The Devil's beating his wife

“The devil’s beating his wife”

That’s what my mother would say anytime we’d get rain and the sun was shining.

I hadn’t thought of that in a while. Just came to mind when the wife asked me if my truck windows were up, because it had started raining, and I had to trudge outside in my slippers to roll them up.

Of course I said that I had deliberately left them down to dare the rain to come over the kudzu patch. No way, no how would I be so dumb as to leave them down accidentally.

Of course if we had a garage or carport there would be no problem. House plans call for a garage, but then it also calls for the first floor to be built over the basement.
One of these days… one of these days. I can hear my wife now….”I’ll believe it when I see it. After so many years in this basement, the kids all moved out, if the father-in-law didn’t live here we would be rambling around like two peas in a box car.

If we ever do build the top floor on this house we’d probably have to rent the basement out to 4 families of Mexicans in order to pay the power bill.

Men, don’t let your wife pick out the house plan. They have no idea of square footage.

Of course they’re not to blame. For years we’ve been telling them that this much…….

>I………………………………………I <

is eight inches.

Bless their little gullible hearts.


No kudzu there.

Happy 4th

One more 4th of July has arrived. A time of parades, fireworks, going to the lake, getting drunk, jumping in the pool. barbeques, and in general a free day off from work for millions especially government agencies. This year because it comes on a tuesday many took off from friday thru today.
Hopefully a few will take a moment to reflect on the reason for the day. Many blog posts will and have been written about it. One that caused me to think is http://www.neptunuslex.com/ .
I tend to get a little morose about the whole thing because too many people are working overtime to destroy what little freedoms we have left under that docoment and the Constitution which was written 11 years later.
People often seem too interested in the vague pursuit of happiness rather than protecting LIFE & LIBERTY.
Just my opinion, but it's one of the reasons for the tangles of doubt, depression and worry in my life.

On the upside, I'll be traveling down to Loganville to swim in the pool, see the spousal unit who is house sitting said pool, visit with the grandchildren and some of the children and their spousal units.
Have a great 4th of July, and take a moment to reflect on some of the reasons our forefathers pledged Their Lives, Their Fortunes and Their Sacred HONOR to fight to leave us the freedom we so cherish.

The okra needs picking, and beans too. They'll just have to wait.

I'll love you forever

Forever yours, To my wonderful wife (or Husband)
All of these sentiments I read on the inside of so many wedding rings.
I see them that were written years ago, and some that were given in wedding ceremonies only a few months ago.
I buy old, scrap and unwanted gold jewelry from pawnshops and refine and resell the gold to jewelry manufacturies and others.
It's amazing how many wedding and engagement rings are to be found there. All of the people they belonged to I'm sure meant every word of their wedding vows. What happened? Where did all that love and affection go? Probably started to go when the guys stopped holding their stomach in and their wives stopped dying their roots, ( or shaving their legs ), and had bloating and cramping for like 3 years at a time. Lack of affection in inverse relation to the amount of time their husbands sat on the couch watching wrestling, with their feet on the coffee table and both hands stuck down the front of their pants. As an aside, I used to have a brother-in-law who on friday nite would come home with like 15 hours of WWF on video from Blockbusters.
His greatest thrill was his job as bush hog driver cutting the grass on the sides of the road.
Little wonder that his wedding ring is probably a completly different type of jewelry now.
Sis divorced his fat ass and married a Canuck. (but otherwise a pretty respectful type of guy)
If only he'll stop pushing her down and breaking her leg. Just kidding Rick.
I sometimes think we should go to having the betrothed couple take at least 3 years of classes on how to stay married before they could get a license. Oh yeah!, mostly now they don't bother with a ceremony. Just decide, yeah we've had two dates why don't we move in together.

Oh well it gives me something to do and maybe I'll make a dime or two if I keep it up.
Keep on selling those rings and other jewelry folks to the local pawn shop owner for 1/10th of what you paid for it. He'll double his money and I'll make a little cut too. Besides I so love it when in a pawn shop a guy will come in with two rings, the pawn shop guy will say $20 and ring guy will shout $20, but I paid $500.00 for those rings. Pawn shop guy says only worthe $20 to me. Well ok, but you guys sure are making a killing, give me the 20. I just smile and keep on going.

We got some rain on the kudzu. Tomatoe plants nearly as high as my head.

The Great one passed

I started to just leave to title up there, but I have to try to work my way around the news of the passing of Rob Smith of Gut Rumbles.
I'm not sure, but his blog may have been the first one I ever read. Maybe not, but certainly one of the first I remember liking so much that I would return every day, sometimes several times thru-out the day to read. His honesty, his take no prisoner, damn the torpedos approach to life seemed to release some of the demons I struggle with.
Having finally faced some of my past in therapy the last 2 years, I could identify with some of the things he put up with by not putting up with.
The post by someone of his comment when leaving the Helen, Ga blogfest where he said, "I feel like Elvis leaving Las Vegas for the last time" as they carried him to the car and loaded him in, spoke to the yearnings I had been having of leaving all my troubles behind.
His finally coming to realize what he was doing to himself, gave me hope that, This too shall Pass!
His writing became more lucid and sharper after he dried out. He could write, a little. Far better than I ever hope to.
He had much hurt in him. You don't lose a son, no matter the reasons, without feeling like your soul had been wrenched from you.
He loved his family, from his ancesters to his children. His writing of them spoke to the feelings I have for my own family.
I'll miss him. Just as I miss everyone who has passed thru my life and left me for better or worse the man I am.
How ironic that in his last post he spoke of how tired he was of all the shit that had been going on in his life. When he wrote of how he would use a .22 to kill himself, you could feel some of the anguish in him. I believe that a benevolent God took him in his way, a kinder gentler way than perhaps Rob had in mind. We can be grateful for that.
I'll forget him in time, but when those memories are stirred up by what ever errant piece of bad beef, I'll smile and be thankful to have read him, Once upon a time.

Rob, I hope you smell the kudzu blossums every day where you are.

UPDATE: Nice tribute here.............http://www.youbitch.org/mt/archives/000643.php

coulda, wouda, shouda

Fathers Day.
Here I sit at the end of the day. I received calls from all my children. My wife gave me 2 pairs of new jeans (she's been washing the old ones and seeing the disintergration of same), and a lovely card.
I thankful to my wife for my children, and to an affair which yielded a remarkable young woman that like all of my children, I'm proud to call my own.
There are a great many things that I can look back on and regret either not doing, or, doing. But one thing I do not regret is the birth of each and every one.
I regret not having the time to get to know my own father. Sure I knew him for 25 yrs. but I was only at that time grown up enough to start to recognize him for who he was.
I knew my Grandfather for 8 yrs longer, and how I wish I had listened more to his advice.
Both of them loved us in completly different ways, and taught us lessons that will always remain with me.
I did the best that I knew how when they were younger, and I'm still trying to learn how to be a dad.
Wish me luck. It's a hellva ride.

But sometimes you get to see and smell the kudzu in bloom.

Oh yeah

Forgot to mention that it's been dry here. And since the old wive's tale is if you hang a snake on a fence it'll rain, I attempted same but since we have no fence, I did the next best thing. I tied those 2 snakes by their tails into a tree. Blessed rain from above today. If that's what it takes I'll be on the watch for more of the slimy bassards.
Maybe prowl around in the Kudzu.

Serves them right

I'm normally a laid back kind of guy. Expecially if I take the medication like the dr. prescribes. A pill for blood pressure, another to make me pee to go with the lst, a pill for anxiety (why would I be anxious?). Another to decrease my depression over the financial depression I've gotten us into. Another anti-depressant to help the first. And another for the carpel tunnel which I'm waiting on the VA to get around to.
So like I say, pretty laid back.
But the wife called me to the house, and said there was a noise coming from the attic over our bedroom and the dog was going crazy. For me to open up the attic and see what it was and remove it.
Naturally for my love, no sooner said than done.
So after a drink of water to cool off and a leasurly stroll to the bedroom where I couldn't hear anything, I go open up the attic from outside just to placate her, and prove that she's just imagining things.
So I crawl in with the flashlight and shine it in the corner. Damn, two big ol' snakes going at it like, well, like snakes. Which as you can imagine doing it with no hands or anything to grab aholt of is sorta a trick.
Now these were black snakes, nothing to worry about except how to convince them to leave.
Then I got to thinking. Who the hell do they think they are? Having carnal relations over my bedroom. They're gettin more than I've had in a while and seemingly enjoying it wayyyy too much.
That's when I called for the .22 pistol. Had to aim carefully since I didn't want a hole in either the roof or ceiling. And a shot anywhere other than the head wouldn't do more than piss them off, and cause them to bleed on everything.
Finally mission accomplished. Pics of Grandson with culprits follow.
Well maybe they proceed. Don't know how I managed to get two sets of the same pics. Does any body know how to put the pics where I want them?

They should have stayed in the kudzu if they wanted to be left alone.

Better late than Never

That's what they say, whoever they are.

