Where's My Hovercraft?

When I was in college, I subscribed to both the Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald newspapers.  I read both every morning before going to my 8 am class.  Guess I've always been a morning person.  My main reason for getting both papers was the sports sections.  The Morning News had Randy Galloway and David Casstevens as columnists.  The Times Herald had Skip Bayless and Blackie Sherrod.  All were very good writers and seemed to have changed papers a couple of times before the Times Herald finally went under.  I always looked forward to Blackie Sherrod's Sunday column titled Scattershooting.  Each column began with the phrase - "Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to..." and was just a collection of random thoughts and observations.

So, with respect to Mr. Sherrod:

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Blackie Sherrod.

Scattershooting refers to shotguns for those non-western readers.

Remember when Popular Science said that "the internet is the pet rock of the 90's?"


Popular Mechanics predicted that helicopters would become so cheap and easy to fly that they would replace cars by the year 2000.


Alvin Toffler's Future Shock predicted the computer would reduce the average American's work week to 30 hours or less.  With unemployment at 10% and rising, we may be close.  Doesn't take too many zero hour work weeks to offset those 60 hour ones.


Why is it always 75 year old fry cooks who win the lottery?  And why do they always say they will still go to work on Monday?  Shouldn't a psychic win at least once?


Why would anyone making more than $250,000 a year vote for Obama?  A better question, how could anyone that stupid make $250,000 or more a year?  If you want to help the unfortunate, give to the cause you believe in.  Does anyone, anyone with a brain anyway, believe that giving your money to the federal government to help others, actually helps others?  Well, if you count government employees and bureaucrats, I guess it does help others.  Is that what you intended?

Colin Powell, how is endorsing Obama for president just because he "looks like you" not a racist act.  Or have you been lying about your beliefs for the past 20 years?  Especially over a member of your own political party and FELLOW SOLDIER!!  Liar or racist, tough choice.

Remember when kids played basketball, baseball, and football without adult supervision and always kept score?  And learned more from losing than winning.  Mainly that it was much more fun to win!  And don't taunt your opponents or do a dance after a score.  Like Tom Landry told Drew Pearson, "act like you've been there before."

I miss Tom Landry. And Bear Bryant.  I hope Joe Paterno and Mack Brown never retire.  Remember when a reporter asked Paterno if he was interested in an NFL job?  He answered, "and leave college football to people like Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer?  Never."

Air powered hovercrafts have been advertised in the back pages of comics since the 60's, or maybe even longer.  They should work.  Why hasn't someone perfected them yet?  Probably George Bush's fault.


Thanks Blackie.

Let's Pretend

As I've said in this blog before, I'm a big sports fan, especially football and the Dallas Cowboys.  So today, let's pretend we own the Dallas Cowboys.  We've got a pretty good head coach in Wade Phillips.  He's a good coach and everybody likes him.  He's a popular choice.  We feel pretty good about our choice.  Wade's the football guy, so unlike Jerry Jones, we are going to let him pick his coaching staff and players.

Wade picks his staff, none of them have been successful and seem to have some funny ideas about how winning isn't important.  We think, well, not who I would've picked, but hey it's Wade's choice.  Now, Wade's going on a tour of the NFL.  He visits Oakland, bows to Al Davis and apologizes for those Super Bowl wins in the 1990's.  Wade then promises that it won't happen again.  He will work hard to see that Oakland wins a Super Bowl soon.  Next stop, Seattle.  Same theme.  Jacksonville, more bows and apologies.  Similar stops in Miami, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Tennessee, Houston, and Pittsburgh.  He visits 36 teams, won't be able to make it to Phoenix or Washington.  Only one more to go.  Huh?  Time to have a little talk with Wade.

We owners have a meeting with Wade.  He lets us know immediately that he doesn't care what we think about his methods.  We hired him and we knew who he was when we chose him.  We did listen during the interview, right?  He said he was going to "fundamentally change" the Dallas Cowboys.  Could it be that we just don't like white men?  Well, we are basically nice men and women, so we decide that maybe we are being unfair.  Let's just let the season start and see where it goes.  

Well, it doesn't go well.  Wade refuses to play our best players.  "It's time for them to step aside and let someone else have the spotlight for awhile."  Wade holds a press conference to inform the league that our combination of Tony Romo throwing to Miles Austin is too good.  In the spirit of fairness and to compensate for our past success, Romo won't be throwing to Austin, unless the opposing team has a quarterback/receiver combination just as good.   A reporter asks, what if the other team has a great running back and runs up and down the field scoring on you?  Wade says, no exceptions, unless their passing game is as good as ours, we will not pass, period.

