Deep in the woods where the copperheads thrive lives a hermit named Willy and his pet cat Clyde They ain’t too friendly so approach them with care it’s been said that Willy might lift your hair and Clyde is as mean as any cat can be Clyde is a Bobcat born wild and free They live on squirrel and possum and coon and deer that Willy poaches by the light of the moon Willy makes a little Shine in an ageless copper still and if you know who to see you can buy it in Hemphill There’s a creek close by and Willy likes to go and catch some fish where the weeping willows grow He bothers no one just wants to be alone in the deep piney woods where he makes his home
Bad Poetry
Ode to an Odious Tree
I don't know if this is good enough to be called mediocre, but I'm striving to do better. Under the spreading Sweet Gum tree Spring and Summer gumballs fall on me whenever I mow the grass The mower picks them up and clanging, banging flings them against my truck which chaps my ass And that ain’t all, just wait til fall when the leaves add to the clutter but this too will pass Winter brings starkness, no leaves, no gumballs just a tree sleeping and waiting to make another mess
What Have We Done?
I cribbed this unattributed post from MeWe. While not my words, it expresses my thoughts.
What Have We Done?
By E.P. Unum January 21, 2021
Joseph R. Biden was just inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States yesterday. I have nothing further to say about this historical event attended primarily by 26,000 National Guard Troops, FBI, NSA, CIA Operatives.
That fact alone is a very telling story. Apparently, additional security was deemed necessary for a President-Elect who received allegedly 80 million votes, more than any other person in the history of our country. All of the “peaceful riots” throughout the summer and Fall, where stores and businesses were looted and destroyed, monuments toppled and police and citizens were killed, did not require the assistance of armed troops to quell these “activities”.
I also will not comment on the 17 Executive Actions signed by our new President on his first afternoon in office. None of these offer any hope or unity nor are they of any benefit to the American people or to America. Indeed, they will drive us further downward.
But here are some lessons we can learn from the new change in leadership to the America we know:
Perhaps now you understand why there was never any action against the Clintons or Obama, how they destroyed emails and evidence and phones and servers, how they spied and wiretapped, how they lied to the FISA Court, had conversations on the tarmac, sent emails to cover their rears after key meetings, how Comey and Brennan and Clapper never were brought to any justice, how the FBI and CIA lied, how the Steele Dossier, paid for by Hillary Clinton, was passed along, how phones got factory reset, how leak after leak to an accomplice corrupt media went unchecked, why George Soros is always in the shadows, why Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and George Bush and John McCain were all involved, why they screamed Russia and pushed a sham impeachment, why no one ever goes to jail, why no one is ever charged, why nothing ever happens.
Perhaps now you know why there was no wrongdoing in the falsification of the FISA Warrants, why the Durham Report was delayed, why Hunter Biden has not been charged, why the FBI sat on his laptop for almost a year while Trump was being impeached on his laptop for almost a year while Trump was being impeached on fictitious charges, why the Biden’s’ connection to China was overlooked as was unleashed the perfect weapon, a virus that was weaponized politically to bring down the greatest economy ever known to man and at the same time usher in an unverifiable and unnecessary system of mail-in voting that corrupted the very foundation of our republic.
Maybe now you can understand why the media is 24/7 propaganda and lies, why up is down and down is up, right is wrong and wrong is right, why social media can now silence the First Amendment and speak over the President of the United States.
This has been the plan by the Deep State all along. They didn’t expect Trump to win in 2016. He messed up their plans, and delayed them a little…four years to be exact. They weren’t about to let it happen again. COVID-19 was like manna from heaven for democrats and the socialist left, it was a tool to inject fear into all Americans and it was weaponized Governors who shut down their states and crumbled their economies out of fear. The media, never to let a good crisis go to waste, helped shame and kill the economy, and the super lucky unverifiable mail-in ballots were just the trick to make sure the 47- year career politician, allegedly with hands in Chinese payrolls, the man that couldn’t finish a sentence or collect a crowd, miraculously became the most popular vote recipient of all time. You have just witnessed a silent, bloodless coup, the overthrow of the US free election system, the end of our Constitutional Republic, and the beginning of the downward slide of capitalism and the free enterprise system into the abyss of socialism and communism. What a remarkable achievement!