The Baby arrived on Monday last. A Girl, named Callie Cheyene, weight 6 lbs 13 oz. Mother and Baby are fine, but, I fear the father is ruint forever. This big strong former Marine has been twisted around Callie's finger since birth.
He could go on secret missions to kill Al Queda even before 9/11, but he can't fend off one little girl who can't even roll over yet.
Such is the power of love for family.
I'll try to copy and paste a picture of the baby here

False alarm

Well, the youngest's 1st child was due yesterday.
Last night at midnight we got a call. On the way to the hospital.
Opps!
Seems the timing was off. False alarm.

Our first was due around the 10th of September. I had a reporting date in Vietnam of the 1st of same. Got a months reprive so as to be there for the happy moment. Wouldn't you know it. The baby was 2 weeks late. Hope was born on the 25th. My reporting date was Oct 1.

12 months later I got to watch her take her first steps. Glad Roy has his service behind him. He'll get to witness all the things I missed the first time around.

I don't need no stinkin' job

My father died when I was 25, still flying choppers for good ol' benevolant Unk' Sam. He slid in a ditch during an ice storm making the return portion of a beer run to the package store only 2 or 3 miles away. He sat there with the motor running and expired of carbon monoxide poisioning.

While on leave for Christmas he and I were talking and he told me he had something important to discuss, but would do it later. Later never came.

We moved on to Ft. Lewis in Washington State. A month after we got there we got the call.

He had a will and named me executor. I got out of the army and took over operation of his dairy farm which he had been building up since the early '50s.

He had started with about 2 dozen cows of various breeds and kept adding to it in both cows and land, until he had about 300 acres and 120 milking cows, which at that time were numbered in the top ten of all herds in GA of that size.

To me fell the gladsome task of listing all his assets at time of death, and getting appraisals of all, to be used to prepare the estate tax form which had to be filled out and filed with the IRS (peace be upon their blood sucking, beauracratic bloated asses).

Too much for a youthful, innocent, uncorupted, niave to the way of the real world, I hired his old attorney to help with the mountain of paper work.

We finally came up with the final estimate and found to our plesant surprise that we owed over $50,000.00 which at the time I thought was more money than existed in one pile in all the world. A third of his net worth. A freaking third!!!!!! WTF over.

Needless to say that put us on the road to eventually selling off everything that he had worked 25 years for. For I might say a mere pittance of what it would be worth now. I sometimes refer to it in moments of mirth, lighthly as my $6,000,000.00 mistake. Live and learn they say. Read um and weep.

I have held our blessed, benevolant, all caring and concerned fiddle gummint in the highest regard since. I determined that I would not live my life so as to have to bow to their every whim, and would only donate to their continuence as little as possible.

It's caused some hardship. Tax audits, harrassing phone calls, even the taping of what I mistakenly thought was a private phone call. I've been mostly self employeed. Making only enough to keep from going on welfare.

I'm tired of that lifestyle. I determine to live so as to prosper as much as possible.

But my determination to be free of control is undimmed.

That's why I support and urge every one to become with the Fair Tax Bill sponsered by Rep. John Linder of GA. If you haven't heard of this bill, please go to http://www.fairtax.org/

Thanks for taking the time.

OK, Maybe I rushed to judgement

I'll always admit when I've been wrong. There were and are reasons the appraiser couldn't get here. The man has been trying to put things back together. Even to the extent of using his own money or credit to help me out of a bind. You would think that his wife suddenly throwing up blood and being diagnosed with stomach cancer would make me cut him some slack.
You'd be wrong. I drive and hour to stand in his driveway and look him in the eyes and hash everything out.

Damn I hate to get in a fix like I did. When I was in 6th grade I overheard my teacher tell my mom that I had a high IQ and for years I thought I was smart. I can see now that I just had an inflated opinion of myself. Evidenced by the results over the years I may be one of the less intelligence forms of life on this ball.

Probably should go and hide in the Kudzu again, and ponder my navel or such.

Taking the Bull by the horns

Sometimes you just have to really put it all on the line. I've been trying to refinance our property to forstall foreclosure procedings. I contacted all the right people, one man said he could take care of everything. Nooo problem. Just let his appraiser come and take a look and the money would be there. Four months later I still waiting for the freaking appraiser. Now down to the nut cutting time. So I got in the truck and drove an hour to his house. I was determined to look him in the eye and discuss what is going to happen. Best thing I could have done. No excuses now. He has to come thru for me. A stranger a few months ago. But even though I probable dial his phones more than anyone else, he is unfailingly courteous and friendly when we do talk. He'll do it himself. We've become friends. Probably be a personal loan from a man who has had a lot on his plate. First his daughter was killed by her new lover when the old one broke in thru the window and opened the bedroom door. Two small children. Grandmother is his ex wife. She'll probably get custody.
Now it turns out that will be best.
His currant wife has what appears sure to be stomach cancer.
In spite of this he is going out of his way to make sure my problem is taken care of.
Character and principals will show every time and the world will profit by more people having them.

One sure way to cut away some of the tangled vines.

Do they have the balls?

Supposedly the AG and the Head of the FBI have threatened to resign if the president makes them give back the evidence found in congresscritter Jefferson's office............http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060527/pl_nm/crime_jefferson_dc_3

As I understand the Constitution. If a congressman has committed a Felony (which taking up to $400,000.00 would probably qualify), then they are subject to the laws of the country even though congress may be in session.

Here's hopin that someone in the cesspool of Washington, DC has both balls, intelligence, and courage to obey their oath of office.

I'll be holding my breath and chewing on a kudzu stem.

And th winner is...............

Me for being the most stupifyingly trusting fool on at least this planet. How can I hope to make it to Kolab if at the tender age of 56 I still can't recognize when I'm being conned.
"Oh, I'll call you right after I talk to the appraiser at 10 this morning", I'm told. No call. Not even after repeated attempts to contact him.
And Trip, never has there been a more pathetic excuse of skin holding crap that I can remember. Oh, wait. There is Rhonda, Danny, Jake, Bobby, Scott Hunter and numerous of their kith and kin and cronies.

The solution is simple. I'm going to have to start associating with higher class people.

Where does one go to find people worthy of association?

The Kudzu leaves blind my eyes and the vines wind amongst the obdula oblongata and keep the synapsis from communicating.

Yuucccckkk

And th winner is...............

Me for being the most stupifyingly trusting fool on at least this planet. How can I hope to make it to Kolab if at the tender age of 56 I still can't recognize when I'm being conned.
"Oh, I'll call you right after I talk to the appraiser at 10 this morning", I'm told. No call. Not even after repeated attempts to contact him.
And Trip, never has there been a more pathetic excuse of skin holding crap that I can remember. Oh, wait. There is Rhonda, Danny, Jake, Bobby, Scott Hunter and numerous of their kith and kin and cronies.

The solution is simple. I'm going to have to start associating with higher class people.

Where does one go to find people worthy of association?

The Kudzu leaves blind my eyes and the vines wind amongst the obdula oblongata and keep the synapsis for communicating.

Yuucccckkk

JOE BTFSPLK

That should be my name today. Nothing and I mean nothing went right. The builders don't have the decking on the roof resulting in more wasted time before the next job.
The appraiser should be out today, I was told at 7:45am. Now at 7:29pm we have yet to see them, and Eugene, who told me with so much confidence everything would be alright refuses to call me back.
The attornies who were supposed to close the loan my buyers were getting, (supposedly to close at 4:30pm) gave me bad, worse and worst news.
The refiners have still not sent the wire to my account.

And to cap it all off, I hear that the guy won on American Idol. What's up with that? Could'nt they see that the other contestant was a beautiful woman with breasts and everything. Have the people of america gone crazzzzy?
Ups! I just remembered that 51% of the population are female, and at least 20% of the rest are so pussified that you can't keep score anymore.

And if you can remember who JOE BTFSPLK is you're at least as old as I am which is 2 days older than black pepper. At this time nothing works like it used to. I've been thinking of asking Acidman where he got his bionic "roscoe".

Oh, and the cloud over my head has been full of rain and lightning and thunder.

Likely make the Kudzu grow faster.

One for two

Today has been quite a day for hearing from old friends.
Bobby B. ( he of take the nail gun and run for Boston fame) called last night and left a message about how sorry he was about the way he treated me and everything and he'd call back after work today.
Why do I listen to people who only want to cry on my shoulder and talk ad nauseum about how much they want to change their lives and how much better things would be if only they'd had a chance like other people.

Helllloooo!!?? What part of all men being created equal do they not understand. And what makes them think that I can change the effects of the decisions that they have made throughout their poor, poor, pitiable lives.
Note to self here; Not once did he hint that he would return the nail gun, pay the back rent he owed not to mention the electric bill he didn't pay. Nooo, all he could talk about was how he wanted things to be better. And how he'd been off alcohol for 2 weeks and was only doing a little weed now and again. Like every day.
Note to self; hit yourself up side head with 2 x 4 several times for taking the time to listen to him cry.

On a happier note. ( insert loud cries of jubilation and excitement).
LL has returned to Curses and Chrome http://cursesandchrome.blogspot.com/ after vowing never to return. A momentary lapse we had all hoped and prayed would be over when she returned to her senses or when all the cries of those less talented and dependant upon reading her blog to get us thru the day or night depending.
Glad to have her back. Besides where else would we go for HNT? ;-) ;-)

What kind of leader am I?

