The path to a redder neck

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Redneckin'


A few lessons for the non redneck readers I have.

1) A 4x4 is useful for two things.

A. Going bogging. This is when you intentionally find large numbers of deep mud holes and you try to get through them. Generally you have a bunch of other rednecks also in 4x4s running around the same place and you have plenty of chains to pull each other out when you get stuck. Getting stuck is part of the fun.

By the end of the day the truck will be supporting a few hundred pounds of mud that sticks harder than a Damnocrat to a campaign contributor. This is supposed to happen. Do not wash the mud off until everyone you know has seen it.

If you are a teenager you must drive the truck this way until your girlfriend announces she is too embarrassed to be seen in public with you in that mess. Wait until Sunday and then wash the truck.

B. Not going bogging. This may sound like a contradiction, but it's not. If you are in a place and you suddenly need to shift to 4x4, you do so to back out and then not go into that place. Four wheel drive prevents you from having to walk for what may seem like the rest of your life to find someone to pull you out.

2) When you see a mud hole, accelerate as you go through it. Do not enter the mud and take your foot off the accelerator. You will get stuck. You will have to walk out. You will have to walk uphill. Against the wind. It will be 105 degrees or 10 below. It could snow. It could rain. All at the same time.

At some point you will also have to cross an electrified barbed wire fence. You did not have to negotiate this fence when you entered wherever it is you got stuck. But when you leave you will have to. This is an unwritten rule of the universe.

You may have to outrun a bull while crossing this electrified barbed wire fenced pasture. The bull was not there when you drove past and when you come back later to pull the truck out, the bull won't be there again. No one knows who owns this bull, where it comes from or where it goes. It is just something we have to accept, like Congress and fire ants.

As you walk out, you have two ways to go to the nearest road. Across a freshly plowed field or at least five times as far by walking the packed dirt at the edge of the field. Sir Issac Newton's physics states you will be able to walk the edge of the field much faster and with less effort than walking through the field. Whether you cross the field or walk around the edge is directly related to how old you are and whether or not you know Sir. Issac Newton invented gravity and not the fig newton.

3) When you get stuck, do not stop. Do not put the truck into reverse, attempt to back out and stop and put truck into drive and attempt to drive out. You will get stuck even worse. You must RAPIDLY shift between forward and reverse. Braking between these shifts is useless, unless your objective is to get stuck worse than a Reboobican facing ethics charges.

4) When a more experienced redneck says "Yer stuck, quit spinning the wheels" do not get behind the steering wheel, put the truck into drive and floor it. You merely dig the truck in deeper and wear out your tires.

5) When the blackberries are ripe. Stop. Pick and eat some. There is no finer food on the planet than wild blackberries picked and eaten right beside the road when you are walking out to find someone to pull your truck free of the mud hole. Your entire body will thank you for this. That you are about to die of thirst and the blackberries are exceptionally juicy is an unexpected kindness.

And just for the record, I found out I can still walk a mile. Uphill. Against the wind. It didn't snow or rain, but it was in the upper 90s.

I'm going back for more blackberries.

I was not driving either.


Ben Baker is the owner of one functioning 4x4 and one on blocks. He can be reached in the blackberry patch just north of the pecan orchard.

Th' high cost of college contained

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On one of the National Public Radio shows I heard a contest for college students. I can't recall all the details because one of the ideas to help corral the cost of a college education floored me.

The idea is simple, practical and will never, ever ever be implemented.

The idea:

A college agrees to educate a student. The student in turn agrees to pay the college 5 percent of his salary for the next 20 years.

Brilliant. Absofragginlutely brilliant. I elaborate.

This invests the college and the student in the education. The college has a serious commitment now to making sure the student gets sufficiently educated so that he will be able to pay the college back for that education.

The college is also committed to making sure the student actually gets an education that pays.

There is a catch, of course, for the student. Fail to complete college, the student is then on the hook for the cost of college. The college is free to go after the student however it deems necessary.

IRS auditor after a successful audit.

Considering the way the IRS operates these days, collections are a minor matter. Get a judgment, hand it over to the IRS and the IRS takes care of collecting the money and paying the college.

As much as I believe the IRS ought to be abolished, this is one enforcement program I support.

The student is invested because if he doesn't get the degree, he's on the hook for tuition and collections will be considerably more than 5 percent of his income.

This makes colleges and universities operate like the real world operates. This is why it will never pass.

It makes colleges accountable. Make an investment and collect a return on that investment. A poor investment returns a poor yield.

This is also why this will never work. Colleges and universities have a vested interest in being stupid. Not ignorant - that is simply a lack of knowledge. Stupid is an admission the information is out there, but refusing to assimilate that information.

I explain.

Dunno how many of you, my readers, have spent time in those hallowed halls of academia. I put my 4 years in as a student and have periodically found my way back as a guest lecturer.

What I learned in my college days and have seen be reinforced is that most of the professors could not survive in the real world. Most. A few of them come from the real world and a few go back to the real world.

The adage - Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach - is ever more true on college campuses.

Colleges put a premium on conformity (despite what they may claim) and on getting educated for their teaching staff. Experience and the actual ability to do what the professors are teaching is far less relevant than most people imagine.

Rather, it has been my experience that experience and ability are mostly actively frowned on.

The exact opposite is the way the real world works. Experience and ability commands premium prices.

Making colleges and universities accountable to the same market forces that rule much of the real world makes too much sense for such places to allow it to happen.

So you wanna write a book...

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It has never been easier to be a published author. You can, quite literally, get a book into "print" at no cost to yourself.

pred-ed.com . A list I will soon be on no doubt.

The new ebook platforms, the Kindle and Nook, have taking book publishing even a step past Print on Demand (POD). I have several books in print, dead tree edition, and several others in the ebook only format. Got several more I'm working on which will be in both formats.

There's no reason you too cannot be a published author, just like me.

This is a good thing.

This is a bad thing.

