Some People Just Don't Finish The Journey
Take at look at this story about former astronaut Charles Brady committing suicide, then tell me what could have been so bad to justify taking that way out of life?
Medical Doctor, Pilot, Blue Angels, Space Shuttle Astronaut...
What a sad waste of humanity, and what a bitter end to a life otherwise well lived.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
I'm The Slumlord Of Arabia
Houser of the Crackhead Infadels...
Well, I'm happy to report that I found that things were't that bad over in the real world once I managed to drag myself over there yesterday afternoon.
As is usual a few times each year, the side door of my duplex had AGAIN been kicked in and there was evidence of incessant stupidity conducted all the while standing around on a hard tiled concrete floor, but the place really wasn't any worse for the wear.
After a quick trip to Home Depot for a reinforcing plate and a few screws and nuts and bolts, the door was back on it's hinges and locked, a sturdy steel pipe brace was installed between it and the fridge, and the yard was policed of miscellaneous beer bottles and litter.
Sometime in the past few months the house two doors down mostly burned to the ground, and the one next door has been demolished to a pile of sticks and bricks.
I hope that they haul everything off shortly, then I'm going to pursue buying that property to add to my little "slumlord empire." That acquisition would give me six lots, facing each other on opposite sides of the street (three each side) and improve my prospects of actually developing the land with some little starter houses or townhouses at some point.
You can call me a racist or a bigot or whatever you want to, but I have to tell you, I'm really afraid that these silly, uselessnegros blacks African Americans are just going to continue to sink into the pit of poverty no matter how much government money is thrown at them, and no matter how much effort is spent by rednecks people like me that are interested in improving their lot in life.
They just don't get it...that being cool and hip and "a Player" doesn't equate to employment and otherwise marketable skills. Being a pimp might be cool on MTV, but all it really gets you is 12 months in the local slammer and all of the fans of "Pop Culture" can all just kiss my lilly white ass and go to hell in my considered Redneck opinion.
Yesterday, if one twenty year old black man rode past my repair efforts on a bicycle, twenty five did. The neighborhood is filled with and paralyzed by lethargy and ignorance and the next generation of unemployed thugs is being raised by the idle so called "adults" I found around me. (Actually, the reality is that the children are raising the children, because the women are all working while the men sit on their collective asses.)
I hate it for them AND ME, but there is little one single little white man philanthropist/investor can do as long as a few misguided individuals in the community continue to attack and destroy everything around them that isn't armor plated or bolted down.
Yet, being the hardheaded fool that I am, I keep on keeping on, because I'm...
(By the way...the spelling of Infidel, is intentionally misspelled... so don't be sending me comments and ridicule...)
Well, I'm happy to report that I found that things were't that bad over in the real world once I managed to drag myself over there yesterday afternoon.
As is usual a few times each year, the side door of my duplex had AGAIN been kicked in and there was evidence of incessant stupidity conducted all the while standing around on a hard tiled concrete floor, but the place really wasn't any worse for the wear.
After a quick trip to Home Depot for a reinforcing plate and a few screws and nuts and bolts, the door was back on it's hinges and locked, a sturdy steel pipe brace was installed between it and the fridge, and the yard was policed of miscellaneous beer bottles and litter.
Sometime in the past few months the house two doors down mostly burned to the ground, and the one next door has been demolished to a pile of sticks and bricks.
I hope that they haul everything off shortly, then I'm going to pursue buying that property to add to my little "slumlord empire." That acquisition would give me six lots, facing each other on opposite sides of the street (three each side) and improve my prospects of actually developing the land with some little starter houses or townhouses at some point.
You can call me a racist or a bigot or whatever you want to, but I have to tell you, I'm really afraid that these silly, useless
They just don't get it...that being cool and hip and "a Player" doesn't equate to employment and otherwise marketable skills. Being a pimp might be cool on MTV, but all it really gets you is 12 months in the local slammer and all of the fans of "Pop Culture" can all just kiss my lilly white ass and go to hell in my considered Redneck opinion.
Yesterday, if one twenty year old black man rode past my repair efforts on a bicycle, twenty five did. The neighborhood is filled with and paralyzed by lethargy and ignorance and the next generation of unemployed thugs is being raised by the idle so called "adults" I found around me. (Actually, the reality is that the children are raising the children, because the women are all working while the men sit on their collective asses.)
I hate it for them AND ME, but there is little one single little white man philanthropist/investor can do as long as a few misguided individuals in the community continue to attack and destroy everything around them that isn't armor plated or bolted down.
Yet, being the hardheaded fool that I am, I keep on keeping on, because I'm...
(By the way...the spelling of Infidel, is intentionally misspelled... so don't be sending me comments and ridicule...)
Fried Dill Pickles
More Weird Stuff From My Life
Pat and I have become friends with many of our neighbors that have been coming down here to St. simons Island on vacation for most of the past thirty years or so. Many are the children or other relatives of the original owners of the condos we live in, so many people that we end up hanging out with at the pool basically grew up here in the summers and holidays.
We’re only spending our third summer here, but we're fortunate that we’ve been adopted into the “Sea Palms Colony Clan” and now they’re starting to make demands of me and my cooking talents.
I’ve already hosted a couple of what I call my “Drive By, Pool Side BBQ’s” over the past couple of years, and now some of the wives are starting to challenge me with specific recipes and dishes that they like, that they eat in the local restaurants, or that they otherwise enjoy.
Most recently, the topic at the pool has been something called “Fried Dill Pickles.”
Well, you know me and my big mouth…I said that it had to be easy, and when the dust settled I was forced to spend this evening figuring out how to fry a dill pickle—because I’ll be serving them poolside tomorrow afternoon.
It turns out that it really is easy, and after surfing the internet to look at some examples, here’s what I came up with to fry me some dill pickles this evening:
1 egg
½ cup of milk
1 tbsp Crystal hot sauce
½ tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
½ tsp salt
½ tsp white pepper
½ tsp black pepper
½ tbsp flour
1 cup of flour
1 quart of dill pickle wedges
Enough oil (peanut, canola, or Crisco) to make a puddle ¾” deep
First things first…toss your oil into a deep skillet or a shallow boiler and crank up the heat on the stovetop so that you can get somewhere near 350 degrees F. Temperature is your friend here, so use a candy thermometer or whatever other appliance you have to check your oil temperature else you’ll have greasy, floppy, limp dill pickles.
As I understand it, women hate limp pickles…fried or otherwise…but I digress…
Next, beat your egg up real good in a medium mixing bowl, then add the milk and spices and stir it all up.
In a separate bowl, dump in your flour, and add a little salt and pepper if you want to. I actually added a little cayenne pepper just to add a little Emeril style “bam” to the mixture.
Once your oil has heated, dredge your pickle wedges in the flour, then into the egg/milk mixture, then back into the flour, then do it all over again. Build yourself a nice thick coating of batter on the outside of your pickles.
Now toss them into the oil a half dozen at the time, and watch them sizzle away, turning them once or twice until they are golden brown. Lay them in groups on a stack of paper towels on a plate on the side to drain and cool.
Sprinkle a little salt and cayenne pepper over them, maybe make a horseradish sauce or mustard sauce for dipping, and step out of the way of the stampede because THESE THINGS ARE TASTY.
