Category Archives: My Philosophy of Life

Jul26

Illegal Hypocrisy

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I tolerate much offensive behavior without protest, but four things consistently anger me beyond my ability to remain silent. They are — in no particular order — lying, abuse of the helpless (elderly, children, and animals), Clemson football play calling, and bald-faced hypocrisy. At the moment, I’m pretty well pissed because  too many politicians and people are such hypocrites on illegal immigration. Immigration hasn’t out front lately with all the media coverage going to the “debt crisis.” (Debt crisis! Come to my house; I’ll SHOW you a debt crisis) Yesterday, though, I saw some stuff on Facebook in the comments section of President Obama’s page that remind me of how ugly this debate really is.

Here’s the problem as I see it; the story of Europeans in America is a story of raping and robbing, of deceit and destruction. When English Pilgrims and Jamestowners got off the boats, they would have ALL died if not for the grace of God and the kindness of the natives. How they repaid God’s grace is a matter for theological debate, but how they thanked the Indians is a matter of historical record: smallpox infected blankets, blatant disregard for Indian culture, and complete dishonesty in treaty after treaty. Sure doesn’t say much for people who founded a country supposedly based on “equality of all mankind.” (Of course they meant all free, white, male, landowning, and educated kind.)

Down South America / Central America way, the Spanish were at least honest. A conquistador would simply ask “Do you have gold? Good, we will take it all. Thank you. Now, you are my slave; carry your — I mean — my gold to the ship.” Then, a wonderfully pious priest would ask, “Do you believe in God? Who is that? He isn’t the real god. Convert immediately and live or cling to your stupid backward ways (that built at least 3 flourishing empires) and we’ll torture you until you beg to convert then kill you so you can go straight to Heaven.”

By the end of the 20th Century, Indians controlled less than 10% of the continents they kept and tended so well for thousands of years. One would think they were just waiting to be discovered and exploited by the white man. Deemed savages because they didn’t understand or practice ownership of land and didn’t worship the Christian’s God — at least not by that name anyway — they were worthy of extermination as in “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

Well, folks, karma is an ill-tempered bitch with a long memory. If the Hindu reference bothers you, then how about a Christian reference?  Apostle Paul in Galatians, “Whatever a man sows, he will reap.” For 500 years, European “immigrants” have destroyed and exploited the native people. Now their descendents want some of it back.

Thus begins the hypocrisy.

We took this land by force with the fervent belief it was our Manifest Destiny. Now people are pissed off at people, mostly brown people from Mexico, who want a piece of the pie. We wanted, nay, demanded, the whole cupboard and pantry yet begrudge them the crusts they want. Here’s the deal, our ancestors set out in rickety ships to “find a better life.” The new wave of illegal immigrants walk across deserts with no water while avoiding crazy, trigger-happy “Minutemen”  to do what?

“Find a better life.”

What made our ancestors so right and the new “illegals” so wrong? We didn’t feel the need to obey native laws or customs, so why do we cry foul when what went around has come back around?

I know people will want to say “that was different.” How was it different, exactly? Some will go on about how a lot of the illegals are criminals and represent a danger to our safety. Really? Well,  a lot of Indians died because Europeans wanted land, so I’d say the Indians were in danger, but apparently that’s okay with everyone .

Rash Limburger and his ilk love to blather about how, “They’ll take (or they’re taking) all our jobs!” Really? When is the last time you saw an illegal looking Latino individual working a white-collar job? Just exactly what jobs are these people stealing? Let’s see . . . landscaping? I’m sure hundreds of Anglo-Americans will line up to fill all the landscaping jobs once we deport the illegals. I mean, who doesn’t want to spread mulch, cut grass, and dig irrigation trenches in 100 degree heat and 90% humidity? How about highway construction? Sign me up to stand behind a dump truck full of 600 degree semi-molten tar and rock ready to spread it with a shovel! Household staff (aka “maids”)? Custodians? Slaughterhouse workers? Dish washers? The fact is, suspected illegals fill jobs Anglo-Americans have mostly abandoned but still need doing! Why begrudge someone a job you don’t want?

An acquaintance of mine owns his own full service car wash. He employs a large number of Hispanics, but it wasn’t always like that. According to him, in the first years he filled his staff with college students home for the summer or high school dropouts learning a hard lesson. Now the last ten years, he can’t get students or dropouts. When he asks them why they are leaving — the ones man enough to show up and tell him anyway — they say the work is “way too hard for the pay.”

He says he never has a problem with his Hispanic workers though. Men and women alike are always neat, clean, prompt, and hard-working. He doesn’t have to do nearly as much supervision as he once did because his workers are a community. Many of them live together, eat together, and go to and from work together. They police themselves, and as he puts it, “They push a lot of cars through and make me a lot of money.” He acknowledges some of them may be illegal but whenever he’s asked for it, they’ve the correct required paperwork.

This country was founded on the ideal that you could come here with nothing, work hard for a long time, and eventually “have something”. We even have a name for it. It’s called The American Dream. So why are we — a country of rebels and renegades, eccentrics and entrepreneurs — so incensed at a newer, hungrier wave of people coming in — just like our ancestors did — to grab a share of the pie we stole from them originally and have been hogged to ourselves for 200+ years? They want the same thing those early colonists wanted — a better life.

We even have one advantage over those natives’ ancestors who greeted our European progenitors; we can be relatively certain they don’t plan to exterminate or enslave us.

