Watching the Healthcare Town Hall Riots on TV, it’s
pretty obvious that there is a fair number of people in
this country that think such things are too important to
be left to the government. They could be right. What’s
the government ever done for the citizens? Everybody
knows, here in our capitalistic society, that it is private
enterprise that truly cares about the people.
Matter of fact, I’d go so far as to say that the only reason
for a national government at all should be to protect our
borders and print money. So, while we’re keeping that
meddlesome uncle out of our examining rooms, let’s get serious about this and kick ‘em out of all the other activities they seem to want to get their greedy hands into.
Food inspection comes to mind. What business does Big Brother have dictating to us what kinds of bacteria and such goes into our vittles? If a man raises hogs in garbage and a few folks get sick & die from eating his bacon, the market will determine whether or not that hog farmer stays in business. If people don’t want to get sick eating that pork, then they’ll quit buying it from that guy, and he’ll go out of business. Simple as that. Then, when he doesn’t have any form of income, he’ll be forced to get a decent job, because we’re kicking the Gov out of the unemployment business too.
If Mr. Pigfarmer can’t find another job (because there will be lots of people looking), he can become a thief, or a robber, or just shrivel up and expire before we let the government give him food stamps or welfare. He should have run an honest pig farm to begin with, and, frankly, we’re better off without him. His demise will further discourage other pig farmers from making people sick with their tainted pork chops.
Now, what becomes of his wife & kids? Well, they get off their spoiled fat ham hocks and get out there and get themselves some jobs too. It’s for their own good. If they were to get sick they’re going to have to pay whatever the going rate is for medical care, or they’re going to find themselves taking untimely dirt naps. Unless, of course, they turn to lives of crime to pay for their meds.
There’s another matter. Why should our hard-earned tax dollars go to pay the salaries and expenses of government-dole jobs like firemen and cops? Every house in America has a faucet and access to a water hose. If you want extra protection, hire somebody to stand outside and come runnin’ when you call. Maybe the rest of us don’t care if the place burns down. So why should we pay for your piece of mind? And why should a big tough guy pitch in to pay some cop to keep you frail little weasels from getting beat up by roving gangs of disgruntled, unemployed, mad cow-infected thugs? You’ve got a good
job, working for that private healthcare insurer who made billions in profits last year. You can afford your own personal bodyguards. That pig farmer’s oldest boy is a big ol’ strappin’ corn-fed lad, and I guarantee you he’ll work cheap.
Speaking of “cheap”, what’s the big deal about this “minimum wage” law? If Mr. Pig’s younger kids are willing to clean your jack boots and sew the cute little armbands on your brown uniforms for a dollar a day, then the gub’ment’s got no business telling you that you have to pay them more. They don’t know anything about running a business.
Am I right about this?
Sure I am. We all know it. This great country was built on rugged individualism and the entrepreneurial spirit, and nowhere in our rich history is there any record of the evil entity we call “government” doing anything of any benefit to we, the people. All they want to do is control us. You know, like they do with “laws” and “courts”. And the irony is, they charge us (via taxes) to pay for this. Why do we need the government to create and administer laws and run the courts? Surely, those are pursuits that some corporation, having only our best interests at heart, would be willing to undertake for a reasonable fee. Then, when they convict the accused, they can sentence them to hard labor in their sister company’s prison, or “draft” them into their other sister company’s army to fight our wars for us. What bigger and more serious business is there than war? You want to leave that in the bumbling hands of those bureaucrats in Washington? I think not!
We know for a fact that there are companies out there willing to pay pretty good wages to their employees do our warring. In his wisdom, our last president tried to utilize this service to cut down on the taxpayer expense to the lesser-paid “government” military. Of course he was stopped by the same socialists who are trying to suck up healthcare and every other should-be private enterprise into some kind of massive federal takeover of pretty much everything.
Finally, I also agree with the crack political team on The Daily Show that these “Death Panels” proposed by our Nigerian-born President should be made up of corporate citizens, rather than government employees. This way, we’ll be sure to get the best available people to decide which grandmas are the least likely to purchase the goods and services that made this the greatest county in the world, and pull the plugs on the right folk.
We’re on the righteous track, people! Keep yelling and screaming and pretending you’re total nimrods, and don’t allow anybody who wants to change this perfect healthcare system we have any opportunity to present their “rational” explanations. The good book warned us about the tree of knowledge. If we realize we’re naked, the next thing you know, the government will be wanting to clothe us. We don’t want none of that ‘round here.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
POINT of ORDER
Have you ever seen that TV show “To Catch a Predator”?
Sure you have. It’s the “Dateline NBC” specials with
Chris Hansen, where they have these online fake teenie-
boppers set up old pervs who cruise the Internet looking
for young victims to help them fulfill their twisted carnal
fantasies. Apparently there are a lot more of those guys
than any of us might like to think.
Some decoy gets on a chat room and hooks up with the
sicko, and convinces him that they are, say, a 13 year old
girl who is willing and ready to do unspeakable things
with just any old fat guy that they have never even met. It just so happens that her parents are away for the weekend, and the “kid” eventually sets up an appointment time for the guy to come to her house and play. When he gets there, Chris Hansen pops out and, in entertaining fashion, informs the guy that his intentions are all on film and broadcast on national TV. So, whatever kind of life the predator had is ultimately toast. But that’s not the end of it – because when the pervert walks out of the house he is immediately nabbed by a bunch of cops, handcuffed, and hauled off to the pokey, where he can experience somebody else’s fantasy.
The whole concept seems like pure justice to me, because there is no doubt as to the intentions of these men. But I cannot help but to wonder how any of this is legal, and I cannot fathom how all of them aren’t acquitted using an “entrapment” defense.
Let’s be clear. I’m not defending these guys. If it was me, and if it wasn’t against the law to devise such a plan, I’d have something more violent and illegal waiting for them when they walked into this set-up. And when, or if, they walked out, they would no longer possess the equipment required to conduct the activities they have in mind. But, sooner or later, it would be me that ended up in jail, because even in nabbing criminals there are some laws that have to be followed.
It’s just that when I get a question like this in my head, I can’t rest until I get some kind of satisfactory answer.
First of all, these aren’t really even kids. They are adults, posing as kids. So the culprit, even though he thinks he is, isn’t even communicating with somebody under-age. When he gets to the house he is invited in by the decoy, who is, in fact, an adult. There aren’t even any kids in the house. Can you arrest and imprison somebody for what they are thinking?
What about those wackos on HBO who dress themselves or their partners up in diapers and play with rattles and lollipops when they…you know…do what they do? What goes on in their heads has to be some kind of a crime. But you don’t see them getting dragged off barefooted to the big house in their little bonnets.
Here’s another analogy. You don’t like the jerk who lives down the street. You know he’s inclined to smoke a little weed now and then, and you come up with a plan to sell him some and get him popped. (Who’s the jerk?) You arrange a meeting where you have several cops and videographers hiding in the bushes; meet him there; and exchange a plastic bag of oregano mixed with cat litter for a hundred bucks. As soon as the exchange is made, six cops jump out and slam him to the ground, and load him up into the paddy wagon.
That guy thought he was buying marijuana, which, as you may know, is illegal. But he purchased cooking spice (and whatever cat litter is), which are not. Did he commit an actual crime? Will he end up in jail for it?
How ‘bout this one? There has been just too much speeding on the local by-pass. Somehow, law enforcement manages to get all your automobiles and tamper with the speedometers – setting them so that they register 15 mph faster than the car is actually traveling. You’re zipping down the interstate at what you think is 80 miles an hour, but you are, in fact, going only 65, on a 70 mph highway. Clearly, your intention is to speed. Lawbreaker! Which little box is going to be checked on that ticket? Can you be fined?
Or this. Say you’ve been making enemies of the wrong people, and you have discovered that one of them plans to (gulp!) assassinate you. Through some clever means you manage to set up a “Blazing Saddles” sort of fake scene out in the desert. Sitting there in a rocking chair is a spitting-image plastic replica of you, reading the latest Harry Potter book. Up in the rocks, two hundred yards away, the sniper is looking through a high- powered scope. The little laser dot appears on your head and the assassin squeezes the trigger. Boom! The cops jump out of their hiding places and drag the shooter down. What is he arrested for? Murder? Attempted murder? Destruction of private property?
This is fun, and I could go on with these scenarios all day. I won’t. Just hoping here that some legal scholars out there will think this over (for free) and let me know their thoughts concerning how this “perverted justice” bunch makes the charges stick on these astonishingly stupid would-be child predators.
Then I can find something else to wonder about.
© 2009, Rick Baberhttp://www.rickbaber.com
Sure you have. It’s the “Dateline NBC” specials with
Chris Hansen, where they have these online fake teenie-
boppers set up old pervs who cruise the Internet looking
for young victims to help them fulfill their twisted carnal
fantasies. Apparently there are a lot more of those guys
than any of us might like to think.
Some decoy gets on a chat room and hooks up with the
sicko, and convinces him that they are, say, a 13 year old
girl who is willing and ready to do unspeakable things
with just any old fat guy that they have never even met. It just so happens that her parents are away for the weekend, and the “kid” eventually sets up an appointment time for the guy to come to her house and play. When he gets there, Chris Hansen pops out and, in entertaining fashion, informs the guy that his intentions are all on film and broadcast on national TV. So, whatever kind of life the predator had is ultimately toast. But that’s not the end of it – because when the pervert walks out of the house he is immediately nabbed by a bunch of cops, handcuffed, and hauled off to the pokey, where he can experience somebody else’s fantasy.
The whole concept seems like pure justice to me, because there is no doubt as to the intentions of these men. But I cannot help but to wonder how any of this is legal, and I cannot fathom how all of them aren’t acquitted using an “entrapment” defense.
Let’s be clear. I’m not defending these guys. If it was me, and if it wasn’t against the law to devise such a plan, I’d have something more violent and illegal waiting for them when they walked into this set-up. And when, or if, they walked out, they would no longer possess the equipment required to conduct the activities they have in mind. But, sooner or later, it would be me that ended up in jail, because even in nabbing criminals there are some laws that have to be followed.
It’s just that when I get a question like this in my head, I can’t rest until I get some kind of satisfactory answer.
First of all, these aren’t really even kids. They are adults, posing as kids. So the culprit, even though he thinks he is, isn’t even communicating with somebody under-age. When he gets to the house he is invited in by the decoy, who is, in fact, an adult. There aren’t even any kids in the house. Can you arrest and imprison somebody for what they are thinking?
What about those wackos on HBO who dress themselves or their partners up in diapers and play with rattles and lollipops when they…you know…do what they do? What goes on in their heads has to be some kind of a crime. But you don’t see them getting dragged off barefooted to the big house in their little bonnets.
Here’s another analogy. You don’t like the jerk who lives down the street. You know he’s inclined to smoke a little weed now and then, and you come up with a plan to sell him some and get him popped. (Who’s the jerk?) You arrange a meeting where you have several cops and videographers hiding in the bushes; meet him there; and exchange a plastic bag of oregano mixed with cat litter for a hundred bucks. As soon as the exchange is made, six cops jump out and slam him to the ground, and load him up into the paddy wagon.
That guy thought he was buying marijuana, which, as you may know, is illegal. But he purchased cooking spice (and whatever cat litter is), which are not. Did he commit an actual crime? Will he end up in jail for it?
How ‘bout this one? There has been just too much speeding on the local by-pass. Somehow, law enforcement manages to get all your automobiles and tamper with the speedometers – setting them so that they register 15 mph faster than the car is actually traveling. You’re zipping down the interstate at what you think is 80 miles an hour, but you are, in fact, going only 65, on a 70 mph highway. Clearly, your intention is to speed. Lawbreaker! Which little box is going to be checked on that ticket? Can you be fined?
Or this. Say you’ve been making enemies of the wrong people, and you have discovered that one of them plans to (gulp!) assassinate you. Through some clever means you manage to set up a “Blazing Saddles” sort of fake scene out in the desert. Sitting there in a rocking chair is a spitting-image plastic replica of you, reading the latest Harry Potter book. Up in the rocks, two hundred yards away, the sniper is looking through a high- powered scope. The little laser dot appears on your head and the assassin squeezes the trigger. Boom! The cops jump out of their hiding places and drag the shooter down. What is he arrested for? Murder? Attempted murder? Destruction of private property?
This is fun, and I could go on with these scenarios all day. I won’t. Just hoping here that some legal scholars out there will think this over (for free) and let me know their thoughts concerning how this “perverted justice” bunch makes the charges stick on these astonishingly stupid would-be child predators.
Then I can find something else to wonder about.
© 2009, Rick Baberhttp://www.rickbaber.com
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
REWRITING HISTORY
What do you take with you (speaking metaphorically) on
your journey through this life? Most people, I think, don’t
want the additional baggage of the bad memories, so they
use the available storage space for the good ones. And
generally, there’s only room for the best of those.
I tend to be a packrat – never throwing anything out unless
there is just absolutely no place to put it. If you don’t
believe that, please take a look in my garage. Tools, for
example, scattered all over the place. There are cases
for some of them, and as I try to put the sockets back
into their corresponding slots, there are times that I mix them up. “Metrics” in the “SAE”
box, and visa versa. They look alike. It is an easy mistake to make.
It isn’t the packrats, like me, that have the neatest and most organized tool boxes. It is those guys that keep only the best and most useful of the things they have accumulated.
History, you know, isn’t necessarily what has happened in the past. It is simply what somebody wrote down about what happened in the past. It could be an accurate record. It could be embellished to fit the particular needs or whims of the author. Or, it could be completely false. Historians, like the late-great Wilson Powell, and his contemporary, Larry Stroud, I imagine, always had really organized garages. They research, and write accurate records of things gone by. When they do that, you can generally take it to the bank.
Not me, OK?
I’m just shooting from the hip here – trying to get the toolboxes cleaned up before somebody trips over something and sues me.
After my last column about the Landers Theater becoming a church, an epic conversation was generated via email and Facebook, wherein I discovered that I am not the only packrat in the world. This is a good thing. To paraphrase Judge Smails, “The world needs packrats, too!”
It all started when Janice (Martin) Price (SHS ’68), my sister-in-law, called me to ask if maybe I had my bouncers’ names mixed up. She thought the person I described was “George”, and not “Clyde”, as I had written.
No sooner than the words had left her mouth, I realized she was right. It was indeed George I had seen in my mind’s eye, chomping on that unlit cigar. I immediately posted a sort of retraction on Facebook, and the replies started rolling in, reassuring me that there were many others out there who carry on seemingly insignificant items when they travel. So maybe they’re not so insignificant after all.
In the discussion, it was resolved that previous to George, there was a bouncer named Claude at the Landers. Being insolent teenagers, we called him “Clyde”, just to make him mad. When George came along, for the same reason, we called him “Clyde.” So, for history’s sake, I’d like to correct that point.
Now, whether or not that is accurate will have to be a matter left for the real historians. The noteworthy thing, to me, is that so many people thought the Landers Theater was an important-enough part of their lives to take it 35 to 40 years down the road with them. I think that’s fantastic.
My BHS 1973 classmates, Ceil (Glenn) Smith and Dianne (May) Thomas were there to set me straight. They hadn’t forgotten. Another classmate, Steven Gillihan, all the way from his pulpit in Colorado, came to my defense, planting the seed in the conversation that we might have just made up our own names for people back in those days. He remembered, even after leaving for college, living all over the Midwest, and ending up (so far) as a preacher in Arvada, Colorado. And Ol’ Curt Wainwright, way down yonder in Saraland, Alabama, who has been there, pretty much, since a week after graduation day, 1973, had recollection of the sticky floors being patrolled by “Clyde”, and thought perhaps Bill Milum and Tommy Dodd were the only people who managed to sneak in the back door without getting caught. He must have forgotten about Gillihan, I guess. Lots of other memories that I’ll have to save for my next book.
And there were those upper classfolk, whose reminiscences of the place go farther back than mine. Gary Humphries (class of ’68), joined the Air Force in 1970 and spent some time in Alaska before finally settling down in Indianapolis a decade ago. But the cold up there didn’t freeze from his mind the fact that the Landers had curtained windows between the theater and the lobby, where us smokers could do our thing and not miss any of the movie. Matter of fact, I remember making RJ Reynolds rich while Becky (’71) sat alone watching “Gone with the Wind”. Then, Dana (Bone) Teichart (’71) had some ideas on where to look for those “naked lady” lights that used to hang on the walls inside.