I can hardly wait to put my cooking where my mouth is tomorrow afternoon.
Regards y’all
The Redneck Gourmet
Pat and I have become friends with many of our neighbors that have been coming down here to St. simons Island on vacation for most of the past thirty years or so. Many are the children or other relatives of the original owners of the condos we live in, so many people that we end up hanging out with at the pool basically grew up here in the summers and holidays.
We’re only spending our third summer here, but we're fortunate that we’ve been adopted into the “Sea Palms Colony Clan” and now they’re starting to make demands of me and my cooking talents.
I’ve already hosted a couple of what I call my “Drive By, Pool Side BBQ’s” over the past couple of years, and now some of the wives are starting to challenge me with specific recipes and dishes that they like, that they eat in the local restaurants, or that they otherwise enjoy.
Most recently, the topic at the pool has been something called “Fried Dill Pickles.”
Well, you know me and my big mouth…I said that it had to be easy, and when the dust settled I was forced to spend this evening figuring out how to fry a dill pickle—because I’ll be serving them poolside tomorrow afternoon.
It turns out that it really is easy, and after surfing the internet to look at some examples, here’s what I came up with to fry me some dill pickles this evening:
1 egg
½ cup of milk
1 tbsp Crystal hot sauce
½ tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
½ tsp salt
½ tsp white pepper
½ tsp black pepper
½ tbsp flour
1 cup of flour
1 quart of dill pickle wedges
Enough oil (peanut, canola, or Crisco) to make a puddle ¾” deep
First things first…toss your oil into a deep skillet or a shallow boiler and crank up the heat on the stovetop so that you can get somewhere near 350 degrees F. Temperature is your friend here, so use a candy thermometer or whatever other appliance you have to check your oil temperature else you’ll have greasy, floppy, limp dill pickles.
As I understand it, women hate limp pickles…fried or otherwise…but I digress…
Next, beat your egg up real good in a medium mixing bowl, then add the milk and spices and stir it all up.
In a separate bowl, dump in your flour, and add a little salt and pepper if you want to. I actually added a little cayenne pepper just to add a little Emeril style “bam” to the mixture.
Once your oil has heated, dredge your pickle wedges in the flour, then into the egg/milk mixture, then back into the flour, then do it all over again. Build yourself a nice thick coating of batter on the outside of your pickles.
Now toss them into the oil a half dozen at the time, and watch them sizzle away, turning them once or twice until they are golden brown. Lay them in groups on a stack of paper towels on a plate on the side to drain and cool.
Sprinkle a little salt and cayenne pepper over them, maybe make a horseradish sauce or mustard sauce for dipping, and step out of the way of the stampede because THESE THINGS ARE TASTY.
I can hardly wait to put my cooking where my mouth is tomorrow afternoon.
Regards y’all
The Redneck Gourmet
Thursday, July 27, 2006
I Be A Slumlord
Low Rent Housing
I bought my first house when I was 25 years old. I put a chunk of cash down, and rode out a mortgage at 9.5% for a few years before I sold the house and upgraded to the lovely home that I ended up giving to my ex-wife in our divorce. Never mind that I designed it and had it built to MY specifications, it was her house because that’s the way the law works in Georgia.
Next I bought a “fixer-upper” and, after renting it for a while and watching the owner and the owner’s agent go bankrupt, I got a great deal—two story, brick on all four sides, tongue and groove decking instead of plywood, solid as a rock, and I busted my ass working part time renovating it. New roof, rebuilt soffits and facias, kitchen cabinet doors, new paint inside and out, you know the story.
Then it burned down in 2001.
A total loss of building and 99% of the contents.
All I got out of it was some smoke stained books and files, and a six figure insurance check. I took the money and ran away from Atlanta, Georgia because by that time I’d had it up to here (pointing to the top of my ever graying, ever balding head…)
Since that day I have to admit that the real estate business has been of secondary importance to me, but that I have made a little money investing in vacant land in Florida and most recently I’ve been the proud owner of a duplex and three adjacent vacant lots in downtown Brunswick.
I say proud in a tongue in cheek manner, because where my property lies you wouldn’t want to walk down the street at night with a hundred dollars in your pocket. Heck, I suspect that fifty cents would be enough to get you cut if not killed.
I had to run one of my tenants out of the duplex a couple of summers ago due to non-payment of the rent, and the other one’s, a man in his mid 30’s, mother moved him into the home of a relative (because she was paying his rent) that passed away thereby ending my first stint as a official “slumlord.”
Since I hate having to go around banging on doors to collect rent money, I’ve just let the property sit there and fester unoccupied, and therein lies my problem today.
It seems that for some reason, people like to inspect it and open it up and look inside, without my permission. At least three different times now before this week someone has kicked the side door in and just did a tour.
You know wander around and look at the rooms, comment on the paint colors (or lack thereof), rummage through the empty kitchen cabinets…stuff like that.
What blew my mind was that last fall they broke in and they actually STOLE THE ENTIRE KITCHEN SINK AND CABINET from the right hand unit.
You heard me right…they STOLE MY KITCHEN SINK.
W.T.F?
Well, today I learned that again someone has taken yet another unauthorized tour, and apparently they’ve started hanging out in some manner because Ozzie, my agent, told me that when he stopped by the front door was unlocked and all of the windows were open.
Just Damn….
I didn’t find out until about 4 PM yesterday so I didn’t have the energy to drive over there from the island, but I guess I’ll go over tomorrow, turn on the water, flush whatever the hell is in the toilet down the drain, and try to lock everything back up and fix whatever is broken.
Dammit, but why can’t people just leave other people’s stuff alone?
I just called the police about 3 AM this morning, told them about the situation, and asked them to send an officer by to check out who or whomever might be using the place as a crack house or a crash pad. I figure that if someone is there, that by this late hour they’ve probably got all settled in and if the police will do their job they will have an early, rude awakening.
Can you say charges for possession of drugs?
Can you say charges for solicitation of prostitution?
Can you say charges for weapons possession?
Can you say charges for trespassing?
Can you say arrest for outstanding warrants?
I sure hope so...
Any way, there’s no water, no electricity, no furniture, and the whole place is made of concrete blocks inside and out so they can’t really hurt it, but it was relatively clean the last time I was over there and I’m afraid that they are going to crap it up one way or another so it will cost more to fix when and if I get back into the slumlord business.
I’m thinking about adding an addition onto to the back of it or possibly adding a second story level to it because it is so small and cramped right now, but the neighborhood has a ways to go before any self-respecting families are going to want to move in so I have to watch my level of investment.
The good news is that a builder built a new house about two blocks away, so things are turning around and my idea of building three or four new townhouses across the street might not be so hair brained after all.
Stay tuned to this station for yet another episode of...
“Slum Lord of Arabia…Houser of the Crack Head Infadels…”
Here's my new logo:
I bought my first house when I was 25 years old. I put a chunk of cash down, and rode out a mortgage at 9.5% for a few years before I sold the house and upgraded to the lovely home that I ended up giving to my ex-wife in our divorce. Never mind that I designed it and had it built to MY specifications, it was her house because that’s the way the law works in Georgia.
Next I bought a “fixer-upper” and, after renting it for a while and watching the owner and the owner’s agent go bankrupt, I got a great deal—two story, brick on all four sides, tongue and groove decking instead of plywood, solid as a rock, and I busted my ass working part time renovating it. New roof, rebuilt soffits and facias, kitchen cabinet doors, new paint inside and out, you know the story.