Oh My God !!!
I am he whom I dispise most in the world.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Family

Today we went and had lunch and fellowship with all five of my sisters, my wife and children and Uncle Jim and Aunt Margaret. Various and sundry grandchildren, nieces and nephews, Grand nieces and nephews, various brother-in-laws, cousins, sons-in-laws and daughter-in-law. A great time as they say was had by all. Bound together by blood, marriage and love. Scattered over the country from Texas to Maine by jobs and other reasons. Rich and poor, young and old, we enjoyed the feeling you get when you are surrounded by loved ones. My two nephews from Maine we here. Soon they'll both be deployed to Iraq. The youngest 20 is a medic in the reserves. The older is a butterbar (!st Lt. ) in the quartermaster corp. But wants to be special forces. Pray for their safety.

Those of the blogsphere we read daily or frequently we consider family. We begin to care for them and their successess and failures. Most pour out their hearts and innermost feelings in an effort to find their way thru the tangles of everyday life. Hopefully we support each other even in the midst of occasional pissing contests.
LL has called it quits. She was the first blogger to respond to my puny attempts. She won my heart for that, even if it was to correct my mistake. I understand that there are dangers to putting ourselves out for the world to see. Sometimes the dangers outway the positive and people are compelled to leave.. I wish her well. God Speed. And if by chance you return I hope to run into you again.

Free at last

What a day. Started early checking on how the gold was refining, but couldn't stop thinking that I might have caused someone some pain.
Now I'm not usually one to really care whether some pain has been afflicted or not. The night of Bush's speech we were sitting on the couch watching and just after he had mentioned that the number of border patrol agents had been increased to 12000, I commented, "the problem is ease to solve. Just station an agent every 1/2 mile with a high powered rifle and let them start shooting anyone caught sneaking across". The better half looked at me in disgust and said, "you can't shoot people". Now why the hell not. Better a few bite the dust than thousands keep coming and breaking our laws. (Not that I'm any great believer in never breaking a law or two. Just don't believe in getting caught.) Plus if you're any good a head shot only hurts your shoulder.
Nevertheless I was much relieved to read tonight that I had not been at fault.

I'm a hunter not a fisher

Have you ever had to depend on someone else to get the ball rolling on an important aspect of your life. Say refinancing when your credit is bad, it's not a house in the 'burbs, and you have to operated on stated, not proved income.
Boy will that make your water weak.
When they say they will call and you have to chase them down and wind up leaving messages and paging them, to at last reach them and find out that it will be a while longer.
I waiting on a call this morning. If it's put off I will be found sharpening my Swiss Army (the Swiss Army) bayonets. Swiss steel and blood in the morning. Better than coffee, which I don't drink, to get the juices flowing. At least something would be accomplished.

This is why I don't hunt or fish anymore. Waiting on a deer to wander by, or sitting on the bank waiting for a nibble just doesn't cut it with me. I know many people who are avid hunters or fisherman. It's just not my cup of tea.
When I was young, in the spring the suckers, ( red drum) would migrate up the streams much like salamon to spawn. We would get our gigs and flashlights and wade the shallows and hunt them down without mercy. When the light would hit them even in water up to 3 ft deep they would shine like new money. That's when the gig would strike right behind the head pinning the to the streambed to be picked up and strung on a stout stick, while we looked for the next one.

That's my idea of going after something that you want and bringing home food for a week in one night

No tangles there. Short and simple.

Thank goodness for polluted air

If you can breath it without your eyes watering, or your nose burning and dripping like a leaky faucet. Give thanks that you don't live in the hell hole I was in tonight. Where the odor of rat piss and droppings and dog piss is so loud that the air is literally tinted a weak yellow color.
Just Daaaaammmmnnnn!!!!!
When you drive home with the airconditioner on full and the windows wide open just to carry the stink on you away, you know that you survived hell. If you cut your hand just a little as one did and you worry that you might die a horrible evil death, as your hand, then arm rot bit by bit and fall off inches at a time.
And people lived in this. And consider some of the items feet deep in piles on the floor of some worth. They even consider that anything missing or taken by the toothless scum who live around them , might have some little value.
I'm a pig. I admit it. As long as I know that what I need lies somewhere in the stacks on my desk, it's not lost. But compared to what I waded thru tonight my area looks like one of those sterile isolated rooms where computer parts are assembled.

They need more Kudzu to quickly overgrow that garbage pile.

Once again

Well, once again the idiots in Washington, DC have proved that they are a bunch of spineless, worthless, scum-sucking, money grubbing, weasling, two faced, lying, no good pieces of fecal matter, floating in a sea of self serving lobbyists and hands out welfare, government tit sucking beauracrats and sycophants.

Call it what you will the legislatition to allow criminal lawbreaking border jumping, wetback sonsabitching so called illegals to not only stay in this country after they broke the law, but to call it reform of the highest order would make any sane citizen of this country puke in his pocket to save to sleep with it under his pillow. That is if there were any sane citizens left in this country.

Our fore and founding Fathers who gave us a government of laws and not of men, must surely be spinning in their grave at the speed of light giving off sparks and light much like a cyclotron, capable of creating a gigantic black hole capable of sucking all the matter in the universe into it, when they see to what depths we have sunken.

This is surely the proof we've been searching for that proves there is no afterlife. For surely our forefathers would defy the veil and return blowing on the trumpet of liberty and shouting arise, arise patriot and countrymen turn back the foe, kick out the invader, water once again the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.

Public outcry turned back the Dubia ports deal. Let's see if there is any commotion made about this.

We have been strangled by the vines and tendrils of the kudzu which afflict us and our screams of outrage stifled by the green velvety leaves stuffed down our throats by our oppressors.

I'm Just Thinking

I just watched (for the umpteenth) the Return of the King of the Lord of the Rings.
I'm sorry if you can watch that movie without experiencing a vast array of emotions culminating in pride of accomplishment and the nobility of man, then you're on a different wave length than I.

Then I read from Fred.........

http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

and I begin to think that I truly know so little, and am humbled by what God hath wrought.

And the Kudzu is both thick and thin. Smothering of somethings, yet, cooling and shading and protecting of others.

Old South, Forgotten World??

I was raised in the South! I'm proud to be a southern boy.

It wasn't the South of "Gone with the Wind", but the south of the 1950's and 60's. We were farmers. We live the farmers life. Up before dawn, milk the cows, feed the calves. Then back to the house for a country breakfast. Biscuits, country ham, red eye gravy, eggs cooked in the ham grease. Always a favorite. Sometimes biscuits with honey from our own hives. Sometimes for us kids, oatmeal or cream of wheat. (You can't eat like a king every day on a farmers pay).

The south I was raised in was changing with the times. It was a time of civil rights marches. Of desegration. Of rebellion of youth in ways not seen before. The world was shrinking before our eyes and it was not always pretty. Kruschevf pounded his shoe in the U.N. and promised to hang us with our own rope. We practiced covering our heads under the desks at school. Made about as much sense as anything else the government did.

Planes went faster and higher. Anything was possible. If you could conceive it you could acheive it. Television started showing things in color. Even the color of blood in far off battlefields.

I watched my father and grandfather. Some things didn't change. A man's good name meant more than gold or silver. I was very proud of my heritage and name. I had no idea of genealogy at that time, but was sure that I wanted people to respect my name as they did my grandfathers.

I thought that people would always live up to the things they promised to do. I was protected and isolated from people who had no respect, no vision of what they were looking for or to become. I heard of poor white trash but had little knowledge of what that meant other than the KKK neighbor we had who let his bull break thru our fence. It seemed unmanly for people to hide their activities behind sheets in secrecy and the dark of night.

So it is hard for me to realise that people will lie to you for their personal gain. They will look you right in the eye, shake your hand and know in their heart that none of what they say to you is anything near what they'll really do.

I had a friend named Bobby (I thought). Younger than I, he claimed that he wanted to change his life. He came from poverty and the inner city. Abuse and addiction were his suckling teat. Gangs were his family.

He claimed he wanted more. I offered my hand, my advice, my counsel. Even my money.

Now I know. He wanted more from me.

These things I can forget. Harder will be forgetting that he was too much of a coward to admit that to me.

Tangles and tendrils wind their way around my soul. They are hard to unravel, impossible to avoid. Slowly I try to pull them away and move forward.

If you do nothing else

If you do nothing else today, tomorrow, or the next day, by all means read this.

http://cursesandchrome.blogspot.com/2006/03/view-of-arab-world-by-arab.html

It's long I know. If your attention span is not long enough, go back to "Deal or no Deal"

TANSTAAFL, (translation by request for those whose education did not include Heinlein)

never was and never has been.

Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are Doomed to repeat them.

Know your enemy. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The better to manually strangle them and watch their eyes bulge out and their tongues turn dark and swell in their mouths.

The Kudzu is tall, thick and tangled. Dark underneath where I sit honing my bayonets.

Who's yo Daddy? ?

Those who have taken the time to know me realize that I am exceedingly mild mannered, I wear glasses, and know everything. Right there the resemblence to Superman stops!

Since I know everything, you have all heard me pontificate at great length on every subject under the sun. Especially politics, education or the lack of same in our government Schools. I almost called them government funded schools. But no they are funded by the citizens with funds taken by force by the only entity authorized to legalily rob and even kill you if they so desire.

