Adobe Walls and Teaching History

How can educators make history boring?  A better question is why they would make it boring.  You would think that  someone who chooses to make a career of teaching history would have a passion for the subject and make it interesting for their students.  But that's generally not the case.  I had three years of history in Jr. High, three in high school, and 12 hours or four semesters of history in college.  Except for coach Bennett in seventh grade Texas history, I can't name one of my history teachers.  And coach Bennett was not a good history teacher, but he was a fun teacher.  And Texas history is interesting if you take it upon yourself to learn about it.

When I was in elementary school in Gruver in the Texas panhandle, my scout group went to Adobe Walls.  The scout leaders worked with the school to get us some background on Adobe Walls.  We were told it was the oldest adobe house in Texas.  So, that was kind of interesting.  We went out and looked and collected all kinds of old junk.  I came home with a cigar box (remember those?) full of rusty square nails and an old bedspring.  There was the remains of an adobe house, and spots that we could see where other buildings had once stood.  Interesting, but fairly quickly forgotten.

Then in about 1987, I read Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.   At one point in the novel, Gus and Lorena stay in an abandoned building at Adobe Walls on the banks of the Canadian River.  They play cards using buttons from soldier's coats as poker chips.  Gus tells Lorena that it had been the site of a great battle between Comanche warriors and Kit Carson's troops.  Since I knew that much of the novel was based on real events in Texas history, I decided to do some research.

Adobe Walls was actually the site of one of the first and most important trading posts on the old Sante Fe trail.  William Bent and Ceran St. Verain built a couple of adobe buildings, but mostly traded from tents.  They originally attempted to trade with the Kiowa and Comanche that roamed the area.  The Comanche and Kiowa were not willing trading partners though.  They were much more interested in taking what they wanted by force.  So Bent and St. Verain improved and fortified their settlement to trade with settlers migrating west on the Santa Fe trail.  Even with the fortifications, raiding Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache warriors made life so uncomfortable that the trading post was abandoned.  

In 1865, Kit Carson and his 335 troops took refuge in the abandoned buildings and held off an attack by an estimated 3,000 Kiowa and Comanche warriors.  Carson's troops suffered less than 10 casualties while killing or wounding several hundred Indians.  More recent historians have lowered the number of the warriors involved and killed or wounded.  As one historian said, if 3,000 Comanches ever followed a single leader on the warpath, they would have conquered all America, Mexico, and Canada.  So, I guess typical of Texans, the events were exaggerated, and probably greatly exaggerated.  Still a great story though.

About ten years later, an even more famous battle was fought at the site.  A group of buffalo hunters, skinners, and hunters, including soon-to-be famous lawman, Bat Masterson, used the site as a campsite during their travel.  Before sunrise, the hunters were awakened by a cracking roof timber.  While the buffalo hunters were repairing the ceiling, a group of about 700 Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes led by Quanah Parker attacked.  The hunters took shelter in the old adobe building and held off the attackers with their long-range buffalo guns for a full day.  One hunter, Billy Dixon, took a shot at one brave from almost a mile away.  And hit him.  Accounts differ as to who the brave was and whether he was killed.  But he was hit with Dixon's amazing shot.  And shortly afterward, the Indians retreated.

But we were taught that it was an old adobe house.

We received Raelynn's social studies (they choose not to teach history in middle school in Colorado) lesson plan a few weeks ago.  One of their planned lessons was "the Constitution and current events."  Wow, with the debate on health care going on at the time, this would be a perfect opportunity to show what amazing forethought was involved in the creation of our Constitution.  With the progressive mindset of many of our teachers, Cathy decided that this class would be very interesting to sit in on.  So, what was the focus of this very interesting class?  Mobiles.  You know, like you would hang above a crib.  Or maybe like you would make in kindergarten or first grade.  Did I mention that this was an eighth grade class?  The perfect opportunity to teach about what may be the most important and most expensive piece of legislation of our lifetime and its impact on their future.  And how our founding fathers felt about our government's role in our everyday life compared to the current administration's view.  And they got out the scissors, construction paper, paste, and yarn and made a mobile!

It has to be part of a plan.  No one could unintentionally make the past so irrelevant, could they? 

                  Read A Patriot's History of the United States                            

Sing Along!

Cathy did some babysitting today.  My friend, Mike, left his little girl with us for the morning.  Taylor is not a year old yet, but she already has a favorite television show.  Her favorite is Yo Gabba Gabba.  When the music came on, her face lit up and she started leaning to the side to see the tv.  Mike said she has favorite episodes already.  This was not one of them.  The robot and fuzzy monsters started singing a song about not playing in the street.  Like Mike said, if adult humans told a kid not to play in traffic, they would just ignore the advice.  But a big fuzzy monster sings a song about the street being "for trucks, cars, buses, and other dangerous things" and it's gospel to a kid.  Cathy suggested that all lessons in school should be set to music.

That made me start thinking about what my generation learned from music, especially music on television.  How about Coke teaching "the world to sing in perfect harmony?"  Or McDonald's telling us that we "deserve a break today."  Tab letting us know that it's "a beautiful drink for beautiful people."  My favorite, "aye, aye, aye, I am the Frito Bandito!"  "You're in good hands with Allstate."  And "like a good neighbor, State Farm is there."  And finally, "when you say Budweiser, you've said it all."

Saturday morning cartoons had Schoolhouse Rocks public service ads.  They taught grammar with Conjunction Junction.  One taught that breakfast is the most important meal and that "a peanut butter and jelly sandwich any time of day, is a treat."  The one that needs to be brought out of retirement is How a Bill Becomes a Law. 

Our congressmen missed out on the first part of the video where "the whole process starts with ... the folks back home decided they wanted a law passed."  The idea doesn't start with the president, unions, or radicals from Columbia University.  It starts with "folks back home." 

I'm sure the song was edited to fit into its allotted time.  Because it never mentions giving billions of dollars in deals to the senators from Nebraska, Louisiana (sorry, it wasn't put in for only Louisiana.  Any state that suffered a major natural disaster in 2005 would be eligible.  At least as long as their state capitol rhymed with patton luge), and Connecticut.  Then let's turn on the water for a couple of drought-stricken California districts to get their votes.  Still not enough to pass.  Okay, tell the representatives that don't believe we should pay to kill babies that we'll take that part out later.  Really, we promise.  I think all that was in the original version of the song.  It just had to be edited out.

The best part though?  The animated version of the bill was a one page document rolled like a scroll.  That, of course, is just for television though.  The bill that created medicare was 28 pages, the one that created the interstate highway system was two pages, and the Constitution was four pages, six if you count the letter of transmittal and the Bill of Rights.  That many pages wouldn't look good on television.  It might look fishy, like they were trying to sneak something in.  Like maybe a takeover of something important, oh, say the student loan program for grins.  So how suspicious would a 2,700 page pile on the steps of the capitol look?  What could you possibly sneak into a 2,700 page mess?  Pretty much anything you wanted.  Just to be fair, post it on the internet three days before the vote, so congressmen, the media, and the public have a chance to read it and respond. 

Sing along, I'm just a bill, I'm only a bill...    

Thank God for Texas!!

When we moved to Arizona in 1993, it was the first time in my life that I lived outside of Texas.  When we were renting our house, the lady we were renting from told us where all the county offices were in Prescott.  She said we should get an Arizona license plate as soon as possible.  She said if we did not, expect to get stopped a lot by the local police.  They don't like people from out of state, but especially not those from Texas.  We kind of laughed it off, but did get new plates fairly quickly.  Didn't want to tempt fate or the local police department.  We were in Arizona for a few years before moving back to Texas - Amarillo.  No one recommended that we change our Arizona plates quickly.  We moved back to Arizona in 2005.  I started work on Monday.  Thursday afternoon when I went outside for a break, I found a note on my windshield from the local sheriff's department.  It detailed the local requirements for updating your vehicle registration within 30 days after moving and told the fines possible if you did not.  I did not see it as an anti-Texas practice, just a revenue enhancer for the county.  My belief was justified when another new hire came on from Oklahoma and received the same note within a week.  And no one resents Okies.