It is a good thing because I think everyone who can speak can write. There's no trick to it. You just put the words down on paper. The person really doesn't even have to be literate. Just say the words to someone who can put the words on paper. Famed romance novelist Barbara Cartland dictated her novels. Someone else typed them up.

I also think everyone has something to say. What they have to say may not be interesting to you or me, but eventually it will interest someone. But that is not the reason to write. The only reason to write is because you can. What other people think is irrelevant. You are the only person actually qualified to judge your own work.

Cover sucks. Book is awesome.

Hopefully you never get to the point of people like me who have to write. Aside - You either get that or you don't. There's no in between.

Of the 60+ books I judged in a recent book contest, less than 10 were worthy of being put into print. I say that noting it's my opinion only and I am not qualified to judge the other authors' works. One book, An Inconvenient Amish Zombie Left Behind The Da Vinci Diet Code Truth, was absolutely a slam dunk in terms of writing. This one deserves to be on the best seller list.

A couple of others were very very good, just a step below the Amish Zombie. I can't say that a few tweaks would put the books into the same category because the genre simply didn't appeal to me. But the writing was solid quality.

I have read and heard stories of other authors who have gone on to huge success in the independent publishing work. No agents, no contracts and no shared royalty with publishing houses. I have friends who've achieved this kind of success. Marty Beckerman being one. This too is a good thing.

Now for the bad things.

Life is too short to read bad books.

A few other books definitely had potential. This is a bad thing with today's ease of publishing. Writers slam out enough words to fill a book, upload it and they are published author.

If someone had helped the author out with a red pen, the books would have made a substantial leap forward in quality. As Paul & Sabrina have pointed out, everyone needs an editor. We all need someone to eyeball our work critically. Most of the family and friends you have will not do this. They are not going to hurt your feelings or tell you the truth.

Add to this, most of your family and friends simply don't have the editing abilities necessary to help you pound a manuscript into shape.

As much as I detest, abhor and generally find the idea of hiring an editor to go over your manuscript, I am beginning to believe this is a reasonable step for many authors. The sheer number of books going into publication each year now has put a different reality to the idea of hiring an editor to go over manuscripts.

S. Georgia newspaper editor.

As a full time editor and writer myself, I could easily be buried in manuscripts to edit for other people, if I did it for free. I will not do it for free. I won't charge money, but I am going to extract payment. I have a standing agreement with several author buddies. We edit each other's work on a 1:1 basis. For each MS of theirs I edit, they have to edit one of mine.

This is not a friendly edit either. This is serious and we spare no feelings. The last MS I edited resulted in a pretty substantial revision of the book's main character.

Want me to edit your stuff? Are you tough enough? I have literally and personally driven two people out of journalism. And, I was being nice to them.

The great majority of the books I read for the contest were a waste of trees. As a tree farmer, I'd rather see my trees turned into termite chow than used as pages in some of those books. They were that bad.

In the old world of publishing, these books would have never see the light of day unless the author ponied up thousands of dollars for self-publishing on a traditional press. Now with Print on Demand, these books are available worldwide at no cost to the author.

The problem should be pretty easy to see. Of the 60 books in the contest I judged, less than 10 were worthy of reading (admittedly by my standards). I include the genres I don't care for in the less than 10 worthy of reading.

More than 500 books are hiding the less than 10 books that are worthwhile.

That is the biggest tragedy of book publishing today. The good books are buried until a landslide of compost-to-be. Only a few manage to sprout through the detritus and earn the acclaim they deserve.

One last tip - if you decide to self publish DO NOT PAY FOR ANYTHING EXCEPT THE BOOK. Some companies charge you setup fees, pre-press fees, etc. This is a rip off. Outskirts Press is one of the biggest rips in the business. Do Not Use Them.

Atten Liberals and Conservatives - A minimum wage study

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Minimum wage rates don’t affect hardship among the poor

Athens, Ga. – Americans are poor. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the country’s poverty rate is at its highest point in 20 years; 15 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. A recent University of Georgia study looked at how minimum wage increases can decrease poverty in America. It turns out that they don’t, according to the report.

“By and large, evidence says that minimum wage increases don’t go to the people they are intended to help and that there are other policy tools that are more effective at helping the working poor,” said Robert Nielsen, an assistant professor of housing and consumer economics. He co-authored the study with Joseph Sabia, an assistant professor of economics at San Diego State University.

Ongoing efforts across the country try to make sure people who are working earn enough money to support their families—without having to work multiple jobs. Over time, a person’s wages lose buying power, and every several years there is an effort to increase the wage to recover some of that purchasing power, Nielsen said.
The minimum wage currently earned by U.S. workers is $7.25 an hour. A bill has been introduced to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.80.

“Regardless of who is looking at it, minimum wage increases nearly always result in null findings­— almost no one finds any positive effects for helping families through minimum wage increases,” Nielsen said. “As a policy tool, it doesn’t reach the right people.”

Minimum wage increases are aimed at decreasing the hardships experienced by families in terms of food, health and financial and housing insecurities. The study reveals that most minimum wage earners aren’t family breadwinners, and they aren’t poor. In fact, 87 percent of the beneficiaries from the last wage increase were not poor; instead, they lived in households with incomes at least two times greater than the poverty threshold.
Half of poor Americans age 16 to 64 don’t work, according to the report, so an increase in wage won’t affect their status either.

“The data confirm overwhelmingly that the minimum wage is missing the mark,” Sabia said. “For instance, nearly 54 percent of less-educated individuals who missed a rent payment in the last year were not working. These Americans don’t need a wage increase—they need a job.”

The study, supported by the Employment Policies Institute, looked at minimum wage policy changes from 1996 to 2007 at both the state and federal levels and used minimum wage data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine several measures of hardship. In all, the survey constructed 10 measures of family hardship to evaluate the effectiveness of an increase in the minimum wage. Measures included the ability to pay utility bills or mortgage payments as well as having the resources needed to purchase a balanced meal.