We visit practice.  We have to do something about this!  Did you hear that?  Our offensive coordinator just told the team that "you can't expect to be number one in everything indefinitely.  One of the most appropriate responses to this degree of levelization of the playing field is to cooperate more, exchange more."  What?????  First of all, is "levelization" even a word?  What do you mean we can't be number one forever?  Did you hear the line coach?  He refuses to put all the linemen on the field at the same time.  Something about the stadium "tipping over and capsizing!!!!"  These guys are under contract until November!  And we're stuck with Wade for another two years.  Can we afford to wait that long?  We won't even discuss what he's done with the training room! 

Sound familiar?  This week our president has promised not to use nuclear weapons, even if we are attacked with biological or chemical weapons.  If the attacker has nuclear weapons, then we might respond with our own.  The "levelization" quote is straight from the president's science adviser, John Holdren (not to be confused with his attorney general,Eric Holder, who says we are a nation of cowards when it comes to race), in a speech to students.  He's also the author of a book advocating compulsory abortions and for putting infertility drugs in the drinking water, where necessary.  He was quoted as saying that infants eventually develop into human beings.  In his defense, Holdren says he wrote those books in the 1970's and they were only theory.  He wouldn't really try any of those programs.  Whew, I feel better now.  Remember the previous post about President Woodrow Wilson's eugenics program, led by Margaret Sanger (founder of the organization that became Planned Parenthood, quite a coincidence!)?  Holdren is President Obama's Sanger.

I wish I caught the name of the lady on Fox last night.  Commenting on President Obama's stance at this nuclear summit, she said that instead of "speak softly and carry a big stick, this president's policy is to whisper and leave your stick at home."  I wish he would follow that policy on domestic issues too.

Rangers Win the World Series!! Or Maybe Not

Hell must've frozen over.  No, the Rangers didn't even win their regular season game today, much less the World Series.  An even more rare occurrence.  I heard an intelligent comment on National Public Radio.  Of course it was at 3:30 this morning on a BBC rebroadcast, and it was made by an Indian (from India, not Native America).  

Mark Twain once said that democracy was like the steam powered printing press that he invested his life savings in.  It worked one time. In a dark room.  With no witnesses.  Intelligent commentary on NPR is just as rare.  But I did hear it!

The story was the typical NPR drivel about businesses destroying the planet with greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.  Specifically they were telling how polluted the Ganges River has become.  The Ganges River is sacred to the Hindus in India.  At least once a year they bathe in the river as an act of purification.  Even with raw sewage, industrial waste, and dead oxen floating down the river!  

The Indian scientist being interviewed was telling about his studies of the self-purification qualities of the river.  He said that something about the river itself purifies the water more quickly than other rivers being studied.  His hypothesis was that an element present in the huge quantity of leaves that wash down off the Himalayan mountains speeds the purification process of the river. But the cleansing process has been slowed because of the dams that have been built in the past 50 years slowing the flow of the river.

The interviewer asked why, if the river is so sacred to the local population, did they allow it to become so polluted?  And not polluted just by industries and businesses, but by the local population?  The Indian scientist said he blamed the British.  When the British controlled India, they set up government agencies to regulate the businesses and control the quality of the water in the river.  He was not blaming the government for loose restrictions on the industries, but for trying to regulate the water's quality in the first place.  He said the regulatory process created a disconnect between the local people and the river.  

In all the previous history of the area, the people took responsibility for keeping the river clean and keeping it sacred.  The British had good intentions when they tried to regulate what was being dumped into the river, but by taking control of the water quality, they took away the local population's respect of the river as well.  The scientist 
said people no longer feel responsible for keeping the river clean.  The government takes their tax money and says it is to keep the river clean.  So the people feel that it is the government's job.  Even though the citizens are the ones who bathe with bloated dead oxen floating past, they don't feel the need to keep their water clean.  It is the government's job.  They also feel that it is o.k. to toss their ox in the river.  The government will clean it up.