Then I moved to Colorado and what a difference!  I heard the usual jokes and good-naturedly took them.  It's easy to take the jokes about your perceived natural superiority when you know that you really are superior!  The first comment that was not good-natured joking came from a local hunter when I was selling him a hunting license.  A license for the first elk hunting season came to about $175 and he started complaining about those *@! Texans making the price of licenses go up.  Well, the same license for a non-resident cost almost $500!  And the state is using money from out of state hunters to actually keep the cost down for in-state hunters.  Not to mention the sales tax I collected from them on the ammo, sleeping bags, tents, firewood, propane, gasoline, coats, orange hunting vests, gloves - what exactly did they bring with them???  I probably threw a little fuel on his fire when I mentioned that our little town was actually part of Texas at one time.  Along with Denver and Cheyenne and everything in between.  He just lived in the part of the country that original Texans decided they had no use for.

Next came negative comments from Raelynn's 5th grade teacher about Texans in front of her class.  Raelynn was upset, so Cathy let the teacher know that Raelynn lived in Texas and still has a lot of family in Texas and she should be careful who she is ridiculing in front of the class.  The comments stopped, but so did any other conversation or interaction with the teacher.

We moved to Gunnison, which is a friendlier area.  It has to be, since it gets a huge chunk of revenue from out of state skiers, summer vacationers, and students at Western State.  Like most prejudices, they are softened with exposure to people from a different background.

I started seeing news stories a couple of weeks ago about conservative views being re-introduced into school curriculums in Texas.  Since Texas is the largest non-California market, what is taught in Texas is rolled out to the rest of the country since publishers go for the biggest market.  And California is so far off the chart that no one will follow them.  According to the news stories, the conservatives were successful in rolling back almost all the progressive changes, especially to history, that occurred beginning in the early 1970's.  So the media and progressive educators started sniping.  An editorial cartoon in this Sunday's Denver Post (yes, I am one of the 156 people that still read the newspaper) showed a copy of the Constitution with sticky notes saying things like "mention the 2nd amendment here," "can't we work Reagan in here somewhere," "talk about capitalism here," etc.  Like requiring students to memorize and recite the preamble to the Constitution is a bad thing!  And the 2nd amendment is in there!  And Reagan was a president!  And Texas and United States has actually featured English-speaking white men!  It's Texas history!  We won the Texas revolution.  Don't really care why Santa Ana decided it was necessary to kill everyone at the Alamo.  Just that he did and he got his butt kicked at San Jacinto.  And Sam Houston did not have all his gun-toting rednecks kill all the Mexicans.  He let them live and go back home to Mexico.  He didn't even decide to go conquer more territory.  Same with the American revolution, WWI and II, the Cold War, capitalism vs. communism/socialism/fascism.  We won.  Get over it.  America is blessed and exceptional.  Our kids need to be taught about the good things their country has done and is doing.  It is not necessary to go around bowing to foreign despots and apologizing for our success.

Years ago when I had the book store, I noticed a paperbook published in the early 1970's or maybe even the late 1960's, called The Super-Americans.  Its premise was that the reason other Americans dislike Texans is the same reason that people in other countries don't like Americans.  We know we are right, and don't really care to hear what you think about it.  As Emmitt Smith told Kevin Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XXX, "look at the scoreboard."  That's all that matters.  Deal with it.  

First the education reforms, then being one of the first states to say they will challenge the health care takeover in court, to being one of the few states whose economy is not in complete freefall.  Now, take a look at this nightmare of a news story from Washington.  It's just unbelieveable how far we have fallen as a country.  About half the comments say that the mother in the story is wrong.  She should have no say in the matter.  What the school did was legal.  In 1995, Texas repealed the law that would allow the schools to do this in Texas.  So maybe California, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, Washington, Colorado, and D.C. should just close their mouths and take a look at the scoreboard.  Follow the example of a successful state.       

Crime and Punishment

Writing about Black Jack Ketchum yesterday reminded me of a couple of other dumb criminal stories.  When I was in college in Arlington, I lived about a block from a self-serve car wash.  At the end of the car wash, there was a very small office or storage area.  An enterprising Vietnamese man bought the car wash and turned the small space into a convenience store.  Well, being surrounded by apartments catering to college students, the store did pretty well with its alcohol and nicotine sales.  The only problem was that its success was noticed by the criminal element too.  Three weeks in a row, on Sunday at 9 pm, a hooded man came through the door with a gun.  He would order the owner into the restroom, close the door and steal all the cash from the cash drawer.  Well, as Black Jack Ketchum learned, consistency or predictability is not a good trait for a criminal.  On the third week, the store's owner had the routine down pat.  The masked man walked through the door.  The owner did not even have to be told what to do next.  He just came out from behind the counter, walked into the restroom and closed the door.  Here's where he had planned a little change in routine.  He had left a handgun on a shelf above the restroom door.  So the owner gave the thief enough time to start prying the cash drawer open, and came out of the restroom firing!  The holdup man threw up his hands yelling, "it's not real!  it's not real!" and threw the gun down and ran out the door.

Adrenaline or pure anger took over in the owner though.  He chased the robber outside still firing away.  The robber ran across the traffic on busy Cooper Street, down two blocks and disappeared somewhere down Park Row Avenue.  Police found him by following the blood trail to the dumpster behind KFC where he was hiding.  Like Forrest Gump, he had suffered a gunshot wound to the buttocks.  

While I lived in the neighborhood, my apartment or house was robbed twice, and broken into at least two other times.  The first time, thieves stole my weight bench and all my weights from my enclosed patio, right outside my bedroom window while I slept...with the window open.  I probably did not want to catch anyone who could quietly steal 200+ pounds of weights, a bench, and bars. 

I lived in a duplex that was broken into three times.  The first time, my roommate came home while they were stacking our stuff up beside the front door.  My labrador retriever was not the best watch dog.  He was sitting on the recliner with a tennis ball in his mouth while the thieves were running out the front door.  He did recover in time to snarl and growl aggressively at the police officers when they arrived.

The last time, they did get a lot of stuff.  Gus, my lab, was locked in the backyard at the time.  So the burglars were able to work without being required to play catch for hours.  The thieves completely trashed the house looking for valuables.  Being college students, we didn't have much.  They even left my Apple II+ computer.  It's probably worth more now as a collectible than it was then.  When the police arrived, they went through the living room, noting the missing television, vcr, and stereo.  They went into my room where every drawer was emptied and left on the floor.  All the books had been pulled from the shelves.  It was a mess.  The kitchen had been similarly ransacked.  Then they got to my roommate's room.  Clothes were everywhere, dresser drawers were hanging open with socks and underwear draped over the edges.  Trash was everywhere.  The policewoman said, "well, it looks like they didn't miss anything this time."  Jim, my roommate, then had to tell them that he didn't think the thieves had made it back to his room.  That was the room's normal condition.  

