The Polish Take The Plunge...
Dang have things ever changed in my lifetime in Poland.
Never actually been there myself, but if I ever make it to Europe I intend to stop by Warsaw as I skip over London and Paris on my way through Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Turkey if I can get a good enough Kurdish disguise (did I mention Casablanca on a side trip to northern Africa?)
From the days when a blue collar guy named Lech Walesa led strikes in the shipyards under the iron fisted rule of the former Soviet Empire and rose up to later become president of the newly freed country, to yesterday's announcement of Poland agreeing to accept multiple layers of American missile defenses and the stationing of troops inside their borders to defend Eastern Europe from the Iranians or Moscow or whichever group of morons decides to start lobbing explosive filled steel tubes through the air in the future, all I can do is sit on the sidelines and cheer--but I'm happy with the progress none the less.
Of course the Russians and our domestic booger eating pantie waisted liberal pacifist citizens are already declaring doom and gloom and blaming us for an "escalation" of military hostilities in the region.
You want "escalation" of "hostilities", try bombing a few airports and malls in Georgia (in the United States) and see what the UN would have to say about matters. I seem to recall our own government doing exactly that in July of 1864 and look at where we all are today as a result of that effort.
Instead of living in the sovereign country of Tenalabamkentuckigeorge (or something like that), I live in a place that has ended up almost exactly where President Davis and General Lee were afraid we were going.
The states have virtually no rights, the citizens almost have even fewer, and yet the Federal By-God Government of the United States of 'Merica continues to exist in spite of, not because of, the actions of pompous asshole Senators and Representatives we elect and send to Washington DC every two or four years.
And now we're gonna have a base and a bunch of anti-missile missile's in Poland. Based on the German's attitude and negative public statements toward us over the last couple dozen years, I say we pull the entire crowd of military personnel and equipment out of Germany and move them all over the land of Kielbasa and Cabbage.
And yet the Russians complain. And people in Washington and San Francisco wag their fingers in dismay...
Let me remind everybody that the missile "defense shield," as the name implies, is a DEFENSIVE measure, not OFFENSIVE.
The targeting systems and payloads are designed to destroy little packages of fast moving metal with wings attached, not entire neighborhoods or cities.
Let the Russians whimper and cry if they feel like it, I say it's just like giving the People living daily in the sights of the slumbering cold war aficionados and wild eyed islamofascists a bullet proof vest, and until of the wimpy booger eating limp wristed politicians and voters can get a spine and talk the Iranians out the reactor business, we aught to install phase two of the system in Tel Aviv.
That will be all...for now...
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Making the Term B.C. Politically Correct
Another Rerun because I'm Lazy..
I wrote this back on April 26, 2005, and I found it because someone googled the topic this evening...so here it is in it's entirety:
My head is spinning around…again.
This time it’s over the the Political Correct Police’s efforts to eliminate the terms B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini) from textbooks and other reference books…
“ALBANY, N.Y. -- In certain precincts of a world encouraged to embrace differences, Christ is out.
The terms "B.C." and "A.D." increasingly are shunned by certain scholars. Educators and historians say schools from North America to Australia have been changing the terms "Before Christ," or B.C., to "Before Common Era," or B.C.E., and "anno Domini" (Latin for "in the year of the Lord") to "Common Era." In short, they're referred to as B.C.E. and C.E.”
There are clearly a number of people out there that have way to little to do with their time.
The modern calendar works quite well, in my opinion, and just like the government’s force feeding Americans the metric measurement system in the 1970’s, I think that this effort will be doomed to failure. (Being an engineer, I am quite comfortable with the metric system, by the way.)
But there is more…
“The terms B.C. and A.D. have clear Catholic roots. Dionysius Exiguus, an abbot in Rome, devised them as a way to determine the date for Easter for Pope St. John I. The terms were continued under the Gregorian Calendar, created in 1582 under Pope Gregory XIII.
Although most calendars are based on an epoch or person, B.C. and A.D. have always presented a particular problem for historians: There is no year zero; there's a 33-year gap, reflecting the life of Christ, dividing the epochs. Critics say that's additional reason to replace the Christian-based terms.
"When Jews or Muslims have to put Christ in the middle of our calendar ... that's difficult for us," said Steven M. Brown, dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.
The new terms were introduced by academics in the 1990s in public elementary and high school classrooms.”
So they want to replace “Christian based terms in our calendars” and “academics” have already introduced the terms into public elementary schools and high school classrooms?
What I want to know is…
WHO THE HELL APPROVED THIS BRAINSTORM?
DID YOU KNOW ABOUT IT?
What are they teaching your kids in our government schools? I don’t have any kids myself, but this really pisses me off.
Why don’t we just throw out the calendar all together. Let’s toss out the alarm clock while we’re at it.
Let’s just re-number everything as before Clinton (BC) and after Clinton (AC.)
Or how about using the terms before gay marriage (BGM) and after gay marriage (AGM)?
Let’s have a calendar that completely skips the birthdays of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and eliminates Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter. There would just be a blank square on the page with no number and no title—just a big smiley face or a picture of a condom.
I know...lets design a clock that runs backwards and only chimes on Martin Luther Kings’ birthday, Earth Day, and Gay Pride Day?
Let’s eliminate the minimum wage and pay everyone $20 an hour to stay home and smoke dope and watch Public Television.
Ah...Ahhhh..AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (New text added for emphasis)
I’ll see y’all, I’m moving to Costa Rica.
I wrote this back on April 26, 2005, and I found it because someone googled the topic this evening...so here it is in it's entirety:
My head is spinning around…again.
This time it’s over the the Political Correct Police’s efforts to eliminate the terms B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini) from textbooks and other reference books…
“ALBANY, N.Y. -- In certain precincts of a world encouraged to embrace differences, Christ is out.
The terms "B.C." and "A.D." increasingly are shunned by certain scholars. Educators and historians say schools from North America to Australia have been changing the terms "Before Christ," or B.C., to "Before Common Era," or B.C.E., and "anno Domini" (Latin for "in the year of the Lord") to "Common Era." In short, they're referred to as B.C.E. and C.E.”
There are clearly a number of people out there that have way to little to do with their time.
The modern calendar works quite well, in my opinion, and just like the government’s force feeding Americans the metric measurement system in the 1970’s, I think that this effort will be doomed to failure. (Being an engineer, I am quite comfortable with the metric system, by the way.)
But there is more…
“The terms B.C. and A.D. have clear Catholic roots. Dionysius Exiguus, an abbot in Rome, devised them as a way to determine the date for Easter for Pope St. John I. The terms were continued under the Gregorian Calendar, created in 1582 under Pope Gregory XIII.
Although most calendars are based on an epoch or person, B.C. and A.D. have always presented a particular problem for historians: There is no year zero; there's a 33-year gap, reflecting the life of Christ, dividing the epochs. Critics say that's additional reason to replace the Christian-based terms.
"When Jews or Muslims have to put Christ in the middle of our calendar ... that's difficult for us," said Steven M. Brown, dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.
The new terms were introduced by academics in the 1990s in public elementary and high school classrooms.”
So they want to replace “Christian based terms in our calendars” and “academics” have already introduced the terms into public elementary schools and high school classrooms?
What I want to know is…
WHO THE HELL APPROVED THIS BRAINSTORM?
DID YOU KNOW ABOUT IT?
What are they teaching your kids in our government schools? I don’t have any kids myself, but this really pisses me off.
Why don’t we just throw out the calendar all together. Let’s toss out the alarm clock while we’re at it.
Let’s just re-number everything as before Clinton (BC) and after Clinton (AC.)
Or how about using the terms before gay marriage (BGM) and after gay marriage (AGM)?
Let’s have a calendar that completely skips the birthdays of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and eliminates Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter. There would just be a blank square on the page with no number and no title—just a big smiley face or a picture of a condom.
I know...lets design a clock that runs backwards and only chimes on Martin Luther Kings’ birthday, Earth Day, and Gay Pride Day?
Let’s eliminate the minimum wage and pay everyone $20 an hour to stay home and smoke dope and watch Public Television.
Ah...Ahhhh..AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (New text added for emphasis)
I’ll see y’all, I’m moving to Costa Rica.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Home Again
Back To Work...
I have to jump on a few hundred tons of steel and wrestle the details onto paper this week, and I'm thinking about trying to get 40 hours in between now and Friday afternoon, so you'll have to excuse me if the blogging is light as a result.
Then again, something may get my attention or piss me off and in that case there will be words here letting you in on my opinion.
Until then...Y'all have a nice week (what's left of it.)
I have to jump on a few hundred tons of steel and wrestle the details onto paper this week, and I'm thinking about trying to get 40 hours in between now and Friday afternoon, so you'll have to excuse me if the blogging is light as a result.
Then again, something may get my attention or piss me off and in that case there will be words here letting you in on my opinion.
Until then...Y'all have a nice week (what's left of it.)
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Back On The Road Again
Human's Worn Out...Turbo Pup Getting That Way
Well, It's time to get ourselves back on the road again later this morning, moving from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean back to the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River. The good news is that we've accomplished all that we hoped for on this journey
In my mind the only negative thing is that we have to leave the coast yet again.
As a rule I generally refrain from publishing photos of myself and Pat here on the blog, but suffice it to say that you can understand our condition and experiences by looking at these shots of our little Missy the Turbo Pup.
For instance, how can your face not look like this:
When you've spent a couple of days in the sand doing things like this:
And this:
Somebody's got a nice bath coming their way tomorrow evening in Knoxville.
Anyone care to guess who?
Monday, August 11, 2008
Blogging In Year Five
Hurricanes...We Don't Need No Stinkin' Hurricanes???
In ending this year's blogging birthday celebration, I though that it was more than just a little appropriate that my final re-run blog posting was on the topic of Hurricanes.
You see, I feel like I know a thing or two about Hurricanes.
More than the average weather man/woman or other otherwise media terrified citizen knows about the mature remnants of "tropical storms."
Having lived as a teen through Hurricane Elloise in the 1970's in LA (Lower Alabama) and witnessing my parent's dismay with Opal in the 1990's and having my mother go it solo through yet another storm since 2000 (sorry Mom, I forget the name), I feel that I AM AN AUTHORITY on the topic of Hurricanes and can provide you with insight that cannot be gained anywhere else than here on this blog.
Just in case you haven't noticed, this year' s "Hurricane Season" was predicted to be a "doosie", yet thus far we've only featured one storm that spent a month cruising around the middle of the Atlantic ocean and a couple of storms that blasted Mexico and south Texas (where they need the rain more than they fear the winds.)
Now the idiot rocket scientists over at the NOAA Hurricane Prediction Center --instead of admitting that they're wrong--have come back out and are insisting that in spite of the relative quite in the worlds waters that this year the the ocean is MOST DEFINITELY GOING TO JUMP UP AND WILL FLOOD each and every home in it's path and blow the roof off of what is left on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the US.
The only thing that they haven't done is state that only poor people, minorities, and women need to worry about the storm's wrath.
I'm sorry, but I think that the Hurricane researchers are drinking their own toilet water and have become media addicts of the worst kind. They just can't stand being out of the news and in the absence of storms all they can do is resort to issuing threatening press releases.