Mine wasn’t the last class to remember roaming the dark aisles either. There were the youngsters like Barbara (Bruce) Rivera and Rene Montgomery (’75), Nancy (Sturch) Weaver (’76), Bob Wallis (’77), and even Heather Jeffries from the class of 1991 – a quarter century after “Hump” stood back there peeking through the curtains. They all had their comments to make, because the place and the people associated with it meant something to them.
Now, if any of you “accuracy freaks” find mistakes with any of those names or classes, take it up with the historians. My point is simply that any place important enough for the smallest details to be burned into people’s minds, so far down the road, deserves some sort of tribute – and while I promise this will be the last of it, this is mine.
Claude, Clyde, George. What does it matter? They knew who they were. No matter what we called them, we knew who they were, too. They were a big part of Batesville’s history. And they won’t be forgotten.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com
your journey through this life? Most people, I think, don’t
want the additional baggage of the bad memories, so they
use the available storage space for the good ones. And
generally, there’s only room for the best of those.
I tend to be a packrat – never throwing anything out unless
there is just absolutely no place to put it. If you don’t
believe that, please take a look in my garage. Tools, for
example, scattered all over the place. There are cases
for some of them, and as I try to put the sockets back
into their corresponding slots, there are times that I mix them up. “Metrics” in the “SAE”
box, and visa versa. They look alike. It is an easy mistake to make.
It isn’t the packrats, like me, that have the neatest and most organized tool boxes. It is those guys that keep only the best and most useful of the things they have accumulated.
History, you know, isn’t necessarily what has happened in the past. It is simply what somebody wrote down about what happened in the past. It could be an accurate record. It could be embellished to fit the particular needs or whims of the author. Or, it could be completely false. Historians, like the late-great Wilson Powell, and his contemporary, Larry Stroud, I imagine, always had really organized garages. They research, and write accurate records of things gone by. When they do that, you can generally take it to the bank.
Not me, OK?
I’m just shooting from the hip here – trying to get the toolboxes cleaned up before somebody trips over something and sues me.
After my last column about the Landers Theater becoming a church, an epic conversation was generated via email and Facebook, wherein I discovered that I am not the only packrat in the world. This is a good thing. To paraphrase Judge Smails, “The world needs packrats, too!”
It all started when Janice (Martin) Price (SHS ’68), my sister-in-law, called me to ask if maybe I had my bouncers’ names mixed up. She thought the person I described was “George”, and not “Clyde”, as I had written.
No sooner than the words had left her mouth, I realized she was right. It was indeed George I had seen in my mind’s eye, chomping on that unlit cigar. I immediately posted a sort of retraction on Facebook, and the replies started rolling in, reassuring me that there were many others out there who carry on seemingly insignificant items when they travel. So maybe they’re not so insignificant after all.
In the discussion, it was resolved that previous to George, there was a bouncer named Claude at the Landers. Being insolent teenagers, we called him “Clyde”, just to make him mad. When George came along, for the same reason, we called him “Clyde.” So, for history’s sake, I’d like to correct that point.
Now, whether or not that is accurate will have to be a matter left for the real historians. The noteworthy thing, to me, is that so many people thought the Landers Theater was an important-enough part of their lives to take it 35 to 40 years down the road with them. I think that’s fantastic.
My BHS 1973 classmates, Ceil (Glenn) Smith and Dianne (May) Thomas were there to set me straight. They hadn’t forgotten. Another classmate, Steven Gillihan, all the way from his pulpit in Colorado, came to my defense, planting the seed in the conversation that we might have just made up our own names for people back in those days. He remembered, even after leaving for college, living all over the Midwest, and ending up (so far) as a preacher in Arvada, Colorado. And Ol’ Curt Wainwright, way down yonder in Saraland, Alabama, who has been there, pretty much, since a week after graduation day, 1973, had recollection of the sticky floors being patrolled by “Clyde”, and thought perhaps Bill Milum and Tommy Dodd were the only people who managed to sneak in the back door without getting caught. He must have forgotten about Gillihan, I guess. Lots of other memories that I’ll have to save for my next book.
And there were those upper classfolk, whose reminiscences of the place go farther back than mine. Gary Humphries (class of ’68), joined the Air Force in 1970 and spent some time in Alaska before finally settling down in Indianapolis a decade ago. But the cold up there didn’t freeze from his mind the fact that the Landers had curtained windows between the theater and the lobby, where us smokers could do our thing and not miss any of the movie. Matter of fact, I remember making RJ Reynolds rich while Becky (’71) sat alone watching “Gone with the Wind”. Then, Dana (Bone) Teichart (’71) had some ideas on where to look for those “naked lady” lights that used to hang on the walls inside.
Mine wasn’t the last class to remember roaming the dark aisles either. There were the youngsters like Barbara (Bruce) Rivera and Rene Montgomery (’75), Nancy (Sturch) Weaver (’76), Bob Wallis (’77), and even Heather Jeffries from the class of 1991 – a quarter century after “Hump” stood back there peeking through the curtains. They all had their comments to make, because the place and the people associated with it meant something to them.
Now, if any of you “accuracy freaks” find mistakes with any of those names or classes, take it up with the historians. My point is simply that any place important enough for the smallest details to be burned into people’s minds, so far down the road, deserves some sort of tribute – and while I promise this will be the last of it, this is mine.
Claude, Clyde, George. What does it matter? They knew who they were. No matter what we called them, we knew who they were, too. They were a big part of Batesville’s history. And they won’t be forgotten.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com
Monday, July 20, 2009
Landers Theater Gets Religion
During a quick trip home to Batesville over the weekend,
finding it necessary to make the 300 mile drive from
Westside to over near Newark, where the entire city has
apparently decided to relocate, me ‘n mama took our
customary vehicular stroll down Main Street on the way
back – just to get a look.
Imagine our surprise when we saw the gutted remains of
the Landers Theater, and a sign there proclaiming it to
be the location of a new church.
My first words to Becky were that this should not happen, because so much sinnin’ had taken place inside that building. I know this, because I was responsible for much of it, myself.
In 1967, about a week after moving to town and temporarily residing in the American Motor Inn, my folks determined it might help alleviate some of our Blytheville blues if they took my sister and brother and I to the movies. For whatever reason, they decided to take us to the Landers instead of the more… respectable Melba Theater down the street. I don’t really recall whether or not we actually stayed for the movie. All I remember is that I learned instantly that this was the place a young teen wanted to be on a Friday night in Batesville – the closest thing to the wild west this kid had ever seen.
Within a few weeks my parents rented a house on Harrison Street and one-by-one I was introduced to the guys in the neighborhood: James Milum, Chris Magouyrk, Kevin Bowie, and Randy Magar. It wasn’t long after that we would meet early on Friday nights in the Central Elementary School yard and walk to the Landers, where we’d put up our (as I recall) 35 cents and have our weekly adventure.
Once inside this cultural melting pot, I was actually able to meet and interact with kids from the other schools – Westside and Eastside. This was something that was just not done in Blytheville, and it opened up a whole new world. And the most amazing part of this experience what that there, inside that dark theater, were girls who were looking for adventures of their own. How cool was that?
Even the wild west had its sheriffs. Stealthily walking the aisles of the Landers was a large, flashlight-totin’, cigar-chewin’ mountain of a man named Clyde, who was charged with the awesome responsibility of attempting to assure the few people inside who actually wanted to watch the movie that they would be able to do so. It would be many years before I was able to appreciate the difficulty of this man’s job, but I learned the power of the flashlight very quickly.
Blinded by the light, the first time I heard his famous words, “You wanna leave the show?”, I had no idea what that meant. Kevin explained to me that, although we had paid our thirty five cents, this man had the authority to toss us out onto the street if he determined that we were not behaving properly – which, of course, we never were. So, each of us ultimately found ourselves sitting on the curb, waiting for the others to get bounced before we walked around town long enough so that we didn’t have to tell our parents that we got kicked out of “the show”.
Once, on Halloween, we even landed a job at the theater. They were showing some scary movie, and management thought it would be a cool idea to have guys dressed up like monsters run down the aisles and scare people. We put on our costumes upstairs in the projection room, and they opened up the projector to charge these illuminated, glow in the dark get-ups with the bright light. Then, in the most intense part of the movie, we attempted to run down the side aisles and freak everybody out. It seemed like fun when they explained it to us, but we weren’t considering the fact that there were a hundred other guys like us in that audience, and I think some of them knew we were coming. Maybe all of them knew we were coming, because, no sooner than we started through the doors, we were dogpiled and beaten within inches of our young lives as we fought and clawed our ways down to the emergency exits to escape.
We only took that job once.
Older now, after healing up and having a car and a girlfriend, no, a wife, of my own, me ‘n Bec and David & Tammy took in an “owl show” one night that offered up some new surprises. Apparently, they hadn’t screened the movie very well and it turned out to be something that, in the day, would have been more appropriately shown with an 8mm projector in the back room of a warehouse. From the very first scene, it was obvious that this wasn’t the typical late night movie in Batesville. But, sitting close to the front, there was no way we were going to walk back up that aisle to leave, facing everybody on our way out. It wasn’t that dark. We decided to wait it out and blend in with the crowd when the credits were showing, before the lights came up.
Of course David, being David, found much humor in the situation, and took the opportunity to introduce Becky to the ol’ pickle in the popcorn trick during one of the more poignant scenes. Well, yes, she screamed, drawing the attention of everybody in the theater to us. Now, we knew, they were all going to try to see who we were when this thing ended. But determined that we had a foolproof plan, we stuck to it.
Who knew? At the end of the movie, apparently realizing that since nobody had ever heard of any of these “actors”, there was no need to show the credits, the screen just went blank and the house lights popped on, full force. With all four of us scratching our foreheads walking out, trying in vain to conceal our faces, there at the top of the ramp, cigar stub in this mouth, grinning wildly, was Clyde.
“Well, Becky Price!” he said. “Does your mama know where you are?”
Somehow, she never found out.
Hallelujah!
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com
finding it necessary to make the 300 mile drive from
Westside to over near Newark, where the entire city has
apparently decided to relocate, me ‘n mama took our
customary vehicular stroll down Main Street on the way
back – just to get a look.
Imagine our surprise when we saw the gutted remains of
the Landers Theater, and a sign there proclaiming it to
be the location of a new church.
My first words to Becky were that this should not happen, because so much sinnin’ had taken place inside that building. I know this, because I was responsible for much of it, myself.
In 1967, about a week after moving to town and temporarily residing in the American Motor Inn, my folks determined it might help alleviate some of our Blytheville blues if they took my sister and brother and I to the movies. For whatever reason, they decided to take us to the Landers instead of the more… respectable Melba Theater down the street. I don’t really recall whether or not we actually stayed for the movie. All I remember is that I learned instantly that this was the place a young teen wanted to be on a Friday night in Batesville – the closest thing to the wild west this kid had ever seen.
Within a few weeks my parents rented a house on Harrison Street and one-by-one I was introduced to the guys in the neighborhood: James Milum, Chris Magouyrk, Kevin Bowie, and Randy Magar. It wasn’t long after that we would meet early on Friday nights in the Central Elementary School yard and walk to the Landers, where we’d put up our (as I recall) 35 cents and have our weekly adventure.
Once inside this cultural melting pot, I was actually able to meet and interact with kids from the other schools – Westside and Eastside. This was something that was just not done in Blytheville, and it opened up a whole new world. And the most amazing part of this experience what that there, inside that dark theater, were girls who were looking for adventures of their own. How cool was that?
Even the wild west had its sheriffs. Stealthily walking the aisles of the Landers was a large, flashlight-totin’, cigar-chewin’ mountain of a man named Clyde, who was charged with the awesome responsibility of attempting to assure the few people inside who actually wanted to watch the movie that they would be able to do so. It would be many years before I was able to appreciate the difficulty of this man’s job, but I learned the power of the flashlight very quickly.
Blinded by the light, the first time I heard his famous words, “You wanna leave the show?”, I had no idea what that meant. Kevin explained to me that, although we had paid our thirty five cents, this man had the authority to toss us out onto the street if he determined that we were not behaving properly – which, of course, we never were. So, each of us ultimately found ourselves sitting on the curb, waiting for the others to get bounced before we walked around town long enough so that we didn’t have to tell our parents that we got kicked out of “the show”.
Once, on Halloween, we even landed a job at the theater. They were showing some scary movie, and management thought it would be a cool idea to have guys dressed up like monsters run down the aisles and scare people. We put on our costumes upstairs in the projection room, and they opened up the projector to charge these illuminated, glow in the dark get-ups with the bright light. Then, in the most intense part of the movie, we attempted to run down the side aisles and freak everybody out. It seemed like fun when they explained it to us, but we weren’t considering the fact that there were a hundred other guys like us in that audience, and I think some of them knew we were coming. Maybe all of them knew we were coming, because, no sooner than we started through the doors, we were dogpiled and beaten within inches of our young lives as we fought and clawed our ways down to the emergency exits to escape.
We only took that job once.
Older now, after healing up and having a car and a girlfriend, no, a wife, of my own, me ‘n Bec and David & Tammy took in an “owl show” one night that offered up some new surprises. Apparently, they hadn’t screened the movie very well and it turned out to be something that, in the day, would have been more appropriately shown with an 8mm projector in the back room of a warehouse. From the very first scene, it was obvious that this wasn’t the typical late night movie in Batesville. But, sitting close to the front, there was no way we were going to walk back up that aisle to leave, facing everybody on our way out. It wasn’t that dark. We decided to wait it out and blend in with the crowd when the credits were showing, before the lights came up.
Of course David, being David, found much humor in the situation, and took the opportunity to introduce Becky to the ol’ pickle in the popcorn trick during one of the more poignant scenes. Well, yes, she screamed, drawing the attention of everybody in the theater to us. Now, we knew, they were all going to try to see who we were when this thing ended. But determined that we had a foolproof plan, we stuck to it.
Who knew? At the end of the movie, apparently realizing that since nobody had ever heard of any of these “actors”, there was no need to show the credits, the screen just went blank and the house lights popped on, full force. With all four of us scratching our foreheads walking out, trying in vain to conceal our faces, there at the top of the ramp, cigar stub in this mouth, grinning wildly, was Clyde.
“Well, Becky Price!” he said. “Does your mama know where you are?”
Somehow, she never found out.
Hallelujah!
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The OBX SEA MONSTER INCIDENT
NOTE: This is a story derived from the Into Focus column, expanded to become part of the next printing of my book, "Dinner With WT", as one of a few bonus stories. It is much more meaningful within the context of the rest of the book - which can be purchased from the publisher:
http://www.synergebooks.com. Please check 'em out if you get time!
-r
http://www.synergebooks.com. Please check 'em out if you get time!
-r
THE OBX SEA MONSTER INCIDENT
There’s something about the persistence of the ocean that’s inspirational. Maybe that’s why so many famous people come from or live on one coast or another.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina is kind of a different place. In the spring of 2008, me ‘n mama took a few days to travel down to that part of Dixie, shoot a beach wedding at Nag’s Head, and seek out some lighthouse photos for our art prints. I don’t want to jinx anything – writing this from the beginning of the trip home at the Norfolk, Virginia airport, attracting much unwanted attention from other travelers – but the journey down here went about as well as one who hates to fly could expect….up until “the incident”.
You may not be aware of this, but for what it’s worth, there are no turtles mentioned in the Bible. That’s because they are such vicious and violent creatures that God booted them out of Heaven and condemned them to roam the earth for all eternity, you know, like Cain, in Kung Fu, carrying their houses on their backs. When the books of the Bible were written, the authors were so terrified of these creatures that they dared not even mention them.
For the record, I don’t really know whether or not that’s true. Actually, I may have just made it up. But that seems to make sense to me. Especially now.
Anyhow, we’re driving down Highway 12 toward Bodie Island, and I have to swerve to miss what I first thought was a dead Rottweiler in the road. As I passed it, I could tell it was what we call an alligator snapper – the biggest turtle I’ve ever actually seen outside a zoo. It didn’t appear to have been hit, so I pulled the car over and got out to go move it out of the road. The closer I got, the bigger that rascal appeared. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it had a head about the same size as that of a Boston Terrier.