“When we look at other policy changes like the earned income tax credit, we do see reductions in poverty and hardship because the program is targeted. It is well-constructed public policy that assists those kinds of workers who most advocates want to help,” Nielsen said.

The study showed a 1 percent reduction in poverty is supported by a 1 percent increase in state supplement to the federal earned income tax credit.

“The rhetoric doesn’t always match the reality of income transfers, because we all receive them,” Nielsen said. “Everyone receives some sort of income transfer from some other segment of society, and the question becomes which forms of those income transfers best help people who are poor. I wish I had an answer for that one.”

For the full journal article, see http://epionline.org/studies/120228_EPI_CanRaisingtheMinWageReducePovertyandHardship.pdf.
 

Eye to tusk with a killer

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Have you ever been charged by an animal capable of killing you? I mean charged with intent to inflict as severe damage on you as possible and there's nothing between you and the animal except a rapidly shrinking distance.

I have. A number of times. It is why I love wild hog hunting so much. My favorite charge so far is about a 300 pound wild boar. He stopped his charge when my rifle "clicked" on an empty chamber.

I have taken steps to insure that won't happen again.

Saturday, I was charged 3 times by a wild boar. All three charges were turned aside and I did not shoot.

It did unnerve me.

To explain.

First - I was packing a .44 cap and ball revolver - a black powder muzzleloader firearm. Definitely capable of taking down a wild hog, which it in fact did. But not my preferred weapon for facing down a charge. I won't bore you here with the intricacies and issues of C&B revolvers. But they were very much on my mind. Why'd I take it? Because I wanted to shoot a hog with it. I did too.

Second - I was the hunter and behind me was John (Foxy) Fox with the camera. We were recording the hunt for Real Outdoors with Team No Prisoners TV show. As the hunter, Foxy's safety was part of my responsibility. Never mind that he can handle himself and has stood down many charges of his own.

Third - to my right stood the pro guide I was hunting with. On all three charges, the boar broke right. I could not shoot. I had to be aware of where he stood. The guide has stood down more charges than he can count, so I was not concerned about his safety.

The combination was more than I could process in less than second. Had I been packing a shotgun or a .45 ACP , it would have been dead hog at the instant of the charge.  But if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bust his ass every time he jumped.

Whatta rush. Looking forward to doing it again, this time with something a little harder hitting than a .44 C&B.

Some people will say wild hogs are not dangerous. We have footage of a wild boar (the one I killed) which was savaged in a fight with another boar. The hog I shot was dying anyway because of the wounds it had. Dogs are routinely killed by wild hogs. People have been hospitalized after being attacked by hogs.

Frydee Funnee

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I miss Icky

It's not the most manly thing in the world to do, but every time I go quail hunting, I get a little misty-eyed. It's easy to blame it on the dust, smoke, every now and then (when I get invited) the gaseous emissions from the hay burner engines pulling the wagons.

But, I must confess, it's none of that. I'm missing the best quail hunting buddy a person could ever have and it was not a human or a dog, although I have hunted with some finds dogs like Sebastian, Darth Vader, Plato and Quarter.

Nope. I'm missing Icky.

Icky was short for Ictalurus Punctatus. He was the world's only quail hunting channel catfish.

I got Icky when he was nothing but a fingerling, just about the precise size necessary for a good eating catfish. I don't know what came over me that day on the river, but when I hauled Icky up and threw him in the bucket, I just stood and looked him for a long time.

I had not named him yet as I didn't often give names to the main course for supper. The longer I stood there, watching the catfish swim around in the bucket the more I was just convinced I could not put him in the fish fryer.

Finally I quit fishing for the day and just went home with a single little catfish in the bucket. At the house, I drilled a hole in the bottom of the bucket. I stuck a cork in the hole.

Every day I dropped a little corn in the bucket for the catfish to eat. Now I don't know what came over me, but every day I took that cork out and let just a little water run out of the bucket. Every day that water got a little lower and every day the catfish got a little bigger.

Finally, the water was completely gone. That catfish just walked around the bottom of the bucket, as best he was able to.

I had to take him out of the bucket then and put him in a pen. That catfish would rear up on his tail and hook his front fins through the fence. He'd grunt at me and grin when he saw the handful of corn in my hand.

One day I took him out of the pen. Now by this time, I'd named him.

Icky took one look and me and hightailed it toward the pond across the road at the far end of the field. I figured that was the end of it, but Icky got down to the edge of the field and stopped.

His whiskers started twitching and his head was slinging back and forth. I just watched as he scooted along the dog fennels. A few minutes later, Icky stopped. His head went up and one fin stuck straight out.

I just watched as a covey of quail bobbed along in front of him. When the quail would get too far ahead, Icky would ease forward, keeping the covey in sight, but being sure not to spook them.

That was all I needed to see and in a flash I had a shotgun and was down there. The covey busted and I got a double, fully expecting Icky to die of fright.

But no. Icky was tearing through the dog fennels toward where one of the birds was downed. He brought that one to me and went and got the second bird. I'd be lying if I said those birds were brought in with not a feather out of place. He chewed the birds to pieces.

I had a talk with Icky right there about how to handle a bird and I could tell by how his head hung down he was sorry and would not do it again.

When Icky jumped the rabbit, I will admit to finally being surprised beyond belief. You should have seen that old catfish tearing through the briars after that rabbit.

I still get all choked up when I think about that.

Icky and I hunted a few seasons together. We were down on Little River on my uncle's place one day hunting and had to go through a swampy area.

Icky was crossing a log when he slipped. He fell in the water and drowned before I could get to him.

A guest blog

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I personally do not like Ann Coulter and have private opinions about what needs to be done to her. But, this pieces is absolutely, 100 percent dead on accurate.

Negroes with guns

by Ann Coulter

04/18/2012

1316
Comments

Liberals have leapt on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida to push for the repeal of "stand your ground" laws and to demand tighter gun control. (MSNBC'S Karen Finney blamed "the same people who stymied gun regulation at every point.")

