Wednesday, May 27, 2009

We are losing our country.....

.....to political correctness.

Things like This bring on a RCOB over my eyes and a spike in blood pressure that makes my ears ring.

How long before we rise up and start shooting the Bastards?

Monday, May 25, 2009

Wicked Transgressions

Just over 120 days into this mess......

"Our current political administration has followed the left-wing liberal domestic and foreign agenda to the letter. Domestic policies include higher taxes, more welfare, encouragement of union power, destruction of capital markets, driving out wealth and investment, and tossing a cascade waterfall of handouts to band-aide an economic malaise. The new foreign agenda is to renounce a previous stance of patriot hawkishness, embrace enemies with timidity, and put forth unabashed appeasement that would do Neville Chamberlain proud."

Roger Wiegand.

Where will all this lead us? I'm not sure, my crystal ball having sustained a decidedly cracked appearance long ago, but it might not be to everyone's liking.

Answers.....I have none for certain, but suggest that you get out of debt, spend substantially less than you earn and save the rest, stock up on things you think might become harder or more expensive to get, reduce your exposure to the dictates of a capricious political class, grow a portion of your food to give you experience if you have to grow even more, obtain a parcel of land to either live on or be prepared to move to if things become more dangerous, study ways to defend all those things you consider precious including yourself, and become involved with people of like principals and beliefs.

Perhaps we should take a lesson from that ol' frog caught in the egrets mouth...with his little fist firmly clasped around the birds throat, croaking "never give up".

With a tip of the hat to Pamela Geller with a timely reminder of the heritage we rest upon. Go and be reminded.


The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion. - Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

When an entire culture is guilty of evasion on so enormous a scale, the first thing to do, if one does choose to not be an evader, is to identify the issue that people are afraid to see.
[...]
When intellectual disintegration reaches such absurd extremes as, on one side, the claim of some "conservatives" that the United States was the product of of tradition worship, and on the other side, the use of a political designation such as "a totalitarian liberal" -- it is time to stop and realize that there are no intellectual sides any longer, no philosophical camps and no political theories, nothing but an undifferentiated mob of trembling statists who haggle only over how fast or how slowly we are to collapse into a totalitarian dictatorship, whose gang will do the dictating and who will be sacrificed to whom. Ayn Rand, March 26, 1961

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Potato Salad

I do love me some potato salad.

But these girls take it to new levels.

Watch it all, they were born with no spines.

Potato Salad

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Some days

There are some days when you just wish you felt as good as everything looks.

What a day. One of those all too infrequent days when the combination of temperature, sunshine, blue skies and low humidity make you want to take a movie of it in your mind and play it over and over.

Did you ever peer into a bluebirds nest and admire the delicate color of the eggs. That was the color of the sky this afternoon. With just a few puffy white clouds around the fringes for contrast, it seemed to me to be both warm and gentle and cool like a breeze from a high mountain lake. If that seems contradictory, so be it, I only know what it was like to me, not how to describe it to you. Close your eyes and dream your own dream.

Not too much foot pain first thing in the morning. Of course doing the foot and hamstring stretches caused a few wrinkles in the brow and a murmured "oh damn" or two.

Why is it that the older we get the things we want stiff aren't and the the things we want to be flexible are stiff? Does that seem fair to you?

Of course by this evening the pain in my heels was beginning to make me want to throw up a little. Sorta took the pleasure right out of the day.

I took the insoles the podiatrist gave me out of the shoes and replaced them with some Dr. Scholl's gel inserts. We'll see how that works tomorrow. Why would a guy who spent all those years in medical school assume the a hard piece of plastic under my heel in exactly the place where it hurts the most will magically fix the problem? Jerk!

One thing we're not short on these days is people who are dissing this, that or the other. If you watch the network news or listen to any talk radio at all you may be tempted to go look for a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific somewhere.

Too much noise!

