Yahoo

The rest of the election season is at least going to feature a beautiful, young, moose hunting Beauty Queen........well runner up at least.

Wonder what the PUMA's are going to do now?

Two Men and a Dog

Or,

The pooch, the ol' grump, and I

Our tale begins in the comfort of our modest home. Two men and one Yorkie left on their own over the Labor Day weekend while the main cook and bottle washer gallivants over to Myrtle Beach with the eldest daughter, her family, SIL and her husband. For what sinister purposes one can only imagine.

Friday started out quite normally.......well, with the exception that I, aging jr. birdman of yore, had to cook the pork sausage and over easy fried eggs. Nothing fancy like Brigid’s weekend fare, but as my dearly departed mother used to say, "it fills up a hollow spot".

The weather was very nice for late August, one of those not too hot, not too cool, blue sky mornings that encourages all but the most slothful to be up adoing..... Something, even if it turns out wrong, but fills the human breast with the optimism that great things can be done.

Accordingly I slouched back through the bedroom to the bath for the ritual washing and scrapping. Unusually, I even splashed on some of my most potent aftershave, fake Old Spice in a plastic bottle ( I will never forgive Gillete for taking the American Flag off the Old Spice sailing ship. By damn, if it was good enough for my grandfathers generation they should have left it be. If I were KOTW (King of the World) one of my first proclamations would be to restore the Stars and Stripes to it's rightful place.

Refreshed and energized by the application of aforesaid smelly stuff, I ventured forth about my day, traveling NE-ward toward Toccoa, there to attempt to place a Marquise in the hands of jeweler-to-the-masses, Mr. Goldcraft his own self. My diplomacy failed, as he had found among his meager hoard of crystallized carbon, a perfect fit, dooming my mission before inception. Not altogether a lost trip though as we exchanged pleasantries and other objects of worth, (well, his will be if the check doesn't bounce). In addition I was able to feast my eyes on the vision of Portuguese loveliness that attends his counter, greeting all who wander there with her dazzling smile, long brunette hair, and eyes which invite you to dive in and thereby drown. Oh, blissful death.

Resuming my wandering I eventually arrived at the flea market in Hull, there to solve all the worlds problems in theory and convivial conversation.

And at last returning to my humble abode, and walked into.......

......heat. Heat.......not the coolness for which I exchange pictures of dead presidents with the power company, but humidity and heat which causes your shirt to stick to your rib cage and your boxers to ride up and chaff parts best unrefereed to.

What th' heck, I asked the ol' grump. Being that his ticker only pumps out about 20% of required volume, he thought the temperature was just fine. Oh no, not me. Not for nothing do I amble about from town to town picking up scraps wherever I go. I expect to walk into nothing higher than a comfortable 72 degrees and if it could be reasonably afforded......a few ticks less.

General panic ensued.......although I had brought the ol' grump some of Bill's Barbecue from Dogtrot community, he had already started on biscuits and gravy from 2 days ago, heated in the microwave. This allowed me to check the thermostat, the heat pump fan and finally open the plenum and check the fan there. All spinning merrily away and gulping down wattage to no good effect.

We were reduced to opening the windows, turning on all available fans in an effort to feel a little bit human. (How did we ever survive before A/C??)
Well survive we did, until finally the repairman came and found the culprit to be a wire burned into at the compressor, undoubtedly caused by the small cluster of fire ants found fried crisply about the end of it.

Problem soon resolved and now some 6 hours later the humidity and temperature having been returned to acceptable levels, we turn our attention to the 'Brit Coms' on PBS, our standard Saturday night fare. Peace reigns once again in the KG (kudzu grotto).
........well, except for the pooch who is hiding from a bit of thunder in the distance.

Better go roll up the truck windows.

Wendell & Walter

Thursday was a break from the usual ho-hum here at the KD (kudzu grotto).

Time for a trip down to the Augusta VA to have some dental work done to maintain the sparking and rakish kudzu smile. It's a 2 hour drive and I have to be there at 9am. You can imagine my glee at having to set the alarm and then wake up to it at 6am.