But my best break-in story was while I lived in a loft apartment alone.  On a nice fall night, I decided to try to reduce my electric bill and sleep with the downstairs window open instead of running the air conditioner.  I wore contact lenses that you could sleep in at the time, so I had no glasses.  Once a week, I soaked the lenses overnight, so I would go to bed blind as a bat.  Late at night, I woke up hearing voices downstairs.  I walked over to the railing that overlooked my living room and saw a leg coming into my window.  I felt around under my bed where I stored my camping stuff.  I found my ax.  Don't know why I thought I might ever use an ax on a camping trip, but I had one.  I grabbed it and started toward the stairs.  I very stealthily stepped down to the third step and gracefully, but menacingly ran/stumbled/fell down the stairs while yelling and waving the ax over my head like a madman (I was actually trying not to cut my leg off as I fell)!  I heard a scream from the window and then the sound of the would-be burglars running out of the parking lot.  I decided I could afford a little a/c after that.  And became a firm believer in the use of deadbolts.

Roadside Attractions, or Don't Lose Your Head

I mentioned Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire in a post last week.  Another of his themes is that air travel has made us less appreciative of our country and landscape.  To really see and appreciate our country, you have to walk it.  Or bicycle it, or at least drive it.  And preferably not on the interstate.  Flying is like time travel.  You start in one location and wake up in a new one.  There is no sense of "getting there."

I love to drive.  A lot of the fun is seeing unexpected landscape or landmarks.  The first driving vacation I remember taking as a family was a trip to Florida in 1976.  One of the highlights was getting lost in Mississippi.  I can't remember what we left the highway to look for. We ended up on a road lined with trees draped with Spanish moss, just like you see in the movies.  Finally we came to an old burned-out plantation house close to the river.  If my memory is correct, all that was left was the huge front porch with vine-covered pillars.  I thought that while writing this I would remember the name of the old mansion, but I'm drawing a blank.  We did take a great picture of Mom and Dad's brand new all black Chevrolet Impala parked in front of the columns.  Typical of kids, I enjoyed that part of the trip more than the two days in Disney World.  

Lori, of course, was only interested in the Motel 6 swimming pools.  She discovered diving boards on that trip.  She would jump off the diving board with the inflatable ring around her waist (she was not yet 5, I think).  On one dive, she hit the water and the ring stayed on top and she went under.  Being the responsible big brother, I had to go under and get her.  Mom and Dad didn't seem too concerned, but they did make a quick trip to the closest K-Mart for some floaties that fit around her arms.

When I was in college, I took my first road trip where I was in charge.  I talked a Vietnamese friend, predictably nicknamed Charlie, into skipping his usual Padre Island trip and going with me on a camping trip to the Grand Canyon.  We learned that March is prime snow season in northern New Mexico and northern Arizona.  It did make it easy to find campsites though.  For some reason, we were the only tent campers at each stop.  The drive along I-40 traces the old Route 66 most of the way from Amarillo to Flagstaff.  My first roadside surprise was the Cadillac Ranch.  I knew about it, mostly from the Bruce Springsteen song, but had never seen it.  I searched for a digital photo for this post, but apparently I have only old 35mm prints.  Guess I'll have to make a little side trip next time I go to Texas.  New Mexico was a little boring, except for the blizzard we were driving through.  Then we got to Arizona.

From the moment we crossed the state line and stopped at the rest area beside Chief Yellow Horse's roadside souvenir stand, I was hooked.  Chief Yellow Horse had a big long yellow 1970 Cadillac complete with longhorns on the hood parked out front.  Teepees lined the parking lot and a live buffalo was penned up beside the front door.  Even though I knew that bison and teepees belonged on the plains, not the desert, it was just about the coolest tourist trap I had ever seen.  Well, if you don't count the rattlesnake pit we saw near El Paso on a trip to Juarez when I was really young.


A few years ago, I drove alone from Arlington, Tx to Yellowstone for a quiet 10 day camping vacation.  Most of the drive from Amarillo to the Grand Tetons was boooooooring.  At one point, just outside of Laramie, I could see a shape in the median, probably a mile ahead.  That part of Wyoming is just as flat as the area around Amarillo.  As I got closer, I could start to make out a familiar face.  But it was a face that as far as I could remember had absolutely no connection to Wyoming.  As I got closer, the features became clearer and sure enough, it was a huge statue, or since it was just shoulders up maybe it is technically a bust?  Of Abraham Lincoln.  I had to stop to see what Honest Abe was doing in Wyoming.  The plaque gave absolutely no clue why the statue was there.  It wasn't until I got back home and did some internet research (thank you Al Gore) and learned about the Lincoln Highway.  The Lincoln Highway was the first coast to coast highway in the U.S.  Just as I-40 has stolen the traffic from Route 66, I-80 has taken over the old Lincoln Highway.  I haven't been that far north again, but the Lincoln highway would be a fun exploration.

Other trips have revealed the Wigwam Motel, which I wrote about and posted some photographs this past summer.  I have also seen a castle on a hillside near Abilene, Tx; a five pound apple pie in southern Arizona; the corner in Winslow, Arizona made famous by The Eagles; giant feet with the poem Ozmandias ("look on my works and despair") between Amarillo and Lubbock; the Big Texan where you can get a free 72 oz. steak if you can eat it within an hour, along with a baked potato and salad; the huge cross near Shamrock, Tx; numerous cliff dwellings in Colorado and Arizona; and lots of other cool stuff.

We recently started driving highway 87 between Raton and Clayton, New Mexico, easily the longest and most boring part of our trip from the mountains in Colorado to my hometown of Graham.  On one of the trips, I noticed banners with photographs of Black Jack Ketchum on every corner in Clayton.  I love old west history, but had never heard of Black Jack Ketchum.  Again, with proper homage to Al Gore (is it getting cooler, or is it just me?), I did internet searches to see who he was.  He was a train robber in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado in the late 1880's.  Not exactly as prolific or well know as Jesse James or Butch and Sundance though.  He found a location that he liked just outside of Clayton and robbed the train there three times.  Well, the third time was definitely not a charm.  He got caught.  In the process of being captured, he was shot  in the arm.  Since he was caught in the act, the outcome of his trial was a foregone conclusion.  As soon as he was brought into town, the local hangman weighed him and took all the necessary measurements needed to insure a proper hanging.  Predictably, he was convicted and sentenced to hang for his crime.  Unfortunately, his arm wound got serious, and his arm had to be amputated.  Civilized folks don't hang an unhealthy man.  So he stayed in jail and was very well fed until he got healthy enough to kill.  Well, when hanging time arrived, the hangman did not take new measurements.  Black Jack was now quite a bit heavier and leaned a little more to the left than he used to.  So when the trapdoor opened, Black Jack Ketchum dropped, the rope tightened and his head popped right off his neck and flew into the air!  On my trip last spring, my father in law and I stopped in the Clayton Dairy Queen for lunch.  While getting my self-serve Dr. Pepper at the fountain, I looked at the old photographs decorating the wall.  And right there above the cup lids and straws is a reprint of the photograph of the body of Black Jack Ketchum next to the sheriff who is holding the hooded head of the train robber.  I will definitely not be robbing any trains near Clayton, New Mexico!

Oh yeah, I remembered the Mississippi ruins!  Windsor Castle near Alcorn State University - now I even remember going past the University on our drive.  

It's all about the Benjamins (money for the less with it crowd)

The first rule in management is "Don't mess with your people's money."  A mistake on a paycheck will be remembered forever, no matter how quickly it might be corrected.  For all the debate about the Constitution, states' rights, federal funding of abortion, government takeover of health care, and death panels, the thing that will kill the bill quicker than anything is the cost.

And maybe that's the way it should be.  In a capitalist system, the market decides.  That's one of the basic principles of our country.  Why did cars become more fuel-efficient in the mid-70's?  Because gas prices went up.  Cars with better gas mileage sold, so car companies made an effort to improve all models' fuel-efficiency.  When gas prices moderated, or the public got accustomed to the higher costs, size became more important.  Chrysler's comeback under Lee Iacocca was led by the minivan.  When gas threatened to climb $4 a gallon or higher, there was a waiting list for hybrids.  