That’s what I think, anyway.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Jul11

My Thoughts on a “Caylee’s Law”

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I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback telling me how “right on” I am with my previous post demonizing (deservedly) Nancy Grace for her larger-than-credited role in the Casey Anthony Trial. I’m betting I don’t get the same feedback on this post, mainly because I figure this post is going to upset more than one person. I, however, ascribe to the position held by Femi-Nazi Gloria Steinem (probably the ONLY thing she and I would agree on) when she said, “The truth shall set you free, but first it shall piss you off.”

Let the pissing off begin.

I personally don’t think Florida OR the US needs a “Caylee’s Law.” I think it is bogus and an attempt by pathetically pandering politicos to cash in on the furor surrounding the wildly unpopular verdict in the Anthony trial. While we’re on the subject, let’s go a little deeper, shall we? Take a look at the pictures in the following gallery, s’il vous plait?

I won’t keep you in suspense. These are all dead children who have or will have legislation named for them. These are the namesakes of Ginny’s Law, Adam’s Law, The AMBER Alert, Chelsea’s Law, etc, etc. Now that you know what they are, do you notice anything missing?

How about a Jakwuan’s Law? Maybe a Juan-Carlos Law? Bubba Ray’s Law? Leqweshia’s Alert? Thao Po’s Law? Mayeller’s Law?

Where are all THOSE laws? Why are all the dead children laws named for middle class White kids?

I’ll tell you why. They represent the greatest potential for political photo ops and sound bites. Dead, raped, and / or kidnapped W.A.S.P. children are ratings boosters for today’s Don Henley-esque “Dirty Laundry” news cycle. Dead colored kids or dead white trash / redneck kids? NOT SO MUCH.

Oh, no he didn’t! Yeah. As a matter of fact, he did. Does anyone who reads my blog — besides Ronald Taylor — realize just how skewed public perceptions are when it comes to finding lost or murdered children? I’ll grant you that a greater statistically valid number of white children are kidnapped and / or killed each year than other children, but where is the outcry over the missing black children? How many young black boys did Wayne Williams murder in Atlanta before pressure mounted on the authorities to “Do Something?”

Casey Anthony stayed in the spotlight for three years and prosecutors could do little more than wring their hands. Earlier this year here in South Carolina, a black woman murdered two of her children in Orangeburg. It was out of the news in less than a week. Why?

Why all the psychoanalyzing Casey Anthony, Susan Smith, and Andrea Yates, but most people can’t even name ONE black mother/murderer or ONE black missing child. The ENTIRE WORLD knows who Jon-Benet Ramsey is. She has movies and memorials and web pages to perpetuate her memory. Can anyone — ANYONE AT ALL — tell me who Celina Janette Mays is? Since I’m fairly certain no one can, I’ll tell you who she is. She is a beautiful young black girl who went missing from her home in Willingsboro, NJ on December 16, 1996. That’s nine days before Jon-Benet was found murdered in her basement under what can only be described as bizarre circumstances. Where are Celina’s memorials? Where are her made for TV movies?

I know this must look like I am saying dead and missing colored children are more important than dead or missing white children. I most emphatically am NOT saying that. I believe the death or abduction of ANY child is a tragedy. I assure you, as anyone who knows me can attest, if Caylee had been MY daughter or granddaughter, the City of Orlando and State of Florida would have had to spend MUCH less money on a trial since I would have plead guilty to first degree murder with VERY exacerbating circumstances. I don’t have much faith in lawmen, with the possible exception of the Texas Rangers and the R.C.M.P. Those are two organizations bad people would be wise not to cross. I have no problem with vigilante justice.

I’m afraid the lack of attention on missing and murdered colored children is a symptom of something much more insidious. I think the lack of media attention is the direct result of things not being all that different now than they were in 1955 when young Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi. I think the media, despite Oprah’s near canonization and BETs success, is a white man’s game and white children make the news. People of color are marginalized, and I think it’s because of a subtle attitude of “that’s what you can expect from them.”

I even have one concrete example — Ennis Cosby. Ennis Cosby, for those who don’t know, was the only son of beloved comedian Bill Cosby. Ennis was murdered in 1997 while changing a tire on the side of the road. Even though Ennis had never had any history of drug use or even any negative history at all, because he was a black man in a bad neighborhood, initial media kneejerk response was “drug deal gone bad.” Eyewitness testimony from Ennis’ friend present at the murder soon cleared the air, but that initial reaction was black = bad.

People of color are not the only marginalized group though. The poor and those on the fringes of society don’t get much news coverage of their tragedy either. If a girl goes missing from a trailer park in Detroit or El Paso, well, she must have just run away. Really, bossman? Even if she was NINE?

To bring this back around to Caylee and land this plane, I don’t think laws named for dead children are a good idea or good legislation. I believe Caylee is in a better place, ala Martina McBride’s “Concrete Angel”. Do we REALLY want to memorialize her with a law that remembers only her death?

Finally, I’d like to pose the question of how much have things changed in this country? July 4th was a week ago. How far have we come towards “all men (and women) being created equal?” In my opinion, not very far at all.

After all, not all slavery involves shackles and chains.

Love y’all and keep the faith and feet clean.

Jul7

Lay Blame at the Right Feet . . . or Mouth

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Monday’s “not guilty” verdict in the Casey Anthony murder trial has a tremendous segment of the population livid with anger. Moms all over the country, joined by more than a few dads, seem quite prepared to form a lynch mob and travel to Orlando to administer the justice the jury did not.

That anger has just one problem — it is woefully misplaced. If people want to be angry with someone and blame someone for the debacle of a trial they should ignore the jury, prosecution, and even the defense. The blame for this miserable failure of justice should be placed squarely on the doorstep of one Nancy Ann Grace lately masquerading as a journalist on CNN and before that a prosecutor somewhere. If her handling of the Caylee Anthony murder case is any indication of her skills as a prosecutor, it’s little wonder that she is no longer trying to put criminals behind bars.