After sitting on the porcelain throne and aftwards scrapping at the gray on my chin, I was able to leave at 6:30. I figured on stopping in Lexington and getting a biscuit and Mtn Dew to help caffeinate myself for the trip. I should have made it a double espresso, or maybe a triple.

By the time I made it to the outskirts I was having to pinch myself to stay awake. Don't you just love it when you have no time to take a nap. Well, there were no wrecks ahead of me and I didn't look back to check out the carnage behind, so assume the best.

I had a good cleaning to look forward to and then Dr. Pahjola was going to grind off my front teeth and paste on a reasonable facsimile of same.

I hate it when that try to stick the needle into my nose from under my upper lip. I don't care how long they numb it before hand it still stings. The up side was that the grinding didn't phase me, to the contrary, after about 15 minutes, in spite of the painful angle at which my neck was bent, I was able to Zen out the pain and noise and sleep through about 30 minutes of the abuse. As they handed me the mirror to admire their handiwork I asked, "did I snore any?". "Only a little", giggled the nurse, like no one else ever snored in that chair.

So now I have straight full length incisors the better to bite off bits of bacon in the morning.

But, as I walked out to the reception to pick up my next appointment, I had a most unusual meeting.........

In front of the window was a young man, about 30 years old, and over 6 ft tall....well he would have been if he hadn't been in a motorized chair. He was chatting up the receptionist, but moved back and motioned and told me to step ahead. Of course, I demurred but he insisted and said he wasn't there for dental work, only talking to the Receptionist. She took my paperwork and started filling out my appointments schedule.

Kdzu, I said, holding out my hand. "Wendell Foy", saith he, sending me off immediately to a long ago time, in a Quonset hut along the Quang Tri river, late one booze hazy night.

"Excuse me", I asked, "did you have a relative killed in Vietnam that you know of"?
"Not to my knowledge", he replied. "I knew a young Warrant Office pilot there, who died", I said, "His name was Walter Foy".

I asked where he was injured. "Iraq". "Thanks for your service". Thanks for yours". One says these things now-a-days. I questioned him about his status. 100% permanent and totally disabled. Said with a smile, but you had to wonder about the feelings behind it.

"Let me give you something", he said, handing me a little brochure.......a All Inclusive Jamaica Getaway Certificate good for a year at an really good rate if sent in within the next month. (How the hell did he know I'd been wondering where to go?)

He and his wife run a little travel agency. Groovytown travel. Give him a call if you have travel needs. 706 691 5300.

On the trip back I recalled the tragedy of young Walter. In the summer of '71. I was 3/4's of the way through my tour, looking hopefully to October when I'd rotate back to the world.

Walter was a "FNG" just out of flight school and Cobra training.

Our weapons platoon leader was a Captain, not long out of flight school himself, but, as things are done in the army sometimes, because he was senior officer in the platoon he was assigned leader and because of his rank, pulled it to get himself assigned to the pilots backseat position after only 3 weeks in country and no, repeat no combat pilot time.

There are in aviation, notices called hazards to airmen. This Captain should have had one issued on his ass. The most reckless pilot I'd ever seen. We older pilots didn't have to ride as his front seat, we were A/C's in our own right. The new guys weren't so lucky.

Walter and he were scheduled to cover a LRRP extraction the next day. We older guys, (Ha, all of maybe 21 years old) were teasing Walter and telling him not to fly with the Captain, that he was dangerous and was going to get himself and his co-pilot killed because he'd fly too close to the ground without good cause.

Walter assured us that if they went too low he'd pull back on the controls. The Cobras of that era had a 10 to 1 mechanical advantage to the back seat controls.

They were making a faux gun run at the request of the rangers for the benefit of some of their new guys. No hostiles, no enemy fire, a simple extraction along a treeline, easy peasy.

Their wingman saw the aircraft nose pull up and then immediately nose down just before they crashed into a huge dead tree that stuck up about 20 feet higher than the rest. Their remains were scattered over about a quarter mile. They found one head intact still inside the flight helmet. I never knew whose head it was.

