordable Health Act.
I have added the word comprehensive because the Act is designed to cover every person in the United States, and most would agree that is very comprehensive. However, although I do not consider the word comprehensible applicable to the Act, I proudly offer up my suggestion of CACA for the acronym of the Act, with no expectation for national publicity or monetary compensation. Oh, well, perhaps a few bucks and a stint on Fox and Friends.
Yes, CACA. It’s a good word, very expressive even though it’s not in my outdated copy of the American Heritage Dictionary. The closest it comes is the word cacao, the seed of the cacao tree, used in making chocolate. However, it can probably be found in any dictionary of the Spanish language and on the various websites that offer language translations. It’s a word that people do not normally use in mixed company or at formal activities—not even Spanish-speaking people. Check it out here—it’s a common slang word, used by millions of people—nay, billions of people. It’s pronounced differently in different languages but it means the same in all.
An added feature of CACA is that the two syllables of the acronym are pronounced with the same emphasis, except perhaps for those that do not favor the new law. In that case, more emphasis may be directed to the first syllable—in such cases the written word would probably be followed with an exclamation point. Here are a few suggestions for bumper stickers should people want to show their political affiliation:
Democrats love CACA!
Republicans hate CACA!
Obama’s CACA covers everyone!
I have just created another acronym that would apply beautifully to the Affordable Care Act. Simply change it to the Affordable Health Act. It then becomes AHA, pronounced Ah ha! with the emphasis on the second syllable. That Ah ha! may well have been what the Chief Justice exclaimed when he thought of changing the penalty clause to a tax clause, thus mirroring Archimedes’ exclamation of “Eureka” (in the Grecian language meaning “I have found it!) when he discovered the 47th Problem of Euclid while bathing, then immediately ran naked through the streets proclaiming his discovery. Whether the Chief Justice was performing his morning ablutions at the time is unknown, of course, but his discovery allowed him to join the liberals in upholding the act.
The image and the tale of a classroom experiment below were in an e-mail sent by the youngest of my three daughters, the one that lives, loves and happily flourishes in the northern climes of Texas while looking after the activities of one husband, two young children and a dog named Wrigley. She also doubles as the president of a local grammar school PTA, and is occasionally a part-time (unpaid) consultant for friends who are commercial property managers, some actually and some potentially.
Classroom Socialism . . .
When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Is this man truly a genius? Checked out and this is true… it DID happen! An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan.” All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.” (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they
wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there there is a real test coming up—the 2012 elections. The five points that follow are the most important you’ll ever read and all are applicable to this experiment.
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
Government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from others.
You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Can you think of a reason for not sharing this? Neither could I.
To the reader:
The diatribe below is my reply to the e-mail. If you were offended and took umbrage because of my sharing the experiment with you, whether real or false, you may want to ignore this part to avoid becoming irritated, agitated, aggravated and infused with the urge to respond with your opposing views. However, I welcome and will respond to all comments, negative and positive.
Love it, simply love it. I will never understand why people—Democrats, liberals, communists, socialists, anarchists and other misguided a-holes insist on pursuing socialism. It has never worked for any appreciable length of time and it never will. I checked this with snopes.com and learned that the e-mail has been around for more than fifteen years and perhaps longer, with various titles and referencing various schools. I seriously doubt that the experiment ever happened, whether before or after Obama ascended to his throne. Not that any of that matters, of course. I consider the experiment, whether real of false, to be a great and shining example of socialism and communism.
As you might expect, I have a story about this. Away back in the past century—in November of 1972—US Customs sent me to the United States Customs National Service Academy at Hoffstra University on New York’s Long Island. As an overall-clad country boy wearing clodhopper brogans and no socks, I was so thrilled that I could hardly maintain control of a certain feature of my anatomical waste elimination apparatus. My hope was that I would excel in my class and perhaps get an attaboy from the US Customs Service.
On my first day in class I knew that would never happen. Our instructor, a far past retirement age Customs officer faced the class and the first thing he told us was that we would be tested and graded on the various sections of the training, but we would not be required to make a passing grade, that our employment with Customs would not be affected, that in lieu of grades or diplomas we would be issued a Certificate of Attendance regardless of our final grade, whether superior or inferior.
The six-week course became a six-week vacation in New York for this ol’ country boy. I made only cursory glances at the various booklets and test papers and Customs publications, vowing to earn no grade above a C, and I was successful. Had I been even casually interested in making higher grades I believe that I would have been at the top of my class, which in itself would have been nothing to crow about. I can remember only one instance in which I stupidly raised my hand to tell the instructor that a two-step arithmetic problem that Customs officers would face on duty could be accomplished in one step, thus saving time and reducing errors in the calculation.
His answer? He took umbrage—well, he actually got really pissed-off and glowering mightily he said, “Do you want to teach this class?” I replied in the negative and I never raised my hand again, and I was never asked for an answer to any of his questions. That was probably a good thing, because had I been asked my answer would have been “Damned if I know,” even if I did know the answer.
I bore you with this diatribe only to point out that without competition, any system of government will fail miserably. Thanks for sending the e-mail. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
A hoary bromide tells us that “A drowning man will grasp at straws.” What if you, a
Chinese dissident, were treading water in the middle of the ocean, desperately
trying to keep your head above water with a monstrous storm looming on the horizon, and Mao Tse-Tung pulled up alongside in a powerboat and offered a helping hand—would you accept it?
Or what if you, a Russian dissident, were in the same situation and Joseph Stalin suddenly appeared and offered to help—would you reject him? Or what if you, a person of a certain faith and nationality, were sinking for the third time and Adolph Hitler extended a helping hand—would you start paddling in a different direction?
And finally, what if you, an American citizen, a beautiful young female nurse, were thrown a lifeline by Richard Speck, the mass murderer who tortured, raped and butchered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital—would you ignore it?
I can only speak for myself should I be in such a predicament, but I know that I would first consider the odds of my survival should I reject such an offer. I would spend perhaps two nano-seconds in consideration and then
accept the help and embrace the helper.
Our country is now in that situation. We are desperately paddling to avoid becoming and continuing to be a second-rate nation, drowning in unsustainable debt and no helping hand in sight. No, belay that—there is one offer on the table, an offer being made by a person that has the potential to save us from that watery grave. He is e pluribus unum, one among many who are making the same offer, but he is the only one who has the qualifications to get the job done. However—and this is a big however—he is struggling to be allowed to rescue our nation from descending into mediocrity.
From Dictionary.Com: Mediocrity is a situation which can occur in a democracy in which mediocre people prevail. The society is then subordinated to a quasi-egalitarian ideology in which words and ideas are redefined by mediocre people, to be convenient for mediocre people.
That person—let’s call him our potential savior—is being pilloried by various sections of our society for his past transactions, transitions and transgressions. He is from the “old school,” a Washington insider, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives who was elected ten times and spent twenty-one years in Congress before resigning his seat. Many attribute his “fall from grace” to his push for impeachment and removal from office of then-president Bill Clinton as the result of the president’s extramarital affair with a White House intern.
Even given all those negatives, Newt Gingrich is the only one of the ten
Republicans that is qualified to be the president of the United States and
the commander-in-chief of our armed forces. He is not a mediocre person.
He has the will and the knowledge to bring our country together if we only
give him the opportunity to utilize that knowledge.
I fear that history will judge us harshly if we do not give him the votes to allow him to take the necessary steps to strengthen our economy and restore our country to its greatness and its royal position among the other nations of the world. For many years we considered ourselves to be citizens of the greatest nation on earth, and most of the other nations agreed with us. Sadly, that agreement has been badly weakened.
To paraphrase Art Linkletter in his old-time television show, Kids say the darndest things, humor can be found in the darndest places. I received this video recently in an e-mail from a lovely retired couple in Florida that migrated from North to South, legally of course, leaving the winters of Ohio and fleeing for the flora and fauna of Florida, going from icicles to iguanas, from shoveling snow to seeking shade, and apparently living and loving every minute of life in the sunshine state.
This is the video from YouTube that the Florida couple sent, a video that has already been viewed one and three quarters of a million times—you can keep it moving towards the two million mark, but please be forewarned that it makes a strong political statement, an incredibly funny one but still definitely political.
If you tend to lean toward the left on the political spectrum you might want to skip the video—it might make you laugh even if you are so tilted to the left that you are lying down, so view it at your own peril. However, if you tend to lean toward the right even ever so slightly, you will be doing yourself a gross disservice if you don’t watch it. Please note that the audience found humor in four separate places in this brief portion of the president’s speech, but their laughter and applause reached a crescendo when the Great Communicator delivered the punchline. And at the time of this posting, 2, 625 viewers say they liked the video and only 80 have voiced their dislike. None of the votes is mine—I strive to remain neutral in this area, a position that is rather difficult to maintain and I sometimes stray, but I still try.
Let’s hear it for those stalwarts that are presently in attendance at Texas A&M University, for those that have been graduated by that school and for those that were prematurely tossed out for various but completely understandable reasons—faults such as a predilection for unnatural communion with small animals, for example, or for failure to attend at least seven percent of required classes over a period of six years, failure to achieve a solid D average over the same period, and failure to qualify for an undergraduate bachelor degree in fewer than eight years.
I have a certain amount of sympathy for the Aggies. I don’t believe they deserve the fusillade of stones and arrows that rain down on them from all points of the globe and from persons in all walks of life—well, perhaps some deserve such treatment, maybe—okay, perhaps most deserve such treatment, but certainly not all—there must be at least a few good apples in the Aggie barrel.
Aggies are the abject targets of social discrimination. Apparently they don’t teach sociology at Texas A & M, because any group that wishes to protect itself from discrimination has only to declare itself as a minority and document the discrimination—properly documented, the Aggies would be a shoo-in for designation as a minority and thereby entitled to all the privileges and benefits thereof.
Their request for minority status and freedom from discrimination should include the jillions of jokes—love that alliteration—that target the Aggies, jokes that in large measure have been converted from jokes aimed at other so-called minorities. The Aggies need only to believe that they are the victims of discrimination, declare themselves a minority, express that belief and then document the discrimination.
How easy is that!
And on the same subject and using that same sociological definition of what constitutes a minority and discrimination, I suggest that white folks—I favor that term over hill billies, whities, white trash, honkies, gringos, rednecks and trailer trash—identify themselves as a sociological minority and claim discrimination. It really doesn’t matter whether they are or are not the victims of discrimination, nor does it matter that they constitute a majority of the US population. Discrimination does not depend on population—read on.
The 2009 population figures show a total US population of 307 million, and whites alone constitute 65% of that total even after excluding the 30 million White Hispanics and Latino Americans in the population. Whites only are obviously not a minority in numbers, but the sociological definition requires only that a group believes itself to be discriminated against, expresses that belief, and documents the discrimination and that definition is satisfied—it does not depend on the number of people in the minority group.
Come on, all you Aggies! Get your stuff together and force us to pick on some other group—unwed fathers, for example, or maybe cross-dressing homeless Lower Slobovian refugees. The current hordes of wannabes clamoring for attention as potential candidates for the presidency of the United States of America under the GOP banner would be an ideal target to replace the proud present and past people—there’s that alliteration again—-with ties to Texas’ Agricultural and Mechanical University, the state’s first public institution of higher education, established by the Texas state legislature ‘way back in April of 1871.
What follows next is a joke that includes some suggestions for replacements that qualify as targets for jokes in order to reduce the pressure on Aggies. For example, you might ask someone, Didja hear about the two community organizers that, blah, blah, blah?
Now for the joke:
Have you heard the one about the two (at this point insertpolitical independents, republicans, democrats, communists, activists, community organizers, socialists, old maids or other persons) discussing the weather?
First person: It’s going to rain.
Second person: How do you know?
First person: My instincts.
Second person: My end stinks too, but it doesn’t predict the weather, rain or otherwise.
Click here for the original posting, dated 26 Feb 2011, that featured the instinct joke. In that one I used two little morons for the joke. There is some highly cogent political posturing included in that posting, so I’ll apologize in advance for that.
In your show on the evening of Friday, June 3, 2011 you covered Sarah Palin’s visit to Boston. You skewered her when she said that Paul Revere rode his horse through the towns to warn the people that the British were coming, and you said that Palin knows nothing. You said that the warning was one if by land and two if by sea, and that everybody knows that.
That phrase was not a warning—it was merely a signal to Paul Revere, as immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem Paul Revere’s Ride. Click here for the poem and Wikipedia’s discussion. And Chris, for your enlightenment the first two verses of the poem are as follows:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hand a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal light,
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
So there, Chris Matthews—that one if by land, and two if by sea was merely a signal to Paul Revere to jump on his horse and spread the alarm through every Middlesex village and farm, and here it needs to be pointed out that Palin used the term town as opposed to the term village, but in my unlearned opinion the two terms are interchangeable. In summary, Palin was right and you were wrong. And now to wrap this one up, although I do not enjoy repeating myself, I will repeat myself:
Nanny, nanny, boo-boo, Palin knows more than you do!
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
Postscript: I would be remiss if I failed to insert at least a smidgen of humor into this posting. Many years ago, far back in the mist-shrouded years of my boyhood in the past century, a popular corruption of Paul Revere’s Ride was told and retold by me and by my fellow elementary students:
Listen, my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
He jumped in his car and stepped on the gas,
And the floorboard flew up and busted his donkey.
In case you haven’t noticed, please note that the final word in the ditty above, namely the word donkey, obviously does not rhyme with gas—it is a harmless synonym used in an effort to remain in compliance with the language limitations favored by WordPress.
I voluntarily submitted myself to the excruciating torture of watching your show yesterday, June 3, 2011 and during your coverage of John Edwards’ current trials and tribulations I started counting the times you mispronounced John Edwards’ name. When you needed to show possession, without a single exception you pronounced his name as Edwardses, and somewhere around twenty I stopped counting, primarily because I ran out of fingers and toes.
Please note that I did not use an apostrophe in the word Edwardses in that last sentence—it’s impossible for a listener to detect the presence or the absence of an apostrophe in such usage. It may or may not have been present in the mind-numbing number of times you voiced it. With an apostrophe the word Edwards’es, or Edwards’s, is a violation of English usage—without an apostrophe Edwardses is a good word, forming the plural of the Edwards family, as in The Edwardses embarked on a family vacation aboard the Queen Elizabeth—I refer to the ocean liner, of course, not to the current royal monarch.
And no, in answer to the question that is probably forming in your mind one would not, or at least should not, identify the entire family as the Edwardss—the plural requires the es—that’s what makes it plural. Got it?
The es added to Edwards tells us that the whole famn damily went on vacation aboard the QE2. Based on that example, I would hazard a guess that each time you used the term it would be spelled thusly—Edwards’es—but I could be wrong. Words that end in an s are made possessive by the addition of an apostrophe only, not by an apostrophe and s, nor by the addition of an apostrophe and es.
Jumping Jehosaphat, Rachel! Even Sarah Palin knows that! If you were reading a teleprompter last night, I suggest that you fire the worker that compiled it, and if you were winging it I urge you to enroll in English 101—both you and your viewers will profit.
I received this joke in an e-mail at sometime in the distant past. For some inexplicable reason—heh, heh, heh—I saved it and now I would like to share it with my readers. It involves a conversation between two women, a domestic maid and her employer, the lady of the house. The maid begins the conversation, and her words are in bold letters—enjoy!
I want a raise.
Why?
For three reasons—the first is that I iron better than you.
Who told you that you iron better?
Your husband told me.
Oh.
The second reason is that I’m a better cook than you.
Who told you that you are a better cook?
Your husband told me.
Oh.
The third reason is that I am a better lover than you.
Really! And did my husband tell you that also?
No, senora. The pool boy told me.
How much of a raise would you like?
Postscript: A special disclaimer for my readers: To defend myself I echo the words shown on the Gadsen battle flag, a historical American flag with a yellow field depicting a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike, below which are the words DON’T TREAD ON ME. So please, Don’t tread on me. I did not choose the word senora, a Spanish word that identifies a married woman—yes, married. In Spanish an unmarried woman is properly addressed as senorita, regardless of her age. In this instance it refers to a married woman, the lady of the house and the
maid’s employer. The word obviously tells the reader that the maid is of
Hispanic extraction. The maid could have just as easily have said, Naw, m’am. I heered dat from yore pool boy, or perhaps her reply could
have been couched in Ebonic terms, or with an Oriental accent.
I originally posted this story in July of 2010. I came across it while browsing today and enjoyed it so much that I decided to share it with the multitudes of people that overlooked it. I know they overlooked it because it garnered only one comment and that was from a lovely lady that lives in Montgomery, and she probably felt compelled to comment because she is my niece and I am the only surviving uncle from her mother’s side of the family. Actually, if I were a female I would be the only surviving aunt from her mother’s family—yep, of the original seven children I am the last one standing, and yes, I’m a bit lonely!
This is an intriguing—albeit rather sad—tale of one small boy’s attempt to establish and cement friendship and perhaps help to promote cordiality between races in the deep South at a time long before the marches between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama and long before civil rights legislation was passed by Congress. Well, alright, I confess that I was also trying to add to my collection of marbles and because of my politically incorrect older sister I failed miserably, and instead found my collection reduced by a significant number, including some of my favorite pieces. Bummer!
The day I lost my marbles
Many years ago in Columbus, Mississippi on the corner of Fourth Street South and Ninth Avenue South there was a large colonial style two-story house with stately columns and a balcony, a house converted into apartments during World War II to accommodate the influx of military personnel from Columbus Air Force Base, a pilot training center. I haven’t been in that section of town for many years—it may still be standing, or it may have been razed and a modern brick structure erected on that lot.
I lived there for several months with my mother, my youngest sister Dot—short for Doris—and my stepfather. Jessie, my oldest sister, also lived there in a one-room apartment that shared a bathroom with another tenant. That house holds many memories for me, several of which I have posted on my blog—some of those memories are pleasant and some are not so pleasant. Click here to read about The tomato tempest, a story that includes a visit to Alabama, a sharecropper family, a suicide, an Army-issue Colt .45 caliber automatic pistol, a recalcitrant young girl and a stepfather with a vicious temper.
The house was only two or three blocks from a section of the city that was called by many names, mostly names that are not used in polite society today. In these modern times of political correctness, certain words are voiced only by their first letter and the word word added, as in the N-word or the F-word or the R–word—the R stands for Republican, a word that some are reluctant to use in fear that they will looked upon as such.
I suppose that in today’s parlance, the neighborhood just beyond where I lived as a boy would be referred to as N-town, an area primarily comprised of black families—the term African-American was unknown then, unknown at least in the circles in which I moved. I’ve never understood the rationale for expressing something like that—if it is true that the thought is as bad as the deed, then saying the N-word instead of the actual word in nothing more than an attempt to cover up the real word, and it’s not covered up—try it—just say the N-word to yourself and check the mental image it creates, both in the speaker and the listener. Let’s face it—it’s a cop out—if you’re going to think it, you might as well say it.
I knew only one person that lived in N-town, a black lady that came to the house every weekday to care for my niece, Jessie’s young daughter, then just a toddler. Millie also cleaned, cooked and ironed for Jessie over a period of many years at several different locations in the city. I never knew Millie’s last name—we simply called her Millie, possibly the diminutive form of Millicent. An unmarried lady, she lived with her family just a short walk from our house. I vividly remember numerous Saturday nights when Dot and I walked with Jessie and our mother to Millie’s house. Jessie and our mother, along with Millie and her mother formed a quartet and sang church hymns, A Capella, all the old favorites and they sometimes belted out fast-paced tunes that contrasted sharply with the well-known songs—I suppose they were songs popular at the time—pop tunes, so to speak.
The group stayed in the house in inclement weather and neighbors came and sat and listened, and in fair weather they formed on the front porch and neighbors came and sat and listened. My sister and I stayed outside, both in inclement and fair weather, playing all the games children play in the evening—Kick the Can, Pussy in the Corner, Tag, Hide and Seek and others, and sometimes we sat on the porch and told stories, mostly ghost tales—and I’m here to say that those kids could spin some very scary stories!
Now that I’ve laid the scene, I’ll progress to the when, where, why and how I lost my marbles. I arrived home from school and Millie and my niece, Millie’s charge, were the only ones there. Left to my own devices, I swept an area of the front yard clean, drew a circle and began playing marbles. Soon after I began one of the kids from Millie’s neighborhood came by, watched my shooting for a few minutes and asked if he could play. I said yes, and the battle was joined—we played for keeps, meaning that when a shooter knocked one of the other shooter’s marbles out of the ring, that marble changed ownership—it now belonged to the one that caused it to go outside the ring. At first I seemed to be in control, but as the game progressed I realized that I had agreed to a play-for-keeps game with a kid that was a much better shooter than I.
So did I call off the game? Not on your life! I had a reputation to support and I worked very hard to reclaim some of my marbles that now resided in the black kid’s pockets. I was almost marbleless when Jessie came home from work. She briefly watched us at play and then entered the house, and a short time later Millie came out and headed for home. Then Jessie returned to the front yard—Jessie, my oldest sister and the sister that often gave orders that I was required to obey. She ordered me into the house, and I told my new friend—my adversary—that I had to go in, and he headed for home also, his pockets bulging with marbles that earlier had been in my pockets.
Jessie told me later that it was not seemly for me to be seen playing with a N-word child, that it would look odd to our neighbors. I pointed out to her that I had lost most of my marbles, and that I appeared to be on a winning streak at the time she stopped the game. Her response to that? You shouldn’t have been playing for keeps—that’s gambling, and gambling’s a sin. I didn’t bother to argue that I played with the black kids on Saturday evenings. I knew that the difference was the difference between day and night, between light and dark. I was in full view during daylight hours, subject to the stares of disapproving blacks as well as whites, and in the darkness of the evening I was not subjected to such stares.
That’s it—that’s how I lost my marbles, a loss that I was never to recoup. I never saw that kid again—sometimes I think that he may have been a ringer, a professional sent in from another area to pick up some easy loot in the form of marbles, similar to what Paul Newman did in his movie, The Hustler—bummer!
This YouTube video is in no way related to the primary subject of this post, namely the treatment of raw sewage to recapture the 99.9% of raw sewage that is water and make it potable. I intend to end this post with the same video. I am presenting it here to ensure that my legions of followers have the opportunity to view it. If you view the video at this point and are so turned off by it that you don’t read the posting, it’s your loss—you’ll miss a highly educational essay—timely, well constructed and presented, and I say that with all sincerity aside. I know, I know, everyone always reads my posts all the way to the bottom, but just in case . . .
This morning while watching a cable show—MSNBC—I learned that at sometime in the future much of our drinking water will consist of treated sewage. That knowledge as defined by Wikipedia rests uneasy on one’s gustatory palate:
Sewage is water-carried wastes, in either solution or suspension that is intended to flow away from a community. Also known as waste water flows, sewage is the used water supply of the community. It is more than 99.9% pure water and is characterized by its volume or rate of flow, its physical condition, its chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains. Depending on its origin, waste water can be classed as sanitary, commercial, industrial, agricultural or surface runoff.
The spent water from residences and institutions carrying body wastes, washing water, food preparation wastes, laundry wastes and other waste products of normal living is classed as either domestic or sanitary sewage.
The purpose of this post is an attempt to allay the fears of those that may be taken aback when told that the water they drink in the future will be sewage, coming direct to them as treated sewage from some remote treatment plant that has taken the action necessary to eliminate contaminants from raw sewage and now wants people to believe that the water is pure and potable—drinkable.
I know that’s a stretch, given the fact that the so-called sanitary sewage includes body wastes donated—love that term donated—by the community. However, I have personal knowledge that the decontaminated liquid may be consumed without fear of the consumer becoming contaminated—how that knowledge was gained is the purpose of this post.
As a young boy growing up between the ages of six and nine years I lived near a flow of treated sewage moving away from the city’s treatment plant via an open concrete-floored ditch—locals called it the Big Ditch—idling along on its way to Luxapalila Creek, a stream that joins Mississippi’s Tombigbee River, a stream that converges with the Alabama River to form the Mobile River that in turn empties into Mobile bay on the Gulf of Mexico—take that, Mobile!
Purely as an aside, the Indian word Luxapalila is said to translate into English as floating turtles. Considering the effluvial characteristics of human waste materials entering the stream, perhaps the first syllable of turtles, accidentally but aptly, describes the water and its contents—how’s that for coincidence!
But I digress—back to the Big Ditch, its contents and the marvelous flora and fauna that thrived—-or throve, take your pick—when I was a boy. The ditch may well be covered by now, or perhaps its contents have been diverted elsewhere. Many years have passed since I was treated—so to speak—to a life in that area and that era. Perhaps the Big Ditch is still fulfilling its destiny as a playground for the enjoyment of today’s children, activities in dialectical opposition to their parent’s wishes.
On more than one occasion I and one or more of my boyhood friends—always boys, although girls would have been welcomed and we would have been delighted by their company, but none accepted our invitations—dined on the banks of the Big Ditch, feasting on fried frog legs and hack-berry tea, a simple meal easily prepared. From our respective homes we brought a small frying pan, a small pot for boiling water, a block of pure lard, our pocket knives, a bit of corn meal, a pinch of salt, a few matches and our appetites to the Big Ditch, a Shangri-la for giant green bullfrogs easily rounded up by a couple of hungry boys.