Then it burned down in 2001.
A total loss of building and 99% of the contents.
All I got out of it was some smoke stained books and files, and a six figure insurance check. I took the money and ran away from Atlanta, Georgia because by that time I’d had it up to here (pointing to the top of my ever graying, ever balding head…)
Since that day I have to admit that the real estate business has been of secondary importance to me, but that I have made a little money investing in vacant land in Florida and most recently I’ve been the proud owner of a duplex and three adjacent vacant lots in downtown Brunswick.
I say proud in a tongue in cheek manner, because where my property lies you wouldn’t want to walk down the street at night with a hundred dollars in your pocket. Heck, I suspect that fifty cents would be enough to get you cut if not killed.
I had to run one of my tenants out of the duplex a couple of summers ago due to non-payment of the rent, and the other one’s, a man in his mid 30’s, mother moved him into the home of a relative (because she was paying his rent) that passed away thereby ending my first stint as a official “slumlord.”
Since I hate having to go around banging on doors to collect rent money, I’ve just let the property sit there and fester unoccupied, and therein lies my problem today.
It seems that for some reason, people like to inspect it and open it up and look inside, without my permission. At least three different times now before this week someone has kicked the side door in and just did a tour.
You know wander around and look at the rooms, comment on the paint colors (or lack thereof), rummage through the empty kitchen cabinets…stuff like that.
What blew my mind was that last fall they broke in and they actually STOLE THE ENTIRE KITCHEN SINK AND CABINET from the right hand unit.
You heard me right…they STOLE MY KITCHEN SINK.
W.T.F?
Well, today I learned that again someone has taken yet another unauthorized tour, and apparently they’ve started hanging out in some manner because Ozzie, my agent, told me that when he stopped by the front door was unlocked and all of the windows were open.
Just Damn….
I didn’t find out until about 4 PM yesterday so I didn’t have the energy to drive over there from the island, but I guess I’ll go over tomorrow, turn on the water, flush whatever the hell is in the toilet down the drain, and try to lock everything back up and fix whatever is broken.
Dammit, but why can’t people just leave other people’s stuff alone?
I just called the police about 3 AM this morning, told them about the situation, and asked them to send an officer by to check out who or whomever might be using the place as a crack house or a crash pad. I figure that if someone is there, that by this late hour they’ve probably got all settled in and if the police will do their job they will have an early, rude awakening.
Can you say charges for possession of drugs?
Can you say charges for solicitation of prostitution?
Can you say charges for weapons possession?
Can you say charges for trespassing?
Can you say arrest for outstanding warrants?
I sure hope so...
Any way, there’s no water, no electricity, no furniture, and the whole place is made of concrete blocks inside and out so they can’t really hurt it, but it was relatively clean the last time I was over there and I’m afraid that they are going to crap it up one way or another so it will cost more to fix when and if I get back into the slumlord business.
I’m thinking about adding an addition onto to the back of it or possibly adding a second story level to it because it is so small and cramped right now, but the neighborhood has a ways to go before any self-respecting families are going to want to move in so I have to watch my level of investment.
The good news is that a builder built a new house about two blocks away, so things are turning around and my idea of building three or four new townhouses across the street might not be so hair brained after all.
Stay tuned to this station for yet another episode of...
“Slum Lord of Arabia…Houser of the Crack Head Infadels…”
Here's my new logo:
A Face Made For Radio
That Would Be Me…
Back in high school several of my buddies got jobs as “DJ’s” at the local AM and FM radio stations.
It wasn’t exactly rocket science, and although I suppose that there is a certain glamour associated with the job title, in reality what being a radio DJ amounts to is hours and hours spent sitting beside a bunch of electronic equipment waiting to go pee and go home.
Matt, Mark, and John all spun disks and did voice transitions into station breaks for a little cash, and sometimes we’d go out to the station and hang out with them just for fun.
The hard part then would be getting the aforementioned “DJ” to stop laughing so that he could talk plainly when needed. We made a sort of game of it…Goose the “DJ”…
Any way, I think that John owns one of the old stations today, or at least he is the station manager, while Matt and Mark went on to other careers.
That brings me to my real subject this morning…I’ve just learned that my friend Matt is still in the radio business in a way, broadcasting an internet radio stream over at The Sandbox…QIRT.com.
If you have a high speed internet connection, click on the link and go check Matt’s efforts out. It’s all 1970’s and early 1980’s rock and roll with NO COMMERCIALS. I open a browser window, fire up the music, and let it entertain me while I write and complain about the world.
And that smooth voice which you hear every 15 minutes, that would be Matt.
Stop by and take a listen…if you will…
Back in high school several of my buddies got jobs as “DJ’s” at the local AM and FM radio stations.
It wasn’t exactly rocket science, and although I suppose that there is a certain glamour associated with the job title, in reality what being a radio DJ amounts to is hours and hours spent sitting beside a bunch of electronic equipment waiting to go pee and go home.
Matt, Mark, and John all spun disks and did voice transitions into station breaks for a little cash, and sometimes we’d go out to the station and hang out with them just for fun.
The hard part then would be getting the aforementioned “DJ” to stop laughing so that he could talk plainly when needed. We made a sort of game of it…Goose the “DJ”…
Any way, I think that John owns one of the old stations today, or at least he is the station manager, while Matt and Mark went on to other careers.
That brings me to my real subject this morning…I’ve just learned that my friend Matt is still in the radio business in a way, broadcasting an internet radio stream over at The Sandbox…QIRT.com.
If you have a high speed internet connection, click on the link and go check Matt’s efforts out. It’s all 1970’s and early 1980’s rock and roll with NO COMMERCIALS. I open a browser window, fire up the music, and let it entertain me while I write and complain about the world.
And that smooth voice which you hear every 15 minutes, that would be Matt.
Stop by and take a listen…if you will…
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Blog Readers Keep Speaking Out
Thanks Patrick!!!
Here's another letter to the editor of the Brunswick News from Today's edition:
Resident lends support to tree sculpture project
I would like to state my dismay at the public and editorial outcry that has arisen from members of Brunswick and the Golden Isles community over the proposed K Street tree sculpture project.
The main complaint seems to be about money, but it was stated in the preliminary planning of the project that the lion's share of the funding for this project would come from private donations and fundraising efforts of volunteers – not the taxpayers.
I would like to encourage the mayor and the city and county commissioners to move forward with the K Street tree sculpture project as planned. As someone who grew up here, I consider the beautification and revitalization of the city of Brunswick of great importance to Glynn County and Coastal Georgia. Please make this project a reality, and bring a world class piece of art to the city of Brunswick for which all can be proud.
Support the K Street tree sculpture project.
Patrick Armstrong
St. Simons Island
I'm still working on the preliminary footing design and architectural issues and I am glad that people are listening to the story.
Here's another letter to the editor of the Brunswick News from Today's edition:
Resident lends support to tree sculpture project
I would like to state my dismay at the public and editorial outcry that has arisen from members of Brunswick and the Golden Isles community over the proposed K Street tree sculpture project.
