Category Archives: Current Events

Feb28

Flanders Field is Empty

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A very hale and hearty Mr. Buckles at the ripe old age of 106 at a veteran's function in Washington, DC.

For the United States of America, the guns of the Western Front have been silenced at last and an important period of US History passed from the realm of living memory yesterday evening. With the death of Mr. Frank Buckles at his home near Charles Towne, West Virginia, everyone who remembers the blood and the mud of the Western Front has left the battlefield. For our country, World War I — The Great War — that they said would “end all wars” now resides only on grainy film and yellowing newspaper pages.

 

I will leave Mr. Buckle’s obituary and eulogy to better writers than I can hope to be. The New York Times has an excellent write up about his life posted now. Instead, I want to speak to the passing, not of a wonderful and beloved old  warrior, but of history itself. Up until yesterday, if a thorny or ambiguous question about life in the trenches arose, a car ride to Charles Towne, West Virginia could straighten the mess out quickly once Mr. Buckles spoke five powerful words: “I know. I was there.”

Now, we only have the history books. World War I has joined the Spanish American War, the War Between the States, the Mexican War, the War of 1812, and The American Revolution as a historian’s bailiwick. The next great event in American History will most likely be the death of the last World War II veteran and at the rate those men and women — all in their 80s now — are leaving the world stage, it might not be as long.

A handsome 16 year old Cpl. Frank Buckles just before his shipping out to France.

The loss of the last living figure of an event like World War I is a huge tragedy in two ways. First is the human loss. Mr. Buckles had become quite famous in his later years (and he had PLENTY of later years) and our nation is diminished by his passing. Secondly though, is the loss of the eyewitness. Now historians can “interpret” and “reinterpret” America’s involvement in that long ago global event with impunity. No one is left who can speak for the multiplied thousands who lie beneath the white crosses in Belgium’s Flanders Field.

For now, Holocaust deniers have one insurmountable obstacle to the free spread of their cancerous message and that obstacle is the every shrinking handful of men and women with numbers tattooed on their arms and horror engraved upon their souls. For now, at least, those who would say “It never happened” must answer to the likes of my beloved friend Mrs. Marion Blumenthal-Lazan who spend years of her childhood in Bergen Belsen.

For now, those who would seek to cover up the grave tragedy that was the Cambodian Killing Fields have the survivors to answer to. The aging veterans of the Japanese army must still confront the living, breathing presence of the “comfort women” whom they abused so many years ago. War Hawks who would rush to hurl nuclear weapons at one another must still look into eyes that saw a bright flash above their two cities in 1945. Some are still among us who were there to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr tell a million people on the Washington, DC Mall that he had a dream.

In time, however, these memories, too, will fall silent — as silent as the grave.

What then? How will those events, so important to the world, our nation, and even to us, be remembered? It is said that history is written by the victors. That is not a true statement. History is written by the survivors and when they are gone, what is left is but hearsay and conjecture.

In Pace Resquiescat, Corporal Buckles. May you find your rest at long last.

Love to all of you as well.

Sincerely, G.S. Feet.

Dec11

Stop Hijacking Jesus

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As a matter of good raising, I don’t normally discuss sex, religion, or politics in polite company. Lately, though, a trend has developed that has me frothing at the mouth and I’ve reached the point of putting my irritation into print.  Therefore, this post will be quite religious and political in places. So, if you are an atheist or you hate religion or you just don’t like reading or talking about spiritual things, here’s your warning. Hit the bricks now and if you still read to the bottom, don’t send me some comment about how “weak-minded” or “old-fashioned” I am to believe the Bible is real or that God is real or that Jesus is real. I’ll take my chances, thank you very much.

So, you’ve been warned.

If you’re still with me, know that what’s driving me nuts (well, MORE nuts) is the growing tendency of people in all forms of public endeavor to drag religion into everything. What has finally pushed my quarter off the table is the rash of comments in my local newspaper by people claiming to speak for Jesus. It’s on my last nerve and it has got to stop.

People need to quit hijacking Jesus.

As an example of what I mean, watch any football game from high school to pro. As soon as a player makes a

I'm pretty sure He don't care, son.

touchdown, he hits a knee or points to the sky in some obvious move to “give thanks” for his touchdown.

Really?

I am not a seminary educated theologian, but I am willing to bet on a few things in the theological sphere and one of those is I’m pretty certain Jesus Christ is not a football fan. Or a baseball fan. Or basketball. Or hockey. . . you get the picture.

See, for those who don’t know, Jesus and His dad, aka. God Almighty, have tasked themselves with the creation and maintenance of the universe. Now, even though being omnipotent makes this task vastly easier and probably does leave time to take in a few quarters of football here and there if They so choose, I just don’t picture Jesus being a football fanatic. Of course, the Saints DID win the Super Bowl last year, but I think that was more on God-given talent than any divine intervention.