We built a small fire and boiled water for our tea—yes, we used the nearest available source of water, that which flowed along the bottom of the Big Ditch. When the water was boiling we dumped in handfuls of hackberries gathered from the proliferation of hack-berry trees that thrived on the banks of the ditch.
The hack-berry tea was set aside to cool, and we heated the pure lard in the frying pan. After separating the legs of several frogs from their bodies we skinned the legs, rolled them in the corn meal, placed them in the frying pan and turned them until brown.
Don’t laugh—our culinary talents and our gustatory senses at our age were underdeveloped and unrefined, and we had minimum expectations that the meal would equal those served in fancy French restaurants specializing in fried frog legs and offering fine wines to accompany the meal—cuisses et vin de grenouille frits—the French refer to the legs of frogs as thighs instead of legs. The use of the word thighs is probably considered a sexual reference by the French, intended to affect the mood of a dinner companion, whether male or female. A Frenchman might say, Mon cher, j’aime le goût des cuisses, delivered softly and translated as My dear, I love the taste of thighs—his after-dinner delights would be guaranteed—dessert, so to speak.
So there you have it—treated sewage can be safely ingested, digested and further processed by humans without fear of damage to their bodies or their life expectancy. My body shows no perceptible damage from the meals of cuisses et vin de grenouille frits, and I am just a hop, skip and a jump away from successfully completing eight decades of living life to its fullest—whether because of the frog legs or in spite of the frog legs is unknown. However, also unknown is the collective fates of my various boyhood companions. Some of them or all of them by this time may have already exchanged their earthly realm for one or the other of our two alternatives.
I must reluctantly admit that the others—some of them, none of them or all of them—may have already succumbed to the ravages of various diseases that were directly attributed to those meals of cuisses et vin de grenouille frits, and I do not recommend such meals to today’s boys, at least not meals garnered from the same source or similar sources—nope, I would neither recommend it nor suggest it.
I am of the opinion that today’s youth, although physically larger, stronger and enjoying greater longevity and enhanced motor skills, are not significantly more intelligent—in fact many, perhaps most, are somewhat lacking in basic subjects as demonstrated by accumulated grades given on an incredible numbers of tests administered by our schools. There are so many unknowns that I hesitate to imply that meals such as we prepared in the Big Ditch increases longevity, but I will postulate that such meals may promote a higher level of intelligence.
Today’s youth lag behind in the three Rs—reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic and their skills in communication skills are deplorable—they are deficient both in receiving and transmitting the spoken word, obviously derelict in vocal expression and auditory reception. I feel that my detailing just one of my eating habits as a boy proves, at least in some degree, that consumption of treated sewage water will not be harmful to us and our neighbors, and that proof has been beautifully presented to my viewers. That’s why I was motivated to make this posting and I feel that I have made my point—my efforts were successful and productive for society.
I apologize for diverting my attention to other problems facing our society and our nation—I couldn’t help it—it’s either in my nature or it could possibly be the result of my being distracted by a cantankerous keyboard.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Postscript: The fact that I frequently watch MSNBC does not mean that I like MSNBC. I frequently tune in to get the side of the news and opinions that are presented by other, more reliable and more truthful cable entities. I do not dislike MSNBC—I enjoy its graphics and its presentations of news that are not permeated with and perforated by personal political presentations, situations that are far less frequent than presentations that are afflicted—tainted, so to speak—well, let’s face it—filled with and distorted by such taints and afflictions. Tune in to MSNBC on any weekday evening and listen to the talking heads in its evening lineup—you’ll be both attracted and reviled by their vituperative views on subjects ranging from A to Z—from armadillos to zebras–but particularly on Cs and Rs—Conservatives and Republicans.
One more postscript: Having clicked on the center of the above YouTube video, you have read the notice that someone, somewhere and somehow decided that the videos violated copyright, and it is stated that “the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants including Real Clear Politics” . . .
Obviously when I showed the video and in effect compared it with the effluvia and solid particles that characterized the Big Ditch in my boyhood, I stepped on someone’s pepperoni and they demonstrated their ability to exercise their right to censure that part of of this post. I consider it a violation of my right to express my disgust of the vituperative drivel that nightly spews from the show. It’s still on YouTube, along with similar excerpts from other Ed Shultz’ nightly rants—check ’em out.
And just one more note: I understand now why the network abruptly tossed Keith Olberman out the window—they didn’t need him because they had Ed Shultz.
Supposed has only two syllables, not three—got it?
The world is in turmoil, and our country is currently in the midst of an upheaval caused by a never-ending battle waged by conservatives on one side and on the other side liberals, NOW, communists, fascists, Muslims, progressives, Nazis, abolitionists, various ethnic and racial minorities including blacks and Hispanics, many of the Jewish persuasion, unions, gays, and those that are vertically challenged—short people.
I have, at great length over a considerable period of time, closely observed and analyzed the current problems in the world, problems such as the revolutions underway in the Middle East and in Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana and potentially in every state not governed by a conservative, and the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
Yes, Iraq—anyone that believes the war in Iraq is over is taking the proverbial head in the sand stance attributed to the ostrich, or better still, everyone that believes the war is over has their heads up their collective—sorry, the rest of that phrase escapes me. People in Iraq continue to die by the dozens from explosives-laden vests worn and detonated by morons anxious to meet the seventy-two virgins promised by their religion—die by the dozens has a nice alliterative ring, don’t you think?
At this point I must digress in order to inform my viewers, in the unlikely event that they are unaware that there are only 72 virgins available in the heavenly beyond, that it is not simply a matter of first come, first served, because all arrivals are served—or serviced, so to speak—equally. The same 72 are used by all, but it is written that regardless of the frequency with which those ladies are ravished, they remain chaste—ain’t that a hoot!
I have also considered the plethora of medical problems that plague mankind, problems such as malaria, HIV, AIDS and ingrown toenails, and class warfare and nature’s calamities such as tornados, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, mudslides, forest fires and the plight of the Snail Darter and the Blind Salamander and the host of other threatened fauna and flora species in our country and across the globe, including Atractosteus spatula calico magna, the snaggle-toothed alligator gar found only in southern states, primarily Mississippi—okay, okay, I admit that I made up the snaggle-toothed part—oh, okay, I made up the entire name—well, most of it anyway.
Having given so much consideration to so many problems, I have selected one, and only one, to discuss on WordPress. It’s one that I can discuss with certainty, and perhaps in some way, in some measure, change the course of that problem and relieve at least one of the many adverse conditions that plague civilization, specifically our supposedly civilized English-speaking nations—please note the four-syllable construction of the word supposedly—I will explain that construction in the next paragraph. The following statement explains the problem I have with the way many people pronounce supposed: The word has only two syllables—not three!
Only two syllables but many, perhaps most, talking heads on television, whether guests or hosts, pronounce the word sup-pos-ed with three syllables. Those people are supposedly well educated, erudite even—at this point please note that the adverb form of the verb suppose has four syllables—sup pos ed ly—but that construction is not a problem—everyone gets that one right.
Many of those people pronouncing the word supposed with three syllables are attorneys, graduates of ivy league universities, many with PHDs, high ranking government officials whether elected or appointed, priests, teachers and school administrators and a multitude of others from every walk of life, people that emulate the pronunciation of the word by people they admire, believing that if they use that pronunciation it must be right, coming from such a supposedly erudite group—and once again there’s that four-syllable construction of the word.
In my survey of the pronunciation of the word by talking heads on cable television, I found those folks on Fox News to be the most frequent offenders, including the gaggle of attorneys that appear on that channel. That’s a real mystery for me—all of them certainly have at least one college degree, and many have several. I will, grudgingly, give Glenn Beck a pass on mispronunciation of supposed because he is not a graduate of any so-called higher institution of learning.
In previous posts I have mentioned a lady that I have known for many years, a lady for whom English is a second language. Her native language will become apparent by my saying that she pronounced the English letter I as an E, thus the term nit picker came across as neet peeker—I suppose it could have been worse in some other foreign language, coming across as neat pecker, for example, or perhaps as gnat pecker.
I mention that lady only because there is a slight possibility that one or more of my viewers may consider me to be nit picking in my effort to educate the public to the correct pronunciation of the word supposed whenused as an adjective, as in the term the supposed murderer, or the supposed philanderer, etc.
I am neither neet peeking nor nit picking—my efforts in this venue are similar to the ever ongoing search for the Holy Grail, the vessel from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper, and comparable to the search for the Golden Fleece, the fleece of a golden-haired winged ram that was the offspring of the sea god Poseidon, the fleece that was so long and so arduously sought by Jason and his band of Argonauts.
The same people that pronounce the word supposed with three syllables also pronounce the two-syllable word alleged with three syllables, as in al-ledge-ed. I suppose I should make that a separate post, but I won’t bother—it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. May the Grand Protector of Syllables forgive them—I won’t!
On a recent Sunday morning I unrolled my home-delivered plastic-bagged copy of the San Antonio Express-News, the only daily newspaper in the seventh largest city in America, with a potential audience of some two million readers. Prominent on the front page was an article announcing planned changes in menus of military dining halls, specifically at Fort Sam Houston, Texas but eventually in military dining halls world-wide. Click on the image below to read the front-page portion of the article.
As a retired military person I can appreciate and accept all the changes except one. I do not mourn the loss of fat, French fries, sugar and salt and I welcome whatever substitutes replace those items, but gravy? GRAVY? Not gravy, please dear Lord don’t let them outlaw gravy. Without gravy there will be no SOS, a dish that is embraced emotionally and gastronomically by everyone that has ever served in any of the United States military forces. SOS is primarily a breakfast entree—gravy with chipped beef, hamburger meat or sausage added, and usually served as a stand-alone spread on toast or biscuits with various other items added if desired—bacon or sausage, perhaps, or eggs cooked to order, or pancakes or all the above.
Those in the stratospheric zones of the military hierarchy—commissioned officers and their families—usually refer to SOS as creamed chipped beef on toast, or creamed hamburger on toast, or creamed sausage on toast—creamed is simply a euphemism for gravy. However, the unwashed hordes in the military services, the enlisted population including NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers) are comprised of those always willing to call a spade a spade—oops, delete that phrase—it is so not politically correct—make the phrase willing to tell it like it is instead. That elite group of military persons refer to the breakfast delicacy as Shit On a Shingle, with the toast being the shingle and meat gravy the shit, thusly SOS. As a side note, that culinary masterpiece known as SOS is also called Stew On a Shingle and Same Old Stuff. The words may be different, but the visual appearance and taste of the mixture are the same.
Please say it ain’t so, Barack!
Please say it ain’t so, Michelle!
Please don’t do away with gravy—that will sound the death knell for SOS, a breakfast choice for untold millions of men and women in America’s armed forces, in peace and war in virtually every country on the planet, a breakfast delicacy that has been around since long before World War II, and in my opinion helped the United States win its wars—with the exceptions of Korea and Viet Nam and possibly Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that are still unfolding. Although we are claiming the war in Iraq to be a victory, it will probably be rated as a failure in future history books, as will Afghanistan—that is purely my opinion, and I freely admit that opinion is similar to a certain body orifice, the operation of which is controlled by the sphincter muscle—everybody has one, and that’s mine.
Please don’t throw SOS under the bus, Mr. and Mrs. Obama. I believe in change just as much as anyone, including battle-hardened Democrats, but I draw the line on the elimination of SOS from military dining halls. As a home-care giver for many years, I have been a frequent morning visitor to San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center and to Lackland’s Wilford Hall Medical Center, and although I have lost my reason for being a home-care giver, I will continue to use both entities for my own medical care, and you may be assured that I will, at every opportunity, enjoy an SOS breakfast in the hospital cafeterias as long as it is served.
And you may also be assured that if SOS is dropped from their breakfast menus I will look elsewhere for SOS and give my business to those other locations, including such ubiquitous outlets as Whataburger and the myriad Jim’s Restaurants in San Antonio, both of which proudly serve sausage gravy on biscuits for breakfast.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Postscript: In my outcry against the demise of SOS I used the term eggs cooked to order, and I must tell my readers that in the hospital cafeteria at San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center you can in fact have your eggs cooked to order, except you cannot have soft-scrambled eggs, eggs over-easy, eggs over-medium or eggs sunny-side up. You can only have them hard scrambled, fried hard on both sides, scrambled hard in an omelet or hard-boiled. The rules are in place to prevent salmonella.
But listen up, and I’ll whisper this in your ear: Go to the hospital cafeteria at Lackland’s Wilford Hall Medical Center and you can get your eggs made to order. Just tell the cook what you want and you’ll get it, up to and including fresh eggs cracked in a bowl and served raw, as many as you want and none having been anywhere near flames or heat, usually ordered by those trying to bulk-up for competition in such sports as wrestling and boxing and, of course, for those that just enjoy flexing their muscles for the opposite sex, and in some instances for the same sex.
Hey, it happens—at my age I don’t flex and I never have, couldn’t even if I tried because I never ate raw eggs, but even at my age I still get flexed at—not all that often, but once in awhile. I believe some men follow the advice contained in a song my brother used to sing, namely that, If you can’t get a woman, get a clean old man.
That’s the end of my story and my postscript and I’m sticking to both.
This e-mail, dated December 13, 2010 is from a long-time friend, a great lady that left the semi-arid spaces of San Antonio, Texas for greener pastures in another realm earlier in 2010. Evidently my computer considered it to be spam and sent it straight to my junk mail. I was cleaning out the files and I found it just this morning. It was a bit startling because she died in the summer of 2010, long before the date of this e-mail, but then I realized that her husband is still using her e-mail for correspondence.
I hesitated a long time—about five seconds—before deciding to post this on my blog for the edification, enlightenment and amusement of my readers. Whether true or not, I’ll bet you’ll find it just as humorous as I did. I doubt that the senator will read this, but if he does I’ll bet it will elicit a smile—at the very least.
A Lesson in Creative Writing
It’s all about how you put it into words . . .
Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher in southern California, was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Senator Harry Reid’s great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor. The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory.
On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription:
Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.
So Judy recently e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle. The reply was as follows:
Senator Harry Reid
Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.
Now that’s how it’s done, folks—that’s real political spin!
Readers of this post will note that I discuss, in some detail, the star rating system provided by WordPress. Readers will also note, just in case they wanted to vote, that the voting system is not available, neither for this post nor for any others on my blog. It is not available because a reader rated one of my literary efforts with a vote somewhere less than five stars—four stars, perhaps, but also perhaps only one star. I removed the rating system because I feel that if someone does not like an entry, they should tell why they believe it rates less than five stars, and not hide in the bushes and take pot shots at a blogger. If a reader is not satisfied with an entry on WordPress, then that reader should use the comment feature to criticize. I can only speak for myself, but if the criticism is valid and expressed in good taste, I will cheerfully approve it and cheerfully respond to it. Well, perhaps not so cheerfully, but I will respond, and that response will be in good taste.
As the title indicates, this is a revisit to a previous post—the original is as follows:
Be aware—be very aware . . .
I have just learned a new word. Given the remote possibility that one or more of my viewers may be unfamiliar with the word I will use it in a sentence, for their benefit and to help spread the word far and wide. At this point, in the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that when I first saw the word I figured it referred to some sort of alcoholic drink because of its resemblance to the Spanish word sangria, “. . . a delicious, fruit-based wine “punch” with its traditional heritage well rooted in Spain.”
First, the presentation and definition of that word—to paraphrase Sarah Palin, “Here’s a new word for ya!”
1. sanguinary—accompanied by bloodshed; “this bitter and sanguinary war”sanguineous, slaughterous, butcherly, gory bloody—having or covered with or accompanied by blood; “a bloody nose”; “your scarf is all bloody”; “the effects will be violent and probably bloody”; “a bloody fight”
2. sanguinary—marked by eagerness to resort to violence and bloodshed; “bloody-minded tyrants”; “bloodthirsty yells”; “went after the collaborators with a sanguinary fury that drenched the land with blood”–G.W.Johnson—bloodthirsty, bloody-minded bloody—having or covered with or accompanied by blood; “a bloody nose”; “your scarf is all bloody”; “the effects will be violent and probably bloody”; “a bloody fight”
Here is the new word (example #2 in bold) properly used in a sentence:
The sanguinary talking heads on cable’s MSNBC, labeled PMSNBC by Rush Limbaugh, comprise a group of professionals, a group in which all, in varying degrees, launch verbal and vicious attacks on everyone and everything they consider to be standing on, or even leaning towards, the political right in our nation’s political spectrum.
I neither condemn nor praise the speakers on MSNBC. In an attempt to understand both sides of political issues, I attempt to devote equal viewing and listening time to MSNBC and another network, a network that claims to be fair and balanced, saying We report, you decide—catchy and lofty phrases, but phrases that one should not accept whole cloth—the facts and opinions expressed on that network should be compared to facts and opinions expressed on other networks.
For anyone that may need their memory freshened on the meaning of whole cloth, the following definition is furnished—the bolding of certain words is mine:
[Q] From an anonymous correspondent: Do you have any information on the meaning or origin of the term whole cloth?
[A] Literally, the phrase refers to a complete piece of cloth as it is first made, as opposed to one which has been cut up to make garments. It goes back at least to the fifteenth century in that sense. Down the years, it has been used in a variety of figurative senses, but in the early nineteenth century it began to be employed in the US in the way that we now know, of something that is wholly fabricated or a complete lie. The implication seems to be that a thing made from whole cloth has no previous history or associations, that it is created from a blank sheet in the same way that a total lie is invented.
And finally this posting has come to its end, or at least it is nearing its end. Whether it is a noble or ignoble posting must be decided by its viewers. Each viewer will have the opportunity to rate the posting at its conclusion with five levels—stars—to use for voting.
Note that a vote to the far right star means excellent, and a vote to the far left star means poor, and I believe that one could surmise that the star in the middle stands for average—the center, if you will.
The positioning and the relative value of the stars is either a startling coincidence or a really well thought out and well developed voting system furnished by WordPress. Color me wary and susceptible to subliminal messages, but I seem to fixate on a particular star for voting purposes, and I rarely deviate from that position. Could it possibly be that the voting system reflects the the far right, far left and center positions on our political scale?
I report, you decide.
You should be aware and cognizant of the stars’ positions and their relative values before you vote. You will not have the option of changing your vote, so please don’t vote erroneously and paint yourself into a corner, so to speak—you may leave a posting with a specific label, other than the one to which you adhere, attached to your lapel—so to speak.
I just noticed that in my typing above I inadvertently omitted the first A in be aware and failed to space, thus combining the words be and aware. I corrected the typos but not before I noticed something significant that resulted from my errors. Can you guess what resulted? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two won’t count.
Give up? Fail to space between the words be and aware and omit the a and the two words are converted to beware. I have just created a maxim, namely that, “If one does not be aware of all possibilities of certain situations, one should beware,” shortened to “Be aware, or beware!”
That admonition qualifies as outstanding poster material and should be posted in every work center, on every street corner, on every marquee, on the giant digital billboards in Times Square, on auto license plates, on Hallmark’s greeting cards, on home wall decorations and prominently displayed on ladies purses as a reminder to the lady that purse snatchers prey on women, and as a warning to potential purse snatchers that the lady is very much aware of that fact. The possibilities are endless—as is, apparently, this posting.
How about that? I probably should copyright that maxim and charge for its use—I could profit significantly from my creation! No, not really—as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun, and I’m sure my creation is not new—knowing that it is not new does not preclude my claiming to be its discoverer—it’s in my nature!
If this posting garners a significant number of votes, the results may be worthy of a subsequent posting, so I urge all viewers to follow the example of many that vote in our local, regional and national elections:
Vote early and vote often!
I welcome and will respond to all comments, whether positive or negative, but please be gentle.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Postscript: Since posting this dissertation I have deleted, from all my postings, the counter that allowed viewers to vote on the content and quality of my postings. I took this action because a viewer, perhaps more than one viewer, cast something less than a vote of excellence—less than five stars.
On Friday, January 21, 2011 there was a happening, something that occurred which in my estimation and opinion equals the end of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first man on the moon and the discovery of penicillin. I feel that I can speak with at least a touch of authority because I was present for all three of the wars and actively engaged in the latter two wars, and I sold lots of newspapers on my route during World War II.
I predict that when the day comes that a cure for cancer is discovered, that event will take its rightful place in history, along with the events mentioned and along with the departure of Keith Olberman from MSNBC.
As of this writing it is unknown, at least in the sphere in which I toil, whether Olberman’s departure was acknowledged by management with a ceremonial POTS or a ceremonial KITA. The former involves a pat on the shoulder and the latter involves a hearty kick in the—well, you get my drift.
Away back in the past century in the 1990s, during the times when I became utterly bored with virtually every television channel in the hundreds of channels available to me—and only then—I watched ESPN’s SportsCenter where Keith Olberman presided and postured as co-host. I deep-sixed that channel and the show the night that a caller to the show said that his efforts—the caller’s—to accomplish some goal were futile, with the word futile pronounced the same as feudal. After the caller hung up, Olberman told his listeners—and the caller—that the word should be pronounced few-tile.
Yep, that one unthinking, unlettered piece of blather did it—I have not watched NBC’s SportsCenter since then—in fact, I don’t know where the channel is or if it still exists.
Thank you, MSNBC. Regardless of your reasons for splitting the blanket with Keith Olberman, I thank you. There are several other lesser lights on MSNBC, lights that should be extinguished as was Keith Olberman, or trained to respect the feelings of their non-radical, non-leftwing, non-Democrat viewers that tune in to their programs in search of opposing views, voiced in logical terms and in non-violent tones, and instead such viewers get splattered with offal—the opinions and analyses of politics and politicians on the opposite side of the spectrum from theirs are delivered by those lesser lights in a disrespectful, calculated, insolent and destructive manner.
The term cross-hairs has been prominent in recent political circles. I have a sneaking hunch that the cross-hairs were centered on Keith Olberman by the upper echelons of MSNBC, that he was aware that he was the target, and that he elected to step out of range before the trigger was pulled. I believe that the spotlight has probably been shifted to focus on one or more of the lesser lights on MSNBC. Normally I dislike naming names, but in this instance I will step away from normal.
I believe that the spotlight should now be centered—nay, make that the cross-hairs that should be centered—on Ed S. and Rachael M. and Chris M. and yes, also on Lawrence O., MSNBC’s selection to ascend the throne recently vacated by Olberman. When the hair on the backs of their necks begins to stand up, they will voluntarily enter into a kinder and gentler discourse—otherwise, it’s POTS or KITA for one or more or all.
Listen up, MSNBC!
Your people should try to emulate British readers of the news, people that make every effort possible to discuss events calmly and without taking sides in those events. And in the interests of full disclosure, I will readily admit that the other side has its detractors on television. Not all are fair and balanced, and some voice personal opinions and analyses of politics and politicians, but nowhere near the viral and destructive level consistently practiced by the nightly hosts that are highlighted and pictured in this posting.
Palin, guns, massacre, Ed, Chris, guests, et al . . .
Okay, let’s see if I have this right:
Immediately following the recent Saturday massacre at a Safeway outlet in Tucson, liberals skewered Sarah Palin for using symbols related to guns and gun use, symbols such as cross-hairs pointing to Democrat incumbents that should be targeted for the recent congressional elections, and for using such terms as don’t retreat, reload and similar gun-related expressions. Radio and television communication airways and publications continued discussing violent rhetoric around the clock for several days, speculating that it had contributed to the massacre and. They called our attention to the fact that the one-time Alaska governor was “strangely quiet,” and intimated that her silence was an obvious sign that she realized her actions had contributed to the massacre, and that she had no ammunition available to fire back at the attack being made on her by far left commentators and their guests. Note the italized gun-related terms such as cross-hairs, ammunition and fire back—our language is replete with such terms, and any attempt to relate that to the massacre is not only preposterous—it’s also utterly stupid.
After several days of silence Palin returned fire—see, there I go again with the gun-related terms. She posted an eight-minute video on Facebook, and that effort to explain her position brought a broadside of criticism from the left, a veritable fusilade of bullets fired by left-wing proponents on television, both main stream and cable. Again, note the gun-related terms—they are inherent in our use of the English language—without them we would be stifled in our efforts to communicate, and yet Sarah Palin is pilloried for her use of such terms.
As an aside, I want to point out to MSNBC that its worst commentator—and I mean that term worst in all its definitions—has a section of his nightly presentation called Rapid-Fire. Would you like to explain that reference to gun use, Ed? Would you consider changing that title, Ed? No, I didn’t think so, Ed.
As told by those on the left in political circles, the governor’s biggest mistake in her video was her reference to the term blood libel. Here is what she said on Facebook:
“Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that only incites the violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
I humbly submit that this was the brightest light in her presentation—I consider that a teachable moment, one capable of enlightening our nation’s entire population with a term that has hounded and preyed on the Jewish people for centuries. The term was completely unknown to me, and I am convinced that it was completely unknown to the other 308 million people in the United States—except, of course, by many religious scholars and by the Jewish population in the United States, a group estimated to be somewhere between five million and seven million souls. I’m willing to bet as much as half-a-barrel of pickled anuses that most of the people in that group are quite familiar with the phrase blood libel.Click here for an explanation and history of the term blood libel.