Notwithstanding my unfortunate experience with WT, back in the early 90’s, my affection for reptiles, particularly turtles, remained with me. I had convinced myself that bad things sometimes happen, and sometimes nobody is to blame. The thought of leaving this big fella in the road to likely be hit, and possibly even injured, by some speeding tourist was unacceptable. Besides, I imagined, anything short of a Hummer hitting this guy at more than 50 mph was going to be totaled. So I pulled off into the tall grass beside the road and hiked back, while Becky sat in the rental car, leaning over the back seat watching me through the rear glass and laughing, to do what I could about getting him off the road.
As I walked toward him, of course, I thought about WT. And I thought of the giant sea turtle that tripped me with her big front flipper as I wandered Satellite Beach in Florida - in the middle of the night - because it was too damn dark to see it there in the sand burying it’s eggs, because the Florida Turtle Cops wouldn’t allow me to take a flashlight. They didn’t want to freak out the turtles. Freak out the turtles! For a moment, that time, lying face-down in the sand in total darkness, I considered the possibility that I was going to become a meal. It literally scared the shit out of me. But I survived. Possibly because the odor ruined big mama’s appetite and she said “to hell with burying these eggs”, and split. It’s a survival mechanism.
My vast experience with turtles has taught me better than to try to pick this big one up off the highway – as if I possessed the strength to do that - but I wanted to get a picture before I did anything. As I walked up to it, a local schoolboy, maybe 12, came up behind me with a sucker in his mouth.
“I wouldn’t get too close to him if I was you.” He warned.
“No.” I said. “I’m gonna get him to bite this stick and I’ll drag him out of the road.
“You better get a bigger stick”, he said.
Smartass. I resisted the urge to ask this little turd if he had ever lugged this guy’s cousin around by the beanbag for several hours.
A school bus already had traffic backed up southbound, and a van had the northbound traffic stopped. The bus driver was standing just inside the door, chatting with another stopped motorist, and about 30 kids were hanging out the bus windows. I could see this turning into an impromptu learning experience that they’d all be talking about when they got back to school on Monday. Here I am, making an impression on the impressionable young ones.
“Be careful”, the kid said, “These ones can jump.”
OK. I was glad the kid was trying to help, but what does some youngster know about turtles that I haven’t learned in a half century of intense study?
“Yeah. Thanks, kid”, I said, “I think this’ll do fine. I got this.”
So I stuck the stick down by the turtle’s head and he lunged at it, coming up about three feet off the ground. That was about two feet short of how high I jumped, screeching like a girl.
“These ones right here, you gotta get ‘em by the tail and drag ‘em.” The boy continued, without even saying “I told you so”.
Both of those lines of traffic, including that busload of impressionable children, were sitting there, watching, patiently waiting for me to move this monster from the road. I didn’t want to disappoint them, but, after seeing that thing jump, I was … (what’s the word?)….scared! Flashbacks. Beads of sweat dripping down my forehead and cascading off my nose. But I had to look cool…and brave…for the children.
So I hauled off and kicked him (the turtle, not the kid) in the ass. Then he pushed himself up, like a dog, and slowly walked off the road. Almost.
There was still just about enough of him in the highway to flip a car, and my conscience battled for a moment or two with my fear before I decided to give it one last heroic effort. As I approached the beast I was interrupted once again by the know-it-all Carolina kid.
“You might wanna tuck that string in,” he said, “He might think that’s a big worm or somethin’!”
He was referring to the white drawstring hanging from the front of my kahki hiking shorts.
I walked on up beside Goliath.
“Kid”, I asked, “Don’t you have to be getting on home? I think I hear your mama calling. Hear that?” I put my hand up behind my ear.
The kid threw his arms out to his side, like he was tired of explaining something to an imbecile. “I’m just sayin’, they eat eels and snakes and…”
I didn’t hear the rest. Goliath’s massive head had shot forward and to the side and his huge jaws had opened and snatched my shorts, strings and all, right between my legs. Of course. As quickly as he had lunged, he retracted back into his shell, dragging me down by the crotch toward him. I laid across this shell, front to back, with my face being beaten by his smelly tail, like a windshield wiper across my nose, as the monster raised up and took off galloping into the woods toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Through all the fear and pain, my curiosity won out, and my first thought was about how high off the ground I was and how fast he was moving. The Carolina kid and the big yellow bus and all the horrified school kids were getting smaller and smaller as the turtle banged my ass into trees on his journey, not able to see where he was going because my little friend was in his mouth and even his eyes weren’t as wide as my body. Aside from the trees, it was a relatively smooth ride. Like air shocks. And after I regained some of my composure I realized that what he had locked in his mouth was mostly a big wad of pants, and just a little bit of wiener, which popped free just before the Carolina kid disappeared from my sight, looking down, shaking his head. Four or five men were running behind us, losing ground, carrying sticks and screaming.
We broke through the tree line and into the high weeds at the top of the beach and then started down through the sand toward the water. My confidence that this fresh water animal wouldn’t carry me down into the sea rapidly diminished. He wasn’t slowing down. I could hear the waves crashing against the shore and I smelled the salt air as this gargantuan brute carried me toward my aquatic grave. In all the scenarios I had concocted over the years, I never imagined it would end like this. It was just about then that the button popped loose on my shorts, and an idea was born. With my eight seconds completed, many times over, I quickly began to wiggle out of my pants to free myself, without regard to the fact that, here on the beach I found no reason this morning to put on underwear.
Just as we came upon the wet packed sand I freed myself from my khakis and flipped over the turtle’s tail, landing prostrate - face down again among the crustaceans and assorted dead things from the ocean – ecstatic to be alive. And the monster took my pants to Atlantis. Then a wave rolled in between my legs and reminded me that there were witnesses to this rather odd event. Many, many witnesses.
I rolled to my side and, there it was, Bodie Island Lighthouse. I shook my head to clear my eyes and I could see tourists up there with telephoto cameras, pointed at me. Then, it sounded like every Saturday at the Little League park when I heard the laughter and chattering of children. I placed my chin into the sand and looked back up the shoreline, and here came all those school kids, and the bus driver, and the motorists from Highway 12. And, like a guy who had just wrecked a bicycle, I jumped up to prove to them I wasn’t hurt. That’s when the park security people tackled me back to the ground and threw a jacket over my exposed nether regions.
The Carolina kid strolled up within inches of my head, with just enough breath left to say “I wouldn’t lay down there with them crabs with no pants on.”
**********
The next day was Friday, and already the story had made the tabloids around Nags Head, complete with amazing pictures. By today, Sunday, when we arrived here at the airport, the Norfolk paper had picked it up. And wouldn’t you know, there are a lot of flight delays. People have nothing else to do but read the paper, and recognize me, and point and laugh.
A few of them even have the nerve to walk right up to me and ask “How’s the family jewels?”
And I do not hesitate to answer.
“Yummy. Want a taste?”
© 2009, Rick Baber
There’s something about the persistence of the ocean that’s inspirational. Maybe that’s why so many famous people come from or live on one coast or another.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina is kind of a different place. In the spring of 2008, me ‘n mama took a few days to travel down to that part of Dixie, shoot a beach wedding at Nag’s Head, and seek out some lighthouse photos for our art prints. I don’t want to jinx anything – writing this from the beginning of the trip home at the Norfolk, Virginia airport, attracting much unwanted attention from other travelers – but the journey down here went about as well as one who hates to fly could expect….up until “the incident”.
You may not be aware of this, but for what it’s worth, there are no turtles mentioned in the Bible. That’s because they are such vicious and violent creatures that God booted them out of Heaven and condemned them to roam the earth for all eternity, you know, like Cain, in Kung Fu, carrying their houses on their backs. When the books of the Bible were written, the authors were so terrified of these creatures that they dared not even mention them.
For the record, I don’t really know whether or not that’s true. Actually, I may have just made it up. But that seems to make sense to me. Especially now.
Anyhow, we’re driving down Highway 12 toward Bodie Island, and I have to swerve to miss what I first thought was a dead Rottweiler in the road. As I passed it, I could tell it was what we call an alligator snapper – the biggest turtle I’ve ever actually seen outside a zoo. It didn’t appear to have been hit, so I pulled the car over and got out to go move it out of the road. The closer I got, the bigger that rascal appeared. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it had a head about the same size as that of a Boston Terrier.
Notwithstanding my unfortunate experience with WT, back in the early 90’s, my affection for reptiles, particularly turtles, remained with me. I had convinced myself that bad things sometimes happen, and sometimes nobody is to blame. The thought of leaving this big fella in the road to likely be hit, and possibly even injured, by some speeding tourist was unacceptable. Besides, I imagined, anything short of a Hummer hitting this guy at more than 50 mph was going to be totaled. So I pulled off into the tall grass beside the road and hiked back, while Becky sat in the rental car, leaning over the back seat watching me through the rear glass and laughing, to do what I could about getting him off the road.
As I walked toward him, of course, I thought about WT. And I thought of the giant sea turtle that tripped me with her big front flipper as I wandered Satellite Beach in Florida - in the middle of the night - because it was too damn dark to see it there in the sand burying it’s eggs, because the Florida Turtle Cops wouldn’t allow me to take a flashlight. They didn’t want to freak out the turtles. Freak out the turtles! For a moment, that time, lying face-down in the sand in total darkness, I considered the possibility that I was going to become a meal. It literally scared the shit out of me. But I survived. Possibly because the odor ruined big mama’s appetite and she said “to hell with burying these eggs”, and split. It’s a survival mechanism.
My vast experience with turtles has taught me better than to try to pick this big one up off the highway – as if I possessed the strength to do that - but I wanted to get a picture before I did anything. As I walked up to it, a local schoolboy, maybe 12, came up behind me with a sucker in his mouth.
“I wouldn’t get too close to him if I was you.” He warned.
“No.” I said. “I’m gonna get him to bite this stick and I’ll drag him out of the road.
“You better get a bigger stick”, he said.
Smartass. I resisted the urge to ask this little turd if he had ever lugged this guy’s cousin around by the beanbag for several hours.
A school bus already had traffic backed up southbound, and a van had the northbound traffic stopped. The bus driver was standing just inside the door, chatting with another stopped motorist, and about 30 kids were hanging out the bus windows. I could see this turning into an impromptu learning experience that they’d all be talking about when they got back to school on Monday. Here I am, making an impression on the impressionable young ones.
“Be careful”, the kid said, “These ones can jump.”
OK. I was glad the kid was trying to help, but what does some youngster know about turtles that I haven’t learned in a half century of intense study?
“Yeah. Thanks, kid”, I said, “I think this’ll do fine. I got this.”
So I stuck the stick down by the turtle’s head and he lunged at it, coming up about three feet off the ground. That was about two feet short of how high I jumped, screeching like a girl.
“These ones right here, you gotta get ‘em by the tail and drag ‘em.” The boy continued, without even saying “I told you so”.
Both of those lines of traffic, including that busload of impressionable children, were sitting there, watching, patiently waiting for me to move this monster from the road. I didn’t want to disappoint them, but, after seeing that thing jump, I was … (what’s the word?)….scared! Flashbacks. Beads of sweat dripping down my forehead and cascading off my nose. But I had to look cool…and brave…for the children.
So I hauled off and kicked him (the turtle, not the kid) in the ass. Then he pushed himself up, like a dog, and slowly walked off the road. Almost.
There was still just about enough of him in the highway to flip a car, and my conscience battled for a moment or two with my fear before I decided to give it one last heroic effort. As I approached the beast I was interrupted once again by the know-it-all Carolina kid.
“You might wanna tuck that string in,” he said, “He might think that’s a big worm or somethin’!”
He was referring to the white drawstring hanging from the front of my kahki hiking shorts.
I walked on up beside Goliath.
“Kid”, I asked, “Don’t you have to be getting on home? I think I hear your mama calling. Hear that?” I put my hand up behind my ear.
The kid threw his arms out to his side, like he was tired of explaining something to an imbecile. “I’m just sayin’, they eat eels and snakes and…”
I didn’t hear the rest. Goliath’s massive head had shot forward and to the side and his huge jaws had opened and snatched my shorts, strings and all, right between my legs. Of course. As quickly as he had lunged, he retracted back into his shell, dragging me down by the crotch toward him. I laid across this shell, front to back, with my face being beaten by his smelly tail, like a windshield wiper across my nose, as the monster raised up and took off galloping into the woods toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Through all the fear and pain, my curiosity won out, and my first thought was about how high off the ground I was and how fast he was moving. The Carolina kid and the big yellow bus and all the horrified school kids were getting smaller and smaller as the turtle banged my ass into trees on his journey, not able to see where he was going because my little friend was in his mouth and even his eyes weren’t as wide as my body. Aside from the trees, it was a relatively smooth ride. Like air shocks. And after I regained some of my composure I realized that what he had locked in his mouth was mostly a big wad of pants, and just a little bit of wiener, which popped free just before the Carolina kid disappeared from my sight, looking down, shaking his head. Four or five men were running behind us, losing ground, carrying sticks and screaming.
We broke through the tree line and into the high weeds at the top of the beach and then started down through the sand toward the water. My confidence that this fresh water animal wouldn’t carry me down into the sea rapidly diminished. He wasn’t slowing down. I could hear the waves crashing against the shore and I smelled the salt air as this gargantuan brute carried me toward my aquatic grave. In all the scenarios I had concocted over the years, I never imagined it would end like this. It was just about then that the button popped loose on my shorts, and an idea was born. With my eight seconds completed, many times over, I quickly began to wiggle out of my pants to free myself, without regard to the fact that, here on the beach I found no reason this morning to put on underwear.
Just as we came upon the wet packed sand I freed myself from my khakis and flipped over the turtle’s tail, landing prostrate - face down again among the crustaceans and assorted dead things from the ocean – ecstatic to be alive. And the monster took my pants to Atlantis. Then a wave rolled in between my legs and reminded me that there were witnesses to this rather odd event. Many, many witnesses.
I rolled to my side and, there it was, Bodie Island Lighthouse. I shook my head to clear my eyes and I could see tourists up there with telephoto cameras, pointed at me. Then, it sounded like every Saturday at the Little League park when I heard the laughter and chattering of children. I placed my chin into the sand and looked back up the shoreline, and here came all those school kids, and the bus driver, and the motorists from Highway 12. And, like a guy who had just wrecked a bicycle, I jumped up to prove to them I wasn’t hurt. That’s when the park security people tackled me back to the ground and threw a jacket over my exposed nether regions.
The Carolina kid strolled up within inches of my head, with just enough breath left to say “I wouldn’t lay down there with them crabs with no pants on.”
**********
The next day was Friday, and already the story had made the tabloids around Nags Head, complete with amazing pictures. By today, Sunday, when we arrived here at the airport, the Norfolk paper had picked it up. And wouldn’t you know, there are a lot of flight delays. People have nothing else to do but read the paper, and recognize me, and point and laugh.
A few of them even have the nerve to walk right up to me and ask “How’s the family jewels?”
And I do not hesitate to answer.
“Yummy. Want a taste?”
© 2009, Rick Baber
Monday, June 08, 2009
FACEBOOK VIRUS-updated
I picked up a virus, called Koobface, on Facebook. Trying to figure out how to get back in. Now that I have (I hope) removed the virus from my computer, I seem to be locked out of Facebook.
Here's a tip, DON'T OPEN ANY VIDEOS ANYBODY SENDS YOU ON FACEBOOK! Especially if they come from me. I understand this thing will attach itself to my "friends" list, and send invitations, etc. on my behalf, and infect the computers of those who open them.
My goal in life, at this point, is to track down the malicious pigshit little bastards who created this menace and torture them an additional 48 hours after they beg me to kill them. Slime-sucking little bags of festering shit, they are.
Meantime, if you have found this website. And you're not a malicious little bastard hacker, please feel free to communicate with me here.
UPDATE: I don't know how, but I managed to log back onto Facebook today. Maybe they got my e-mails... Anyway, I hooked up with an old (44 years ago) friend there, so that's cool. I guess the hackers can breathe another day.
Here's a tip, DON'T OPEN ANY VIDEOS ANYBODY SENDS YOU ON FACEBOOK! Especially if they come from me. I understand this thing will attach itself to my "friends" list, and send invitations, etc. on my behalf, and infect the computers of those who open them.
My goal in life, at this point, is to track down the malicious pigshit little bastards who created this menace and torture them an additional 48 hours after they beg me to kill them. Slime-sucking little bags of festering shit, they are.
Meantime, if you have found this website. And you're not a malicious little bastard hacker, please feel free to communicate with me here.