Two more coffins sent home filled with sand and bits and pieces of bones and flesh.

I always wondered how the major explained that in his letters to the next of kin.

But this young Mr. Foy returned alive and seemed to have a positive outlook on life. At least I hope so. God Speed Wendell. You too Walter.

Barnyard Tales

The little red hen called all of her Democrat neighbors together and said, 'If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?'
'Not I,' said the cow.
'Not I,' said the duck.
'Not I,' said the pig.
'Not I,' said the goose.
'Then I will do it by myself,' said the little red hen, and so she did. The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.
'Who will help me reap my wheat?' asked the little red hen.
'Not I,' said the duck...
'Out of my classification,' said the pig.
'I'd lose my seniority,' said the cow.
'I'd lose my unemployment compensation,' said the goose.
'Then I will do it by myself,' said the little red hen, and so she did.
At last it came time to bake the bread.
'Who will help me bake the bread?' asked the little red hen.
'That would be overtime for me,' said the cow.
'I'd lose my welfare benefits,' said the duck.
'I'm a dropout and never learned how,' said the pig.
'If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination,' said the goose.
'Then I will do it by myself,' said the little red hen.
She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, 'No, I shall eat all five loaves.'
'Excess profits!' cried the cow. (Nancy Pelosi)
'Capitalist leech!' screamed the duck. (Barbara Boxer)
'I demand equal rights!' yelled the goose. (Jesse Jackson)
The pig just grunted in disdain. (Ted Kennedy)
And they all painted 'Unfair!' picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.
Then the farmer (Obama) came. He said to the little red hen, 'You must not be so greedy.'
'But I earned the bread,' said the little red hen.
'Exactly,' said Barack the farmer. 'That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle.' (Karl Marx)
And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, 'I am grateful, for now I truly understand.'
But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the 'party' and got her bread free. And all the Democrats smiled. 'Fairness' had been established.
Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared...so long as there was free bread that 'the rich' were paying for.
EPILOGUE
Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs.
Hillary got $8 million for hers.
That's $20 million for the memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn't remember anything.

IS THIS A GREAT BARNYARD OR WHAT?

Thoughts on the coming election....

...and the ongoing conventions.

For this week and next, if you are so inclined, you may view every night the orgasmic moaning and groaning of the two major political parties in the US at the current point in time. Much shouting and chanting by the willing Johns and Janes while the whores at the center of the commotion stare out at them with their winning smiles and their dead eyes behind which only a quest for power and influence resides.

So far I have easily resisted the siren cries of the media to look and 'watch me'.
It may be that my meds need to be readjusted to make me more pliable...........or it may be that I simply tire of the noise.

I know.......I know, I've spent hours babbling on the internet about this and that perceived right or wrong. To those that listen, I'm preaching to the choir, and to others it's just more of the same from that nutjob from Athens.

All that being said, there are voices that I feel should be heard.....or read.
Click over to Brigids for her take. If you don't like the commentary you can always whip up one of the delicious meals that she makes.

Let's see

If I can remember how to post anything on here.

Hmmmmm, the soft clicking of the keys seem to ignite a flicker of memory in the burned out fire some people report seeing where my brain used to be.

It's been a week and a half.......hell, maybe another week or so before I come back. Maybe not, we'll see.

Finally we got some of the rain that Fay had promised us for so long today. For some reason people around here don't seem to pay the preachers enough and the Lord has withheld his bounty till the pastures are dry as popcorn farts.

But, tonight we've rain, blessed event, sometimes whipped along by the wind to rattle fitfully at the window panes, other times drizzling like and ol' man dribbling off the back porch. Taking so long the wife yells at him to choke it off and come back inside.

There was a tornado watch an hour ago for the Elberton area. I was down at Tiny Town waiting on far too little for such a long drive. The clouds were black and gray to the east and just above the treetops. Made me keep a weather eye out as they say. Moving to the north though so no danger unless the Fickle Finger of Fate chose to give me the ol' finger wave just for spite. Hell, bring it on.........I'm ready or not. Don't matter much either way.