I consider myself to be at least partially educated. In addition to the life experiences I have accumulated during a relatively long life, a life that includes 22 years of military service covering two wars, both of which we lost, and 26 years of service as a federal law enforcement officer. I have been awarded two college diplomas, a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Bachelor of Science degree, each from accredited four-year universities, one in Texas and the other in Nebraska, and each conferred the degree to recognize four full years of study. Much of that study was concentrated on religious thought and history, including Judaism, but the term blood libel was never discussed. I never read it in textbooks and never heard it spoken in classroom discussions, probably because the text books had been purged of the term or the term had never been included.
A certain African-American member of the United States House of Representatives appeared on The Ed Show recently. When the host, Big Ed, asked for his take on Palin’s reference to blood libel, the congressman said this: I have heard it before but I have since studied up on it, undoubtedly in order to better understand it for his appearance on MSNBC. Click here for Ed’s show dated Thursday, January 13, 2011 and the video discussing blood libel. That part begins around the 10-minute marker of the video, so you won’t have to suffer through the first 10 minutes—unless you are an Ed fan and want to suffer through it.
I have serious doubts that the congressman had ever heard of the term until Sarah Palin provided him with a teachable moment, just as she provided one to me. He probably claimed to have known about it in order to save face, just as I would have done had I been asked about it, whether in public or in private—see, I’m honest about it—I’m never reluctant to say, Hey, that’s a new one on me! I thrive on teachable moments, both receiving and giving.
The Ed Show on MSNBC is hosted nightly by Ed Schultz, a gimlet-eyed version of Pillsbury’s Doughboy. Before I begin my letter, I’ll share my characterization of his show:
T—-terrorizing H—-harrowing E—-effluvium
E—evil D—despicable
S—scurrilous H—haranguing
O—oaffish
W—worst
An open letter to Ed Shultz
On January 12, 1911 you gave your viewers the results of an opinion poll you conducted, a poll consisting of just one question: Do you think Sarah Palin should apologize for her violent rhetoric? The answer that 82 percent of his viewers gave was a resounding yes.
Ed, do us a favor and ask your viewers to respond to this question:
Should Sarah Palin be arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to prison for taking a shot at a duly elected member of Congress?
I believe that the same 82 percent that said yes to the violent rhetoric question would say yes to that question—at least 82 percent, perhaps even more. None will ask for more details—their answer to the question will be based purely on the phrase taking a shot at a member of Congress, just as their answer to your question was based on the phrase violent rhetoric.
Opinion polls are easily manipulated. Simply—and simple is the operative word—the pollster needs only to decide what answer is wanted, then structure the question to get that answer. Had you asked if she should apologize for voicing her political opinions, only your hard-core viewers would have voted in the affirmative. I know that, you know that, your handlers know that and any rational thinker knows that.
I consider your show and your presentations on that show comparable to Michael Vick tossing out red meat to his stable of pit bull fighting dogs. If one can believe the current news—and that’s a really big stretch—Michael Vick, having paid his debt to society by being incarcerated for a relatively brief period considering his debt, has reformed. I wonder what it would take to reform television personalties of your ilk—and yes, I acknowledge that there are others on both sides of the political spectrum but I consider most—not all but most—well below the level of rancor and character assassination you consistently maintain.
I would like to believe that your show, nightly flooded with the vilest effluvium extant, is structured in accordance with the wishes of your handlers, the bosses at MSNBC. I would like to believe that it is something other than egoism, a doctrine that states that the pursuit of self-interest is the highest good, or perhaps egotheism, the identification of oneself with God—or both the latter and perhaps all three—a veritable Trinity of self-adulation.
That is what I would like to believe, and I do believe it. That which I do not believe is that you believe yourself—your nightly ranting and raving is done for the money—nothing more, nothing less. In the inimitable words of Bill O’Reilly, Where am I going wrong?
This morning and most of yesterday I have been watching and listening to only a couple of cable channels, namely Fox News and MSNBC, two channels that are at opposite ends of the political spectrum—well, no, not at opposite ends—one of the channels is at or near the center of the political spectrum, but regardless of their positions on the spectrum they are diametrically opposed and as the result of my fixation I cannot eat, although I am ravenously hungry.
I cannot eat because I know that if I do, I will instantly regurgitate the contents of my stomach, just as the talking heads on MSNBC and most of their guests are regurgitating every comment ever made by every conservative political figure in this country that in any way can be twisted to factor into, and in some way—any way—be blamed for the massacre that took place in Tuscon, Arizona Saturday.
I’ve been watching people of many different races and backgrounds and nationalities and listening to their spoken words and reading their written thoughts for almost eight decades, and in all that time combined I have never been subjected to such an avalanche of unadulterated drivel.
A case in point: Sarah Palin’s use of phrases and images such as in our sights and targets, although acknowledged by MSNBC staff and guests as only symbols, and symbols are perceived differently by different people, the idiotic comment inevitably follows that, Well, yes, that’s true, but perceptions become reality.
No, perceptions do not become reality. No matter what any person perceives and no matter how they perceive that something, any act that person commits, whether legal or illegal comes from that person, not from that perception. The idea that perception becomes reality is nothing more than a crutch used by the intellectually crippled—read MSNBC—to navigate from a thorough lack of knowledge to false knowledge, thoroughly satisfied that they have reached the truth.
Balderdash, I say—balderdash! There is another term that says it better, a term consisting of two words. The first word begins with a B and the second with an S, usually followed with an exclamation point. Although I have descended into using the term in prior verbal and written exercises, I will abstain from using it here because it might detract from the purity of this discussion.
If it were true that perception becomes reality, every political cartoonist in every nation on earth would be hanged and flayed by the opposing forces, just as MSNBC is doing now for political conservatives, particularly Tea Party persons.
As the world now exists, cartoonists that satirize Islamic prophets and other Muslim figures are subject to be flayed alive and then hanged, an issue that is promoted by publishers withdrawing cartoonists’ works and apologizing for such actions, and politicians cautioning their constituents to refrain from such satirizing, whether spoken or written.
Here’s a sample of MSNBC’s rhetoric—not equal to that of Keith or Ed, two of the most virulent hosts on that channel, but a fair example. This paragraph was extracted today from NBC’s First Read web site entitled First thoughts: A new chance for civility?
The spotlight on Palin: Of course, this all brings us to Sarah Palin. What took place on Saturday in Arizona could end up haunting her, if she decides to run for higher office. More than any other public actor, Palin—the 2008 GOP VP nominee—has embodied today’s combative political rhetoric (“Don’t retreat, instead reload), and her “target” list to defeat Democratic members who voted for the health-care bill (including Giffords) has received a considerable amount of attention since Saturday. As Politico’s Martin writes, “Whether she defends, explains or even responds at all to the intense criticism of her brand of confrontational politics could well determine her trajectory on the national scene—and it’s likely to reveal the scope of her ambitions as well.”
I marked the words that support my reason for making this posting. Palin’s words are retreat, reload and target. Note the words used by Politico’s Martin: trajectory and scope, both related to firearms and bless Martin’s liberal soul, he is probably blissfully unaware of that. The word combative also appears in the paragraph and since it was not attributed to Palin I also marked that in bold letters.
Palin is a firearms advocate and a hunter, and as such these terms are perfectly normal, logical and descriptive words for her to use.
Come on, MSNBC—lighten up! You don’t really believe the vitriol, the poison, the garbage that spews from the mouths of people with such names as Keith and Ed and Chris and Rachael and Lawrence, and they don’t even believe it themselves. At heart, deep down deep in their inner being—their souls, so to speak—they are decent law-abiding, family loving, American flag waving, Constitution abiding people, and are simply following the directions of the bosses in their ivory towers, those edifices supported on stacks of American greenbacks. I’m willing to wager that all the people mentioned are susceptible to being proselytized by Fox News.
How about that, Mr. Murdoch? We learned from Bill Clinton that tying a fifty-dollar bill to the rear bumper of a pickup truck and dragging it through a trailer park will guarantee a date for the evening—or at least for a short time, so to speak. Why not tie a bundle of C-notes to the rear bumper of your Rolls-Royce and drag it through the halls at MSNBC to see who follows the trail to Fox News?
How about it, Rupert? Your have some good people, but you can always use a few more—Juan Williams is a good example of that.
While browsing recently among past postings that are available on Twitter, hoping to find fodder for additional postings, I returned to this one. It is so beautifully composed and presented, and I enjoyed reading it so much, that I decided to bring it up from the depths of the Stygian darkness where it has stagnated for eighteen months—since June of 2009—and into the bright light of today.
Please note that I praise this posting with all modesty cast aside, just as I am wont to do with all my literary efforts. Please note also that the lawless situation that exists in Mexico today is not new—it was just as prevalent and just as brutal eighteen months ago as it is now. Click here to read the original post.
If you doubt my statement that the lawless situation in Mexico is not new , read the introductory paragraph below carefully, keeping in mind that it was written in June of 2009. I firmly believe that these conditions will prevail unless—and until—Mexico is annexed by the United States and our military forces are put into action in the newly acquired territory, but only after they are withdrawn from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and rested a bit. The sovereign nations of Mexico and the United States need to acknowledge that the drug cartels—the insurgents—are in charge, and are just as dangerous—nay, more dangerous—to the United States than the insurgents in the Middle East.
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it!
Long, long ago in Mexico
Long, long ago in Mexico, in a time when drug lords were not spraying the streets with bullets from rapid-fire weapons purchased illegally in the United States and exported illegally to Mexico, and were not murdering Mexican police chiefs and news reporters and anyone else that might be expected to hamper their efforts to maintain control of Mexico and its citizens—long, long ago when roving gangs were not kidnapping U. S. citizens on both sides of the Mexican border and holding them for ransom and various other reasons—a time when the streets in Mexican border towns were as safe or safer than streets in our border cities—and a time when I was the supervisory Customs inspector at the Port of Roma, in the sleepy town of Roma, Texas, high on a bluff (the town was high, not I) overlooking the Rio Grande river, across from the even sleepier town of Miguel Aleman, Mexico—this was the time in which I and one of my three princesses (the one in Virginia that takes all the pretty pictures) took a brief trip to Mexico during her spring break from studies at Pan-American University in Edinburg, Texas.
In the spring of 1979, our father-and-daughter team (a college student of 18 tender years and a military-retiree father of 47 not-so-tender years) embarked on a memorable sojourn into the wilds of Mexico. We traveled in a 1978 Volkswagen diesel Rabbit, a small 4-door vehicle labeled “Panama Brown” by its maker, but its color could better be described as bright orange. It was a very small people carrier—to illustrate its smallness, I can tell you that somewhere between Monterrey, Mexico and Saltillo, Mexico, we strayed off-road into a canyon where it was necessary to navigate our auto around huge rocks, some much larger than the Rabbit. After circumventing several such rocks, with the paved highway receding in the distance and a line spoken by a Mexican bandit in a Hollywood western film ringing in our ears, reason prevailed and we returned to the pavement. That memorable line was, “We don’ take no stinkin’ prisoners!”
We began our adventure in Reynosa, Mexico, a metropolitan city on the Rio Grande river. The river marks the boundary between the U. S. and Mexico—its name in Spanish is Rio Bravo, a more appropriate and more appealing term than grand—I suppose it can be considered brave, but at no point can it be considered grand—at least not, for example, in comparison with our Mississippi river. Reynosa is directly opposite Hidalgo, Texas, a small city a few miles from McAllen, Texas.
Our first stop in Mexico was at the Office of Immigration to secure “permisos,” official documents that would authorize us to travel past the 15-kilometer check point, a distance of some 9-10 miles, beyond which is considered Mexico’s interior. Our treatment by Immigration officers began routinely, but progressed into a “situation.” The first officer we met took our vitals (name, citizenship, destination, purpose of visit, etc.), and leered knowingly when I said we were father and daughter—his thoughts were printed all over his face. He was thinking, “Yeah, sure, you are father and daughter, heh, heh, heh.” My daughter looked younger than her 18 years, and I grudgingly admit that I may have appeared a year or two older than my 47 years. After some copious stamping of various documents (our permits), the officer passed them to another officer that was apparently guarding the exit to the vehicle parking area.
The second officer gave our permits a cursory inspection, stuffed them into an envelope, laid them on the table in front of us and said in English, “Senor, anything you may wish to give.” This was a request for mordida, a very expressive Spanish noun derived from the Spanish verb “morder,” which means “to bite.” Mordida, a diminutive of that verb, is used to describe “a little bite.” Mexican officials take “a little bite” out of everything which moves across the Mexican border, in both directions, including merchandise, produce and people. Mordida is a way of life in Mexico, so ingrained in the economy and in daily life that people expect the demand, and would be very surprised if it were not made.
The Mexico of today is a far cry from the Mexico of 1979. My response then would not be my response today, not in these trying times. This was 30 years ago, way back in 1979—times were different. I showed the officer my official identification and said, “Senor, no deseo dar. Soy el supervisor de las aduanas en el puerto de Roma, Tejas, y amplío cada cortesía a cualquier oficial del gobierno mexicano que entra en nuestro país.” What I said was, in fairly lucid Spanish, “Sir, I do not wish to give. I am the Customs supervisor at the port of Roma, Texas, and I extend every courtesy to any Mexican government official entering my country.”
The situation changed, abruptly and for the better. The officer stood, shook hands with us and escorted us to his commander. He introduced me to his commander as the Customs jefe at Roma, and introduced my daughter as my daughter. The comandante enthusiastically welcomed us into Mexico, and offered to accompany us to our vehicle and place official seals on our luggage—with those seals we would not be burdened with inspections at the 15-kilometer check point. Having nothing to hide and not wishing to call undue attention to ourselves, I politely declined the offer. We were, however, accompanied to our vehicle and were sent on our way with a hearty “Vaya con dios,” the Spanish version of “God speed.” And we sped away, at least as well as we could in a 4-cylinder diesel Volkswagen.
At the check point we barely slowed down—the officials there made us welcome and expressed their hopes that we would enjoy our visit to their country. We were reasonably certain that the station had been notified, whether by phone, radio, smoke signals or passenger pigeon, that our arrival at the check point was imminent, and that we could be identified from a distance because we would arrive in a little-bitty bright orange (Panama brown) car.
In our family we have always numbered our adventures, but the numbers are never in sequence and we never record them—someone simply picks a number and off we go. This adventure encompasses many scenarios, some foolish, some frightening, all memorable and well worth the telling. After passing the check point we took in the cities of Monterrey and Saltillo and a visit to and into Garcia’s Cave, a visit that was both foolish and frightening.
Your noiseless ride in your Toyoto hybrid is coming to an end. If I understand it correctly there is now a law, fashioned by Congress and signed by the president, that will force automakers to equip hybrid autos and all-electric autos with additional sound-making equipment. The sound must reach at least 20 decibels, the minimum level of noise that is required to alert bicycle riders and pedestrians, particularly blind pedestrians, to an oncoming vehicle and enable them to take evasive action. Whether the law will be retroactively applied to older models of such autos is unknown, but the demand by the blind will probably mandate the application of the law to all models—I mean, like, hey, you know, an older model Prius will dispatch the blind and the hard-of-hearing just as effectively as the latest models off the assembly line.
My first thought when I learned about the law was of the bicycles. Unless a bike rider produces at least 20 decibels of sound then pedestrians, blind or not, are endangered by bicyclists. When I was a kid we made a tremendous amount of noise on our bikes with clothespins and plastic playing cards. The clothespins held the cards in place, inserted between the wheel spokes—with a card in both wheels we probably exceeded the requirement for a minimum of 20 decibels. I can state definitely that our system worked because I never—not even once—ran into or over a blind pedestrian or a sighted person—never even came close! While bikes can easily be configured to produce the required decibels, what can be devised for fast-moving pedestrians? And what about joggers? Both could conceivably endanger blind pedestrians unless they produce the required decibels of sound.
Where does it stop? Will the mindless drones in Congress require whistling shoes, perhaps, or mandate that pedestrians and joggers carry some sort of noisemaker to warn any blind persons in their vicinity? Our government could require fast walkers and joggers to carry any one of numerous party noisemakers to warn the blind and the hard-of-hearing pedestrians.
Perhaps we could follow ancient China’s practice of having someone run ahead setting off fireworks to let people know an important person is coming behind them. Should we embrace that practice, we could hire some of our unemployed to run ahead of silent automobiles with the firecrackers—this would effectively warn any blind persons and hard-of-hearing pedestrians that may be loitering in the middle of the street.
This intrusion by the federal government into the auto industry, a business about which it does not know doodly-squat, is just the latest effort to expand its control over American businesses. The federal tentacles are reaching into virtually all areas of our economy, with government’s intrusion into the health industry the most visible and the most egregious threat to our economy and our well being. We should demand the right to utilize free social services on the same scale as undocumented immigrants—100 percent including professional, medical, educational, recreational and procreational.
The feds are endangering our society and our American way of life. MacDonald’s fries are endangered, school lunches are endangered, soda drinks are endangered and all references to Christianity are endangered, and the list goes on interminably. I have no doubt that at sometime in the near future the feds will place restrictions on our use of toilet tissue, probably restricting us to a maximum number of squares for clean-up purposes. Just imagine how many trees would be saved should we be restricted to one square of tissue—just imagine that!
In closing, I freely acknowledge that mine is a voice crying in the wilderness, virtually unheard and probably ignored even if heard, but one must press on. One must do what one can do, in amounts however infinitesimally small, to retain and enhance our right to flatten blind pedestrians and hard-of-hearing pedestrians, to pollute our atmosphere, to denude our forests, to poison our children with MacDonald’s fries and the heavily caffeined sodas of Pepsi and Coke, to exterminate the whales and porpoises and salmon to provide feed for our pets, and to maintain our American way of life.
I have a suggestion that will provide work opportunities for a group of our citizens that is in far too many instances overlooked for employment, and in too many instances are limited to stringing beads for costume jewelry or similar work. There is a niche in our federal government that can utilize the blind. Our nation’s Department of Homeland Security can provide well-paying jobs and economic security for such people, jobs that will produce immediate results by helping protect the traveling public from harm.
I propose hiring those in our society that are blind—not just legally blind, able to distinguish form and function but completely blind, or perhaps able only to distinguish light from darkness. Such persons can contribute significantly to the security of the United States of America.
First, as is necessary in public speaking, let me establish my right to speak. I am a retired U. S. Customs inspector, having worked on the Texas-Mexico border for twelve years as an inspector trainee, journeyman and first-level and second-level supervisor, at Customs’ Headquarters in Washington DC as a Program Officer and Program Manager, at Customs’ Regional Headquarters in Houston TX, and finally as Chief Inspector at one of our nation’s top-20 international airports. During my 26-year career with Customs I conducted and supervised and observed countless personal searches. I therefore feel that I am qualified to speak on that subject—nay, not simply qualified—I am eminently qualified—I am in fact damn well qualified, so to speak.
Under current procedures used for pat-down personal searches at our airports no searcher, whether male or female, will ever find anything by wearing plastic gloves and using the backs of their hands in an effort to detect something that may compromise the safety of an aircraft and its occupants. I realize that the searches have been modified to include using the fronts of their hands, but you may be assured that most will not do that except when the search is being observed by a supervisor—in all the searches I conducted and witnessed in my years on the border, not once did I see the searcher use the crotch-crunch technique mandated by Customs’ Headquarters. As for my own searches I tried it once, didn’t like it and didn’t do it again—at least I’m honest about it—most inspectors aren’t!
That mandate is a hard one to follow, so to speak, for any self-respecting male officer searching another male. Female searchers can detect the presence of bras and breasts on females (depending on dimensions, of course) and male searchers can detect testicles and penises on males (again depending on dimensions), and not much of anything else. Any squeeze of a woman’s breasts by a female searcher will generate a complaint, and any squeeze of a man’s private part or parts by a male will do the same.
I doubt seriously that a sighted searcher, blindfolded and wearing plastic gloves and using the back of the hands can even distinguish whether the suspect is male or female (again depending on dimensions of certain body parts). The person being patted down may be a man posing as a woman or vice versa, a ruse that is used frequently in Middle Eastern countries by would-be suicide bombers.
You don’t believe it? Please consider Braille, the contact alphabet of raised dots representing letters and numbers that enables the blind to read texts and operate elevators. Take any blind person, male or female and ask that person to don plastic gloves and then read a sentence printed in Braille using the back of the hands. Better yet, have them use the back of the gloved hands to read Braille numbers on an elevator. Unless the elevator is in a two-story building with no basement, they are likely to stop at the wrong floor. Use the same experiment on a sighted but blindfolded person and that person will wind up on the wrong floor also.
Get the picture?
If blind people can read text and numbers with their fingers, then they can conduct pat-down searches effectively if allowed to use their fingers. Their touch is so sensitive that even wearing the required plastic gloves they will detect any anomaly. Hell, they may even find an unevenly shaped mole and by calling it to the suspect’s attention they may even save a life!
Think about it—the sex of the person being searched and the sex of the searcher should not be a factor. The blind searcher could be searching his own wife or her own husband, and it is unlikely that they would know it. And it should make no difference to the person being searched, because the blind person, regardless of what the search may reveal, could never identify that person.
That’s it—that’s my suggestion. I could ramble on indefinitely on the ramifications and possibilities should my suggestion be adopted but that should not be necessary. The proof will be in the pudding—my suggestion to use blind people to conduct pat-down searches at airports will produce positive results, reduce complaints from the traveling public, protect our pilots, flight attendants and passengers from harm by keeping aircraft airborne and safe from actions of would-be terrorists. The benefits are many and obvious, and more discussion should be unnecessary.
Just as an aside, I seek no remuneration should my suggestion be adopted. A simple Nobel Peace Prize will do, and it should be considered. Our system will work so well that other nations will follow by utilizing their blind people to conduct pat-downs. In that event I will of course donate the monetary award to my favorite charity. Other than the Nobel Peace Prize I would consider the award of a Congressional Gold Medal, to be presented by our president, but the presentation would have to be at my home rather than the White House—I’ve been there and was not impressed, and I have no desire to return.
Of course the Nobel Peace Prize or the Congressional Gold Medal could be, and probably would be, handed over to UPS for delivery by the driver to my home just as the plaque, the one given in recognition of my 48 years of dedicated federal service that included 22 years of military service during which I helped our nation lose two wars (Korea and Viet Nam). The plaque was delivered soon after I retired—the driver placed it, gently of course, on my porch, rang the doorbell and hotfooted it back to his truck—such adulation! Such personal recognition! I teared up!
That’s my suggestion and that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!
In August of 2008 Newsweek ranked the top 100 countries in the world. This posting deals with the world ranking of South Korea today, as opposed to the years before 1950, the year that saw the start of the Korean conflict, one that ended in a stalemate some four years later.
In our president’s recent visit to your country you agreed to none of the proposals advanced by Barack Obama, the man that holds a position considered by many to make him the most powerful person on earth. You rejected every proposal, every idea and every project intended to elevate both the United States and South Korea to higher levels in future such world ratings. Obviously his title as the most powerful man in the world does not impress you, at least not collectively as a nation.
I was in Japan on June 25 in 1950 when the North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel. I was stationed at Yokota Air Base at the time, and I began a voluntary 15-month tour in South Korea just four months later. My military record shows that I was involved in five military combat campaigns during those 15 months before rotating to the United States. I mention those dates and assignments merely to establish my right to speak concerning the before and after conditions in South Korea—I was there, and I can assure the reader that South Korea was a far cry from the world-class country that it has become.
In its 2008 report Newsweek placed South Korea in fifteenth place among the top 100 nations in the world, just four places below the eleventh place rating given the United States. The report compiled by Newsweek ranked nations by economy, politics, health and quality of life and stated that the ranking proves the world’s true national champions. Click here for the list of the top 100 nations.
On June 25, 1950 the North Korean army invaded South Korea and began a war that involved the Chinese army and the armed forces of the United States. The war raged for some four years and ended in a stalemate, an armistice that exists to this day some 56 years later. I consider it a war lost along with our other lost war, the one we unsuccessfully waged in Viet Nam—incidentally, I was involved in that war also, for thirteen months in 1969-1970.
Shame on you, South Korea!
Before the United States came to your defense in 1950, you were a backward country in virtually every category considered by Newsweek’s report. The United States saved you from a takeover by North Korea and the army of communist China. Without the help of the United States you would today be the southern part of a united Korea and your economy would be in shambles, just as North Korea’s economy is now, with the government starving its people in order to support one of the world’s largest standing armies.
We helped you subdue the army of North Korea and helped you drive the Chinese armies back across the Yalu River, and we stayed with you following the truce with North Korea. We stayed with you and we continue supporting you with our troops in-country and with favorable trade agreements, actions that have enabled you to become a world power with a stable government, a thriving economy with world class cities, and with health and a quality of life that places you in the top fifteen percent of the world’s best 100 countries.