The main complaint seems to be about money, but it was stated in the preliminary planning of the project that the lion's share of the funding for this project would come from private donations and fundraising efforts of volunteers – not the taxpayers.
I would like to encourage the mayor and the city and county commissioners to move forward with the K Street tree sculpture project as planned. As someone who grew up here, I consider the beautification and revitalization of the city of Brunswick of great importance to Glynn County and Coastal Georgia. Please make this project a reality, and bring a world class piece of art to the city of Brunswick for which all can be proud.
Support the K Street tree sculpture project.
Patrick Armstrong
St. Simons Island
I'm still working on the preliminary footing design and architectural issues and I am glad that people are listening to the story.
Middle Aged Health Issues
You Are What You Eat?
Gosh dang it all Ladies and Gentlemen, but I find myself rapidly sliding down the slippery slope of middle age.
I guess that, like the old saying goes…”another day above ground beats the heck out of the alternative…”
I’m just a few months shy of being Forty Seven Years Old, and I sometimes feel like I’ve already lived to at least One Hundred.
Somebody out there, I forget who, was once quoted as saying “If I knew that I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself…”
I totally agree…
I often look at myself in the mirror and yell at the ever graying, ever balding, dumpy imposter that has wrapped himself around the kid that just a few decades ago could run three miles in eighteen minutes.
Seriously, when I was in my late teens and early twenty’s I could walk out my front door, tighten my shoe laces, stretch my legs, and run away from my dorm room or apartment and not stop until I had put ten or twelve miles behind me.
Unlike the old Rodney Dangerfield joke about running five miles a day each week (hey doctor…I’m 35 miles from home), I’d just turn around and jog back home in time for dinner and a couple of beers with my friends.
Then one day back in 1983 when I was throwing Frisbee at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, I started having pains in my right leg, and the rest is history. I have since found out that I have inherited something called “hyper-coagulate blood,” along with a deluxe set of bad veins in my legs.
My condition is the opposite of being a hemophiliac—instead of tending to bleed to death, my blood try’s its’ best to turn to Jello if I don’t pay attention and take my meds regularly.
So any way, I’ve learned to live with the condition in spite of its attempt to kill me about every five years since the initial occurrence, but it has put a serious dent on my athletic endeavors and physical conditioning.
No more Ultimate Frisbee.
No more long distance running.
No more water skiing.
No more snow skiing.
No more scuba diving.
No more flying airplanes.
I could go on and on, but I also realize that I’ve had the opportunity to do so many things that so many people on the planet never have the cash or opportunity to do even if their bodies will allow it, so I’ll just leave that abbreviated list where it stands—I’m quite grateful for the opportunities which I’ve had thus far in my life.
I’m also quite happy to still be alive and still have two legs and feet attached, because if it was 1906 rather than 2006 I’d either be dead else be a double amputee by now, and wheelchairs have come a long way since then also…thank God.
Even though I’m 6’3” tall, my weight over the past six or seven years has ballooned from about 210 to over 250 pounds and, until the past couple of months, I rarely had the strength and energy to manage to drag myself off of the sofa or out of the pool (floating like a giant walrus) to do anything about it.
I’m proud to report that suddenly, out of the clear blue, my energy level has started steadily increasing and as a result, my weight has started sliding back toward the inventory of clothing that I’ve maintained in the back of the closet for the past few years.
Not one, but about three inches in the waist so far. We don’t own scales at our house because of the negative karma associated with “evil instruments of our industrial empire”, but I would have to say at least 20 pounds have disappeared over the past couple of months.
I guar an dam tee you that I’m not taking this all for granted either.
I’ve started swimming laps in the pool each night. Tonight it was five round trips without stopping.
I thought that I was going to die.
My formerly strong legs are so weak now, but I got through it, and a workout in the water is much less stressful than even walking long distances and it involves more muscle groups.
I’ve also always been a little top heavy because I have a large chest, but my arms have atrophied to the point where they look like a couple of twigs coming off of the trunk of a tree stump or something (maybe I can model for my K-street Tree Project).
So any way, I’m afraid that my cooking exercises over at The Redneck Gourmet are going to have to change a bit because my girlfriend Pat’s blood pressure is through the roof and I want to continue to keep my own weight loss and health improvements moving forward.
To that end, I’m looking at further improving the quality of our home cooking and dining adventures, without substituting packaged crap like cheese food products, tofu, and partially hydrogenated blaa blaa blaa products.
Dang it…I like to eat Brown chicken eggs…
Heck…I like to eat brown chickens, if you take the feathers and feet off of them first.
Give me another month or two, and I’ll get my pony tail trimmed a little, toss on some 36 waist jeans and my ostrich skinned cowboy boots, and show all of my female readers a picture of what the Redneck Gourmet really looks like.
Stay tuned to this channel for further developments...
Gosh dang it all Ladies and Gentlemen, but I find myself rapidly sliding down the slippery slope of middle age.
I guess that, like the old saying goes…”another day above ground beats the heck out of the alternative…”
I’m just a few months shy of being Forty Seven Years Old, and I sometimes feel like I’ve already lived to at least One Hundred.
Somebody out there, I forget who, was once quoted as saying “If I knew that I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself…”
I totally agree…
I often look at myself in the mirror and yell at the ever graying, ever balding, dumpy imposter that has wrapped himself around the kid that just a few decades ago could run three miles in eighteen minutes.
Seriously, when I was in my late teens and early twenty’s I could walk out my front door, tighten my shoe laces, stretch my legs, and run away from my dorm room or apartment and not stop until I had put ten or twelve miles behind me.
Unlike the old Rodney Dangerfield joke about running five miles a day each week (hey doctor…I’m 35 miles from home), I’d just turn around and jog back home in time for dinner and a couple of beers with my friends.
Then one day back in 1983 when I was throwing Frisbee at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, I started having pains in my right leg, and the rest is history. I have since found out that I have inherited something called “hyper-coagulate blood,” along with a deluxe set of bad veins in my legs.
My condition is the opposite of being a hemophiliac—instead of tending to bleed to death, my blood try’s its’ best to turn to Jello if I don’t pay attention and take my meds regularly.
So any way, I’ve learned to live with the condition in spite of its attempt to kill me about every five years since the initial occurrence, but it has put a serious dent on my athletic endeavors and physical conditioning.
No more Ultimate Frisbee.
No more long distance running.
No more water skiing.
No more snow skiing.
No more scuba diving.
No more flying airplanes.
I could go on and on, but I also realize that I’ve had the opportunity to do so many things that so many people on the planet never have the cash or opportunity to do even if their bodies will allow it, so I’ll just leave that abbreviated list where it stands—I’m quite grateful for the opportunities which I’ve had thus far in my life.
I’m also quite happy to still be alive and still have two legs and feet attached, because if it was 1906 rather than 2006 I’d either be dead else be a double amputee by now, and wheelchairs have come a long way since then also…thank God.
Even though I’m 6’3” tall, my weight over the past six or seven years has ballooned from about 210 to over 250 pounds and, until the past couple of months, I rarely had the strength and energy to manage to drag myself off of the sofa or out of the pool (floating like a giant walrus) to do anything about it.
I’m proud to report that suddenly, out of the clear blue, my energy level has started steadily increasing and as a result, my weight has started sliding back toward the inventory of clothing that I’ve maintained in the back of the closet for the past few years.