UPDATE: I don't know how, but I managed to log back onto Facebook today. Maybe they got my e-mails... Anyway, I hooked up with an old (44 years ago) friend there, so that's cool. I guess the hackers can breathe another day.
Monday, May 18, 2009
POWERBALL LOTTO POOL
Tired as shit of working for a living, I'm gonna start up a Powerball Lotto Pool. I think I'll call it "Uncle Buck's Powerball Pool #1". Looking for 30 to 50 members willing to invest $5 per week for an equal share of any winnings. Will do Saturday nite drawings only, because, like I said, I don't want to have to work for a living. I'll be working (see, what I mean?) on drawing up the agreement between members. Leave me your e-mail address here if you're interested. I'll be in touch.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Teabagging Texans' Treasonous Talk
Whew!
I’ve been looking for a valid excuse to use the term
“Teabagging Texans” ever since a trip to Dallas I took
with James Kelley in August of 1974 in that un-air
conditioned welding truck to pick up a piece of drill steel.
As Arkies, we weren’t treated very well. I should say,
“I” wasn’t treated very well. James had the worldliness
and maturity to keep his mouth shut when being insulted
by the Texicans, but, being a kid of 19, I had not acquired
that ability. All that stuff about marrying sisters and not owning shoes from those smug rednecks just rubbed me the wrong way. Of course I “owned” shoes. It was just too damn hot to wear them in that truck, in Texas, in August.
The capper, I suppose, was when we stopped at a gas station, to pay them good Arkansas money for filling up the truck, and that cow-loving three-toothed attendant growled “We don’t need your Arkansas trash here” as I carried the soft drink cans and potato chip bags from the floorboard to put in the receptacle, conveniently located there between the pumps – apparently missing the “Texans Only” sign.
When I walked briskly toward the duck-tailed greaser, screaming all the obscenities I had learned growing up in a rock quarry (a rich vocabulary that remains with me to this day), Ol’ Eli grabbed me by my flowing blonde locks, flung me back into the truck and kicked the door shut. I had no problem messing with the Texan, but I wasn’t going to tangle with Kelley.
As the years went by, I don’t recall a single good thing that ever happened to me in the Republic of Texas. The only time I was ever “bumped” from an airplane, after boarding and sitting on a tarmac for two hours, was in Dallas. The only time I ever sat for three hours in a traffic jam, in 103 degree heat? Dallas. The only time I ever stepped out of an airport at midnight with a country music fiddle player, to catch a smoke while waiting for a replacement flight crew that they had to call and wake up to come to work – and got locked out of the place? Well, you know where it was.
Jimmy Buffett was right. Pass it by.
So, on April 15, while watching clips of all the Fox News staged “tea parties”, on another network, I could swear I saw that Goober Pyle gas station dipstick in one of those crowds, still wearing the same uniform. He looked 35 years older, but I don’t believe he had washed that shirt yet. Same nametag. “Bud”. Somebody else must have spelled it for him.
Then, here comes Texas Governor, Rick Perry, echoing the now too-familiar veiled threat, as so brilliantly espoused by the well-known intellectual, Chuck Norris, that, if things didn’t start meeting with their approval, Texas might just pick up its marbles and secede from the Union. That right, Perry (and Norris) explained, is in their state constitution.
First of all, there seems to be some disagreement regarding whether the Lone Star State could legally secede from the United States. From some of the information I have read, they actually do have in that document the right to split into five separate states – which would have saved us all a lot of grief if they had done in the first place. Second, a US Supreme Court ruling, sometime around 1869, I believe, was that they did not have the right of secession.
In the middle of the 19th Century, there were seven southern states (including Texas) that declared they were bailing out because they didn’t like the way things were going politically, and they obviously thought they had the right to do that. When a bearded hippie liberal president took exception and called up troops to quash the revolt, they were joined by four more states – one of them being Arkansas, whose trash is not welcomed elsewhere.
That didn’t work out too well for the secessionists.
But I’m thinking “Can’t we all just get along?”
If the treasonous Texans want to leave, can’t we just wish them well, and warn them about Oklahoma hitting them on the rear-end on their way out the door? Can we box up Mike Huckabee and ship him down there to live with his buddy, President Chuck Norris?
And Secretary of the Interior, Bud. In fact, with all that room they have down there, and have always gloated about, couldn’t we just let all the whining crybaby losers of the last presidential election take up residence in the new country? They would all be so happy there. And, really, don’t we want everybody to be happy?
It will take a bunch of wire and even more labor to build a fence around that place to keep all them Texicans from sneaking into the United States to steal our jobs. The US will have to do it, because the Texicans will be busy working on their own fence down south. That, in itself, would probably be sufficient to stimulate our economy.
Just a thought. While ya’ll are thinking it over, I’ll be looking for a good passport photo camera. I’m seeing a potential opportunity for business expansion.
Now, where’d I put those shoes?
© 2009, Rick Baberhttp://www.rickbaber.com
I’ve been looking for a valid excuse to use the term
“Teabagging Texans” ever since a trip to Dallas I took
with James Kelley in August of 1974 in that un-air
conditioned welding truck to pick up a piece of drill steel.
As Arkies, we weren’t treated very well. I should say,
“I” wasn’t treated very well. James had the worldliness
and maturity to keep his mouth shut when being insulted
by the Texicans, but, being a kid of 19, I had not acquired
that ability. All that stuff about marrying sisters and not owning shoes from those smug rednecks just rubbed me the wrong way. Of course I “owned” shoes. It was just too damn hot to wear them in that truck, in Texas, in August.
The capper, I suppose, was when we stopped at a gas station, to pay them good Arkansas money for filling up the truck, and that cow-loving three-toothed attendant growled “We don’t need your Arkansas trash here” as I carried the soft drink cans and potato chip bags from the floorboard to put in the receptacle, conveniently located there between the pumps – apparently missing the “Texans Only” sign.
When I walked briskly toward the duck-tailed greaser, screaming all the obscenities I had learned growing up in a rock quarry (a rich vocabulary that remains with me to this day), Ol’ Eli grabbed me by my flowing blonde locks, flung me back into the truck and kicked the door shut. I had no problem messing with the Texan, but I wasn’t going to tangle with Kelley.
As the years went by, I don’t recall a single good thing that ever happened to me in the Republic of Texas. The only time I was ever “bumped” from an airplane, after boarding and sitting on a tarmac for two hours, was in Dallas. The only time I ever sat for three hours in a traffic jam, in 103 degree heat? Dallas. The only time I ever stepped out of an airport at midnight with a country music fiddle player, to catch a smoke while waiting for a replacement flight crew that they had to call and wake up to come to work – and got locked out of the place? Well, you know where it was.
Jimmy Buffett was right. Pass it by.
So, on April 15, while watching clips of all the Fox News staged “tea parties”, on another network, I could swear I saw that Goober Pyle gas station dipstick in one of those crowds, still wearing the same uniform. He looked 35 years older, but I don’t believe he had washed that shirt yet. Same nametag. “Bud”. Somebody else must have spelled it for him.
Then, here comes Texas Governor, Rick Perry, echoing the now too-familiar veiled threat, as so brilliantly espoused by the well-known intellectual, Chuck Norris, that, if things didn’t start meeting with their approval, Texas might just pick up its marbles and secede from the Union. That right, Perry (and Norris) explained, is in their state constitution.
First of all, there seems to be some disagreement regarding whether the Lone Star State could legally secede from the United States. From some of the information I have read, they actually do have in that document the right to split into five separate states – which would have saved us all a lot of grief if they had done in the first place. Second, a US Supreme Court ruling, sometime around 1869, I believe, was that they did not have the right of secession.
In the middle of the 19th Century, there were seven southern states (including Texas) that declared they were bailing out because they didn’t like the way things were going politically, and they obviously thought they had the right to do that. When a bearded hippie liberal president took exception and called up troops to quash the revolt, they were joined by four more states – one of them being Arkansas, whose trash is not welcomed elsewhere.
That didn’t work out too well for the secessionists.
But I’m thinking “Can’t we all just get along?”
If the treasonous Texans want to leave, can’t we just wish them well, and warn them about Oklahoma hitting them on the rear-end on their way out the door? Can we box up Mike Huckabee and ship him down there to live with his buddy, President Chuck Norris?
And Secretary of the Interior, Bud. In fact, with all that room they have down there, and have always gloated about, couldn’t we just let all the whining crybaby losers of the last presidential election take up residence in the new country? They would all be so happy there. And, really, don’t we want everybody to be happy?
It will take a bunch of wire and even more labor to build a fence around that place to keep all them Texicans from sneaking into the United States to steal our jobs. The US will have to do it, because the Texicans will be busy working on their own fence down south. That, in itself, would probably be sufficient to stimulate our economy.
Just a thought. While ya’ll are thinking it over, I’ll be looking for a good passport photo camera. I’m seeing a potential opportunity for business expansion.
Now, where’d I put those shoes?
© 2009, Rick Baberhttp://www.rickbaber.com
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Second Hand Tater Tots
Not that it will do any good, but let’s try to go over this
cigarette tax thing again, shall we?
Now that the latest round of taxes has taken effect, folks
who purchase coffin nails in Arkansas will be paying a
total of $2.16 per pack, in taxes, to satisfy their cravings.
That’s $1.15 for the state and $1.01 for the feds. In taxes
alone, that’s about $1.81 per pack more than the first
cigarettes I remember purchasing from a machine, and I am
under 90 years old. (Of course I am. Smokers don’t live
that long.) After the taxes, if anybody wants to make
any money off manufacturing & distributing them, you have to tack on some more
charges. When all is said and done, here in Arkansas, the average price of a pack of premium smokes is now about a hundred bucks per pack. OK. That’s not accurate. Truth is, I lost count.
The point is that both the state & federal governments just keep piling on with the taxes on smokes.
I’m not here to argue the merits of smoking. Frankly, I don’t think there are any. I’m not even here to argue on behalf of the “poor” people who are, studies show, the ones most likely to smoke, and therefore most likely to be victimized by the burdensome taxes. I just don’t understand how it is constitutional for a government to pick an item, any item, and disproportionately tax that item.
Seems like they tried that with tea once, a long time ago.
Sure, the anti-smoking zealots will scream that the poison smokers exhale invades their personal space. I don’t disagree with that. I think, for that reason alone, smoking should be illegal in public places. I think it is OK for owners of businesses to ban smoking in their facilities, if they choose to do so. OK to say you can’t smoke with a kid in your car. OK to say you can’t smoke in the workplace. But all of those things have been done, and still, they keep heaping it on the smokers. How? Why? Every time some yuppie drives by in an SUV, I can feel myself choking on the carbon monoxide fumes, but I don’t see them piling taxes like that on V8 engines. Don’t see them raking it in on those dangerous, noise-polluting crotch rockets.
Some will say that the government is being a good big brother by making it so expensive for people to smoke that they’ll just up & quit – and that would be the best thing for them to do. That will happen. It is happening, among those who feel a genuine financial pinch from the new cost of cigarettes. But, even though the numbers are proportionally lower,
there are still people who can afford to smoke. So they do. What shall we do to stop them from puffing away in the privacy of their own Escalades?
Once the lower incomers have quit, there goes a huge chunk of all that beneficial tax money. After budgets have been set based on that money, where do they go to make up the difference? Maybe, if the state would levy another $100 per pack tax, they could keep the coffers filled up just off the rich smokers. Probably not. But what’s to stop them from trying?
So they try it. And the specially funded projects go broke because, ultimately, everybody quits smoking cigarettes. Big Brother has forced the populace away from an unhealthy habit, without ever even making it illegal! They’re going to have to find some other vice to tax now. What shall it be?
Fat, I think. That seems to be the next big bogey man on the horizon. When cheeseburgers cost twenty bucks because there’s $17 in taxes, how long will it take for the industries associated with that nasty habit to go belly-up? But we can’t let those special hospitals go down the tubes, so we seek out another victim.
I’m going with tater tots. Those things are just disasters looking for a place to happen. I mean, not only are they catastrophic to the well-being of the person who consumes them, they have a tendency to generate violent gaseous expulsions that invade the breathing space of innocent bystanders – causing babies to be born naked and old ladies to faint onto their bingo cards. Let’s say five bucks a tot, for starters.
And on it goes, until, eventually we get back to taxing tea, and eating salad. Nothing but salad. And we’ll all live healthily ever after.
Please. Spare me. The government doesn’t give a flying flip whether or not their taxes contribute to the physical well-being of the soon-to-be ex-smokers. They’re piling on the taxes on tobacco products because they need the extra money and they have found a villain, and they can get away with it. Smoke = bad. If smokers don’t like it, all they have to do is quit. Who’s going to raise much of a stink about that?
Once the monster has been let into the room, who is going to be the one to put it out?
Here’s the question. Sorry about all that leading up to it. “If smoking is such a terrible thing, why don’t they just outlaw cigarettes?”
Re-read for the answer.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
cigarette tax thing again, shall we?
Now that the latest round of taxes has taken effect, folks
who purchase coffin nails in Arkansas will be paying a
total of $2.16 per pack, in taxes, to satisfy their cravings.
That’s $1.15 for the state and $1.01 for the feds. In taxes
alone, that’s about $1.81 per pack more than the first
cigarettes I remember purchasing from a machine, and I am
under 90 years old. (Of course I am. Smokers don’t live
that long.) After the taxes, if anybody wants to make
any money off manufacturing & distributing them, you have to tack on some more
charges. When all is said and done, here in Arkansas, the average price of a pack of premium smokes is now about a hundred bucks per pack. OK. That’s not accurate. Truth is, I lost count.
The point is that both the state & federal governments just keep piling on with the taxes on smokes.
I’m not here to argue the merits of smoking. Frankly, I don’t think there are any. I’m not even here to argue on behalf of the “poor” people who are, studies show, the ones most likely to smoke, and therefore most likely to be victimized by the burdensome taxes. I just don’t understand how it is constitutional for a government to pick an item, any item, and disproportionately tax that item.
Seems like they tried that with tea once, a long time ago.
Sure, the anti-smoking zealots will scream that the poison smokers exhale invades their personal space. I don’t disagree with that. I think, for that reason alone, smoking should be illegal in public places. I think it is OK for owners of businesses to ban smoking in their facilities, if they choose to do so. OK to say you can’t smoke with a kid in your car. OK to say you can’t smoke in the workplace. But all of those things have been done, and still, they keep heaping it on the smokers. How? Why? Every time some yuppie drives by in an SUV, I can feel myself choking on the carbon monoxide fumes, but I don’t see them piling taxes like that on V8 engines. Don’t see them raking it in on those dangerous, noise-polluting crotch rockets.
Some will say that the government is being a good big brother by making it so expensive for people to smoke that they’ll just up & quit – and that would be the best thing for them to do. That will happen. It is happening, among those who feel a genuine financial pinch from the new cost of cigarettes. But, even though the numbers are proportionally lower,
there are still people who can afford to smoke. So they do. What shall we do to stop them from puffing away in the privacy of their own Escalades?
Once the lower incomers have quit, there goes a huge chunk of all that beneficial tax money. After budgets have been set based on that money, where do they go to make up the difference? Maybe, if the state would levy another $100 per pack tax, they could keep the coffers filled up just off the rich smokers. Probably not. But what’s to stop them from trying?
So they try it. And the specially funded projects go broke because, ultimately, everybody quits smoking cigarettes. Big Brother has forced the populace away from an unhealthy habit, without ever even making it illegal! They’re going to have to find some other vice to tax now. What shall it be?
Fat, I think. That seems to be the next big bogey man on the horizon. When cheeseburgers cost twenty bucks because there’s $17 in taxes, how long will it take for the industries associated with that nasty habit to go belly-up? But we can’t let those special hospitals go down the tubes, so we seek out another victim.
I’m going with tater tots. Those things are just disasters looking for a place to happen. I mean, not only are they catastrophic to the well-being of the person who consumes them, they have a tendency to generate violent gaseous expulsions that invade the breathing space of innocent bystanders – causing babies to be born naked and old ladies to faint onto their bingo cards. Let’s say five bucks a tot, for starters.
And on it goes, until, eventually we get back to taxing tea, and eating salad. Nothing but salad. And we’ll all live healthily ever after.
Please. Spare me. The government doesn’t give a flying flip whether or not their taxes contribute to the physical well-being of the soon-to-be ex-smokers. They’re piling on the taxes on tobacco products because they need the extra money and they have found a villain, and they can get away with it. Smoke = bad. If smokers don’t like it, all they have to do is quit. Who’s going to raise much of a stink about that?