I have seen similar results of government intervention on the highways of northern Arizona.  The Navajo of the high desert along the Arizona - Utah border reputedly have a deep respect for the earth.  Their religion teaches that they actually came from a world inside the earth to this world through a sipapu, or small hole in sacred areas of the earth.  So the earth is literally their mother, and like their mother, to be respected and revered.  When the state and federal highways were built through the reservation, the government took responsibility for keeping the land clean.  A drive along Highway 160 from the Four Corners area through Tuba City on the western edge of the reservation features beautiful scenery.  The scenery that John Ford made famous in his John Wayne westerns.  But the current scenery also includes a highway lined with literally millions of empty beer bottles, beer cans, and more trash than you would find after a spring break frat house party.  The American Indians feel no need to clean the area, or no reason not to throw their trash along the road.  The government will clean it up.  It's their job.  And like every other job taken on by the government, they don't do it very well, if at all.  Although they are pretty efficient at collecting the tax revenue needed to pay for the job!

Now they have taken responsibility for keeping us healthy.  Or at least they will take the responsibility in 2014.  In the meantime, they will take the revenue starting today.  I was taught in human resources classes on interviewing and hiring, "past performance predicts future results."  The government's history tells us this will not end well.


But I did hear an intelligent comment on NPR!  Can the Rangers' World Series rings be far behind?

Grandpa Doode's Last Vacation, Sam Bass, and Swimming Pigs

When I was about 12, we took a family trip to Padre Island and Corpus Christi.  My mom, dad, two sisters, Grandpa Doode, Grandma Lucille, and me all piled into one vehicle and took the trip from north Texas down to the coast.  I'm not sure what vehicle we took, those were the pre-minivan days.  For that many of us, we must have taken Dad's old International Harvester Scout.  I do remember a trip that LeAnne and I fought over who got to ride in the cargo area of the Scout.  So that must've been the trip.  I can't imagine any other vehicle where the seven of us and our luggage would have been able to travel the 400+ miles.  The cramped conditions are probably what prompted Grandma to inform us that this would probably be Grandpa's "last vacation."  The statement and her certainty about it shocked all of us, including Grandpa! 

We drove through Austin and saw the Capitol building.  I was impressed because it looked just like the pictures in the textbooks.  If my memory is accurate, we drove through on a weekend, so there were no tours.  And I definitely remember that it was a very seedy looking neighborhood.  I expected to see Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch on the street corner.  That may have been the real reason we didn't park and take a tour.

It's been a week without a football story, so here's one.  The son of Huggy Bear plays running back for the Oakland Raiders, or at least he did.  I think he may have been released after this past season.  He played on the national champion USC team that beat Texas in the Rose Bowl.  Oh wait, the LONGHORNS won that game!  It must have been another year that he played.

From Austin, we went south to San Marcos and Aquarena Springs, a small amusement park built around the San Marcos river.  The river is spring-fed and was perfectly clear.  We took a glass bottom boat tour and heard about the giant catfish that used to live in the park.  He escaped during a spring with heavy rain and was next seen on the front page of the local newspaper, the victim/trophy of a local trotline fisherman.  Sometimes the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence.  The real highlight of the park was Ralph, the swimming pig.  The audience sat in bleachers and watched Ralph dive and swim with his human friends.  The bleachers were at and below the level of the water and behind a plexiglass wall, so you could see Ralph's little pig legs paddling like mad when he hit the water!  Cathy and I lived in San Marcos in the early 1990's.  When we visited Aquarena Springs, there was no Ralph.  Since the park was being run by the University, Ralph was probably retired due to political correctness.  He has used his retirement years to learn computer skills.  He now has his own Facebook page.  I bet Grandma Lucille never dreamed she would see the day when a swimming pig had his own page on the internet!

A little further south in San Antonio, we visited the Alamo.  It's hard to imagine the scene of the battle right in the middle of downtown in one of the ten largest cities in the country.  The Alamo compound was a church, not a fort, so other than the famous arched church front, none of the site looks like you would imagine.  When the city was repairing the streets downtown in the 90's, they did a lot of archeological studies, looking for the Alamo's well and of course the required lost treasure that always goes with such legendary sites.  I learned that the site of the actual final battle at the Alamo was at Wendy's, a couple of blocks from the shrine.  Some myths should not be burst.  One of my most vivid memories is of the old Buckhorn Saloon down the street from the Alamo.  It is an old west type saloon filled with mounted big game trophies from all over the world and a huuuge collection of antlers.  