All of that said, here's what I wrote on the subject of Hurricanes back in August 2004:
Two hurricanes in one week (well, actually one hurricane and one tropical storm) certainly is a good formula to take your mind off of a number of life's frivolous distractions--particularly if you live on or near the coast of the Southeastern US during the summer months.
Don't you just love the gleam a good 145 MPH wind puts in the eyes of the local TV weather nerds and the gloating staff of "The Weather Channel?" I personally prefer a good weather news story a great deal more than I like following the sexual antics and mis-behaviors of some overpaid athlete and their remorseful female conquest or the endless saga of some poor, photogenic wife whom has paid the ultimate price as the victim of her bad life partner choice.
The present movement of Hurricane Charley is of particular interest to me and my neighbors as it slides across the Florida pennesula this evening toward our homes on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Current local forecasts are for winds only in the fifty to seventy MPH range. The minor storm surge is probably our biggest concern here as most of the island is two feet below the government's so called flood plain and there is only one low lying road connecting the island to the mainland.
Having been a coastal resident since only this past March, I find myself in the early stages of learning the habits and behaviors that will allow me to successfully negotiate the intricacies of storm preparation and, God forbid, evacuation in advance of an approaching storm. I've found that many other longer time residents are in the same boat (excuse the pun.)
You see, the Georgia coast enjoys the distinction of rarely bearing the brunt of tropical weather of the type and severity that Florida and North Carolina does each year. We are, however, tittillatted every three or four years with the possibility of the strike of a bona-fide doosie of a storm. It seems that I have arrived back home from a vacation in Chicago today just in time for such an event.
The thing that is most striking to me thus far is the reality that many if not most people absolutely loose their blankin' minds upon even the hint of the approach of a major storm. For instance, I made a trip to the grocery store this afternoon to pick up a few last minute items--having spent several weeks out of town and arriving with the storm possibly only a half-day away.
The first sign of trouble was that the grocery lot was virtually full of autos and SUV's upon my arrival. The next obvious clue was the availablilty of only three shopping carts inside the front door of the store. The place was an absolute madhouse filled with wildeyed senior citizens and soccer moms who were careening wildly up and down the isles, their carts each filled with bales of toilet paper, paper towels, bottled water, and on most occasions--TWO OR THREE LOAVES of bread. The biggest personal blow was that the Peter Pan peanut butter was sold out entirely (I had to buy Jiff.)
Now I ask you, what makes normally rational people believe that they are actually going to go through two or three jars of peanut butter and three loaves of bread in the one or two days that a storm this size and path could cut us off from civilization? If they do eat all of that peanut butter, they will be so stopped up they could never possibly use an entire case of toilet paper, could they?
In an effort to document my current experiences and assist any future coastal residents in the art of Hurricane preparedness, I would like to offer my own list of Do's and Don'ts:
Do listen to local weather broadcasts every few hours in order to stay up to date on the storm's location, forecast storm track, and any evacuation orders that may be issued.
Don't go to the local bar hours before the storm roars into your neighborhood and get shitfaced drinking kamikaze shots or a half dozen long island ice teas before heading home to tackle hanging that truck load of plywood you just bought at Home Depot over your windows and doors.
Do put together a basic hurricane supply kit including drinking water, prescription medicines, first aid kit, canned foods, flashlight and spare batteries, battery powered radio, etc.
Don't think that you're prepared when your hurricane kit simply includes a twelve-pack of warm beer, a fifth of tequila, a couple of half burned candles from the last storm warning , an old Bic lighter, and an inflatable raft with one broken oar.
Do gas up the car or SUV and move it to high ground prior to the local roads being closed.
Don't venture out during the storm onto flooded roads in high winds at break neck speeds in an attempt to recreate Lt. Dan's hurricane scene in the movie "Forrest Gump."
Do move your boat onto it's trailer and secure it in a safe storage area. Relocate larger boats away from docks, pilings, and other boats and double/triple anchor them in place.
Don't think you are going to weather out the storm on board your boat with your warm twelve-pack and fifth of tequila. (You will end up dead or be seen on CNN by all of your friends and family--you'll be the one hanging by a cable underneath a Coast Guard helicopter.)
Got to go outside to check out the weather again Charley's back offshore in the Atlantic and the eye is tightening up again, more later...
In ending this year's blogging birthday celebration, I though that it was more than just a little appropriate that my final re-run blog posting was on the topic of Hurricanes.
You see, I feel like I know a thing or two about Hurricanes.
More than the average weather man/woman or other otherwise media terrified citizen knows about the mature remnants of "tropical storms."
Having lived as a teen through Hurricane Elloise in the 1970's in LA (Lower Alabama) and witnessing my parent's dismay with Opal in the 1990's and having my mother go it solo through yet another storm since 2000 (sorry Mom, I forget the name), I feel that I AM AN AUTHORITY on the topic of Hurricanes and can provide you with insight that cannot be gained anywhere else than here on this blog.
Just in case you haven't noticed, this year' s "Hurricane Season" was predicted to be a "doosie", yet thus far we've only featured one storm that spent a month cruising around the middle of the Atlantic ocean and a couple of storms that blasted Mexico and south Texas (where they need the rain more than they fear the winds.)
Now the idiot rocket scientists over at the NOAA Hurricane Prediction Center --instead of admitting that they're wrong--have come back out and are insisting that in spite of the relative quite in the worlds waters that this year the the ocean is MOST DEFINITELY GOING TO JUMP UP AND WILL FLOOD each and every home in it's path and blow the roof off of what is left on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the US.
The only thing that they haven't done is state that only poor people, minorities, and women need to worry about the storm's wrath.
I'm sorry, but I think that the Hurricane researchers are drinking their own toilet water and have become media addicts of the worst kind. They just can't stand being out of the news and in the absence of storms all they can do is resort to issuing threatening press releases.
All of that said, here's what I wrote on the subject of Hurricanes back in August 2004:
Two hurricanes in one week (well, actually one hurricane and one tropical storm) certainly is a good formula to take your mind off of a number of life's frivolous distractions--particularly if you live on or near the coast of the Southeastern US during the summer months.
Don't you just love the gleam a good 145 MPH wind puts in the eyes of the local TV weather nerds and the gloating staff of "The Weather Channel?" I personally prefer a good weather news story a great deal more than I like following the sexual antics and mis-behaviors of some overpaid athlete and their remorseful female conquest or the endless saga of some poor, photogenic wife whom has paid the ultimate price as the victim of her bad life partner choice.
The present movement of Hurricane Charley is of particular interest to me and my neighbors as it slides across the Florida pennesula this evening toward our homes on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Current local forecasts are for winds only in the fifty to seventy MPH range. The minor storm surge is probably our biggest concern here as most of the island is two feet below the government's so called flood plain and there is only one low lying road connecting the island to the mainland.
Having been a coastal resident since only this past March, I find myself in the early stages of learning the habits and behaviors that will allow me to successfully negotiate the intricacies of storm preparation and, God forbid, evacuation in advance of an approaching storm. I've found that many other longer time residents are in the same boat (excuse the pun.)
You see, the Georgia coast enjoys the distinction of rarely bearing the brunt of tropical weather of the type and severity that Florida and North Carolina does each year. We are, however, tittillatted every three or four years with the possibility of the strike of a bona-fide doosie of a storm. It seems that I have arrived back home from a vacation in Chicago today just in time for such an event.
The thing that is most striking to me thus far is the reality that many if not most people absolutely loose their blankin' minds upon even the hint of the approach of a major storm. For instance, I made a trip to the grocery store this afternoon to pick up a few last minute items--having spent several weeks out of town and arriving with the storm possibly only a half-day away.
The first sign of trouble was that the grocery lot was virtually full of autos and SUV's upon my arrival. The next obvious clue was the availablilty of only three shopping carts inside the front door of the store. The place was an absolute madhouse filled with wildeyed senior citizens and soccer moms who were careening wildly up and down the isles, their carts each filled with bales of toilet paper, paper towels, bottled water, and on most occasions--TWO OR THREE LOAVES of bread. The biggest personal blow was that the Peter Pan peanut butter was sold out entirely (I had to buy Jiff.)
Now I ask you, what makes normally rational people believe that they are actually going to go through two or three jars of peanut butter and three loaves of bread in the one or two days that a storm this size and path could cut us off from civilization? If they do eat all of that peanut butter, they will be so stopped up they could never possibly use an entire case of toilet paper, could they?
In an effort to document my current experiences and assist any future coastal residents in the art of Hurricane preparedness, I would like to offer my own list of Do's and Don'ts:
Do listen to local weather broadcasts every few hours in order to stay up to date on the storm's location, forecast storm track, and any evacuation orders that may be issued.
Don't go to the local bar hours before the storm roars into your neighborhood and get shitfaced drinking kamikaze shots or a half dozen long island ice teas before heading home to tackle hanging that truck load of plywood you just bought at Home Depot over your windows and doors.
Do put together a basic hurricane supply kit including drinking water, prescription medicines, first aid kit, canned foods, flashlight and spare batteries, battery powered radio, etc.
Don't think that you're prepared when your hurricane kit simply includes a twelve-pack of warm beer, a fifth of tequila, a couple of half burned candles from the last storm warning , an old Bic lighter, and an inflatable raft with one broken oar.
Do gas up the car or SUV and move it to high ground prior to the local roads being closed.
Don't venture out during the storm onto flooded roads in high winds at break neck speeds in an attempt to recreate Lt. Dan's hurricane scene in the movie "Forrest Gump."
Do move your boat onto it's trailer and secure it in a safe storage area. Relocate larger boats away from docks, pilings, and other boats and double/triple anchor them in place.
Don't think you are going to weather out the storm on board your boat with your warm twelve-pack and fifth of tequila. (You will end up dead or be seen on CNN by all of your friends and family--you'll be the one hanging by a cable underneath a Coast Guard helicopter.)
Got to go outside to check out the weather again Charley's back offshore in the Atlantic and the eye is tightening up again, more later...
Tough Weekend For Black Artists
And Fans Regardless Of Color Are Having a Hard Time
First Bernie Mac dies
And now I learn that the voice of South Park's character Chef (Isaac Hayes) has Crapped out...
First Bernie Mac dies
And now I learn that the voice of South Park's character Chef (Isaac Hayes) has Crapped out...
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Irritating Irreverent Irrational Politicians
Can't Live With 'Em, Can't Vote Without 'Em
Good gosh but is it ever good to be back home here on our little island, even if it is only for an extended weekend.
Good food...good friends...good weather so far, and I've even managed to make some progress in my never ending real estate investment escapades which might end up yielding me a profit before the end of this calendar year if not sooner.
That said, I promised my readers a peek at my local political commentary, something with which I've managed to make quite a stir a couple of dozen times here over the past few years.
Most recently I've been lamenting the goings on at the highest level of local government, something which we have down here on the Southeastern Georgia coast called a "County Commission."
You might have one where you live...I don't know..but if you don't consider yourself lucky, because our County Commission is IN CHARGE and don't care what we think or want between election years.
County Commissions and more specifically, the individual County Commissioners, are to normal humans like ticks and fleas are to a dog....in as much as their day to day activities make you want to jump around, shake your head, and scratch.
Don't get me wrong, they're not all bad guys, they're not ALL corrupt, and most seem to be relatively normal honest hard working people the day we vote them into office, but then things change when we hand them the keys to the near quarter billion dollar county coffers loaded with tourist dollars here in Georgia's Golden isles.