Three years ago, Nancy started calling for Casey Anthony’s blood on her talk show. She went on ad nauseum about how guilty Casey was and what a monster she was and over and over she kept calling for a trial that would hang the vile party girl from the tallest tree in Florida. Unfortunately for Ms. Grace, she forgot that in this country, people are only sent to prison — or the death chamber — when they are convicted by a court of law, not the court of public opinion.

For the record, I am certain in my own mind and heart that Casey Anthony killed her daughter. I’m equally certain she is an evil, detestable monstrosity of a human being who is on the Red Line Express Long Black Train to Hell in a Handbasket. Finally, I’m positive the jury handed down the correct verdict based on the law and the judge’s instructions. If the prosecution had not be put under such scrutiny and constant pressure by Nancy Grace, that verdict may have never been handed down and Ms. Anthony would be on her way to a prison cell now instead of on her way to the talk show circuit. I cannot tell everyone just how thankful I am that Oprah is off the air because I don’t think my nerves or digestive system could handle that interview.

What most people are focusing on is the not guilty verdict for the count of First Degree Murder. I can promise you that right from the start of the trial, the prosecution had ZERO chance of getting a conviction for FDM. By definition, First Degree Murder is premeditated. That means you sat down and planned out exactly when, where, and how you were going to kill this person. Premeditation, by further definition, implies — nay, requires — a motive. Furthermore, I truly feel Casey Anthony is INCAPABLE of premeditating a murder and coverup of this magnitude because doing so would require her to think about someone other than HERSELF for more than 30 seconds and I simply don’t think she has that ability. In any event, the prosecution NEVER effectively presented any scenario involving a motive for Casey to kill Caylee. You can get a conviction for 1st Degree Murder without a body. You cannot get a conviction without a motive.

Nancy Grace kept up a steady stream of harping on “the massive amount of evidence.” Yes, the amount of evidence was quite large, BUT, none of it lead anywhere. Define “the smell of death.” Where is the receipt or credit card statement showing where Casey Anthony purchased a bottle of chloroform AT ANY TIME DURING CAYLEE’S LIFE? Sorry, but all the prosecution convinced the world and jury of is that Casey Anthony is an ugly, cruel, blight on the earth’s population — but that’s not the same as proving she committed 1st Degree Murder and should have been sentenced to death.

That is another factor to keep in mind. The prosecution was angling for the death penalty and Nancy was on TV squawking about how appropriate she felt that punishment would be. Now, with that in mind, put yourself in the jurors’ places. If you convict this woman and she is sentenced to death, in a very real way, you have taken the life of another human being. Not everyone is capable of doing that. Not everyone is LIKE CASEY ANTHONY! If you are going to have someone put to death based on your word, you had better damn sure KNOW they are the person who committed the crime. Otherwise, sleeping may get difficult around the execution date.

Again, I loathe and despise Casey Anthony. I think she overdid her regular routine of chloroforming little Caylee into unconsciousness so Mommy Dearest could go have some “Me / Slut time” at the clubs. Once the child was dead, she was disposed of. Had the prosecution taken the death penalty off the table and pressed HARD for Second Degree Murder, which requires no premeditation, I think the jury would have been convinced.

Our legal system worked exactly as it is supposed to. According to reports now reaching the blogosphere about interviews with actual sitting jurors and not alternates, it appears that the majority of the jurors believe Casey Anthony is a murderer, but the prosecution failed to prove it.  Make no mistake, justice WAS done in this case. Most people are angry because most people don’t REALLY want justice; most people actually want VENGEANCE. Most people want the guilty punished in the most heinous way possible, which is just as it should be — until an innocent person is wrongly convicted or, God forbid, executed.

The electric chair doesn’t give a mulligan.

So the jury was correct and if Nancy Grace had spent more time doing something about that godawful hair helmet of hers and less time rabble rousing for a witch burning, the Orlando sheriff’s department could have taken five or ten or more years to build an airtight case against a witch. As it is, a murderer walks the streets of the home of The Happiest Place on Earth scot free and set to make a truck load of money on book deals. I only hope she remembers ONE thing when she contemplates her wonderful luck . . .

She still has a Judgement to stand, this Judge cannot be swayed by fancy rhetoric or forensic tricks. Ms. Anthony — and Ms. Grace too, for that matter — would do well to keep in mind that paybacks REALLY are Hell.

Love y’all!

Jul4

Happy Fourth of July (yuck)

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BAH! Humbug, I say!

Of all the holidays in the year, I like The Fourth of July least of all — even less than September 19th, which is Talk Like a Pirate Day. (That might not seem like much of a holiday, but if you’ve ever taught 3-5 in elementary school, you know the deal.)

It is safe to say that I absolutely LOATHE and DESPISE this overblown monstrosity of a midsummer excuse for a day off.

If someone ever decided to take Dickens’ novel A Christmas Carol and set it in America on the Fourth of July, I would HAPPILY play Ebenezer Scrooge and hand out copious amounts of humbugs to anyone who would listen. I suppose instead of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, I would be assaulted and browbeaten by the Ghosts of Edward Rutledge, Button Gwinnett, and John Penn!

Humbug, I say! Bring them on.

Ooohhh, John! I bet King George will be REALLY impressed with your big ol' signature!

Now I hope no one mistakes my lack of devotion to this insanity called July 4th for a lack of patriotism. I adore what the Fourth of July stands for . . . I just hate the celebrations surrounding it AND I think we celebrate the COMPLETELY WRONG DAY. If we’re going to call something Independence Day, then July 4th is ludicrous. A bunch of rich white men — about half of whom never picked up a musket in the Revolution — signed a big piece of parchment in a blazing hot hall in Philadelphia.