Leave Jesus out of the scoring celebrations!

The proper order is "get award" THEN "get drunk!"

Another group that boils my innards and boils my blood over their misappropriation of the Lord’s Name is the lot of “award winners.” Oscars, Emmys, and Tonys. CMAs, AMAs, and Grammys. Stage, screen, or stereo. The medium that is the source of the awards show is irrelevant. They all have the same seriously annoying habit. As soon as they get up on stage and take their pot metal statuette or crystal resin miniature from the vapid, chattering host or hostess, the first thing many of them do is lean into the microphone and say, “I’d like to thank God for this award!”

Really?

Again I appeal to my admittedly self-taught body of Biblical knowledge and I feel very comfortable saying God probably doesn’t care that you won your silly award. After all, He and Jesus sit on thrones (well, technically Jesus is standing at God’s right hand for the moment) in a room vastly beautiful beyond our finite minds’ ability to comprehend. They are surrounded by seraphim and cherubim that do nothing 24/7/365 (366 on leap years) but sing songs more glorious than our greatest songwriter can dream of. Do you really think They stop listening to an angelic choir just to hear Lady GaGa warble out “Bad Romance?”

I’m betting against it.

One other thing before I leave the entertainment industry alone and move on to the REAL target of my derision. If, after receiving your pot metal or crystal resin, you lean into the microphone and drunkenly or doped-upedly slur your thanks to the Almighty, I wouldn’t count on that thanks reaching the ceiling. I am no longer a teetotaler where faith and alcohol come together. My thought is Jesus’ first recorded miracle was turning fetid water into fabulous wine. I don’t think He has a problem with a glass of wine or a cold beer after cutting grass in July in the South.

The whole drunken slurring thing though? Probably not so good. The Bible has several instances of people (usually men) getting drunk and the results are always disastrous and ugly. You may THINK you’re different, but I can pretty much assure you, you’re not.

Leave Jesus out of the “awards ceremonies!”

Now, before I begin blasting away at my most despised blasphemers, let me make clear that I think anyone anywhere can respond to and accept the Gospel, be he a self-indulgent basketball star or be she a babbling, bacon bikini wearing songbird. I have it on good authority that one of my very best friends accepted the Gospel message halfway down a 150′ ravine during the third end over end flip of his 280ZX. One of my former students, a self-proclaimed atheist, hear Jesus’ call in a fighting hole in Afghanistan right after a Taliban bullet made a crease in his armor helmet.

Any time. Anywhere. 24/7/365 (366 in leap years).

Now for my true venom. The group that I despise the most and the absolute WORST Jesus hijackers are POLITICIANS! I am at the point of getting nauseous whenever I hear some scheming, conniving, back-door-dealing Washington sewer dweller talk spout out something like “Our party won control of thus and so because God is on our side!”

Let me go puke.

This wrapping oneself in the Cross covered prayer shawl is completely bipartisan as well. Elephants and Jackasses alike invoke the name of the Lord to hopefully win the passage of some “vital” piece of legislation or, much more likely, to appeal to the “folks back home” who expect their representatives to be moral, preferably Christian, men and women.  Nowhere is this malady worse than here in my beloved Southland. We are a devout people down here. Sure, we may go out on Friday and Saturday nights each week and drink ourselves blind. We may switch from bed to bed like our heads are on fire and our butts are catching. We may swear and spit and carry on, lie, cheat, steal, etc.

But we’ll be in church come Sunday.

We expect the same from our politicians and they deliver. If I hear one more politician say “I feel this is what God would want me to do,” I may collapse into an uncontrollable conniption fit! It wouldn’t be so brazenly blasphemous and hypocritical if the politicians were not so “cafeteria” style about their so-called “heavenly mandate.” A senator can vote to increase the deficit, increase taxes, increase involvements in wars — but he’ll still get elected by a landslide as long as he claims to be staunchly against abortion! A representative can back big business, spit on the middle class, and whore-hop around Washington, DC worse than a Heidi Fleiss call-girl working on a new Ferrari, but as long as he keeps pushing a bill to get prayer back in schools, the people will support him.

535 member congregation and every single one of them is a politician! Who'd a thunk it?

So it goes on with this party claiming divine favor then that party claiming some new revelation. They’ll get up on TV with tears in their eyes as they talk about their conversion experiences in a little country church (he or she may be from Atlanta, Nashville, or Jacksonville but it’s ALWAYS a little country church) when they walked the aisle and let Jesus into their hearts.

All I know is Jesus must be pretty lonely in there since He’s the only thing in that heart.