One would think that with their vast resourses of money and the ability to call on the most advanced minds in the world today that they would turn out some of the smartest and most brillant minds the world has ever known.

For an example of what passes in some circles for cognitive thought, consider the case of Dallas, Texas;

Who's yo daddy?

When someone puts in for Child Support, the proper thing to do is to find out who the father is and see why he is not providing support. The following are all replies that Dallas women have written on Child Support Agency forms in the section for listing father's details. Or putting it another way...Who's yo Daddy!

These are genuine excerpts from the forms. Be sure to check out # 11 - it takes the prize and # 3 is runner up. However; I think # 5 is from another planet.

1. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins, child A was fathered by Jim Munson. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of child B, but I believe that he was conceived on the same night.

2. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my child as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpectedly from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.

3. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 Grand Avenue where I had unprotected sex with a man I met that night I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father, can you send me his phone number? Thanks.

4. I don't know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto heels in one of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and! see if he's had it replaced.

5. I have never had sex with a man. I am still a Virginian. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son's conception was immaculate and that he is Christ risen again.

6. I cannot tell you the name of child A's dad as he informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the economy. I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country. Please advise.

7. I do not know who the father of my child was as all blacks look the same to me.

8. Peter Smith is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him, can you ask him what he did with my AC/DC CDs? Child B who was also borned at the same time.... well I don't have a clue.

9. From the dates it seems that my daughter was conceived at Disney World; maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom.

10. So much about that night is a blur. The only thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I'd have stayed in and watched more TV rather than going to the party at 146 Miller Drive, mine might have remained unfertilized.

11. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby, after all when you eat a can of beans you can't be sure which one made you fart.

Yep, you guessed it right. You are all paying taxes to support these dim bulbs.

I know it's unfair to pick on Dallas. Toccoa, Georgia has more that it's fair share and to spare of the fine examples of gentile womanhood.

Shamelessly stolen from, http://cursesandchrome.blogspot.com/

My what fertile fields we have for the kudzu to grow in.

Look into the future

What do you see?

Are the average levels of intelligence increasing? Are the standards of civilized people rising or declining? Are the numbers of civilized people increasing? Are the time tested standards of morality and ethics holding firm? Or careening down the hill like a 1959 Edsil with the brake lines cut, an imbicle at the wheel yelling "damn what a rush" as the S-turns to destruction at the bottom of the cliff come closer and closer.

Western Civilization has endured and improved over millinia, but can we confidently look at it and say that it will endure another 4000 years?

In our pursuit to equality we tried to pull or force countries onto the pedestal with us, while some of them were not up to the heights and got nosebleeds, and others only wanted to throw rocks and see if they could knock us off.

Now we see Chinese and Indians graduating more scientists and engineers than we ever did.
Are we so arrogant as to think that genius is only a product of a white skin?

Where will we be when the almighty dollar is no longer the dominant currency in the world?
When others standard of living in their own country increases will they still want to come here and produce, or will they see better oportunitites else where?
When your house stops increasing in value because there are more on the market than demand can soak up, and you can no longer borrow against it to finance lifestyle purchases, what then?
Will you demand that your employeer increase your wages simply because you need more?
Will you stand with your bowl in hand asking "Please sir, may I have more"?

We have finally reduced our rate of saving to a minus percentage of our national income.
I ask you, did this nation become great because it was the biggest debtor in the world, or because it was the greatest producer in the world? Where was the last purchase at Wal-mart manufactured? Hummmm?

There are those who advocate preparedness. Is it such a bad idea to have a little money sat aside? Might some of it need to be in gold or silver or other trade goods, even hand tools?
Should you grow a portion of what you eat, and preserve some of it for when the cool winds of winter blow? Or when a Tornado or Hurricane strikes? Can we outrun the bird flu, or is that just hype. Are all around the world we living only with people who like and respect us and our beliefs?

Do you have money to sustain you for at least 6 months. If you couldn't afford to go to the store do you have clothes to cover you and a source of warmth, and ability to cook something to fill that increasingly hollow spot in your midsection?

Do you have something that will continue to bring in the necessities of life if you are laid up in the bed from illness, or injury, or simply becoming too old to do what it takes to bring in additional funds.

There is more to life than the next soap on tv, or the next sixpack on the weekends or the olympics. They may distract us. They may entertain us (nothing wrong with appropriate entertainment).

Do you ever just sit and consider the future? ?

Sanity or Insanity

At first glance the thought of having a foreign entity have control of SIX of our major east coast seaports produces the gut-felt reaction of "What the hell are those idiots in Washington Thinking?".

By now anyone who watches any news on tv or listens to the radio realizes that the British corporation which owns the business which has the port controlling concession has made a deal to sell that business to a United Arab Emirate government entity. Let me make that clear.
1. a privately owned British business is selling their business to a UAE Government business.
2. The UAE is a moslem State from which 2 of the 9/11 hijackers came.
3. The UAE is not a private business, it is a political business.

On the other hand, The UAE has been the friend of the U.S. in our so called war on terror.
1. They allowed our forces to base out of there.
2. They have condemmed the islamic terrorists. (note that I do not capatalize the word islam, they do not deserve it)

For a better discussion of this matter, may I recommend you read this;
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
I know that it may be a long read for some of you, but the practice will be good for you.

I don't have a clue as to whether this is a security issue for the U.S..

My Gut feeling is that it is something akin to milking a porcipine. Best done verrrry carefully, and with great trepidation, and reluctance.

My Intellectual feeling is that a soverign nation has to have as much of its infurstructure as possible owned by citizens of that nation. Not from a security standpoint. Rather from a SURIVAL STANDPOINT. An ECONOMIC STANDPOINT.

We have for many years been sending our jobs and factories to foreign lands. This may make sense in some minds. Yes, wages are cheaper there. Yes, foreign countries eager for economic stimulus to their countries will give incentives to companies to invest there and employ their unemployed. In many cases we built them housing an schools so as to have at least a semi-literate employee base. Our own government has a department which uses TAXPAYER MONEY to encourage business to move overseas or to foreign countries.

I just wonder if all of our jobs are sent overseas, where the wages to support our lifestyle will come from. Henry Ford, it's said, was asked why he paid his workers so well. He replyed that he wanted his employees to be able to buy his cars. He knew that in order for his product to sell well, as many people as possible had to have the means to buy what initally was a luxurey item. But which has become a neccesity. Why, it's not uncommon for our poor welfare recipiants in this country to have at least one and more commonly two cars in their driveway. And Generally at least one Television.

We cannot long survive producing only paper and producing mind-numbing reality shows on tv. The home building sector is sustaining this economy. When people come to the harsh reality that their biggest investment is in fact no investment, but a liability, when it no longer automatically goes up to keep pace with inflation or more, but in fact looses value, what do you think will happen?

I encourage you all to give this some thought and to express yourself to your congress critter and Senator. You can find how to contact them at this website,

http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm

E-mail them, write them, call them on the telephone, send smoke signals for God's sake. Let's hold them accountable for things which they took an oath to defend.

Pass this off or pass it on.

I would be glad to see your comments and discussion.

Let's hope the Kudzu is not too deep to escape for a short time at least.

REDNECKS ! !

Rednecks. The word has come to mean white trash, or tobacco spitting good ole boys who can't spit past the bib of their overalls. Or fat drunks wearing wife beaters, with a pregnant wife and a passel of kids running around in their dirty diapers, or wearing a tee shirt without any pants in a filthy single wide trailer with no screen on the windows and the front door open to catch any errant breeze.

Pictures are passed around the internet like these;

http://boortz.com/more/funny/redneck_pics.html

(If I knew how, I'd upload them myself, but because I'm a computer retard you'll have to do your own surfing.)

Funny stuff.. humans are amazingly inventive and creative but sometimes you have to wonder if they really thought that thru or if they didn't why you didn't think of something fun like that.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older and looking back in nostalgic rose colored glasses, but I can remember when it meant that you worked out in the sun all day. Plowing either behind a mule or on a tractor, cutting and baling hay and then throwing it on the truck or trailer by hand the carrying it to the shed to be unloaded again by hand. Post holes were dug one at at time by hand and the post set in straight and sure and then tamped in with the end of a model T axel rod. (I still have my dad's) You're neck got sunburned and your arms and face, but your hat left a white forehead and your chest under the worn work shirt never saw the light of day.

When a persons word was his bond come hell or high water. When he took care of his family and what he had worked for, the took the time to visit the neighbors and help them if he could. Where the worst thing you could do was have to go on the government dole, and if you did it was just till you could get the next job that came up, even if it was digging ditches.

Where people knew that you had to preserve what surplus you made in the garden so you would have plenty to eat and maybe some to share in the wintertime. I can remember my mother standing hours on end canning soups and beans, okra, corn fresh off the cob. Honey put up in 1/2 gal. jars from the behives in the back pasture. Wood from the untilled acres fed the wood burning stove. Milk from your own cows sat in the Frigidare, and ever refrigerator was call a Frigidare no matter the maker.