We have an unfortunate yet obvious class struggle within the borders of our county, with only one incorporated city (Brunswick) in the aforementioned boundaries, and probably 99% of the tax revenue (OK, 75%) is generated on the 11 mile by 4 mile wide island we call St. Simons.
My problem isn't so much with the so-called "commissioners" being outright idiots or thieves, it's with their insistence in weaving and wobbling into areas into which they have little business and even less expertise, and proceeding to write stupid, unenforceable, mineless laws and policies with which they later find being used to bash them in their heads and make Glynn county the laughing stock of the state...something which isn't easy to do if you've spent more than a month living east of the Chattahoochee river and south of the Carolina's and Tennessee.
The latest upheaval which caused me to pound on my computer keyboard and hit the "send" key involved our little island's tourist "Trolley Tour Services", and the plight of a nice lady acquaintance named Bunny Marshal who's earned most of her living owning and operating a reliable tour service here for the past 15 years or so.
The link to the Brunswick News article in PDF form is here...
cliff notes version of the story would tell you that other tour operators have come to town over the past couple of years and had a hard time making a living, so instead of improving their service or understanding that the market is small here they have instead elected to go to the commissioners and complain, causing the commission as ahole whole to react by doing what county commissions do best.
Avoid the subject at first, then after much consideration proceed to screw things up in entirety.
At first they're afraid of "legal action," so instead of letting the status be "quo" they take a defensive default position in which the original players lose yet the new players don't win what they want--economic success.
Then after two or three more rounds of complaints and concessions, what the public ends up receiving from our commission is not two or three options in the Trolley tour business on the Island....Noooooooo....
WE'LL PROBABLY END UP WITH NO TROLLEY TOURS FOR YOU TO TAKE WHEN YOU COME OVER HERE TO SEE WHAT I'VE BEEN RAVING ABOUT FOR THE PAST GOING ON FIVE YEARS.
That's right, according to Bunny, instead of the continuing quaint simple tour around world fameous poet Sidney Lanier's "Golden Isles" past "Bloody Marsh", Christ Church, and General Oglethorpe's Ft. Frederica, you may have to settle for...
a book from the bookstore and your own car for a self guided tour, else...
Nothing.
government...ya' got to love 'em.
Their latest assault on free enterprise has determined that "trolleys" cannot ring their "bells" while stopped in the village pier area--the place where the "tours" have originated sinceMethuselah wandering the desert the island has had tourists and ferry boats landed adjacent to the current pier in the days when there was no roadway across the marsh from the mainland.
"Trolleys" can only ring their "bells" now and legally annoy people as they drive down Frederica road and the outlying areas of the island.
The people standing around in the village tourist area (a place where people might actually WANT know that there is a trolley tour leaving) are officially protected from "bell ringing" according to the county attorney.
Now here's the text to what I wrote last Thursday which was published Friday in the print edition and here on The Brunswick News Website
I have a few questions for the so called "authorities" of Glynn County.
If I, as a private citizen, buy myself a nice shiny bronze bell and further, I happen to park myself and my bell adjacent to the trolley stop on St. Simons when I'm visiting the area, can I ring my bell whenever I want to?
Or does the local government require that I have to have license and/or a permit to ring my bell?
If noise is a problem in Village and the balance of the SSI waterfront, I'd like to know what measures are being taken to eliminate or minimize the sounds of construction as the new pool and other renovations are taking place.
Maybe I should offer my services ringing my new bell to cover the noise that the jackhammers and backhoes are making over the next year if you would like to pass another resolution to that effect.
Finally, using the same convoluted logic, one could not help but wonder how long it will be before some atheist tourist or local "activist" gets a commission resolution and a legal decision to make the local churches buy a permit else stop ringing the bells in their steeple towers for the same petty reasons Trolley company owners are dealing with today.
I think that that says what needs to be said on the matter...How about YOU?
Good gosh but is it ever good to be back home here on our little island, even if it is only for an extended weekend.
Good food...good friends...good weather so far, and I've even managed to make some progress in my never ending real estate investment escapades which might end up yielding me a profit before the end of this calendar year if not sooner.
That said, I promised my readers a peek at my local political commentary, something with which I've managed to make quite a stir a couple of dozen times here over the past few years.
Most recently I've been lamenting the goings on at the highest level of local government, something which we have down here on the Southeastern Georgia coast called a "County Commission."
You might have one where you live...I don't know..but if you don't consider yourself lucky, because our County Commission is IN CHARGE and don't care what we think or want between election years.
County Commissions and more specifically, the individual County Commissioners, are to normal humans like ticks and fleas are to a dog....in as much as their day to day activities make you want to jump around, shake your head, and scratch.
Don't get me wrong, they're not all bad guys, they're not ALL corrupt, and most seem to be relatively normal honest hard working people the day we vote them into office, but then things change when we hand them the keys to the near quarter billion dollar county coffers loaded with tourist dollars here in Georgia's Golden isles.
We have an unfortunate yet obvious class struggle within the borders of our county, with only one incorporated city (Brunswick) in the aforementioned boundaries, and probably 99% of the tax revenue (OK, 75%) is generated on the 11 mile by 4 mile wide island we call St. Simons.
My problem isn't so much with the so-called "commissioners" being outright idiots or thieves, it's with their insistence in weaving and wobbling into areas into which they have little business and even less expertise, and proceeding to write stupid, unenforceable, mineless laws and policies with which they later find being used to bash them in their heads and make Glynn county the laughing stock of the state...something which isn't easy to do if you've spent more than a month living east of the Chattahoochee river and south of the Carolina's and Tennessee.
The latest upheaval which caused me to pound on my computer keyboard and hit the "send" key involved our little island's tourist "Trolley Tour Services", and the plight of a nice lady acquaintance named Bunny Marshal who's earned most of her living owning and operating a reliable tour service here for the past 15 years or so.
The link to the Brunswick News article in PDF form is here...
cliff notes version of the story would tell you that other tour operators have come to town over the past couple of years and had a hard time making a living, so instead of improving their service or understanding that the market is small here they have instead elected to go to the commissioners and complain, causing the commission as a
Avoid the subject at first, then after much consideration proceed to screw things up in entirety.
At first they're afraid of "legal action," so instead of letting the status be "quo" they take a defensive default position in which the original players lose yet the new players don't win what they want--economic success.
Then after two or three more rounds of complaints and concessions, what the public ends up receiving from our commission is not two or three options in the Trolley tour business on the Island....Noooooooo....
WE'LL PROBABLY END UP WITH NO TROLLEY TOURS FOR YOU TO TAKE WHEN YOU COME OVER HERE TO SEE WHAT I'VE BEEN RAVING ABOUT FOR THE PAST GOING ON FIVE YEARS.
That's right, according to Bunny, instead of the continuing quaint simple tour around world fameous poet Sidney Lanier's "Golden Isles" past "Bloody Marsh", Christ Church, and General Oglethorpe's Ft. Frederica, you may have to settle for...
a book from the bookstore and your own car for a self guided tour, else...
Nothing.
government...ya' got to love 'em.
Their latest assault on free enterprise has determined that "trolleys" cannot ring their "bells" while stopped in the village pier area--the place where the "tours" have originated since
"Trolleys" can only ring their "bells" now and legally annoy people as they drive down Frederica road and the outlying areas of the island.
The people standing around in the village tourist area (a place where people might actually WANT know that there is a trolley tour leaving) are officially protected from "bell ringing" according to the county attorney.
Now here's the text to what I wrote last Thursday which was published Friday in the print edition and here on The Brunswick News Website
I have a few questions for the so called "authorities" of Glynn County.
If I, as a private citizen, buy myself a nice shiny bronze bell and further, I happen to park myself and my bell adjacent to the trolley stop on St. Simons when I'm visiting the area, can I ring my bell whenever I want to?
Or does the local government require that I have to have license and/or a permit to ring my bell?
If noise is a problem in Village and the balance of the SSI waterfront, I'd like to know what measures are being taken to eliminate or minimize the sounds of construction as the new pool and other renovations are taking place.
Maybe I should offer my services ringing my new bell to cover the noise that the jackhammers and backhoes are making over the next year if you would like to pass another resolution to that effect.
Finally, using the same convoluted logic, one could not help but wonder how long it will be before some atheist tourist or local "activist" gets a commission resolution and a legal decision to make the local churches buy a permit else stop ringing the bells in their steeple towers for the same petty reasons Trolley company owners are dealing with today.
I think that that says what needs to be said on the matter...How about YOU?
Some Things That Don't Matter Never Change
But The Stuff That Does Matter Always Does
If you haven't heard me say it here on the blog, let me let you in on a little secret.
I could pretty much care less about the "Olympics."
I'm not quite sure when it happened, but I guess it was around Carter's 1980 "boycott" of that year's games because of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan that my personal relationship with the Olympics and Olympic TV coverage started its steady down hill movement.
Heck, the world came to my doorstep and brought the Olympics to Atlanta in 1996 and I only manage to watch a little piece of the proceedings on TV.
I was working in an engineering office in downtown Atlanta the day in 1989 when the city was officially awarded the games and I celebrated in Underground Atlanta with my boss at the time and with throngs of my fellow Georgians with delight over the prospect, but by the time I had lived with the politics, infighting, and official ticket scalping which ensued in actually bringing the Olympics to a successful completion I made what I still believe today to be a rational decision.
I actually left town for most of the duration of the 1996 Summer Olympics in order to avoid what was projected to be giant traffic jams and congestion. I was, however, scheduled to be in Centennial Olympic Park the evening when the infamous Richard Jewell explosive backpack went off.
Fortunately, a couple of three too many Margaritas at a local Mexican restaurant caused me to stay home in Smyrna that evening so my own personal brush with that disaster was averted.
Any way, writing about the Olympics has been an annual topic here on my blog, and the following posting was first delivered on August 14th, 2004 (back before I knew how to convert html links into plain text):
As Television became a part of most every family's life in the 1960's, so were the political realities of issues like race relations and international politics brought home to our living rooms each and every evening.
Where in the 1940's and 1950's you had to read the newspaper or go to the local movie house to see news reels before each film or during intermission, the Network evening news and cable/satellite television now brings the gory details of worldwide tragedy's into your personal space in suburbia for your individual enjoyment or horror.
With the opening of the $7.34 billion edition of the modern Olympic Games, the current terror threat level and the multi-billion dollar security (that's Billion with a B) reminds me of some historical lessons that we could all probably learn from:
For instance, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the 1964 Olympics, refuses to be drafted and go to Vietnam, and changes his name to that of a member of that peaceful religion called Islam:
http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Ali_Muhammad.html
Then Palestinian Arab "Terrorists" (lead by a young, future Nobel Peace Prize winner--Yasser Arafat) slip into the 1972 Munich Olympic Village and hold hostage and massacre Israeli athletes:
http://www.wftv.com/news/3643877/detail.html
Another future Nobel Peace Prize winner--one term President Jimmy (smile when you say that) Carter boycotts the 1980 Olympic games because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan...say what???
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/spotlight/
Then Richard Jewell took the initial heat for the bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9701/03/olympic.bombing/
So what spine tingling excitement will the current events in Athens (Greece, thank God, not Athens, Georgia...home of UGA) hold for us over the next few weeks???