Once the monster has been let into the room, who is going to be the one to put it out?
Here’s the question. Sorry about all that leading up to it. “If smoking is such a terrible thing, why don’t they just outlaw cigarettes?”
Re-read for the answer.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Gimme Back My Bullets
You see, even when this column doesn’t make it to
print in The Batesville Guard, I still publish it on my
blog (rickbaber.com), and occasionally on
ArkansasTonight.com. And when I e-mail it out to
the editors, there’s a massive “cc” to a worldwide
cabal of very important people, called my “Focus Group”.
Some of these are of the conservative persuasion, and,
since they haven’t asked me to stop, I include them
just to get back at the voices in my head, and on the radio.
Mostly on the radio. So I get a degree of feedback.
And what that feedback is telling me is that I was just too
… abrasive with the last column, and that’s why it didn’t make it to the paper.
At first, I just thought that, with so many talented writers at The Guard, including some very good new ones, they simply didn’t have room for it. But then, the e-mails and Facebook comments started coming in, and I realized that, maybe, I had gone over the line in my criticism of “conservatives”, indicating that they were all pretty much like that Rush Limbaugh. And then I read about Batesville’s own little cabal down at the Chamber of Commerce. Who knew?
Now, I realize that the newspaper is a business and they, unlike myself, cannot afford to publish my left-wing hippie ramblings just to piss (newspaper euphemism replaced) people off for the sake of perpetuating a conversation that many people would just as soon had never been started. And I know that not everybody is a news and political junkie like I am. But, dammit , I don’t start this stuff, I just respond in print to the bullshit I force myself to listen to. At least it keeps me from climbing up on my roof and shouting it all over northwest Arkansas with a bullhorn. I once knew a guy who got arrested for that.
Maybe I picked the wrong medium and the wrong political affiliation. I mean, you occasionally hear people arguing points with the conservative talking heads, when they can get a word in edgewise, but you hardly ever hear anybody chastising them for being unfair, or too mean. Isn’t that what they’re there for? I thought I was supposed to be expressing my own opinions here. And truth is that I have a very low opinion of some people and some platforms. That doesn’t make my opinion right. But it does make it mine. That’s why they call them “opinions”. I’m just an old writer with a keyboard in my smoky office at home – a radio behind me, and a 13” TV up on the shelf next to my framed John Lennon “New York City” poster, with CNN on all day and all night. Usually with my white cat sitting up here on the desk beside my keyboard, like a Barn Owl. It’s not like I’m in charge of, I don’t know, the Chamber of Commerce or something.
But still, I fully understand that it isn’t my paper and I don’t have any say-so about what goes in it, or when. I’m just thinking “How ‘bout a little something, you know, for the effort?”. Like maybe a short statement: “Rick Baber’s column will not be published this week because he was too mean.”
Then, at least, those of ya’ll that want to read it because you agree – as well as those who want to scold me for being such a jerk – can come on over to my blog and tell me what an outstanding job I’m doing balancing the radical radio right. Or, you can tell me where to go.
I don’t care which. I’m an insecure liberal who craves the attention.
Sure, I could mellow out and watch Wheel of Fortune & Oprah, and listen to the same old songs over & over on the classic rock radio station, and tell you cute stories about my cats. But, ultimately, I would get to the parts about the cats being radical liberals and then go on to tell you that my granddog is not only liberal, but also black, and we’d be back to square one, wouldn’t we?
Can’t help it, I guess. I tried the peace & love can’t-we-all-get-along thing for a while, but it just didn’t work for me.
So, to those of you I continue to anger with my rants, let me say that I know I should apologize. And to my editors, let me say “Thank you for the times you have allowed me to express my opinions in your fine newspaper, knowing you’re going to catch it from some of your readers.”
To the Batesville Chamber of Commerce: “Dudes!”
To the rest of you: THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS COLUMN DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THOSE OF THIS PUBLICATION OR ITS MANAGEMENT.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
http://www.digitalarts1.com/
print in The Batesville Guard, I still publish it on my
blog (rickbaber.com), and occasionally on
ArkansasTonight.com. And when I e-mail it out to
the editors, there’s a massive “cc” to a worldwide
cabal of very important people, called my “Focus Group”.
Some of these are of the conservative persuasion, and,
since they haven’t asked me to stop, I include them
just to get back at the voices in my head, and on the radio.
Mostly on the radio. So I get a degree of feedback.
And what that feedback is telling me is that I was just too
… abrasive with the last column, and that’s why it didn’t make it to the paper.
At first, I just thought that, with so many talented writers at The Guard, including some very good new ones, they simply didn’t have room for it. But then, the e-mails and Facebook comments started coming in, and I realized that, maybe, I had gone over the line in my criticism of “conservatives”, indicating that they were all pretty much like that Rush Limbaugh. And then I read about Batesville’s own little cabal down at the Chamber of Commerce. Who knew?
Now, I realize that the newspaper is a business and they, unlike myself, cannot afford to publish my left-wing hippie ramblings just to piss (newspaper euphemism replaced) people off for the sake of perpetuating a conversation that many people would just as soon had never been started. And I know that not everybody is a news and political junkie like I am. But, dammit , I don’t start this stuff, I just respond in print to the bullshit I force myself to listen to. At least it keeps me from climbing up on my roof and shouting it all over northwest Arkansas with a bullhorn. I once knew a guy who got arrested for that.
Maybe I picked the wrong medium and the wrong political affiliation. I mean, you occasionally hear people arguing points with the conservative talking heads, when they can get a word in edgewise, but you hardly ever hear anybody chastising them for being unfair, or too mean. Isn’t that what they’re there for? I thought I was supposed to be expressing my own opinions here. And truth is that I have a very low opinion of some people and some platforms. That doesn’t make my opinion right. But it does make it mine. That’s why they call them “opinions”. I’m just an old writer with a keyboard in my smoky office at home – a radio behind me, and a 13” TV up on the shelf next to my framed John Lennon “New York City” poster, with CNN on all day and all night. Usually with my white cat sitting up here on the desk beside my keyboard, like a Barn Owl. It’s not like I’m in charge of, I don’t know, the Chamber of Commerce or something.
But still, I fully understand that it isn’t my paper and I don’t have any say-so about what goes in it, or when. I’m just thinking “How ‘bout a little something, you know, for the effort?”. Like maybe a short statement: “Rick Baber’s column will not be published this week because he was too mean.”
Then, at least, those of ya’ll that want to read it because you agree – as well as those who want to scold me for being such a jerk – can come on over to my blog and tell me what an outstanding job I’m doing balancing the radical radio right. Or, you can tell me where to go.
I don’t care which. I’m an insecure liberal who craves the attention.
Sure, I could mellow out and watch Wheel of Fortune & Oprah, and listen to the same old songs over & over on the classic rock radio station, and tell you cute stories about my cats. But, ultimately, I would get to the parts about the cats being radical liberals and then go on to tell you that my granddog is not only liberal, but also black, and we’d be back to square one, wouldn’t we?
Can’t help it, I guess. I tried the peace & love can’t-we-all-get-along thing for a while, but it just didn’t work for me.
So, to those of you I continue to anger with my rants, let me say that I know I should apologize. And to my editors, let me say “Thank you for the times you have allowed me to express my opinions in your fine newspaper, knowing you’re going to catch it from some of your readers.”
To the Batesville Chamber of Commerce: “Dudes!”
To the rest of you: THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS COLUMN DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THOSE OF THIS PUBLICATION OR ITS MANAGEMENT.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
http://www.digitalarts1.com/
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Somebody tell them they lost
Isn’t it strange how long it takes to create anything
compared to the time it takes to destroy it? You can
take a lifetime building a home, for example, and come
back from a weekend at grandma’s to find it all reduced
to a pile of ashes. Just like that.
One of the very few things you can be sure of in this
world is that everything comes to an end. Everything.
Now, it appears that all of the economic prosperity the
good ol’ US of A built up during those eight wonderful
Bush years has, in a period of under two months, been destroyed by that evil Barack Obama. I mean, that’s the way it sounds, listening to the Republican’s talk. They’re not arguing that everything wrong with this country is his fault – just the stuff that wasn’t screwed up by Bill Clinton and, before him, Jimmy Carter. Apparently, the economy was plumb rosy before November ’08, but now it’s swirling around, counter-clockwise in the bowl under the porcelain throne.
Big Business is blowing gaskets, laying people off, slashing wages, closing facilities. Wall Street looks more like downtown Saigon in the days of the evacuation. Sean Hannity, self-appointed leader of the “conservative underground”, is preaching the end. Woah is us.
Saturday, Rush Limbaugh spoke to nine thousand rabid “conservatives” at the “Conservative Political Action Conference”. That one speech alone will have a profound influence on repairing the broken economy, because, most likely, all of those people will have to undergo knee surgery from jumping to their feet, screaming & clapping, every time their guru made some nasty insulting remark about liberals, in general – or about the “liberal media”, which the Bloated One refers to as the “drive-by media”. That should generate a lot of money for doctors & hospitals.
The top dog in that drive-by media, CNN, carried the hour and twenty minute speech live, without commercial interruption. How one-sided of them.
Anybody, such as myself, who put themselves through the torturous ordeal of watching the entire spectacle (I had my wife tie me to a chair, facing the TV, and tape my eyelids open) can take away from it that the reason the conservatives lost the presidential election was that they have not behaved “conservatively” enough. That might be an astounding revelation to some, but I spend a lot of time listening to this guy on the radio, so I already knew that.
Limbaugh defended and re-asserted this hope that President Obama “fails”. That, you see, is how conservatives show their patriotism – declaring (in a time of war!) that they want the president of the United States of America to fail. So, the president’s attempts to straighten out this terrible economic mess (the one he single-handedly created since January 20) needs to crash & burn. More businesses can shut down. More people can lose their jobs and their homes. Maybe some of them can even starve to death. Wouldn’t that be swell? After all, people deserve to suffer for allowing this country to elect somebody who doesn’t agree with Limbaugh and the rabid Neocons. That’ll show us, by golly.
It is more than a hope, however. They know that Obama’s stimulus package won’t work. Somehow, they have been imparted with this knowledge, either by their Creator, or by His representatives here on Earth – Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter - the Republican Trinity. The answer, they proclaim, is to do exactly what GWB did during his terms….only more. Those of us who were under the false impression that Bush’s policies are what brought us to this edge of depression, were blindly led here by the media. Everything was fine all along, until now. What fools we were to believe what we read in the papers and saw on TV; what we saw with our own eyes and felt in our own stomachs. There is no truth other than what is preached on talk radio. Obviously. Even CNN must have come to that realization just prior to airing that loveable little fuzzball’s sermon to the choir. Conservatives are the chosen ones. The master race. They will prevail!
Makes sense. Most of the individuals who control big business are, by definition, conservatives. If you’re the top dawg, raking in all the money, why would you want anything to change? If you’re the top dawg, you have some control over that. You can lay off people, cut wages, and shut down facilities to help bring about an expeditious end to this foolishness and get somebody back in office who’ll look out for the big guy. Big guys need friends too. Even if your business isn’t hurting, it is your duty as a fat cat to help out your fat cat brethren. Do this now, for the cause, and you will be rewarded when things return to “normal”. Rush said he just wanted it to be like it was when he was a kid. You know, back when black folk weren’t allowed to vote.
Sorry about the mixed animal metaphors. I couldn’t decide which one I liked better.
Liberals have many enemies: hunger, homelessness, despair, inequality, ignorance and greed, to name a few. Conservatives have but one: liberals. So who has the easier fight ahead of them?
(c) 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
compared to the time it takes to destroy it? You can
take a lifetime building a home, for example, and come
back from a weekend at grandma’s to find it all reduced
to a pile of ashes. Just like that.
One of the very few things you can be sure of in this
world is that everything comes to an end. Everything.
Now, it appears that all of the economic prosperity the
good ol’ US of A built up during those eight wonderful
Bush years has, in a period of under two months, been destroyed by that evil Barack Obama. I mean, that’s the way it sounds, listening to the Republican’s talk. They’re not arguing that everything wrong with this country is his fault – just the stuff that wasn’t screwed up by Bill Clinton and, before him, Jimmy Carter. Apparently, the economy was plumb rosy before November ’08, but now it’s swirling around, counter-clockwise in the bowl under the porcelain throne.
Big Business is blowing gaskets, laying people off, slashing wages, closing facilities. Wall Street looks more like downtown Saigon in the days of the evacuation. Sean Hannity, self-appointed leader of the “conservative underground”, is preaching the end. Woah is us.
Saturday, Rush Limbaugh spoke to nine thousand rabid “conservatives” at the “Conservative Political Action Conference”. That one speech alone will have a profound influence on repairing the broken economy, because, most likely, all of those people will have to undergo knee surgery from jumping to their feet, screaming & clapping, every time their guru made some nasty insulting remark about liberals, in general – or about the “liberal media”, which the Bloated One refers to as the “drive-by media”. That should generate a lot of money for doctors & hospitals.
The top dog in that drive-by media, CNN, carried the hour and twenty minute speech live, without commercial interruption. How one-sided of them.
Anybody, such as myself, who put themselves through the torturous ordeal of watching the entire spectacle (I had my wife tie me to a chair, facing the TV, and tape my eyelids open) can take away from it that the reason the conservatives lost the presidential election was that they have not behaved “conservatively” enough. That might be an astounding revelation to some, but I spend a lot of time listening to this guy on the radio, so I already knew that.
Limbaugh defended and re-asserted this hope that President Obama “fails”. That, you see, is how conservatives show their patriotism – declaring (in a time of war!) that they want the president of the United States of America to fail. So, the president’s attempts to straighten out this terrible economic mess (the one he single-handedly created since January 20) needs to crash & burn. More businesses can shut down. More people can lose their jobs and their homes. Maybe some of them can even starve to death. Wouldn’t that be swell? After all, people deserve to suffer for allowing this country to elect somebody who doesn’t agree with Limbaugh and the rabid Neocons. That’ll show us, by golly.
It is more than a hope, however. They know that Obama’s stimulus package won’t work. Somehow, they have been imparted with this knowledge, either by their Creator, or by His representatives here on Earth – Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter - the Republican Trinity. The answer, they proclaim, is to do exactly what GWB did during his terms….only more. Those of us who were under the false impression that Bush’s policies are what brought us to this edge of depression, were blindly led here by the media. Everything was fine all along, until now. What fools we were to believe what we read in the papers and saw on TV; what we saw with our own eyes and felt in our own stomachs. There is no truth other than what is preached on talk radio. Obviously. Even CNN must have come to that realization just prior to airing that loveable little fuzzball’s sermon to the choir. Conservatives are the chosen ones. The master race. They will prevail!
Makes sense. Most of the individuals who control big business are, by definition, conservatives. If you’re the top dawg, raking in all the money, why would you want anything to change? If you’re the top dawg, you have some control over that. You can lay off people, cut wages, and shut down facilities to help bring about an expeditious end to this foolishness and get somebody back in office who’ll look out for the big guy. Big guys need friends too. Even if your business isn’t hurting, it is your duty as a fat cat to help out your fat cat brethren. Do this now, for the cause, and you will be rewarded when things return to “normal”. Rush said he just wanted it to be like it was when he was a kid. You know, back when black folk weren’t allowed to vote.
Sorry about the mixed animal metaphors. I couldn’t decide which one I liked better.
Liberals have many enemies: hunger, homelessness, despair, inequality, ignorance and greed, to name a few. Conservatives have but one: liberals. So who has the easier fight ahead of them?
(c) 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Boom Boom. Out go the lights.
This is what I always imagined it would look like at the
end of the world – strangely beautiful from a respectable
distance, but really no place you want to be.
If any tree in northwest Arkansas survives this ice
storm, I think it will be my big Spruce out there by the
street. Rather than snapping and collapsing to the
ground with terrifying sounds resembling those of
an avalanche, it just dropped it’s many arms and is
standing there, slumped, like some dejected, frozen
child who didn’t get the toy he expected for Christmas.
It was Christmas, or just after, in 1993 when I removed the lights and decorations from the tree and carried it out there to plant it by the sidewalk. Just a five-foot tall baby then, and I never really expected it to get this huge. I hope it makes it.