Not one, but about three inches in the waist so far. We don’t own scales at our house because of the negative karma associated with “evil instruments of our industrial empire”, but I would have to say at least 20 pounds have disappeared over the past couple of months.
I guar an dam tee you that I’m not taking this all for granted either.
I’ve started swimming laps in the pool each night. Tonight it was five round trips without stopping.
I thought that I was going to die.
My formerly strong legs are so weak now, but I got through it, and a workout in the water is much less stressful than even walking long distances and it involves more muscle groups.
I’ve also always been a little top heavy because I have a large chest, but my arms have atrophied to the point where they look like a couple of twigs coming off of the trunk of a tree stump or something (maybe I can model for my K-street Tree Project).
So any way, I’m afraid that my cooking exercises over at The Redneck Gourmet are going to have to change a bit because my girlfriend Pat’s blood pressure is through the roof and I want to continue to keep my own weight loss and health improvements moving forward.
To that end, I’m looking at further improving the quality of our home cooking and dining adventures, without substituting packaged crap like cheese food products, tofu, and partially hydrogenated blaa blaa blaa products.
Dang it…I like to eat Brown chicken eggs…
Heck…I like to eat brown chickens, if you take the feathers and feet off of them first.
Give me another month or two, and I’ll get my pony tail trimmed a little, toss on some 36 waist jeans and my ostrich skinned cowboy boots, and show all of my female readers a picture of what the Redneck Gourmet really looks like.
Stay tuned to this channel for further developments...
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Hog Frog Callin’
Somebody…Anybody…call PETA
I have to admit that I do some pretty strange stuff every now and then, but people that know me in person already know that. I guess that I’m finally prepared to admit it here on the blog this morning.
Take animals, for instance.
I like to mess with their minds because, quite simply, it is so much fun.
Mental torture that leaves no scars, so to speak...and all of you perverts out there can go ahead and get your own minds out of the gutter because this is an intellectual discussion…keep your personal passions to yourself, if you will.
As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up back in the day when my grandfather still had a functioning single family farm—300 plus acres—down in lower Alabama.
Smoke house, corn crib, chicken yard, hay barn, cane mill, pecan orchard, functioning windmill, and all of the accoutrements, situated on a one and one half mile long dirt road that ran through the property with NO Neighbors.
A young southern boy’s ultimate playground, if I do say so myself.
I sincerely hate it that most kids today will never experience the freedom of spending summers running around on foot, BB gun in hand, all day long with dogs and chickens and cows and pigs and God knows what else wild game, and never being able to leave the family property because of the expanse of land we owned around us.
All that you needed to know was where the boss rooster was and which pasture the Bull was in, and everything else was a piece of cake as long as you watched out and didn’t “get on a rattlesnake” and stayed out of the beds of poison ivy.
In the ensuing years my time on the farm has been limited mostly to short visits with my mother and to help maintain our share of the homestead dating from the 1820’s, but I learned lessons in those early days about how to enjoy animals without having to actually kill, skin, gut and eat them that serve me well—even here on our little island.
The first lesson is that of silence, and listening.
Let the animals tell you of their presence by the sounds that they make. If you just go stumbling and clomping around everywhere with your I-pod and cell phone shoved in your ear, all you’ll end up doing is scraping bird poo off of your windshield while never seeing the culprit.
The next lesson learned in the woods when stalking animals (with camera or a gun) is to understand their behavior and learn how to make them come to you.
Now I’m not one to like to douse my ankles with “doe in heat” urine and crap like that, but I’ve learned to make certain noises that will make animals react to my presence by “answering” noises that I intentionally make.
The hunters out there know what I mean.
For instance, a big stud gobbler turkey will do what is called a “shock call” when he hears an unexpected noise in his territory. Things as simple as slamming the door of a pickup truck can sometimes elicit this response.
I’ve never actually bagged a wild turkey, but it is the only animal on the planet (other than a robber or burglar threatening my life or that of those around me) that I’m still interested in actually killing, so I’ve perfected my own vocal owl call and I can use what’s called a “box call” pretty well to imitate a pretty little turkey hen chirping.
I just may do a wild turkey hunt down here on Cumberland Island in the next couple of years, but don't worry...because the turkey will most definitely be EATEN by me rather than dieing of old age or starving because the wild boars ate all the acorns that year.
The funny thing is that I never expected is to use the Turkey box call technique to actually call frogs.
Tree Frogs, that is.
OK...Now you REALLY think that I’m weird…RIGHT?
Seriously, during my evening expeditions to our swimming pool, I’ve taken to imitating the tree frogs' natural calls and mating squeeks by rubbing my wet thumb on a “pool noodle”—you know…those long, hollow, colored tubes made of foam rubber that are supposed to be used as a float.
If you'll stay really still, once you get the position on the “pool noodle” right, you can imitate the calls of the local stud male frogs.
I can actually make three or four little green amphibians come hopping up near me in a half hour.
The boys are angry and defensive of their prospective territory, and the girls are…well, shall we say…interested.
I caused quite a stir out there this morning as the sun was rising.
Please excuse me now, but I have to go smoke a cigarette.
I have to admit that I do some pretty strange stuff every now and then, but people that know me in person already know that. I guess that I’m finally prepared to admit it here on the blog this morning.
Take animals, for instance.
I like to mess with their minds because, quite simply, it is so much fun.
Mental torture that leaves no scars, so to speak...and all of you perverts out there can go ahead and get your own minds out of the gutter because this is an intellectual discussion…keep your personal passions to yourself, if you will.
As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up back in the day when my grandfather still had a functioning single family farm—300 plus acres—down in lower Alabama.
Smoke house, corn crib, chicken yard, hay barn, cane mill, pecan orchard, functioning windmill, and all of the accoutrements, situated on a one and one half mile long dirt road that ran through the property with NO Neighbors.
A young southern boy’s ultimate playground, if I do say so myself.
I sincerely hate it that most kids today will never experience the freedom of spending summers running around on foot, BB gun in hand, all day long with dogs and chickens and cows and pigs and God knows what else wild game, and never being able to leave the family property because of the expanse of land we owned around us.
All that you needed to know was where the boss rooster was and which pasture the Bull was in, and everything else was a piece of cake as long as you watched out and didn’t “get on a rattlesnake” and stayed out of the beds of poison ivy.
In the ensuing years my time on the farm has been limited mostly to short visits with my mother and to help maintain our share of the homestead dating from the 1820’s, but I learned lessons in those early days about how to enjoy animals without having to actually kill, skin, gut and eat them that serve me well—even here on our little island.
The first lesson is that of silence, and listening.
Let the animals tell you of their presence by the sounds that they make. If you just go stumbling and clomping around everywhere with your I-pod and cell phone shoved in your ear, all you’ll end up doing is scraping bird poo off of your windshield while never seeing the culprit.
The next lesson learned in the woods when stalking animals (with camera or a gun) is to understand their behavior and learn how to make them come to you.
Now I’m not one to like to douse my ankles with “doe in heat” urine and crap like that, but I’ve learned to make certain noises that will make animals react to my presence by “answering” noises that I intentionally make.
The hunters out there know what I mean.
For instance, a big stud gobbler turkey will do what is called a “shock call” when he hears an unexpected noise in his territory. Things as simple as slamming the door of a pickup truck can sometimes elicit this response.