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&u=/nm/20040812/tv_nm/olympics_dc_37&printer=1
We're flying back from Chicago to the Georgia coast for the arrival of Hurricane Charley tomorrow--wish us luck.
Keep watching, listening, and learning, Ya'll...
If you haven't heard me say it here on the blog, let me let you in on a little secret.
I could pretty much care less about the "Olympics."
I'm not quite sure when it happened, but I guess it was around Carter's 1980 "boycott" of that year's games because of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan that my personal relationship with the Olympics and Olympic TV coverage started its steady down hill movement.
Heck, the world came to my doorstep and brought the Olympics to Atlanta in 1996 and I only manage to watch a little piece of the proceedings on TV.
I was working in an engineering office in downtown Atlanta the day in 1989 when the city was officially awarded the games and I celebrated in Underground Atlanta with my boss at the time and with throngs of my fellow Georgians with delight over the prospect, but by the time I had lived with the politics, infighting, and official ticket scalping which ensued in actually bringing the Olympics to a successful completion I made what I still believe today to be a rational decision.
I actually left town for most of the duration of the 1996 Summer Olympics in order to avoid what was projected to be giant traffic jams and congestion. I was, however, scheduled to be in Centennial Olympic Park the evening when the infamous Richard Jewell explosive backpack went off.
Fortunately, a couple of three too many Margaritas at a local Mexican restaurant caused me to stay home in Smyrna that evening so my own personal brush with that disaster was averted.
Any way, writing about the Olympics has been an annual topic here on my blog, and the following posting was first delivered on August 14th, 2004 (back before I knew how to convert html links into plain text):
As Television became a part of most every family's life in the 1960's, so were the political realities of issues like race relations and international politics brought home to our living rooms each and every evening.
Where in the 1940's and 1950's you had to read the newspaper or go to the local movie house to see news reels before each film or during intermission, the Network evening news and cable/satellite television now brings the gory details of worldwide tragedy's into your personal space in suburbia for your individual enjoyment or horror.
With the opening of the $7.34 billion edition of the modern Olympic Games, the current terror threat level and the multi-billion dollar security (that's Billion with a B) reminds me of some historical lessons that we could all probably learn from:
For instance, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the 1964 Olympics, refuses to be drafted and go to Vietnam, and changes his name to that of a member of that peaceful religion called Islam:
http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Ali_Muhammad.html
Then Palestinian Arab "Terrorists" (lead by a young, future Nobel Peace Prize winner--Yasser Arafat) slip into the 1972 Munich Olympic Village and hold hostage and massacre Israeli athletes:
http://www.wftv.com/news/3643877/detail.html
Another future Nobel Peace Prize winner--one term President Jimmy (smile when you say that) Carter boycotts the 1980 Olympic games because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan...say what???
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/spotlight/
Then Richard Jewell took the initial heat for the bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9701/03/olympic.bombing/
So what spine tingling excitement will the current events in Athens (Greece, thank God, not Athens, Georgia...home of UGA) hold for us over the next few weeks???
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&u=/nm/20040812/tv_nm/olympics_dc_37&printer=1
We're flying back from Chicago to the Georgia coast for the arrival of Hurricane Charley tomorrow--wish us luck.
Keep watching, listening, and learning, Ya'll...
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Missy The Turbo Pup's Back On Our Little Island
And Coincidentally...My Name's Back In The Newspaper Here
I'm quite pleased to report that with the expenditure of eight hours of moderate effort tendered mostly on the national Interstate Highways, and in spite of government proclaimed excessive energy costs, we've managed to make it back to our real "home" here again from the temporary quarters situated on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River to spend four glorious nights on St. Simons Island, Georgia.
The hotel is within a half mile of our last abode on Alabama street and three miles from the Sea Palms condo in which we resided for over four years, and mother nature managed to hold off the thunder storms for the duration of our southeastward bound sojourn--reserving the obligatory task of blasting us out of our socks with lightening bolts until we were through happy hour and on our way to dinner in an adjacent restaurant and back into our beds for the evening.
Today is my official "Redneck Real Estate" meeting Day with contractors of various specialties and descriptions showing up to finalize ways for me to inject some more of my overtaxed hard earned dollars into my own personal real estate "Tipping" (as opposed to "Flipping") schemes.
When we walked into the building over on the Marsh for a much anticipated reunion with a number of our local friends we learned that a letter that I had hastily blasted off to the Editor of the local newspaper on Thursday morning had been to published in Friday's edition.
I guess that I'm now obligated to buy a large brass or bronze "trolley bell" and hang myself from the lighthouse or a local church steeple--dedicating the balance of my time spent on this lovely but highly troubled planet ringing it on the command of the local county government (capitalization intentionally omitted on the words "county government")
Give me a chance to get some work done this morning and catch my breath and I'll copy the text of my latest "readers newspaper commentary" here for your enjoyment and get on with my fourth anniversary blog birthday blogging.
Regards...y'all...
I'm quite pleased to report that with the expenditure of eight hours of moderate effort tendered mostly on the national Interstate Highways, and in spite of government proclaimed excessive energy costs, we've managed to make it back to our real "home" here again from the temporary quarters situated on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River to spend four glorious nights on St. Simons Island, Georgia.
The hotel is within a half mile of our last abode on Alabama street and three miles from the Sea Palms condo in which we resided for over four years, and mother nature managed to hold off the thunder storms for the duration of our southeastward bound sojourn--reserving the obligatory task of blasting us out of our socks with lightening bolts until we were through happy hour and on our way to dinner in an adjacent restaurant and back into our beds for the evening.
Today is my official "Redneck Real Estate" meeting Day with contractors of various specialties and descriptions showing up to finalize ways for me to inject some more of my overtaxed hard earned dollars into my own personal real estate "Tipping" (as opposed to "Flipping") schemes.
When we walked into the building over on the Marsh for a much anticipated reunion with a number of our local friends we learned that a letter that I had hastily blasted off to the Editor of the local newspaper on Thursday morning had been to published in Friday's edition.
I guess that I'm now obligated to buy a large brass or bronze "trolley bell" and hang myself from the lighthouse or a local church steeple--dedicating the balance of my time spent on this lovely but highly troubled planet ringing it on the command of the local county government (capitalization intentionally omitted on the words "county government")
Give me a chance to get some work done this morning and catch my breath and I'll copy the text of my latest "readers newspaper commentary" here for your enjoyment and get on with my fourth anniversary blog birthday blogging.
Regards...y'all...
Friday, August 08, 2008
Posting Number 1901
Help Me...I Can't Stop Writing...
This attempt at humor was originally delivered on August 12th, 2004, was titled "NASCAR Hype," and if you ever watch Racin' you might understand where I'm coming from here:
I enjoy watching an occasional NASCAR race. I’ve followed the sport of stock car racin' since I was a kid in the 1960’s, when it was still in its infancy (by today’s standards,) and guys like Bobby Allison and Richard Petty drove cars that were actually built on the same assembly line beside the ones that parked in your neighbors’ driveway.
The race cars also actually looked like the vehicles in the dealers’ showrooms—except for the 600 horsepower engine under the real steel hood, the roll bars, the lack of a back seat, the STP & Hooker header stickers on the fenders, and the big numbers plastered on the doors and the roof. Come to think of it some of our neighbors in south Alabama had all the stickers and the roll bars and no back seat. I guess you had to be there to understand.
There was little TV exposure in those days except regionally for the really big races like Daytona and Talladega—the Indy 500 was the only race of any kind regularly televised nationally back then. If you got north of or west of Tennessee and hooted and hollered and yelled the number “Three” in public, no one knew what on earth you were talking about let alone would be willing to fight you over whether Dale Earnhart or one of the Allisons was the better driver.
Today things are quite different. Total strangers will beat your Grandma if she happens to ‘dis their driver in public. From New Hampshire to California, from Michigan to Homestead Florida, people are fighting in traffic and willingly paying seventy five or more dollars to attend NASCAR races--events that represent probably the most commercialized 6 hours they will endure in a lifetime, with the singular possible exception of Christmas each year.
What really gets me is the TV interviews they do with the drivers and pit crewmembers. The interviewee is always forced to use the name of sponsors, car owners and other suppliers as every other word in each sentence. “Thanks Bill, I couldn’t have driven this Ronnie’s Pulpwood Bubba’s Garage Dodge Charger all 500 laps here at the Trojan Condoms Raceway without the help of them super Goodyear tires while quenching my thirst drinking some of that good ‘ole Gatorade sports refresher.”
After each race, the driver finally gets to Victory Lane after tearing up almost all of the grass in sight doing donuts and burn-outs and when he exits the car, having pulled off a logo adorned helmet the size of a beach ball, he then is forced to put on a baseball cap with some other logo on it. Then they line up soft drink and sports drink bottles and other consumer products on the roof of the car behind his head and body-less hands and arms appear in the TV picture to force feed him various drinks from prominently labeled bottles to the point he can barely answer the questions being offered by the TV reporter.
Imagine if the early explorers like Columbus, Cook, or Byrd were forced to submit to this kind of TV coverage and did interviews and had product sponsors like NASCAR has today. I know there was no TV back then, but just imagine if there was. Columbus’ return from the new world could have gone something like this:
Headphone-Clad Announcer: “So tell the viewers, Chris, are you glad to be back here in civilization?”
Columbus: “ Well I’ll tell you, Vito, we definitely wouldn’t be here in first today at the Pope Pius IX Marina if it weren’t for the performance of our fine vessils--the Guido's Shipyard Queen Isabella Ragu Spaghetti Beteroulli Olive Oil Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. They just sailed so smoothly. Of course, we did loose the Pinta about half way home due to engine failure.
Announcer: Engine Failure?
Columbus: Yeah, the sails, they blew right off her in a storm, they did…it was really something to see!
Announcer: “What about that incident at the midpoint of the trip with the native’s canoe outside the Virgin Islands—are you going to hold a grudge with him on the next excursion to the New World?”
Columbus: “No, I don’t think so, we just love sailing, and things happen when you are going eight or ten knots. This Guido’s Custom Shipyard built fleet of ships just ran right over those itty-bitty dugout canoes—I think that Indian is still swimming home right now. He won’t be no trouble in a year or so when we’re over that way again.”
Announcer: “Did you ever think that you and your crew wouldn’t make it back here to Europe?”
Columbus: “No, not at all. We all had every confidence that these Queen Isabella Guido's Shipyard Italian Solid Oak ships and Mercury Vesevius outboard sails had the muscle to keep us in the lead most of the trip and bring us on home safely…but, by the way, there was that one incident when the Indian Chief caught me with his youngest daughter…boy was she ever a hotsie-totsie…
Announcer: A Hotsie-totsie?
Columbus: Yes, boy or boy, breasts out to hereand legs down to there. Whew wee, I didn’t know if I was going to make it back with my skin intact let alone off that island that night…er, um, never mind…forget what I just said… sorry honey, I'll be right home.”
Announcer: Where do you see yourself and your crew going from here, Mr. Columbus?
Columbus: You see that there moon up there in the sky?
Announcer: The Moon?
Columbus: Yes, well, we’re working with this guy named daVinci, you may have heard of him, on this new kind of ship and boy I tell you, she beats the heck out of the speed and power of these babies we just got off of. We ask the fans to just watch the news in a few hundred years and see what we’re doing. It will definitely make your head spin, it will indeed.