My father was a farmer. He had his own dairy, on 300+ acres. A couple hundred head of cattle that had its start in first one, then another, then still more Jersey, Gurnsey, Brown Swiss and eventually one of the best Holstein dairy farms in Georgia.
He got up before the sun, and many days didn't come in until it sat in the west. He was a proud man, a rough man. He had little tolerance for fools. Often I thought he considered me a fool.
I feared his anger. At times I hated the man I saw. But when I was a child I acted as a child. Now that I'm just beginning to grow up a little, I see a different man. A man of the earth. Red with the dust of the field. Red ears and neck from spending long hours in the sun. Struggling to build a business and provide for a family of 6 children. He was independent, proud, quick to take offence.
He was not a perfect human being. His faults were many. He was by God a REDNECK, but, maybe we need more of them today.

White trash of any color are not entitled to the epitath of ... "Redneck".

Oh yes, we grew Kudzu and were proud of it.

Trip to the VA

Here I sit, knowing that I need to get to sleep, so I can wake early and hit the road to hotlanta in the morning. Have to try and beat that awful traffic. I hate lots of traffic like I hate being in large crowds of people anywhere.
Alone in the truck, I realize that I'm pretty lucky not to have to make that insane trip more than 2 or 3 times a month. I try to leave early enough to miss the worst of the rush hour traffic.
I watch the people filing in and out of the VA. Most looking quite whole and sane. Many Dr.s and other personal that work there. Many old and sickly looking. WWII vets, Korean war Vets,
Many Vietnam vets, now lots of Gulf war and Gulf war II vets.
One thing I can say is I have a lot better opinion of the VA now. I've received nothing but kindness and respect from the people who work there. I know that I probably wouldn't be here if not for the concern of a staffer who answered the phone a year and a half ago. I wonder if I'm using up resources that would be better spent on someone else, like the SSG I met a few months ago who had run over an IUD in Iraq. Had his right arm out the window of a 5 ton truck when the device went off on the right side. Numerous operations, numerous opinions that the arm would have to come off. There he is every week working on physical therepy to inprove the function of his saved arm. No complaints, Just thankful to be alive and back with his family.
Many young and not so young troops over there in harms way, doing things we can hardly imagine. All volunteers, keeping the fight there rather than here. Are they heros? Of course many are. We should support and be proud of all of them.

Someone once said, "Peaceable men sleep peacefully in their beds at nights because rough men stand ready to do violence in their behalf".

My friend B. King said "the difficulty is coming to the realization that we're killers".

I think the difficulty is knowing that we have the capacity and the ability, and training, but restraining the beast within is what both tears us apart and makes us heros.

Therein lies the fertile field for the Kudzu that grows within.

Procrastination

It's funny how some of put off doing the things we need to do till the very last minute.
I've always been one to wait until the crisis can get no more critical to do what's necessary to fix whatever problem of the moment is going on.

I've always believed that I am going to live forever. I truly believe that as a part of my Christian religion. But, I have for many years told my children that I was going to live to be 192 ! That means that I'll die in this body in the year 2141. My grandchildren's grandchildren will probably have grandchildren by that time. Wonder if they'll even know who I am. Or Care.

Think of the changes that will come about by that time. World peace? Doubtful. World War? Also doubtful.

One thing that won't ever change tho is the fact that the PTB (powers that be) will still rule the world and 99% of the world will never hear of them.

What ever type of currency we use will problably no more exist in actual Fact than the money we use now
. Created out of nothing and worth even less, except we all us it (of neccessity ) everyday.

But I digress and will start ranting if I keep on.

What I really mean to say is that few of us start to think of the future until too late. Oh we have our IRAs , Our 401 accounts, and there is always the safety net of good ol' social security and medicare to save us in our dottage. Right ? ?

Do as I say and not as I do. Make a Goal for your future.. Plan for that goal. Work the Plan. Continue to refine the Plan as conditions change.

I have waited too long to use the slow plan. I must of necessity shoot for the stars. But, then I always have. At least I have the stars of 4 beautiful children and soon the 6th beautiful grandchild. But I don't want to have to spend what should be years of less effort and more time scratching for every dime. Or dependant on others.

I mean for 2006 to be the greatest year ever. I will set Goals, make Plans, Work the Plan.


And I will continue to reach out to the power in the Cosmos who's intention is for us all to succeed.

The Tangles may wrap their tendrils all over me, but my finger will be reaching out of the leaves and pointing UP ! !

Just Damn ! !

We tend to see things based on our life experiences. People we have known. Places we have been.
If our knowledge of the world is limited, then, our vision tends to be parocrical and limited also.
I've just been to a website where you can create a map showing what countries you have been to, also you can make a map of the states in the US you've been in.
Ive been in 9 different countries, some like Austria which I was only in long enough to turn around (we were exploring roads around the southern Alps of Germany, got on a road with lots of traffic but no place to turn around when we found ourselves at the Austrian border checkpoint. Thankfully the Guard recognized us as stoopid Americans and allowed us to enter and turn around and leave.
Vietnam, a most beautiful and at the time ugly place I ever saw. North Vietnam, (at the time a differant Country, and not officially).
The Netherlands (Holland) where we visited the museums in Amsterdam, went to the town of Gouda (where we naturally bought cheese, as well as a pair of wooden shoes for Hope). London England but only to the airport on the way back to the US.. Laos from the air ( something big and black fell thru the rotorblades, a most amusing tale).. Japan (bought a Camera in the airport)..
Guam (never left the plane during refueling). The US, natch.

I've been in 37 of the fifty US states. Some I spent a little time in, but most I just drove thru. Saw the painted deseret, from the front seat of our Ford Econoline, the petrified forest, the Navajo nation, passed right thru the Mojave Desert, up the central valley of California. I have lived in sight of Mt Rainer, and driven up it's foothills hoping to see Bigfoot. Passed within spitting distance of the Great Salt lake.

They say a life unlived is the most pathetic thing. There are many places I want to visit and really see before I die.

Just another tangle of Kudzu I'd like to untangle. Dang !

Go to http://douweosinga.com/projects/visitedcountries to make a map of your travels.

Read this, Ponder, and weep, or Cheer if so inclined

This from Fred on Everything;


FRED Columns
A Colony Again
"You Can Call Me Bwana, Ferguson."

January 18, 2005
I’m going to start a rickshaw factory. It’s so our kids will have a way to make a living, now that America is pulling out of the First World. Maybe I’ll put an iPod socket on the poles or a little tiny television, made in Japan. That way our puzzled offspring won’t inadvertently start thinking. Tradition provides an anchor in the circumambient chaos.
See, what’s going to happen is, all the design work and programming are going to Mumbai, except the part that already has. Manufacturing is pretty much in China already, Mexicans do all the scutwork, and blacks work for the government or not at all, or both at once. That leaves whites as midlevel bureaucrats supervising each other. Thing is, whites are getting so they can’t read either, so they’ll need rickshaws to pull, in case the Chinese engineers want to go somewhere.
It’s over, I tell you. The United Steak has turned into a mess of pale-faced bushmen mumbling in pidgin English, the young anyway, with Orientals as missionaries trying to civilize us. Yes, friends and neighbors! Ain’t it exciting? All the professors in America of anything practical are already Chinese or Indian. Or getting that way fast.You think I exaggerate? Ha. Checking the staff of the University of Central Florida’s school of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering, I discover that most of Mumbai has already moved to America. Shanghai too. There follows an unedited list:
Ranganathan Kumar, Linan An, Quanfang Chen, Ruey-Hung Chen, Larry Chew, Hyoung Jin "Joe" Cho, Louis C. Chow, Kevin R. Coffey, Ted Conway, Vimal Desai, Jiyu Fang, A. Henry Hagedoorn, Olusegun Illegbusi, Roger Johnson, Samar Jyoti Kalita, Jayanta Kapat, Aravinda Kar, Alain Kassab, Christine Klemenz, Alexander Leonessa, Kuo-Chi "Kurt" Lin, Antonio Minardi, Faissal Moslehy, Jamal F. Nayfeh, David Nicholson, Eric L. Petersen, Sudipta Seal, Yongho Sohn, C. "Sury" Suryanarayana, Raj Vaidyanathan, Quan Wang, Fang Xu, Richard Zarda.
If that ain’t a hotbed of Anglo-Saxon achievement, I can’t imagine what might be. It’s probably just what ol’ Tom Jefferson had in mind. Who can doubt it?
What we see now is backslosh from the Raj. Used to be, you had a bunch of Brits in India and China and places, trying half-heartedly to lift the benighted brown rascals from their slothly ways and make’m into Europeans. The White Man’s Burden, all that. Of course, you couldn’t really expect the heathen Chinee to do much more than dig holes and wash shirts. The darker races were, well, the darker races. All right in their place but…limited. Everyone understood it.
Except, it would seem, the Indians and the heathen Chinee. Since they had limited understanding, it figures that they didn’t understand that they had limited understanding, and so acted like they didn’t, and so now they’re doing computational fluid dynamics in their heads because they don’t know any better. (A certain logical opacity informs sociological thought.) Today we have the Empire in reverse with Chandragupta Sahib teaching heuristic programming to the natives. Us.
The problem is that since neither England nor the United States any longer has a school system, the Asians will have to teach us remedial counting, probably on our fingers, so we can work for them. (I’m from West Virginia. We’ll have base-twelve arithmetic.)
All of this is well-thought-out, like a military campaign of blitzkrieg endullment. We’re returning to subhuman status in a pincers movement. While the Indians and Chinese and all are getting smarter, we’re getting enstupidated at a hell of a pace. It shows that international cooperation is possible.
There’s this thing called the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, which just came out and said that Americans not only can’t read but are vigorously getting worse. Here it is, from the Washington ever-loving Post, December 25 in the Year of Our Decline 2005:
“Only 41 percent of graduate students tested in 2003 could be classified as ‘proficient’ in prose—reading and understanding information in short texts—down 10 percentage points since 1992. Of college graduates, only 31 percent were classified as proficient—compared with 40 percent in 1992.”
That’s college graduates, brethren and sistern! They can’t read simple stuff. “See Spot run. Run, Spot….” What you think them other scoundrels can’t do that ain’t graduates? Halleluja, dearly beloved, idiots are us. Am us, I mean.
Now, sure, you can make excuses, and say, well, this dismal revelation counts all the Permanently Disadvantaged Minorities and affirmative-action nonstudents and all the other people who shouldn’t be anyway in what ought to be colleges but mostly aren’t. But you’re supposed to be able to read when you get out of freaking high school, aren’t you? If they can’t read, how did they into college, much less out the other end?
You reckon the Japanese are as dim as we are? I bet a better percentage of their graduate students can read English well than ours can.
The Post goes on, thump, thump, thump. “Literacy experts and educators say they are stunned by the results of [the] recent adult-literacy assessment, which shows that the reading proficiency of college graduates has declined in the past decade, with no obvious explanation.”
No obvious explanation? Oh no, not at all obvious—no more obvious than, say, advanced leprosy on a nekkid prom queen. How about: They can’t read because our schools are in the hands of low-IQ social engineeresses with the academic inclinations of cocker spaniels? If this darkness is the result produced by “literacy experts and educators,” what might we expect from them as ain’t? I taught my three-year-old daughter to read phonetically in about a month of a few minutes a day. It’s easy to teach kids to read (phonetically). It takes genius to waste twelve years of their lives, sixteen in the case of college graduates, and keep them from learning to read.
People deserve what they tolerate, say I, which is a frightening thought. Actually I love watching it. I’d sell tickets if I could. I’ve heard of countries going tits-up because they got stomped on by some other country, or got their trade cut off, but most of them don’t do it unless they have to. With us, it’s on purpose.
Meanwhile, you might be smart to get a wheelbarrow and fill it with cement and let your kids get a start on pulling it. Success after all goes to the economically adaptive, yet rickshaws may be trickier than we envision. Those who can’t pull will clean toilets. Have your children memorize the names of the streets while they still have you to read for them—unless, that is, you aren’t among the college graduates who can read.
We must look to the future.