I’ve never actually bagged a wild turkey, but it is the only animal on the planet (other than a robber or burglar threatening my life or that of those around me) that I’m still interested in actually killing, so I’ve perfected my own vocal owl call and I can use what’s called a “box call” pretty well to imitate a pretty little turkey hen chirping.
I just may do a wild turkey hunt down here on Cumberland Island in the next couple of years, but don't worry...because the turkey will most definitely be EATEN by me rather than dieing of old age or starving because the wild boars ate all the acorns that year.
The funny thing is that I never expected is to use the Turkey box call technique to actually call frogs.
Tree Frogs, that is.
OK...Now you REALLY think that I’m weird…RIGHT?
Seriously, during my evening expeditions to our swimming pool, I’ve taken to imitating the tree frogs' natural calls and mating squeeks by rubbing my wet thumb on a “pool noodle”—you know…those long, hollow, colored tubes made of foam rubber that are supposed to be used as a float.
If you'll stay really still, once you get the position on the “pool noodle” right, you can imitate the calls of the local stud male frogs.
I can actually make three or four little green amphibians come hopping up near me in a half hour.
The boys are angry and defensive of their prospective territory, and the girls are…well, shall we say…interested.
I caused quite a stir out there this morning as the sun was rising.
Please excuse me now, but I have to go smoke a cigarette.
My Take On Lebanon
I’m a MVD Weapon
To date I’ve avoided commenting on the latest goings on in the Middle East because I was too busy deconstructing the ineptitude of our local newspaper and feeling sorry for myself for ever thinking about working for said newspaper.
I also try to not talk or write about things which I know nothing about, else risk producing redundant commentary that you can find anywhere in the lamestream drive-by media or in other blogs on the internet.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for you, I’ve spent enough time reading about and watching CNN and Fox news to have a decent take on things, so now you get to hear my own opinion on what has happened to date, and my predictions on where things are going (or should be going.)
I’m going to address this situation with a simple analogy. Think about it this way…
Suppose that I and a bunch of other Methodist descendants of Veterans that fought for the south in the US Civil War got together and formed a group. We formed our group because we only wanted to associate with like minded people of similar descent, but mostly just because…
WE WERN”T HAPPY.
Being Methodist Veteran Descendants, and since the media and the government loves acronyms, they’d probably start calling us MVD’s.
The first thing we’d so is that we’d all get together and secretly infiltrate a secure area where we could hold our meetings and from which we could conduct our operations…somewhere like where I live—St. Simons Island Georgia.
St. Simons is a perfect location for our operations because it really is an island, it only has one road connecting it to the mainland, it has a marina on the Intercoastal Waterway, an old navy airport with two runways, a lighthouse for navigation, and a killer Harris Teeter grocery store with buy-one-get-one-free boneless chicken breasts on sale about 90 days out of the year.
We’d have meetings and drink good Bourbon Whiskey and walk around laughing at bus loads of old Yankee men wearing black socks and sandals. We’d go fishing and dip snuff and generally confuse everyone into thinking that we were just retirees or on vacation like everyone else, but then…
On Tuesday after the Labor Day holiday, after all the families with kids had gone back home and before the winter hoards of Canadians and (smile when you say that) "New Englanders" have arrived, we make our move.
At 4:30 AM on the chosen day we’d close the Torras Causeway in both directions, keeping all of the Mexican maids, construction crews and day laborers on the mainland, and bringing the infrastructure of St. Simons Island to a virtual standstill.
We’d take over the house of our local talk radio show host, and do our own broadcast from his home studio with propaganda announcements.
“After 12:00PM—No one in, and no one but us out, with a 24 hour curfew enforced by the MVD brigade.”
“Everyone that isn’t with us is against us, so get out, unless you are one of the aforementioned Yankees.”
We’d check car tags and ID’s on the bridge going off the island, and if you were from NY or Canada or worst of all—New Jersey—you were a “guest” of the MVD’s until further notice.
The final test for any suspicious individuals would involve having to say “y’all” correctly, and the really sneaky females might have to cook some grits. The men in that category would be served a bowl of grits and if they tried to eat them plain without a big gob of butter and salt or put sugar on them they would be arrested on sight.
Having gained control of our island, now suppose that all of us MVD’s suddenly started lobbing home made explosives across the state line into Florida; aiming specifically at Jewish, Catholic, Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness churches and neighborhoods in Jacksonville. (I’m not sure exactly how many people of those religions exist in Jacksonville, Florida, but bear with me here…I’m trying to write humor…)
Just for good measure, suppose that a group of us MVD’s decided to go out on I-75, I-85, and I-95 and start capturing Yankees heading on vacation down to Miami and Panama City (or anyone else unfortunate enough to be driving a car with a tag from a state north of the Mason Dixon line), holding them hostage, and forcing them to endlessly watch reruns of the Jeff Foxworthy Show and The Dukes of Hazard.
Our reasoning for such acts?
Why isn’t it obvious?
Religious and cultural differences.
That, and we’re pissed off that Alabama doesn’t have a pro football or basketball franchise and we have to take our shotguns and deer rifles out of our pickup truck gun racks if we ever were unfortunate enough to try to drive through New York on our way to Connecticut on vacation.
Then there is that little issue regarding our desire to reclaim the state of Florida from the carpetbaggers and other invaders that have arrived over the past 140 years since that famous Yankee, General William Tecumseh Sherman, marched through Georgia from Chattanooga to Savannah, raping and pillaging and burning virtually everything in his path.
(Imagine CNN and the NY Times covering that little trip today.)
By the way, wasn’t Sherman a Presbyterian? But I digress…
How long do you think that it would take for the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States of America to come down here and start lobbing tear gas and “flash bang” grenades into our individual houses and onto our little communal compound that we’d built out here on St. Simons Island Georgia.
How long do you think that it would take for Georgia to call out the National Guard against our collective Redneck MVD butts?
Five Minutes?
Twenty four hours?
There’d be hell to pay, wouldn’t there?
There’d be a bombed airport, a broken bridge, and dead MVD’s all over the place. All the time the Yankees would still be scrambling around, parking illegally on the curb and in handicapped spots at Harris Teeter, looking for black socks, the cheep chicken, and Brie Cheese specials, so they’d be suffering collateral damage at massive rates.
By the way, what happens when you cross a MVD with a SUV?
“Four Wheeling“
NOW…
Remember David Koresh and the Branch Davidians out in Waco Texas?
Remember the ATF, under order of President Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Janet Reno, placing the Branch Davidian compound under a 51 day long siege and in the end, killing eighty people, including seventeen children under the age of 12?
In the ensuing assault, while trying to arrest one man—David Koresh—THE WOODEN COMPOUND BURNED TO THE GROUND.
All of that death and destruction in TEXAS, dammit.
Not Syria or Cuba or Nigeria or Russia...I said T-E-X-A-S.
I think that President Bush was the governor at the time (I'm too lazy to Google the fact), but who ever was governor...had to be losing his mind.
Where was the NY Times on that little "police action"?
Where was CNN on that "unfortunate case of collateral damage"?
Where was the UN and where were all the "talking heads" and the stupid assed "pundits" and human rights "activists" while Miss Reno's giant adams apple bobbed up in down in press conferences?