We have sacrificed the greatest engine of freedom, growth, and prosperity known to man on the altar of ignorance and totalitarianism. What will happen next? Well, here’s a brief list:
Expect the borders to open up. Increased immigration.
Expect agencies like CBP and INS and Homeland Security to be muzzled or even deleted.
Law enforcement will see continued defunding.
Elimination of the electoral college will be attempted.
History as we know it will be erased. Our children will no longer study the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, II, Korea or Vietnam. These will be replaced with classes on “white privilege”, “how American racism stole lands from native Indians” and the “need for racial equity” because America is a terrible nation.
The Supreme Court will be packed with liberal judges.
Your 2nd Amendment will be attacked and there may be a gun confiscation or gun buyback programs enacted and you will find it difficult to own a weapon…and ammunition of any kind.
If you have a manufacturing job or oil industry job, get ready to be unemployed. If you own and run a business, brace for the impact of higher taxes and more governmental regulations.
Maybe you’ll be on the hook for slavery reparations, or have your suburbs turned into Section 8 housing.
Your taxes are going to increase dramatically and businesses will pay more.
We will be paying more for gasoline at the pump and we will soon find ourselves once again dependent on foreign oil.
President Trump made us energy independent. For the first time in our history, the USA became an oil-exporting nation. Biden’s illogical and corrupt dismantling of the Keystone Pipeline not only displaced 42,000 high-paying union jobs but now Canada will sell the oil in Alberta BC to China while we search for new supplies at higher prices. Well done Joe!
In a couple of years, we will see the onslaught of inflation, high unemployment, less productivity as more and more people become unemployed, less productivity as more and more people become dependent on the government for subsistence, all of which is the natural course of socialist economies.
The dollar will no longer be the world’s reserve currency and America will no longer be the bastion of freedom it once was.
America will be overtaken by China as the largest economy in the world and, because we have become so complacent, we will find ourselves in the middle of great turmoil and upheaval with lots of civil strife that will make 2020 look like a walk in the park.
I could go on and on. There is no real recovery from this. The national elections from here on will be decided by New York City, Chicago, and California. The Constitutional Republic we created will be dead. Mob rule and appeasement will run rampant. The candidate who offers the most from the Treasury will get the most votes. But the votes cast won’t matter, just the ones received and counted. That precedent has been set.
Benjamin Franklin was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?’” Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now lost the Republic our forefathers bequeathed to us, the Republic we fought and bled for these past two hundred and forty-five years. Some of you are wondering how this came to pass. The answers are indeed quite simple. We did it to ourselves:
We turned from God. We erased God from our halls of Justice and the Town Square.
We turned from family.
We turned from our country, our Flag, our Monuments to our leaders who paved the way. We denigrated all of these with revisionist history and the tearing down of monuments to our civilization and way of life.
We replaced achievement and recognition by embracing “participation trophies” so that our children can all feel a sense of accomplishment even when there was none.
We embraced degeneracy culture, inviting pornography into our laptops and living rooms.
We became so infatuated with technology that we lost the human touch…we found it easier to send emails or Facebook or Twitter posts to a friend or co-worker ten feet away from us rather than walking over to chat with them. We have, in essence, become too high tech and low touch. It sort of begs the question…what does it matter if we wire the entire world if we lose our immortal souls?
We celebrated and looked to fools as our heroes, comedians whose idea of a joke is holding up a bloody head of our President. That’s not funny. It’s sad.
We worshiped ourselves selfishly and took for granted what brave men and women fought and died to give us. Their sacrifices are no longer valued, replaced instead with scorn because they may have committed “transgressions measured by today’s standards, not theirs”.
We disregarded history and all it teaches.
On our watch, America just died a little. It’s likely she’ll never be the same again. Not until the 74 million Americans who voted for President Trump stand up and shout “we will no longer tolerate this and we want our country back” and do something about it.