This would be like demanding more funding for the General Services Administration after seeing how its employees blew taxpayer money on a party weekend in Las Vegas.

We don't know the facts yet, but let's assume the conclusion MSNBC is leaping to is accurate: George Zimmerman stalked a small black child and murdered him in cold blood, just because he was black.

If that were true, every black person in America should get a gun and join the National Rifle Association, America's oldest and most august civil rights organization.

Apparently this has occurred to no one because our excellent public education system ensures that no American under the age of 60 has the slightest notion of this country's history.

Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.

(Contrary to what illiterates believe, the KKK was an outgrowth of the Democratic Party, with overlapping membership rolls. The Klan was to the Democrats what the American Civil Liberties Union is today: Not every Democrat is an ACLU'er, but every ACLU'er is a Democrat. Same with the Klan.)

In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks -- even freemen -- could not own guns.

Chief Justice Roger Taney's infamous opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford circularly argued that blacks could not be citizens because if they were citizens, they would have the right to own guns: "[I]t would give them the full liberty," he said, "to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

With logic like that, Republicans eventually had to fight a Civil War to get the Democrats to give up slavery.

Alas, they were Democrats, so they cheated.

After the war, Democratic legislatures enacted "Black Codes," denying black Americans the right of citizenship -- such as the rather crucial one of bearing arms -- while other Democrats (sometimes the same Democrats) founded the Ku Klux Klan.

For more than a hundred years, Republicans have aggressively supported arming blacks, so they could defend themselves against Democrats.

The original draft of the Anti-Klan Act of 1871 -- passed at the urging of Republican president Ulysses S. Grant -- made it a federal felony to "deprive any citizen of the United States of any arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family, or property." This section was deleted from the final bill only because it was deemed both beyond Congress' authority and superfluous, inasmuch as the rights of citizenship included the right to bear arms.

Under authority of the Anti-Klan Act, President Grant deployed the U.S. military to destroy the Klan, and pretty nearly completed the job.

But the Klan had a few resurgences in the early and mid-20th century. Curiously, wherever the Klan became a political force, gun control laws would suddenly appear on the books.

This will give you an idea of how gun control laws worked. Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable. A decade later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.

How's that "may issue" gun permit policy working for you?

The NRA opposed these discretionary gun permit laws and proceeded to grant NRA charters to blacks who sought to defend themselves from Klan violence -- including the great civil rights hero Robert F. Williams.

A World War II Marine veteran, Williams returned home to Monroe, N.C., to find the Klan riding high -- beating, lynching and murdering blacks at will. No one would join the NAACP for fear of Klan reprisals. Williams became president of the local chapter and increased membership from six to more than 200.

But it was not until he got a charter from the NRA in 1957 and founded the Black Armed Guard that the Klan got their comeuppance in Monroe.

Williams' repeated thwarting of violent Klan attacks is described in his stirring book, "Negroes With Guns." In one crucial battle, the Klan sieged the home of a black physician and his wife, but Williams and his Black Armed Guard stood sentry and repelled the larger, cowardly force. And that was the end of it.

As the Klan found out, it's not so much fun when the rabbit's got the gun.

The NRA's proud history of fighting the Klan has been airbrushed out of the record by those who were complicit with the KKK, Jim Crow and racial terror, to wit: the Democrats.

In the preface to "Negroes With Guns," Williams writes: "I have asserted the right of Negroes to meet the violence of the Ku Klux Klan by armed self-defense -- and have acted on it. It has always been an accepted right of Americans, as the history of our Western states proves, that where the law is unable, or unwilling, to enforce order, the citizens can, and must act in self-defense against lawless violence."

Contrary to MSNBC hosts, I do not believe the shooting in Florida is evidence of a resurgent KKK. But wherever the truth lies in that case, gun control is always a scheme of the powerful to deprive the powerless of the right to self-defense.

---

Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Slander, Treason, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), Godless, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and their Assault on America, and Demonic: How The Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.

You can also follow Ann Coulter and Human Events on FACEBOOK.

Click Here to Become a Fan:

Your password for this job...

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Applied for a job recently?

When more than 50 people apply for a job running a register at a grocery store, you know the job market is tight.

That means employers have the upper hand. How upper? How about getting into your Facebook account?

No worries, you say. Let ‘em look.

How about if they ask for your FB password?

As generally happens, the National Public Radio story goes further than the above link. NPR’s piece asks the questions you have.

So what would you do? Pony up the password or say No and exit the job interview?

Depends entirely on how much you need the job, I say.

Employers do have some restrictions on the questions they can ask. Employers cannot ask your religious preference (unless you are applying for a job in a religious organization). Can’t ask how many kids you have, albeit finding that out is simple enough. Can’t ask if you have any handicaps unless it is directly related to your ability to do the job.

Which does not address the issue of: Is this FB request legal? If you ask me, I say probably. Here’s why.

FB by it’s very nature is a public medium. It is used to spread drama far and wide, share bad jokes, express political opinions and be an idiot in a very public forum. Yes it has private groups (I am in one for the TV production company I work for).  Some people do set their profiles to private, but they do have friends.

Those friends can “share” the stuff you post, making it very public.

The truth about the internet

So. If you are employed by a company and on FB, you and your FB are a public reflection of that company. Companies do have the right to control what their employees do which affects and effects the business.

Point 2: You’ll find that a serious percentage of FB users who hold FT jobs access FB while on the job. If you use company time, company property and company resources to do this, then what you do belongs to the company unless you have a contract that clearly states otherwise. So yeah, if post to FB on company time, then the company has as much right to access your FB page as you do.

On the flip slide, the company does not monitor your calls made from your house. If you pay your cell phone bill, the company can’t monitor your calls, provided you don’t do it on company time.

You may say “If I do it on my time, the company can’t do anything about it.” Not so. If you rob a bank on your own time and get caught, expect to be fired.

“Well, yeah, that’s breaking the law though.”