Let’s get one thing straight and clear once and for all now and forever. Jesus Christ is not a Republican. Jesus Christ is not a Democrat. Jesus Christ is a King and not just ANY king but the King of Kings. Neither He nor His Daddy give two toots in a tornado about our petty earthly politics because They know who ACTUALLY runs this show! It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to Either of Them that Barak Obama defeated John McCain to become POTUS. They. Don’t. Care. They have bigger fish to fry.

So please, all you politicians posturing on a false faith or even a genuine faith that you can’t stop ramming down people’s throats, stop. STOP!

Leave Jesus out of politics.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Nov4

Election ’10 is Over!

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The people of America have spoken once again! I wanted to wait to add my two cents to the rest of the pundits out there, but it seems the first wave of analysis has died down so I thought I’d kick in my views.

I know that all across the country right now some are rejoicing and all but dancing in the streets while in those same cities and towns, just down the street is weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. I’ve heard it on the news and the godforsaken talking head shows and the even MORE godforsaken talk RADIO shows that the current election results are either a positive indication that the country is moving in the right direction OR a definite sign that the Apocalypse is finally upon us!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that pretty much what was tossed around in the LAST election?

I don’t know how any of my readers feel about the election results except for Budge and she feels the same way I do which is, so what? I have better things to do than get wrapped around the axle over one group of rich politicians leaving office to make room for another group of rich politicians to move into those offices. Yes, I voted Tuesday because it is one of the duties of a citizen and I did some research before I voted. Not everyone I voted for won and not everyone I voted for lost. In the end, though, my feelings are distinctly  . . . meh, who cares? Now I know some of you who read this blog will think I should be shot for saying that it doesn’t matter who is elected, but that is exactly what I am saying and I’ll give three reasons why:

1) No elected person, office, or group “runs the country”. Bureaucrats “run the country” and they aren’t elected, they are spawned. Just remember, no matter what party is in office, the DMV is still the DMV.

2) As a general rule, the candidates taking office aren’t that different from the candidates leaving office. One wears red and one wears blue. One rides a donkey and one rides an elephant. All that means to me is one group is a bunch of asses and the other produces a huge load of . . . stuff out the back end. All politicians are generally the same. They are wealthy enough to not have to have a real job so they have time to campaign. They are passionate about what they think is right or wrong and they have families and friends and hopes and dreams just like everyone else. (Except for Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi. I’m pretty sure they are aliens in human disguise)

3) The newly elected all have great ideas about “what they are going to do when they get to Washington!” but reality will set in for them right after the first vote on the floor of Congress. If anyone can truly be said to be in control of the US Congress, it is not the Speaker of the House or the Vice President in the Senate. Instead it is a long dead man named Henry Martyn Robert. Yes, that Robert of Robert’s Rules of Order fame. The ghost of Henry Martyn Robert will dictate who can say what and when and provide a way to block any progress at all if someone desires it.

Look at it this way. Anyone who has completed a basic course in US Civics can tell you that ANY legislation that passes through our triumvirate of branches is going to do so at roughly the same rate that pitch balls drop from the funnel in The Thomas Parnell Pitch Drop Experiment.

The US Government is woefully inefficient. A Southern Baptist church congregation can decide to change service times or musical styles faster than big, earthshaking legislation that will really affect our daily lives can pass Congress. For example, it took 79 YEARS (from 1789 to 1868) and a freaking WAR  for black people in the US to be declared citizens and even after that it took another 100 years for them to be guaranteed BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS.

It took 131 YEARS for WOMEN to be allowed to vote and they make up HALF the FREAKING POPULATION!!

Nothing gets done fast in Washington. If the Founding Fathers saw to anything, they saw to that and they had very good reason. They lived in a time when what we call dictators today were called kings and in a lot of places one man, just because of his position of birth, could have your head cut off with a single pronouncement. They knew what tyranny REALLY was and I imagine they are rolling over in their graves at the thought of a whining bunch of coddled children fussing that their government doesn’t work. Those men made sure it WOULDN’T work, except when it does.

So take a Xanax folks and be happy that we live somewhere that government change doesn’t mean riots, juntas, or widespread killings. Sure, your candidate may not have won, but I promise the Brownshirts are emphatically NOT coming for you any time soon.

For now, people, no matter WHAT any of the party pundits may say, we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Stop griping and enjoy it while we still can. Remember, the Greek democracies didn’t last forever; the Roman Republic didn’t last forever . . . neither will we, but til then, it’s still the greatest country — warts and all — on the planet.

Love y’all and get those feet cleaned!

Oct12

Written Up for Murder

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This is an actual blank discipline referral from an actual school district in this state.

 

In the Michael Keaton / Jack Nicholson version of Batman: The Movie, Nicholson’s Joker wonders aloud at one point, “What kind of a world do we live in where a man dressed as a bat steals all my press?” A valid question.