For starters, get off Twitter and Facebook and refuse to be a part of their efforts to disrespect the First Amendment. I did. And I don’t miss it at all. If companies want to insult all the people who supported President Trump by denying them jobs, fight back. Don’t buy their products. Shun them. Until we take those steps, they will continue to wield their power, but the ultimate power is in your hands…the power of the consumer.
We did this to ourselves. We made our bed, now we have to sleep in it…until we get off our asses and remake it. Some of you have no idea what you’ve done. You know now. It is time to do something about it. Sadly, some of you do know what you have done. To them, I say…if you kick a dog long enough, pretty soon he’s gonna bite. I am tired of being kicked and insulted and disregarded as if I don’t matter. We do matter.
We are Americans.
Kindest regards
E.P. Unum
We Didn’t Have the Green Thing
I copied this from a post on SlingShotForum.com.
Checking out at the grocery store recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
I apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”
The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”
She was right about one thing — our generation didn’t have the green thing in “Our” day. So what did we have back then…? After some reflection and soul-searching on “Our” day here’s what I remembered we did have….
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.
Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?
Robert Found Some Money
This is from my Panama Newsletter in 2008.
Robert is a neighborhood character. He makes a living of sorts doing odd jobs. He used to live in the US, but the story is that he killed a man there and fled home to Panama. Everyone in my neighborhood, regardless of economic circumstance, gets treated with respect, but Robert may command just a bit more than others. Whatever the truth about what happened up North, Robert is a good worker and keeps himself busy doing the hard, dirty jobs that others don’t want to do.
Last week Robert came to my house and wanted to talk about something he had found. There had been a burst water pipe just up the street from our house, and when IDAAN finally (after 6 weeks) got around to fixing it, they dug a very large hole, leaving a big mound of dirt and clay in the street. Each rain since washed away a bit of that dirt, until a plastic bag with some coins and the remains of a chicken were exposed. Robert found the bag and removed the coins, but was afraid to spend them so he had come to me for advice.
It is quite common in Panama to make a sacrifice before moving into a new home or remodeling. The sacrifice usually consists of a chicken and a few coins, and is believed to appease the evil spirits who can cause any number of bad things to come into your life. Such a sacrifice is what Robert had found. I suspect that if one dug up every yard in my neighborhood, a large number of coins and chicken bones would be found. Robert lives a hand-to-mouth existence, and any found money is welcome, so I knew what he wanted to hear, but also knew what he needed to hear, so I advised him to return the money to where he found it. Of course Robert already knew the answer, because while I respect the belief, he believes it. He said “I knew you were going to say that”. Then he went to get a second opinion, and was again told, this time by a Panamanian, the same thing I told him. So Robert very reluctantly compromised by giving the money (74 cents) to a friend who doesn’t believe in evil spirits. 74 cents may not seem like a big deal to you or me, but in Robert’s world it can mean a full meal today instead of not quite enough, or a couple of cold beers at the Chino’s.
Not unexpectedly, Robert dropped by the following day to “borrow” a quarter so he could get a cup of coffee. I told him I was fresh out of quarters and he would have to settle for a dollar, and remarked that God had probably arranged it that way to reward him for doing the right thing with the found money.
Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs
This letter was written by Charles Grennel and his comrades who are
veterans of the global war on terror. Grennel is an Army Reservist who
spent two years in Iraq and was a principal in putting together the
first Iraq elections, January of 2005. It was written to Jill Edwards, a
student at the University of Washington who did not want to honor Medal
of Honor recipient USMC Colonel Greg Boyington a University of
Washington alumni’s, prior to a planned ceremony early February 2008.
Ms. Edwards and other students (and faculty) do not think those who
serve in the U.S. armed services are good role models.
_________
To: Edwards, Jill (student, UW)
Subject: Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs
Miss Edwards, I read of your student activity regarding the proposed
memorial to Col. Greg Boyington, USMC and a Medal of Honor winner. I
suspect you will receive a bellyful of angry e-mails from conservative
folks like me.