I lie. I'm not sorry at all. I may be irked, though

You don’t have to break the law. I know plenty of people who were fired because they did something on their own time which was legal but made them look bad in public OR the “my time” activities did not fit the corporate culture. You probably do too.

Further there is an implied “good will” whenever someone is hired. That means you agree to not speak ill of the company you work for. This has been upheld.

You don’t have a lot of recourse if you are fired for any of the above issues.

“I’ll sue ‘em.”

Go ahead. You do two things. 1: You immediately set yourself up to be fired as soon as you screw up in the tiniest fashion. 2: You establish you are willing to sue if you don’t get your way which means other employers are going to regard you as toxic waste.

Mandatory drug testing - II

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Yesterday's post generated some commentary, which I like. It also made me think about the issue of mandatory drug testing a bit more.

I came up with the following ideas.

Do you think you, as a taxpayer, have the right to know how your money is being spent?

"YES!" you say.

Then, mandatory drug testing for people who receive taxpayer dollars as well benefit from taxpayer-supplied services gives you that information.

There will now be objections. Some people will object on the basis of privacy. They will say it's none of our business how they spend the money they get from the government.

That is not a concept upheld entirely in the court system nor is it a concept found in the Constitution. As much as I hate to admit it, the Constitution does not provide an absolute right to privacy. Robert Bork, who was kicked to the curb during his nomination to the Supreme Court, unfortunately had it right.

 It is Public Assistance. Public. Not private. Public means the right and expectation of privacy is not there.

Public.

If you object to your business being made public, then you can eschew public assistance.

Another item that came up, thanks mostly to the rational and polite discourse twixt Tom and Doc is one that is very central to me.

Freedom and Security.

I bring to you a comment from a Founding Father: Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. ~ Benjamin Franklin

The flip side of liberty, to me, is privacy. I firmly believe you cannot have one without the other. If you can figure out a way to make one happen without the other, please tell me. In detail.

Your guarantee of privacy too.

Public assistance of ANY kind is security. Those roads we travel daily? Public assistance. For using these road, we trade away our right to drive however we wish. Want to drive however you want? Build your own road.

Those who directly take tax dollars to support themselves have come close to the maximum trade of security for liberty. They put their freedoms as sacrifice on the altar of security.

Again, there is a simple solution to this: Eschew public assistance.

The less you use, which is taxpayer supplied, the more liberty, freedom and privacy you will have.

Mandatory drug testing

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Blog sort of by request.

I was recently asked to defend my position on mandatory substance abuse testing for people who receive tax-payer supplied living assistance.

Now in 23 states!

To simplify - If you get food stamps, you should be tested periodically for drugs. This applies to the other social welfare programs as well.


It's my opinion that if I am forced to support you, then you will adhere to the decorum rules I lay down. In other words if I have to pay to keep you alive, you are going to behave the way I tell you to.

Someone is going to now say I'm not being forced to support people who get public assistance. These people do not understand taxes. I pay taxes because I have to. The government takes the money from me. The government in turn uses part of this to support people who cannot or will not support themselves.

Give responsibly.

I am forced, against my will in many cases, to support these people.

When I give to charity, I make sure my money will be used as I want it used. If the person or group uses the money for things I don't agree with, I don't contribute again.

A homeless shelter in a neighboring county has a substance abuse policy. If you live there, you adhere to the rules. Violate the rules (show up drunk), you are kicked out. I just don't have a problem with that.

Why should forced charity (taxes) be any different?

The people whom wanted me to explain my views pointed out other venues which tax dollars support. Should people who use these things be tested? Roads, they point out, are built with tax dollars.

Indeed. Dunno about where you live, but in Georgia a driver's license carries with it the requirement to be checked for substance abuse if a law enforcement officer suspects the driver is under the influence. Mandatory testing, in other words.

What about other tax-supported endeavors? I favor drug testings for teachers and student-athletes. I favor testing for government employees.

Once you get past the current spending on social services and the military at the federal level, there's very little left in government spending which I support. At the state level, I support public safety, education and very little else.

Cut the programs I object to and my drug testing requirements are also cut.

My opinion on drugs is on record. The fact remains recreation drug use is illegal. The current president intends to keep it that way, in case you wondered. His remarks from Latin America say he opposes legalization.

Furthermore, Georgia has a program called Drugs Don't Work. Companies that sign up for this program get a sharp discount on their workman's comp insurance premiums. At the same time, these companies see increased worker productivity, decreased absenteeism and increased profits, well above the cost of the program.

But to sum this all up into one thought: I support substance abuse testing for people who benefit from my tax dollars. I should have the right to decide how my tax dollars are spent. If you object to that, quit taking my money.

As serious case of WTH

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This is about as much "celebrity" type news as you're ever going to get out of me.

This year's list of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees is:

Guns N' Roses
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Donovan
Laura Nyro
The Small Faces/Faces
Beastie Boys
The Crickets
The Famous Flames
The Midnighters
The Comets
The Blue Caps
The Miracles
Early Influence:
Freddie King
Sidemen:
Don Kirshner
Cosimo Matassa
Tom Dowd
Glyn Johns

Notice anyone missing? Of course you do. There are many performers and groups not on this list.

But there is one group which is more conspicuous by its absence than any other.

I look at this year's list and note the presence of such bands as, yes, Guns & Roses. Yes they were a major band. Yes they had a major influence. Yes, Axl is a major idiot and probably needs to have his knees introduced to sledgehammer.

But including them before KISS? WTH?

I do not believe any single band can adequately define the music genre of heavy metal, but KISS comes closer than any other group. Why has KISS be overlooked year after year?

How does this happen? The R&RHOF is not very forthcoming.

While I am not generally a fan of Wikipedia, this article does a pretty good job of explaining the nomination process.

Gene Simmons had this to say about it a few years ago. "There's nobody in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- in fact, if you took all of them and put them together -- they couldn't match all the licensing and merchandising we've done and the legacy we've left." He echoed many outsiders' critiques of the Hall by identifying a few famous inductees that aren't as "rock"-oriented as his own band. "I mean, yes, Madonna's important. I have no [darned] idea what she's doing in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Or Grandmaster Flash or any other disco or rap artist."