Announcer: Well, ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first…now back to you in the studio in Madrid, Mr. Jennings…
This attempt at humor was originally delivered on August 12th, 2004, was titled "NASCAR Hype," and if you ever watch Racin' you might understand where I'm coming from here:
I enjoy watching an occasional NASCAR race. I’ve followed the sport of stock car racin' since I was a kid in the 1960’s, when it was still in its infancy (by today’s standards,) and guys like Bobby Allison and Richard Petty drove cars that were actually built on the same assembly line beside the ones that parked in your neighbors’ driveway.
The race cars also actually looked like the vehicles in the dealers’ showrooms—except for the 600 horsepower engine under the real steel hood, the roll bars, the lack of a back seat, the STP & Hooker header stickers on the fenders, and the big numbers plastered on the doors and the roof. Come to think of it some of our neighbors in south Alabama had all the stickers and the roll bars and no back seat. I guess you had to be there to understand.
There was little TV exposure in those days except regionally for the really big races like Daytona and Talladega—the Indy 500 was the only race of any kind regularly televised nationally back then. If you got north of or west of Tennessee and hooted and hollered and yelled the number “Three” in public, no one knew what on earth you were talking about let alone would be willing to fight you over whether Dale Earnhart or one of the Allisons was the better driver.
Today things are quite different. Total strangers will beat your Grandma if she happens to ‘dis their driver in public. From New Hampshire to California, from Michigan to Homestead Florida, people are fighting in traffic and willingly paying seventy five or more dollars to attend NASCAR races--events that represent probably the most commercialized 6 hours they will endure in a lifetime, with the singular possible exception of Christmas each year.
What really gets me is the TV interviews they do with the drivers and pit crewmembers. The interviewee is always forced to use the name of sponsors, car owners and other suppliers as every other word in each sentence. “Thanks Bill, I couldn’t have driven this Ronnie’s Pulpwood Bubba’s Garage Dodge Charger all 500 laps here at the Trojan Condoms Raceway without the help of them super Goodyear tires while quenching my thirst drinking some of that good ‘ole Gatorade sports refresher.”
After each race, the driver finally gets to Victory Lane after tearing up almost all of the grass in sight doing donuts and burn-outs and when he exits the car, having pulled off a logo adorned helmet the size of a beach ball, he then is forced to put on a baseball cap with some other logo on it. Then they line up soft drink and sports drink bottles and other consumer products on the roof of the car behind his head and body-less hands and arms appear in the TV picture to force feed him various drinks from prominently labeled bottles to the point he can barely answer the questions being offered by the TV reporter.
Imagine if the early explorers like Columbus, Cook, or Byrd were forced to submit to this kind of TV coverage and did interviews and had product sponsors like NASCAR has today. I know there was no TV back then, but just imagine if there was. Columbus’ return from the new world could have gone something like this:
Headphone-Clad Announcer: “So tell the viewers, Chris, are you glad to be back here in civilization?”
Columbus: “ Well I’ll tell you, Vito, we definitely wouldn’t be here in first today at the Pope Pius IX Marina if it weren’t for the performance of our fine vessils--the Guido's Shipyard Queen Isabella Ragu Spaghetti Beteroulli Olive Oil Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. They just sailed so smoothly. Of course, we did loose the Pinta about half way home due to engine failure.
Announcer: Engine Failure?
Columbus: Yeah, the sails, they blew right off her in a storm, they did…it was really something to see!
Announcer: “What about that incident at the midpoint of the trip with the native’s canoe outside the Virgin Islands—are you going to hold a grudge with him on the next excursion to the New World?”
Columbus: “No, I don’t think so, we just love sailing, and things happen when you are going eight or ten knots. This Guido’s Custom Shipyard built fleet of ships just ran right over those itty-bitty dugout canoes—I think that Indian is still swimming home right now. He won’t be no trouble in a year or so when we’re over that way again.”
Announcer: “Did you ever think that you and your crew wouldn’t make it back here to Europe?”
Columbus: “No, not at all. We all had every confidence that these Queen Isabella Guido's Shipyard Italian Solid Oak ships and Mercury Vesevius outboard sails had the muscle to keep us in the lead most of the trip and bring us on home safely…but, by the way, there was that one incident when the Indian Chief caught me with his youngest daughter…boy was she ever a hotsie-totsie…
Announcer: A Hotsie-totsie?
Columbus: Yes, boy or boy, breasts out to here
Announcer: Where do you see yourself and your crew going from here, Mr. Columbus?
Columbus: You see that there moon up there in the sky?
Announcer: The Moon?
Columbus: Yes, well, we’re working with this guy named daVinci, you may have heard of him, on this new kind of ship and boy I tell you, she beats the heck out of the speed and power of these babies we just got off of. We ask the fans to just watch the news in a few hundred years and see what we’re doing. It will definitely make your head spin, it will indeed.
Announcer: Well, ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first…now back to you in the studio in Madrid, Mr. Jennings…
The Means To Be (Less) Than Average
More Government Statistical Mumbo Jumbo...
I don't know exactly what set this rant off this morning.
The thought process went something like this:
A. Start thinking how stupid it is for the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States to pass laws so some local guy building a country club can't harvest some coal on his giant property by strip mining the ore and selling it rather than just mindlessly bulldozing the mineral into the low spots on his land.
B. Next start ranting in your head about all of the other things that the government has screwed up over the years in the name of looking out "for our own good" while soaking the people that are successful to pay for the ineptitude of what turns out to be a relatively small part of the population.
The break down in the process comes when the government, in their effort to prove that there is a "problem" or a "need" in the first place, has to massage the numbers--often outright lying and cheating--in order to prove that they are mandated to sign a new "entitlement program" into law because "the Majority of Americans" support the process.
That said, I'd like to get into to my initial topic this morning, the difference between the mathematical term "AVERAGE" and "MEDIAN." After all, when you think about it clearly, there is a significant difference between the two words.
An AVERAGE, simply put, is the sum of a group of numbers (grades, temperatures, or in the government's war on poverty...income) divided by the number of numbers you added together to get the total.
Is your head hurting yet?
Stay with me here...I'll try to be clear and relatively brief.
The MEDIAN, on the other hand, is the number in that same group of numbers that falls in the position where HALF the amounts are higher and Half are lower.
Let's look at a few practical examples:
Let's say that you start your own country and you have a total of fifteen citizens with income that looks like the following table (subsitute the word Median for the word Mean as I've been corrected in the comments):
I don't know exactly what set this rant off this morning.
The thought process went something like this:
A. Start thinking how stupid it is for the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States to pass laws so some local guy building a country club can't harvest some coal on his giant property by strip mining the ore and selling it rather than just mindlessly bulldozing the mineral into the low spots on his land.
B. Next start ranting in your head about all of the other things that the government has screwed up over the years in the name of looking out "for our own good" while soaking the people that are successful to pay for the ineptitude of what turns out to be a relatively small part of the population.
The break down in the process comes when the government, in their effort to prove that there is a "problem" or a "need" in the first place, has to massage the numbers--often outright lying and cheating--in order to prove that they are mandated to sign a new "entitlement program" into law because "the Majority of Americans" support the process.
That said, I'd like to get into to my initial topic this morning, the difference between the mathematical term "AVERAGE" and "MEDIAN." After all, when you think about it clearly, there is a significant difference between the two words.
An AVERAGE, simply put, is the sum of a group of numbers (grades, temperatures, or in the government's war on poverty...income) divided by the number of numbers you added together to get the total.
Is your head hurting yet?
Stay with me here...I'll try to be clear and relatively brief.
The MEDIAN, on the other hand, is the number in that same group of numbers that falls in the position where HALF the amounts are higher and Half are lower.
Let's look at a few practical examples:
Let's say that you start your own country and you have a total of fifteen citizens with income that looks like the following table (subsitute the word Median for the word Mean as I've been corrected in the comments):
Holy Toledo...notice that the Average income is over ten times the Median Income?
That's because if you look at the list carefully you'll see that SEVEN taxpayers make more than $66,000 and another SEVEN make less than $66,000.
Now suppose that being a Government, just for fun you start meddling with the tax roles, giving deductions to some people based on income because you know that you can still run the government by paying for the "deductions" and "earned income" credits with money from your taxpayers making greater than the "median" income. Something like this:
Notice what happened to the Average and Median numbers? The Median is exactly the same, while the average income only fell by about $10,500.
See, everything is fine when it comes to funding the government through taxes, while at the same time you've removed one third of your population from the burden of paying taxes. In fact, those same five people are not only still making their original average of about $27,000 per year--
BUT they're also getting the "earned income" credits (unearned tax refunds) so their earnings actually went UP by allowing the government to transfer money from the top two thirds into their pockets at government gunpoint.
OK, maybe the government isn't really all that bad you say, so now lets suppose that you come to your senses and mostly leave the income numbers alone for the lower income earners, but you still play games with the upper income brackets by doing your math in a screwy manner--saying that if you don't have "wages, salary, or tips" then you have no income.
This is actually how the government calculates the number of people "living in POVERTY."
Under that scenario, this is what your income numbers would look like with the exact same original population if the upper earners didn't work every day but instead earned their income through INVESTMENTS and SAVINGS and owned their Home(s) free and clear:
How about them apples?
The Median income fell by 93%, and the Average income is down by 80%.
All I'm saying here is that the next time you hear some Morning News "Anchor" lamenting the 40 plus million Americans (including illegals) living without health insurance (but not health CARE) or the number of Children living in poverty, remember this little math lesson I delivered this morning when you feel the government reaching into your wallet.
It's not that I don't care, it's just that I would like to decide who gets how much of my money instead of letting a bunch of mathematically inept liars do it for me.
The rest is up to you...
(embarrassed blogger note...I mixed the terms "Mean" and "Median" indiscriminately in the original version of this writing as reader T.K. pointed out in the comments. All I can blame it on is poor editing and the early morning hour in which I was writing, but the balance of my points remain the same regardless of the name change...)
Thursday, August 07, 2008
I Bet They're Not From "Around Here"
Natural Selection...
Care to take a guess where the people in this news story were born (and where they were going)?
FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) - An official with Arizona's Department of Public Safety says at least 9 people are dead after a sport utility vehicle rolled over on a rural highway southwest of Phoenix.
Officer Carmen Figueroa (fig-er-OH'-uh) says in a statement that 18 people were in the SUV that rolled on State Route 79, about 80 miles southeast of Phoenix, Thursday morning. The other nine occupants were injured.
Images from a television helicopter show a crumpled white SUV alongside the road and what appears to be a row of bodies covered with tarps.
Figueroa says only one vehicle was involved. The roadway is expected to be closed for several hours.
Yeah...I thought so...
(isn't it interesting the the ASSociated press didn't bother to tell you the nationality of the "victims"?)
Care to take a guess where the people in this news story were born (and where they were going)?
FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) - An official with Arizona's Department of Public Safety says at least 9 people are dead after a sport utility vehicle rolled over on a rural highway southwest of Phoenix.
Officer Carmen Figueroa (fig-er-OH'-uh) says in a statement that 18 people were in the SUV that rolled on State Route 79, about 80 miles southeast of Phoenix, Thursday morning. The other nine occupants were injured.
Images from a television helicopter show a crumpled white SUV alongside the road and what appears to be a row of bodies covered with tarps.