We all complain about American jobs going overseas.  When I worked for Stride Rite in the late 1980's and 1990's, almost all their shoes were made in factories in Massachusetts and Missouri.  Nike set the standard for the industry by going overseas to China and reducing their costs and increasing profits for their shareholders, which is their number one responsibility.  Stride Rite followed their lead, sending hundreds, if not more than a thousand jobs overseas.  By doing so, they were able to avoid the cost increases associated with doing business in the U.S.  Costs consisted mainly of environmental requirements (we all want clean air, right?), employee wages and benefits (we all want high wages and great benefits, right?).  Those production cost increases, to use Obama's phrase, necessarily led to skyrocketing retail prices.

At my store in Arizona, I saw the perfect example of Americans voting with their pocketbook.  We sold the Sperry Topsider boat shoe for $49.  A customer looked at it, tried it on, liked it, then saw that it was now made in China.  He told me that he refused to buy shoes made in China and these used to be made in the U.S.  He REFUSED to support any business that sent jobs to China.  I told him that the Dexter store was only a couple of doors down from my store and they had similar shoes, still made in the U.S.  He was back within fifteen minutes, buying the made in China Sperry Topsiders.  The Dexters, Proudly Made in America, cost an extra $20.  

In the early 1980's, WalMart was Hometown Proud.  They advertised carrying made in America merchandise.  They were also going under.  By 1988, you no longer heard the made in America claim.  Their new catchphrase was Always the Lowest Prices.  Google for stories about the Lowest Prices and their affect on American jobs particularly Zenith televisions and Rubbermaid.  It is impossible to pay the highest labor and environment related costs and sell for the lowest prices.  And it speaks volumes about those costs when you realize that it is cheaper for businesses to ship raw materials overseas, mainly to China, pay to have the products manufactured, and then ship the finished product to the United States than it is to have it manufactured in America.  Unions put the blame on the businesses when American jobs become Chinese jobs.  Blame Americans.  We are the ones that put more value on low retail prices than on American jobs.  When unions or the government start setting wage and benefit requirements, you only have to look to General Motors to see the results.  When over $1000 of the cost of every car goes to benefits for retired workers, a company can't compete.  That leads to higher retail prices and/or lower quality standards, fewer sales, and in this case a government run company.  And when the government gets involved in business, the results are predictably disastrous for the taxpayer, the shareholder, and the customer.  Unions seem to come out of the mess all right though.  They expect a payback for their campaign contributions.

Get the government involved through minimum wage standards.  At my company, we employed an average of 23 year-round full time employees.  Our starting wage was just under $1 over minimum wage.  The government felt that the minimum wage needed to be raised.  Within two years, our starting wage was now below the minimum, which forced the company to give all employees with under a year of service a raise to minimum,about 6%.  Well, the company has a responsibility to its shareholders to make a profit.  At my store, we were budgeted to use 14% of our gross sales on hourly payroll.  That did not change.  The company's options were to raise prices to increase gross sales, or reduce the number of employees.  Customers put a higher premium on price than service, so instead of 23 year-round employees, we now had to get by with 21.  Another interesting side-effect was that longtime employees were now dissatisfied with their pay.  While starting wage went up over 6%, annual salary increases stayed at the standard 3%, so new and short-term associates were making close to the pay of 3 to 5 year associates.  And customer service scores went down because the lower number of employees not only could not do the job as well, but they were not as happy with their job.  As usual when the government gets involved, everyone loses.

So now health care is the focus of the government takeover.  Like anything else, we want the best product at the lowest price.  We don't want to pay the cost of the world's best medical care, we only want to receive the world's best medical care.  In this case, we can't send the jobs to China for lower costs.  So, as in the case of General Motors, the government is stepping in.  And as usual, only the unions (unions, not to be confused with dues paying union members) will be happy with the results.  

Do Dyslexics Support the Right to Arm Bears?

I was going to put a photograph that I received in an e-mail above this post, but I can't find it!  It was of a yard sign that said something like:  My neighbor wants to take away MY right to bear arms.  Out of respect for his beliefs, if you attempt to rob or harm him, I pledge to take no action on his behalf.

One of my favorite authors is Edward Abbey.  Being a writer and former U.S. National Parks Service employee, you would think he would be the average tree-hugging progressive.  Reading his books, it's not hard to get a clear picture of where he stands on most issues.  "Leave me alone!!!!"  Probably with a few more colorful adjectives thrown in.  Desert Solitaire is one of my favorite books.  In it, he proposes doing away with all vehicle access in national parks.  If you have been to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon during peak tourist season, you might think Abbey has a really good idea.  His point was that you can't really experience the wonder of the Grand Canyon from your air-conditioned car.  And I think he is right.  Now parks are having everyone park at the entrance of the Grand Canyon and ride a shuttle to the popular points.  It's not what Abbey meant (seeing the park afoot or on a bicycle), but it has alleviated the traffic that rivaled that of Dallas at rush hour.

That's not what this was going to be about.  Not sure where that came from.  One of my all time favorite quotes came from Edward Abbey - "If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns."  That's scary to think about.  History shows that the first step to a dictatorship is to disarm the average citizen.  Progressives have been trying for my entire life, and probably longer, to take the right to bear arms from Americans.  That darn Second Amendment!  Whew, thank you founding fathers!  

I truly believe that this goal is part of the health care takeover.  Because of the Constitution, progressives can't take away firearms by law.  But make it a health issue, and maybe then they can get it through. 

My sister reminded me of a childhood experiment that she, Bobby, and I conducted.  We had moved into a new house.  In the garage, we found a toolbox with a chisel, the head of a shop hammer, and a handful of .22 shells.  Being curious kids, we wanted to see what was inside a bullet.  So, I held the bullet between my thumb and forefinger and held the chisel with my other hand on the bullet.  Bobby then tapped on the chisel to open the bullet.  We never got one open, just flattened a bunch of them.  My mom caught us and saw what were doing.  She told us to "Be careful!"  That was probably a good response.  If she had panicked, we probably would not have given up as quickly as we did.  Looking back, maybe we did need some federal government oversight!  

So, it's easy to see that the wise government employee is only trying to protect us and our children from our own stupidity or curiosity (the two seem to go together, huh?).  After taking away our guns, it is much easier to take our cars, knives, bats, or anything else that could possibly hurt us.  I picture a future where we all walk around in people-sized hamster balls.  That would keep us all safe, from everything but our government. 

Charity begins at home, at least in the conservative home

A conservative sees a poor homeless man and feels sympathy.  The conservative offers him a job, so he can earn money to get clean clothes and a place to live.  A liberal sees the same homeless man and feels compassion.  He turns to the conservative and says, "give him some of your money."  I read that years ago and I think it was attributed to Winston Churchill.  Of course, just about every humorous quote is attributed to either Churchill or Mark Twain.  

With all President Obama's plans to redistribute wealth and fundamentally change America,  I thought I would do a little research on charitable contributions of the wealthy and conservatives compared to liberals.  The president and the media would have us believe that the rich must be taxed to force them to contribute to society.  The only way the poor can survive is if the government takes money from the more fortunate (funny how that's an accepted description of the wealthy, as if it were all luck, education and hard work had nothing to do with their success).  

One of the neat things about people that run for or hold public office, their income tax filings are available to the public.  So, for a little history on charitable contributions.  The grandfather of all liberals, Franklin D. Roosevelt gave on average less than 2% of his annual income to charitable organizations.  Ronald Reagan, the conservative icon, who, by the way, did not come from a wealthy family like the Roosevelt dynasty, gave an average of 6% of his income to charity.  The Liberal Lion, Ted Kennedy gave less than 1.5% of income to charity in the years that he released his income tax statements.  I'm pretty sure he came from a fairly well-off family.  