Comments

If no one leaves a comment I'll never know you were here. I do this for my own pleasure and enjoyment. I'll continue to do it regardless. But, if by chance something I post has an effect on you, for good or bad, please don't hesitate to respond.

A man should be so lucky !

My little girl, (well not so little now), grown into a beautiful young lady of 24. All grown up and comfortable in her own skin. Having gone thru a rough patch, she now takes for herself a husband who seems as mature and comfortable with who he is as she does.
A wedding took place last Sunday, the 4th of December.

I wish I knew how to take a photo out of my pictures and post it here.

I took pics at the rehersal dinner Friday nite. None posed or anyone asked to smile. Just pictures to remember the event. One of the happy couple. Spontanous, but what a find when I went thru the pics later. Such a look of calm happiness and adoring approval as she looked at him.

A man could count himself lucky if he only received one of those looks in a lifetime.

May he receive many more.

THIS SAYS IT ALL ! !

THIS SAYS IT ALL!!!!!!!

This guy should have 5 stars on his shoulder!


"This Letter of Apology" was written by Lieutenant General Chuck Pitman, US Marine Corps, Retired:


For good and ill, the Iraqi prisoner abuse mess will remain an issue. On the one hand, right thinking Americans will abhor the stupidity of the actions while on the other hand, political glee will take control and fashion this minor event into some modern day massacre.

I humbly offer my opinion here:

I am sorry that the last seven times we Americans took up arms and sacrificed the blood of our youth, it was in the defense of Muslims (Bosnia, Kosovo, Gulf War 1, Kuwait, etc.).

I am sorry that no such call for an apology upon the extremists came after 9/11.

I am sorry that all of the murderers on 9/11 were Islamic Arabs.

I am sorry that most Arabs and Muslims have to live in squalor under savage dictatorships.

I am sorry that their leaders squander their wealth.

I am sorry that their governments breed hate for the US in their religious schools, mosques, and government-controlled media.

I am sorry that Yassar Arafat was kicked out of every Arab country and high-jacked the Palestinian "cause."

I am sorry that no other Arab country will take in or offer more than a token amount of financial help to those same Palestinians.

I am sorry that the U.S.A. has to step in and be the biggest financial supporter of poverty stricken Arabs while the insanely wealthy Arabs blame the USA for all their problems.

I am sorry that our own left wing, our media, and our own brainwashed masses do not understand any of this (from the misleading vocal elements of our society like radical professors, CNN and the NY TIMES).

I am sorry the United Nations scammed the poor people of Iraq out of the "food for oil" money so they could get rich while the common folk suffered.

I am sorry that some Arab governments pay the families of homicide bombers upon their death.

I am sorry that those same bombers are brainwashed thinking they will receive 72 virgins in "paradise."

I am sorry that the homicide bombers think pregnant women, babies, children, the elderly and other noncombatant civilians are legitimate targets.

I am sorry that our troops die to free more Arabs from the gang rape rooms and the filling of mass graves of dissidents of their own making.

I am sorry that Muslim extremists have killed more Arabs than any other group.

I am sorry that foreign trained terrorists are trying to seize control of Iraq and return it to a terrorist state.

I am sorry we don't drop a few dozen Daisy cutters on Fallujah.

I am sorry every time terrorists hide they find a convenient "Holy Site."

I am sorry they didn't apologize for driving a jet into the World Trade Center that collapsed and severely damaged Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church - one of our Holy Sites.

I am sorry they didn't apologize for flight 93 and 175, the USS Cole, the embassy bombings, the murders and beheadings of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, etc....etc!

I am sorry Michael Moore is American; he could feed a medium sized village in Africa.

America will get past this latest absurdity. We will punish those responsible because that is what we do.

We hang out our dirty laundry for the entire world to see. We move on. That's one of the reasons we are hated so much. We don't hide this stuff like all those Arab countries that are now demanding an apology.

Deep down inside, when most Americans saw this reported in the news, we were like - so what? We lost hundreds and made fun of a few prisoners. Sure, it was wrong, sure, it dramatically hurts our cause, but until captured we were trying to kill these same prisoners. Now we're supposed to wring our hands because a few were humiliated?

Our compassion is tempered with the vivid memories of our own people killed, mutilated and burnt amongst a joyous crowd of celebrating Fallujahans.

If you want an apology from this American, you're going to have a long wait! You have a better chance of finding those seventy-two virgins.


Chuck Pitman

Lieutenant General, USMC

Do I look like your Daddy?

I know that I have a hard time holding onto money. I've leapt before I looked many times. But I have done a few things right.

I bought land at $475.00 per acre. Good move. It went up. I refinanced it to pay off a bankruptcy plus money to live on. Bad Move.. The piper and the bank always have to be paid. I bought an investment house at 70% of value. Good move. I refinanced it to have money to play with. Baaaad move. Still have a little equity in it. Good. Have to sell it to get it out, and the money will go toward other debt. Bad! See piper and bank reference above.

But,at least for a while, I can think we have something of our own. Let's forget for the moment about property taxes and the power of government.

But I have a guy I work with. He can be paid on friday and on saturday he needs $5 for smokes and a soft drink, or $20 to take his girl to a fast food place.

Now the government loves people like him. He is dependant. On government, friends or anyone who will loan him money. Government promises to take care of him. Kinda like the ol' Masa' used to take care of his slaves. They promise free bubble up and all the rainbow stew you can eat. MSMedia plays that to the hilt. any little problem and they cry "why didn't the government do more?".

What happened to individual responsibility? Taking care of your own? Preparing for the future?
Putting a little aside for emergencies? Need a car. Don't waste your time saving up the money. We'll loan you all you need at just a modest rate of interest, Buy here, pay here. No big deal, we're not the mafia. Just don't miss a payment.

Don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge them the right to finance a car, or anything else, to someone. They are after all fillinga need for a must have product or service to people who refuse to save. There are so many of them.

The Kudzu ate them.

I'm goin' to Texas

I've no idea if Davy Crockett really said "To Hell with you, I'm going to Texas!" or not but I can certainly understand the feeling.

Do you ever get the feeling, as my dear old mother once said, "the faster I go the behinder I get"?

Sometimes when I slow the thrashing down a little bit, I wonder what in the world I'm doing what I do for. When you try to please everyone, it seems that you please no one. Why don't I try to please myself for a change? Naaaah, that would be too easy. Wouldn't it.

Did you ever see a dog, who has chosen a human to belong to, be whipped, kicked, beaten and abused by that human, crawl on it's belly to that same person, tail between it's hind legs, trembling from fear or anticipation, trying to get a pat on the head, a kind word, or simply an acknowledgement that it exists? Think that doesn't exist on a human level? Or some level, somewhere.

Whence this personal pity party you ask?