Our San Antonio visit was only a few years after the World's Fair was held in the city.  The HemisFair tower was a reasonably new attraction in the city that we had to experience.  An elevator ride to the top of the tower took us to the rotating platform where you could see the entire city and look down on the Alamo.  My youngest sister, Lori, stepped between the warning signs and dropped a bobby pin over the edge to watch it fall.  Mom lectured us all on the dangers of dropping something as small as a dime from such a height.  She could've dropped that hair pin on Grandma Lucille (she and Grandpa Doode didn't go to the top, Grandma doesn't like heights).

I don't remember much about Corpus Christi or Padre Island.  I have never been much of a beach person.  It's hot, humid, the sand never feels as good on your feet as you think it will, and it smells like dead fish.  So, no, I'm not impressed, although years later, I did like the Oregon coast with its redwood tree driftwood.  No redwoods in Texas,so the only thing I remember liking was the fried fish at the little shack on stilts right on the beach.  And I was probably more impressed with the shack on stilts than I was with the fish!


The part of the trip everyone remembers most was the drive between San Antonio and Corpus.  Lori was maybe three at the time, and she had had enough fun for the day.  She started a hundred mile tantrum and for such a little girl, she could wail. 
Finally we reached a point where even Grandma Lucille had run out of patience (I think Grandpa Doode had turned off his hearing aid).  Dad pulled over and Lori and Mom went for a "walk."  Mom's walks didn't involve much walking and definitely didn't leave you in a mood for sitting afterward, if you get my drift.  As an aside, never trust her when she asks if you want to go see the horses during a church service either.  Lori came back much subdued and we actually enjoyed a little peace at the end of the drive.  As we neared the end of the trip, Mom said, "well that whooping seemed to have done a little good."  Lori said, "yeah, but I might still need another one later."

 On the return trip, we went to Longhorn Caverns near Burnet.  It is not a large cavern, but it was a fun trip.  The guide told stories about the Comanches using the cavern as a hideout when the Texas Rangers were chasing them.  It was also a speakeasy during Prohibition, complete with dance floor and chandeliers hanging next to the stalactites.  The guide informed us that it was also a hideout used by the infamous murderer, stagecoach robber, and gunfighter, Sam Bass.  Grandma Lucille was embarrassed, but still needed to tell us that Bass was a distant relative to her side of the family.  She did not hesitate to tell us of the relation, probably because if she didn't Grandpa would.  And he would say it loud enough that someone else might hear.  Then she would really be embarrassed.  She would never understand the modern need of people to air their dirty laundry on national television.  

It seems like we did a lot on this trip.  It might also have been the trip that we spent a day with Grandma's sister and visited the space center in Houston.  Lilly worked for Texas Instruments and they had just come out with the portable calculator.  Portable for the 1970's, it was sized somewhere between a Blackberry and a netbook, only about twice as thick as either.  Lilly's husband showed us a trick with a riddle whose answer was ShellOil.  When you did the math on the calculator, the answer was 71077345.  Turn the calculator upside down and the red LED numbers spelled ShELLOiL.  Primitive nerd humor.  Being kids, LeAnne and I soon figured out that if you left off the S and the oil, you could spell hell on the calculator.  We probably spent an hour giggling over that, all the time watching to make sure Mom didn't catch us.  We were definitely the rebels!

Quite an eventful trip for Grandpa Doode's last vacation.  Well last if you don't count those trips to Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and South Dakota and stops in between.  Even Lori survived to take a couple of more vacations.  

Would Reagan Recognize Us?

Ronald Reagan once said that he had hope for America because we were a nation of strivers, not of coveters.  He said that when an American sees someone succeed, they strive to achieve the same success.  Reagan's Americans do not covet the rewards of others, they strive to earn those rewards through their own success.  The rags to riches story is the story of America.  Or it was.

I told this story to a friend before last year's election.  His response was "you must be from somewhere different."  He was from California.  He said that where he was from, people just wanted to take what they needed from someone who had it.

One of my favorite tv shows is Survivor.   When the show first came on, everyone assumed it would be won by the contestant that performed best in the challenges.  From the very first season though, it was clear that it would be a social game.  Last season, a contestant named Russell probably played the game harder than anyone in the history of the show.  From the day he got on the island, he worked on alliances.  He worked alliances and manipulated players and basically controlled the game from the first day.   He also spent every spare moment searching for immunity idols.  He found all three, two without clues and before anyone else even looked.  He dominated the game and went to the final with a cute girl that basically rode his coattails to the end.