Yeah, I know, I know...they (The Branch Davidians) were a "cult" and they were "white people" living in the state of Texas and all, but what if had been Sammy Davis Jr. and a building full of black Jews in Kew Gardens, NY?
What if it had been a bunch of Transvestite organic Avacado farmers wearing crotchless overalls (from the Frederics of Hooterville collection) outside San Francisco, California holding the local Goose liver Pate and Veal farmers hostage?
Where would the NY Times and CNN and the government have been then?
You see, it is my opinion that one (wo)man's "Excessive force" isn't always real excessive force.
Like I like to say...don't take a knife to a gun fight...
In light of those type of domestic government actions, regardless of whether there is a "D" or a "R" behind the name of the president and the other officials, I say that condemnation of Israel and the US support thereof pales in comparison to other things happening in the world.
Fact: Israel wouldn't be where they are today if the elected Lebanese government had "called out the national guard" and used their own police power against the Hezbollah terrorists.
Fact: Israel wouldn't be bombing the shit out of southern Lebanon if the feckless United Nations had enforced their own resolutions.
Fact: The US has since 1947 supplied Israel with financial support and sold them weapons systems to support their own self defense.
So what's the big damn doodling deal today?
Yeah...I thought so...there isn't really one, and I hope that Israel kicks the shit out of them until some real closure on this issue is obtained...screw the collateral damage and the liberal media hand wringing.
As I've said so many times before here on this blog:
WAR INVOLVES BREAKING THINGS AND KILLING PEOPLE!!!
What is there to not understand?
Moving along, now let me get my final MVD political statement in here and say that, just in case you haven’t noticed, if we here in the United States were of like mind to the liberal's beloved peaceful muslim arabs, we'd really be setting up a MVD camp out here on our little island.
There would be other people setting up camps in other places, and by "other people" I don't mean ignoramuses like the KKK and the "skinheads." I mean smart, educated people like my friend Tripp and I, people that you don't want to be building things and aiming things at your head and your house and your car.
But we aren't, because we're happy just living out our lives in what has to be, in spite of what the media says, the greatest country that has ever existed.
That, and Tripp and I know that the south really did “Rise Again.”
Some of our fellow southerners and most of you Yankees just don't know it or haven't realized it yet.
Why do I say that?
Because there is hardly a Yankee out there that doesn’t lust after the opportunity of retiring here in the south, and in the end, when it’s all said and done, we’ve all ended up winning the old battle that some people here in the US still refuse to stop fighting.
We all generally get along.
I can call you a Yankee if you live up north, but I really don't hate you.
And you’re welcome to call me a “Redneck”, as long as you smile when you say it, and allow me to celebrate the glorious southern heritage of which I am so proud.
Unfortunately, the middle east isn’t that way, and probably will never be as we have it here, at least without constant military and political pressure.
Instead of 230 years of existence and of 140 years of reconciliation, the middle east has endured thousands of years of hatred and division and roughly 60 years of non-imperialistic existence. The area was divided up after WWI and WWII with little or no regard to the current ethnic divisions with which we are all so aware of today (thank you France and Great Britain.)
Anyone ever heard of a Suni or Shite or Kurd, unless you were getting your PHD in "Middle Eastern Studies", before 1990 or possibly the 1979 Iranian Revolution?
Not me...
Finally, in closing, I have to ask you, would you really want the US to take the pre WWII Neville Chamberlain approach, or wouldn't you rather see the Winston Churchill approach?
I choose the latter, rather than the former, and that's what I think that president Bush is doing.
AND I KNOW THAT I'M RIGGGGGGHHHHHTTT...
Because I own this blog. If you don't agree, then go away...dang it
To date I’ve avoided commenting on the latest goings on in the Middle East because I was too busy deconstructing the ineptitude of our local newspaper and feeling sorry for myself for ever thinking about working for said newspaper.
I also try to not talk or write about things which I know nothing about, else risk producing redundant commentary that you can find anywhere in the lamestream drive-by media or in other blogs on the internet.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for you, I’ve spent enough time reading about and watching CNN and Fox news to have a decent take on things, so now you get to hear my own opinion on what has happened to date, and my predictions on where things are going (or should be going.)
I’m going to address this situation with a simple analogy. Think about it this way…
Suppose that I and a bunch of other Methodist descendants of Veterans that fought for the south in the US Civil War got together and formed a group. We formed our group because we only wanted to associate with like minded people of similar descent, but mostly just because…
WE WERN”T HAPPY.
Being Methodist Veteran Descendants, and since the media and the government loves acronyms, they’d probably start calling us MVD’s.
The first thing we’d so is that we’d all get together and secretly infiltrate a secure area where we could hold our meetings and from which we could conduct our operations…somewhere like where I live—St. Simons Island Georgia.
St. Simons is a perfect location for our operations because it really is an island, it only has one road connecting it to the mainland, it has a marina on the Intercoastal Waterway, an old navy airport with two runways, a lighthouse for navigation, and a killer Harris Teeter grocery store with buy-one-get-one-free boneless chicken breasts on sale about 90 days out of the year.
We’d have meetings and drink good Bourbon Whiskey and walk around laughing at bus loads of old Yankee men wearing black socks and sandals. We’d go fishing and dip snuff and generally confuse everyone into thinking that we were just retirees or on vacation like everyone else, but then…
On Tuesday after the Labor Day holiday, after all the families with kids had gone back home and before the winter hoards of Canadians and (smile when you say that) "New Englanders" have arrived, we make our move.
At 4:30 AM on the chosen day we’d close the Torras Causeway in both directions, keeping all of the Mexican maids, construction crews and day laborers on the mainland, and bringing the infrastructure of St. Simons Island to a virtual standstill.
We’d take over the house of our local talk radio show host, and do our own broadcast from his home studio with propaganda announcements.
“After 12:00PM—No one in, and no one but us out, with a 24 hour curfew enforced by the MVD brigade.”
“Everyone that isn’t with us is against us, so get out, unless you are one of the aforementioned Yankees.”
We’d check car tags and ID’s on the bridge going off the island, and if you were from NY or Canada or worst of all—New Jersey—you were a “guest” of the MVD’s until further notice.
The final test for any suspicious individuals would involve having to say “y’all” correctly, and the really sneaky females might have to cook some grits. The men in that category would be served a bowl of grits and if they tried to eat them plain without a big gob of butter and salt or put sugar on them they would be arrested on sight.
Having gained control of our island, now suppose that all of us MVD’s suddenly started lobbing home made explosives across the state line into Florida; aiming specifically at Jewish, Catholic, Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness churches and neighborhoods in Jacksonville. (I’m not sure exactly how many people of those religions exist in Jacksonville, Florida, but bear with me here…I’m trying to write humor…)
Just for good measure, suppose that a group of us MVD’s decided to go out on I-75, I-85, and I-95 and start capturing Yankees heading on vacation down to Miami and Panama City (or anyone else unfortunate enough to be driving a car with a tag from a state north of the Mason Dixon line), holding them hostage, and forcing them to endlessly watch reruns of the Jeff Foxworthy Show and The Dukes of Hazard.
Our reasoning for such acts?
Why isn’t it obvious?
Religious and cultural differences.