Be honest and admit that without the United States coming between you and North Korea, you would never have progressed this rapidly in the short span of 56 years since the truce was made. You would still be a backward country, with animal-drawn carts and three men on every shovel in construction projects. Your manufacturing and exports of motor vehicles, tools and household machines, electronics and other products are legion and the United States is your best customer.
Admit it—you dissed our president by failing to acquiesce to even one of his proposals, refuting some outright and placing others on the back burner. Just as a friendly suggestion, you might want to reconsider some of his proposals. Note that the presence of US military personnel in your country is now less than 40,000, down from an earlier force of some 60,000 and you can expect it to drop even lower, perhaps to zero. I mention this only because the people in North Korea are starving, and your thriving economy is looking better and better to them and to their government.
If you are thinking that the United States will stay with you through thick and thin, think again. I call your attention to the fall of South Viet Nam, a war in which our nation called it quits for a variety of reasons. I submit to you that in the event of another invasion by North Korea, one supported by communist China and possibly Russia, the United States may pick up its marbles and go home.
Take a look at the following video—one day this army may be marching in Seoul, celebrating North Korea’s subjugation of South Korea to create a united nation of Korea.
You might want to think about that possibility coming to fruition. I suggest that you think long and hard about it. More than 40,000 Americans died during the Korean conflict fighting to keep your country free. North Korea is poised to invade your country, and the only thing holding it back is your relationship with the United States. When it happens, don’t expect the United States to sacrifice another 40,000 of our fighting men and women.
Trust me—our government might consider such an action, but the people won’t tolerate it.
This item was posted on 23 April, away back in 2009. It was pertinent then and is even more pertinent now, so I’m rescuing it from the the Stygian darkness of prior postings and exposing it to the bright light of today. Our political parties and various members of those parties continue to trip over fly specks by paying an inordinate amount of attention to areas such as political correctness, much as did the world’s religious leaders in the past while trying to agree on the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin. Click here for information concerning dancing angels and pin heads.
I must note here that if that discussion actually was entered into by the world’s most prominent theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages, and included such notables as Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, then they had far too much time on their hands and they were the pinheads and I’ll give you three guesses to identify today’s pinheads—the first two guesses don’t count! The image at right is that of Thomas Aquinas, depicted in stained glass.
This is my original posting ofTripping over a fly speck:
When I began blogging I was determined to not enter the political fray. With this posting I have moved into it, but I will step out and away from it immediately afterward. Viewers should note that this posting takes no side in the current political fracas—it simply calls attention to the utter folly of investigating certain methods of interrogation which were used by the past administration in its efforts to protect our nation from terrorist attacks.
For anyone unfamiliar with its definition, a fly speck is a piece of organic waste material excreted by a fly. A fly speck is small, very small, tiny—really, really, really tiny. Granted, it could potentially impede the forward movement of an ambulatory organism (of an amoeba, perhaps), but it’s so small that it could not, or at least it should not, in anyway impede the forward movement of any person, group of people or organization, especially the forward movement of our president and his administration in the quest to bring change—needed change—to our country and to our planet.
Many highly-placed officials in the present administration, up to and including our 44th president, are tripping over a fly speck. That speck is the current discussion over whether to investigate and perhaps charge, indict, bring to trial and if found guilty in any degree, to punish officials of the previous administration who authorized certain methods of interrogation of known or suspected terrorists.
I wish fervently that all who are involved in this matter would stop, take a good long look at what confronts them and desist—it’s a fly speck, nothing more. Step over it, step around it or step on it, but don’t trip over it. Be aware of it but ignore it and keep moving forward. Get on with your work in areas which have real meaning—keeping our country free from harm by those who would destroy us, fighting global warming, improving health care, reviving the economy, and improving the nation’s schools are several which come to mind.
Television and newspapers today are sharply focused on the recent murder of a jet-ski rider that was moving around on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake that straddles the international boundary between the U. S. and Mexico. It’s a giant reservoir, a body of water that extends some fifty miles along the Rio Grande River. The waters of the Rio Grande River are impounded by a huge dam near the city of Roma, Texas. The invisible international boundary line in the lake divides the countries of Mexico and the United States, and divides Texas and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
The murdered man was on a jet-ski, a personal watercraft, and was accompanied by his wife who was mounted on a second jet-ski. She witnessed the murder and successfully escaped with her life. Now her story is being questioned because neither the jet-ski nor a body has been found by Mexican authorities, and those worthies will not allow American law enforcement officers to participate in the search. I believe that privilege is being denied because the jet-ski and the body were recovered either by Mexican authorities, persons working for Mexican drug cartels or by members of a Mexican drug cartel. I also believe that both the jet-ski and the body, and especially the body, have been concealed or destroyed in such a manner that the odds of them being recovered or found range from slim to none. I predict that they will never be found, and without the body or the jet-ski the Mexicans will continue to deny that no criminal action occurred.
Much of this is standard procedure in relations between us and our neighbor to the south. The drug cartels control Mexico with the use of cash from their illegal operations—local and federal Mexican officials either accept the bribes or they will be killed—other citizens, with or without an offer of cash, will in either case look the other way to avoid being killed. That’s a brutal way for a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate—perhaps a trillion-dollar conglomerate—to operate, but it is quite effective.
I worked on the Texas-Mexico border as a Customs inspector for twelve years, first as a trainee and journeyman inspector at Progreso, Texas, then as a first-level supervisor at Roma and Falcon Dam for two and one-half years, and finally at the port of Brownsville, Texas for another three and one-half years. I then spent three years at Customs Headquarters in Washington, DC and later held enforcement positions in Houston and San Antonio for another ten years. Looking back on my experiences and the knowledge I gleaned over a period of twenty-six years, I feel fairly well qualified to express my opinion of that murder incident and of the area where it occurred.
One brief statement can describe the incident. It is true—it happened. The man was murdered, either by cartel members or persons supporting the cartels, and the murder is being covered up with the knowledge and assistance of Mexican federal officials. That area on both sides of the border was lawless even before it became a part of the United States in 1848 following our war with Mexico . It was lawless then, it is lawless now and it will remain lawless into the predictable future. That is the nature of the terrain and its population on both sides of the international boundary, whether on land or on the water.
It is not my intention to paint every person in the area as lawless—the population contains the usual mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly—well, perhaps more of the bad than of the other two—my neighborhood and any other neighborhood reflects a similar amalgamation of people, differing only in degree. That area along the Texas/Mexico border is lawless because of its terrain and its proximity to Mexico. Smuggling in Starr County, Texas has for centuries literally been, and to this day remains, a way of life for many of the county’s residents. Merchandise, animals and people are routinely smuggled from Texas to Mexico and from Mexico to Texas, while cash, weapons and ammunition are smuggled into Mexico and illegal narcotics are smuggled into Texas. Much of the smuggling is done to avoid paying duty and taxes on the U. S. side, and paying duty, taxes and mordida on the Mexican side. Mordida is the diminutive of the verb morder, to bite—mordida is a little bite added to the legitimate cost of importations and exportations—on the Mexican side it adds a considerable amount to the cost of doing business, whether legal or illegal business.
A case in point would be the movement of horses across the Rio Grande River in the past, and perhaps even now. The law requires that live animals be subjected to examination by proper officials, whether going out of the U.S. or coming into the U.S. In past years quarter-horse races have been held and probably are still being held, on both sides of the Rio Grande. Rather than be bothered by quarantine laws and paying mordida, owners and trainers would take their horses to a bend in the river that would guarantee that a horse forced into the water would swim to the other side, where an accomplice would recover the animal, then off to the races– time saved, no veterinarian fees, no holding period, etc. One must necessarily view that as practical, and the odds of being detected were virtually nil. The point is that if one can smuggle a full grown horse from nation to nation in both directions, smuggling narcotics should be a snap—and it is.
Some of Starr County’s features were summed up thusly by a writer in a Playboy magazine article published in the 1970s: The author told Playboy’s readers that in order to visit Rio Grande City, the county seat of Starr County, Texas you should fly into San Antonio, rent a car and drive to Laredo, make a left turn there and drive until you smell feces—that would be Roma, Texas—then continue straight until you step in it and you’ll be in Rio Grande City, the county seat of Starr County. I seriously doubt that the article increased tourist traffic in the area.
Mexico as a nation and Mexicans as individuals have always felt that our annexation of Texas in 1845, an act that led to our war with Mexico, was illegal and it probably was. Mexico has also always felt that the land lost to the United States in 1848 with Mexico’s defeat in the war between the nations was unwarranted and unfair. Perhaps the drug cartels will at sometime in the future reclaim much of that land, especially in the lower and upper Rio Grande Valley and in the great state of Arizona. The cartels already rule Starr County during the hours of darkness—the next step is to dominate the area during daylight hours—the way things are going now, it could happen.
As does virtually every family, mine has a shoebox filled with snapshots of family and friends spanning decades of living and loving and working, showing many of the places where we lived and worked and places where we went for recreational purposes. I recently found an old black-and-white photo of a certain 17-year old warrior, a young lad that somehow made his way to Japan somewhere between the ages of 17 and 18 years, an age at which he should have been at home in Columbus, Mississippi enrolled in the eleventh grade at Stephen D. Lee High School, working at various part-time jobs, chasing girls and striving mightily to maintain a C-average.
I was intrigued by the differences between that lad then and the same person now, some 60 years later. I was captivated by the photo, taken sixty years ago in 1950 in front of temporary quarters in the city of Fukuoka on the Japanese island of Kyushu—so captivated that I decided to share it with my viewers.
I refer to this lad as a warrior based on the knowledge that during the summer of 1950, shortly after North Korea invaded South Korea, he was en route to Korea from Japan to help in our war to keep South Korea free from communism, and would continue in that effort for the next 15 months. Some nineteen years later he would be in Vietnam for thirteen months with a similar purpose—to help South Vietnam in its struggle against a takeover of the country by the Viet Cong, aided by North Vietnam regulars with help from Russia and China.
In both instances—the war in Korea and the one in Vietnam—he was unsuccessful, and his contributions were for naught. The Korean War ended in a truce that exists to this day, and the Vietnam War ended, for better or worse, in a united Vietnam—the communists won and we lost.
Examine the photo closely—have you ever seen a cockier, more in-your-face, more arrogant and defiant stance? This is a youth of seventeen, some six or seven inches over five feet tall, weighing 115 pounds with a 28-inch waist, dressed in regulation one-piece fatigue coveralls with a fatigue cap on top and unshined GI brogans on the bottom. Either the cuffs of the coveralls are turned up or the coveralls are too short. The cap is pushed back rather than squared off, hands are in pockets, sleeves are partially rolled up, collar is turned up—a harbinger of the Elvis style to come, still some six years in the future. The first several buttons of the fatigues are unbuttoned revealing no undershirt and a really skinny unhairy chest. And most important, even at that tender age the lad is exhibiting a strong leaning to the right, a stance that incidentally exists to this day, and if gets much more pronounced I—oops, I mean he—will be unable to stand up without falling.
I am fairly certain that any reader of this posting has already guessed that the lad in the photo is the same person that is writing this posting for his blog on Word Press—yes, I refer to my mother’s youngest son, The King of Texas—that lad is yours truly at the wizened age of seventeen.
My mother’s youngest son bears little resemblance to that 1950s figure, although he still leans to the right in any political stance, and rather than one-piece fatigues he putters around in sweats and house slippers at home and wears jeans, a pullover shirt and sneakers for occasions such as weddings, funerals, jury duty and similar formal events.
San Antonio’s only daily newspaper, the Express-News, is considered by conservatives to be liberal, and is considered by liberals to be conservative. I have my own opinion, but I’ll keep it in reserve for another posting, and I’ll let my viewers decide the paper’s political bent when more information is given on yesterday’s crash—Sunday, August 8, 2010—that killed four people. The front page article on the accident identified the dead, all occupants of a green Dodge Caravan, as an infant boy and an eleven-year-old girl in the rear seat, and two front-seat occupants, the driver and a passenger. The article stated that, “No names were released Sunday.”
The vehicle that crashed into the green Dodge Caravan while being chased by a San Antonio patrol officer was not identified by color or make or model, although it was readily available for identification—it landed upside down in a TV repair shop near the collision site. The article referred to the upside-down vehicle as an SUV, a term that was used nine times by the two female journalists that wrote the story.
Why? Why identify the minivan in such detail and no details on the SUV? Perhaps it was oversight on the part of the journalists, but that isn’t likely. I am of the opinion that the SUV is well-known by many citizens of San Antonio. Did it have bumper stickers or magnetic political signs on its doors? Was there some feature of the vehicle that would link it to one of San Antonio’s political personalities?
After causing the death of four people, the driver of the SUV suffered nothing more than a broken ankle. She is identified only as a female in her late 30s, and the article states that, The SUV’s driver had warrants issued for her arrest on charges of theft, failure to produce proper identification and driving without a license, as well as several traffic citations, Benavides said.
The speaker was police Sgt. Chris Benavides.
I submit to you, my readers, that the SUV and its driver are connected in some way to a prominent person or organization in the city, and the editors of the Express-News are withholding identification pending a decision on what to release. If that seems to be a stretch, consider this:
Some years ago a woman was jogging while pushing her infant child in a stroller, and was attacked and killed, knifed to death. The woman lived long enough to identify her killer as a black male dressed in jogging clothing. An all-points bulletin was sent out for everyone to be on the lookout for a male dressed in jogging clothing—no mention of the killer being black, nor did the Express-News include that fact in its coverage of the incident.
That murder occurred in Olmos Park, one of the most up-scale areas in San Antonio. The odds of a black jogger being in that area were astronomical then, and are much on the same par today. I am certain that every non-black jogger encountered in that area on that day and on later days was stopped and questioned. I wonder how much time was spent on those stops that could have better been spent on looking for the black jogger.
In the case of the murdered woman, vital information was withheld for the purpose of political correctness. In the case of the four people killed by a woman in her late thirties driving an SUV, I consider the possibility that the public is being denied pertinent information for the same reason—political correctness, in this instance to protect some prominent person or persons or organizations.
I don’t know them personally, but I know of them because I am a resident of this city and I try to keep up with the times. I am aware of several prominent people in this city that are married to women that are in their late thirties. I await breathlessly for future facts on the incident.
I’ll get back to you with more details as they emerge—I promise!
I’m back, and with more details, just as I promised. The Express-News today identified the SUV and the driver and dashed all my suspicions and speculations that the driver may have been a well-known and well-connected person, eitherpolitically or otherwise. She is in fact very well-known, but known to the local police force—she has a rap sheet that includes other drunken driving charges, a jail sentence, several charges of prostitution and a host of other violations of city and state laws.
And the mystery of the SUV is no longer a mystery—the SUV that did all the damage, the vehicle that was identified nine times as an SUV in the original report, the SUV that landed upside down in a TV repair shop after broadsiding a green Dodge minivan and killing four people—the driver, her mother, the driver’s four-month old child and the driver’s eleven year old sister—yes, that SUV—was not an SUV.
It was a PT Cruiser.
You, the reader, may wonder why I included the oddities of the initial report and my suspicions and speculations of the reasons why the so-called SUV was not identified color, make or model. The answer is simple—I worked too damned hard on those suspicions and speculations to toss them away, so I decided to let ’em ride and report the details that should have been printed in the original article. At the very least I should get credit for having a vivid imagination!
This posting is a letter I wrote to one of my sisters, the prettiest one and a lady that has always been at the top of my list of best loved, but don’t tell the other sisters or their children—they might not understand! This lovely lady left us behind almost seven years ago. I’m sharing the letter on Word Press because many people that knew and loved her are visitors to my blog, and this letter includes a lot of history from 1994. The image on the right shows the beautiful teenager that Elmer met and married after a brief engagement—a very brief angagement! We miss her.
San Antonio Int’l Airport
January 25, 1994
Dear Rene,
I’m certain you are aware that just because B follows A does not mean that B was caused by A, or in fact is in any way associated with A except, of course, by virtue of B’s position immediately following A’s position in the alphabet or to put it another way, by virtue of A’s position immediately preceding B’s position in the alphabet. So the fact that you called and talked for a long time the other day does not necessarily mean that this letter was caused by that phone call, or in fact is in any way associated with it.
However, we can put the matter to a scientific test. You keep calling and see if a letter follows each phone call. After a few years of that, we will be able to determine if there is any correlation between the two events. Betcha there is, betcha there is, huh, huh, whatcha wanna bet, huh, huh?
Correlation or not, it sure was pleasant talking with you. I know you’re glad to be back home. Seems like every time we leave, the urge to get back becomes stronger and stronger. I’m like Papa John Weathers—I guess I hate to have my routine messed up! That’s good news about Jessie recovering from her accident so well. I know that brace is a bummer but as you said, she’ll just have to adjust to it.
Got time for a couple of jokes? Stop me if you’ve heard these, okay?
The Lone Ranger and Tonto rode into town and stopped at the saloon. The Lone Ranger said, Tonto, my horse is really hot from all that galloping. Run around him a few times to stir up the air and help him cool off. The Lone Ranger went into the saloon and a few minutes later a guy came in, tapped him on the shoulder and said, Hey, man, you left your Injun running.
The doctor examined a guy and told him he only had six months to live. The guy said Doc, there’s no way I’ll be able to pay what I owe you in just two months. The doctor said, Okay, in that case I’ll give you a year.
One more doctor joke: A guy’s doctor called him and said, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that your tests showed you have only two days to live. The guy said, That’s the good news? What’s the bad news? Nothing could be worse than that. The doctor said, Wanna bet? The bad news is that I’ve been trying to contact you for the last two days.
Well, I’ll shut up. Don’t blame me for the jokes. They came from Kelley. If the subject matter doesn’t depress you the subject matter will—oops, that’s another joke. Kelley heard the jokes from Gordon, and he made her promise not to repeat them, and she made me promise not to repeat them, so I want you to promise not to repeat them. They are so bad that they must be stopped!
Speaking of depressed, I have a program called Quicken which tracks all kinds of good stuff, including one’s finances. I spent several hours loading all my “finances” into it, then called up a report showing the totals. I was really happy with them until I divided what I have now by the number of years I’ve been working. Boy, am I depressed!. The program is a lot of fun, though. Gives you all sorts of charts and graphs, all in beautiful color. I just wish I had more to put into them.
I’m not really depressed. I have a wife that loves me, three daughters that love me, two grandchildren that love me, two big sisters that love me, a whole passel of nieces and grandnieces and nephews and grandnephews and even a couple, perhaps, of great grandnieces or maybe great grandnephews—don’t know whether they love me but all would if they knew me. I also have two cats and a dog that love me (I don’t care much for the dog), a good paying job with no heavy lifting, a nice place to live and a nice house to live in, way too much to eat, and good health. No, I’m not depressed, I’m blessed—hey, I made a rhyme!. See there, I’m even talented to go with all the above.
I said the job required no heavy lifting, but I just remembered something. Did I tell you about pulling a back muscle while lifting a heavy suitcase for an elderly lady last year? Well, I did, and suffered severe lower back pains. Went to the doctor and he said I had muscle trauma. I was sure it was kidney stones, and asked the doctor why it was taking me so long to get recover if it was only muscle trauma. And he said it was because I was a fat old man. Well, he didn’t actually say I was a fat old man. He said it’s because You’re 60 years old and overweight. So I left the doctor’s office and stopped at MacDonald’s for breakfast. I have lost some weight since then, though, and I’m working on the rest of it.
It’s 7 p.m. now, and I’m halfway through this 3-11 shift. The first 4 hours seem to pass fast, probably because we have several flights. The last 4 hours drag on and on. Seems like 11 o’clock will never come, but it always does, of course. Boring as the shift may be, you’ll never hear me griping to go on day shift. I’ve been doing this now for two and a half years, and I wouldn’t take the day shift on a dare. In fact, I live in fear that the other supervisor will decide he wants to evenings for awhile. Not too much danger of that, though. He is a politician, loves to make Chamber of Commerce meetings and other activities, and there’s not much of that on the evening shift.
Time has really flashed by since we returned to San Antonio. March will be seven years since I left Houston, one of the happiest days of my life, leaving Houston. Not because I was coming back to San Antonio, but because I was leaving Houston. I never really planned on staying in Customs this long, but as I’ve said before—at least I think I’ve said it before)—it’s hard to quit just when the money is good and the living is easy. It’s been so long since I really had to expend any significant effort on the job that I’m not sure just what kind of product I would come up with if I were asked to produce. So I’ll go on hoping I won’t be asked!
I see by the old computer screen that I’m near the end of the page, so I’ll close, or else I’ll have to subject you to another full page. I have lots more, but I’ll save it for the next letter.
Lots of love, from me and all of mine to you and all of yours.
SUPRISE! I’m back. Just called Alta and she said she had just finished talking to you, so I cranked up the word processor again. Alta said she asked what size unmentionables you wore so she could fill up the box she is sending. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, you won’t have to worry about bloomers for a long while, because the best I remember there is quite a bit of room there—in the box, I mean, not in your bloomers. Did she tell you about packing the outfit in a small box, then checking it later and finding that some of the stuff she put on it had been squashed—is that spelled right, or is squashed even a word? Anyway, she had to do it over. The more I look at squashed the worse it looks.
Our weather is still wet. It’s beginning to remind me of Viet Nam where we had to wrap our billfolds in plastic to keep the leather from getting moldy. And if we left a pair of shoes for several days without wearing them, they grew beards and moustaches. That sure seems like a long time ago. Well, shucks, it was a long time ago. I got back to the states in June of 1970. Would you believe more than 23 years ago?
Sometimes I have to work very hard to make myself believe I was even over there. I saw a movie the other night about the war, and relatives visiting the Viet Nam memorial in Washington, D.C. and placing different articles at the base of the wall. I went there several times while we were in Washington. It’s quite an experience, watching the grief displayed by so many of the people there. Some people call it the “Wall of Shame.” It seems to bring about a release of the emotions that people have kept bottled up inside themselves. I’ve seen hardened veterans fall to their knees and weep unashamedly, oblivious of everything else and everyone around them. It’s not an easy thing to watch, and it’s impossible to see such an outpouring of grief without being affected. And how in the hell I ever got into this subject is beyond me, but I’ll get out of it now.
Well, what can we talk about now? Did I tell you I have almost all the Louis Lamour books, the paperbacks? I think I have 105, and he wrote 110 or so. I even built a special bookcase for them—well, for them and for some other paperbacks. I also collected novels by John D. Hamilton, Ed McBain, Lawrence Sanders and a couple of others, along with a lot of the old western, the ones that were printed in the forties and fifties and sixties. And some day I’ll get around to re-reading them!
Compact discs are the big thing now. Grolier’s Encyclopedia has been put on a single disc, the same size as a music disc. And another disc has almost 2000 books on it, 2000 of the world’s great literary works, every word, complete and unabridged. I have a compact disc reader/player, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time at the San Diego Zoo, and in the Gallapagos Islands and South America’s rain forests and Australian deserts, at the Grand Canyon and all the national parks, all without leaving home. It’s a marvelous invention, especially for the world’s shut-ins, and it’s a shame that right now the cost is prohibitive for many of the people who could most benefit from such programs. The cost is coming down, but will still be out of reach for many people. And then again, maybe they don’t want it. What do I know? Maybe they all would rather watch Fresh Prince of BelAire, or some of the other zillion or so TV programs that pretend to be entertainment.
Boy, am I up on my soapbox, or what! Oh, drats! I’ve just come to the end of another page, and that means I’ll have to think of something to talk about to fill up that page, too. How about that drats? How long since you’ve heard that? I think it may be the first time I’ve used it, but it won’tbe the last. Has a nice sound to it. Try it. Drats! Drats! DRATS!
Speaking of jive, how do you like rap music? I hate it, I hate it, I HATE IT! And I hate it regardless of what color the rapper is whether black, white, brown, yellow or purple. I hate it, so I use the only weapon I have—I don’t buy it, and I don’t listen to it any longer than it takes to turn it off.
San Antonio had a murder here a few nights ago. Murder is common here, far too common. This one, however, was different. No jealous lover or husband or drug deal involved. The dead man was a husband and father of three, active church member, finished choir practice, called his wife and told her he would be home soon, just had to stop at an automated teller machine and make a night deposit. A 17 year old boy and 13 year old girl waylaid him and made him give them his personal identification number for the money machine. His body was found on the side of the freeway, shot through the head, and several cash withdrawals had been made at various locations in the area with his card. Both the teenagers are in custody. The girl said in her statement that she was holding the gun on the man and her boy friend didn’t like the way she was doing it, so he took the gun from her and shot the guy.
I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things in the last few years, and capital punishment is one of them. I never believed in it before, but now I do. I feel nothing whatsoever for the two people involved, regardless of their ages. They took something away from another person, and they should pay for the crime by giving up the same thing. And the sooner the better. They better hope I don’t get on the jury. When the judge asks me if I can render a fair and impartial verdict, I’ll say, Yes sir, Your Honor, boy, oh, boy can I ever render a fair and impartial verdict, just put me on that jury and see how fast I can render a fair and impartial verdict, and as soon as I render that fair and impartial verdict, I’ll help you hang ’em or shoot ’em or fry ’em or draw and quarter ’em, however you want it done, just so long as it’s done soon and I get to help do it. I’m dreaming, of course. They would never let me serve on a jury.