SO FREAKING WHAT?!

Signing the “Declaration of Independence” didn’t a bit more make this country free than me signing a million dollar record deal makes me able to sing. As a matter of fact, had things gone differently in just a mere handful of battles, skirmishes, and alliances, we’d still be members of the Commonwealth of Nations, if not the United Kingdom, and the Fourth of July would be another November 5th style Bonfire Night in the streets of London. The only difference would be the great drunken unwashed masses would burn Washington in effigy instead of Guy Fawkes. Read about what the Crown authorities did to HIM when they caught him and you’ll see just what would have awaited Jefferson, Franklin, and Co. if the French hadn’t taken pity on us (yes, there actually WAS a time when the Frogs could fight instead of retreat).

Who knows, maybe V would have worn a George Washington mask in the comics instead of a Fawkes visage.

Why yes, Mr. Cornwallis, sir, I believe we upstart rabble DID kick y'all's pompous British @$$es! (GW was from Virginia and therefore a Southerner and would have used y'all)

No, if we’re going to properly celebrate something, let’s celebrate October 19th!! THAT was our REAL independence day because THAT was the day an unruly mass of shopkeepers, merchants, tradesmen, and yeomen farmers (with a little — okay, a LOT of — help from the aforementioned French)  beat the most powerful army of the most powerful nation on Earth at a little place called Yorktown.  (Jeez, how can we owe the FRENCH our freedom of all people? The ignominy of it all.) THAT’S when we were free! Think about it — the US Navy has never named a ship the U.S.S. Declaration of Independence, now have they? On the other hand, at least TWO very important aircraft carriers — one of which is a floating museum about 200 miles from where I’m sitting — have been named U.S.S. Yorktown.

However, bad history isn’t the MAIN reason I despise the Fourth of July. No, I hate the Fourth of July for two much more obvious and realistic reasons. First, I am FAT and FAIR-SKINNED. Neither of those conditions makes for a great deal of enjoyment on a holiday that falls in the HOTTEST month of the year AND where everything — barbeques, the beach, the lake, etc — that people want to do is OUTSIDE.

Haven’t any of these Sol-worshipping lunatics heard about the Atmospheric Ozone Hole or Global Warming? Oh, that’s right, the GOP has control of part of Congress right now so Global Warming is a myth for another election cycle.

It’s CRAZY HOT OUTSIDE! How much fun can you have with sweat pooling in your nether regions?! I think not much, and have you ever SEEN what goes into most lakes? All that treated sewage water has to go somewhere. That’s another good reason for celebrating Yorktown instead of Liberty Hall — it’d be a WHOLE LOT COOLER!!

The REAL, MAIN reason for my loathing the Fourth of July, however, is simple. I. Hate. Firecrackers. I hate them with a passion the Bloods reserve for the Crips, the passion Red Sox fans reserve for Yankees fans, the passion Cleveland reserves for LeChoke. But you get the point.

I don’t mind the professional displays put on by people with the appropriate credentials to be dealing with high explosives. They are actually very pretty and if I can go to one and get a spot not surrounded by Rhode Island’s population squeezed onto a football field, I’ll gladly go.

No, I hate Roman candles, Black Cat firecrackers, and MOST OF ALL, bottle rockets. I hope a special circle of Hell awaits the Chinese fool who invented bottle rockets. Bottle rockets should be placed on the UN list of weapons of mass destruction. You might think that’s funny and a little overdramatic — but then you aren’t a TOAD! Think about it.

By far, though, the worst part of bottle rocketry comes from the “backyard artillery specialists” who have such great fun “shooting them off!” Personally, I think it’s a compensation thing, but what do I know. All I know is the bombardment starts a good week before the Fourth with just a few random pops, but come the night of “Independence Day” all Hell breaks loose in an all out aerial attack that terrifies my dog, sets many small brushfires, and keeps me awake in fear of my roof becoming a conflagration. It seems to me that the legislature should pass some sort of law that requires people who buy and set off these black powder menaces to at least have a minimum of three teeth. As another safety feature, the “firecrackers” should have some sort of audio amplified microphone that renders the explosive charges inert if the words “Hey y’all, watch this,” OR “Somebody whol’ my beer ‘n hand me that ‘ar lighter.”

We are talking about people (and I use that word loosely) who are not only willing, but delight in putting the stick of a bottle rocket in their anus and lighting it so their butt cheeks sear in the escaping flame and gift us with Eau de Fried Redneck.

Here’s an idea, Bubba; put the bottle rocket on THE OTHER SIDE. Maybe it’ll cook your genetic material and save us from your offspring. Imagine that. Bottle rocket as tool of natural selection — who’d have thought?

Well, all y’all who insist on roasting yourselves, have a good day today, wash your feet tonight, and remember that even if y’all drive me insane, ol’ G.S. Feet still loves you!

Til next time, have a good one!

Jul1

Black Dog Howls

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Trying to describe depression to someone who’d never experienced it is about like trying to describe a rainbow to a man born blind. Now to be clear, I’m not talking about a case of “my baby done left me blues.” I’m talking about “my baby’s right here and wonderful and I still feel like Keith Richards looks.”

First off, this crap is sneaky. I can be just Cadillacing along with everything shining and happy in the world and just like Mjolnir cracking a frost giant’s head, I’m in an unrecoverable flat spin — just like the one that killed Goose. Then you always think it’s going to be a short spell. Just sit down, play some Ugly Birds or read a funny web page or ten and it’ll ease. Unfortunately, when you try that and it DOESN’T work . . . you don’t go back to square one. You go back to square -1.