That, and we’re pissed off that Alabama doesn’t have a pro football or basketball franchise and we have to take our shotguns and deer rifles out of our pickup truck gun racks if we ever were unfortunate enough to try to drive through New York on our way to Connecticut on vacation.
Then there is that little issue regarding our desire to reclaim the state of Florida from the carpetbaggers and other invaders that have arrived over the past 140 years since that famous Yankee, General William Tecumseh Sherman, marched through Georgia from Chattanooga to Savannah, raping and pillaging and burning virtually everything in his path.
(Imagine CNN and the NY Times covering that little trip today.)
By the way, wasn’t Sherman a Presbyterian? But I digress…
How long do you think that it would take for the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States of America to come down here and start lobbing tear gas and “flash bang” grenades into our individual houses and onto our little communal compound that we’d built out here on St. Simons Island Georgia.
How long do you think that it would take for Georgia to call out the National Guard against our collective Redneck MVD butts?
Five Minutes?
Twenty four hours?
There’d be hell to pay, wouldn’t there?
There’d be a bombed airport, a broken bridge, and dead MVD’s all over the place. All the time the Yankees would still be scrambling around, parking illegally on the curb and in handicapped spots at Harris Teeter, looking for black socks, the cheep chicken, and Brie Cheese specials, so they’d be suffering collateral damage at massive rates.
By the way, what happens when you cross a MVD with a SUV?
“Four Wheeling“
NOW…
Remember David Koresh and the Branch Davidians out in Waco Texas?
Remember the ATF, under order of President Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Janet Reno, placing the Branch Davidian compound under a 51 day long siege and in the end, killing eighty people, including seventeen children under the age of 12?
In the ensuing assault, while trying to arrest one man—David Koresh—THE WOODEN COMPOUND BURNED TO THE GROUND.
All of that death and destruction in TEXAS, dammit.
Not Syria or Cuba or Nigeria or Russia...I said T-E-X-A-S.
I think that President Bush was the governor at the time (I'm too lazy to Google the fact), but who ever was governor...had to be losing his mind.
Where was the NY Times on that little "police action"?
Where was CNN on that "unfortunate case of collateral damage"?
Where was the UN and where were all the "talking heads" and the stupid assed "pundits" and human rights "activists" while Miss Reno's giant adams apple bobbed up in down in press conferences?
Yeah, I know, I know...they (The Branch Davidians) were a "cult" and they were "white people" living in the state of Texas and all, but what if had been Sammy Davis Jr. and a building full of black Jews in Kew Gardens, NY?
What if it had been a bunch of Transvestite organic Avacado farmers wearing crotchless overalls (from the Frederics of Hooterville collection) outside San Francisco, California holding the local Goose liver Pate and Veal farmers hostage?
Where would the NY Times and CNN and the government have been then?
You see, it is my opinion that one (wo)man's "Excessive force" isn't always real excessive force.
Like I like to say...don't take a knife to a gun fight...
In light of those type of domestic government actions, regardless of whether there is a "D" or a "R" behind the name of the president and the other officials, I say that condemnation of Israel and the US support thereof pales in comparison to other things happening in the world.
Fact: Israel wouldn't be where they are today if the elected Lebanese government had "called out the national guard" and used their own police power against the Hezbollah terrorists.
Fact: Israel wouldn't be bombing the shit out of southern Lebanon if the feckless United Nations had enforced their own resolutions.
Fact: The US has since 1947 supplied Israel with financial support and sold them weapons systems to support their own self defense.
So what's the big damn doodling deal today?
Yeah...I thought so...there isn't really one, and I hope that Israel kicks the shit out of them until some real closure on this issue is obtained...screw the collateral damage and the liberal media hand wringing.
As I've said so many times before here on this blog:
WAR INVOLVES BREAKING THINGS AND KILLING PEOPLE!!!
What is there to not understand?
Moving along, now let me get my final MVD political statement in here and say that, just in case you haven’t noticed, if we here in the United States were of like mind to the liberal's beloved peaceful muslim arabs, we'd really be setting up a MVD camp out here on our little island.
There would be other people setting up camps in other places, and by "other people" I don't mean ignoramuses like the KKK and the "skinheads." I mean smart, educated people like my friend Tripp and I, people that you don't want to be building things and aiming things at your head and your house and your car.
But we aren't, because we're happy just living out our lives in what has to be, in spite of what the media says, the greatest country that has ever existed.
That, and Tripp and I know that the south really did “Rise Again.”
Some of our fellow southerners and most of you Yankees just don't know it or haven't realized it yet.
Why do I say that?
Because there is hardly a Yankee out there that doesn’t lust after the opportunity of retiring here in the south, and in the end, when it’s all said and done, we’ve all ended up winning the old battle that some people here in the US still refuse to stop fighting.
We all generally get along.
I can call you a Yankee if you live up north, but I really don't hate you.
And you’re welcome to call me a “Redneck”, as long as you smile when you say it, and allow me to celebrate the glorious southern heritage of which I am so proud.
Unfortunately, the middle east isn’t that way, and probably will never be as we have it here, at least without constant military and political pressure.
Instead of 230 years of existence and of 140 years of reconciliation, the middle east has endured thousands of years of hatred and division and roughly 60 years of non-imperialistic existence. The area was divided up after WWI and WWII with little or no regard to the current ethnic divisions with which we are all so aware of today (thank you France and Great Britain.)
Anyone ever heard of a Suni or Shite or Kurd, unless you were getting your PHD in "Middle Eastern Studies", before 1990 or possibly the 1979 Iranian Revolution?
Not me...
Finally, in closing, I have to ask you, would you really want the US to take the pre WWII Neville Chamberlain approach, or wouldn't you rather see the Winston Churchill approach?
I choose the latter, rather than the former, and that's what I think that president Bush is doing.
AND I KNOW THAT I'M RIGGGGGGHHHHHTTT...
Because I own this blog. If you don't agree, then go away...dang it
Sunday, July 23, 2006
If You Can’t Join ‘Em….Beat ‘Em
Doing Tings Bass Ackwards…
I friend of mine agreed tonight with my latest idea to politely take our “K-Street Tree Project” to the other “alternative” news publication here in town, and then toss it down to the Jacksonville, Florida paper that does a section dedicated to south Georgia.
Since I haven’t signed any agreements, the Mayor and the city didn’t ask me or otherwise tell me about opening their so-called “PR Campaign (cam-pain in the Arse)”, and since the Brunswick News insists on ignoring mention of my personal origination, participation, and any otherwise valid information that I have to offer on the subject, I feel that it is quite reasonable to answer any and all other news inquires—even if I instigate them.
This could be quite interesting…so stay tuned.
(I really really really promise to give this topic a rest shortly)
I friend of mine agreed tonight with my latest idea to politely take our “K-Street Tree Project” to the other “alternative” news publication here in town, and then toss it down to the Jacksonville, Florida paper that does a section dedicated to south Georgia.
Since I haven’t signed any agreements, the Mayor and the city didn’t ask me or otherwise tell me about opening their so-called “PR Campaign (cam-pain in the Arse)”, and since the Brunswick News insists on ignoring mention of my personal origination, participation, and any otherwise valid information that I have to offer on the subject, I feel that it is quite reasonable to answer any and all other news inquires—even if I instigate them.
This could be quite interesting…so stay tuned.
(I really really really promise to give this topic a rest shortly)