Well, I really have to shut up now. If I keep on I’ll have to send this thing in two envelopes. Once again, lots of love from me and all of mine to you and all of yours.
This posting is one of an e-mail I received recently from a family member. A quick check of http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/tomatoes.asp shows that the truth of the letter is undetermined. The Snopes article references a June 2006 e-mail, purported to be posted to the Internet by the husband of a woman that teaches at a large southern California high school.
That husband’s original e-mail has undergone various changes wrought by its sojourn over the Internet over the past four years, including the changes I have made prior to posting it on my blog. Please trust me—the changes I made dealt strictly with paragraphing, sentence construction, subject and verb agreement, spelling, punctuation and other rules of good grammar. I also deleted unnecessary capitalizations, exclamation points and other superfluous treatments that battered and bruised the message rather than helping viewers injest and digest its intended purpose.
I neither challenged nor changed anything that would either dilute or embellish the original e-mail I received. In addition to such necessary changes, the original e-mail had garnered the usual >>>s and other junk picked up by the original document on its trip through the vast regions of space and time.
This should drive everyone, not to drink but rather to think, whether Democrat, Republican or Independent, and including the multitudes not politically oriented to any particular ideology.
From a California school teacher (ostensibly):
Tomatoes and Cheap Labor:
As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things of which you should be aware:
I am responsible for the English as a second language department at a large southern California Title 1 high school. That title designates a school that peopled by students whose families that on the average are in lower levels of income and socioeconomic acceptability opportunities.
Most of the schools you are hearing about—South Gate High, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park and other Title 1 schools are schools where students are in the protest mode. Such schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I’m not talking about a glass of milk and a roll. I’m talking about a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott Inn proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with many trays being dumped in the trash uneaten. I estimate that more than 50 percent of these students are obese, or at least moderately overweight.
An estimated three of every four students have cell phones. The school provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls—some as young as 13—so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids.
I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year, although there was little need for anything—my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which one month later had been decorated with graffiti by appreciative students that obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America.
I have had to intervene several times for substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students, here in the country less then three months. Those students raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them putas—whores—and throwing things that the teachers were reduced to tears.
Free medical benefits, free education, free food, free day care, ad nauseam—it’s no wonder that they feel entitled, not only to be in this country but free to demand additional rights, privileges and additional entitlements.
For those that like to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they like their gardener and their housekeeper—and because they like to pay less for tomatoes—let’s spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the true costs of tomatoes. Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding and new diseases—as for me, I’ll pay more for tomatoes.
Americans, we need to wake up!
The current flood of illegal immigrants has everything to do with culture. They constitute an American third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15, a culture that refuses to assimilate, and our historic American culture has become so weak and worried about political correctness that we don’t have the will to do anything about it.
Cheap labor? Isn’t that what the whole immigration issue is about? Business doesn’t want to pay a decent wage, consumers don’t want expensive produce and government claims that we Americans don’t want the jobs.
The bottom line is cheap labor, but he phrase cheap labor is a myth and a farce. It’s a lie—there is no such thing as cheap labor.
Consider this: An illegal alien with a wife and five children takes a job for $5 or $6.00 an hour. With those earnings and six dependents he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year if he files an income tax return he is entitled an earned income credit up to $3,200—free.
He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.
He qualifies for food stamps.
He qualifies for free—no deductible, no co-pay health care.
His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.
He requires bilingual teachers and books.
He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If anyone in the family is or becomes aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. If qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicaid. All this is paid for by legitimate American taxpayers.
He doesn’t worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowner’s insurance.
Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.
He and his family receive the equivalent of $20 to $30 per hour in benefits,entitlements provided by our benevolent government. Working Americans are lucky to have $5 or $6 per hour left after paying their bills and his.
Cheap labor?
Yeah, right!
Sure!
Not!
These are the facts and the questions we should be asking of the congressional members of both political parties, and when members of either party lie to us we should exercise our right to replace them via the ballot box. The outcome of upcoming congressional elections is critical for working Americans, for our economy and for American culture and heritage.
A special Pee Ess:
Hey, I didn’t write this article and I offer no mea culpas. Please do not excoriate or execute me—I’m just the messenger. Feel free to pass it on or trash it—it’s your choice. In fact, you don’t even need to read it, and I’ll understand.
That’s my story and my excuse, and I’m sticking to both.
A special note to all Republicans seeking to retain or attain a seat in the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives in the coming November elections:
When you start your campaigns, whether for election or reelection in November of 2010, begin by submitting a deposition duly sworn before a properly licensed notary, a deposition in which you swear that you will govern by the will of the people, that will as determined by current polls conducted by reputable pollsters, a deposition in which you swear that should you fail to acknowledge and conform to the people’s voices you will resign your seat immediately following your failure to conform to the will of the people, and finally in that deposition you will swear that you will forfeit the sum of $50,000, that sum having been deposited in escrow in a secure location, said sum to be immediately applied to the national debt. If you’re a bit short on the cash, the nation’s capital has lots of lenders.
Listen up, Dumbo! You certainly have the ears for listening—you need only use them to listen to the voice of the people instead of flapping those ears as Disney’s creation, the flying elephant Dumbo did, flying to the upper branches of a tall tree and just sitting there, doing nothing other than maintaining that smug complacency that has characterized the Republican party for the past ten years, beginning with the elections of 2008 but especially noticeable over the past 18 months.
Former president George W. Bush proudly and emphatically told the people that he did not govern by polls. That remark reminds me of an afternoon many years ago when I was being babysitter to my young granddaughter after kindergarten. In a grandfatherly attempt to engage her in conversation I asked her what she did in school that day. She was eating cereal, and she chewed thoughtfully for a long moment before answering and then said, I don’t have to tell you that.
As one might expect I saw red, and I replied forcefully, Okay, smart-ass, I didn’t want to know anyway. And also as one might expect I froze, terrified, fearing that should her mother—my daughter—learn what I had said I would never again be trusted to serve as her babysitter—actually that really would not have been such a bad thing, unless my response was judged predatory in nature.
The little girl took another spoonful of cereal, chewed thoughtfully again for another moment, and after what felt like an eternity to me she said, Then why did you ask me?
My point, Dumbo, is that if you aren’t going to act on the poll results, then why do you ask us the questions? What do you do with those results? Substitute them for Charmin?
I’ll bet you would be quite pleased had our current president governed on the poll results of health reform, financial reform and other items forced through both houses of Congress, items that the masses strongly opposed according to all the polls—none would have passed, not one, and the nation would be far better off than it is now.
Our current president promised change and he definitely gave us change. He has saddled the nation with a projected deficit of some 14 trillion dollars—that’s 14 followed by 12 zeros—projected to come about in the near future. He has definitely changed the character and the landscape of the United States and has jeopardized our nation’s future, but his promise of transparency in government has never materialized.
We are no longer looked up to by the nations of the world—they instead look down on us. We have bowed in obsequiousness to the leaders of several nations, including some that would destroy us. Our country is riddled with terrorists, both foreign and home-grown, and our national debt is in the stratosphere. We are descending into a second-rate nation and a second-rate power, and nothing can stop our descent except a major change in our government.
Listen up, Dumbo—you can do it. You can reverse our downward slide by listening to the people. All you need do is to follow the bouncing ball indicated by the polls and it can happen, and it must be soon. On a day much too close in the future, we will have reached the point of no return. Act now, before that point is reached.
Plagiarize Obama’s campaign slogan if necessary—just say YES, WE CAN! and YES, WE WILL! It worked for him and it can work for you. The voters, particularly the independents, believed him, but now they are disillusioned and they want change—they want to change back to the country we had before Obama changed it. They will believe you only if you offer something that will hold your feet to the fire if you renege on your campaign promises, namely the deposition I have outlined for you.
With it, you can do it—without it the people won’t believe you. Obama suckered them this time, but they won’t allow you to do it now—perhaps some years in the future, but not now—their wounds are too fresh.
On Saturday, June 20, 2009, the San Antonio Express-News in San Antonio, Texas printed the above letter from a reader. Apparently as an adjunct to the letter the above photo of Alaska’s governor was also printed. The photo prompted a letter from me to the editor—my letter and the series of e-mails that followed are the subjects of this posting.
Saturday, June 20, 2009 (my initial letter to the editor)
letters@xpress-news.net, YOUR TURN, June 20, 2009:
Re: Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, and her photo published in YOUR TURN today:
Please convey my congratulations to the staffer who painstakingly researched your voluminous files and unerringly selected the most unflattering photo available to be printed, and also to the upper echelon person who approved its use.
Sarah Palin’s mouth is grotesquely twisted into what can only be described as a snarl or sneer, and her left eye is squinted closed. The governor is apparently right-handed, and she appears to be taking aim at a target. It’s pure conjecture as to what, or whom, she sees through her sights.
I have zero expectations of this letter being printed. I have in the past submitted letters to the editor—some were printed and some were ignored. My experience has been that when the letter strikes a nerve, it is not published.
A prime example of comments striking a nerve and not being published is my recent submission, a letter in which I noted, and in no small measure criticized, recent changes to your publication.
I appreciate it when a letter is published because all writers enjoy seeing their work in print, but I usually feel much better when it strikes a nerve and is not published—its rejection indicates its effectiveness.
I am reasonably certain that you will not disappoint me this time.
This is the editor’s response to my letter:
From: BRichter@express-news.net (the public editor of the paper)
Mon, Jun 22, 2009 1:34 PM
H.M. – Thanks for your letter. May we publish it? I think I’ll cut all the whining about your letters not getting published when they strike a nerve. We’ll just go with the criticism of the photo in question (which I didn’t really think was so bad). Bob Richter
And this is my answer to his request to publish my letter:
To: BRichter@express-news.net
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 11:11 AM
No, do not publish the letter. I’m pleased with your response, but I now have no desire to see any part of the letter in print. Besides, I seriously doubt that the first two paragraphs would be published as written.
The word whining is a term of derision and a poor choice for the Express-News’ Public Editor, or any other staff member, to use in response to a letter from a long-time subscriber. Your use of the word was petty—you could have conveyed your thoughts just as effectively by using comments instead of whining.
I did not expect the letter to be published in its entirety—my interest was only in the first two paragraphs. My so-called whining was meant to increase the odds that the letter would be published—evidently it served its purpose since you offered to publish the letter.
Considering your statement that you didn’t really think it (the photo) was so bad, I’m surprised at your offer to publish any part of the letter. The photo was derogatory, extremely disrespectful to a person who has earned respect, and I think you know that.
In closing, please be aware that I will strive mightily to resist any temptation to submit other letters to the editor, regardless of the subject—I will retreat into silence and make every effort to stay there.
This is the last e-mail I received from the Public Editor of the Express-News:
From: BRichter@express-news.net
Tue, Jun 23, 2009 2:32 PM
You’re right; I was wrong to use that word. I would use that with a friend, in kind of a joshing way. But I don’t know you, and it was improper. I’m sorry.
Re: The editor’s statement, “I’m sorry.”
Is his “I’m sorry” offered as an apology? If intended to be an apology, it rings hollow—it could mean he’s sorry I wrote the original letter, or he’s sorry he made a petulant reply to a serious subscriber’s letter or, more likely, he’s sorry that he offered to print my letter, albeit only partially, and it could mean that he’s sorry I refused his offer to publish it, and of course, that he’s sorry about all the above.
A bona fide apology should include the word apology, as in “I apologize,” or as in “Please accept my apology.”
The editor seems reluctant to use the word.
What say you?
A PeeEss:
Next month, June 2010, will mark a full year since I vowed that I would never submit another letter to the editor of the Express-News for consideration, and I have kept my vow. I must admit that I have posted several letters to the editor on Word Press, but I did not send them to the Express-News editor. I was burned—read insulted—once by that worthy, and I refuse to be insulted again. I will continue to nurse my pride and do my whining in other venues—so there!
The purpose of this posting is to share a comment that a viewer—a spammer—posted to my tale of snipe hunting. Well, actually I have another purpose, but if I reveal it at this point I may lose a few arrivals to this posting. I will therefore hold the other purpose in reserve for awhile. The snipe tale with the comment and my response can be viewed here:
This is the viewer’s comment that I retrieved from the trash:
Good evening, Happy Fool’s Day!
Two winkies went on a hunting trip. After it began to get dark, they thought it was about time to go home. They unfortunately got lost.One winkie said to the other, “I read that if you get lost in the woods you should fire three shots in the air. It is supposed to be an “S.O.S.” So, the second winkie shot three times into the air. After waiting for a few hours, they repeated the signal. They tried it over and over, but nobody came to help them. Finally, the second winkie said, “O.K., I’ll try again, but we’re running out of arrows!”
Happy April Fool’s Day!
This is my reply to the comment:
My response to your comment is somewhat belated because WordPress identified it as spam and trashed it, and I overlooked it until this moment. I agree with WordPress—it is spam, intended to attract viewers to a commercial website. However, I enjoyed the April Fool’s joke you sent so I recovered your comment in order to share the joke with others. And yes, your ploy worked beautifully—I’ll include a link to that commercial site in this posting, just to say thanks for the joke—all’s well that ends well!
And now on with this posting:
I may have been the last person online to be exposed to the joke about two lost winkies firing shots into the air to attract rescuers. It’s very likely—I tend to live a rather sheltered life, and I am not prone either to telling or listening to jokes that malign others (I can hear my three daughters laughing already). In this instance the maligned appear to be toys called winkies, so there should be no reprisals involved. I promised the April Fool’s Day jokester—the spammer—that I would post the commercial site just to say thanks for the joke.
The joke could have involved someone or some group other than winkies, but our nation’s requirements to maintain political correctness should be followed at all costs. However, in support of those requirements I will suggest a few alternatives for the joke other than winkies, and in doing so I will strive mightily to maintain a balance—to spread the wealth equally, so to speak—I urge my viewers to refrain from using any of these suggestions in retelling the winkies joke—please!
The hunters could just as easily have been identified simply as two hunters, whether male, female or mixed, or as blondes, little morons, Aggies, Texans, Minnesotans, Mississippians, Californians, Floridians, Native Americans, African Americans, persons of Polish extraction, Irishmen, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea Baggers, members of various Black Cacuses whether at the state or national level, Ku Klux Klan members, NAACP members, members of the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the IRS, members of ICE, DEA, EPA, NRA and any other of the multitude of alphabet organizations—federal, state, city, county and private that seem to have the ability to multiply on command, Tiger Woods and the star of Deep Throat (she’s dead, rest her soul, but the joke would still work), ad infinitum.
The joke could also have identified couples known nationally and internationally, whether of the same gender or mixed. Some examples would be Joe Biden and Dick Chaney, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison, Hillary Clinton and her spouse what’s his name, John McCain and Sarah Palin, Obama and his closest advisor on nuclear matters, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Benjamin Netanayhu, Barney Frank and anybody, Mutt and Jeff, Blondie and Dagwood —the possibilities here, as in the preceding paragraph, extend also to infinity.
I am including two poems, the first penned by Jonathan Swift, a 17th century writer, and the second an expansion of that poem by Augustus De Morgan, a Victorian mathematician. I consider these poems particularly pertinent (I really love alliteration!) to the relationship between government and the governed in our nation.
Swift’s poem:
So nat’ralists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller fleas that bite ’em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.
De Morgan’s expansion of Swift’s poem:
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
Special note: You and I are the great fleas in these poems. They are us—you and I and more than 300 million other U.S. citizens. These poems represent upside down pyramids, with government at the top and us at the bottom. Our government and our constitution are moving in opposite directions—government is expanding and our constitution is shrinking accordingly.
In relation to fleas, government is the biter fleas and we are the bitten, and the pyramid continues to grow wider at the top and narrower at the bottom. Let’s face it—we are staggering and bowing under the weight of all those fleas, and unless that weight is lifted, or at least lessened, it will eventually bring us to our knees, a national position that may possibly be the desired goal of the upper echelons of biter fleas, or government.
That’s my story and that’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to both!
Please note: There are several other postings related to this literary examination and elimination of possums in attics. Such problems are commonplace in our state, in fact in most states, and perhaps these postings will enable others to handle such problems more effectively and efficiently. The other postings can be found here, and here.
Following in the footsteps of Keats, Shelley, Robert Frost and other exalted poets, I have penned Ode to a Possum. An ode is defined as, A lyric poem of some length, usually of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure. My Ode to a Possum conforms to that definition perfectly.
As with many similar lyric odes, this one is meant to be sung. My list of preferred singers would include Toby Keith and Diana Ross—perhaps even George Jones or Whitney Houston, depending on their current medical status.
My first choice would have been Tiny Tim and his ukulele, but that worthy is long gone, both from the music scene and from this world—may he forever happily and gracefully tiptoe through the tulips.
A perceptive reader of this posting will note the absence of an O, as in Opossum, and will undoubtedly wonder why it was omitted. That’s because the prefix O is not used in our southern regions, and especially not in the sovereign state of Texas, neither in writing nor in speaking.
A similar spelling may be noted in the name of our Irish president, Barack O’bama—the O is present with an apostrophe added, as in O’Reilly, O’Brien and other Irish names. (Thanks, and a tip of the kingly crown to Kinky Friedman, our perennial candidate for political office in Texas, for defining the president’s heritage by adding the apostrophe and for saying he would vote for him).
And here is my lyric poem:
Ode to a Possum
In Wiley lived a possum named Fred,
That used Brantley’s insulation for his bed.
He rambled ’round the attic
Till the family grew frantic,
And wished that ol’ Fred was dead.
Brantley baited a trap with wine,
And chateaubriand quite fine.
Of each did Fred partake,
His death then did fake,
And Brantley told Kelley “It’s time.”
“Don’t kill him,” Kelley then cried,
But Brantley took Fred for a ride.
No mercy would he show,
Cause ol’ Fred had to go.
In the attic he could not abide.
Just past the limits of the city,
Brantley’s heart overflowed with pity.
Though his eye shed a tear,
Fred had nothing to fear,
And I’m nearing the end of this ditty.
Fred did Brantley return to the wild,
By handling him gently and mild.
But when Fred was free,
He climbed a tall tree,
And at Brantley thumbed his nose like a child.
The saga of Fred will be told,
By Kelley’s children when old,
How a possum so bold,
Came in from the cold,
But succumbed to a trap that would hold.
In 1985 I traveled to Botswana under the auspices of the United States’ Department of State. At that time I was gainfully employed with the United States Customs Service, and the purpose of my travel was to represent our government and U.S. Customs in a law enforcement conference. The conference took place in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, at a complex that included a Holiday Inn, several restaurants and two Las Vegas-style casinos. Except for South Africa, every country in Africa was represented. That nation was not represented because it was not invited, ostensibly in criticism of its rule of apartheid.
This posting is intended to discuss other facets of that many-faceted trip. It is one of a series of discussions covering my travel to Botswana via New York City, England and South Africa, and my return therefrom via South Africa, Germany and New York City, and discussions on everything that occurred in between. For related postings, click on I married my barber,Sojourn to Botswana and Botswana’s urinals. My intentions are to narrate some of the details of my trip in the hope of entertaining visitors to my blogs, and perhaps even, to some small degree, educate visitors with those details. And now, on to the posting!
I downed a lion in South Africa . . .
After landing in Johannesburg, South Africa I spent several hours in the company of two agents of that nation Secret Service unit, an organization similar to our Central Intelligence Agency. I surrendered my U.S. State Department passport to an immigration officer at Johannesburg’s municipal airport. It would be returned to me on my return to Johannesburg from Botswana. I did not ask why my passport was held, nor was any reason given.
I would learn later that it was held to ensure that I came back through Johannesburg, rather than leaving Botswana for a different country. The two agents questioned me on the purpose of the conference and which countries would be represented, and questioned me on my return. I answered all their questions freely to the best of my ability, although my knowledge was rather limited. They seemed satisfied with my answers in the prebriefing as well as the debriefing following my return to Johannesburg after the conference.
We stopped at their office and I was asked to wait while they reported my arrival to their superiors, a report that was made behind closed doors and obviously without my presence. Left to my own devices I toured the hallways of the building, taking in views of the city through the windows and views of offices through open doors. In my wanderings I found restroom doors and drinking water fountains marked Whites only and Coloreds only. I also noted that in the wide hallways of the building, colored maintenance and cleaning people stepped well to one side as I neared, and made no direct eye contact, looking away or down as we met and passed.
Those obvious signs of the apartheid rule that still existed in South Africa—a system that would endure until 1994—turned my thoughts back 24 years, back from 1985 to 1961, to a time when racial segregation—our nation’s apartheid—ruled the South. In 1961 I left my assignment at Craig Air Force Base in Selma, Alabama to begin a two-year tour at Bitburg Air Base in Bitburg, Germany, a small town in Germany’s Eifel mountains (a definite subject for future postings!).
My tour of duty at Craig had been pleasant in every respect, both for me and for my family. That tour had lasted more than five years, and I was extremely reluctant to end it. However, my transfer was not an object for negotiation, not even for discussion, so I grudgingly and unwillingly accepted the new assignment. Bummer!
My newfound friends from South Africa’s Secret Service treated me with a tour of Pretoria, the capital city of the nation. Our tour of the city included a marketplace, monuments and various civic buildings. The most impressive part of the tour was the Voortrekker Monument, a massive granite structure built to honor the Voortrekkers, pioneers that left the Cape Colony in the thousands between 1835 and 1854 to explore and establish settlements. Clickhere for a digital tour of the monument.
We returned to Johannesburg shortly before my flight was scheduled for departure, and a suggestion was made to have a beer before the flight. I declined because the cuisine at the Holiday Inn had not been kind to my digestive system, particularly to the elimination apparatus of that system. However, under duress inflicted by their urging me to have a beer, I accepted a cold beer, attractively packaged in a can. Oddly, however, neither of my friends ordered a beer, explaining that they could not drink while on duty.
I noticed that they watched me intently while I downed the beer, rather quickly because boarding time was near. When I finished the beer, they both smiled broadly and told me that on my return to the States I could truthfully claim that I downed a lion in Africa. A quick glance at the can’s label confirmed the fact that I had indeed accomplished such an unlikely feat—pictured on the can’s label was a male lion with a huge mane and an open mouth featuring large fangs, obviously a roaring lion.
I made it safely home with the empty Lion beer can, and it became the nucleus for a rather extensive collection of beer cans. Several years later while converting our garage into a rec room, I bagged the cans into several black plastic trash bags, set them into a corner. The bags occupied that space for a considerable length of time, right up to the time my wife tossed them out with the other trash. She apologized profusely and claims to this day that it was an accident, absolutely unintentional, but I have some doubts. The cans must have clanged and rattled a bit en route to the trash, a sign that the bags contained something other than routine trash. Oh, well, easy come, easy go, right? Bummer!
I downed a lion in South Africa—I no longer have the evidence to prove it but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
In a recent posting I mentioned a business trip I made to Botswana, Africa via London, England and in that posting I promised—threatened, really—that I would follow up with more details of that trip. One may view that posting by clicking here:I married my barber. Today’s posting is a start to fulfilling that promise—or that threat, depending on how one reacts to my literary efforts.
Sojourn to Botswana
Long, long ago in the past century—1985—I traveled to Botswana under the auspices of the United States’ Department of State. The purpose of my travel was to represent our government in a law enforcement conference. Botswana’s capital city of Gaborone hosted the conference—every country in Africa was represented except South Africa. That nation was not represented because it was not invited, ostensibly in criticism of its continuing rule of apartheid.
A special note: All the African delegates to the conference were male and black—no exceptions—and all were, in varying degrees, fluent in English. That was especially beneficial to me, because I lack fluency in only two languages—English and Spanish—neither of which is compatible with any of the myriad native languages spoken by representatives of the various African countries. I managed, fairly well, in conversation with the British officer from Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
And that reminds me of President George W. Bush’s answer to a question posed by a reporter prior to the president’s visit to England to meet the queen. The reporter asked the president what he felt was the biggest challenge for him while in England. The president replied, “I may have a problem with the language.”
And some say that George had no sense of humor—imagine that!
The conference leader in Botswana was a representative from the United Nation’s headquarters. Others present included a member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the equivalent of our Central Intelligence Agency. Although I’m at a loss to recall his name, I can cheerfully report that during our ten-day association, I adopted a bit of his British accent and some of his quirky phrases, one of which was a fascinating phrase used to tell someone to expect a phone call at a certain time. We were invited to a dinner with the United States ambassador and his family in his home, and the agent told me, “I’ll knock you up at six.”
Believe me, that’ll make your ears perk up!
Click here for Botswana, a fascinating study of a fascinating country and its people, here for Britian’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), and here for our Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). These are only suggestions intended to prepare you for future postings regarding my great adventure in 1985—the clicking is not mandatory, but I believe you’ll find all three sites tremendously interesting and educational, and that’s a good thing!
Excerpts from Botswana’s history:
The Republic of Botswana is a landlocked country in southern Africa. Citizens of Botswana are called “Batswana” (singular: Motswana), regardless of ethnicity.