Then The Tape starts rolling. On good days, I can keep the tape stopped because once it ever starts, I’m in for a miserable ride. See, most people can go through a bad experience and it may bother them; it may even scar them, but normal people put that stuff behind them and over time its impact gets less and less. Normal people can read a news story about some tragedy with people dying or animals being mistreated and it may be a tearful moment, but they won’t dwell on it and obsess about what happened to that little girl or those puppies or whatever.

Not me. I have The Tape.

The Tape is in my head and it contains — in vivid Kodachrome and THX sound — all the bad experiences I’ve had, all the tragedies I’ve read about or seen on tv, all the worries and anxieties and The Tape is on automatic loop. All this garbage starts rolling through my thoughts. Forty years worth of “stuff” all trolling by in exquisite detail. It’s like picking at a scab over a stab wound, which would be fine if it only went by once, but I just keep reliving “the bad ol’ days” over and over again like some perverse uber-version of Groundhog Day.

Oh and I love it when I try to explain The Tape to someone and he or she says “Why don’t you try just not thinking about it? Wow! What insight! You should get the Nobel Prize for Psychology with a brilliant analysis like that! I am in awe of such mental perspicacity! I really appreciate that advice, Captain Obvious. What do you THINK I’m doing?! Seriously? I’m not a masochist in any sense of the word so if I were capable of “Just not thinking about it,” I wouldn’t HAVE this problem, now would I?

That’s what I love about mental issues like depression and OCD — they’re invisible so everyone’s an expert. Really. I mean, who would say to a paraplegic, “Why don’t you just try walking?” You wouldn’t go up to a blind person and yell in her ear (you know, because everyone YELLS at blind people since the apparently can’t hear either) “Well, why don’t you open your eyes and just TRY to see?”

It’s just the nature of the beast and this beast is a black dog who’s been on the Wild Hunt for a week or so now. After awhile, though, you learn to expect it and you pull out all your strategies that five years of therapy teaches you.

Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

Love y’all. More to come later on.

Keep those feet clean.

May19

It’s the End of the World as We Know It . . .

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And I feel fine. My apologies to Michael Stipe and the rest of R.E.M.

Harold Camping, current Doomsday prophet.

So by now you’ve probably heard that the world is going to end this coming Saturday. According to 89 year old self-taught theologian, Harold Camping, the numbers all add up and it’s all over but the shoutin’ as they used to say. From his readings of the Bible, Mr. Camping has worked out the exact day and hour of The Rapture, the supernatural event when Jesus is returning to gather His faithful home. The prediction has spread like wildfire among fringe Christian groups and folks all around the world are, in the words of the old gospel song, “gettin’ ready to leave this world.” A group of atheistic animal lovers has even started a company to address the needs of the beloved pets who will be “left behind” as their owners are Raptured.

As for me, I plan on going to our church’s Saturday night service like Budge and I usually do. Sunday, we’ve got a full day of doing nothing planned, pretty much like always. I’m not really worried about The Rapture taking place this weekend for one simple reason — when Jesus Christ Himself was on the earth teaching His followers, He specifically told them that He didn’t even know when He would return. The only Being in the universe who is privy to that date and time is God the Father and while Mr. Camping IS as old and white headed as most people seem to figure God is, he’s not God.

Ergo, he doesn’t know squat. He’s just another member of the lunatic fringe like that idiot Fred Phelps and his congregation of inbreeders out in Kansas. Just another person heading up a group of like (and feeble) minded people carrying signs and giving non-believers the world over just another reason to mock Jesus and Christianity.

At least the members of Heaven’s Gate had the tact and decency to kill themselves rather than spreading their kooky comet-following message all over the internet.

My Aunt Betty had this painting called "The Rapture in Dallas" hanging in her living room. It scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.

Don’t misunderstand me though. I was raised in a fully Rapture believing and Rapture ready home and church. To be completely honest with y’all, I never figured I’d see forty years old because I believed whole-heartedly that my family and I — based on the steeply declining condition of the world — would be gone in the Rapture well before then. Obviously that hasn’t happened . . . yet. That’s right — yet. I don’t discount the possibility that the Rapture could take place, but it’s not one of the major doctrines of Scripture, it’s very divisive to the Church, and it’s just not a mountain I’m prepared to die on.

All that said, however, growing up steeped in the belief of an imminent Rapture did lead to one of the most “terrifying-then-and-hysterically-funny-now” events of my life. I was a junior in high school and enjoying my best, and last, season as a starter on the school wrestling team. I got home from practice one Tuesday afternoon and the house was empty, which was odd because Mama should have been home. I sat down to a bowl of ice cream and waited. After half an hour, I started to get concerned. One very important thing for y’all to know is this was 1987 — before answering machines were commonplace and way before cell phones were ubiquitous, if they even existed.

This series is pretty close to the beliefs I was taught growing up. If you've read any of it, you know why I was freaking out.

I called Mama’s work, no answer. I called Papa John to see if Mama was over there. No answer. I called Granny and Papa Wham. No answer. Finally, I called out to Aunt Mary’s and I KNEW she was home because her car was in the yard when I came by and she’d be getting supper cooked for Uncle Carroll. No. Answer.

I went into a blind panic and started calling around and everywhere I called either no one answered or I got a busy signal. Now at this point, most rational people would have figured something totally explainable was at work. Well, I was reasonable and I came up with the only logical solution I could think of — The Rapture had come and Jesus took Mama and the rest of my family and I had been left behind! When that realization hit me, I almost upchucked my bowl of ice cream. If you’ve ever studied what some churches teach on the Great Tribulation period that will follow the Rapture, you’ll know what had me in a twist. Seven years of Hell on earth ruled by the Antichrist — Satan’s agent. Anyone who converted to Christianity during that time would be hunted down and publicly executed. Plagues of demons in the form of scorpions. It’s not a pretty picture and that’s exactly what I thought was waiting on me because everyone I knew was a Christian and loved WAS GONE. I was alone and left behind.