Paradigm shifts happen

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My mind has been changed. I can even point you to the nearly exact time it happened. Late Friday evening as I walked into my bedroom. I was not thinking about this subject. I was only concentrating on getting to the recliner, sorting out everything in my hands and reading for an hour or so.

Wham. It hit me.

So yeah, it was an epiphany.

To explain: Christians are called to love, not to condemn. I am trying to be a Christian, but I have a long way to go.

Christians certainly do not hold a monopoly on being hypocrites, despite being slammed it for regularly.

The Bible describes two kinds, types or levels of sin.There is the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and all the rest. That's it. Any other divisions are creations of man.

So, in an effort to trim a little more hypocrisy out of my personal life, I give you the following announcement which is going to further ostracize me in my small deeply conservative South Georgia community. So be it. I’m used to standing on the outside and looking in.

If a same gender couple comes to me and asks me to officiate their marriage, I will.

Christian ministers around the world officiate unions between two people who are just as sinful as the same gender couple and nothing is said. Fat people are married. People who smoke are married. Non believers are married to believers. Adulterers get divorced and remarried. I could go on but you get the idea.

Why do we accept, nay, embrace!, some sin and reject others?

Someone here is going to point to the Bible and claim it says marriage is a union of man and woman.

I shan't argue that point.

Rather, I point to many and repeated studies of the animal kingdom which shows homosexuality is common. It is common even among higher order animals.

If these animals are capable of reason, then they have made a choice - free will in other words.

If these animals are not capable of choice, then they do not have free will. They exist as the Creator made them and that includes their same-gender attractions.

Pick one.

So, I point you to the whiptail lizard, a species of lizard which has no males. While it’s up for discussion, some research shows the lizards must engage in sexual acts to reproduce. One female mounts another female.

I see nothing in the Bible which condemns animals for their sexual behavior. 

Pick your direction.

Of course I could have it wrong. There could be a third option, for animals, which I do not see. They could have a separate set of rules set down by the Creator. Could be. I do not claim to know the mind of God. I've gotta go with what He said and has done as best I understand it.

To shift gears, someone is also going to point out Georgia does not recognize same-gender unions. This does not bother me in the slightest. I continue to see marriage as a religious matter, which puts it beyond the reach of man's law. The Constitution agrees with me on that.

I don't need man's law to do God's business.

At one time “mixed race” marriages were illegal. The arguments used against same gender marriage were trotted out then and are still used by idiots on “mixed race” marriage.

Beyond that, I also point to the many of restrictions which the Bible puts on marriage (see above for a few), restrictions which are ignored or excused away by the great majority of Christian clergy.

I also point to the most overriding commandment of the Bible - To Love. I point to another - We are not meant to condemn each other, rather we are to encourage each other and help each other and be there for each other. Sounds like marriage, the Biblical definition of marriage, to me.

So yes, I will officiate a same gender marriage.

I realize that by making this announcement, many “Christians” are going to find yet another excuse to excoriate me. It’s cool. Jesus hung out with people just like me.

A partial list

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This list is by no means complete. I thought of two things to add while hauling up the big road today. Sit down to put this down, completely forgot what they are.

Anyway, when you get done with this list, please add to it. I want to know what's on your list.

I do not want to know about places to eat. I want to know WHAT to eat. I've eaten in the finest restaurants on the planet down to the tailgate of my own pickup truck. I find the very best commercially cooked food is at hole-in-the-wall greasy spoons, like Impire in Adel. The very best home cooked food ain't available on this planet any more 'cause Granny Nancy has been gone now for more'n 20 years.

Anyway, my list of foods to eat before you die:

Gharial.

Huckleberries

Things to eat before you die

Ants
Any cetacean (whale)
Anything you killed, prepared and cooked
Bear
Capybara
Caribou
Cephalopod (squid, cuttlefish, octopus)
Chile Relleno
Chitlins
Collards
Crawfish
Crickets/Grasshoppers
Crocodilia (gator, croc, gharial or caiman
Durian
Elephant
Emu (or ostrich or rhea)
Grits
Hot Krispy Kreme donut
Huckleberries
Fried chicken
Fried Green Tomatoes
Fried Oreos
Fried ribs
Frogs' Legs
Fugu
Home baked bread
Home cured bacon
Kangaroo
NYC bagel
Peach right from the tree
Poke Salit
Pork brains (with or without eggs
Rabbit
Raccoon jerky
Raw honey

Softshell crab sammich

Raw oysters
Sea Salt
Seal
Snail
Snake
Soft shell crab
Squash flowers
Squirrel
Sushi
Turtle
Vegemite
Venison
Wild hog

Here’s a list other people have compiled. The list includes food served at specific restaurants. I am not interested in your restaurant recommendations.

Post 'em here or on Facebook.

Canned and not the way you think

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Texas has banned high-fence enclosure hunts for some endangered animals.

Three species are most affected - dama gazelle, the addax and the scimitar-horned oryx.

Before you cheer this idea of banning hunting these animals, read this: "Texas has the largest population of the animals in the world, far more than even their native Africa. In 1979, Texas had less than three dozen scimitar-horned oryx, just two addax and nine dama gazelles, according to the Exotic Wildlife Association. But by 2010, the state had more than 11,000 scimitar-horned oryx, about 5,100 addax and nearly 900 dama gazelles, according to the association."

Lemme clear this up. These "endangered animals" live on fenced enclosures in Texas specifically for the purpose of being hunted. Unless these animals can be hunted, they will no longer exist in Texas.

If you eat meat, then you eat animals which are born, raised and live out what life they have on fenced enclosures.

The hunt preserve owners will not pay the feed bill for these animals. They'll either be shot illegally or illegally turned loose. Give them to zoos and such, you say? 

Animals in prison, I mean zoos.