For a little more recent history, President George W. Bush averaged just over Obama's threshold for the wealthy $250,000 per year in the years he was Texas governor and United States President.  In those years, he gave an average of 10% of his annual income to charity.  His vice-president, Beelzebub, I mean Dick Cheney, was inconsistent in his charitable contributions.  In one year reported, he gave 0.1%, but the following year gave over 77% (no decimal in there, 77%!!), for an average of 19% in the years reported.

The current holder of the vice president's office, Joe Biden, was very consistent.  Stingy, but consistently stingy.  In the past 10 years, he has given a low of 0.1% and a high of 0.3% of his income to charity.  And yes, those are decimals in there.  He has given an average of $369 a year to charity in that timeframe.  His boss, President Obama is, by comparison a regular philanthropist.  In 2000, when he ran for senate, he reported contributions of $2350, or 1% of his income.  Now, in total contradiction to his belief that the wealthy don't give more, last year when revenue from his two books produced an income of $4.2 million, he and Michelle gave $240,000, or 5.7%.  


National statistics from 2004 were the most recent I could find.  That year, 2/3 of Americans reported charitable contributions.  They gave an average of $2047 or 3% of their taxable income.  Citizens that made between $200,000 and $500,000 gave an average of almost $41,000 to charity, or just under 9.5%.  


The best way to redistribute wealth is to let those who earn the wealth decide how to distribute it.  That redistribution comes through jobs created and obviously through charitable contributions.  Let's keep the government out of the process!

Oh, I could mention that Jesse Jackson and Al Gore each averaged under 1% in the years they made their income taxes public.  But that would be going overboard in making the point.

I remember an old Saturday Night Live with Chevy Chase playing President Ford.  They did a skit with the debate between Ford and Carter during the election campaign.  Carter goes through a 2 minute dialogue about tax rates, oil company profits, and the effect of the cost of oil on the American economy.  When it is Ford's chance to respond, he has that blank stunned look that Chevy Chase did so well and says "um, they, uh, they promised me there would be no math."  I promise, no more math in my posts.
 

Wolverines in the Closet

When Raelynn was about two and a half years old, she visited her MeMe for a couple of days.  MeMe taught her to pretend. When she got home, Raelynn was talking to imaginary friends, having teas, and doing all those things that little kids do.  One of her favorite books was about animals in the forest going to a bear's house during a storm.  We made up more parts of the story with gophers and wolverines.  For some reason, Raelynn really got into the gophers and wolverines.  Soon she was chasing imaginary gophers around our house in Amarillo.  

One day, our landlord, a really nice man in his 60's, was over working on the plumbing under our bathroom sink.  Raelynn ran into the bathroom, and very excitedly asked if the gophers had run through there.  The wolverines chased them out of the closet!  Mr. Frost pulled his head out from under the sink and asked me, "did she say gophers?"  I said, "yeah, the wolverines chased them out of the closet."
 

Kids naturally have imagination.  Play helps develop it.  And so do good toys.  Old fashioned toys like dolls, blocks, tinkertoys, Lincoln logs, and yes, even toy guns.  Our toys have become so advanced, that imagination is no longer required.  Even the toy guns that we sold at Alco make the shooting noise for you.  No more yelling POW as you shoot.  The end of the barrel lights up with a red light and the gun makes noise for you.  

Imagination is harder to teach as kids get older.  Ego gets into the way.  Don't want to look stupid in front of your friends.  But still good teachers in elementary and middle school use imagination and pretend.  Raelynn's teacher in 6th grade taught a section on the Renaissance and gave titles to everyone (he was Duke), and they had a night where they even cooked dishes from the era.  And in one section, they put Columbus on trial for genocide.  I guess imagination can be both used and mis-used.  

Imagination is the first step in the invention and innovation process.  Imagine it, plan it, then create it.  It's also the first step in defense.  You have to imagine what the bad guys will do.  The 9-11 commission said that the biggest reason the attacks were successful was that America had a "failure of imagination."  No one could imagine that the hijacking of airliners could be a suicide mission.  The crews of airliners were trained to cooperate with hijackers and let negotiators take over when the planes landed.  It was never imagined that the planes would be used as a weapon and the hijackers weren't planning to survive the attack.  We never imagined that eleven men with boxcutters could kill 3,000 innocent Americans and bring down the two tallest buildings in the country.


I am fearful that our imaginations might be failing us again.  Like I said before, I never thought that candidate Obama was dangerous.  In order to be elected, he would have to be, at the very most, just a little off-center of the beliefs of the majority of Americans.  And to be re-elected, he would have to reflect the beliefs of the majority.  But, like the terrorists, he and his followers (or leaders) are not thinking like traditional politicians.  They are not looking to be re-elected.  Just as they promised in their campaign, they are trying to fundamentally change America.  Mainstream America did not imagine that that fundamental change meant taking over banks, auto makers, and the entire health care industry - and everything that could possibly be lumped into health care.  Fortunately, America woke up and made a lot of noise protesting the health care takeover.  Some of the congresspersons are realizing that the President's agenda is more than they had bargained for.  Unfortunately, some are either in agreement with him, or still not able to imagine what he really has planned.

Not only is there talk about being able to get the bill signed into law by the President without even going to a Senate vote again, but also adding everything possible that would not be able to be passed separately.  Government takeover of the student loan program, gun control, abortion policy, and any environmental policy are all being rumored to be added to the bill.  Actually public funding of abortions is already in the bill and they can't take it out without risking the failure of the bill when it is presented to the Senate again.  So it will stay in and be taken out in future modifications, they promise!!  And of course, our first response is that all these stories are just nut-job conspiracy theories.  No president or congressman, or senator would be so stupid.  They would never get re-elected!  That's the point, they are suicidal politicians, they don't care about being re-elected.  One of my senators, Michael Bennett, said as much on one of the Sunday morning political talk shows.  He said that even if it meant not being re-elected, he would work to pass the current health care takeover.  He would do the right thing for his constituents!  Just to show how well our representatives listen:  I did something I had never done before, I wrote to Mr. Bennett protesting his position.  Now I get weekly updates by e-mail telling me how hard he is working to pass this legislation for me!

Americans no longer trust their imaginations.  We just can't believe that our elected leaders could be doing this.  In this case, there really are wolverines in the closet!  

Dumping Money On the Ground

When I worked for Avis, we were required to take a class on responding to fuel spills.  The district manager said that since I had worked in and been around the oilfield when I was younger, I probably didn't need to take the class.  I told him that unless the proper response to a spill was to throw some dirt on it, I'd better take the class.

When I visited my grandparents for the summer when I was about 7, I went to work with my Grandpa Tom in the oilfield.  When the tanks are full, he would have to hire a truck to come out and haul all the oil to his buyer.  Since the cost of having the truck come out is the same no matter how much oil they haul, you would of course want to have as much oil as possible be taken in a trip.  A tank could be full, but still have a lot of saltwater in with the oil.  Oil sits on top of the saltwater (think oil spill in the Gulf, the oil stays on top). So, there was a valve on the bottom of the tank.  Grandpa would open this valve and let the saltwater spray out onto the ground.  It was my job to sit beside this spraying valve and watch for the saltwater to turn into oil.  Grandpa would go do his maintenance on the pumpjack or whatever else he needed to do.  I didn't want to let any oil spray out, that would be just like throwing away money.  So I sat staring at the brownish saltwater spraying, waiting it for it to change from coffee with cream color to coffee with no cream color.  When oil started spraying out, I would yell for Grandpa and he would close the valve to let the well produce for a couple of more days to maximize the truck's load of oil.  It was a great practice economically, but probably not so great environmentally.  Oily saltwater leaves an ugly mess on the ground.  