Three days after the frozen rains started here, I understand there are still something like 50,000 people without power. The hotels are full (some have folks sleeping in their lobbies) and, according to what I have heard from people staying in them, some have doubled their room rates. What a lovely humanitarian thing to do when so many people are displaced from their homes, freezing. There’s a conspicuous absence of public shelters, as if the few short years since have erased everyone’s memories of Hurricane Katrina. Not that I would compare our little disaster with that one, but the concept is the same.
We decided to ride this one out at home. Our power flickered a few times before going out for most of the day following the storm, but then came on for a few hours before going out again, then back again staying on all night, and so far this morning. Survival instincts kicked in while it was out, and we turned our living room into a big tent by putting up curtains and photography backdrops over the openings to the dining room, foyer and hall. This left us with just the living room to heat with the fireplace when it was supposed to drop to 6 degrees that first powerless night. The only problem with that was…. we had no firewood.
Rather than burn the furniture, (*mark this spot) we heated with the gas log lighter. I found a piece of sheet metal in the garage and bent it into an “S” shape so that the flame was hidden, under the metal. The little fire heated the sheet metal and the top of the “S” forced the heat out into the room, rather than letting it all go up the flue. Pretty clever, if you ask me.
Then we dug out the old tailgate propane cooker, left over from our son’s college football days, and made bologna melts for lunch. Odd as it seems, we were rather looking forward to “camping out” in the house.
Then the power came back on. Our disappointment didn’t last long, because it was soon off again. Then, into the night, it came on again for good – or so we thought – and we slept warmly in our own bed, in much better shape than thousands of other folks out there.
Three paragraphs up, you’ll see (*mark this spot). That’s how far I had gotten with this column before the electricity went off again, at about noon Thursday. It’s 5:23pm now and I have had just time enough since the lights came on to power up my computer and get this much more written. I wonder how columnists did this stuff back in the cowboy days when they couldn’t use their computers.
We found two restaurants open today and had Mexican food for lunch. Most of the people in that place were talking about their power still being off, and wondering aloud when they might have it back.
The sun was out, heating it up slightly above freezing today, and a lot of folks think this thing has passed. Not so. The thawing itself will release more tree limbs that will fall into more power lines, and more people will find themselves in the dark. By about Sunday, when the frozen pipes in the dark houses finally thaw out, water leaks will occur all over the place, flooding houses, ruining floors, and sending lots of already frustrated people back to hotels. Most will have insurance to cover those repairs and additional living expense, but many of those staying out now, because the power is out, mistakenly think their homeowners policies will reimburse them for the expense. That won’t happen unless a tree fell across the electrical service line on their property. There’s no coverage for such things during area-wide power outages. And guys like me have to be the ones to tell them.
That won’t be fun, and I’m not looking forward to doing it.
But the worst part of this whole thing for me is this: I came up with this scheme to win the Powerball by playing the same red ball numbers every time, until it hits. A whole bunch of white ball numbers, all with the same red ball. Of course, the odds are greatly against me on this, but I figured sooner or later “4” would hit.
Wednesday night, after all the weather problems, and the first time in forever I didn’t buy my tickets, guess what?
This year isn’t starting off so great.
© 2009, Rick Baberhttp://www.rickbaber.com
end of the world – strangely beautiful from a respectable
distance, but really no place you want to be.
If any tree in northwest Arkansas survives this ice
storm, I think it will be my big Spruce out there by the
street. Rather than snapping and collapsing to the
ground with terrifying sounds resembling those of
an avalanche, it just dropped it’s many arms and is
standing there, slumped, like some dejected, frozen
child who didn’t get the toy he expected for Christmas.
It was Christmas, or just after, in 1993 when I removed the lights and decorations from the tree and carried it out there to plant it by the sidewalk. Just a five-foot tall baby then, and I never really expected it to get this huge. I hope it makes it.
Three days after the frozen rains started here, I understand there are still something like 50,000 people without power. The hotels are full (some have folks sleeping in their lobbies) and, according to what I have heard from people staying in them, some have doubled their room rates. What a lovely humanitarian thing to do when so many people are displaced from their homes, freezing. There’s a conspicuous absence of public shelters, as if the few short years since have erased everyone’s memories of Hurricane Katrina. Not that I would compare our little disaster with that one, but the concept is the same.
We decided to ride this one out at home. Our power flickered a few times before going out for most of the day following the storm, but then came on for a few hours before going out again, then back again staying on all night, and so far this morning. Survival instincts kicked in while it was out, and we turned our living room into a big tent by putting up curtains and photography backdrops over the openings to the dining room, foyer and hall. This left us with just the living room to heat with the fireplace when it was supposed to drop to 6 degrees that first powerless night. The only problem with that was…. we had no firewood.
Rather than burn the furniture, (*mark this spot) we heated with the gas log lighter. I found a piece of sheet metal in the garage and bent it into an “S” shape so that the flame was hidden, under the metal. The little fire heated the sheet metal and the top of the “S” forced the heat out into the room, rather than letting it all go up the flue. Pretty clever, if you ask me.
Then we dug out the old tailgate propane cooker, left over from our son’s college football days, and made bologna melts for lunch. Odd as it seems, we were rather looking forward to “camping out” in the house.
Then the power came back on. Our disappointment didn’t last long, because it was soon off again. Then, into the night, it came on again for good – or so we thought – and we slept warmly in our own bed, in much better shape than thousands of other folks out there.
Three paragraphs up, you’ll see (*mark this spot). That’s how far I had gotten with this column before the electricity went off again, at about noon Thursday. It’s 5:23pm now and I have had just time enough since the lights came on to power up my computer and get this much more written. I wonder how columnists did this stuff back in the cowboy days when they couldn’t use their computers.
We found two restaurants open today and had Mexican food for lunch. Most of the people in that place were talking about their power still being off, and wondering aloud when they might have it back.
The sun was out, heating it up slightly above freezing today, and a lot of folks think this thing has passed. Not so. The thawing itself will release more tree limbs that will fall into more power lines, and more people will find themselves in the dark. By about Sunday, when the frozen pipes in the dark houses finally thaw out, water leaks will occur all over the place, flooding houses, ruining floors, and sending lots of already frustrated people back to hotels. Most will have insurance to cover those repairs and additional living expense, but many of those staying out now, because the power is out, mistakenly think their homeowners policies will reimburse them for the expense. That won’t happen unless a tree fell across the electrical service line on their property. There’s no coverage for such things during area-wide power outages. And guys like me have to be the ones to tell them.
That won’t be fun, and I’m not looking forward to doing it.
But the worst part of this whole thing for me is this: I came up with this scheme to win the Powerball by playing the same red ball numbers every time, until it hits. A whole bunch of white ball numbers, all with the same red ball. Of course, the odds are greatly against me on this, but I figured sooner or later “4” would hit.
Wednesday night, after all the weather problems, and the first time in forever I didn’t buy my tickets, guess what?
This year isn’t starting off so great.
© 2009, Rick Baberhttp://www.rickbaber.com
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Day One
As I write this, we’re passing the 24 hour mark since
Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United
States.
The sun came up today, at least here in northwest
Arkansas. In fact, at the moment, I’m gazing out the
window at a beautiful blue sky. A couple of finches are
playing on the huge holly bush outside my home office.
Quite to the surprise of many of my white brethren,
there was no knocking on the door (at least, not on mine)
early this morning by some new African-American Gestapo intending to shackle me and my wife and drag us off to work in some cotton field. I haven’t seen anything like that happening to anybody else on CNN, but, then again, that’s one of those liberal-biased networks that probably wouldn’t tell us about it until it was too late anyway. Due diligence would require me to check Fox News before writing this. Call me lazy.
It seems, at least here on this first day, that all is well with our first black president, and maybe we white folk won’t suffer the “payback” that has been talked about only in the presence of our own kind, probably ever since Lincoln emancipated the slaves. Oh, how many whites have dreaded the day that has passed without such incident!
Did we really think that day would never come? Through all the social evolution of America, and the rest of the world, did we honestly believe that only a white man could lead the land of the free and the home of the brave? Did any one of us, really, not want to live to see it happen?
Don’t answer that. I know there are still white people who will live out the rest of their lives looking back on January 20, 2009 with disgust and hate. People who really did believe that God gave America to the white man, and the white man should hang his head in shame for not being strong enough to keep it. I just, really, don’t want to know who those people are. If it helps, they can take solace in the fact that Obama is half white.
Try as I might, I am completely incapable of feeling the magnificence of the moment that had to be overwhelming to many older black Americans. I still feel pretty young, and I can clearly remember a time when black folk had to sit in the balcony at the movie theater because, apparently, they weren’t good enough to sit downstairs with us.
I remember the first black man I ever saw, in person. He was a policeman in Fort Smith, and I was a four or five year-old redneck in the making – a product of my neighborhood surroundings and of the times. I walked right up to him and, for whatever reason, just up and called him something I wasn’t supposed to call him. Embarrassed my mother half to death.
I remember the way I treated our black housekeeper in Little Rock in 1963, and how I continually ignored my mom telling me she was one of the sweetest people she had ever met. She never did anything to deserve the treatment she got from me. She didn’t have to. She was black, and I must have been better than her.
I remember my first and only black teacher, Mrs. Mathis, in the fourth or fifth grade at Fairview Elementary School in Blytheville. 1964-65. We kids didn’t know what to think at first, but she turned out to be pretty cool, and, surprisingly, she sure knew a lot about math.
I remember moving to Batesville in 1967, after the closing of Ethel O. Miller School, and sitting in class, for the first time, alongside black students. Their school was all but abandoned, and we used to take the bus over there to use the gym for off-season football practice in Jr. High.
I remember my first “black friend”, Beaver McCoy, who showed me it was OK to hang out and have fun with people that, only a few years before, I never even knew existed, except in stories told by the older kids on my block. Not good stories. Scary stories.
It’s 40 years later, and stories like that are still being told. They come as forwards to my e-mail account and sometimes as text messages to my phone. They warn the white man, me, of the perils that will befall our race now that we have given up the throne of power. And even as I read them, with a smirk on my face, I look up at the TV here in my office and see another old black man or woman, recalling the moment, with tears streaming down their face. And I try to imagine what it would be like to feel what they are feeling.
Of course, it is only day one. But I haven’t feared that knock on the door for many years.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com
Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United
States.
The sun came up today, at least here in northwest
Arkansas. In fact, at the moment, I’m gazing out the
window at a beautiful blue sky. A couple of finches are
playing on the huge holly bush outside my home office.
Quite to the surprise of many of my white brethren,
there was no knocking on the door (at least, not on mine)
early this morning by some new African-American Gestapo intending to shackle me and my wife and drag us off to work in some cotton field. I haven’t seen anything like that happening to anybody else on CNN, but, then again, that’s one of those liberal-biased networks that probably wouldn’t tell us about it until it was too late anyway. Due diligence would require me to check Fox News before writing this. Call me lazy.
It seems, at least here on this first day, that all is well with our first black president, and maybe we white folk won’t suffer the “payback” that has been talked about only in the presence of our own kind, probably ever since Lincoln emancipated the slaves. Oh, how many whites have dreaded the day that has passed without such incident!
Did we really think that day would never come? Through all the social evolution of America, and the rest of the world, did we honestly believe that only a white man could lead the land of the free and the home of the brave? Did any one of us, really, not want to live to see it happen?
Don’t answer that. I know there are still white people who will live out the rest of their lives looking back on January 20, 2009 with disgust and hate. People who really did believe that God gave America to the white man, and the white man should hang his head in shame for not being strong enough to keep it. I just, really, don’t want to know who those people are. If it helps, they can take solace in the fact that Obama is half white.
Try as I might, I am completely incapable of feeling the magnificence of the moment that had to be overwhelming to many older black Americans. I still feel pretty young, and I can clearly remember a time when black folk had to sit in the balcony at the movie theater because, apparently, they weren’t good enough to sit downstairs with us.
I remember the first black man I ever saw, in person. He was a policeman in Fort Smith, and I was a four or five year-old redneck in the making – a product of my neighborhood surroundings and of the times. I walked right up to him and, for whatever reason, just up and called him something I wasn’t supposed to call him. Embarrassed my mother half to death.
I remember the way I treated our black housekeeper in Little Rock in 1963, and how I continually ignored my mom telling me she was one of the sweetest people she had ever met. She never did anything to deserve the treatment she got from me. She didn’t have to. She was black, and I must have been better than her.
I remember my first and only black teacher, Mrs. Mathis, in the fourth or fifth grade at Fairview Elementary School in Blytheville. 1964-65. We kids didn’t know what to think at first, but she turned out to be pretty cool, and, surprisingly, she sure knew a lot about math.
I remember moving to Batesville in 1967, after the closing of Ethel O. Miller School, and sitting in class, for the first time, alongside black students. Their school was all but abandoned, and we used to take the bus over there to use the gym for off-season football practice in Jr. High.
I remember my first “black friend”, Beaver McCoy, who showed me it was OK to hang out and have fun with people that, only a few years before, I never even knew existed, except in stories told by the older kids on my block. Not good stories. Scary stories.
It’s 40 years later, and stories like that are still being told. They come as forwards to my e-mail account and sometimes as text messages to my phone. They warn the white man, me, of the perils that will befall our race now that we have given up the throne of power. And even as I read them, with a smirk on my face, I look up at the TV here in my office and see another old black man or woman, recalling the moment, with tears streaming down their face. And I try to imagine what it would be like to feel what they are feeling.
Of course, it is only day one. But I haven’t feared that knock on the door for many years.
© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Last Presidential Ticket
There are still a few days left before President Obama
takes office and it looks as if the 2012 GOP ticket is
already taking form.
Let me be the first to predict the ticket – Sarah Palin and
Joe the Plumber. Literally. I mean, I think Joe
Whathisface will actually change his last name to
“ThePlumber”, for, you know, name recognition.
Right now, he’s come out with a new book and, as I
understand it, has been appointed as the US Ambassador
to Gaza – or maybe that’s “reporter”, for a web site called PJTV. Perhaps that stands for
“Plumber Joe Television”?
Joe told somebody on the news that he believes he will be safe in Gaza – God will protect him - because he is a Christian. The rationale behind that statement, when one considers he’s going to a place filled with battling Arabs & Jews, escapes me, but, hey, maybe that’s why I’m not in consideration for a cabinet position in the Palin/Plumber Administration.
In ThePlumber’s new book, it is said, he takes shots at John McCain (figuratively, of course) for supporting the economic bailout. In one interview he said, five or six times, that he wasn’t throwing McCain under the bus. While somewhat presumptive, that may be the smartest thing he has said. Throwing war heroes under a bus does not generally work well for political candidates, unless those war heroes are (how do you say?) Democrats, like John Kerry or Max Cleland.
Personally, I wish Joe all the best in his newfound career. I don’t blame him one bit for trying to take his 15 minutes and ride it for all he can. And I wonder if maybe there’s a politician somewhere I could get to come fix the float valve in my toilet. Getting tired of jiggling the handle.
Not to be outdone by all the attention Joe is getting from the press, Sarah Palin is also taking some shots at McCain and his failed campaign, as well as Katie Couric and Tina Fey. Everybody knows you’re not a serious presidential contender until you get into a real tussle with Tina Fey.
Sister Sarah was mortified when Saturday Night Live did the Tina Fey skit wherein Tina’s Palin character said she believed marriage should be “between two unwilling teenagers”. Pretty funny, everyone agrees, but nobody cleared that skit with Palin before running it. How dare they! It’s just another example of the media’s unfair treatment of Caribou Barbie. That incident may be the only time in the show’s long history that they didn’t get permission from a politician before doing a skit that made fun of her, or him. If this weren’t true, we certainly would have heard from Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or even Dan Quayle – surely Dan Quayle – by now. Palin, it seems, expects SNL to be fair & balanced, like Fox News.
Or maybe not. Could be she just wants to keep her name in the newspapers and on television for another three years, until the next presidential campaign begins. And, again, who can blame her? She was vaulted into the national light by John McCain, but everybody knows he’s washed up now. There’s nothing more he can do for her, but allow her to trash talk him and his campaign in order to keep her name, and her dream, alive. I’m doing my part.
Now comes the touchy little end-of-the-world issue, however. According to a whole bunch of prognosticators, who apparently didn’t read Larry Stroud’s fine article about the Mayan Calendar in the Batesville Guard, it’s curtains for civilization on December 21, 2012. So, while the next (and last?) election will be over by then, whoever is elected President wouldn’t take office until January 20 of 2013. So, what’s going to be the campaign platform of the Palin/Plumber ticket? Lower taxes? I don’t know about the rest of you, and please don’t leak this to the IRS, but in the event of a cataclysmic polar shift of the planet and total breakdown of world civilization and all the “important” people zipping off in a spaceship to form a new world, I’m probably going to just forego the whole income tax thing and take my chances, there in my cave.