In the final episode, players previously voted out decide who will win the million dollars.  If I remember correctly, Russell only got two votes.  The other players resented the way Russell worked and earned his way to the end.  They chose to give the prize money to someone who just tagged along with a successful player.  

There was a similar outcome in the show's second season.  Colby dominated the game physically.  He won every individual challenge and took a nice single mother with him to the end.  The other players voted at the end to give the money to the single mother because she "needed" it more.  No one argued that Colby did not earn the reward, but they felt that the woman needed it more.

Survivor has become a metaphor for our country now.  As a rule, Americans no longer strive to duplicate another's success.  Now, we are guilty of coveting their rewards.  Instead of striving for a career that allows us to provide for ourselves and our loved ones, we want our government to take the rewards of success from others and give it to us.  Because we need it.

It will be hard for our society to survive when covetors outnumber strivers.  As Margaret Thatcher once said, "One of the problems with socialism is that pretty soon you run out of people whose money you can take."  Or to put in Survivor terms, when your tribe has more Sandras than Russells, you'll be spending a lot of time in tribal council.

Glenn Beck and Al Sharpton --BFF!!??

I saw David Barton on Glenn Beck's show about a month ago and he had him on for the full hour today.  He is an American historian/author whose book, Original Intent, looks very interesting.  He is also the owner of the largest collection of pre-1812 American letters and documents.  Coincidentally, he was also part of the commission that rolled back some of the progressive changes to American history in Texas' history curriculum.

He owns one of the twenty-two surviving copies of the Bible actually published by Congress, with a note on the cover page that states that this Bible is published specifically to be used in schools.  Our founders wanted freedom from a "national religion," not separation of church and state as it has been twisted today.   They founded our country on Christian principles, not a specific denomination, but basic Christian principles.  They had no problem with individual states choosing a "state religion," as Massachusetts did until the early 1820's.  The federal government was prohibited from supporting a specific religion, but it was a right reserved to the states.  Like many other areas, the founders were willing to let citizens vote with their feet.  If Pennsylvania wanted to support the beliefs of Quakers; New York, Judaism; Rhode Island, Puritanism; Georgia, Baptist; and California, worship of the endangered fruitfly; the states had the right to do so.  And citizens were free to move from one state to another in pursuit of their happiness.  

Mr. Barton has the hand-written sermons from ministers from many denominations who led church services held in the House of Representatives, founded and attended by Thomas Jefferson.  Obviously his interpretation of "church and state" was much different than that voiced today.  He also encouraged services that were held in the chambers of the Supreme Court!


Another interesting story he told about Jefferson involved his relationship with John Adams.  He and Adams were close during the revolution and in the very early days of the republic.  They had a falling out over differing ideas about the government.  Jefferson felt that Adams was destroying the nation and defeated Adams in the election to become the third president.  The two did not speak for years.  A mutual friend named Benjamin Rusk, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, told Adams about a dream.  He said that in the dream that he, Rusk, was holding a book of letters between Adams and Jefferson and he felt that it was a message from God.  Adams said that he too, believed that it must be a message from God and he made the first move to re-connect with Jefferson.  Mr. Barton now owns the letters between Adams and Jefferson, many of them about the role of religion in government.  One other cool, or maybe spooky point in the letter, Rusk also said that in the dream he saw both Adams and Jefferson would die on the anniversary of the founding of the nation.  Both Adams and Jefferson died on the 4th of July 1826.


The point of his appearance was again how progressives have changed history to meet their points of view.  He went founder by founder from a painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and showed letters and documents written by the men showing their views on religion.  They believed that America should not have a federally mandated religion; that Americans should be free to choose their own religion, or no religion at all.  It seems that today, the only choice the liberals/progressives want Americans to have is whether to let their baby live.