"Only a few animal sanctuaries for such animals exist, and “they don't want 100; they want two or four,'' Bulkley said. The Exotic Wildlife Association plans to send about two dozen of the animals to a nature preserve in Senegal."

Without these preserves, these animals won't be around in these kinds of numbers. In some cases, the animals may go extinct except for a handful in zoos.

You may still object to the hunts. I ask what are you doing to build the animal's numbers?

“They are very prolific and had been valuable because a lot of people wanted to hunt them,'' Seale said. “We've built our herds with our own money, and we increased an extinct population, one of the biggest conservation efforts in the world. And now they're telling us we can't do it? It's ridiculous.''

Remember too, these hunt preserves are interested in provided trophy-class animals. That means they carefully manage the herd. Stocks are maintained with an eye toward herd health and quality genes. Trading breeding animals is common.

Who are you rooting for?

If any zoo or animal preserve wants some of these animals, the Texas hunt preserves are certainly willing to sell an animal or two, that being all the preserves want anyway.

I say the Texas ranchers have invested their money, time and other resources. While the animal may be endangered in the wild, it is not on the hunt preserves.

"The rule will not only hurt the $1.3 billion exotic animal industry in Texas but will cause the scimitar-horned oryx population to be reduced to 1,000 in a decade, Seale said."

Some people also object to the idea of a canned hunt. When you factor in all the costs of going to Africa to hunt, killing the same animal in the United States in a fenced enclosure is much cheaper. The hunter still gets a trophy for his wall.

"But he shot it inside a fence," someone will complain.

Jurassic Park meets S. Georgia Redneck

"When it's on the wall, you don't know if I caught it with a worm (artificial lure) or a shiner (live bait)," said Lamar Browning many years ago as we discussed fishing. At issue was a wall hanger.

Lamar had caught a number of 10 pound + bass with live bait. My largest bass to date came on an artificial lure. It was 9.8 pounds and I hope Nancy Wooten still has the pictures of it somewhere because I never got a print. It was nearly as long as my leg.

Anyway, some fishing purists would object to catching a trophy bass with live bait. They'd claim it was not sporting enough.

But when its hanging on the wall, only you and whoever you fished with know what it was caught with.

The same applies to trophy animals, like the ones I have hanging on my wall. You, looking at the taxidermy, the skulls and the cutters (hog tusks) have no idea how I acquired all the animals. Only I know the tale behind all of them. I will tell you I killed every one that hangs on my walls. I killed them with various firearms.

Putting this to the lowest common denominator - if you are a human alive today, you bear some responsibility for the domestic animals  raised and slaughtered in captivity. You also bear some responsibility for animals in zoos and other enclosures around the world. What is the difference between an exotic animal raised on a hunting preserve and a cow raised in a pen?

The difference is who pulls the trigger and how much they pay to do it.

It's the smoke

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Everyone deserves the kind of friend you call at 2 a.m. and the first word out of their mouth is either:

• How much do you need (for bail)?

or

• Do I need to bring you a shovel too?

Hope you have some people in your life like that.

I think back to growing up and I pretty much always had one or two such people in my life until I hit college. Then my world changed. Foreshortened horizons suddenly reached into those places where "here be monsters." While I have always been unique (and likely always will be), I found in college a number of people who heard the same music I did, to horribly twist a phrase.

Welllllll, I might.

All of a sudden, if I needed a spare shovel, I had a cadre of people there.

Upon leaving college, I lost touch with nearly of them. One I kept up with - The Old Man and I have stayed in contact. Thanks to the internet I've found a few others. Some remain AWOL - Priscilla, Gary, Hope, Dennis, Keith, Taka, and Mike come to mind.

In the intervening years, I have found a few more folks who fall into the 2 a.m. phone call category. Sadly as I have aged, they have too and some of them are no longer around to get or give a 2 a.m. wake up call.

If you are my age or older, none of this is a revelation. For you younger folks, the day is coming when you have a renewed appreciate of these words.

I tell you this because of a discussion I had this weekend. In talking with this person, I said "I'm not an easy person to get along with." I meant it too. The person I was talking with disagreed.

When I pointed out this person is not exactly objective on the subject, the person replied, "I'd like you even if you weren't."

Then, smoke got in my eyes.

I can hope this person's opinion does not change in the coming years. It certainly may. This road we call Life carries us to place we never expected to visit and changes us in ways we never thought would happen. Opinions, attitudes, outlooks and perceptions change. Compound this by some hard decisions this person and I will have to make in the coming years. It is within the real of possibility we'll eventually wind up not speaking to each other. I've seen it happen to other people.

Arg. Smoke again.

Regardless, I am not easy to get along with. Repeating that statement in case you missed it the first time. For those people who do put up with me and answer my 2 a.m. phone calls (and vice versa), just know that as much as you appreciate me, I appreciate you.

You have my number.

Nuf said

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Frydee Funnee - Call with questions or comments

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What is the purpose of having a toll free number to ask call and ask questions if the person who answers the phone won’t answer your question?

To explain: Consider the pack of jawbreakers I’m presently using to ruin my teeth and the $62 repair job Dr. Dent did for me last week. Look on the package. Does it have a toll free number to call with questions? No. Obviously a bad example then.

Mental floss. Clean your brain.

Since I’m on dental hygiene, look at the unopened pack of dental floss I have. It does have a toll free number to call with questions.

I called.

“Hello” said a pleasant voice on the other end. “This is (the company’s) Consumer question line. How may I help you?”

“Hi. I’m presently ruining my expensive dental work with cheap jawbreakers, and probably driving my sugar levels through the roof. When I’m done I may need to use some of the dental floss I bought from one of your stores. If I have any teeth left and am not in a sugar coma, that is,” I said.

“Well. Um. Good,” Pleasant Voice said. “What I can do for you?”

G'head. I'll wait.

“I saw on your package that if I call this toll free number I can ask questions or offer comments,” I said.

Pleasant Voice admitted this is the case.