Figueroa says only one vehicle was involved. The roadway is expected to be closed for several hours.
Yeah...I thought so...
(isn't it interesting the the ASSociated press didn't bother to tell you the nationality of the "victims"?)
Public Laundering Of Your Private Posessions
Another Golden Oldie...
Continuing on the fourth birthday blog theme here at "What I'd Liked To Have Said," this morning I'm re-publishing the second essay I wrote for public consumption which first appeared here on August 10, 2004.
Looking ahead to the next few days, I think that it's more than a little ironic that you'll be seeing re-published writing about the 2004 Summer Olympics and Hurricanes among other topics which end up being quite current even four years after the fact.
Since we'll be traveling on Friday back to St. Simons Island for a five day working vacation (working on the investment property) , I think that this morning's essay is particularly topical for me personally.
Enjoy...what was originally titled:
Washing Your Underwear In Public
Spending ten continuous days living out of suitcases in a hotel room brings me back to a reality that I have spent very little time with since college—the Public Laundry. That’s what the sign on the door says here at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites in Elgin, IL.
Laundromat, Wash-O-Matic, Rinse-and-Wring, call it what you may, each and every visit provides a wealth of entertainment opportunities and interesting insights into human nature, and invariably brings you into contact with persons and situations with which you could otherwise do without.
Of course I have had, through the years, intermittent opportunities to further develop and maintain my college developed skills in the public cleansing of my most personal clothing items. The issue of boxers or briefs become quite evident unless you properly sort, handle, and maintain control of your clothing items before and during your visit to the local “Palace of Clean Clothing” (POCC for short.)
For instance, there was that time when I ran away from home, after separating from my ex-wife, and I was forced to give her the old Kenmore washer and worse, the old Kenmore dryer I had recently, lovingly, totally rebuilt for a cost of a hundred thirty six dollars and fifty-five cents (or something like that.) The personal cost of a weekend of cursing and scraped knuckles was extra. I later learned that she promptly discarded both the washer and dryer in favor of brand new equipment once the divorce was final—she just didn’t want me to have them. She tried the same thing with the 30-year-old Snapper self-propelled mower I had also rebuilt, but you know how it is with a man and his lawnmower. I think that lawn mower cost me about five thousand dollars in the final settlement, but it was worth every damn penny.
Any way, back to the local POCC. I rode the elevator down to the second floor about one o’clock this afternoon, carrying our white clothes and my four-dollar mini-box of detergent, purchased from Rashee, the friendly Indian proprietor of the lobby gift shop. Somehow, I avoided buying a genuine imitation Rolex watch or a cigarette lighter that looks like a pistol (against FAA regulations, you know)--but I was awfully tempted.
Upon arrival in the POCC, I found one of the two washers filled with someone’s unwashed blue jeans and one of the two dryers in mid cycle. Undaunted, my heart full of hope, I launched the load of white clothes with $1.00 worth of quarters, $1.50 worth of detergent, and planned my return 20 minutes later with the colored clothes. Wrong you stupid, white, redneck man.
Upon my return twenty minutes later I found BOTH dryers in operation and the load of blue jeans mysteriously in mid-wash cycle. This was war. What (or whom) was in that second dryer? I again left the POCC briefly, planning to catch the one dryer at the end of its cycle and then load MY own second load into MY washer. Again, wrong, you paleface redneck. Another ten minutes and another three floor round trip on the elevator found me and a four foot tall middle eastern woman glancing furtively at each other as she partially unloaded both dryers and fumbled with clothing of all sizes from 6x to Jolly Green Giant. Was this woman running a laundry service out of the Holiday Inn POCC? Could be…
Another elevator trip up three floors, another ten minutes writing this story, and back to the POCC where I found both washers empty, one dryer available, and the little woman with the red dot on her forehead nowhere to be seen. I sprang into action, untieing the sleeves of my dress shirts from the knot they invariably form in the rinse cycle and gleefully launching another $2.50 worth of quarters and detergent into action. An additional dollar bought me the services of the available dryer. I was turning the corner, in the home stretch now, ladies and gentlemen.
Three floors down, and three floors back, and my heart is still singing the pleasures of clean, although slightly damp and wrinkled clothing. The aforementioned mysterious load of blue jeans was doing nicely in the dryer also.
Got to run, now…I have a dollar date with a lovely, appliance-white-colored clothes dryer. She’s mine, Mine, MINE I said, ALL MINE, get away, dammit… I THINK I NEED A DRINK.
Continuing on the fourth birthday blog theme here at "What I'd Liked To Have Said," this morning I'm re-publishing the second essay I wrote for public consumption which first appeared here on August 10, 2004.
Looking ahead to the next few days, I think that it's more than a little ironic that you'll be seeing re-published writing about the 2004 Summer Olympics and Hurricanes among other topics which end up being quite current even four years after the fact.
Since we'll be traveling on Friday back to St. Simons Island for a five day working vacation (working on the investment property) , I think that this morning's essay is particularly topical for me personally.
Enjoy...what was originally titled:
Washing Your Underwear In Public
Spending ten continuous days living out of suitcases in a hotel room brings me back to a reality that I have spent very little time with since college—the Public Laundry. That’s what the sign on the door says here at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites in Elgin, IL.
Laundromat, Wash-O-Matic, Rinse-and-Wring, call it what you may, each and every visit provides a wealth of entertainment opportunities and interesting insights into human nature, and invariably brings you into contact with persons and situations with which you could otherwise do without.
Of course I have had, through the years, intermittent opportunities to further develop and maintain my college developed skills in the public cleansing of my most personal clothing items. The issue of boxers or briefs become quite evident unless you properly sort, handle, and maintain control of your clothing items before and during your visit to the local “Palace of Clean Clothing” (POCC for short.)
For instance, there was that time when I ran away from home, after separating from my ex-wife, and I was forced to give her the old Kenmore washer and worse, the old Kenmore dryer I had recently, lovingly, totally rebuilt for a cost of a hundred thirty six dollars and fifty-five cents (or something like that.) The personal cost of a weekend of cursing and scraped knuckles was extra. I later learned that she promptly discarded both the washer and dryer in favor of brand new equipment once the divorce was final—she just didn’t want me to have them. She tried the same thing with the 30-year-old Snapper self-propelled mower I had also rebuilt, but you know how it is with a man and his lawnmower. I think that lawn mower cost me about five thousand dollars in the final settlement, but it was worth every damn penny.
Any way, back to the local POCC. I rode the elevator down to the second floor about one o’clock this afternoon, carrying our white clothes and my four-dollar mini-box of detergent, purchased from Rashee, the friendly Indian proprietor of the lobby gift shop. Somehow, I avoided buying a genuine imitation Rolex watch or a cigarette lighter that looks like a pistol (against FAA regulations, you know)--but I was awfully tempted.
Upon arrival in the POCC, I found one of the two washers filled with someone’s unwashed blue jeans and one of the two dryers in mid cycle. Undaunted, my heart full of hope, I launched the load of white clothes with $1.00 worth of quarters, $1.50 worth of detergent, and planned my return 20 minutes later with the colored clothes. Wrong you stupid, white, redneck man.
Upon my return twenty minutes later I found BOTH dryers in operation and the load of blue jeans mysteriously in mid-wash cycle. This was war. What (or whom) was in that second dryer? I again left the POCC briefly, planning to catch the one dryer at the end of its cycle and then load MY own second load into MY washer. Again, wrong, you paleface redneck. Another ten minutes and another three floor round trip on the elevator found me and a four foot tall middle eastern woman glancing furtively at each other as she partially unloaded both dryers and fumbled with clothing of all sizes from 6x to Jolly Green Giant. Was this woman running a laundry service out of the Holiday Inn POCC? Could be…
Another elevator trip up three floors, another ten minutes writing this story, and back to the POCC where I found both washers empty, one dryer available, and the little woman with the red dot on her forehead nowhere to be seen. I sprang into action, untieing the sleeves of my dress shirts from the knot they invariably form in the rinse cycle and gleefully launching another $2.50 worth of quarters and detergent into action. An additional dollar bought me the services of the available dryer. I was turning the corner, in the home stretch now, ladies and gentlemen.
Three floors down, and three floors back, and my heart is still singing the pleasures of clean, although slightly damp and wrinkled clothing. The aforementioned mysterious load of blue jeans was doing nicely in the dryer also.
Got to run, now…I have a dollar date with a lovely, appliance-white-colored clothes dryer. She’s mine, Mine, MINE I said, ALL MINE, get away, dammit… I THINK I NEED A DRINK.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Speaking For The President
It just occurred to me again that this blog has a birthday coming up this month.
Four years, and If I write an essay a day between now and then the total would be 1900 essays in 1460 days.
Not bad for a guy that hated English class and most people that taught English for the first 30 years of my life. Writing was a nuisance back then. Certainly not a hobby or even a potential profession like it is today in our little world here in my home on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.
Since I'm extremely busy at work during the day and even in the evening now preparing for a working vacation back to our Little Island on the Georgia coast, I thought that instead of writing new material for the rest of this week leading up to August 10th that I'd republish the first five postings I made as the "Coastal Companion" Blog got off the ground back in 2004.
Here's my first rant, published online August 10th, 2004:
I sent this E-mail to the Neal Boortz show this morning:
Mr. Boortz,
How about looking at this story linked from Drudge Report:
http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/381249top08-09-2004::17:46reuters.html
In summary, after Candidate John sKerry admitted that he would have gone to war with or without the presence of weapons of mass destruction, he then goes insane again with this gem: "Kerry challenged Bush to answer some questions of his own -- why he rushed to war without a plan for the peace, why he used faulty intelligence, why he misled Americans about how he would go to war and why he had not brought other countries to the table."
Here are my answers if I were President Bush:
President Bush- Question 1: "Here John, take a load off and have a Wendy's burger on me ( I know how much you and the missus love them) and listen for a moment so we can straighten out you and the rest of the Democratic Party.
First of all, I'm not aware of a single war fought in US history in which the plan for peace didn't involve first bringing our foe to their knees and, after thoroughly kicking their ass(es), spending a few years overseeing restoration of order and a functioning government on an organized basis according to OUR RULES. In addition, we generally pay for the repairs and restoration of the country involved (even if we didn't cause the damage or deficiency) out of US taxpayer funds.
And by the way, ask the French, Spanish, Russians, Germans, or Hannibal about their diplomatic policy in the 1500's to 1700's for alternate policies. We've voluntarily omitted the raping and pillaging (but we do put panties on the heads of prisoners occasionally.)
President Bush- Question 2: "Yes, some of the intelligence that the Congress, the office of the President of the United States, and our Allies used to make the decision to go to war has since proved to be flawed...but, it's not like we started out on a 1000 mile airplane trip with a wing or propeller blade missing off of the airframe. The flaws were subtle, John, and only proven years after the fact. Hell, we still took off, made altitude, and landed at our destination with fuel to spare. Most of the American people think that the general outcome was worthwhile in the end. Get over it.
President Bush - Question 3: "Now Mr. sKerry, how did I mislead Americans about how I would go to war? Were not the numerous UN resolutions, the obvious danger to the rest of the free world, and America attacked on our own soil not enough?
What part of this equation do you and Mr. Edwards think that Americans didn't understand?