Here’s mine: What kind of a world do we live in where our schools’ disciplinary documents contain spaces for offenses like “forced sexual offense,” “drug trafficking”, and — most shockingly — “HOMICIDE.”

Let that one sink in for a minute. HOMICIDE. Murder. Right between “Hall Pass Violation” and “ID Violation” sits the blank for Homicide. I don’t know which is more surreal and disturbing, the fact that the line marked Homicide exists at all, or that administrators today face the very real possibility of having to check that blank.

I realize some policy item likely dictated that Homicide be included on the referral form. After all, these forms are vetted by lawyers and we ALL know what happens when someone lets a lawyer make changes to any document. Thomas Jefferson was a farmer; therefore, the Declaration of Independence is one large sheet of parchment in length and all the lines are legible. Had a modern lawyer written the DOI, it would have been the size of War and Peace by Tolstoy and that would be on Bible paper in microscopic font.

Still, it’s a sobering thought that one evening over the TV dinners, a parent could turn to little Johnny and as, “So, son, what happened in school today?” only to get the reply, “Oh, Chris stabbed Mikey to death with a pen. He got written up for Homicide so I don’t think he can come over tomorrow to play.”

Facetious? For now maybe. School murders are a reality in the worst parts of the inner cities now. How long will it take to migrate to the ‘burbs and on out into the country? Things are bad in education these days, but for most of us, we only need to look at a referral with a spot for “Homicide” to realize matters stand to get much worse and for all those who think to themselves, “That’s bull. Stuff like that won’t ever happen here,” remember how many times that phrase has been given the lie throughout history. It not only “could happen here,” but the Law of Averages pretty much guarantees it will at some point. Let’s hope we’re all gone before then, though. PASS testing is bad enough.

Love y’all and don’t forget to wash your feet.

Jun3

I’m Offically Middle Aged

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Thanks for all the memories, Kid!

It all started when Bret Michaels had his stroke and I thought for sure he was going to join Janis. Then, while riding around last week, I heard Pearl Jam on WROQ — “your CLASSIC ROCK station.” Then today, the bottom just fell out of my delusion that I am still young when I turned on ESPN SportsCenter to find out Ken Griffey, Jr. retired last night.

“The Kid” has hung up his cleats.

To me, Junior will always be the best baseball player of my generation. He is the anti-Barry Bonds. When everyone else in the game, from the power hitters to the ball girls in the outfield corners, was juicing up on performance enhancing drugs, Junior stayed clean. In time, he passed the tarnished likes of McGwire and Sosa to settle in at number five on the all time home run list for major league baseball. Over a career that began the year I graduated high school, that gorgeous left-handed arching swing blasted a ball over the outfield wall 630. Every time, it was his own power that did it. Nothing in a bottle, pill, or needle.

In many ways comparing Junior to Barry Buffoon goes deeper than just the home runs. It shows a lot about raising children. Bobby Bonds was a pretty good baseball player too, but he was a consummate jerk as well. That makes it no surprise that son Barry would be surly, ill-natured, and divisive as well. Across the country, however, Ken Griffey, Sr. was putting together a masterful career with “The Big Red Machine” of the 1970’s and he was doing it with class and grace.

Like father, like son.

Junior wasn’t just clean, he was classy. Win or lose, he kept a calm demeanor. He wasn’t a press hound and truthfully shunned the spotlight as much as possible. Unfortunately for him, when you singlehandedly save a franchise from shutting down — the Seattle Mariners in this case — the press is going to want to talk to you A LOT. When he left the revived M’s to play elsewhere, he turned down the gobs of money thrown at him by nearly every team in baseball, including my beloved Braves. Instead, he took a much lower salary to play for the Reds — his daddy’s team, his hometown team. In this sports era of contracts the size of some small countries’ GNP, Junior was never the highest paid player in baseball, but he was certainly one of the classiest. In five years, he’ll be a lead-pipe lock for first ballot election to the Hall of Fame and it won’t shock me in the slightest if he’s the first unanimous selection since Lou Gehrig was given a special election so he could see his bust in the HOF before the disease that bears his name took his life.

So “The Kid” is done. He’s 40 years old, just one year older than me, so that means my generation of baseball players, the ones I sat and watched in college as rookies and wished I could be, are passing. It’s not a terrible tragedy, I suppose, but it is one more signpost on life’s road saying, “Son, you’re not as young as you used to be.”  So now I’m one step closer to becoming one of those old guys who drives the young people nuts with stories about “I remember when . . . ”

Hopefully, I’ll be good at the job.

Congratulations on a magnificent career, Junior, and for the rest of you, know that I love you and keep those feet clean!