Don't ask. You probably have enough of you own problems to worry about. I just sometimes wonder what Texas would be like.

Do they have Kudzu there?

Finally

It's finally over!
Another Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone. Most of the left overs were either sent home with other family members or consumed. Only one spoonfull of dressing left. Still have some sweet potato souffle left, but that's alright. Desert is always welcome.

The children and grandchildren were here, missed Joy and her family. Friends and in-laws also in attendance. Glad to see you come, by the end of the day glad you left. Bonnie was asleep on the couch soon after the dishes were done. Toby kept going to the laundry room door trying to get to the turkey skelton.


If you have never had a wild turkey for thanksgiving dinner, take it from me. Goooood!!

Much to be thankful for this year. We continue to breath in and out. The roof doesn't leak right now. Thanks to Van, Cody and Hope we have a stack of firewood. More down in the woods to drag out and cut up.

Nicole will marry Roy next Sunday. A great guy and pretty fair shot. Killed a nice doe just before night. Would have never thought that my dainty, and fair Nicole would be going deer hunting.

I am so proud of all my children. They have grown up into great individuals, determined to make their own way in the world.

Much to be thankful for, and I am.

Sometimes the evidence of the rightness of ones position can be shown by the number of people who are opposed to it. Sometimes it can be proven by the people who are opposed to it.

WITTNESS;

http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy%2Ddirect/
Saudis and their money taking the lead for Al Qaida in Iraq
BAGHDAD — Military intelligence has detected the flow of Saudi financing and senior operatives to Al Qaida in the Al Anbar province, U.S. officials said. Saudis have financed leading Al Qaida operatives in the Fallujah area. "It seems that senior Al Qaida operatives in Saudi Arabia have moved their operations to Iraq, where they are well-financed by prominent Saudis who don't want to see a democratic Iraq," an official said.


Have we not been told and does not our native intelligence lead us to believe that some of the currant rulers of Saudi Arabia are very opposed to our efforts to establish a government of law in Iraq instead of a government of dictators and thugs.

Do you think that the current rulers who control all of the oil extracted from the sand there want to see a government of by and for the people, which would probably want to get their hands on some of that vast reservoir of money which keeps the kings, princes, and their sycophants in power?

Do you think that the religious mullahs who rule in Iran want to have their people have the freedom of religion and freedom of the individual to exercise his God given rights to self determinism to hold sway in their stead?

Do you think that the liberal left and militant right want a nation of thinking sovereign individuals to wake up and realize that the people we elect to serve us are instead thinking that they are superior to us? That they can determine for us what is best for us, because of course they are the elite and have a responsibility to take care of their slaves so we will continue to send our hard earned money to them?

Do you think the we the sheeple will wake up in time to avoid the slaughter of our individual rights? Will we one day stand shoulder to shoulder and shout a great shout!!

“I am a Sovereign Individual, endowed by my creator with certain unalienable rights.
Which rights belong to us as children of a loving God who desires that we hold on to those rights and resist those who would deny those rights to us.”

Or will we be ensnared by the tangle of petty laws and bureaucratic bumbling and inefficiency like a 100 ft tall pine entirely covered and smothered by Kudzu?

Carl and John, two names on the Wall

I remember Carl and John and Walter and about seventy others. I didn’t even know the names of some of them. But I’ll never forget them.

Carl and I were in Boot camp together. I have no idea why but about half of the platoon we were in was volunteers for the army so they would just give us the opportunity to go to flight school and fly those relatively new weapons called ‘Copters. Ninety percent of us had never flown anything other than maybe a kite. But, like the fighter pilots of WW2, we sought after the adventure the challenge, the prestige of being able to think of ourselves as Pilots.

Carl was from Colorado, me from Georgia. Others from every state you can name. About the same age, he single, me married. He was stocky, I was thin. We both had some college. I don’t know why exactly he wanted to be a pilot. I certainly didn’t want to walk thru the jungle, but figured flying over it couldn’t be too bad. The Draft was still in effect and if you were drafted you had much less control over where and how you served. Mostly cannon fodder. So were we, but were blind at that age to the fact that we weren’t immortal.

Basic training was a breeze. Hell, we were young and a 10 mile stroll wasn’t too bad and sleeping out doors was an adventure.

Then flight school. Fort Wolters, TX., near Mineral Wells. The farthest I’d ever been from home. They tried their best to weed us out for what ever reason they could find. We were proud, damned if we’d quit.

Flying was the hardest and most exciting thing I’d ever done. We were put under lots of stress. We used to comment about the look in the eyes of those Warrant Office Candidates a few weeks ahead of us. After a couple of months and seeing friends cut from the program for academics or inability to master the skills of flying, or crashes in the mesquite bushes, and one time over the Mineral Wells Holiday Inn swimming pool. We wore the same stare.

Thru Wolters, then Fort Rucker and Hueys. Real Helicopters of the war. On to Fort Hunter to transition into AH1-G Cobras for a fortunate few. Saw my first real life and up close Crash and watched a cobra beat its self to death on the runway.

I got an extension of my date to report to Vietnam so I could be there for the birth of my first child. Left five days later.

When I got to Quang Tri, Carl had already been there about four weeks. We were still FNG’s together. Four or five others from our flight class in the same unit.

Carl was bunked down next to the door; I was about half way down the Quonset hut on the other side of the isle. We immediately struck up our friendship again. We were front seat observers/gunners in the weapons platoon. Hunter Killer Teams. Assasins we were called, then Charley Horse. Eventually older guys rotated back to the states, or their remains were. Never to be forgotten was the sight of a huey tail boom falling off while on final approach still 3 to 4 hundred feet up. Welcome to South East Asia guys. We’ll lift a beer to you in the O club.

John Paul came in a couple of weeks later than Carl and I. A soft bodied pilsbury dough boy. Always smiling. Totally into music. Joni Mitchell, Melody, and others who sang of peace and love.

Carl and I were eventually made AC’s, Aircraft commanders, Back seat Snake drivers.
Lamson 719. You can run us out of Khe Shan, but you can’t stop us from coming back. Why we’ll even give cover to the South Vietnamese as the go into Laos, and then cover them as they retreat back out QL9, shooting at both sides of the road with their m-60’s and 50 cals just in case, I guess, even if there were US troops alongside the road.

Carl and John Paul were part of a team ordered to get to Khe Shan late one afternoon. Funny how along the DMZ the monsoons would hit the mountains for months while the coast and Quang Tri would be dry and Dusty. Then it would be the opposite.

On this day it was cloudy and rainy up to the Khe Shan plateau, but reports said it was clear sunshine if you could just get up to the plateau. They decided to go up a narrow ravine along the north side and hopefully be able to get out at the other end near two Tits.

Mother Nature can be a bitch. She’ll entice you in and then cut you off. The clouds lowered suddenly, nowhere to go but up, into the soup. Easy to lose your orientation if your not instrument qualified.

They found John Paul’s watch. They hit going straight down nose first and all the ammo and fuel landed on them a split second later…………
Two more names on the Wall, two more tangles in the Kudzu of my soul

While Paris Burns

Here we sit. Insulated by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, we think. And while our servants l elected officials, n Wash-My-back and I'll Wash-your's-by -the-Patomac, assure us that Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance, and roundly critize any fool who oh so stupidly might possibly think they may be wrong, Paris Burns.
And all because two teenage punks ran after commiting some teenage punk kind of crime and tried to hide in an electrical sub station, home to whothe heck knows how many kilowatts of electricty and got their stupid asses fried.
Good riddance I say. If you can't read the signs, BEWARE, HIGH VOLTAGE, DANGER, then by all means do us a favor and improve the gene pool by however slight amount the loss of you particular DNA will amount to.
For a few years as a youth, I owned one of the top ten dairy farms in Georgia. I selected breeding stock for favorable traits and rigidly culled those who were inferior. Year by year the physical conformation and milk producing ability increased. Would it be so wrong to expect that as a civilization we might at least encourage the young to give thought to improving the species instead of seeking the lowest common denominator? Would it be so wrong to shun those who did not meet at least the minimum standards for maintaining or improving this civilization?
Or must we forever spiral downward, like light into a black hole?

What has happened to common sense? I know it exists, at least in the red states. But, even when they elect someone who seems to have at least a modicum of sense and a set of at least small cojones, soon they show their real stripes and that their real allegance is to satisfy the status Quo and keep giving us Bread and Circuses.

Someone here who seems to have a great deal of common sense although the solutions are up to us http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

Read him if you dare, but only if you can stand being made uncomfortable.

Today the tangles are thick and heavy. What will tomorrow bring.

And 2 reply

One out of love;
Good Morning Larry,
thanks for making our brains work. what to do? pray for divine intervention. pray hard.
still i get up every day & just do the same stuff the same way.

One out of carefully considered reasoning and attempts to list the problems we face:

Dear Amigo: Good to hear from you..! You are asking a very deep question that deserves very deep answers. Perhaps answers that we may not like to hear about.

I read the article , written with a clever, sharp argument and lots of common sense. I think that we don't have time to stop an analize where are we going and what kind of world are we going to leave to future generations.

The first thing is to admit that our "progress" ( western-judeo-christhian -society) and point of view that set up the rules in global affairs for decades in the world is in crisis. Look around the overwhelming increase of problems locally and globally that we are going to face in the next decade. Some people called macro-problems other called it mega-problems.