I think even the most environmentally insensitive oilman sees this as a bad practice today.  So, to a degree regulations were needed.  But, as is usually the case with government involvement, they went too far the other direction.  And if the federal government is involved, they will go waaaaaaaaaaaay too far.  And then go further.  And take a minute's break and go a little further.  Eventually they go so far that the producers do not make enough money to stay in business.  The Democrat/Progressive side seems to forget that the reason oil companies exist is to make a profit.  And in most cases, they will do it the right way, both for their profit margin and for the environment.  

Eighteen governors, two of them Democrats, have asked Congress to clamp down on the EPA.  They say that the EPA doesn't take the economic impact of their rulings into consideration when they impose new restrictions.  They have reached the point in some cases, where it is no longer profitable to stay in business.  As I mentioned in yesterday's post about the Grand Junction area, trickle down works in both directions.  When business is booming for the oil company, it is booming for the construction industry, the fast food industry, grocery stores, retailers, and yes, the government through sales, income, and property taxes.  Ever notice all the new schools, libraries, and jails get built during the boom years?  Then the EPA steps in with new regulations, and end the boom.  For everyone.  Including the government.  

I don't know if the current Congress has the spine, or even the inclination to stand up to the President and his anti-business policies.  But it is nice to see that the states are starting to push back.  Over the past 100 plus years, the states have let the federal government take too many of the powers the Constitution relegated to the states.  It will be very hard to get those powers back.  But it sure is good to see the process start.  Not only in the case of the EPA, but Utah has filed suit to prevent the federal government from taking more land and to try to take back the area that President Clinton took by executive action in his last days in office (southern Utah, rich with uranium, imagine that).  Montana, Texas, and others have filed or threatened to file suit over federal gun control laws.  Texas, Virginia, and others have started the process of challenging federal takeover of healthcare.  And with the recent verbal jabs by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts at the president, I think the Supreme Court is signaling that it is ready to reign in some of the federal power grabs.  

Maybe the Supreme Court is that seven year old watching money spray out onto the ground.  It's time to shut off the valve. 

Get Back in the Game

Today is the one year anniversary of the founding of the 9/12 Project. I won't get into the details of the Project, just say that if you are conservative and concerned about what is happening to our country, check out the 9/12 Project.  The start of this project was a call in to Glenn Beck's radio program.  A caller said he was so disgusted by what was going on with the government and media that he had just quit listening and paying attention to what was going on.  Beck's advice was to "square your shoulders and get back in the game."

Like I said before, almost everything will remind me of a Dallas Cowboy story.  In case you don't know, the Cowboys won 3 of 4 Super Bowls in the mid-1990's.  The only one they didn't win was won by the 49'ers.  The 49'ers beat the Cowboys in the NFC championship game (the real Super Bowl that year).  In the first quarter of the game, Troy Aikman threw to Michael Irvin on an early drive.  The ball bounced off Irvin's hands and was intercepted and run back for a touchdown by a 49'er.  Next drive, same story.  Cowboys are now down 14-0 and the game has just started.  To make a long story short, or at least not quite as long, three Cowboy turnovers turned into three 49'er touchdowns in the first 20 minutes of the game.  And the Cowboys were down 17 points at half time.  Cowboys' coach Barry Switzer gave the team essentially the same advice Beck gave his caller, "square your shoulders and get back into the game."  It was probably Aikman's best game as a Cowboy quarterback.   He fell short 38-28, but anyone watching knew who was really the best team.  The Cowboys took that loss and used it as the basis for their dominating season and Super Bowl victory the next season.

If Americans respond the way Aikman and the Cowboys did that day, we might lose the healthcare game, but win the larger game and get our country back.

Unfortunately, I am also reminded of another Cowboy story.  In the early 1980's, NFL players went on strike and the owners used strike busters in some of the season.  Kevin Sweeney was the Cowboy quarterback.  He was an effective college quarterback, but at only 5'9" he just wasn't built for the NFL once the big boys came back to work.  The season following the strike, the Cowboys invited Sweeney to training camp, even though he had no shot at making the team.  In the first preseason game, the Cowboys trailed the Houston Oilers by more than 40 points and the Texas Stadium crowd was chanting  "Sweeney, Sweeney, Sweeney!"  After an Oiler punt pinned the Cowboys offense inside their own 5 yard line, with under three minutes left in the game, Coach Tom Landry relented to the crowd's wishes and put Kevin Sweeney in at quarterback.  The crowd went crazy.  Sweeney goes into the huddle looks up at the scoreboard, the clock and the endzone, more than 95 yards away.  He looks around the huddle at the other third teamers now in the game, shakes his head and says,"Boys, I'm not sure I can win this one."  Two sacks and an incompletion later, the Cowboys punt and Sweeney's NFL career is over.

I hope America is more comparable to Aikman's Cowboys than Sweeney's team now.  I guess we will soon learn.

Public Lands, Hope, Change, Hope It Changes!

When we first moved to Arizona in the 90's, one of the first things I noticed was all the public land.  We went all over the north and central part of the state, hiking, camping, and taking day trips.  Coming from Texas, I couldn't believe that you could do so much travelling without coming to a fence, locked gate, or No Trespassing sign. 

As someone who loves to camp, hike, and practice outdoor photography, I really enjoy the access to all the wild areas of the state.  Colorado also is home to large amounts of federally controlled land.  Take a look at the maps of the three states above.  Any part of that map that is not white is owned in some way by the federal government.  I'm not sure what percentage of Colorado and Arizona are federal land, but it is well over 50%.  Texas is just under 2%.  I read that Utah is over 90%, and Nevada is 98%!  I think the only part of Nevada not controlled by the government must be Las Vegas.  No wonder President Obama seems to hate Vegas! 

Recently the President used an executive order to "protect" parts of western Colorado to preserve habitat for wild horses.  Who doesn't want to protect the habitat of wild horses?  I don't know how he finds time for all his interests.  What with running Government Motors, Chrysler, all those banks, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, controlling excessive insurance company profits, and getting healthcare legislation passed in spite of the fact that most Americans don't want it.  I bet he watched the Disney movie Spirit, with his daughters last weekend.  And they said, "daddy, you've got to make sure those poor horses have a place to live!"  You know how persuasive little girls can be.  He probably looked at a map and figured that western Colorado would be a good place for some mustangs, I bet he watched an old Ronald Reagan Henry Fonda western that mentioned horses in Colorado. 

Surely it wouldn't be because of the shale deposits in the area that he decided to limit private company's access?  You know the shale that energy companies can extract clean burning, efficient natural gas from?  The same energy companies that would provide hundreds of high paying jobs to people who would then buy houses, cars, healthcare insurance, and pay taxes.  That's what President Reagan called "trickle down economics."  It does work.  It's the only thing that does work.  The problem that President Obama and his progressive friends have with trickle down economics is that private companies are making money.  And deciding for themselves how to spend it. 

I travelled regularly in the Grand Junction area last year and listened to a local radio station frequently.  They started with stories about tighter regulations on drilling in the area, making it more expensive to extract the natural gas, which was going down in price at the same time.  Then, later in the year, Haliburton announced that it was discontinuing operations in the area and laying off hundreds of employees.  Home construction in the area that had been booming for over a year, suddenly slowed to a crawl.  Construction workers that had been spending a good portion of their paychecks in the local stores moved on to jobs in other parts of the country (probably Texas with all its non-federal land).  Guess what?  Unemployment went from 3.5% in the summer of 2007 to 4.5% in January 2008 to 9.4% in today's report.  Oh yeah, with all those evil energy companies, their well-paid employees and their paychecks going elsewhere, sales in the area stores dropped dramatically, forcing more layoffs.  And to make matters worse, the drop in sales brings a drop in sales tax revenues.  So now the local governments are feeling the pain too.  Only the government could screw things up this bad and this quickly.  