Truth be told, I can’t think of a finer couple to preside over the good ol’ US of A in those coming hard times. Palin could teach those of us not familiar with the art how to hunt and prepare wild animals for tasty and inexpensive meals, even if we don’t have helicopters from which to shoot them. And Big Joe could, maybe, rig up some pipes in the caves so guys like me aren’t always annoyed with having to jiggle that handle.
Consider this, if you will, the first newspaper endorsement of the Palin/Plumber ticket.
© 2009, Rick Baber
takes office and it looks as if the 2012 GOP ticket is
already taking form.
Let me be the first to predict the ticket – Sarah Palin and
Joe the Plumber. Literally. I mean, I think Joe
Whathisface will actually change his last name to
“ThePlumber”, for, you know, name recognition.
Right now, he’s come out with a new book and, as I
understand it, has been appointed as the US Ambassador
to Gaza – or maybe that’s “reporter”, for a web site called PJTV. Perhaps that stands for
“Plumber Joe Television”?
Joe told somebody on the news that he believes he will be safe in Gaza – God will protect him - because he is a Christian. The rationale behind that statement, when one considers he’s going to a place filled with battling Arabs & Jews, escapes me, but, hey, maybe that’s why I’m not in consideration for a cabinet position in the Palin/Plumber Administration.
In ThePlumber’s new book, it is said, he takes shots at John McCain (figuratively, of course) for supporting the economic bailout. In one interview he said, five or six times, that he wasn’t throwing McCain under the bus. While somewhat presumptive, that may be the smartest thing he has said. Throwing war heroes under a bus does not generally work well for political candidates, unless those war heroes are (how do you say?) Democrats, like John Kerry or Max Cleland.
Personally, I wish Joe all the best in his newfound career. I don’t blame him one bit for trying to take his 15 minutes and ride it for all he can. And I wonder if maybe there’s a politician somewhere I could get to come fix the float valve in my toilet. Getting tired of jiggling the handle.
Not to be outdone by all the attention Joe is getting from the press, Sarah Palin is also taking some shots at McCain and his failed campaign, as well as Katie Couric and Tina Fey. Everybody knows you’re not a serious presidential contender until you get into a real tussle with Tina Fey.
Sister Sarah was mortified when Saturday Night Live did the Tina Fey skit wherein Tina’s Palin character said she believed marriage should be “between two unwilling teenagers”. Pretty funny, everyone agrees, but nobody cleared that skit with Palin before running it. How dare they! It’s just another example of the media’s unfair treatment of Caribou Barbie. That incident may be the only time in the show’s long history that they didn’t get permission from a politician before doing a skit that made fun of her, or him. If this weren’t true, we certainly would have heard from Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or even Dan Quayle – surely Dan Quayle – by now. Palin, it seems, expects SNL to be fair & balanced, like Fox News.
Or maybe not. Could be she just wants to keep her name in the newspapers and on television for another three years, until the next presidential campaign begins. And, again, who can blame her? She was vaulted into the national light by John McCain, but everybody knows he’s washed up now. There’s nothing more he can do for her, but allow her to trash talk him and his campaign in order to keep her name, and her dream, alive. I’m doing my part.
Now comes the touchy little end-of-the-world issue, however. According to a whole bunch of prognosticators, who apparently didn’t read Larry Stroud’s fine article about the Mayan Calendar in the Batesville Guard, it’s curtains for civilization on December 21, 2012. So, while the next (and last?) election will be over by then, whoever is elected President wouldn’t take office until January 20 of 2013. So, what’s going to be the campaign platform of the Palin/Plumber ticket? Lower taxes? I don’t know about the rest of you, and please don’t leak this to the IRS, but in the event of a cataclysmic polar shift of the planet and total breakdown of world civilization and all the “important” people zipping off in a spaceship to form a new world, I’m probably going to just forego the whole income tax thing and take my chances, there in my cave.
Truth be told, I can’t think of a finer couple to preside over the good ol’ US of A in those coming hard times. Palin could teach those of us not familiar with the art how to hunt and prepare wild animals for tasty and inexpensive meals, even if we don’t have helicopters from which to shoot them. And Big Joe could, maybe, rig up some pipes in the caves so guys like me aren’t always annoyed with having to jiggle that handle.
Consider this, if you will, the first newspaper endorsement of the Palin/Plumber ticket.
© 2009, Rick Baber
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Somebody Say “Geronimo”?
A while back, some brainiac with time enough to play
with numbers sent out one of those e-mails that got
picked up & forwarded by just about everybody – as
a joke, or rather, some trivial thing people could read
and agree with, and then forget because it was never
going to happen. The premise was that, instead of
“bailing out” big business, Uncle Sam could just send
that money direct to the people. According to the e-mail,
each of us would receive some ridiculous amount of
money – into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That would be way cool, but the numbers were off.
Calculators aren’t built to deal with figures above 10 billion, it seems, and people sometimes get confused with decimals.
According to the economic geniuses (and aren’t they all?) on talk radio, the combined total dollar figure for the bailouts of the auto & financial industries will end up being around $1 trillion. For you poor folks who aren’t accustomed to seeing numbers like this on your paychecks, that’s a one, followed by twelve zeroes, before the decimal point.
To put that figure into Reaganomics: if you got that much money in $100 bills, and laid them end-to-end, they’d stretch about 947,000 miles. If you could lay those bills down at the rate of one per second, assuming you were going the right direction and could hold your breath long enough, a man could be on the moon in about 9 years and two months, and it would only take about ¼ of the money to get there. A woman, of course, would take considerably longer, due to bathroom breaks, and might spend a few extra bucks along the way.
If the traveling man took only the money he needed to get to the moon, and invested the remaining ¾ at 2% compounded interest, he could pick up about $146 billion while he was on his way, making that trip a real bargain. He could have that interest wired to him and catch a ride back on the space shuttle for a paltry million or so.
Reaganomics is confusing. Why would anybody want to spend over 9 years on his hands and knees in space? Besides, I’m not good with decimals either, and this could all be a crock as far as you know. Let’s go back to splitting that money up between the taxpayers.
There are about 138 million taxpayers in the United States. If each of those people received an equal share of the $1 Trillion bailout money, they’d get $7246.38 each. That’s roughly $14,500 for a working couple.
If the Treasury sent each person their equal cut, with the stipulation that it would have to be paid, first, toward any mortgage(s) they had, then, viola, the mortgage companies are out of hock. Even those individuals who had mortgages to pay on would then have that much more disposable income, with which they could buy (guess what?) cars. And, suddenly, the car companies are back in business. The factories are producing again. People are working. All is well.
Those fortunate few who don’t have mortgages, and already have all the cars they want or need could invest their money into the new booming economy. Wall Street soars, and again, all is well.
So, as ridiculous as the “people bail-out” sounds on the surface, really, where’s the down side? Some may say that the government having to print a trillion extra dollars to do this would be inflationary. Sure it will. But, they’ve got to print it anyway, in theory. So, giving it to Big Business hurts the little guy even more, because now the wee bit of money he has is worth even less than before. Then he can afford to buy less. So the economy, overall, suffers. More businesses lose revenue, have to shut down, lay off employees. More people out of work who can’t afford to buy goods and services, and even more businesses shut down. And so it goes.
Where does that end?
Near Rogers, Arkansas, submerged under Beaver Lake, hides the remains of a once-thriving resort known as Monte Ne. It was built by a man named Coin Harvey, around 1901, died in the hard times of the ‘30’s, and buried with water when the lake was formed in 1964. Harvey was, among other things, an economist who proposed a law mandating the forgiveness of all debt and the abolishment of credit. In other words, in an instant, you don’t owe anybody anything, and nobody owes you. What you have is yours, outright. It is an interesting concept, if you think about it. But it didn’t get very far because then, as now, the entities that hold the debt are the ones in control of the entities that make the laws. They really have nothing to gain by helping out the little guy.
Don’t expect these government bailouts to do that either.
© 2009, Rick Baber
with numbers sent out one of those e-mails that got
picked up & forwarded by just about everybody – as
a joke, or rather, some trivial thing people could read
and agree with, and then forget because it was never
going to happen. The premise was that, instead of
“bailing out” big business, Uncle Sam could just send
that money direct to the people. According to the e-mail,
each of us would receive some ridiculous amount of
money – into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That would be way cool, but the numbers were off.
Calculators aren’t built to deal with figures above 10 billion, it seems, and people sometimes get confused with decimals.
According to the economic geniuses (and aren’t they all?) on talk radio, the combined total dollar figure for the bailouts of the auto & financial industries will end up being around $1 trillion. For you poor folks who aren’t accustomed to seeing numbers like this on your paychecks, that’s a one, followed by twelve zeroes, before the decimal point.
To put that figure into Reaganomics: if you got that much money in $100 bills, and laid them end-to-end, they’d stretch about 947,000 miles. If you could lay those bills down at the rate of one per second, assuming you were going the right direction and could hold your breath long enough, a man could be on the moon in about 9 years and two months, and it would only take about ¼ of the money to get there. A woman, of course, would take considerably longer, due to bathroom breaks, and might spend a few extra bucks along the way.
If the traveling man took only the money he needed to get to the moon, and invested the remaining ¾ at 2% compounded interest, he could pick up about $146 billion while he was on his way, making that trip a real bargain. He could have that interest wired to him and catch a ride back on the space shuttle for a paltry million or so.
Reaganomics is confusing. Why would anybody want to spend over 9 years on his hands and knees in space? Besides, I’m not good with decimals either, and this could all be a crock as far as you know. Let’s go back to splitting that money up between the taxpayers.
There are about 138 million taxpayers in the United States. If each of those people received an equal share of the $1 Trillion bailout money, they’d get $7246.38 each. That’s roughly $14,500 for a working couple.
If the Treasury sent each person their equal cut, with the stipulation that it would have to be paid, first, toward any mortgage(s) they had, then, viola, the mortgage companies are out of hock. Even those individuals who had mortgages to pay on would then have that much more disposable income, with which they could buy (guess what?) cars. And, suddenly, the car companies are back in business. The factories are producing again. People are working. All is well.
Those fortunate few who don’t have mortgages, and already have all the cars they want or need could invest their money into the new booming economy. Wall Street soars, and again, all is well.
So, as ridiculous as the “people bail-out” sounds on the surface, really, where’s the down side? Some may say that the government having to print a trillion extra dollars to do this would be inflationary. Sure it will. But, they’ve got to print it anyway, in theory. So, giving it to Big Business hurts the little guy even more, because now the wee bit of money he has is worth even less than before. Then he can afford to buy less. So the economy, overall, suffers. More businesses lose revenue, have to shut down, lay off employees. More people out of work who can’t afford to buy goods and services, and even more businesses shut down. And so it goes.
Where does that end?
Near Rogers, Arkansas, submerged under Beaver Lake, hides the remains of a once-thriving resort known as Monte Ne. It was built by a man named Coin Harvey, around 1901, died in the hard times of the ‘30’s, and buried with water when the lake was formed in 1964. Harvey was, among other things, an economist who proposed a law mandating the forgiveness of all debt and the abolishment of credit. In other words, in an instant, you don’t owe anybody anything, and nobody owes you. What you have is yours, outright. It is an interesting concept, if you think about it. But it didn’t get very far because then, as now, the entities that hold the debt are the ones in control of the entities that make the laws. They really have nothing to gain by helping out the little guy.
Don’t expect these government bailouts to do that either.
© 2009, Rick Baber
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Shoe's on the Other Face Now
Who throws a shoe? Honestly! (Apologies to Austin Powers.)
The Presidency is a dangerous business. Almost 10% of everybody who has ever held that office has been assassinated. Others have had close calls. Others still have simply died in office. Compare that to your line of work. Doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?
Consider that, during his “farewell tour” of Iraq, President Bush narrowly escaped full facial impact with not one, but two, Rockport walking shoes. Appeared to be about a 10 ½ D, traveling at somewhere around 40 mph. And he wasn’t even wearing a helmet.
Now, some have found the violent assault on the American President amusing. In fact, one lady being interviewed by a TV reporter, laughing, said “He threw one for the world”. Another person suggested the shoes be immortalized by having them bronzed.
CNN’s Michael Ware, reported “Opinion is divided – in support and in condemnation of this action”.
David Letterman, speaking of the President’s impressive lightning-quick reaction that kept him from being nailed in the face, said “I don’t think Bush has dodged anything like that since the Viet Nam war”. Later in the show, somebody chucked a pair at Dave.
Watching the video of this historic moment, I too was impressed with Bush’s agility. He may be the only president we’ve had in my lifetime that was capable of making those effectively thrown missiles miss their intended mark. I imagined what would have happened if previous presidents had been in his place.
Clinton, of course, was accustomed to having articles of clothing thrown at him. But he was never very nimble, and would likely have been carried out with at least one stiletto stuck in his forehead. Hillary would probably have removed the other one and walked barefoot to ride with him in the ambulance.
Bush 41 would have had a coalition of support that would have never allowed this to happen. Matter of fact, that reporter would likely have surrendered his shoes when he walked in the door.
Reagan. He took a bullet! Even a pair of Shaq’s shoes wouldn’t have awakened him from his nap.
Jimmy Carter? Nobody would throw a shoe at Jimmy Carter.
Gerald Ford, I’m afraid, would have been the first POTUS we lost to footwear. Sadly, the culprit might not have even had to remove them. Ford would have just tripped when he walked into the room and strangled himself on the laces.
It is accurate to say that I have not been among President Bush’s greatest fans, but I do want to go on record, right here, right now, condemning this atrocity. I mean, you just can’t go ‘round tossing brogans at the President of the US of A. I like to think that, had I been there, I would have stepped up and taken those shoes up-side the head for my country. Which leads me to wonder “Where was the Secret Service?”
Those dudes are supposed to be ready & able to take a bullet for their boss, and here the poor guy had to artfully dodge two articles of footgear on his own? Those things could have caused mass destruction right there in Iraq. And some of you doubted the weapons were there. The whole thing reeks of conspiracy if you ask me.
I understand the shoes have been confiscated by federal authorities and will be held as evidence. Rest assured that all “foot-age” of this event will be reviewed and studied for decades. A commission will be established, but the findings will probably not be released in our lifetimes. Books will be written. Movies will be made. Songs will be sung. An American legend was born this weekend.
Laugh if you will, but this was George W. Bush’s finest hour. Years from now, we all will remember where we were and what we were doing on the day those fateful shoes were hurled at the head of our very own head of state. And, great president that he is (was), he made ‘em miss.
By far, the smartest, and coolest, thing GWB has done in his eight years in office.
© 2008 Rick Baber
The Presidency is a dangerous business. Almost 10% of everybody who has ever held that office has been assassinated. Others have had close calls. Others still have simply died in office. Compare that to your line of work. Doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?
Consider that, during his “farewell tour” of Iraq, President Bush narrowly escaped full facial impact with not one, but two, Rockport walking shoes. Appeared to be about a 10 ½ D, traveling at somewhere around 40 mph. And he wasn’t even wearing a helmet.
Now, some have found the violent assault on the American President amusing. In fact, one lady being interviewed by a TV reporter, laughing, said “He threw one for the world”. Another person suggested the shoes be immortalized by having them bronzed.
CNN’s Michael Ware, reported “Opinion is divided – in support and in condemnation of this action”.
David Letterman, speaking of the President’s impressive lightning-quick reaction that kept him from being nailed in the face, said “I don’t think Bush has dodged anything like that since the Viet Nam war”. Later in the show, somebody chucked a pair at Dave.
Watching the video of this historic moment, I too was impressed with Bush’s agility. He may be the only president we’ve had in my lifetime that was capable of making those effectively thrown missiles miss their intended mark. I imagined what would have happened if previous presidents had been in his place.
Clinton, of course, was accustomed to having articles of clothing thrown at him. But he was never very nimble, and would likely have been carried out with at least one stiletto stuck in his forehead. Hillary would probably have removed the other one and walked barefoot to ride with him in the ambulance.
Bush 41 would have had a coalition of support that would have never allowed this to happen. Matter of fact, that reporter would likely have surrendered his shoes when he walked in the door.