Geographically the country is flat and up to 70% is covered by the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast.
Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. It has held free and fair democratic elections since independence.
The official languages of Botswana are English and Setswana.
In the northern part of Botswana, women in the villages of Etsha and Gumare are noted for their skill at crafting baskets from Mokola Palm and local dyes.
The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Botswana was estimated at 24% for adults in 2006. Approximately one in six Batswana has HIV, giving Botswana the second highest infection rate in the world after nearby Swaziland.
I flew from Washington’s National Airport to New York’s JFK, then on to England’s Heathrow Airport for an overnight stay, then non-stop to Johannesburg, South Africa. Immediately on landing I was met by two officers from South Africa’s equivalent of our CIA. They first introduced me to an Immigration officer, and that officer secured my passport and retained it throughout my stay in Africa. It was returned to me just before I boarded a flight bound for Germany.
The two agents entertained me for several hours while I waited for my flight to Botswana. They took me on a tour of their headquarters, and then we took an extensive motor tour of the city with my guides (captors?) pointing out and describing points of interest.
And now I must beg for your forgiveness—I’ll leave you hanging in suspense, waiting for a subsequent posting that will provide more details of that story. A single posting cannot possibly cover all the details of my visit to Africa. Each additional posting will be titled Botswana sojourn continued, or some similar phrase.
Stay tuned for more later, and in the interim it might be helpful—informative and intellectually productive—to spend some of the waiting time on the sites highlighted above.
Regarding the above title: I strove mightily to resist using the word butt’s, but (there I go again!) the temptation was strong and my resistance was weak. I beg for forgiveness from any viewer that may take umbrage for its use. It’s not really my fault, it’s the fault of my weak resistance—just remember that to give is human, to receive is divine. Your forgiveness, freely offered, will establish your humanity, and my acceptance of that offer will affirm my divinity—wow, I love it when I talk like that!
I have just spent a considerable amount of time on a certain Word Press blog, one that I will later identify for my viewers. Along with that ID will be my recommendation for others to follow this blogger. That recommendation applies strictly to those that are imbued with the ability and the inclination to appreciate a tremendously prolific pontificator that uses humor, sarcasm, dry wit, originality, a comprehensive knowledge of local, national and world wide history and current events, a writer that has a curious penchant for vacillating between leaning to the left and leaning to the right in our political spectrum—I suspect that he may be either a closet centrist—or left leaning or right leaning—whatever. Regardless of stance, whether yours or his, whether you stand left, center, right or a combination of one or more or all of the above, “This dud’s for you!”
I didn’t really mean the dud’s part—it may be nothing more than a typo, but I will not correct it because I have long yearned for an opportunity to fracture that phrase, and I couldn’t allow this one to escape me). In summary, I will say that the blogger in question, the one yet to be identified, has never left, nor will ever leave, any target unskewered!
In the not-too-long-ago past, a purveyor of floral arrangements and such, a gnat among birds of prey in the world of commerce, particularly vultures, flooded television and other venues with this slogan: “This bud’s for you!”
A certain giant—one that I will not name—threatened legal action if the gnat did not cease and desist in its illegal use of said giant’s own copyrighted slogan, one identical to the gnat’s slogan except for the letter b in the second word—the gnat’s b was lower case and the giant’s B was capitalized.
And so it came to pass—the gnat folded. Bummer!
Oh, well, what the hell! I will name the giant and take my lumps if the company takes offense to my outing them. The giant was the Budweiser corporation, and the gnat was a teenie-weenie company that sold flowers.
Oh, and be patient while the blog is loading—the site is huge, a good match for the blogger’s ego, and in that vein, I must admit that my blog lags far below the size of my own ego. However, I believe that we both are striving to attain the level of super-ego, the pinnacle of one’s psychic apparatus, but he is much closer to that goal than I. Bummer! (Click here to refresh your understanding of Sigmund Freud’s structural model of the psyche)
Special postcript: Please know that the image to the right is a photographic representation of the outed blogger, extracted from his About Me—that is not my picture. Click here for access to that feature and the voluminous comments the feature has attracted.
Can you say envy? I can—for the number of comments, not the image.
This a re-do of the original posting made in June 2009. It was, and still is, a beautifully constructed dissertation on the use of the Miranda warning by our nation’s law enforcement officers. I labored long and strong to support my contention that the warning is almost universally misused, and that such misuse is highly detrimental to our efforts to stem the ever-escalating crime rate in the United States.
It is my humble and completely unbiased opinion that I made my case, yet I have received zero comments on the posting—not one comment after ten months online, neither positive nor negative—nothing, nada, nicht, nein, ninguna, nessun, aucun, keine. The posting has garnered only one vote, albeit a vote of excellence, and in the interests of full disclosure I must reveal that the single vote is mine. In a state of despair, desolation, deprivation and delusion from the lack of attention shown to the posting, I first voted for myself, and then briefly considered doing away with myself—no, no, not that way. I briefly considered shutting my blog down, but I decided that, for the greater good for the greatest number of people, I would continue my Herculean efforts to educate—and yes, entertain—the legions of Word Press users.
I decided to vote for myself in the hope that the initial vote would spark a flood of comments and votes. The complete absence of votes and comments pushed me perilously close to the brink of despair. I was in a blue funk, “a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity.” I blissfully dreamed of my posting catching the attention of persons at high levels, and ultimately bringing recognition from those levels, perhaps in the form of a presidential gold medal—or at least an attaboy on paper from one or more of those persons.
But I feel better now—that first vote helped a lot!
The original posting follows—it’s dated June 15, 2009, and you canfind it here. Try it, you might like it! Oh, and just one more note: The original posting and this re-post allow multiple votes, comparable to our multiple voting for political candidates in our national elections.
I was a federal Civil Service law-enforcement officer for the final 26 years of my 48 years in the work force (I spent the first 22 years in the US military). In the early years of my law enforcement career, before I was taken off the street by a series of promotions, I had cause to administer the Miranda warning on numerous occasions.
My reason for this posting is to express an opinion concerning the Miranda warning.
I believe the Miranda warning, as given in most jurisdictions by most law enforcement officers, has been corrupted by the wording of the warning—with no ulterior motive on the part of law enforcement officers but none the less corrupted. The wording of the warning, as given by most officers, has perhaps contributed to many, perhaps most, of their suspects exercising their right to remain silent and to request an attorney. They take this action to avoid incriminating themselves, whether guilty or not guilty, rather than cooperating with officers and giving answers to questions, answers which, while not necessarily incriminating the suspect, perhaps could have contributed to solving crimes.
A Miranda warning is a warning given by police to criminal suspects in police custody, or in a custodial situation, before they are interrogated. A custodial situation is one in which the suspect’s freedom of movement is restrained although he or she is not under arrest. An incriminating statement by a suspect will not constitute admissible evidence unless the suspect was advised of his or her “Miranda rights” and made a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of those rights (the term “Miranda rights” is somewhat misleading, as the mandated Miranda warning simply clarifies preexisting Constitutional rights).
The Miranda warnings were mandated by the 1966 United States Supreme Court decision in the case of Miranda v. Arizona as a means of protecting a criminal suspect’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid coercive self-incrimination (see right to silence).
The Supreme Court did not specify the exact wording to be used when informing a suspect of his or her rights. However, the Court did create a set of guidelines which must be followed. The ruling states:
“…The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he or she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person saysmaybe usedagainst that person in court; the person must be clearly informed that he or she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning, and that, if he or she is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent him or her.
Every U.S. jurisdiction has its own regulations regarding what, precisely, must be said to a person when he is arrested or placed in a custodial situation, the typical warning being as follows:
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can andwill be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?
The remainder of this posting is strictly mine, with references to the above information.
For starters, check out the above two phrases in red in the Wikipedia information above—the first phrase is the Court’s requirements for the wording of the Miranda warning, and the second is the wording used in most police jurisdictions—they are not the same—aye, there’s the rub!
The Supreme Court saays that a suspect must be informed that anything that person says may be used against that person in court. Compare that requirement with the wording in the typical Miranda warning used by officers: “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” This offers a compelling reason for the suspect to remain silent and request an attorney.
Imagine yourself under arrest or in a custodial status, and imagine being told the conditions which will prevail if you choose to answer questions, and the conditions which will prevail if you choose to remain silent.
Which offer would you take? Which would you feel was more advantageous for you? The one that says that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, or the one that says anything you say may be used against you in a court of law?
Come on, ‘fess up—you would be more inclined to choose the one which says can and will be used against you and ask for a lawyer, rather than choose the one which says may be used against you. May means that what you say mightbe used and that it can be used, but not that it willbe used.
The other option states unequivocally that what you say willbe used against you—the inference is that anything you say can and will be used against youwith no reference to, or apparent regard for, your innocence or guilt.
The wording of the Miranda warning, as used by most law enforcement officers, does not encourage a person in custody to cooperate in a criminal investigation. It instead encourages them to remain silent and request an attorney.
That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.
This is my question:
How many people, guilty or not guilty, remain silent and request an attorney and thus contribute nothing to the investigation? Does the wording of the Miranda warning, the phrase will be versus the Supreme Court’s may be, perhaps influence that decision? Could the emphasis placed by the officer on certain words in the warning influence that decision? Stronger emphasis on the words will be, for example, might influence a person to remain silent and request an attorney. Conversely, emphasis on the phrase may be could possibly influence a person in custody, particularly an innocent person, to cooperate with law enforcement in the investigation.
In my opinion, it’s worth giving it a try—simply change the wording to conform with the Supreme Court’s stated requirements and emphasize these key words, may be used against you, when giving the warning. This could possibly prompt the subject to cooperate in the criminal investigation rather than remaining silent, and the officer giving the warning would in strict compliance, word for word, with the requirements levied by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Does everyone—some one—anyone—agree with me?
Does everyone—someone—anyone—disagree with me?
I welcome input from everyone, whether in agreement or disagreement, whether in or out of law enforcement, but particularly from law enforcement officers currently on duty, retired officers, and persons formerly employed in law enforcement.
I am noting the date in order to record the day that I peeked into the future of America, and my opinion is that our future does not shine nearly as brightly as it should, and certainly not as brightly as it did before the promulgation of certain documents by our government.
And in that vein, please know that I just signed off from a United States government web site that provides everything one needs to know in order to become a naturalized U. S. citizen. I left in haste because I was stricken with extreme nausea, a condition that developed in less than five minutes of reading the basic conditions that an applicant must meet in order to become a bona fide citizen of our country, entitled to all the rights and benefits appurtenant thereto.
Numerous inhalations and exhalations, plus several Tums tablets, plus some fifteen minutes in a supine position on the sofa (lying down face up, on my back, so to speak) enabled me to recover sufficiently enough to return to the site for further reading. My nausea returned immediately on arrival, but I managed to control it. I felt that it was the least I could do in order to understand the requirements enough to pass the basics on to my blog visitors.
I stayed at the site long enough to capsule the requirements into a few brief statements—actually, they can be expressed in one statement, namely that an applicant wishing to become a naturalized citizen must be alive. I found no evidence that our Immigration officials would grant, or even consider granting, naturalized citizenship status to non-citizens that have departed this vale of tears for another world, regardless of whether they ascended or descended into their new world.
At this point it would perhaps be beneficial to define a naturalized U. S. citizen. Such citizens begin as resident aliens, those that hold a green card, a federal document that gives the resident every right enjoyed by U.S. citizens except for the right to vote and the right to holdpublic office. Under current regulations, any resident aliens that have held their green card for a certain number of years may apply for naturalization, the successful completion of which will entitle them to all the rights and benefits accorded to citizens born on U.S. soil, or born on foreign soil to parents, either one or both, that are U. S. citizens, regardless of the place of birth.
I could ramble on interminably—just as I normally am wont to do—by replicating all the requirements, but you can read them for yourself at this site, The U.S. Naturalization Test. Rather than repeating the requirements verbatim, I will compare them with the basic rules that determine whether our children will, at the close of the school year, either ascend from their present school grade to the next level or remain at their present level for another year.
While our schools may vary in some degree, most require students to attain a final grade of C, an alphabetical term corresponding to the numerical requirement of 70 points earned by students from a total of 100 points. I know of no legal exceptions to that requirement, although in the past some schools have elevated students that failed to achieve the minimum points by granting them the necessary points—70, a C. That practice was labeled a social promotion—I am very familiar with a school district in South Texas—deep in South Texas—that used the term Circle C. That district’s report cards featured a C within a circle, indicating that the student had failed to attain a passing grade but was allowed to pass to the next level—that’s the concept of social promotionin action!
No, my children never presented their parents with a circled C—had they received a report card with such, I venture to say that they would not have dared to bring it home—they would have probably claimed, wisely, that the dog ate it!
I am not privy to statistics concerning social promotions in American schools, neither past nor present, and any prediction of future social promotions could not possibly produce accurate figures. However, I can accurately predict that social promotions—read granting U.S. citizenship—will be awarded by our U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in direct proportion to the numbers of applicants that minimally qualify for U.S. citizenship.
Unbelievable? Read on!
An applicant for citizenship must be able to read onesentence in English from a group of three sentences presented in English. Reading that one sentence correctly awards the applicant the qualifying grade of 33 percent in the quest for U.S. citizenship. Thirty-three percent is far below the 70 percent required for children in our public schools to attain in order to pass to another level. Thirty-three percent would be considered an F-minus in our schools, but it’s a passing grade for the legal resident alien on the path to citizenship.
And here’s the exact sentence, copied from the English & Civics narrative—the catcher in the rye, so to speak—Your ability to speak English is determined during your interview on your naturalization application. Well, I say good luck with that!
In this instance the official becomes the catcher in the rye—whether the applicant passes or fails the spoken English requirement is determined by that official. Based on my experiences accumulated over a period of 26 years while working in proximity to Immigration officials, I found that some lacked full literacy in at least one language—English. All such officials were bilingual, but I could neither determine, nor vouch for, their literacy in languages other than English. To apply the term catcher in the rye, I believe that in some, perhaps most, of the time the examiner will catch the examinee as the need arises (see the post script below for an explanation of the term catcher in the rye).
Wait, there’s more:
An applicant for citizenship must be able to correctly answer at least six of ten civics questions—six of ten—that’s another grade of 60 percent, an alphabetical grade of D in our schools. And guess what? An applicant that fails to attain that lofty 60 percent may test again, anywhere from 60 to 90 days after initially failing the test—the same version of the test the applicant failed. Based on my knowledge gleaned over 48 years of military and federal civil service, bootleg copies of every test will soon be available, and new tests will be developed to replace the existing bootleg copies, and soon after that bootleg copies of the new tests will be made available, etc., etc.
Other than finding that the path to citizenship for a long-time legal U.S. resident is a piece of cake, there’s lots more learning to be gained by spending some time on the citizenship site. You might consider taking the sample tests. They could prove to be an eye-opener for you concerning your knowledge of our nation and its government.
I took the tests, and yes, my eyes opened wide indeed—the tests were not the cakewalk I expected and I stumbled on several questions. Actually, I gave the wrong answers but I managed to eke out an A overall.
Try it—you’ll like it!
I have striven mightily to avoid any semblance of purposely projecting personal political preferences (how’s that for alliteration!) in this posting. I trust that I have retained my anonymity, whether I’m standing stolidly and solidly in the center, or I’m leaning toward the left or to the right of our political spectrum.
I realize that any readers will be able to satisfactorily discern for themselves which political party, if any, will benefit (if there is any benefit to be gained) from this kindergarten approach to determining qualifications for U. S. citizenship, whether Democratic, Republican, Constitutional, Green or Libertarian, or any of the plethora of third parties that infest the United States.
I must resume my supine position on the sofa now—I am sorely in need of more Tums.
Postcript:
My reference to the catcher in the rye was prompted by Holden Caulifield’s thoughts expressed in J. D. Salinger’s 1951 novel TheCatcher in the Rye. Holden says he pictures children playing in a field of rye on the edge of a cliff, and in expectation of them accidentally running over the cliff he stands ready to catch them—he thus pictures himself as the catcher in the rye, and says that’s all he wants to be.
It’s one of America’s greatest novels, a read that you’ll enjoy.
I have just learned a new word. Given the remote possibility that one or more of my viewers may be unfamiliar with the word I will use it in a sentence, for their benefit and to help spread the word far and wide. At this point, in the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that when I first saw the word I figured it referred to some sort of alcoholic drink because of its resemblance to the Spanish word sangria, “. . . a delicious, fruit-based wine “punch” with its traditional heritage well rooted in Spain.
First, the presentation and definition of that word—to paraphrase Sarah Palin, “Here’s a new word for ya!”
1. sanguinary—accompanied by bloodshed; “this bitter and sanguinary war”sanguineous, slaughterous, butcherly, gory bloody—having or covered with or accompanied by blood; “a bloody nose”; “your scarf is all bloody”; “the effects will be violent and probably bloody”; “a bloody fight”
2. sanguinary—marked by eagerness to resort to violence and bloodshed; “bloody-minded tyrants”; “bloodthirsty yells”; “went after the collaborators with a sanguinary fury that drenched the land with blood”-G.W.Johnson—bloodthirsty, bloody-minded bloody— having or covered with or accompanied by blood; “a bloody nose”; “your scarf is all bloody”; “the effects will be violent and probably bloody”; “a bloody fight”
Here is the new word (example #2 in bold) properly used in a sentence:
The sanguinary talking heads on cable’s MSNBC, labeled PMSNBC by Rush Limbaugh, comprise a group of professionals, a group in which all, in varying degrees, launch verbal and vicious attacks on everyone and everything they consider to be standing on, or even leaning towards, the political right in our nation’s political spectrum.
I neither condemn nor praise the speakers on MSNBC. In an attempt to understand both sides of political issues, I attempt to devote equal viewing and listening time to MSNBC and another network, a network that claims to be fair and balanced, saying We report, you decide—catchy and lofty phrases, but phrases that one should not accept whole cloth—the facts and opinions expressed on that network should be compared to facts and opinions expressed on other networks.
For anyone that may need their memory freshened on the meaning of whole cloth, the following definition is furnished—the bolding of certain words is mine:
[Q] From an anonymous correspondent: Do you have any information on the meaning or origin of the term whole cloth?
[A] Literally, the phrase refers to a complete piece of cloth as it is first made, as opposed to one which has been cut up to make garments. It goes back at least to the fifteenth century in that sense. Down the years, it has been used in a variety of figurative senses, but in the early nineteenth century it began to be employed in the US in the way that we now know, of something that is wholly fabricated or a complete lie. The implication seems to be that a thing made from whole cloth has no previous history or associations, that it is created from a blank sheet in the same way that a total lie is invented.
And finally this posting has come to its end, or at least it is nearing its end. Whether it is a noble or ignoble posting must be decided by its viewers. Each viewer will have the opportunity to rate the posting at its conclusion with five levels—stars— to use for voting.
Note that a vote to the far right star means excellent, and a vote to the far left star means poor, and I believe that one could surmise that the star in the middle stands for average—the center, if you will.
The positioning and the relative value of the stars is either a startling coincidence or a really well thought out and well developed voting system furnished by WordPress. Color me wary and susceptible to subliminal messages, but I seem to fixate on a particular star for voting purposes, and I rarely deviate from that position.
You should be aware and cognizant of the stars’ positions and their relative values before you vote. You will not have the option of changing your vote, so please don’t vote erroneously and paint yourself into a corner, so to speak—you may leave a posting with a specific label, other than the one to which you adhere, attached to your lapel—so to speak.
I just noticed that in my typing above I inadvertently omitted the A in be aware and failed to space, thus combining the words be and ware. I corrected the typos but not before I noticed something significant that resulted from my errors. Can you guess what resulted? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two won’t count.
Give up? Fail to space between the words be and aware and omit the a and the two words are converted to beware. I have just created a maxim, namely that, “If one does not be aware of all possibilities of certain situations, one should beware,” shortened to “Be aware, or beware!”
That admonition qualifies as outstanding poster material and should be posted in every work center, on every street corner, on every marquee, on the giant digital billboards in Times Square, on auto license plates, on Hallmark’s greeting cards, on home wall decorations and prominently displayed on ladies purses as a reminder to the lady that purse snatchers prey on women, and as a warning to potential purse snatchers that the lady is very much aware of that fact. The possibilities are endless—as is, apparently, this posting.
How about that? I probably should copyright that maxim and charge for its use—I could profit significantly from my creation! No, not really—as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun, and I’m sure my creation is not new—knowing that it is not new does not preclude my claiming to be its discoverer—it’s in my nature!
If this posting garners a significant number of votes, the results may be worthy of a subsequent posting, so I urge all viewers to follow the example of many that vote in our local, regional and national elections:
Vote early and vote often!
I welcome and will respond to all comments, whether positive or negative, but please be gentle.
I recently found the comment below on a web site that promotes proper use of the English language. I visited both sites, the one from whence the comment came as well as the one that received it. As do all such sites (including mine), both have flaws. I believe that perfection in any endeavor is desirable and should be sought, but I concede that perfection is impossible. One can always find, via the nitpicking process, something to cite and criticize, albeit constructively, as is this posting. The site commented on is seriously flawed, but I am pleased to give the teacher’s site an overall rating of excellent, simply because it is superior to many others of that ilk.
First a disclaimer: I must state, with all seriousness aside, that the following diatribe is presented in an effort to change something that is probably unchangeable. Any attempt to effect that change is comparable to a situation in which an unstoppable moving object collides with an unmovable stationary object—nothing will change.
This is the comment that prompted my posting:
escher dax Says:
January 2, 2010 at 5:47 am
Glad to have found your site! As a teacher, I’m always looking for examples of what not to do. I’ve got you bookmarked now — very useful site!
Oh, please, tell me it isn’t so—I’ve gotyou bookmarked now?
And you are a teacher!
Long, long ago in the first one-third of the past century, in a time shrouded in the mists of antiquity, in a time during which the first six links in the chain of education were called grammar school, I was taught (forcibly) that the verb to have does not require a helper.
It accomplishes its task admirably without one iota of assistance.
I realize that I am swimming upstream in my quest to help others understand that simple statement—nay, what I am doing is hissing—oops, I believe I misspelled that word—into the wind, an act that accomplishes nothing more than soiling my clothing.
I am struggling to resign myself to accept the almost universal misuse of the verb “to have,” the use of which distorts my vision and sears my hearing, but I’m having difficulty accepting it. I realize that my struggle, my battle to restore law and order to the proper use of that verb, is probably futile.
My enemies in this battle are legion.
They include such worthies as AOL (America On Line). The exclamation You’ve got mail! has resounded loudly and clearly ever since the inception of AOL—that erroneous use of the verb to have has corrupted several generations of English-speaking listeners and is still counting. The same erroneous use is reflected in the speech of our nation’s mayors, governors, senators, representatives, our president, in speech used in the hallowed halls of our ivy league institutions and even in the speech used by persons of tremendous intellect (none of the afore mentioned persons qualify for that distinction).
How can one possibly win over such an opponent as AOL? I realize that the company is presently on the ropes, but it has shown resilience in the past and will probably survive. I have little hope that it will ever change its trademark signature—You’ve got mail!
I can’t do this alone—I need help, so I am calling on our nation’s English-speaking population (including bilingual persons) for assistance. Let’s use the power of our numbers to effect this change. Let’s work to correct AOL’s misuse of the verb to have from You’ve got mail!to You have mail!
If we are successful in our efforts, its proper use may not spread rapidly but it would be a good start.
Let’s use the concentrated power of our millions. Let’s contact AOL and threaten to cancel our membership. Let’s bring pressure to bear on family members. Let’s contact our local friends and neighbors, our e-mail recipients, our Facebook friends, our senators, our representatives, the members of the Supreme Court and our president—in fine, let’s contact everyone that is subjected to the improper use of the verb to have (and that’s everyone), andspecifically to the notice that, You’ve got mail!
The original posting was prompted by an apostrophe placed in the surname Obama. It was meant to form a contraction, “Obama is,” an other-than-normal contraction and somewhat misleading. Obama’s is the possessive form of a singular noun, and the apostrophe thus implies that the president possesses a reeling, whatever that might be. “Obama’s reeling” was the heading of a letter to the editor of San Antonio’s Express-News, the only daily newspaper (and fading fast) in the seventh most populous city in the United States. The subject of the letter was Massachusetts’ recent election to fill the Senate seat held by the late Senator Edward Kennedy. The race was between a Democrat and a Republican. Would anyone want to hazard a guess as to which candidate won?
You’re right!
I felt that this venue was more appropriate than replying directly to the viewer’s comment on that posting—any reply I made would have been buried and would have rarely, if ever, been exposed to the brilliant light of a separate posting.
As an incidental but closely related thought, I recently encountered this phrase on a blog: “I’d have,” meaning “I would have . . .” I consider “I’d” to be an improper contraction, and ambiguous even if it were proper—it could also mean “I did have” or “I should have,” etc. Would anyone want to hazard a guess as to whose website it was on?
You’re right!
And now on to Laura’s comment and my letter to her:
William Strunk, Jr. (1869–1946). The Elements of Style. 1918
II. ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE
1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with ’s.
Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,
Charles’s friend
Burns’s poems
the witch’s malice
This is the usage of the United States Government Printing Office and of the Oxford University Press.
Note: (The italics and bolding in Strunk’s rule above are mine).
This is Laura’s comment on my posting:
“The Chicago Manual of Style agrees with Strunk and White re: forming the possessive of a proper noun ending in S by adding an apostrophe and S. Also, I’m wondering if you meant “feign” and not “fain,” which doesn’t seem to fit neatly in your sentence. — Laura.” (http://terriblywrite.wordpress.com)
Letter to Laura . . .
Hi, Laura,
Thanks for visiting, and thanks for the comment. Please note that I approved it exactly as you posted it—I’m sure you are aware that I could have edited the comment to fit my taste, and had I chosen to do so I could have deleted it in its entirety. You, however, cannot edit your comment after it is posted, nor can you edit my reply—that leaves me free to change, rebut or delete any comment that is less than complimentary. I chose to let your comment stand as submitted in order to expand my response via this posting.
As used in that sentence, the phrase fain to know means if one desires to know, or is inclined to know or is willing to know (desirous, inclinedandwilling are three of fain’s many definitions). Had I used the word feign, it would have meant pretendto know. I know that fain is archaic and sparsely (if ever) used in today’s writings, but I do not feel that I misused it in my posting. As for my choice of a word “which doesn’t seem to fit neatly” in the sentence, I am satisfied with its fit and its neatness—nay, I’m more than satisfied—I am proud of both attributes.
On your trek through a flourishing crop of words in the process of nitpicking, you managed to harvest only one nit, and that one nit apparently prompted you to rate the posting with a negative thumbs down. I say apparently because I can’t be sure that the thumbs down is yours. However, this I know with certainty—yours is the only comment on the posting, and of the five votes existing at this time four are mine, so I must surmise that the thumbs down vote is yours.
A grammatical note—I realize that the graphic for the voting process shows only one thumb up and one thumb down. I use the plurals (thumbs up and thumbs down) because I cannot remember ever hearing someone giving someone a singular thumb up or thumb down—sounds a bit naughty.
Yes, I vote on my own postings, and I always give myself a thumbs up vote—to do otherwise would be self-defeating, so to speak. Please let me know whether the lone negative vote is yours, and if it is not I will willingly—just willingly, not humbly—tender a public apology.
I give nothing less than excellent ratings to any posting, whether items posted by me or by other bloggers (I suspect you would agree with me that consistency is a desirable trait). I strive mightily to adhere to the adage that says, “If you can’t say anything positive, don’t say anything.”
As an aside, I believe the practice of one voting on one’s own posting is widespread, a belief that is supported by a comprehensive poll of several (three) bloggers. Such actions are simply the result of writers tooting their own horn, a perfectly normal and common practice that is neitherprohibited nor restricted by rule or law.
As regards your statement that The Chicago Manual of Style agrees with Strunk:
I do not agree with your statement, nor do I trust or agree with anyone or anything related to Chicago, whether that person or thing be animal, vegetable, mineral, publication or president. I visited the Chicago Manual of Style online, but went no farther than the second page (the result of a search phrase) because I was unwilling to subscribe and pay for the “privilege” of going farther. However, the results of my search (admittedly brief) appear to contradict your contention that the Chicago Manual of Style agrees with William Strunk’s The Element of Style, circa 1918. In fact, the Chicago Manual of Style appears to leave a fair amount of choice for ways to show the possessive forms of words ending in ess—Strunk offers no alternatives and states that we should “Follow this rule whatever the final consonant.”
To avoid an awkward appearance, an apostrophe without an s may be used for the possessive of singular words and names ending in an unpronounced s.
The following is a personal note, intended to clarify the term unpronounced: The ess is pronounced, but it takes the sound of ze, the twenty-sixth (and final) letter in the English alphabet.
7.23: An alternative practice
options outlined above may prefer the system, formerly more common, of simply omitting the possessive s on all words ending in s
Those entries do not show agreement with Strunk—they show that there are alternatives that may be used to “avoid an awkward appearance,” and they give the option of “simply omitting the possessive son all words ending in s” in stark contrast to Strunk’s imperative to “Follow this rule whatever the final consonant.” Two of the examples given are Charles’s friend and Burns’s poems, both wrong and neither in complete agreement with the Chicago Manual of Style.
Laura, I spent some time on your site at http://terriblywrite.wordpress.com. I enjoyed my visit, and had you provided a counter for votes similar to the one I use on my blog, I would have rated your work excellent. You are quite thorough and successful in your quest to find errors in the writings of others, and you effectively use humor in pointing out the errors albeit, in my opinion, humor tinged with a certain measure of contempt for the inept writer.
I recently received this e-mail, Teacher arrested at JFK, from a relative in Dallas, and I felt that it should be disseminated as widely as possible. It was very difficult to confirm with Snopes because of the profusion of articles dealing with the arrest of teachers including arrests for DUI, indecent exposure, drug theft, leading prayer, dealing crack, having sex with minors, early dismissal, slaying stepdaughter, brainwashing kids, kicking students in karate class, murdering another teacher, etc., etc.
The scope of these arrests and their reasons reflect poorly on our historically vaunted teaching profession, but they comprise an infinitesimal part of the whole—they amount to no more than the teeny-weeniest part of the iceberg’s tip.Thegreater part of the educational iceberg is comprised of teachers that are largely and historically overlooked and underpaid. They are the ones that work and fight in the trenches, the ones that dedicate their days, their nights and their lives to helping families and other elements of society mold students into outstanding adults, and the ones that are in a great measure successful in their efforts.
The story of the teacher’s arrest is untrue, of course, but it’s funny and it’s very creative, obviously penned by someone familiar with mathematics (I’m not very familiar with mathematics, but would like to believe that I’m familiar with creativity in the written word). I am using it in this posting because it enables me to expound on my feelings and my respect for teachers—and I feel that I’m qualified to express my feelings and my respect because I’ve been paddled by some of the very best—seriously!
This is the story as I received it in an e-mail:
Teacher arrested at JFK
A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport when he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule and a calculator.
At a morning press conference Attorney General Eric Holder said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. The man was not identified, but the Attorney General said that he has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
“Al-Gebra is a problem for us,” Attorney General Holder said.
“They derive solutions by means and extremes, and they sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values.”
“They use secret code names such as “X” and “Y” and refer to themselves as “unknowns,” but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval, with coordinates in every country.
“As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, “There are three sides to every triangle.” (The Snopes article added the following item: The teacher was found carrying code books written in an arcane language called “calculus,” which the NSA is currently attempting to decode)
When asked to comment on the arrest President Obama said, “If God had wanted us to have weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes.”
White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President.
It is believed that the Nobel Prize for Physics will follow. (This was not included in the Snopes article)
The comment attributed to President Obama was attributed by Snopes to Hillary Clinton as follows:
When asked to comment on the arrest, Senator Hillary Clinton said, “If nature had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, she would have given us more fingers and toes.”
House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or more profound statement by the senator.
On a personal note, I believe that neither President Obama nor Hillary Clinton made the statement. I don’t believe it because the statement is funny, and neither person is capable of exhibiting that level of humor. I have not detected one whit of humor in either person at any time since they stepped into the national spotlight.
Those that laugh when a person says something intended to be funny are not always laughing with them—quite often they are laughing at them.
A letter from a reader of the San Antonio Express-News prompted this posting. The letter was printed in the paper’s Metro Section (Your Turn) January 22, 2010, In the interest of full disclosure, I must state that my Letter to the editor, was not sent to the paper’s editor for consideration. I did not submit it because of a series of rejections of my submissions over a period of many years. Many were printed, but now I prefer to air my thoughts on my blog. Word Press has never rejected one of my letters, and the letters are available to infinitely more viewers than is the San Antonio Express-News.
Letter to the editor, San Antonio Express-News
January 22, 2010
A reader’s submission printed today in Your Turn was titled Obama’s reeling. The apostrophe was apparently used by the copy editor to form a contraction meaning that Obama is reeling. In the literal sense it means that he is off balance, staggering and lurching violently (figuratively, of course) in reaction to the result of the Senate race in Massachusetts, a race in which the Republican candidate was elected to the Senate.
Obama’s reeling?
Such construction and presentation of the contraction Obama’s is incorrect and could be very misleading, providing fodder for various political commentators, particularly late night comedians.
One places an apostrophe and an essafter the name of a person, place or thing to show that the person, place or thing possesses something. Obama’s reeling is not a contraction, at least not a proper contraction as used in conjunction with the verb reeling. I suppose that Obama could possess a reel, as in fishing reel, but a reeling? Not likely! Reeling is a verb—had the article been titled Obama’s reeling in votes for Democrats, the contraction would have been proper and understandable. And if there is a fish or an aquatic animal that is known as a reeling, and if the president were fishing offshore at Martha’s Vineyard while on vacation, and if he had actually hooked a reeling the heading could have read, Obama’s reeling in a reeling. That would be a proper contraction, completely understandable and unlikely to mislead a viewer’s perception or conception of the president’s physical condition.
And as an afterthought, our president may possibly be reeling in a purely psychological sense, keenly aware of the fact that the balance of power in his administration is changing and has become off balance.
Had the letter referred to something possessed by our president, the apostrophe and the ess would have been proper. A few examples would be: Obama’s decision, Obama’s wife, Obama’s effort to nationalize health care, Obama’s reliance on teleprompters, etc., etc. In those examples the words decision, wife, effort and reliance all are things Obama possesses (well, I suppose wife may be a stretch, except perhaps in the biblical sense).
William Strunk, Jr. (1869–1946). The Elements of Style. 1918
II. ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE
1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with ‘s.
Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,
Charles’s friend
Burns’s poems
the witch’s malice
This is the usage of the United States Government Printing Office and of the Oxford University Press.
I strongly disagree with William Strunk, Jr. when he states, Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. To show that a noun—any noun, whether a person, place or thing—possesses something one does not add an apostrophe and another ess when that noun ends with an ess. That may have been correct in William Strunk’s day (1869-1946) as presented in Elements of Style by Bartley.com). The three examples given by Strunk to show possession are Charles’s friend,Burn’s poems and the witch’s malice. The first two end with an ess, the third does not. The first two are incorrect—the third is correct. Charles’s and Burns’s are incorrect, regardless of the fact that This is the usage of the United States Government Printing Office and of the Oxford University Press. The various US publications on writing style are littered with errors and some should be consigned to the litter boxes from whence they came.
Just because the federal government prints it does not make it true. And unless my memory fails me, the Oxford University Press is a British organization, and our treatment of the English language differs considerably from that of the British people. Remember when President George W. Bush, on his first trip to England as president, was asked what he considered his biggest challenge on the visit? The president said something to the effect that he might have a problem with the language.
Oh, and if one is fain (archaic, but a good word—look it up) to know the plural possessive form of witch, one only needs to add an essto make it plural and an apostrophe to show possession thusly: the witches’ malice. Please do not spell it and pronounce it as the witches’ess.
Go ahead—try it—unless the three syllables are carefully and properly enunciated, the witches’ess tends to come across as the witches ass—we would not want that, would we? Our listener would probably respond with a “Say whut?”
I can legitimately speak with the voice of experience—nay, with authority—in this matter of proper punctuation. I labored (laboriously) at various tasks during more than 22 years in the United States Air Force and during an additional 26 years in the ranks of our federal Civil Service. Throughout those 48 years I was called on (compelled, actually) to compose a wide variety of writings, including performance reports for myself and for others, and recommendations for various awards and medals for myself and for others (my efforts brought me several personal awards). I had access to most government style publications, and in fact brought some home (inadvertently, of course) when I retired from federal Civil Service. I still reference (and quote) the publications, but when they conflict with what I know is correct, government loses—I win. And at the risk of repeating myself, I will repeat myself—just because the federal government prints it does not make it true.
And here I must digress from my subject:
The thought just occurred that if one could literally repeat oneself, and if every person on earth repeated one’s self simultaneously, the world’s population would immediately double, rising from the present population (as of January 24, 2010) of 6,798,300,000 to 13,597,600,000 (From Wikipedia: The Earth’s population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6,798,300,000). That was as of January 24, 2010. I strongly urge than none of us attempt to literally repeat ourselves and especially not repeatedly—if we should succeed in our efforts we would soon run out of standing room on earth.
And now back to my subject:
Pee Ess: This posting is a continuation of my efforts to restrict the length of my postings in order to placate viewers that may be anxious to return to other more productive activities. I’m trying, but I cannot imagine any activity that could be more productive and personally rewarding than my blog.
Footnote: The terms pee and ess are proper words, abbreviations for the words Post and Script, and may be legitimately used in place of the letters P and S, the sixteenth and nineteenth letters of the English alphabet. If you like, you may verify their definition, their use and their numerical position in the alphabet online at Wikipedia.com.
In the interests of full disclosure, I must stress the fact that I’m never wrong—about anything. I thought I was wrong recently, but I later learned that I was right. I was chastised by a blogger for misspelling “adultery.” I was told that the correct spelling is “adultry.” I don’t spell by rote—I spell by instinct. That statement is copyrighted, but all are free to use it. Check out this definition of adultery at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultery. It’s worth the read.
Adultery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
“Adultery” is referred to as extramarital sex, philandery, or infidelity, but does not include fornication (Italics are mine). The term “adultery” for many people carries a moral or religious association, while the term “extramarital sex” is morally or judgmentally neutral.”
Say whut??!!
I’ve read that definition humpteen times, so to speak, and I still don’t understand it.
Adultery does not include fornication?
Wikipedia defines fornication separately as “consensual sexual intercourse between persons not married to each other.”
If this is true, that in the context of Wikipedia’s definition of adultery that fornication is not adultery and given the time-worn adage that the thought is as bad as the deed—or as good, perhaps, but not likely—one may as well do it. Perhaps most of us will deny it, but most of us are guilty of such thoughts, even the illustrious among us. Jimmie Carter, for example, a former president of the United States and married to the same woman for more than sixty years, was quoted in his interview for an article published in Playboy magazine as saying that he lusts in his heart. Perhaps, as Jimmie Carter goes so goes the nation, but perhaps not. I wager that very few of us would be as honest as Jimmie Carter was in his statement to Playboy, but I could be wrong—I can only speak for myself.
Permit me to quote (and corrupt) a stanza from a poem by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832):
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead
that never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!”
If you are wondering about the pertinence of the above quote, trust me—it’s pertinent. In today’s society when we, whether male or female, are faced with a physically attractive person of the opposite sex we tend to voice, albeit soundlessly, the following thought to replace the third line of Sir Walter Scott’s poem as follows:
“Oh, boy! I’d like to . . . . . .”
The possible variations of substitutions for the third line are infinite—one is bound only by one’s imagination.
Of course Sir Walter is referring to a man’s fealty (fidelity) to his native land. He probably never considered the possibility that his words might, some two centuries after his death, open a wide window of opportunity to the feckless (and reckless) among the world’s population.
Special note: In compliance with our Equal Opportunity laws and in fairness to the fairer sex (females), it must be noted that the corruption of this stanza in Sir Walter’s poem requires replacing the words “man” and “himself” by the words “woman” and “herself.”
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Postscript: I returned to this post today, February 14, 2011 (Valentine’s Day—ain’t that a hoot!) intending to bring it up to date with a reposting, and in researching Wikipedia I found that the above sentence, “Adultery” is referred to as extramarital sex, philandery, or infidelity, but does not include fornication. The term “adultery” for many people carries a moral or religious association, while the term “extramarital sex” is morally or judgmentally neutral, has been removed from Wikipedia’s definition of adultery. Apparently someone, perhaps an alert reader of the original posting, challenged that definition and called Wikipedia’s attention to that clause.
So listen up, everyone, and be forewarned—adultery does include fornication!
I retrieved these thoughts from an e-mail I received “back when,” and I felt they might be of interest to viewers.
Think about these three things:
Cows, the Constitution and the Ten Commandments
COWS:
Isn’t it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years earlier, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington?
And they even tracked her calves to their stalls.
But they are unable to locate eleven million illegal aliens wandering around our country.
Maybe we should give each illegal alien a cow.
THE CONSTITUTION:
Our government drafted a constitution for Iraq.
Why didn’t we just give them ours?
It was written by a lot of really smart guys, and it has worked for over 200 years.
It’s available, because we don’t use it anymore.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:
This is the real reason we can’t post the Ten Commandments in a court house:
You cannot post Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not lie, and Thou Shalt Not Commit Adulteryin a building filled with lawyers, judges and politicians.
It creates a hostile work environment.
Now think about this:
If you don’t want to pass this on for fear 0f offending someone, then you are part of the problem.
The military could link hands from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California and the line would not slow the illegal entries. They will go under, over, through or around any barrier constructed, living or otherwise, by land, sea and air, and through tunnels.
Anyone who has lived or worked on the border for any significant length of time knows the border cannot be closed. I worked on the Texas-Mexico border for 12 years, with extended assignments at three land border ports as a Customs inspector trainee, journeyman and supervisor, and in a three-year stint at Customs Headquarters I covered every port on the Mexican border (also most international airports, seaports and land crossings on our border with Canada).
I know the border cannot be closed.
Bill O’Reilly at Fox News believes the border can be closed. He’s wrong—the border cannot be closed (he hasn’t asked me about this, but I would be glad to brief him).
I began my 26-year career with the United States Customs Service at the international border crossing in Progreso, a small town in the Rio Grande Valley a few miles south of Weslaco, Texas. The port director at Progreso had, in my opinion, a sure-fire way to dry up the flood of illegal immigrants—such persons have historically been called wet-backs, a highly descriptive term that has fallen prey to the current atmosphere of political correctness. I plan to discuss the term in a subsequent posting.
The then-port director at Progreso suggested that, regardless of nationality or country of origin, one finger be removed from the illegal immigrant the first time he (or she) is intercepted, then return him (or her) to Mexico, and remove another finger if that person is again intercepted entering our country illegally. If adopted, his suggestion would result in numerous nine-fingered illegals, significantly fewer eight-fingered, and virtually none with only seven fingers.
My only suggestion to his plan at that time was to remove the middle finger of one hand for the first offense and the middle finger of the other hand for the second offense, then another finger for the next illegal crossing, etc., etc. My rationale for that sequence was, of course, intended to prevent the offender from flipping the bird at any US federal officer in any future encounter. This led to the development of Operation FRET (Finger Removal Each Time).
I have since fleshed out my plan to control unauthorized immigration, and have also developed a plan to prevent members of Congress from growing old and rich in the “service” of their country. To that end I offer the following concepts: Operation FRET to control illegal immigration, and Operation OFFER to clear out some, perhaps most, of the deadwood in our Senate and our House of Representatives. Operation OFFER, over time, might even clear out all the deadwood and ensure that none of it reappears in Congress.
Operation FRET (Finger Removal Each Time) should not be confused with the acronym for fluorescence resonance energy transfer, a condition related to fluorescent lighting. Operation FRET is my term for a system that, if properly applied, could staunch the flow of unauthorized entries across our national borders. The system is suggested to control entries from Mexico, but to avoid any semblance of bias it should probably be instituted along our northern border as well, and for consistency the system must apply to illegal entries at any point in the nation, whether by land, sea or air.
Operation OFFER (One Finger For Each Re-election) is recommended initially for elections to our Senate and our House of Representatives, but the concept can be applied effectively to lesser elections, ranging from local school boards up to gubernatorial races. I would oppose any suggestion to make Operation OFFEE retroactive for sitting electees—now that would really be cruel!
I would also oppose any suggestion to extend Operation OFFEE to the highest elected office in the land—that worthy needs more fingers, not fewer, to accomplish his complex duties and responsibilities. Besides, any hint of such a suggestion, whether satire or otherwise, would bring down on the suggester the accumulative weight and heat of every national, state and local law enforcement agency.
A fellow blogger made these comments on my suggestion concerning digit removals for illegal immigrants, and his comments inspired me to develop Operation OFFER:
I think your immigration penalty may be a tad cruel.
Could we, however, use it for membership in Congress?
Yes, we can! (I must admit that I pilfered that slogan from the 2008 presidential campaign). If the OFFER concept (One Finger Removal Each Re-election) became law, it’s doubtful that we would ever have more than a handful (so to speak) of nine-fingered senators or representatives, even fewer with only eight fingers and probably none with three fingers missing. I assume the writer meant to remove one finger on the initial election to Congress, whether to the Senate or to the House of Representatives, and the second on the first re-election, etc. And I also assume the same sequence (middle fingers first) would apply to the members of Congress. However, I feel that the system should apply to re-elections only. Under Operation FRET, the illegal immigrant has broken federal law, while the first term electee to Congress has broken no laws. Operation OFFER would ensure that no senator or representative would serve more than one term unless, of course, they would be willing to sacrifice a digit in order to remain on the federal dole and continue feathering their nest—not likely, that.
It is doubtful that the law could be made retroactive, principally because many of the senators and representatives would be minus all fingers as well as both thumbs. And there is actually the possibility, albeit it very remote, that reelections to the Senate and the House of Representatives would be eliminated—one can only dream.
I would oppose any suggestion to make Operation OFFER retroactive for sitting electees—now that would really be cruel! I would also oppose any suggestion to extend Operation OFFER to the highest elected office in the land—that worthy needs more fingers, not fewer, to accomplish his complex duties and responsibilities. And any such suggestion, whether satire or otherwise, would bring down on the suggester the accumulative weight and heat of every national, state and local law enforcement agency in the nation.
A special note for anyone who peruses (reads) this posting and believes it, or is repulsed by it, or considers it cruel and un-American:
Hey, lighten up!
This is satire and nothing more—no investigation by the AFRC (Anti-Finger-Removal Czar) is needed, nor do we need a BOLO for international border crossers with fingers missing from either hand, specifically middle fingers.
Our newspapers, novels, movies and television presentations are saturated with crime reports, either true or fictional, so everyone should know the meaning of BOLO. However, this explanation is provided for the edification (enlightenment) of the three persons (estimated) in our population of 330 million (estimated) that do not know:
BOLO is an acronym for Be On Look Out (for). Don’t you just abhor (hate) it when someone uses a word, whether verbal (spoken) or written, then immediately defines (explains) it in the belief that the reader lacks eruditeness (having great knowledge) and won’t know the word’s meaning?
I also hate it when someone does that, whether speaking or writing.
Over a period of many years I have spent, and continue to spend, considerable time in the waiting rooms of various clinics in two military hospitals, Brooke Army Medical Center and Wilford Hall Medical Center, both in San Antonio, Texas. I often take a paperback copy of Thoreau’s Walden along to help pass the time. In addition to Walden, the book includes Thoreau’s On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, hisclassic protest against government’s interference with individual liberties. From the back cover: One of the most famous essays ever written, it came to the attention of Gandhi and formed the basis for his passive resistance movement.
While in the waiting room I also read any literature that might be available. There is always a wide selection from which to choose, donated by patients and staff—paper back books and hardbound books, detective novels, romance novels, westerns, self-help books, children’s books, medical literature, and periodicals ranging from Reader’s Digest (I love the Humor in Uniform section) to Cosmopolitan with its ubiquitous tips for good sex, usually professing to be “what women really want” or “what men really want,” all probably written by men—and then again, perhaps not.
Any publication, regardless of theme, has the potential of increasing one’s store of knowledge—one simply needs to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Prompted by a front-cover blurb that read, Exclusive interview! President Barack Obama, I recently read an article in Black Enterprise—Your ultimate source for wealth creation, in the issue dated April 2009. The article was written by a Black Enterprise journalist following a 15-minute telephone conversation with the president, an interview purported to be “the first black publication to get an interview with the president,” and “the first magazine to gain an exclusive with Barack Obama since he took oath on Jan. 20.” From that 15-minute phone interview, Black Enterprise journalist Derek T. Dingle produced a well-written article that covered all, or part of, five pages in the 8.5 x 11 inch, 96-page publication.
I recommend the article to any reader, regardless of one’s political affiliation. Different readers will have different opinions on its content, but there is definitely knowledge to be gleaned—and although I run the risk of repeating myself, I will repeat myself—one simply needs to separate the wheat from the chaff.
This is the pearl I gleaned following multiple readings of the article and an unbiased—really—attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff (yes, it’s another repetition, but it’s one that is important).
The president’s stool is wobbly.
Yes—I said it, and I believe it. The president’s stool is wobbly, and at this point I feel an urgent need to define stool, a word that has many meanings. In this context (from Wikipedia), it means a backless seat consisting of a small flat piece of wood resting on three or four legs, and specific to a milking stool, a low three-legged stool used to sit on while milking a cow.
My contention that the president’s stool is wobbly was formed on the first page of the article. The last sentence in the article’s third paragraph reads as follows: In less than a month in office, he signed the $787 billion economic recovery package, purportedly the largest overhaul of the U.S. economy in history.
The first sentence in the next paragraph reads as follows: That action, the president asserts, represents only “one leg of the stool” in his mission to revamp the economic and financial system.” In the same paragraph, the president refers to three other plans; toensure the financial stability of banks, to help struggling homeowners modify their mortgages and stabilize home prices,andtoreview structuring plans of domestic automakers.