When Mama got home thirty minutes later and came into my room to ask my help in getting the groceries she’d stopped off after work to pick up without telling me, she found me sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor rocking back and forth nearly in shock. When I realized it really was her and not a vision of some sort, I nearly broke her back and neck in a bear hug. To this day, I have never felt more relief about anything than I felt at that moment.

Why couldn’t I get in touch with anyone? A car had taken down a telephone pole nearby and service was interrupted. Calls went through like normal, but they wouldn’t connect anywhere.

So be careful what you scoff at!

Love you all and keep those feet clean.

May10

The End Draweth Nigh

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Okay, forget the craziness surrounding 2012 and the Mayan calendar. Don’t pay any attention to all the folks blathering on about Nostradamus’ final predictions and such. Ignore the prophetic signs abundant in the Middle East. Don’t even worry about the guy on the corner with the sandwich board proclaiming “The End of the World is Near.” These petty predictors pale in comparison to the omen I received yesterday morning that our days on this planet are truly drawing to a close.

Before you ask, I didn’t receive a divine visitation or some ESP related premonition. My source is much more reliable than either of those . . . well, depending on WHO the divine visitation is. I mean, I would consider Angelina Jolie or Scarlett Johansson dropping by unannounced as a divine visitation, but I wouldn’t give much credence to any prophetical statements either might make (even though Angie does have that whole “weirdness” thing going on sometimes.)

No, my wake up call, literally, came from the radio beside my bed. I know that the end of the world is coming because NPR — that’s National Public Radio for the Dittoheads out there, you know who you are — aired a full segment interview with (cue ominous music) . . . THE BEASTIE BOYS!

No worries, mates. The show won't last that long!"

Yep, Ad-Rock and Mike-D chatted up a new project they have coming out with one of the erudite and hyper-literate NPR hosts. MCA was sadly absent because of his ongoing fight with cancer. Let me run that one by you again in case you missed it the first time The Beastie Boys — yes, THOSE Beastie Boys — were being interviewed on N.P.R. As Bugs Bunny once remarked in his Bronx accent, “Now I’ve seen everyting!”

I could understand when Pearl Jam started appearing on my local Classic Rock station. It was hard at first because I was like, “Pearl Jam?! What gives? Vedder rocks forever! They just had a HUGE tour in 2000! Oh, yeah, um, 2000 . . . that was like  eleven ye-. . . *heavy sigh*.” So yeah, that was harsh, but I could deal. I deluded myself into thinking some things are just “instant classics”, you know?

I was even able to handle the crushing blow of seeing one of my other favorite bands — Foreigner — have their Greatest Hits cd on sale — not at somewhere like Record Bar (if you don’t know what Record Bar is, PLEASE, don’t ask. I feel bad enough already) or even Target or Walmart. Foreigner, the whole “Hot Blooded” bunch of them was on sale at HALLMARK. Right between the stationery with puppies and kittens and the new Vera Bradley releases sat one of the iconic rock bands. HALLMARK. I could just barely hold my composure until I got to the Element where I could give full vent to my sorrow. Budge was extremely worried and asked me what was the matter. I sobbed out, “Foreigner is on sale at Hallmark!” and erupted into another bout of misery.

She just looked at me with that look of “Someone tell me again why I hitched my wagon to this horse?” I have a picture of that look. I really want to put it up in a post on here but I’ve been promised grievous bodily harm should that ever happen.

"I'm givin' 'er all she's got cap'n! She cannae ta' much more!"

I managed to survive the revelation that Steve Tyler — the rock god frontman of Aerosmith (and father of Arwen Evenstar) — was going to be a judge on American freaking Idol. When I read that news on MSN, I couldn’t help but start quoting from Shelley’s “Ozymandias”. I didn’t realize I was speaking aloud until Budge asked my why I was quoting

Romantics and I told her that Steven Tyler was to judge American Idol.

I got The Look again for my trouble.

The Beastie Boys on NPR though? That’s it. I am officially PAST old and well on my way to ancient. When one of the first groups you ever headbanged to trade in “Brass Monkey” for Perrier, the Apocalypse cannot be too far away. All that is left is for The Rolling Stones to finally disintegrate and fall into dust right in the middle of a live performance of “Satisfaction” for me to know that it’s all over but the crying. After all, once The Beastie Boys do NPR, what’s left? I guess I could hear Def Leppard playing as elevator Muzak. Of course, once that happens, I’m just taking that elevator on up to the ceiling and jumping off. I don’t want to be around for the earth-rending events that are sure to follow!

Love y’all! Keep those feet clean and if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go read my Easton Press copy of W.B. Yeats’ poems. I think I’ll start with “The Second Coming.”

Apr26

I Coulda Been A Contenda’

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Right about now I should be on the last leg of my homeward trek from Orlando, Fla after completely dominating all comers in the Jeopardy! interview and tournament, thus assuring myself of a chance to show both “Watson” and one Mr. Ken Jennings just who’s the smartest one of all.

But I’m not.

This guy who, speaking for him and his mates, once claimed to “be more famous than Jesus” once said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” That’s pretty much what happened to my Jeopardy! tryout. My Budge is still a lot dizzy, even though she has returned to work. She cannot possibly drive, nor would I even consider leaving her if she was in less than perfect health.