Climate changes.
Water resources.
Increases population.
Famines.
Pandemics- (mega epidemies like Avian Flu and AIDS ).

Above all there is indeed a very delicate situation in the northern hemisphere which has all the elements to create a volatile situation that can escape the control of the most sharpest minds that "seems to be in control". The middle east is an explosive cocktail of ethnicity, race , religion and of course oil. As I heard :"the curse of the middle east is to be poor but rich in oil".

In my opinion the invasion of Irak on the fly by the premises supported initially (WMD) was poorly managed.Here idealism , nationalism, fear and a superb war machinery with incredible support of religion and "I Can Do It" attitude created a dead end situation. In that moment going solo was the right thing to do because your are right no matter what the rest of the world was telling not do it. Lamentably mid-term solution doesn' t work and long term effects are stil to surface in this scenario.

The consequences of this action is creating what others countries feared; a boomerang reaction and iraqui civilians joining insurgent attacks. Whereas we don't have any idea of the thousands of casualties of iraqui civilians. Irak indeed was ocuppied but not liberated. Democracy cannot be imposed.

The fact is that the US plays a major role in global affairs that any other country on the world and its consequences cannot be avoid. I am not saying that Saddam was a brutal dictator but now most of the people involved in the freedom operation agreed that this should have been done in a different way. But Irak is an oil rich country and that is politics as usual.

The hegemonic presence of a superpower that give no answers to any international organization and no apologies even in domestic affairs (as the CIA leak fiasco) is creating a bad precedent in future affairs and eroding the international image of this great nation.

As a response to an overwhelming American presence in Iran, Kuwait, Afganistan and a supportive role of Israel they decided to get as much uranium to produce nukes because they think they are next on the list. Why are the Iranians doing it? They feel threaten, and its territory is geopolitical spot is in the middle of future gas and oil pipelines that will run across its territory towards the Mediterranean sea.

But all these major strategies and visionary plans of few people that now are changing their statements into bring democracy to the middle east region can be delay due to natural disasters. About this topic I sent you the -Pentagon Report about US National Security and Weather Changes-.

Besides this serious issues you have to see the great emerging super power of China followed by India. Both countries as they grow they wil demand more raw material and resources. These countries are shaping future economics with the EU , USA and the rest of the world. History teaches that every nation and empire has its cycle.

In an other scale these is also happening in every nation. Each nation is facing challenges that could've been resolved only if we would've done this or that ....These are times of reflection and see who we are and where are we going.

I see this process as a turning point in history and the emerging of a new world order. Where our system believe is going to be tested because is collapsing. Where even religious structures will transform.

I am right because I am christian or because I am buddist or because I am Islamic .Or ultimately because I have the right skin.... The fact is that we , all of us, are in this planet and we need to make an effort to change in a coherent , responsible way to preserve the most valueable treasure: life .

Without life we cannot enjoy love. God may help us opening our hearts and minds to fullfill our mission on earth.

I hope and wish that a shift of conciousness is needed in order to face the challenges to come.A social -cultural change is coming but that lies on a personal intimate decission.

I want to believe in a new society based on merit that respect life and differences.

Of course, my friend these are my thoughts

Happy Halloween !!

Renato

More tangles of kudzu but with a suggestion of a path that may lead to a clearing ahead. Or an ever thicker tangle.

I Am

I am a soverign individual. Endowed by my creator with certain unalienable rights. From these proceed natural law.

For those who haven't read it may I suggest http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/

Peggy articulates a problem. Is there a solution? Can we make a difference? Do we even want to try. Or, is the problem no problem or overstated? What do you think? Would be glad to get your opinion.

Perhaps we may part the tangles of kudzu and catch a glimpse of blue sky.

I'm back

Here I am.
It's been a long time.
Partly it's been because I've been feeling too sorry for myself to indulge myself in writing.
Partly because I've wondered if anything I have to say is of any importance to anyone other than myself.
Well, here I am. I don't care if you care.
I care. I'll write about the things I care about. If their of no interest to you all you have to do is hit the back button.

My dear friend Kelly is in the hospital. No idea exactly what happened, only that her room mate found her unconcious in her bed with blood caked on her mouth and almost no pulse. EMT's called, carried her to hospital in Clayton the Lifeflighted to Gainesville. Organs shut down, almost no hope, but, good doctors and nurses plus a will to live brought her back from the edge.

Kelly was the first woman to receive 100% disability for PTSD from serving in Vietnam. No need to relate what happened to her, if she wants you to know she'll tell you. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with anything like that. An already fragile self esteem was permanetly damaged.
I'll see her tomorrow after my group session at the VA.

People can say they care all they want. If their actions don't reflect it they don't give a damn!
All your selfrightous posturing will be revealed by what you do.

Just another shoot on the Kudzu vine of life.

Later.

Nuke 'em and let God sort it out!

Thoughts of Iraq, Iran and Syria.

In Quang Tri someone brought back from R&R tee shirts with AH-1G Cobra helicopters on them to the pilots of the Gun Platoon. I customized mine with magic marker on the front that said "Kill them all. Let God sort it out. A common sentiment among troops in "Nam. We didn't want to die trying to decide who were the good guys and who were not. The politicians wanted to play games with the enemy, while trying to placate the protesters back in the world. We said, "welcome to the southeast asia war games". A game we didn't want to play, and damn sure didn't want to lose.

(Parenthetically, We won those games no less than 3 times convincingly and devastatingly, only to be held back from unleashing the hell we possessed the capability of unleashing on the straggling remnants of the enemy, by polilticians who had not the guts to strike an overwhelming blow when the enemy was down but not out and who if given the time to recuperate would and did.) They wanted a negotiated peace. We used to say "Peace through superior firepower". But it's useless unless you are willing to use it. And because our enemies see that we are unwilling to use it in overwhelming measure we continue to sacrifice our young men on the alter of political correctness.

The three afore mentioned countries are willing and active participants in sending fighters into Iraq. They fear a secular, democratic Iraq more than they fear to send their warriors into Iraq to drive suicide bomb laden cars, or to face a superior better armed force and die at a rate of approx 15 to 1. They hide behind their protestations of innocence. We know better but want to believe them so as not to have to confront them. Hence my feelings of frustration and a feeling it would be quicker and easier to just make their countries Glass covered parking lots.

Not a very noble feeling for a person who wants to be a Christian. The admonition to turn the other cheek if struck on one cheek feels good, but, doesn't say what to do if then struck repeatedly. I fear for my immortal soul, but don't have the answers to my fears.

A country that want protect its own borders can't be expected to be able to watch other borders also.

It occurs to me that if the gov't of this country would only put a bounty on persons crossing the borders illegally, (Capture them unharmed and held for police, prosecute anyone who uses unnecessary force or kills one of them), but give the people of this country the right and obligation to defend our borders, and you would see an
immediate and virtually complete stop of the flow of illegals across our southern border ( a number that most so called experts estimate at 10,000 each and every day of the freeking year). But noooo we can't allow the free people of this country to take advantage of the second amendment to the constitution of the Supposedly United States of America. They might then realize that the power in this country really lies within them. And it would free up gov't jackboots for foreign duties. OH, please don't get me started on the TSA. A rant for another day.

As a Libertarian, I have no problem with legal immigration. I just want it to be done legally and above board. A sovereign country that either will not or cannot protect its own borders has no business trying to tell other countries what to do.

The three aforesaid countries will do all in their power to stop a democratic and lawful Iraq. They know that if we are successful in empowering the Iraqi people that their murdering, bloodthirsty perverted time is limited. A cornered animal will fight back. These dictators will stop at nothing to preserve their power and control of their countries. A successful transition to self rule by the Iraqi's will spell the end of their control as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow for those of us lucky enough to live through the night.

Enough ranting. Time to take my medication. It helps keep the Kudzu at bay for a little while.

Damn Quacks

Why should I take the medicine if I still hear the noises?. I'm off to sell the gold we bought and refined at a loss the other day. I just hope I can find enough extra to return Garfields money to him . He shouldn't have to take a loss just because I'm dumb as a rock. Is it true that insanity means never having to say your sorry?

Do what you say!

Why don't some people do what they say they'll do? Oh, I know most people do.
But, I'll bet good money that we all know someone who failed to live up to their word in some way or other.
I'm ticked this morning about the garbage service, or lack of service I should say.
Since we live out in the country at the end of a long rutted dirt road, we have to have private garbage pick up. We've been with one service since we started having it hauled off. Before we just took it out to a gully on our place and burned it. Oh, don't get started you environmentalist fruitcakes. If you were really serious you would come up a true recycling plan that would not only be profitable but could actually pay the consumer a miniscule amount for the glass, metals and other recyclable products we now cover in a landfill.
But back to my immediate problem. We pay this guy, in advance I might add, to come once a week and haul off our household garbage. Not much generally. Two to three bags at our house and our daughters house.
This slack ass hasn't been in a mounth. Even though we have call and left messages on his phone. He never answers himself of course, preferring to let the answering machine screen out the irate customers which he will soon not have.
I'll probably try another service and see if they'll live up to their implied contracts.
Just another tangle of Kudzu.