You may be too young to appreciate fully the sacrifices of generations
of servicemen and servicewomen on whose shoulders you and your fellow
students stand. I forgive you for the untutored ways of youth and your
naivete. It may be that you are, simply, a sheep. There’s no dishonor in
being a sheep as long as you know and accept what you are.
_William J. Bennett, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy
November 24,1997_ said: Most of the people in our society are sheep.
They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one
another by accident. We may well be in the most violent times in
history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most
citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each
other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
Then there are the wolves and the wolves feed on the sheep without
mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the
flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this
world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or
pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
Then there are sheepdogs, and I’m a sheepdog. I live to protect the
flock and confront the wolf. If you have no capacity for violence then
you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity
for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have
defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity
for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have
then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the uncharted path.
Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal
human phobia, and walk out unscathed.
We know that the sheep live in denial; that is what makes them sheep.
They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can
accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire
extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout
their kids schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting
an armed police officer in their kid’s school. Our children are
thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by
school violence than fire, but the sheep’s only response to the
possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or
harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the
wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference,
though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm
the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little
lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way,
at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that
there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them
where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our
airports, in camouflage fatigues, holding an M-16. The sheep would much
rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white,
and go, Baa. Until the wolf shows up; then the entire flock tries
desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.
The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high
school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have
had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they
just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack,
however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the
officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them.
This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is
at the door. Look at what happened after September 11, 2001, when the
wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever
before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and
military personnel? Understand that there is nothing morally superior
about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also
understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing
around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that
go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the
young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a
little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when
needed, right along with the young ones.
Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep
pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day.
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is,
most citizens in America said, Thank God I wasn’t on one of those
planes. The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, Dear God, I wish I could have
been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference. You
want to be able to make a difference. There is nothing morally superior
about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage.
Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an
environment that destroys 98 percent of the population.
There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted
of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory
crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement
officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims
by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness.
They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select
one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself. Some people
may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be
wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one
they want to be, and I’m proud to say that more and more Americans are
choosing to become sheepdogs.
Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was
honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall,
was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone
to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When they
learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as
weapons, Todd and the other passengers confronted the terrorist
hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers,
athletes, business people and parents from sheep to sheepdogs and
together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of
lives on the ground.
/There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil
of evil men. Edmund Burke/
/Only// the dead have seen the end of war. Plato
/
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of
police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep,
real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are
wolves. They didn’t have a choice.
But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you
want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision. If you want to be a
sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand
the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are
going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you
want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt
you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you
want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path, then you must make a
conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare
yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes
knocking at the door.
This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy.
It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of
degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep
and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist
completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between.
Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum,
away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and
appreciating their warriors and the warriors started taking their job
more seriously. It’s OK to be a sheep, but do not kick the sheep dog.
Indeed, the sheep dog may just run a little harder, strive to protect a
little better and be fully prepared to pay an ultimate price in battle
and spirit with the sheep moving from baa to thanks.
We do not call for gifts or freedoms beyond our lot. We just need a
small pat on the head, a smile and a thank you to fill the emotional
tank which is drained protecting the sheep. And when our number is
called by The Almighty, and day retreats into night, a small prayer
before the heavens just may be in order to say thanks for letting you
continue to be a sheep. And be grateful for the thousands, millions of
American sheepdogs who permit you the freedom to express even bad ideas.
/May God richly bless all the Sheepdogs of America!/
A Tribute to a Great Woman
This is from my newsletter written in August 2008.
Judy Dixon was a long-time close friend of mine and Nora’s best friend. When I first came to Panama she helped me enormously with getting my papers in order. Judy passed away 4 months ago.
Judy had been personal secretary to several powerful Panama government ministers, and finished her career in President Perez-Balladares office, as a trusted assistant. She was one of the movers and shakers in CONEN (Consejo Nacional de la Etnia Negra, Panama’s equivilant of the NAACP). Her funeral services were held in a school gymnasium, because no church which could accomodate the expected crowd was available.