So, the obvious solution?  Restrict development in the region even more!  Not what you would've thought?  Well, then you are obviously not a mustang loving Harvard graduate.  

To steal a line from Sarah Palin, "How's that hope-y change-y thang working out for ya now?"  

Arizona Camping

Cathy and I love to camp.  When we lived in Texas, we would take a spring and fall vacation, usually to Arizona and camp.  One of our favorite trips was through southern Arizona.  We camped the first night at Roper Lake State Park.  The park has a tub-sized natural hot spring and a cattail-infested lake, about the size of a small pond.  It had nice campsites, and most importantly, a shower and restrooms.  We like to camp, not rough it!  While we were there, it rained non-stop from the time we finished setting up the tent until after dark.  We cooked spaghetti and after eating, went to bed early, listening to the rain on the fabric of the tent.  The rain let up at about 10, and I had just dozed off when we were both awakened by a loud roar.  Engine roar, not bear roar.  If you have never camped a couple of miles from a dirt race track, it is a quite an experience.  Between the roar of all the race cars and the, apparently state of the art, public address system, it was just like being there.  Only without being able to see the race of course.

The next morning we drove north to Fort Thomas.  I had specifically chosen this route so we could see Fort Thomas.  My Grandpa Doode had been stationed there before World War II.  I thought it was a military assignment, but later learned that he was working with the WPA at the time.  He had a lot of stories  from his short time in Arizona, so he must have really liked it.  He grew up in the same part of Texas where I have lived the majority of my life.  So he and his friends were very impressed with Mount Graham.  They had arrived by train at night, and did not see the mountains until morning.  They had free time on their first day at Fort Thomas, so Grandpa and some friends went to the mess hall to see if they could get a sack lunch and then go climb the mountain.  The cook laughed and told them they were welcome to try, but that the mountain was over 40 miles away.  Having grown up on the comparatively flat hill country of north Texas, they had no perspective to apply to the almost 11,000 feet high mountain.  They were offered some recreation though.  Grandpa said their boss came into the barracks and told them there would be a baseball game that night, if anyone was interested in playing.  Of course, they all thought they were budding baseball stars, so they volunteered.  It was not until game time that they noticed the donkeys and learned the game would be played in front of a large crowd and on the backs of donkeys!

His favorite story of Fort Thomas was about a rescue mission they went on.  The area around Fort Thomas is high desert.  Daytime temperatures go well over 100 and nights get cool.  They were told about a hunter that had apparently got lost in the rough area.  His family had not seen him in a couple of days.  With black bears, mountain lions, and of course rattlesnakes in the area, they feared that something had happened to him.  So a group of volunteers from the WPA camp were recruited to search for the lost hunter.  While it was a break from their normal duties, it was by no means fun.  Searching in the dried stream beds, watching for snakes, and of course enduring the incredible Arizona heat was miserable.  And worse, they found no sign of the hunter during their search.  Grandpa was sitting at the fire with a few of his fellow searchers the first night when one of the men asked the name of the poor fellow they were searching for.  When they told him the name, he said "that's me!"  He had been out hunting and came across the rescue party. Since he knew the area, he joined the search.  The wise man in charge told him to be quiet and not tell anyone else, or he would definitely be in need of rescue.  The next morning they called off the search and returned to Fort Thomas.

Roper Lake and 29 other Arizona state parks are scheduled to close by the end of June due to a state budget shortfall.  A privately owned company has offered to lease the right to run the parks for a profit from the state.  The rates charged would be the same or possibly a little less than the state charges, and they would be subject to state oversight of all operations.  His company runs more than 100 former state parks nationwide.  He said that 98% of them turn a profit in addition to paying a fee to the state.  Arizona's state government is hesitant to contract the parks to his company.  They are concerned about a privately owned company making a profit off state owned land!  Their other option is to close the parks altogether and let them deteriorate while no one gets to visit and neither the state nor any private individual earns any income from the use of the land.  Seems like some state legislators need to hear the proverb about "cutting off your nose to spite your face."  One day, hopefully very soon, we Americans will learn that government is the source of, not the solution to, the majority of our problems.

More Changing the Past

One thing I remember from speech classes is the KISS rule.  Keep it short stupid.  I never had a problem with that in speech.  In writing, well, that's a different story.

So to continue with yesterday's theme about changing the past to control the future.  I just saw a story this morning about a proposal to take Grant off the $50 bill and replace him with President Reagan.  Not that I have anything against Reagan, I think he was the greatest president of the 20th century.  But I think we should respect what Grant accomplished. 

I used to tell friends that I thought President Bush (43, not 41) would be seen in a much different light by future historians.  That he could possibly be considered one of our great presidents with the way he responded to the 9/11 attacks and even with that extra challenge, oversaw six years of solid, steady economic growth.  Remember, we were in a two year recession when he came to office.  You may not remember, since Clinton-loving media types tend to overlook that.  But given the current progressive agenda of historians and educators, I'm not sure that President Bush will be treated fairly by future historians.

It was less than thirty years before historians and educators started changing the facts about President Grant and trying to influence the public toward the more progressive view of federal government.  With the omnipresence of media today, it was less than two years before history was changed during the Bush administration.  I remember driving across northern Arizona while on vacation in March of 2002 listening to National Public Radio (embarrassing to admit, but really it was the only station I could get.  I swear!).  They had a story about Saddam Hussein using chemical and biological weapons and killing entire cities of his own citizens.  Thousands of people killed by their own government.  Now, I will admit that I don't know the official definition of weapon of mass destruction, but I would think that the ability to kill thousands would meet the criteria.  But then again, the same media let President Clinton challenge the definition of "is."  And he's a Rhodes scholar, so who are we to question him?  Anyway, now the same "experts" say that President Bush intentionally lied to America and the world about Hussein's WMD's to justify his invasion of Iraq.  And the majority of Americans believe them! 

The new catchphrase in politics is "control the message."  If you can control the message, you control opinion and you control the future.  That's why President Obama's FCC guy was so impressed by Hugo Chavez and the way he took over the media, then the country with his revolution in Venezuela.  He actually said that is what must done in the U.S. to get the President's agenda pushed through!  And the media is blind to the fact that they are being led around by the President and his people.  Or they are complicit in the program.  I'm actually starting to wonder if they are behind the program.  When you start reading, this progression toward the federal government controlling everything has been going on for too long to blame it on Obama and his people.  It started with Theodore Roosevelt. Then Woodrow Wilson tried to accelerate it and went too far too fast. The American people saw the plan and stopped it.  Then FDR took advantage of the crisis created by the Great Depression and put a great deal of the agenda into place.  Like Obama's advisor Rahm Emmanuel said, "You don't ever let a crisis go to waste.  It's an opportunity to do important things."  FDR pushed through the New Deal, social security, etc. not because he wanted to, but because he had to in order to deal with all the problems.  Sound familiar?  "I don't want to run banks or automobile companies, but I have to in order to save them."  Yeah right.  And once those programs are in, they don't come out, no matter how poorly they are run or how poorly they work.  No one with a brain likes social security, but after paying into the program for your entire life, you sure want to get the payoff when you retire!  It's like a gambler doubling down.  Eventually you have so much invested, you can't afford not to keep doubling down.