Were people confused about which end of the gun would be pointed at Iraq, who made the bullets, or how effective our state-of-the-art military would be at reducing the Iraqi Military to "resistance status?" Call them bands of street thugs, call them insurgents, they are anything but an organized army/fighting force once we got through with them. Let the liberal press use their code words, the problems in Iraq today are caused by TERRORISTS, not freedom-fighters.
President Bush - Question 4: "John, John, John, why do you and the liberal media insist on stating that the US has prosecuted a unilateral attack on Iraq when British, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Australian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Japanese, Thai, Danish and other forces have been involved in concert with our efforts for over a year? Why, I've heard that even the Spanish continued to send Sherry, Port wine and Tappas snacks after they pulled out their troops this spring. Why do you insist that because France, Germany, and Russia are not supportive that somehow our efforts are less effective or illegitimate?
For the record, since 1947, any UN effort that has actually seen real combat and security threats involved primarily US troops, US designed/built ordinance, and US lead command and communication structure. Excuse me if I just cut to the chase and got the job done. By the way, I'm not one bit sorry that we have been so effective to date."
"Now excuse me, Mr. sKerry--I have a country (and unfortunately--a campaign) to run."
See You in November.....
Why can't Mr Bush and the Republican Party just come out and tell it like it is???
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
The Emperor's New Clothes
I Want A Jacket Made By These Guys...
Check out the Knoxville tailoring establishment, John H. Daniel, where FOX News Bill O'Reilly buys his clothes.
I just found out that we have such places nearby here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River, and I'm severely tempted to at least look at what they do there...
(somebody slap me...I clearly have some form of a Capitalistic disease and need to be vaccinated)
Check out the Knoxville tailoring establishment, John H. Daniel, where FOX News Bill O'Reilly buys his clothes.
I just found out that we have such places nearby here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River, and I'm severely tempted to at least look at what they do there...
(somebody slap me...I clearly have some form of a Capitalistic disease and need to be vaccinated)
Monday, August 04, 2008
Smelly Hippies Take Charge Of Your Trash
Dude...That Odor Aroma Isn't Patchouli, It's Methane Gas...
Picture me with my ever greying, ever balding head tilted back toward the heavens laughing hysterically at the ironic twist of things out there in the so-called Governments operatingon the left coast in California these days.
According to this news article, people in the bastion of the sensitive, liberal, politically correct world of San Francisco are putting their recyclables where their mouths and ideals should be---in the regular trash receptacles.
Apparently people out there are too busy these days singing "Kumbaya" and burning incense out in 'Frisco' to take the time to separate their left over bean Kurd and tofu from their cardboard and cellophane...
Garbage collectors would inspect San Francisco residents' trash to make sure pizza crusts aren't mixed in with chip bags or wine bottles under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
And if residents or businesses don't separate the coffee grounds from the newspapers, they would face fines of up to $1,000 and eventually could have their garbage service stopped.
The plan to require proper sorting of refuse would be the nation's first mandatory recycling and composting law. It would direct garbage collectors to inspect the trash to make sure it is put into the right blue, black or green bin, according to a draft of the legislation prepared by the city's Department of the Environment.
The program is designed to limit the amount of food and foliage that goes into the city-contracted landfill in Alameda County, where the refuse takes up costly space and decomposes to form methane, one of the most potent of greenhouse gases. It will also help San Francisco, which city officials say currently diverts 70 percent of its waste from landfills, achieve a goal set by the Board of Supervisors to divert 75 percent by 2010 and have zero waste by 2020.
Does anyone but me see the stupidity or at least some less than small bit of irony in this story?
First of all, let me say this and get my daily dose of profanity out of my system...
In my considered Redneck opinion, this idiot named Gavin Newsom, the current Mayor of San Francisco, apparently has "shit for brains", so anything coming out of his mouth or any other bodily orifice is likely to contain the very methane gas he's complaining about.
Now, as to the substance of Mayor Newsom's proposal...the dreaded punitive $1000 "fines" he's proposing for breaking the San Francisco's garbage police's rules will, as I've said all along, make matters worse, not better.
While it is true that as long as you can throw away anything you want to for $30 per month people are going to do it...at least at the same time you can control what honest GOD fearing people do with their trash and refuse by providing the service at a reasonable cost.
Cheep, affordable garbage service virtually guarantees at least some minimal level of compliance, while expensive fees, time consuming rules, and giant fines only guarantee that the roadside and adjacent vacant properties will become impromptu landfills and garbage heaps.
Get it?
Further, I have some personal experience with this subject while living on the Georgia coast--where both the city and later the county attempted to eliminate dumping by imposing mandatory garbage collection fees.
The county did it through the addition of the garbage collection fee in land owners' property taxes, while the city simply added the fee to your monthly water/sewer bill. I guess that the theory was that if you didn't pay the trash bill inclued in your tax bill or water bill, the government would take your house or turn off your water as a result... but can you guess what actually happened?
First of all, the trash service we received across the board was ABYSMAL because the customer had no choice in contractors (there was no competition) AND, virtually no one recycled because the government contracted collection companies and government provided collection personnel made it impossible to understand their ever changing rules about how and what you could recycle, and when and where you had to put things out on the curb for collection.
Further, just like Mayor Newsom's apartment dwellers in the news story, there is a whole culture of citizens--some call them the homeless (urban outdoorsmen) or the "working poor" who don't pay rent and don't own real property.
They do, however, own a number of old refrigerators, sofas, flourescent light bulbs, single tennis shoes, and they all eat a good deal of McDonalds cheeseburgers packaged in foam, cardboard, plastic, and paper.
Guess how much the waste disposal fees collected on property tax and water bills influenced their trash disposal practices.
Can you say ZERO?
In fact, I believe that it actually made things worse in Glynn County Georgia because outside of our singular exception of our little island, there was garbage EVERYWHERE... strewn up and down along the streets, and laying in piles on the sidewalk and on every out of the way place.
To make matters worse, the city trash collectors and the county trash contractors would not pick up anything if the pile was mixed refuse.
If you legally put out a pile of leaves and branches for collection on Thursday and some moron came by and tossed a load of household garbage or an old toilet into your pile without your permission, the City workers or the county's anointed contractor would simply drive past and ignore it.
Meanwhile, as the days and weeks went by the pile would grow bigger and Bigger and BIGGER until three times in five years I had to call the City and beg them to bring a CREW OF MEN, a FRONT END LOADER and A DUMP TRUCK to the alley behind my rental property and remove sofas, the guts of a PIANO, and tons of other stuff that total strangers piled on my property.
To add insult to injury, the city told me that unless I put up a fence across the back of my property, at MY EXPENSE, that they would charge me the next time the lovely residents of the city and county chose to use my property as a landfill rather than following the law and using the taxpayer financed waste disposal system they had so carefully engineered.
Government in action...ya got to love it...
Now as to Mayor Newsom's genius ideas and proclamations.
IF SOMEONE DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR TRASH SERVICE, THEY PROBABLY ALSO DON'T CARE ABOUT PAYING YOUR $1000 FINE WHEN THEY'RE CAUGHT MIXING THEIR DIGITAL CAMERA BATTERIES WITH THEIR TAMPONS AND LEFT OVER FRENCH FRIES.
Further, if you cancel their trash service, do you think that they're actually going to stop eating and buying cigarettes and beer at the grocery store and suddenly produce ZERO refuse...just because you command that they do so?
You, Mayor Newsom, are an idiot, elected in a land of full of blithering blooming idiots, and you're lucky that people don't treat you like they did Governor George Wallace and Presidents Lincoln, Ford, and Reagan.
If I were you, Mr. Newsom, I'd be out picking out a new Tux to wear to your next public appearance, and it'd weigh significantly more the the twenty outfits you already have hanging in your closet right now (can you say BODY ARMOR?)
That will be all...for now...
Picture me with my ever greying, ever balding head tilted back toward the heavens laughing hysterically at the ironic twist of things out there in the so-called Governments operating
According to this news article, people in the bastion of the sensitive, liberal, politically correct world of San Francisco are putting their recyclables where their mouths and ideals should be---in the regular trash receptacles.
Apparently people out there are too busy these days singing "Kumbaya" and burning incense out in 'Frisco' to take the time to separate their left over bean Kurd and tofu from their cardboard and cellophane...
Garbage collectors would inspect San Francisco residents' trash to make sure pizza crusts aren't mixed in with chip bags or wine bottles under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
And if residents or businesses don't separate the coffee grounds from the newspapers, they would face fines of up to $1,000 and eventually could have their garbage service stopped.
The plan to require proper sorting of refuse would be the nation's first mandatory recycling and composting law. It would direct garbage collectors to inspect the trash to make sure it is put into the right blue, black or green bin, according to a draft of the legislation prepared by the city's Department of the Environment.
The program is designed to limit the amount of food and foliage that goes into the city-contracted landfill in Alameda County, where the refuse takes up costly space and decomposes to form methane, one of the most potent of greenhouse gases. It will also help San Francisco, which city officials say currently diverts 70 percent of its waste from landfills, achieve a goal set by the Board of Supervisors to divert 75 percent by 2010 and have zero waste by 2020.
Does anyone but me see the stupidity or at least some less than small bit of irony in this story?
First of all, let me say this and get my daily dose of profanity out of my system...
In my considered Redneck opinion, this idiot named Gavin Newsom, the current Mayor of San Francisco, apparently has "shit for brains", so anything coming out of his mouth or any other bodily orifice is likely to contain the very methane gas he's complaining about.
Now, as to the substance of Mayor Newsom's proposal...the dreaded punitive $1000 "fines" he's proposing for breaking the San Francisco's garbage police's rules will, as I've said all along, make matters worse, not better.
While it is true that as long as you can throw away anything you want to for $30 per month people are going to do it...at least at the same time you can control what honest GOD fearing people do with their trash and refuse by providing the service at a reasonable cost.
Cheep, affordable garbage service virtually guarantees at least some minimal level of compliance, while expensive fees, time consuming rules, and giant fines only guarantee that the roadside and adjacent vacant properties will become impromptu landfills and garbage heaps.
Get it?
Further, I have some personal experience with this subject while living on the Georgia coast--where both the city and later the county attempted to eliminate dumping by imposing mandatory garbage collection fees.
The county did it through the addition of the garbage collection fee in land owners' property taxes, while the city simply added the fee to your monthly water/sewer bill. I guess that the theory was that if you didn't pay the trash bill inclued in your tax bill or water bill, the government would take your house or turn off your water as a result... but can you guess what actually happened?
First of all, the trash service we received across the board was ABYSMAL because the customer had no choice in contractors (there was no competition) AND, virtually no one recycled because the government contracted collection companies and government provided collection personnel made it impossible to understand their ever changing rules about how and what you could recycle, and when and where you had to put things out on the curb for collection.
Further, just like Mayor Newsom's apartment dwellers in the news story, there is a whole culture of citizens--some call them the homeless (urban outdoorsmen) or the "working poor" who don't pay rent and don't own real property.
They do, however, own a number of old refrigerators, sofas, flourescent light bulbs, single tennis shoes, and they all eat a good deal of McDonalds cheeseburgers packaged in foam, cardboard, plastic, and paper.
Guess how much the waste disposal fees collected on property tax and water bills influenced their trash disposal practices.
Can you say ZERO?