I've three or four scoops of Lara Lynn chocolate ice cream in a plastic bowl along with a couple of chocolate covered graham crackers on the desk in front of me. I takes my comfort and pleasures as I can. Soon I'll take off the boots and pick up my latest Bill Lee Burke novel.

As you can see not much going on here. The spouse is taking off with oldest daughter and family to Myrtle Beach for Labor day. My job is to take care of the ol' grump and make sure he takes his pills on time. Which reminds me that I need to take mine. I may head for the hills later in the month.....try to find where the timberdoodles roost. If'n I do I'll keep a secret. They're a shy and retiring bird unless you come across them early in the evening working through a wet slough probing for worms.

You all keep Mama Kat and LL in your thoughts........that their bodies may be healed.

It's late on a Friday night

Redneck girls are beginning to look mighty fine right about now to those ol' country boys and those who wanna be. And those who might have had more than one or two longnecks might be singing along to the below tune.

Crank the speakers up.

Cool song


And the Redneck girls have to make a decision, wrestle 'em down and hogtie them preparatory to dragging them out to the pick-em-up truck, or tell them to kiss their country ass.

Want to learn something???

Then go to GOC.

Oh Hell, I just remembered........all 10 of my readers are already smarter than I.

Okay, Okay, go to GOC and then send it to all your friends........especially if they are elementary, high school or college teachers.

The screams will be heard in Beijing.

Honk if you love Peace

.
A funny thing happened on the way into the present moment today.

I arose to the possibilities of the new morning. Blearily, grumpily, disheveled, and bearded I stepped into the shower to try to get the bed out of my mind. Shampooed, rinsed, repeated, soaped and scrubbed, I tried not to cut my throat as I scrapped my face and upper neck. Off to meet the day.........

Missed the first guy 'cause he was off shitting in the woods. Literally.

Made the second appointment and was throughly pissed off by a guy with a 400 year old chip on his shoulder. Swallowed the bile that darkened the sun for a while. You're not allowed to carry there. Probably a good rule.

Spent the second half of the day traveling and feeling good as the stops were productive.

Got back and tried one more place trying to find a black ink cartridge for the latest printer addition. Only to spit "son-of-a-bitch" when Cartridge World didn't have it either. The clerk must have seen the red behind my pupils because he pointed a shaking finger to Office Max. Bought 2 just in case the jones' came back.

And then drove through the middle of the Classic City only to spot some asshole holding up a 'Honk if you love Peace' sign in front of the arches. Took great joy in giving him the bird and watching the look of amazement on his face. Faggot!!!!

And got home to the realization that I'm just not a Peace Lovin' sort of guy these days. If I ever were.

In the immortal words uttered by Sir Anthony Hopkins in Legends of the Fall.....

...........Scruuueemm.

If you can't do the execution (time)..........

.............don't do the freaking crime.

This guy was sure a big hero for raping and murdering two women 22 freaking years ago, but now is looking for any excuse to keep from paying for that crime. He deprived them of their Life and their liberty ( you have to assume that they didn't willingly go with him), two of the basic tenants of our laws.

I've got the perfect solution for him, since he's worried he might experience some discomfort. Th' big pussy, he's too ugly to live anyway.

Let me come up there with my Browning Hi Power. Have him kneel down in front of me, facing away from me, and I'll put a 9mm right through his brain stem and into the center of his sorry excuse for a brain. I guaran-damn-tee that he won't feel a thing and for sure will never fantasize about harming another woman.

And I won't even charge them mileage or the cost of the round.

Twenty two freaking years. Just damn. There is little justice for his atrocity here already.

Too fat, my ass!

Update: Oh yeah, I'd advocate the same thing for his freaking taxpayer-funded lawyer. A waste of space in the universe.....both of 'em.

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!

Do we need leadership

In my last post I decried the very apparent lack of true leadership qualities in the Polidickheads who we've voted into office with metronomic regularity.

Now I ask the above question. Do we need leadership??