“Ok. Question 1. Provided I’m not unconscious on the floor from a sugar overdose and have not destroyed my teeth crushing jawbreakers, I pull a string of dental floss out of the container. I floss my teeth. When I’m done can I use the string as a bungee jump cord?”

There was no answer from Pleasant Voice.

“Hello?” I said.

Live large. On your computer.

“I don’t think that would be wise, sir,” Pleasant Voice said. “Our dental floss is not meant to be used as a bungee cord.”

“But could I?” I asked.

“We don’t recommend that,” Pleasant Voice said. “Besides which, and this is just my opinion, the string will probably not hold you. It will break.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” I asked.

“Oh no sir,” Pleasant Voice said. I can hear the worry in her voice.

“S’ok. I am fat,” I said. “Besides I wasn’t going to be the one bungee jumping. I was going to teach the fleas in my flea circus to bungee jump off the edge of my desk.”

Pleasant Voice went silent again.

“I see I can also make comments,” I said.

“Yes sir,” Pleasant Voice said. I can hear the hesitation in her. Right about now, she was probably wishing she’d listened to her mother when her Mom said “go to college and become a doctor or marry one.”

“Phred, he’s my ringmaster in the flea circus, is really not pulling his weight any more. I’m going to retire him,” I said.

“Sir. This line is for people to ask questions and offer comments about our products,” Pleasant Voice said.

“Ok,”I said. “Can I use the dental floss to hang Phred?”

Pleasant Voice hung up.

Resenting the impact

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A lot of people resent the impact I have on my community. And I don't mean the kind of impact that happens when I fall down on the sidewalk.

What happens when I go to meetings.

I'm not alone. There are a good number of people now living here who are not natives to this community. A handful of these people are having serious impacts on this community. We guide discussion. We influence policy. Some of us even make policy. We are determining parts of the future of this community.

Some people, natives, do not like this. A very small few will work openly and actively against us. The majority who do oppose us newcomers prefer to work in the shadows, behind the scenes and in places where they can't be held to account for their actions.

At the same time, some of the native folks welcome us, our ideas and are standing shoulder to shoulder with us to get things done. But I do not refer to them. I am just talking about the ones who complain.

Wherefore art thou, Ozymandis?

My community is not unique. Everywhere I have lived "outsiders" who get involved and try to do things are resented by some people.

Look closely.

What have the get-involved newcomers done for the community?


A lot.

This is what primarily builds resentment. The new folks, the resented ones anyway, are rolling up their sleeves and getting stuff done.  The old crowd resents this. They see their edifices being eroded, covered, dismantled and taken down.

These complainers want to rest on the laurels of their parents and grandparents. They want to stand on the accomplishments of 30 years ago, accomplishments most of them had little to nothing to do with.

Communities don't work that way. Communities are constant work in progress. Lead, follow or get embedded in the pavement.

Because last year is now in a history book.

For instance, our School Board recently tore down the old segregated school, over some objections. The old buildings were literally falling in. Yet, some complained.

In its place will go up a new series of apartment buildings.

Eventually, those apartments too will come down, to be replaced.

The people who complain about me and those like me being so involved in the community and wielding so much power and influence only complain. They don't do anything.

If they would get up and put forth some effort, they would learn a few things. But, they prefer apathetic complaints. I repeat myself. Sorry.

If you are one of those who gets things done, I salute you. If you are one of those who complains about people getting things done, I have a place for you too. Right in front of the asphalt roller. At least there you'll make an impact that will last for a few minutes.

We don't retreat

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About half the states in this here U.S. of A. have what a lot of people are calling "stand your ground" doctrine. It's also referred to as castle doctrine, but that's a bit narrower. Call it self defense. All images in today's piece taken from this website.

Barrett. 50 BMG. Good for what ails 'em.

The difference is Stand Your Ground applies wherever you are, walking down the street for instance. Castle doctrine applies in your home and such places.

Both mean you have the right to use lethal force to defend yourself against attack. In other words, if you go after someone in a state with SYG, they can kill you.

Fact: People are killed regularly across the US when someone Stands Their Ground. These people are not prosecuted. They are hailed as heroes. They regularly save the life of someone else. Fact: you rarely hear about these heroes.

Some states do not have SYG laws. If you are attacked, you have to escape. Have to. If you fight back and kill your attacker, you can be charged with murder.

Reload. Repeat.

Ah. In those states, you can be attacked, maimed, disabled or killed yourself. But if you kill the person intent on doing you harm, you will be charged with a crime. Great Britain prosecutes people for this. I have a bud in Australia who served time for shooting a person who broke into his home. Didn't kill the thief, just wounded him.

SYG has become a hot topic now because of the shooting down in Florida. I offer no opinion on that. I say I do not have all the facts and neither do you.

Shootings have also taken place in other places. Again, they make news. Instances where a shooter starts his rampage and is dropped by law abiding citizens does not make this kind of news. Yet, this kind of shooting is FAR FAR more common.

It's like planes. Thousands of planes land safely every day. That's not news. A plane crash is news. You can, if you wish, blame the media for this. You can accuse of sensationalism. You forget the purpose of the media too.

Living in the South, as I do, Stand Your Ground has been a de facto policy for as long as there's been history of the South. Parts of the US where this has not been the case are making it so.

Other parts of the nation which don't value human life as much as we do, refuse to codify your right to protect yourself.

Why?

If someone attacks you, don't you have the right to defend yourself? If you see someone being attacked, shouldn't you be able to go to their aid?

Dial 911? Last time I did it, it took officers about 2 minutes to get to my house. I am not complaining. That's a quick response time. But, by the time they arrived, I'd swept the house and yard - twice - with a loaded shotgun. I was leaning on my car when they arrived.

Had I encountered someone, the officers would have been at my house quite a while filling out paperwork.

Fortunately, I live in a place where my right to take defensive action is guaranteed by law.

I hope I never have to shoot someone. That will be a hard reality for me to live with. But if the choice is them or me, I'm voting for me.