By my count the president created a four-legged stool in those two paragraphs—one leg for economic recovery, a second for bank stability, a third for mortgages and home prices, and a fourth for restructuringplans of domestic automakers. Of course, as all are aware, he has created many more “stools” in the interim, and it’s a sure bet that all have at least four legs.
In my far distant past, in addition to numerous other farm chores, I spent a significant amount of time sitting on a milking stool, one positioned properly to facilitate extracting milk from one of various milk cows. And guess what? The stool had only three legs.
A true milking stool—a professional milking stool, if you will—has only three legs. Three legs only, not four, with each leg cleverly placed equidistant from the others. The terrain on which the milking operation is performed will always be level if selected by the milker, but if selected by the milkee, the terrain may not be level. With a four-legged stool the milker will constantly be required to maintain equilibrium while milking the cow. A three-legged stool will always be stable, regardless of the terrain, and the milker can concentrate on the intricacies of his task.
Hence the three legs as opposed to four legs—the three-legged stool will provide the milker a steady platform from which to operate. The four-legged stool serves the milker well if on level terrain, but if the terrain is not level the stool will wobble, and as any old-time milker will testify, the job is precarious enough without a wobbly stool adding to the discomfort and dangers already present. The stool may be a bit canted from a true horizontal surface—in that event, the milker must compensate for the slope in order to finish the job.
In those long-gone and little-missed good old days, a milker arrived at his work site by a circuitous route, stepping over, around and sometimes in barnyard patties that often lurked in unlikely spots. Given the fact that young milkers sometimes milked in the half-light of morning and evening, plus the fact that such milkers were wont to go barefoot in summer, some missteps were predictable and numerous.
A milker often worked in extreme cold, or in extreme heat in a malodorous atmosphere, all the while ducking a constantly swishing tail and dodging hind-leg kicks aimed at the milk bucket or the milker or both, all the while attracting and stoically enduring the attention of flies, fleas, wasps and mosquitoes—a milker had no choice, because both hands were gainfully employed.
If we look closely enough, we will find that the president faces similar obstacles and distractions in his administration. I believe we can compare the president’s job with milking a cow, albeit a far more complex job, far more intricate and in a much more favorable working environment, and the effects, whether success or failure, are far more reaching than a botched milking. In a botched milking only the cow will suffer—if the president’s job is botched, our people, our nation and our future will suffer.
In summary, the president’s stool is wobbly because it has more than three legs and is not on level terrain. He should remove all legs above the count of three, ensuring that the remaining three legs are equidistant from each other. And if his stool (his presidential platform) is canted, he must compensate for the slope—he must hang on (please ignore the inadvertent pun) by usingwhatever muscle or muscles are available in order to finish the job.
Some may feel that I have taken an inordinate amount of time to support my contention that the president’s stool is wobbly because it is not on a firm foundation, and that he may be—nay, will be—distracted from his mission by the need to counteract its action and thereby risk failure to attain his goals, or at best attaining some but not all of his goals.
I offer no apologies to anyone—not to the president nor to my readers—not for my analysis of the Black Enterprise article nor for my analogy of the milking stool. The president is working from a precarious perch on terrain that is not level—he should either change the terrain or remove some of the legs on his perch. I believe my three-legged stool theory of government is as plausible, as reasonable and as workable as any theory that has been formulated in the past, and I offer it up for consideration, whether for our nation, for other nations, or for the world.
An afterthought that comes to mind:
I frequently hear the term double down used in reference to political operations, meaning that by adding additional items, usually to bring specific people on board, to a change that is not gaining wide acceptance, in hopes that the change might be pushed through.
Double down is a gambling term used in blackjack—if a player is initially dealt a pair—any pair, whether aces, face cards, tens or other values—he is allowed to double his original bet by splitting the pair, giving him the opportunity of besting the dealer on two hands rather than one. However, it also means he may lose two bets instead of one. If the player splits the pair, the dealer will give each hand one or more additional cards, face up, as requested by the player using the term, “Hit me.” In all instances the dealer will insist that the player “make one hand good before looking at the other.”
I mention the term double down only because it has often been used in this president’s administration. I submit that my three-legged theory, if followed properly, would produce far better results than doubling down. However, the gambling metaphor still applies—the president should make good the first three legs of policies offered for consideration before proposing further changes—in other words, make one hand good before looking at the other.
This is a note for any readers of this posting:
There is some wheat in this posting, wheat that warrants your time and effort to search for it among the chaff and then separate it. Yes, I know, it’s another repetition—I said it’s important, remember?
This letter was not published because it was not presented for the editor’s review—it was not presented to him because, based on considerable personal experience accumulated over a period of many years, I felt certain it would be rejected out-of-hand by the Express-News editor—as of this posting, I have never had a letter rejected by WordPress.com—they seem to welcome my letters—never a refusal.
Letter to the editor:
San Antonio Express-News
October 4, 2009
Re: Joann Smith’s letter entitled People want reform, published in Your Turn today, rebutted a letter by Col. James Vinci concerning columnist Froma Harrop. In a recent column, Froma quoted a poll by the New England Journal of Medicine that showed that 73 percent of doctors polled were in favor of a public insurance option in the administration’s proposed changes to health care. The colonel challenged that percentage, claiming that a recent poll showed that most doctors opposed HR 3200. The author of People want reform states that Col. Vinci failed to cite which poll, and that he charged Froma with hypocritically cherry-picking statistics.
In her letter today, Joann Smith states that “Poll after poll shows that Americans, across all demographic lines, support having a public insurance option available. Check polls by ABC, CBS, AARP, Time Magazine, Kaiser. Americans want the choice of a public option.
Congress, are you listening to the people?”
Really, Ms Adams? You gave us a very short list. Why did you not list some other well-known organizations, news and otherwise, that frequently conduct polls which, ultimately and predictably, show support for the current administration regardless of the subject. The polls may be tailored to the national health program, specifically to the public insurance option, or to the administration’s stand on immigration, legal and illegal, or to the recession, or to the administration’s stand on foreign policy—how to handle Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Israel, North Korea, China, Poland, ad infinitum.
Here are some others you could have properly cited, but you did not:
Why not NBC?
Why not NPR?
Why not the Harvard School of Public Health?
It is notable that the Kaiser Family Foundation recently joined NPR (National Public Radio) and the Harvard School of Public Health in a new poll, Survey on the Role of Health Care Interest Groups, published September 30, 2009.
Here’s the online news announcement:
New NPR/Kaiser/Harvard Poll Examines Public’s Views of the Role of Health Care Interest Groups in the Health Care Debate
It must be noted that all three entities are far to the left of center—all can legitimately be considered hard-core far-left organizations. Predictably, the poll showed wide support for the administration’s efforts to create a national health care plan, including the public option.
It’s also notable that “Representatives of the three organizations worked together to develop the survey questionnaire and to analyze the results, with NPR maintaining editorial control over its broadcasts on the surveys,” as stated in the news announcements.
In conclusion, some special notes for Ms Adams:
Poll results are presented in numerical figures, and the results can easily be manipulated by the nature of the questions, by the demographics of the people and the area being polled and how the respondents’ answers are analyzed—in fine, Ms Adams, figures don’t lie, but liars figure—a corollary is that polls don’t lie, but pollsters figure. Some pollsters know exactly what they want from a survey, and then manipulate the various parts of the poll to accomplish the goal they desire.
In the interest of full disclosure, it must be stated that the ability to manipulate poll results is not restricted to the political left—it is also available, and is used, by centrists and by the political right. Some use that ability far more than others, and some are far more adept at skewing the results.
In the matter of politics, particularly in the matter of political polls, one should cover all the venues—books, newspapers, movies, television and talk radio—one should read, look, listen and learn in order to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Just a suggestion: Every one that reads this posting will profit by picking up the TV remote and channel surfing until they find a news source that uses this motto:
“We report—you decide.”
Bias exists on the channel that uses the motto, “We report—you decide” but in far less degree than other, perhaps most, news sources. It’s everywhere, similar to the air we breathe. And just as our atmosphere at some locations contains more pollution than others, the degree to which political bias exists depends on the source, whether on television, on radio, in face-to-face gatherings or in print.
I received this letter in a friend’s e-mail and felt that it would be worthwhile to make it available to everyone that visits my blog—it’s a good read, regardless of one’s political preferences or affiliation. In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that the original letter, although written in the first person, was signed by two people, so I took liberties and edited it, including the substitution of the personal plurals of we, us and ours. And I, without the slightest hint of blushing, consider my editing to have significantly improved the original letter.
Hey, it’s my blog—I’m allowed to do that, especially if it adds to, and does not take from, the spirit and intent of the missive.
Okay?
Lighten up!
This is the e-mail I received—the first paragraph is by the sender of the e-mail:
This letter is well written, and it’s a good shot across the bow of AARP. I checked it out and it’s a real letter, and Miller Farms Equine Transport is real. The letter to the AARP says it all, a must read regardless of one’s age. Some people just make sense in what they say, and this couple certainly does that. Their letter was sent to Mr. Rand, the Executive Director of AARP, and is as follows:
Dear Mr. Rand,
Recently you sent a letter encouraging us to renew our lapsed membership in AARP by the requested date. We know this is not the letter you were looking for, but this is the most honest response we can give you.
Our gap in coverage is merely a microscopic symptom of the real problem, a deepening lack of faith. While we have proudly maintained our membership for several years and have long-admired AARP’s goals and principles, we regret that we cannot endorse its abdication of our values.
Your letter specifically stated that we may depend on AARP to speak up for our rights, yet the voice we hear is not ours—it’s yours. Your offer of keeping us up to date on important issues through Divided We Fail presents neither an impartial view nor the one we have come to embrace. We do believe that when two parties agree all the time on everything presented to them, one is probably not necessary. But when the opinions and long-term goals of the two parties are diametrically opposed, divorce is imminent.
This is the philosophy that spawned our 200 years of government. At one time we looked forward to being part of the senior demographic. We looked to AARP to provide certain benefits and give our voice a power we could not possibly hope to achieve on our own. AARP gave us a sense of belonging, one that we no longer enjoy. The socialist politics practiced by the present administration, and empowered by AARP, serve only to raise the blood pressure our medical insurance strives to contain—clearly a conflict of interest!
We do not understand AARP’s posture. We feel greatly betrayed by the guiding forces that we expected to map out our senior years, and we leave your ranks with a great sense of regret. We mitigate that disappointment with the relief of knowing that we are not contributing to the problem anymore by renewing our membership. There are numerous other organizations that offer discounts without threatening our way of life or offending our sensibilities.
This administration scares the living daylights out of us, not just for ourselves, but also for our proud and bloodstained heritage, and even more important, for what our children and grandchildren will inherit. Washington has rendered Soylent Green a prophetic cautionary tale rather than a fictional scare tactic.
We have never endorsed any militant or radical groups, yet now we find ourselves listening to them. We don’t have to agree with them to appreciate the fear that birthed their existence. Their borderline insanity presents little more than a balance to the voice of the socialist mindset of those in power. We became Americans by a great stroke of luck in some cosmic uterine lottery, but as adults we chooseto embrace our heritage, and we embrace and nurture the freedoms it represents and the responsibilities it requires.
Your website generously offers us the opportunity to receive all communications in Spanish. Are you kidding? People are breaking into our houses and invading our homes without our invitation or consent. And now our president insists that we keep the invaders in comfort and learn their language so we can communicate our reluctant welcome to them.
We do not choose to welcome them.
We do not choose to support them.
We do not choose to educate them.
We do not choose to medicate them.
We do not choose to feed, clothe or house them.
American home invaders are arrested. Please explain to us why foreign lawbreakers enjoy privileges on American soil that Americans do not have. Legal immigrants must comply with our immigration laws to be welcomed, yet illegal “immigrants” need only break and enter to be welcomed!
We travel for a living. We transport horses all over this great country, averaging more than 10,000 miles a month. While out there we meet more people than a politician overdosed on caffeine. Of all the many good folks we met on our last 10,000 miles, the trip yielded only one supporter of this administration. Either we, or those that determine policy at AARP, are out of touch with mainstream America. Since our poll is conducted without funding, I have more faith in it than any poll which is power driven.
We have decided to forward this letter to everyone on our mailing list, and will encourage all to do the same. With several hundred people in our address book, we have faith that the eventual exponential factor will make a credible statement to you.
We are disappointed as hell.
We are scared as hell.
We are mad as helland we’renot gonna take it any more!
This posting consists of an e-mail (and my response) that I received from a friend of my daughter, one that I’ve never met, but I feel that I know the writer well through the e-mail.
This is the friend’s e-mail:
“I know you have enjoyed my rants in the past. Your daughter always asks if I sent something to you that I had sent her. This time I can say, “Yes.”
This runs long. You may need coffee or an intermission so you can go get popcorn and some jujubees. If you make it all the way through you get a prize at the end—high blood pressure.
My rant is as follows:
Mexican illegal alien invaders represent the US State Department’s elephant in the room. They all know he’s here but nobody wants to talk about what it means.
As home to the unwanted illegal alien invader, the United States of America is Mexico’s only real economic and political relief-valve. By allowing the 20 to 30 million illegal alien invaders into the United States, Mexico gains in a multitude of ways. As the illegal alien invader progresses through life in Estados Unidos, the benefits multiply.
Firstly, by breaching our borders and crossing from citizen of Mexico to criminal of the United States, each illegal alien invader voluntarily removes himself or herself from the unemployed Mexican work force. The levels of unemployment, illiteracy (they are unable to read and write English, nor can they read and write Spanish) and home-grown crime in Mexico are at crisis proportions.
The lack of a middle class and the absence of protections for private property (the Mexican government will rob everyone of their property if it is shown to have value), and the collection of real economic power in the hands of the political elite have assured a national poverty rate that must be an embarrassment to anyone who defends the criminal government in Mexico City.
Every time a Mexican crosses the border into the United States, Mexico City breathes a sigh of relief. This represents one more mouth they do not have to feed, one more voice that will not shout its disapproval, and one more set of hands that will not fight against the police/drug-lord/federal corruption triumvirate of organized crime in Mexico. Everyone in Mexico is relieved as each illegal alien invader leaves Mexico.
Secondly, the majority of illegal alien invaders will find work in the United States and they will start the transfer of wealth from the United States to their meager homes in the Mexican interior. Like sticking a tube in our national economic artery, this economic “bleeding” parasitically consumes US Dollars that should be used internally and sends them into Mexico. These transfers are Mexico’s second largest economic benefit, directly behind PeMex, the nationalized (can you say, “Maxine Waters”) Mexican petroleum company. Those transfers are estimated to be worth $20 billion annually.
It was, perhaps, Milton Friedman who showed how a dollar, earned in a community, would be cycled through that same community seven times, on average. Earning the dollar at the plant, a worker would spend it at the butcher, who would spend it at the grocer, who would spend it at the gas pump. And on it goes until that dollar would be spent outside of the community and the cycle would continue. Whether it was Dr. Friedman or another economist, the principle is easy to understand.
It is just as easy to understand that a wire transfer of an estimated $20 billion would have an equivalent impact of the loss of over $140 billion to the communities where illegal alien invaders sucked the economic life-blood from one nation and transported it to another. In this way, the appearance of cheap illegal alien invader wages must be multiplied to account for the total loss of local currency. It is, therefore, possible that a $20/hour wage translates to a cost of $140/hour.
Thirdly, the unaccounted costs of welfare, give aways, free services (especially for health care), and education have been estimated by border states for years. Now, states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania are trying to accrue some tab on these costs as their expenses grow ever higher at the state capitol and the taxpayer burden is becoming painful.
These are costs duly attributable to the Mexico City government, not any local or state or federal government in the United States. Yet, each dollar expended on the welfare and benefit of an illegal alien invader is a dollar (10.325 pesos) that is not a necessary expenditure in Mexico City. Those 10.325 pesos go directly into the pockets of the ruling elite or into the graft and corruption machine that fuels the drug cartels that operate with impunity inside Mexico.
Fourthly, the self-protective imprisonment of the felonious criminal Mexican who walked across the United States border with his petty criminal amigo is like the icing on the Mexico City cake. It is estimated that almost 30 percent of those incarcerated in federal and many state prisons are illegal alien invaders who have come here to commit their crimes.
The Mexican government could not be given a better present. Imagine having the most disruptive and violent criminals removed from the Mexican streets, jailed and fed, and even protected somewhere else, and the government of Mexico doesn’t have to pay a dime. The estimated federal and local cost of incarceration for a year is about $1 billion. There is no way to estimate the loss of property through crime, and the loss of life because of murderous or drunken and irresponsible actions by these same illegal alien invaders for whom we pay an annual $1 billion to incarcerate, just to keep them away from our streets (because if we deport them, they’ll just come back).
With a porous border, what can be done? Almost nothing. Sheriffs across the United States and some local police forces have decided to aggressively pursue illegal alien invaders in their jurisdictions and deport them or get them out of town. This is the illegal alien invader shell game. The only real cure is a complete, forceful and physically closed border with Mexico.
What will we, the United States, promote by closing the border and aggressively campaigning to keep new invaders out?
Mexico is not led by a historically stable government. The political and economic infrastructure is brittle, and incapable of absorbing the additional insult now borne by the United States in our ineffectual remedies to the constant stream of illegal alien invasion. Stability then, for the Mexican government, depends on the constant leak of their national woes northward. Plugging that leak means all Mexico’s problems remain inside Mexico.
We will be sealing the pressure lid on the simmering economic and political bean pot that is Mexico. The combination of an overnight increase in unemployment, increase in social services load (while Mexico City provides none, the community must), the loss of wire transfers, and the criminal costs will bring the nation to an explosive internal pressure. We would ensure, if not outright condemn, the government in Mexico City to an ugly and bloody civil war.
Unlike our own civil war where the Union had not succeeded in disarming the southern states prior to acts of aggression, the only segments of the Mexican population armed sufficiently to effect an civil war are the military (who would love more power) and the drug cartels (who are tired of sharing profits and benefits of the drug trade with their sycophantic governmental pet Chihuahuas).
Winners of a Mexican Civil War would either be the cruel and dangerous military or the cruel, dangerous and connected drug kingpins.
The United States’ only alternative would be to line these already-closed southern borders with thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of troops, ready to protect the southern states when the inevitable civil war erupts. Indeed, the best and most secure option is to wait for the first sign of conflict and invade Mexico with all our military forces, not stopping until we ride into Mexico City.
And unlike the previous failures after the Mexican-American wars, the United States Congress and its military will only find peace and a lasting solution to the problems created by Mexican governmental and military corruption if the United States accepts unconditional surrender and applies the same policies toward Mexico that we did after defeating Japan and Germany in the Second World War.
The war in Iraq was triggered by national security, but extended by an altruistic intention to deliver a democratic future to a people who have never known it. What makes Iraq such a precious ally and commodity that we would shed our blood in their favor when we would not do the same for ourselves and for our Mexican neighbor?
The third option, and one that strikes at the very heart of socialism in our own United States, is to create working opportunities for Mexicans while closing the spigot of social and welfare services to these immigrant workers. This is, in effect, the Bracero program for the 21st century.
Amnesty is a travesty. No immigrant worker program can offer or entice workers with amnesty. Rather, the workers want work and the United States has an appetite for laborers. Giving companies liberty to recruit and transport workers, while granting ICE and the State Department extraordinary latitude in rejecting and policing these laborers, could have a positive effect on both sides of the border.
The challenges of this approach includes the following:
There can be no public services or resources benefit to any temporary Mexican worker.
ICE, local authorities, and the sponsoring company must be able to return the Mexican worker without any process, except those that may involve criminal justice charges.
Direct family members could be allowed to join the worker, but multiple issues of education and health must be addressed before this is allowed.
Wire transfers of earnings must be limited, or outright denied as part of this program. The United States is not an economic donor for tyrannies.
The sponsor company must bear all financial and other burdens for taxes, health care, education, transportation, housing and Immigration process.
The community must have some input regarding the good stewardship of the companies participating in this program: are they working for the benefit of the community; are they fair and just toward both workers and the community; are they complying with all appropriate immigration requirements; etc?
Automatically granting citizenship to persons born within the borders of the United States, as specified in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, must be addressed. Both those “anchor babies” already born to illegal alien invaders inside the United States and any future children born to Mexican workers participating in any work program must be denied United States citizenship. This will require a Constitutional Convention and further defining this one section of the 14th amendment to affect those children born to citizens of countries other than the United States.
The first two immigration solutions available to the United States with regard to Mexico are both frightening. The first is invasion and slow poisoning by an illiterate, violent, consuming foreign force. The second is to precipitate and then capitalize on a bloody civil war in Mexico.
The first choice relegates the United States to a state of subjugation under the invader. The second, while more immediately costly and painful, retains our national and individual sovereignty and creates a democratic ally to the south.
The third solution requires a federal and state government dedicated primarily to the security and sovereignty of the United States and its citizens. This has not been evidenced in the recent past. All indicators point to federal and state governments that seek political expediency, appeasement of Mexican tyrants, expansion of amnesty and the destruction of the southern border. For this reason, the third solution should only be attempted if there is a fundamental shift toward border security in the measurable goals of our government.
One clear and measurable goal would be to change the 14th Amendment. This would demonstrate the right attitude by our federal representatives. Otherwise, any program will be nothing more than some flavor of capitulation to Mexico or treason to the Constitution and to the citizens of the United States.
To sum up: our choices with regard to Mexico are:
Slow Poison
War
Foxes in the hen house.
It’s a tough choice. Can I have “none of the above?”
This is my response:
Hi—thanks for the e-mail. I don’t consider it a rant. It’s a well-researched paper, well thought out and forcefully presented. Keep ’em coming!
The border cannot be closed. The military could link hands from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California and the line would not slow the illegal entries. They will go under, over, through or around any barrier constructed, living or otherwise, by land, sea and air, and through tunnels.
Anyone who has lived or worked on the border for any significant length of time knows the border cannot be closed. I worked the Texas-Mexico border for 12 years as a Customs inspector trainee, journeyman and supervisor, and in a three-year stint at Customs Headquarters I covered every port on the Mexican border (also most airports, seaports and Canadian land border ports).
I know the border cannot be closed.
Bill O’Reilly at Fox News believes the border can be closed. He’s wrong—the border cannot be closed (he hasn’t asked me about this, but I would be glad to brief him on it).
The onus must be on the employers—if the illegals can’t work, they won’t come—period.
I began my 26-year career with the United States Customs Service at the international border crossing in Progreso, a small town in the Rio Grande Valley a few miles south of Weslaco, Texas. The port director at Progreso had, in my opinion, a sure-fire way to dry up the flood of illegal immigrants (we called them wet-backs—this was before the current atmosphere of political correctness).
He proposed that one finger be removed from the illegal the first time he (or she) is intercepted, then return him (or her) to Mexico, and remove another finger if that person was again intercepted. If adopted, his suggestion would result in numerous nine-fingered Mexicans, significantly fewer eight-fingered, and virtually none with only seven fingers.
My only suggestion to his plan was to remove the middle finger of one hand for the first offense and the middle finger of the other hand for the second offense. My rationale for that sequence was, of course, intended to prevent the offender from flipping the bird at any US federal officer in any future encounter.
Thanks again for the e-mail—I thoroughly enjoyed it.
And this is the final response by my daughter’s friend:
I think your immigration penalty may be a tad cruel.
Could we, however, use it for membership in Congress?
And finally, these are my final thoughts (finally) on the title subject:
I assume the writer means to remove one finger on the initial election to Congress, whether to the Senate or to the House of Representatives, and the second on the first re-election, etc. And I also assume the same sequence (middle fingers first) would apply to the members of Congress.
I agree—if the OFREE concept (One Finger Removal Each Election) became law, it’s doubtful that we would have any seven-fingered senators or representatives—many with nine fingers, of course, and eventually all with at least one missing finger, but far fewer with only eight fingers and probably none with only seven fingers. It is also doubtful that the law could be made retroactive, principally because some of the current members, particularly in the House of Representatives, would be minus all fingers as well as both thumbs. And there is actually the possibility, albeit it very remote, that eventually the Senate and House would be extinct—one can only dream.
A special footnote for anyone who peruses (reads) this posting and believes it, or is repulsed by it, or considers it cruel and un-American:
Hey, lighten up!
It is satire and nothing more—no investigation by the AFRC (Anti-Finger-Removal Czar) is needed, nor do we need a BOLO for southern-border crossers with fingers missing from either hand, specifically middle fingers.
Our newspapers, novels, movies and television presentations are saturated with crime reports, either true or fictional, so everyone should know the meaning of BOLO. However, this explanation is provided for the edification (enlightenment) of the three persons (estimated) in our population of 330 million (estimated) that do not know:
BOLO is an acronym for Be On Look Out.
PeeEss:
Don’t you just abhor (hate) it when someone uses a word, whether verbal (spoken) or written, then immediately defines (explains) it in the belief that the reader isn’t erudite (having great knowledge) and won’t know the word’s meaning?
I completely understand, and I feel your pain.
I also hate it when someone does that, whether speaking or writing.
The King of Texas 