In the interest of complete transparency, however, I confess that she and I had decided I was not going down to Orlando anyway about three days before she had her run-in with the vertigo gremlin. I actually had emailed the contact in Orlando to let them know I wasn’t coming not too long before Budge called me to her side and proceeded to get so violently sick. Her vertigo was just proof positive to me that I wasn’t meant to be in sunny central Florida today.

The main reason I bowed out of the selection process was a simple one — money, or rather the serious lack thereof. Even before being presented with a preposterous $12,000.oo hospital bill (which will be the subject of an upcoming RANT, believe me) the fuel cost was a big roadblock to the trip. See, Disneytown is somewhere between “that’s a long ride” and “good lord, what was I thinking?” in distance from our home. We had figured it would take three tankfuls of petrol – at minimum – to make the round trip. With the current obscenely greedy speculator driven price of gas hovering around $3.50 a gallon, one tank in my beloved Element costs nigh on $50. Even my mathematically challenged brain can figure out that’s $150, and that’s just gas. By the time we tacked on a hotel room, since Budge and Mama both put the kibosh on me driving down and turning right around to come home, and food — well, it just wasn’t happening.

Then there’s the part about the tryout that the television executives don’t tell you when you pass the online test, but rather wait until you are all pumped about getting on the show. If I had aced the tryout and the interview (and I see no reason why I shouldn’t have) and been invited to the show, I would have been solely responsible for getting myself out to Holly-weird where — per Jeopardy! emails — I would be required to remain for five days WITH NO GUARANTEE of being on the show AT ALL.

Let me run that by you again. I’d have to get to one of the most expensive cities in California and stay for A WEEK paying for a hotel, food, and the occasional excursion to fend off hotel cabin fever to MAYBE get a shot at POSSIBLY being a contestant. So what would have happened if the five days came and went and I didn’t get on the show? I’d have to get back home — somehow.

Gentle readers, if I could afford to get out to LA for a week and come back home, I wouldn’t NEED to be on Jeopardy! because I’d have a boatload of money. I mean, have you SEEN the cost of an airline ticket from South Carolina out to the Left Coast? With the way I hear most people talk about flying, I’d probably have to go to Boston, then Rio, then back to Dallas, and finally get out to California. Apparently, no one ever pointed out to these airline people the whole “shortest distance is a straight line” thing. Oh, and all this is predicated on the fact that I could even get the nerve up to get on a plane. My widebody butt doesn’t belong on a widebody jet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid of flying. I am, however, mortally terrified of crashing. Of course any time I bring that up, someone wants to blather on about flying being statistically safer than driving a car. That may actually be true, but I would like to point out that I personally know several people, including Budge, Mama, my brother Nick, and even myself who have survived one and sometimes more car crashes.

I don’t know anyone who fell out of the sky in a big flaming aluminum cylinder and lived to tell about it.

Even the Bible speaks warns against flying in an airplane. If it didn’t then why does Scripture say, “and Lo, I am with you always,”? Get that? LOW. Nothing about some 30,000 feet in the air. Who am I to gainsay Holy Writ?

So, I guess the world will just have to wait a while longer before I make my triumphal quiz show debut. Even though I’m certain it would have been glorious, I’ll have to rely on the thought that carried Papa Wham and I through the dismal decade of the 1980s as Atlanta Braves fans, the same thought that has sustained legions of Cubbie faithful since 1903 —

There’s always next year!

Love y’all!

Be good to each other and keep those feet clean.

Apr24

Habeas Corpus

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Today is Easter Sunday.

Today, Christians the world over celebrate the most important event in the history of the world — Jesus Christ’s rising from the dead. The Resurrection is not only the most important event in history, but also the most ridiculed event in history as well. To adherents of other religions, including atheism and its current priestly triumvirate of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, the idea that a man can — and did — rise from the dead is mythology akin to Prometheus being bound in the Caucasus Mountains or Odin and his offspring riding down the Rainbow Bridge from Asgard to fight Ragnarok.

From time to time I have wrestled with doubts over the veracity of the Resurrection accounts, but one compelling and unanswerable detail has nailed me to my faith in Christ as surely as He was nailed to a Roman cross. If Jesus of Nazareth did not raise from the dead, where is His body?

The founders of other religions of the world are accounted for. Gautama the Buddha was cremated and containers of his ashes given as relics to shrines. Confucius is interred in Qufu, China, his hometown. The Mohammad lies beneath  the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina.

But wither the Carpenter of Nazareth? Where are the remains of He whom Pilate, a Roman provincial governor not prone to flights of superstition, named “REX IVDAEORVM” ? Where is the body of The Christ, the Holy One of God?

First, Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who died on a real cross at a real point in time in the very real and verifiable Roman province of Judea in or about 33 AD. Forget about “the search for Jesus” or “the historical Jesus”. We have the Gospels and they say He lived. We have Josephus and Philo and they say He lived. Still people want to dispute Jesus’ existence. To them I say, was Julius Caesar real? Prove it. Less contemporary material exists mentioning the would-be Roman emperor than mentions Christ by a magnitude of ten yet no one doubts Caesar’s life and deeds. Why must Christ’s life be called a myth? If we are going to play these reindeer games, let’s all play by the same rules for all historical persons.

So, where is His body?

The Resurrection DESTROYED the Roman Empire. It made Jews, sadly, a cast out and hunted people. Logic dictates that if either the Romans or the Jews had knowledge or possession of Jesus’ body, as soon as Christians like Peter started preaching in the streets, these men would have gone to a tomb, carted out Jesus’ body, unwrapped it and said, “Here is your ‘Savior'”.

Christianity would have come to a swift end.

But it didn’t.