The American revolution against the relatively (compared to today) minor abuses of the colonists by the titular rulers in England was instigated by a minority (perhaps 30%) of the colonists who considered that they would not bow to those who would deny them the freedom to decide their own fate, or who told them that the state knew better than they what was good for them. Violating willy-nilly the very laws which citizens of England had secured by vigorous struggle hundreds of years before, rendering those laws inapplicable to the colonies.

So they fought, and won the defining struggle of their age, sparking short years later, in other countries, the same kinds of struggles.

Theirs was an age of thinkers. Unhampered by 24/7/365 noise from radio, TV, internet, and untold thousands of ad agencies telling them what they needed, they set out to establish a Republic, governed by laws, which supposedly would apply to all men equally. (we won't go into several of the hypocrisies in that last. Suffice it to say that we are still trying to overcome them)

These thinkers understood the differences between the Rule of Law and the Rule of the Mob. That's why we were given a Republic where the Rule of Law was supposed to be paramount.

But there is always a catch, it seems.

Alexis deTocqueville in his seminal work, Democracy In America written in the 1830s, believed that America’s version of democracy suffered from a fatal flaw, a flaw that derived from the American character itself.

DeToqueville observed that Americans had two conflicting desires: (1) The desire to be free, and (2) the desire to be led. It is America’s second desire that has now led to the undoing of the first.

Irrespective of America’s truly revolutionary Declaration of Independence and extraordinary Constitution, America today has become a debased mockery of the founding fathers’ original dream and the manifestation of DeToqueville’s dire predictions; and, this November, Americans will again go to the polls to choose “their masters”.

This is what DeToqueville said of the process:

It is in vain to summon a people, who have been rendered so dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.

There are still may thinkers and doers in this country. The Internet acts as a forum to many of them. But, consider this. The media rails against the imposition of internet restrictions by China during the impending Olympics......and rightly so......but do little about the efforts by government here at home from trying to do the same.

Ultimately the free flow of information brought down the evil Empire of the old Soviet Union. Do you not think that our own rulers didn't see that and ponder the implications to themselves.

I am not saying Americans or others should not vote in elections; but, if they do, they should be cognizant of what they expect will be accomplished. Most Americans still hope their votes once every two or four years will correct the direction this once great nation has taken. They will not.

What will save us, if we are to be saved, is for free men and women to exercise their freedom, in all aspects of their lives, limiting, in as much as is possible in your own situation, the slavery they seek to impose on us.

Whether, or not, the handcuffs are lined with velvet.

Leadership

leadership Definition

lead·er·ship (-s̸hip′)

noun

1. the position or guidance of a leader
2. the ability to lead
3. the leaders of a group

leadership Synonyms
leadership

n.

1.

The quality notable in leaders

authority, control, executiveness, administration, effectiveness, activity, primacy, superiority, supremacy, skillfulness, skill, initiative, foresight, energy, capacity; see also influence 2, power 2.
2.

The action of leading

direction, guidance, management; see administration 1

I have been a little lax in the posting department of late. Blame it on, if you will, work (too busy, although we know that's a lie), I'm lying in a vegative state in the small rocking recliner, listening to my heart beat (much more likely), or simply that the meds calm me to the point that I can't seem to get excited about anything but GOC’s Saturday postings.

The truth perhaps lies in the fact that none of the people in national politics and most of the state and local politicians have any idea of the true meaning of leadership. While I can remember JFK's leadership in going into space, and Regan's leadership into bringing down the evil empire and lifting us out of the malaise which culminated in the Carter sorry excuse for a presidency. Oh and I must not forget the Clinton leadership to a generation of high schoolers that a blowjob on the school bus is not sex. Those examples do not seem to have taught the current crop of candidicks any lessons.

In the last couple of weeks the American people have had to lead John McCain to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to drill for oil along the continental shelf and start working on extracting oil from the shale in the Rockies.

Now it seems that Obamamessia has been led by McCain to the same conclusion, Although I've not heard either one suggest we drill on a postage stamp sized bit of Anwar which is home to nothing but blackflies and mosquitoes for 3 months in the summer.

How soon before people start asking each other, "Who is John Galt?"

Me? In my mind I'm already in the Gulch.