When you get down to principles, America does have a strong, common foundation.  And yes, it is based in Christianity - the Ten Commandments.  We need to get away from the specifics that keep us divided and get to the foundation that we have in common.   Don't let the people at the opposite ends of the spectrum tear the country apart, but allow the strong middle hold it together.  Unfortunately right now our government and media is way to the left or progressive end of the spectrum and is trying to drag the rest of us their direction.   Yesterday the Reverend Al Sharpton was on Glenn Beck's show.  They both admitted that they do not agree on many, if any specifics, but they do have a common belief in the basics or foundation.  They just disagree in how to get down to the foundation, or where to build from the foundation.  That's where the founders' belief in state's rights comes in.  Let each state decide what services to provide, what taxes to collect, what recreational drugs to outlaw, whether to mandate health insurance and even whether women have the right to kill their babies.  Then let the citizens vote with their feet.  But keep the federal government out of it.  If Al Sharpton and Glenn Beck can find a common ground, maybe there is some hope for the rest of the country.

Rainbows, Unicorns, and Government-Created Jobs!

The Obama administration has already hired their 16,000 IRS agents to help enforce the new healthcare laws and their 1.5 million census workers.  Apparently those were their only two ideas.  Now they are asking for ideas from the public.  Well, any ideas except those dealing with tax cuts to businesses that can actually create jobs.

Two ideas that have already been dismissed:  1.  Do away with self-service at gas stations.  Attendants would be required to pump your gas and make sure your tires are properly inflated.  Remember the tire gauge was going to end our dependence on foreign oil according to candidate Obama.  Well maybe not.  The administration decided that would just be a "make busy" job.  
2.  Federal subsidies for "urban farms" like Michelle Obama's.  Unless they were growing medicinal marijuana, it would again be a "make busy" job.

One they did like?  If a company is contemplating layoffs, they should eliminate a position, and take the two full-time employees and make them part-time.  Then no jobs are lost!  How easy was that?  They also announced the reason for the continued high unemployment is that for every new job listed, there are five applicants.  And not as many jobs are being created as are being lost.  Whew, that clears up that question.

 Completely unrelated, I love this web ad from the republican party.  
 

Potato e????

Anyone old enough to remember Dan Quayle remembers his spelling mistake.  A student spells p-o-t-a-t-o.  Quayle says "don't you need an e? P-o-t-a-t-o-e?"  The media ran with that tape.  It ran over and over and over and over.  What an idiot!  Can't even spell as well as a 4th grader!  And the republicans picked him to be vice-president.  Hope President Bush is healthy!

Our current vice-president, Joe Biden asked a congressman at a rally to stand and be recognized.  Problem was the congressman, supposedly a "longtime friend," was in a wheelchair.  Last week, he told a story about another "close friend's" mother, "God rest her soul."  What?  She's still alive.  Well, God bless her!  Then at a big healthcare conference, with C-Span cameras rolling, Biden tells a fellow senator that he has the easiest job in the world.  Don't have to do anything.  "Kind of like being the grandparent instead of the parent."  And of course at the press conference announcing the passage of the healthcare takeover.  Biden again forgets about the open microphone, and says to President Obama, "this is a big f____ing deal!"

Remember the stories about Sarah Palin saying that she could see Russia from her front porch in Alaska?  How stupid!  Only problem, she never said it.  Tina Fey said it in a comedy skit where she portrayed Governor Palin.   Or the NBC morning hostess making fun of Sarah Palin for saying that George Washington was her favorite founding father.  The hostess chose to move Abraham Lincoln back almost 100 years and make him her favorite "founder."

Now we have Rep Steven Cohen from Tennessee saying that the Tea Party is only missing their hoods and robes, and are "followers of George Wallace."  Coincidentally Wallace, like Cohen, was a democrat.  How about congressman Phil Hare a democrat from Illinois?  He is on video saying that he "doesn't care about the Constitution."  He then quotes the Constitution.  Oops, that's the Declaration of Independence.   Then he claims to have read the healthcare law three times.  A total of 8,100 pages!  And he can't answer a specific question about the law.  Still waiting to see that one on the news.  

Former democratic presidential candidate, congressman, and Democratic National Party chairman, Howard Dean stated in an interview, that "of course, the president's agenda is a socialist agenda."  And his advisor/supporter Al Sharpton, says that America "voted overwhelmingly for socialism when they voted for Obama."


But will anyone ever top congressman Johnson from Georgia, yeah, he's a democrat too.  8,000 marines and their families might cause Guam to tip over and capsize!  That's just too easy.  A friend suggested that we import thousands of elephants to the Texas panhandle.  That much weight would tip the state up and make it easy to just scoop up all that oil.  No environmental concerns there!  