The youngest grand daughters other grandmother sent the wife an email this morning with a poem she wrote describing her joy in the grand daughter. You've seen her pictures on this blog. They don't begin to express the sense of joy and wonder she possesses. I'll paste a bit of what she wrote here....

She Dances With Joy



No Inhibitions, No Holding back, Just Pure Joy

The world hasn't gotten to her heart to censor her yet.



She senses pure joy and cannot contain the feeling,

It’s like playing with mud pies and not realizing you're dirty.



It’s like running in the rain and not noticing that your shoes are squishing and if you do – just laughing!



It’s like seeing your Grand parents drive up and being so excited you just jump up and down and start dancing in place before your feet can actually move toward them.



It’s like holding your Mommie and Daddy’s hands and counting 1, 2, 3, and getting a big swing and feeling secure that they are not going to drop you.



It’s the pure joy of going to Grandma’s house and knowing you're almost there and you are squirming in your seat because you know you are going to get hugs and kisses.


It’s like riding the 4 wheeler with your Daddy and Mommie with the wind blowing in your face and yelling in the wind to see where the sound goes and your Mommie and Daddy is laughing and doing it with you.

It’s the moment she sees her Grand Daddy drive up in his Big Red tuck to pick her up that she races to the fence and calls “Grand Daddy” and hops up and down and races to the door – trusting he'll be right there.



Of course this is the first grandchild from their only child (will there be more?) so perhaps her astonishment and joy might be understandable.

I don't think it lessens with additional children or grand children.......we just are so busy we don't notice it as much.

Any hoo........foot pain aside....the day and the joy were quite enough.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mother's Day

Once again it has rolled around.

Around here at lunch time it has left me in the company of the ol' Grump and the pooch. Thrown on our own devices to find something to eat.

Two of the daughters...mothers themselves, have taken the wife to Applebees for lunch and a girly meal.

I don't mind so much since I carried her to an over crowded buffet style steak house last night and filled her up with as much as she was able to carry back to the table.
Yeast rolls seemed to have a particular attraction to her.

Me...I was after a pink in the middle piece of cow or two and all the fried popcorn shrimp I could get on the plate along with it. I was going to partake of the clam chowder as it looked and smelled pretty good, but dessert got in my way.

Anyway..I'm pretty glad for all the mothers in my life, both now and in the past.

I can barely remember my Great Grand mother Mahaffee, Francis. Her daughter Mattie Lou married my paternal Grandfather Oscar, which produced my Father who married My Mother Ada Inez, which produced me and five sisters (all Mothers, and good ones), which allowed me (well not really allowed, since it was and elopement) to wed the mother of three fine children...two girls and a boy who themselves are now mothers and fathers.

So it's a pretty good day all around.

I got up and did the recommended stretching of my feet and determined to stay off them as much as possible today. This will be accomplished by reclining in the Easy-Boy and elevating them, making the flow of blood to my head somewhat easier where I shall no doubt dream of all the mothers in my life.....now....in the past...and in the future.

For without mothers would we have a future to look forward to...and would we want to.

Friday, May 08, 2009

I still live....

Walking......not so much.

Spent most of the day yesterday driving to and from the VA in Augusta, GA. Two hours each way more or less depending on lead in foot and how may stops at old friends I make on the way back..

Had an appointment in the podiatry clinic at 11am. Finally got called in at 12:15 which was about as I expected although generally they are a little quicker.

I've complained from time to time about my Plantar Fasciaiatis problems. New shoes didn't work.....new insoles of varying heights of arch support and heel cushioning didn't help. So a couple of Cortizone shots in the heel and arch of each foot.

It's some better today. I came in a while ago and took off the shoes and socks and intend to put my feet up on the recliner is just a bit.

The bad part of yesterday was that I was late taking a medication when I got home and it kept me awake until about 4am this morning. Getting up at 6:45 wasn't something I wanted to do....but did and got a little work done today. I've got things boiling and covered and I'll look at them again in the morning.