One last President who has benefited from revision - Woodrow Wilson.  I think even Obama may look good in comparison.  Wilson is kind of skimmed over in history classes.  If anything at all is said about him, it is usually that he was one of our most intelligent presidents. Maybe that his League of Nations was the pre-cursor to the United Nations.  But that's about it.  But go back and read about him.  He was evil.  Hitler used some of his ideas when he came to power.  Do a Google search for eugenics.  It's an idea that is still around, but Wilson actually proposed using it.  When they realized they would not be able to get their proposals into place so fast, they backed off and went in stages.  I can't remember the name of the lady who advised Wilson on the eugenics program, but she wrote about using abortion to lead into eugenics!  Ever wonder how killing an unborn child became a right?  The majority of Americans have always thought that abortion was wrong.  Yet we have progressed to the point where the belief that killing an unborn child is wrong is considered the radical point of view!  Bush went too far with the Patriot Act?  Wilson actually imprisoned people who spoke out against his agenda! 

In the story I mentioned yesterday,A Game of Blood and Dust from the collection: Last Defender of Camelot, Blood counters Dust's move of having Lincoln assassinated by having Wilson survive an attempt on his life, ending the game with Blood winning.  He says that although Wilson did not get his agenda through, it was put into place.  And once in place, it never would be removed.  When I read it back in 1982, I had no idea what Zelazny was talking about.  Who knows anything about Wilson?  The progressives actually believe the only way for man to survive, Blood to win the game, is for the government to take control of everything and take care of us.

We need to take control of the message.  Learn history!  So much for the KISS today. 

Change the Past Control the Future

In college, I think it was freshman literature, I read a science fiction collection called Last Defender of Camelot, by Roger Zelazny.  My favorite short story in the book was A Game of Blood and Dust.  In the story, intelligent beings play a game where they are each able to change three events in  history.  Then they let history play out and see if human life on earth continues, blood wins, or if mankind eliminates itself, dust wins.  For example, in one of the scenarios, the blood player makes John Wilkes Boothe successful in his attempt to assassinate President Lincoln (implying that originally Lincoln survived).  Anyway, the theme is that with only a few minor changes the course of events is altered.

Our politicians have learned that lesson.  But since they are unable to actually change past events, they are changing how they are reported or recorded or, most importantly, taught.  For example, what do you think of when President Grant is mentioned?  Of course, the first thing I think of is his victory as general of the Union army in the Civil War.  But I was also taught that he was a drunken butcher that only won because the Union had superior numbers and resources.  I seem to remember being taught that he graduated last in his class at West Point.  As President, his reputation was even worse.  Again, he was a drunken executive that overlooked rampant corruption that almost destroyed the recently saved Union.  Take a look at Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character for a more accurate view of the great general and President.  While in office, he would get daily visits from his former Union soldiers, coming by to thank him for leading them through the terrible war.  Sound like a drunken commander who forced his men through a meatgrinder at the unnecessary cost of thousands of lives?  Hardly.  As President, he advocated a peaceful integration of Native Americans into white man's culture.  He worried that the only alternative was "a war of extermination."  Again, not exactly what you would expect from a blood-thirsty warrior.  After leaving office, he was greatly respected by most Americans, ranking only behind Washington and Lincoln in esteem.  

So, why the change in the public's perception?  It's not like he did anything after office to change our view.  Could it possibly be that while in office, he constantly supported the position of the individual states over the federal government?  You know, like the Constitution requires.  The Constitution that he and all other Presidents take an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend."  After President Theodore Roosevelt's term, only 24 years after Grant, the focus was on the powers of the federal government.  And since then, with the exception of President Reagan's two terms, the federal government has been slowly and at times, not so slowly, grabbing more and more power.  So, by the time FDR comes into office and begins to accelerate the power grab, Grant is being portrayed as a drunken fool.  

With me, almost everything has a sports, or more likely, a Dallas Cowboy analogy.  When Drew Pearson played for the Cowboys in the 1970's and early 1980's, he was a perennial All-Pro.  Along with Steve Largent, he was seen as the league's top receiver.  And with his big plays at crucial times, no receiver was more "clutch" than Drew Pearson.  Yet, he has never even made it to the final ballot of Hall of Fame voting.  Why not?  Receivers like Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, who have similiar stats but at least in Stallworth's case, nowhere near the longevity or the clutch plays are in the Hall.  Pearson was the victim of some politics by some voters.  Tackle Rayfield Wright finally overcame the same issues just a couple of years ago.  More than twenty years after he last played a game.  To see the true greatness of a player, look at how they were perceived when they actually played.  Don't let years of revision cloud your perception. 

Grant has suffered from this kind of biased revision.  On the flip side, FDR has enjoyed a complete historical makeover.  Historians and economists have quietly said for years that Roosevelt's policies did nothing to end the Great Depression, and actually may have made it worse and more lengthy.  Yet, we are taught in school that Roosevelt was one of our greatest Presidents and was so beloved by Americans that he was elected to office four times!  He was so beloved that only six years after he died, Americans ratified the 22nd Amendment, guaranteeing that no one would ever hold the office more than eight years.  Just to compare, the Equal Rights Amendment was first proposed in 1923, and today, only 87 years later, it still has not been ratified!  Sounds like Roosevelt was truly loved and respected by all.  Or at least all progressive historians.

I'll continue this tomorrow, I've gone kind of long here!

Everyone's a Winner!!

Read this book! Did you watch the Winter Olympics?  Yeah, me neither.  Well except for a short three and a half hour Saturday morning curling match (game? contest?)that is.  I still don't quite understand, but I just couldn't stop watching.  The fact that it was about 15 degrees below zero here in Gunnison probably increased my fascination with televised curling.  That probably also explains the Canadian obsession with the sport.

I saw from the final medal count that the U.S. dominated the X-game-ified version of the winter Olympics.  And that Russia had their lowest medal total ever.  Predictably, Russia was very upset.  I saw on the news yesterday that any Russian coach that doesn't resign will be fired.  Losing is not acceptable in Russia.  Beats the old Soviet Union response.  Coaches and athletes disappeared after disappointing performances back then.  Kind of a hyper-competitive response for a communist or socialist society, huh?  

If our current President holds true to form, he will soon be apologizing for our winter Olympians' rude behavior during the Olympics.  No, I haven't heard any stories about our hockey team trashing their hotel this time.  I mean their greedy grab of all those medals.  President Obama has tried his entire first year in office to right just this type of wrong.  Now, on a world stage, here's all these boorish Americans acting so, so, well, American.  You know, working hard and training for years, and finally performing better than anyone else in the world.  And horror of horrors, being rewarded for it!  It's just not fair, Americans collecting all those medals.  No wonder Chavez hates us.  How many medals did Venezuela get?

America's Declaration of Independence states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."  Created equal.  Not that we live equal.  Not that we have equal talents.  Not that we work equally. Not that we finish equal.  Not that we get equal rewards.  Everyone doesn't get a gold medal.  Everyone doesn't even get a medal.  But that we are created equal.  We have the same starting line.

Hopefully President Obama will be able to avoid this type embarrassment in the summer Olympics by proposing some rule changes to redistribute the wealth, I mean medals.  The 100 meter dash will have a staggered start.  Bolt will run 140 meters, the U.S. basketball team will have a 12 ft. goal and 4 players, some shot puts will weigh 5 lbs., others 10 lbs, and others 15 lbs., and of course Michael Phelps will have to wear a lead-lined Speedo.  Gold medals for everyone!  One big stage for the medal ceremony.  How long will it take for all those national anthems to be played?  What do you think the television ratings will be like for those Olympics?  Wrong!  They will be the same as all the other network ratings.  Remember, everyone wins!

Actually if President Obama held true to form, he would just forcibly tax penalize top performers by confiscating their medals and giving them to those who didn't do as well.  Now that's the Russian new American way.