Through reading I have settled on two unassailable facets of Roman life. First, the Romans were excellent record keepers. Second, the Romans were excellent killers. The Romans in Palestine who crucified Jesus didn’t “misplace” the body and they didn’t take Jesus down “alive” from the cross so that He “got better” then showed up later on. I don’t have the time or space to shoot those two arguments against the Resurrection as full of holes as they deserve to be, but luckily others have done that yeoman’s work in my place. My suggestion is to start with the thin book by Josh McDowell titled More than a Carpenter if you want to start exploring the arguments over the centuries around Jesus’ death and resurrection.

I must warn you, though, before you undertake such a journey. Many extremely passionate and intelligent men have set out to debunk Christianity’s claim that Jesus rose from the dead. None have succeeded and many have become believers and followers of Christ in the process.

Will you?

Love y’all and Happy Easter.

Why are you seeking the living among the dead? He is Risen, just as He said He would.

Mar18

Are You Talkin’ To Me?!

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Most of us have watched a young Robert De Niro playing cab driver Travis Bickle posing in the mirror with a gun and an attitude while repeating over and over, “You talkin’ to me?” It’s a great scene but it’s just one more way in which we realize dear Travis is a bean or two short of a full bowl of chili.

Now, yesterday, I was walking around in the Garden Tools section of Lowes — or as I like to describe it, Toy R Us for males — when this guy down the aisle a bit from me starts flailing his arms around and screaming and he’s looking dead at me. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, this was not my first rodeo with babbling lunatics involved. I taught high school and middle school — I’m ready for anything. So, I stopped and adopted a good defensive posture to let dude know I wasn’t backing down from his craziness. Oh, and I also reached over and picked up a nice double-faced axe just in case I had to get all Gimli from Lord of the Rings on Rainman here. Luckily (for both of us since nothing adds pounds like “jumpsuit orange”) before I could yell out a cool dwarven war cry and get in touch with my Viko-Celtic roots, the guy turned and I saw it — he had a freaking BLUETOOTH MICROPHONE IN HIS EAR.

This idiotic phenomenon has become a pox, nay a plague, a veritable pestilence on the good graces of our public spaces these days. One can hardly walk around a mall or even a park without coming upon someone babbling incoherently to himself about picking up the milk and cat food or laughing maniacally to herself while continually repeating, “I KNOW, right?” Just about the time we get ready to pull our wives and children close and sprint to the other side of the aisle / sidewalk / track, etc, the goober turns around to reveal the blue blinking light practically embedded in his or her ear.

They have been assimilated.

No, really, watch somebody sporting a Jawbone and tell me she doesn’t look like she forgot to take off some makeup props before she left the Star Trek set where she was trying out for the part of Seven of Nine in the upcoming Broadway release “Star Trek: The Musical”. (They aren’t really making that play . . . at least I don’t think they are but with this Spiderman fiasco, who knows. But I digress). All over the highways and supermarkets of America, people are turning into Borg. I refuse to believe resistance is futile!

Now I admit, I hate cell phones on general principle. I am of the ilk who believe if someone isn’t home when you call, he or she doesn’t want to talk to you right then. Were it not for Budge and Mama’s dual insistence, I wouldn’t have one of the wretched, brain rotting devices. Cell phones are the final straw that is going to usher the barbarians through the gates.

 

Come ON now, Dude! Seriously? Two words: Voice Mail.

When the day has arrived that I cannot rid myself of the dregs of a two bean burritos lunch in Target without hearing a tinny version of MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” coming from the next stall — followed by some fool saying “Hello?”, we are truly on the downhill slide of the slippery slope. You are pooping you fool, you need to concentrate and so do the rest of us!! Besides, do you really want to consider the environment you are placing near your hands, mouth, and ears?

 

Um, EWW!

Then we have the drivers barreling down the road yakking away into their “hands free device.” Apparently, hands free has become a euphemism for “wreckage inducing contraption.” You are theoretically controlling a huge hunk of steel, aluminum, glass and rubber down a stretch of autobahn at well over the posted speed limits, so you need to be concentrating on the predicament at hand, not arguing with your mother over a stupid bunch of bananas she wanted to leave you but you had no need for! For the love of all that’s holy, just TAKE THE BANANAS and HANG UP THE PHONE!

Yes, Brethren and Sistren, the ubiquitous Bluetooth in the ear is the ultimate sign the apocalypse is upon us. Not long ago, if you sat animatedly jabbering to yourself complete with hand waving and hair tugging, the nice kind men in the white coats would come and gently take you to a softly lit comfortable room with lots of padding on the walls where you could wait while being fitted for your cute jacket with the sleeves that tie in the back.

Not anymore. The rabid Bluetooth invasion has made it impossible to tell the disturbed from the merely obnoxious. Just last week, I was having a date night with Budge and watched a man and woman sit two tables across from us, both carrying on extremely animated conversations — just not with each other. All the while, that cute little blue light kept pulsing around both their temples.

Really? You can’t take that ear funk coated spit stained hunk of Bakelite out of your face long enough to talk over a meal to the person IN FRONT OF YOU?

Why, YES, as a matter of fact I AM a raging douchebag!

We are all doomed.

If I owned a restaurant, I’d have a Faraday Cage built into the walls of the building. It’s not that I’m a Luddite or something. I love technology. I just hate that rules of decent behavior and civility haven’t kept pace with the times!

So, in closing, I love y’all, but if you are walking or driving around talking to yourself because of a little chip in your ear, I’m going to make fun of you, laugh at you, and think you are a goober — especially if you cut me off in traffic because you aren’t paying attention!

Til then, keep those feet clean and those Blueteeth put away!