In other news I invite you to click on the link in my sidebar for Pat Dollard. If you feel a need now-a-days to defend the Constitution and the Free Market system that has led to our once and future great country being the shining city on the hill that so much of the world wants to come to and participate in you might want to join with like minded folks there in an effort that will be worth your while.

I'm off to finish reading my favorite blogs and leave snarky comments then to the recliner......Anything good on the boob tube tonight?

Monday, May 04, 2009

A Challange

I am pleased to have a friend in Toccoa GA who I attended church with and served with in several leadership positions.

When first we met it was obvious that he was as disdainful of Vietnam Veterans as I was proud to be one.

Over the course of several years and many heartfelt discussions (always respectful, even if sometimes I did leave his presence thinking to myself, "what an idiot", as I am sure did he) we began to understand each others motivations and I'm happy to think he began to have a different understanding of the reason some serve in an unpopular cause in the face of massive disapproval of those whose respect we most wish.

As Gary began to learn more of the founding of this great country and the at times contentious reasoning's of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United State and Bill of Rights he realized that they were motivated more by a desire to live in the freedom they believed was a God-Given Gift to every being on the planet than simply to oppose a tiny (compared to now) burden of taxes placed on a population that struggled to eke out a living from a sometimes inhospitable land. He began to walk with a decidedly more upright lean to his stride...
..toward freedom as a default position.

I can't claim any credit for his decision, he chose a different path as he learned to think more on his own and not take so many of his positions blindly from those he had previously listened to and followed for so many years. I only hope I caused him to begin the process of seeking to learn.

I can never convince anyone of the rightness of my position....hell, I'll be questioning it myself until I run out of time....and if I learn a thing that is different and I determine the truth of it, I'm not afraid to change. After all that is what we do as long as we live....if we think.

The link Here is to a long blog post... but I challenge you to read it through to the end. I don't have enough readers of this pissing and moaning to think it will make a difference........I just hope in the long run YOU will think it did.

Click above or copy and paste this

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/05/missed-anniversary-vous-les-americains.html

"There's a drug issue"

2:30 am Monday morning

Said the officer as he headed down the steps.

"I figured it was something like that", I said as we thanked him and he went down the drive to his car.

He and his partner had responded to our call to give a 20 year old girl (you can't call her a woman if she doesn't have, apparently, enough sense not to do the things she's doing, can you) a ride back to where ever it is she's supposedly living tonight.

We were awaken by the doorbell, which set the pooch off like a rocket. Not without reason since a moment before he (and we) was asleep on the pillow above the wife's head.

Tiny he may be....but in his mind this is his turf and he'll defend it (or at least give me enough warning to grab the nearest pistol) with all the heart of a doberman crammed down into the body of an eighteen pound Yorkie.

Outside on the steps was the girl who'd caused his alarm.

"Can I use your phone to call for a ride, or can you give me a ride home", she asked.

"I've pee'd myself, I'm pregnant".

"Wait there, I'll get the phone". I closed and locked the door.

"I'm calling the police", said the wife, "I told her the last time I would"

I was going to give the girl a ride but my wife's instincts are more right than mine. This was the 3rd time in the past 2 months this same girl had turned up on the doorstep in the early morning hours needing a ride home.

I had given her a ride the first time. It was the second morning of the big snow when the power and phone was out and she was trying to walk home in her pajamas. The second time my wife sent her and her girlfriend on their way, saying we were'nt a taxi service.

Always on a Monday morning. Always apparently the guy in the story had kicked her out of the house. Probably after a weekend of partying and her presence no longer tolerable or useful.

Just Damn.

It seems there are more than a million stories here in the big metropolis of Clarke County. And no shortage of stupid young girls who never knew their father because their mother was also stupid and will be perpetuating these disaster stories into the future.

There ought to be a spay and neuter program set up for some of these kids.

Maybe do it without anesthetic.