May 30 was her birthday and CONEN held a celebration in her honor in a large hall of the ATLAPA Convention Center in Panama City. Hundreds of people, including the Mayor of Panama City, several cabinet members, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court were there, and of course, Nora and I, who were homored with reserved seats on the second row. The President of the Republic was scheduled to attend, but the crash of the 35 year old helicopter, which had been used by the late General Omar Torrijos, into a crowded store on Central Avenue had occupied all his attention.
I was scheduled to give a talk at another, unrelated function at 7:30 and told my friend Charley, (Judy’s husband) that I would have to leave at 7:00. At 6:45, the first speaker was introduced, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In a triumph of hope over experience, I naiively thought he would speak for no more than 15~20 minutes, so I could stay for his speech and still get to the next function on time, and even if he spoke longer, I could “answer” my cell phone and pretend to have an emergency, and everyone would understand my walking out on the Chief Justice’s talk. As he began to speak about the African Slave Trade and how Europe profited by it, I looked around at the sea of brown and black faces, and realized that there was no way on Earth that this blue-eyed white boy was going to walk out until he was finished.
By the way, he is an excellent speaker and held my interest for the full 45 minutes. At no point did he say anything that could be taken as an attack on white people; instead he focused on how people of color around the world, including Panama, had lifted themselves up by hard work and faith in God. I left feeling uplifted, myself.
Irish Lives Matter too (1625)*
Note: Sources such as the New York Times, Snopes, and other revisionist Left-wing propaganda sites will call this a myth, but this is true. Calling slavery ‘indentured service’ does not change what happened.
Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.
From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.
During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.
As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.
If anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience, then they’ve got it completely wrong. Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from our memories.
A Question for my Government
Have You Lost Your Minds?
I know that there are limits to how much credit I can afford, what level of debt I can “service” without losing my home and cars. I am well aware that I cannot keep borrowing money forever. I realize that it is insane to borrow money to pay monthly expenses as a normal way of life.
Yet for some unfathomable reason, the President of the United States, his advisors, the US Congress, and apparently about half the people of the US don’t understand that simple fact. I’m bewildered because the President, his advisors, and the Congress are all supposed to be smarter than the rest of us. If you doubt that, just ask them.
I heard on TV news that the interest on the National debt would soon be more than $1,000,000,000,000.00 per year if the US does not stop borrowing and spending money like a drunken fleet of sailors. That is not a typo. It is, though, incorrect. Drunken sailors stop spending when they run out of money.
One Trillion dollars.
In interest.
Per year.
That is money we cannot stop paying without bringing the whole system crashing down around our ears. That is money that has to be paid before the first dime goes to national defense, foreign aid, school lunch programs, bank bailouts, and Social Security checks. About the only thing we can be sure will be paid ahead of the interest payments are Congressional salaries.
There seems no end to it. No one in government is even talking about reducing spending, much less paying off the debt. Are they all insane? Is there any other possible explanation?
The Old Prospector and the Gunslinger
Note: The author of this story is unknown.
An old prospector shuffled into the town of El Indio, Texas leading a tired old mule. The old man headed straight for the only saloon in town, to clear his parched throat.
He walked up to the saloon and tied his old mule to the hitch rail.
As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.
The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, “Hey old man, can you dance?”
The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said, “No son, I don’t dance… never really wanted to.”
A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said, “Well, you old fool, you’re gonna dance now!” and started shooting at the old man’s feet.
The old prospector, not wanting to get a toe blown off, started hopping around like a flea on a hot skillet.
Everybody standing around was laughing.
When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.
The old man turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled 12 gauge shotgun and cocked both hammers.
The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air. The crowd stopped laughing immediately.
The young gunslinger heard the sounds too, and he turned around very slowly.
The silence was deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old timer and the large gaping holes of those twin 12 gauge barrels.
The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man’s hands, as he quietly said;
“Son, have you ever kissed a mule’s ass?”
The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, “No sir… but…but I’ve always wanted to.”
There are a few lessons for all of us here:
*Don’t be arrogant.
*Don’t waste ammunition.
*Whiskey makes you think you’re smarter than you are.
*Always make sure you know who is in control.
*And finally, don’t screw around with old folks; they didn’t
get old by being stupid.
I just love a story with a happy ending, don’t you?