I think maybe the president himself topped the list when he claimed that one of the biggest benefits of the campaign was the opportunity to visit "57 states so far."  And he wasn't going to be able to get to Alaska or Hawaii.   Just "one left to go."





And he's the "smartest man in the room???"  Only when he's in a room full of democrats.

No More Kings, Then We Elected One

Forget history taught in public school.  We should've just paid more attention to Saturday morning cartoons.  I've already commented on How a Bill Becomes a Law on Schoolhouse Rock.  I had forgotten this one.  The song is not as catchy, but boy, the message  is important.  Watch this one and compare King George III to our current president.  Then tell yourself that learning history (or teaching it to our kids) is not important.  

I think Robert Fulghum should write a new book in addition to All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, how about All I Really Need to Know I Learned on Saturday Morning Television.

Photographs, No Politics

I'm going to take a break from current events and politics for a couple of days.  It's getting too frustrating.  

I'm being a bachelor this week, so I spent some time going through my old photo files.  One of my biggest problems in photography is that I take the photograph with the final result already visualized.  If the photo doesn't come out like I expected, I discard it without considering whether it is good, even if it isn't what I planned.

I've always liked this quote, but for some reason, not the photo.  I don't remember what I was trying for, but I kind of like this one now.  I read a biography of Ansel Adams when I first started getting serious about photography.  In the book, there was a story about his first trip to the Grand Canyon.  A lesser known photographer said the canyon was his favorite subject.  He said he had taken hundreds of exposures on his first trip to the canyon.  Adams said he took two.  He visualized the shot and then created it, first on location, then in the darkroom.  I'm not talented or patient enough to spend time necessary on Photoshop to create art, so I need to look more seriously at creating photographs.

Mount Crested Butte

I took this one a few weeks ago.  I never looked twice at it, but Cathy and a couple of other people that saw it on Facebook, liked it.  Now, looking at it, I like it a lot.  I think I will spend some time this week going through my files and see if there others that I have overlooked.  Might need a couple of days.  I think I have somewhere around 5,000 photographs on file.  Not counting the ones with people in them, Mom.

Potato Processing Plant and Reflection 

Monte Vista, Colorado

Old Brazos River Bridge

Near Newcastle, TX

Are We at a Tipping Point? Congressman thinks Guam is!!

Tipping point has been a hot phrase for several years now.  It is basically the point of no return.  Global Warming activists have claimed for the past five years or more that our climate was at a tipping point.  If the melting of the ice caps continued for even another year, the flood of warming water would push our climate over the edge and we were doomed.  Then it was actually reported that temperatures have been cooling for the past five years.  Oops.

Some folks take the phrase literally.  Like the good congressman from the great state of Georgia.  Take a look at this video from yesterday, where he was grilling an admiral about plans to increase the number of marines on the island territory of Guam.  The first 1:46 is painful to watch as Congressman Johnson struggles with the concept of length and width.  If you can't take it anymore, fast forward to about 1:40 in the video, where the good congressman makes us all proud to be Americans.


My first thought was, April Fools!!! Then I looked at other videos featuring the congressman. He is an everyday fool, April 1 has nothing to do with it. At a townhall meeting this past fall, he actually argues that the Preamble to the Constitution mandates the federal government to provide welfare for the citizens. "To promote the general welfare" is open to interpretation, I guess. Then after Congressman Wilson's "you lie" outburst during one of President Obama's speeches, Congressman Johnson makes the brilliant observation that Americans will soon be donning their "white robes and hoods."

With morons like this in positions of responsibility, I believe we are at a tipping point in America. How much damage can we allow them to do before we get to a point where we are unable to recover? When I managed a department store, we gave all applicants a 5th grade level math test to qualify them to work in the store. Only about 70% of the applicants passed, but that's for another post. Maybe we need a very basic knowledge test for all applicants for public office. And we definitely need one for voters who put these idiots into office. I'm not sure who should be more embarrassed, Congressman Johnson or the voters of the 3rd district of Georgia who thought he was the best choice to represent them!

Now I have a new worry. With the masses leaving the cesspool that voters and government have made of California, will the U.S. start to tip? I heard that many Californians are moving to Texas. Will the extra weight cause the country to tip south and east? It must be all this tipping because I'm getting nauseous. Stock tip of the day - buy McNeil-PPC, makers of Dramamine. We're all going to be dizzy before these guys are done.

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.