In fact, I believe that it actually made things worse in Glynn County Georgia because outside of our singular exception of our little island, there was garbage EVERYWHERE... strewn up and down along the streets, and laying in piles on the sidewalk and on every out of the way place.
To make matters worse, the city trash collectors and the county trash contractors would not pick up anything if the pile was mixed refuse.
If you legally put out a pile of leaves and branches for collection on Thursday and some moron came by and tossed a load of household garbage or an old toilet into your pile without your permission, the City workers or the county's anointed contractor would simply drive past and ignore it.
Meanwhile, as the days and weeks went by the pile would grow bigger and Bigger and BIGGER until three times in five years I had to call the City and beg them to bring a CREW OF MEN, a FRONT END LOADER and A DUMP TRUCK to the alley behind my rental property and remove sofas, the guts of a PIANO, and tons of other stuff that total strangers piled on my property.
To add insult to injury, the city told me that unless I put up a fence across the back of my property, at MY EXPENSE, that they would charge me the next time the lovely residents of the city and county chose to use my property as a landfill rather than following the law and using the taxpayer financed waste disposal system they had so carefully engineered.
Government in action...ya got to love it...
Now as to Mayor Newsom's genius ideas and proclamations.
IF SOMEONE DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR TRASH SERVICE, THEY PROBABLY ALSO DON'T CARE ABOUT PAYING YOUR $1000 FINE WHEN THEY'RE CAUGHT MIXING THEIR DIGITAL CAMERA BATTERIES WITH THEIR TAMPONS AND LEFT OVER FRENCH FRIES.
Further, if you cancel their trash service, do you think that they're actually going to stop eating and buying cigarettes and beer at the grocery store and suddenly produce ZERO refuse...just because you command that they do so?
You, Mayor Newsom, are an idiot, elected in a land of full of blithering blooming idiots, and you're lucky that people don't treat you like they did Governor George Wallace and Presidents Lincoln, Ford, and Reagan.
If I were you, Mr. Newsom, I'd be out picking out a new Tux to wear to your next public appearance, and it'd weigh significantly more the the twenty outfits you already have hanging in your closet right now (can you say BODY ARMOR?)
That will be all...for now...
Fine Dining In The South
Here's The Final Tabulation of Expenses...
In the event that I just used a little bit of something, I only included the approximate cost of the product used, not the cost of the ENTIRE JAR of whatever. Also, the meat pricing is actually for one giant sandwich made on one giant loaf of Italian bread, so at lunch today there will be more MEAT and more BREAD involved in the proceedings and the cost climbs even further.
I also left out the cost of the spices and herbs, fresh and dried...
But of course, as is usual in my cooking adventures, COST is never an issue, it's the QUALITY that counts around here else you might as well go eat at Bennigans or McDonalds...GOD FORBID.
In the event that I just used a little bit of something, I only included the approximate cost of the product used, not the cost of the ENTIRE JAR of whatever. Also, the meat pricing is actually for one giant sandwich made on one giant loaf of Italian bread, so at lunch today there will be more MEAT and more BREAD involved in the proceedings and the cost climbs even further.
I also left out the cost of the spices and herbs, fresh and dried...
But of course, as is usual in my cooking adventures, COST is never an issue, it's the QUALITY that counts around here else you might as well go eat at Bennigans or McDonalds...GOD FORBID.
OK, It's Really A TEN DOLLAR Sandwich
Making Up The Profit In Volume...
Well, I'm quite pleased to report that my earlier recipe ended up producing enough olive salad to make a LEAST three of these "sandwiches." Here's a look at my first effort last evening for dinner:
Here's what it looked like on the plate...
Well, I'm quite pleased to report that my earlier recipe ended up producing enough olive salad to make a LEAST three of these "sandwiches." Here's a look at my first effort last evening for dinner:
Here's what it looked like on the plate...
Sunday, August 03, 2008
The Twenty Six Dollar Sandwich
In New Orleans They Call It A Muffuletta...
Monday I'm sort of responsible for lunch at my office. They came to me and asked for "ideas" for a quarterly employee luncheon, and I took matters to task and came up with my own signature solution.
Fourteen people (not including the two on vacation) will starve if I screw up.
We have a kitchen which has everything but an oven, so all of the cooking has to be done before hand or avoided all together. Since I can't make a dishwasher cook pasta I'm cooking a little here at home today in preparation for the event.
In addition to the basic ingredients for boring old sandwiches with meat and cheese on a slice of bread, if you're adventurous I'm providing the ingredients for Greek Gyros featuring my own home made lamb loaf filling and tzatziki (yogurt cucumber) sauce and we're also putting together a couple of giant Muffulettas for the event.
I actually started my work late yesterday with these ingredients for the olive salad on the Muffulettas:
1 medium can Sliced Black olives
pint of Green Salad Olives
pint of Whole Goya olives
1/2 cup Cocktail Onions
1/4 cup Capers
2 Carrots, sliced fine
1 stalk Celery
3/4 cup Pepperroncini
1 cup Pickled Cauliflower
1/4 cup Capers
1/4 cup celery seeds
1/4 oregano
1 head garlic, diced fine
1 table spoon black pepper
1/2 cup of olive oil
A Loaf of Fat Round Bread
Sliced Genoa Salami
Sliced Sopressata Salami
Sliced Ham (preferably Serrano but I settled for Virginia baked)
Sliced Manchego Cheese
You put everything but the bread, meat, and cheese into a food processor and pulse it until you have a coarse mixture.
Add the olive oil.
Refrigerate it over night.
Now slice the loaf of bread in half horizontally, tear out a few chunks of the insides to make room, and smear some more olive oil on the insides of the bread. Layer your olive salad, meats, and cheese alternating the layers until you run out of ingredients or get tired (or think you've got a big enough sandwich.)
Wrap the whole thing up tightly in Saran Wrap and let it sit for a while (or in the fridge over night), then slice it up and EAT that sucker.
Call me about 6 PM today and I'll tell you how my test Muffuletta tasted (half the fun of cooking is doing the research .)
Monday I'm sort of responsible for lunch at my office. They came to me and asked for "ideas" for a quarterly employee luncheon, and I took matters to task and came up with my own signature solution.
Fourteen people (not including the two on vacation) will starve if I screw up.
We have a kitchen which has everything but an oven, so all of the cooking has to be done before hand or avoided all together. Since I can't make a dishwasher cook pasta I'm cooking a little here at home today in preparation for the event.
In addition to the basic ingredients for boring old sandwiches with meat and cheese on a slice of bread, if you're adventurous I'm providing the ingredients for Greek Gyros featuring my own home made lamb loaf filling and tzatziki (yogurt cucumber) sauce and we're also putting together a couple of giant Muffulettas for the event.
I actually started my work late yesterday with these ingredients for the olive salad on the Muffulettas:
1 medium can Sliced Black olives
pint of Green Salad Olives
pint of Whole Goya olives
1/2 cup Cocktail Onions
1/4 cup Capers
2 Carrots, sliced fine
1 stalk Celery
3/4 cup Pepperroncini
1 cup Pickled Cauliflower
1/4 cup Capers
1/4 cup celery seeds
1/4 oregano
1 head garlic, diced fine
1 table spoon black pepper
1/2 cup of olive oil
A Loaf of Fat Round Bread
Sliced Genoa Salami
Sliced Sopressata Salami
Sliced Ham (preferably Serrano but I settled for Virginia baked)
Sliced Manchego Cheese
You put everything but the bread, meat, and cheese into a food processor and pulse it until you have a coarse mixture.
Add the olive oil.
Refrigerate it over night.
Now slice the loaf of bread in half horizontally, tear out a few chunks of the insides to make room, and smear some more olive oil on the insides of the bread. Layer your olive salad, meats, and cheese alternating the layers until you run out of ingredients or get tired (or think you've got a big enough sandwich.)
Wrap the whole thing up tightly in Saran Wrap and let it sit for a while (or in the fridge over night), then slice it up and EAT that sucker.
Call me about 6 PM today and I'll tell you how my test Muffuletta tasted (half the fun of cooking is doing the research .)
Saturday, August 02, 2008
5 AM Cigar
Simple Pleasures...
There's something to be said for the hours between sunset and sunrise--and not all sinister and bad I would like to add.
Over the past ten or fifteen years I've learned to enjoy the evening hours in a manner different from the times when I was locked into a "normal" 24 hour ritual involving work and play and sleep on a regimented schedule.
Today I still find myself living basically two days for every one rotation of the Earth.
Further, I find that if you put yourself into the correct state of mind and the right geographic location that you can gain a great deal of satisfaction from the hours when most of the people on the planet huddle inside their homes in their pajamas.
Of course you don't want to be found wandering the streets of Atlanta or LA at 3 AM unless you are a frivolous drunken club patron, a thief, or some form of Vampire, but I know about a few places which are quite nice at that hour.
Blackwater Sound off Key Largo and a couple of little bays near Upper Matecombe Key in Florida come to mind if you have access to the appropriate boat and don't mind enduring the onslaught of mosquitoes which attack every living thing at sunset each evening.
Then there is the coral beach on the northeast shore of Walker's Cay in the Bahama's which provides a landscape at low tide which is almost Lunar in appearance as the sun rises each morning.
The numerous little un-inhabited islands in the Philippines, viewed from the aircraft elevator portal of a Carrier as they slide by in the twilight manage to get the attention of even the most inattentive young midshipman (that would be me...)
The view over the Marsh looking east from St. Simons Island toward the lights of Sea Island provide an excellent venue for forming early morning thoughts and cogitations.
Then there is the near perfect silence (except for the bugs) found on our front porch here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River--which is were I'm headed this morning with a book and cigar in hand to contemplate my existence and solve a few world problems.
Wish me luck...if you will...
There's something to be said for the hours between sunset and sunrise--and not all sinister and bad I would like to add.
Over the past ten or fifteen years I've learned to enjoy the evening hours in a manner different from the times when I was locked into a "normal" 24 hour ritual involving work and play and sleep on a regimented schedule.
Today I still find myself living basically two days for every one rotation of the Earth.
Further, I find that if you put yourself into the correct state of mind and the right geographic location that you can gain a great deal of satisfaction from the hours when most of the people on the planet huddle inside their homes in their pajamas.
Of course you don't want to be found wandering the streets of Atlanta or LA at 3 AM unless you are a frivolous drunken club patron, a thief, or some form of Vampire, but I know about a few places which are quite nice at that hour.
Blackwater Sound off Key Largo and a couple of little bays near Upper Matecombe Key in Florida come to mind if you have access to the appropriate boat and don't mind enduring the onslaught of mosquitoes which attack every living thing at sunset each evening.
Then there is the coral beach on the northeast shore of Walker's Cay in the Bahama's which provides a landscape at low tide which is almost Lunar in appearance as the sun rises each morning.
The numerous little un-inhabited islands in the Philippines, viewed from the aircraft elevator portal of a Carrier as they slide by in the twilight manage to get the attention of even the most inattentive young midshipman (that would be me...)
The view over the Marsh looking east from St. Simons Island toward the lights of Sea Island provide an excellent venue for forming early morning thoughts and cogitations.
Then there is the near perfect silence (except for the bugs) found on our front porch here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River--which is were I'm headed this morning with a book and cigar in hand to contemplate my existence and solve a few world problems.
Wish me luck...if you will...