Reagan. He took a bullet! Even a pair of Shaq’s shoes wouldn’t have awakened him from his nap.
Jimmy Carter? Nobody would throw a shoe at Jimmy Carter.
Gerald Ford, I’m afraid, would have been the first POTUS we lost to footwear. Sadly, the culprit might not have even had to remove them. Ford would have just tripped when he walked into the room and strangled himself on the laces.
It is accurate to say that I have not been among President Bush’s greatest fans, but I do want to go on record, right here, right now, condemning this atrocity. I mean, you just can’t go ‘round tossing brogans at the President of the US of A. I like to think that, had I been there, I would have stepped up and taken those shoes up-side the head for my country. Which leads me to wonder “Where was the Secret Service?”
Those dudes are supposed to be ready & able to take a bullet for their boss, and here the poor guy had to artfully dodge two articles of footgear on his own? Those things could have caused mass destruction right there in Iraq. And some of you doubted the weapons were there. The whole thing reeks of conspiracy if you ask me.
I understand the shoes have been confiscated by federal authorities and will be held as evidence. Rest assured that all “foot-age” of this event will be reviewed and studied for decades. A commission will be established, but the findings will probably not be released in our lifetimes. Books will be written. Movies will be made. Songs will be sung. An American legend was born this weekend.
Laugh if you will, but this was George W. Bush’s finest hour. Years from now, we all will remember where we were and what we were doing on the day those fateful shoes were hurled at the head of our very own head of state. And, great president that he is (was), he made ‘em miss.
By far, the smartest, and coolest, thing GWB has done in his eight years in office.
© 2008 Rick Baber
Monday, December 08, 2008
Rock 'n Roll Never Forgets
NOTE: If you're not from Batesville, Arkansas, this will mean very little to you. Just a word of warning....
Old rockers never die.
With too many irons in the fire, I’ve been out of the loop longer than I like to think about. But then, there are only so many hours in a day, and spending a good portion of them sleeping has always been one of my life’s passions.
Occasionally though, mama will drag me away from the computer to someplace other than our local Native American gaming establishments, and usually I end up glad she did.
Such was the case this past Saturday night when I was (apparently) the last usta-be rock singer in Arkansas to discover the remarkable talent of a guy named Darren Ray. Well, that’s not entirely true. Only a week before, I’d heard him at Cherokee Casino (West Siloam Springs) with his other band, “Big Bad Bubba”, but I was, let’s say, too distracted then to pay much attention. At this private party though, Darren was performing with his other band, “Big’Uns”, in a small venue. People, let me tell you, this old crooner was blown away. That guy had a set of pipes like I haven’t heard anywhere in a very long time, and the band itself was tight as a jug. They covered everything from Delbert McClinton’s “Every Time I Roll the Dice” to Michael McDonald’s “Takin’ it to the Streets”, and everybody involved hit every note. Then they ended up with a Beatles set, culminating with “Hey Jude”, that even had Republicans swaying and singing along. And here in Northwest Arkansas, there’s a lot of those.
So, as they were loading out, doofus that I am, I had to go up and tell ‘em how good I thought they were – keeping them from getting their work done and getting home for just a while longer. Turns out Darren also performs with my ex-brother-in-law, Travis Kidd (Tulsa, OK). That was pretty cool. But the lead guitarist looked somewhat familiar, so I also bothered him to discuss the glory days and found out that the six degrees of separation thing really does exist. His name was Ed Nicholson, and he had been playing around, basically, forever. I quickly discovered that he was from Harrison, Arkansas. When I told him I was from Batesville, the names of musicians from the area he had played with came rolling out: Andy Buschman, Gib Ponder, Mary Henry, Danny Dozier…just the ones we had time to talk about before I finally recalled through my party-fuzzed haze what it’s like to try to load out with people bugging you, and started backing across the empty room toward the door. Ed told me he had only recently spoken with Andy on the phone – and I wondered how Andy had enough wind to do that while he was running. Always running. He must use a cell phone.
The meeting gave rebirth to a longtime fantasy I have had about getting all the old musicians from the Batesville area (and the new ones, too) together for some kind of big rock ‘n roll reunion concert. Would that be cool, or am I the only one that’s interested? Maybe some charity could use a few bucks that could be raised from such an event. Or, maybe that’s already happened at some point and nobody told me about it….?
I have always maintained that there is no place on the planet that has produced as much musical talent, per-capita, as Batesville (and the surrounding area). I could list all of them I remember here, in bold print, but I’d surely embarrass myself by leaving too many out. Surely, such an event would draw a respectable crowd, even if you only consider the families produced by the musicians involved. Kids. Grandkids. Oh my God, some of you are OLD! How much extra would it cost to have an elevator installed to get up to the stage? Maybe a few ambulances standing by, just in case?
When I recall the time we worked like dogs cleaning out the old, practically abandoned AC Gym to do a show, and all the people that showed up there; the crowds that used to come up the hill on Saturday night to the Salado Community Building or to Cave City or to the Jaycee building down by the bayou; and the way we used to curse the fact that there was just not much to do (anything changed?) – I can’t help but think my little rock ‘n roll fantasy isn’t such a bad idea.
Living two hundred miles away, and being the most disorganized person in the world, I would not be able to put such a thing together myself. I’m hoping there’s some other old timer reading this, with a lot of time on his/her hands, thinking he or she might just be the one for the job.
Who knows? Maybe it could turn into a yearly tradition. “The Batesville Whitewater Revival”?
Your thoughts?
© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
Old rockers never die.
With too many irons in the fire, I’ve been out of the loop longer than I like to think about. But then, there are only so many hours in a day, and spending a good portion of them sleeping has always been one of my life’s passions.
Occasionally though, mama will drag me away from the computer to someplace other than our local Native American gaming establishments, and usually I end up glad she did.
Such was the case this past Saturday night when I was (apparently) the last usta-be rock singer in Arkansas to discover the remarkable talent of a guy named Darren Ray. Well, that’s not entirely true. Only a week before, I’d heard him at Cherokee Casino (West Siloam Springs) with his other band, “Big Bad Bubba”, but I was, let’s say, too distracted then to pay much attention. At this private party though, Darren was performing with his other band, “Big’Uns”, in a small venue. People, let me tell you, this old crooner was blown away. That guy had a set of pipes like I haven’t heard anywhere in a very long time, and the band itself was tight as a jug. They covered everything from Delbert McClinton’s “Every Time I Roll the Dice” to Michael McDonald’s “Takin’ it to the Streets”, and everybody involved hit every note. Then they ended up with a Beatles set, culminating with “Hey Jude”, that even had Republicans swaying and singing along. And here in Northwest Arkansas, there’s a lot of those.
So, as they were loading out, doofus that I am, I had to go up and tell ‘em how good I thought they were – keeping them from getting their work done and getting home for just a while longer. Turns out Darren also performs with my ex-brother-in-law, Travis Kidd (Tulsa, OK). That was pretty cool. But the lead guitarist looked somewhat familiar, so I also bothered him to discuss the glory days and found out that the six degrees of separation thing really does exist. His name was Ed Nicholson, and he had been playing around, basically, forever. I quickly discovered that he was from Harrison, Arkansas. When I told him I was from Batesville, the names of musicians from the area he had played with came rolling out: Andy Buschman, Gib Ponder, Mary Henry, Danny Dozier…just the ones we had time to talk about before I finally recalled through my party-fuzzed haze what it’s like to try to load out with people bugging you, and started backing across the empty room toward the door. Ed told me he had only recently spoken with Andy on the phone – and I wondered how Andy had enough wind to do that while he was running. Always running. He must use a cell phone.
The meeting gave rebirth to a longtime fantasy I have had about getting all the old musicians from the Batesville area (and the new ones, too) together for some kind of big rock ‘n roll reunion concert. Would that be cool, or am I the only one that’s interested? Maybe some charity could use a few bucks that could be raised from such an event. Or, maybe that’s already happened at some point and nobody told me about it….?
I have always maintained that there is no place on the planet that has produced as much musical talent, per-capita, as Batesville (and the surrounding area). I could list all of them I remember here, in bold print, but I’d surely embarrass myself by leaving too many out. Surely, such an event would draw a respectable crowd, even if you only consider the families produced by the musicians involved. Kids. Grandkids. Oh my God, some of you are OLD! How much extra would it cost to have an elevator installed to get up to the stage? Maybe a few ambulances standing by, just in case?
When I recall the time we worked like dogs cleaning out the old, practically abandoned AC Gym to do a show, and all the people that showed up there; the crowds that used to come up the hill on Saturday night to the Salado Community Building or to Cave City or to the Jaycee building down by the bayou; and the way we used to curse the fact that there was just not much to do (anything changed?) – I can’t help but think my little rock ‘n roll fantasy isn’t such a bad idea.
Living two hundred miles away, and being the most disorganized person in the world, I would not be able to put such a thing together myself. I’m hoping there’s some other old timer reading this, with a lot of time on his/her hands, thinking he or she might just be the one for the job.
Who knows? Maybe it could turn into a yearly tradition. “The Batesville Whitewater Revival”?
Your thoughts?
© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Rick the Writer
Hello. It’s me, again — Rick the Writer. We don’t use last names around this presidential campaign anymore. Just a first name, followed by professional pursuit, because apparently, it is important that people know what you do if you are going to speak out on behalf of a candidate. Or not.
The thing is, now, the candidates want people to know that those who support them are “hard working people,” because, apparently, if you’re not “hard-working,” you’re not worth the air you’re breathing.
You can tell this because every time one of them talks they say something about “hard-working Americans.”
Writing isn’t an occupation that is generally accepted by folks as one that qualifies, so heretofore, I didn’t use it. I started to go with “artist,” but that doesn’t really bring up an image of sweat amd toil in people’s minds either. Rick the Insurance Adjuster is just too long to say and it doesn’t roll off the tongue. And, by the standards of some of my friends, “that ain’t workin.’”
Not like their jobs.
I think that’s how the whole last name thing started out, way back around the time John McCain was born. Folks would just take their profession or their locale, and make that their last name. Blacksmiths became “Smith” — “Bakers” made pies and bread. People who blew flutes or something became “Piper.” Let’s not go there with how people named Johnson came about.
“McCain,” though, came from “the son of Eoin” — the Irish form of “John.” So “John McCain” actually means “John John,” or “John, son of John.” But we can just call him John the Hero. I assume you heard about that, somewhere. Heroing is hard work, I’m sure. So John John is OK by that standard.
Caribou Barbie’s maiden name was Sarah Heath. “Heath,” means “one who came from Heath” — which is a wasteland with low shrubs.
Uh. OK.
“Palin,” by the way, means “one who came from Paliler.” Now, I’m not sure about this kids, because you know how research hurts my head, but I think Paliler is in ... France! Neither one of those tell us whether or not those folks are hard-working, so let’s just call her Caribou Barbie. Huntin’s hard work. You betcha!
I couldn’t find anything on “Obama.” So I guess there’s another reason to be suspicious of the black guy. We’ll call him “Barack the Muslim” – which means “He who definitely won’t get a rednecks vote now.”
“Biden.”
Whattaya think? Correctomondo! Not in there either! Is there a pattern here? But we have to call him something — how about “Joe the Puppy Kicker?”
No. Puppy kicking is hard work. Better use “Joe the Gun Seizer.” That should work.
Just for fun, let’s do “Bush” — dweller at sign of the bush (usually a wine merchant); one who dwelt near a bush; and “Cheney” — one who came from Quesney, Cheney or Chenay (oak grove), in FRANCE; dweller near the chain or barrier used to close a street at night. Oddly, that makes sense. We don’t care whether or not these guys are “hard-working” anymore, because by the grace of God, they’re outta here come January 20.
Joe the Plumber’s last name is Wurzelbacher. Like Obama and Biden, that one apparently doesn’t have a meaning or known origin, but it sounds just as foreign. It is unfortunate that Joe’s real last name isn’t “Plumber,” and that may well be the reason McPalin changed it. What if “Wurzelbacher” was discovered to mean “he who bets on the dark horse?”
Safer to just stick with “the plumber.”
I just wonder, when one of these two candidates gets elected, is he going to be president of the slackers too?
You know, guys who just sit behind a keyboard, making up sentences or digital images after a dozen hours or so every day giving away somebody else’s money?
What about professional golfers? Does that qualify as hard-working? Or professional bass fishermen ... or NASCAR drivers ... or Talk Radio hosts?
What about movie stars like ... I don’t know ... Ronald Reagan (descendant of Riagan -little king)? Do Joe the Plumber or Bob the Builder or Fred the Fireman or Doug the Ditch Digger allow lazy millionaires, or people who married them, into their club?
I have this plan to win the lotto, after which I’ll probably become a world famous international playboy, like Jethro the Bodine. Jethro doesn’t do much work if you don’t count hooking up two record players to the truck so he’ll have stereo. Is he going to have a president?
For some reason, the candidates, and lots of other folk, like to pat people on the back if they get up early and go to work and keep working until late into the night and then get up and do it again. Amen.
Those who never see their own kids, because the pursuit of legal tender is the definition of being a good American.
And we all want to be good Americans. Or “great Americans,” like Sean Hannity. That’s what we’ve all had drilled into our heads for as long as I can remember. Give ’em a gold star or something, but just make sure they keep working, “like a workin’ man do.”
I’m questioning that now. Could it be that if you’re too dog-tired to do anything but work, you’re easier to control?
Just askin’.
It seems that, if a guy figures out how to survive without breaking his back and ignoring his family, he better not plant a flag in his yard. He might as well move to the wasteland with low shrubs. Or, better yet, to France.
The thing is, now, the candidates want people to know that those who support them are “hard working people,” because, apparently, if you’re not “hard-working,” you’re not worth the air you’re breathing.
You can tell this because every time one of them talks they say something about “hard-working Americans.”
Writing isn’t an occupation that is generally accepted by folks as one that qualifies, so heretofore, I didn’t use it. I started to go with “artist,” but that doesn’t really bring up an image of sweat amd toil in people’s minds either. Rick the Insurance Adjuster is just too long to say and it doesn’t roll off the tongue. And, by the standards of some of my friends, “that ain’t workin.’”
Not like their jobs.
I think that’s how the whole last name thing started out, way back around the time John McCain was born. Folks would just take their profession or their locale, and make that their last name. Blacksmiths became “Smith” — “Bakers” made pies and bread. People who blew flutes or something became “Piper.” Let’s not go there with how people named Johnson came about.
“McCain,” though, came from “the son of Eoin” — the Irish form of “John.” So “John McCain” actually means “John John,” or “John, son of John.” But we can just call him John the Hero. I assume you heard about that, somewhere. Heroing is hard work, I’m sure. So John John is OK by that standard.
Caribou Barbie’s maiden name was Sarah Heath. “Heath,” means “one who came from Heath” — which is a wasteland with low shrubs.
Uh. OK.
“Palin,” by the way, means “one who came from Paliler.” Now, I’m not sure about this kids, because you know how research hurts my head, but I think Paliler is in ... France! Neither one of those tell us whether or not those folks are hard-working, so let’s just call her Caribou Barbie. Huntin’s hard work. You betcha!
I couldn’t find anything on “Obama.” So I guess there’s another reason to be suspicious of the black guy. We’ll call him “Barack the Muslim” – which means “He who definitely won’t get a rednecks vote now.”
“Biden.”
Whattaya think? Correctomondo! Not in there either! Is there a pattern here? But we have to call him something — how about “Joe the Puppy Kicker?”
No. Puppy kicking is hard work. Better use “Joe the Gun Seizer.” That should work.
Just for fun, let’s do “Bush” — dweller at sign of the bush (usually a wine merchant); one who dwelt near a bush; and “Cheney” — one who came from Quesney, Cheney or Chenay (oak grove), in FRANCE; dweller near the chain or barrier used to close a street at night. Oddly, that makes sense. We don’t care whether or not these guys are “hard-working” anymore, because by the grace of God, they’re outta here come January 20.
Joe the Plumber’s last name is Wurzelbacher. Like Obama and Biden, that one apparently doesn’t have a meaning or known origin, but it sounds just as foreign. It is unfortunate that Joe’s real last name isn’t “Plumber,” and that may well be the reason McPalin changed it. What if “Wurzelbacher” was discovered to mean “he who bets on the dark horse?”
Safer to just stick with “the plumber.”
I just wonder, when one of these two candidates gets elected, is he going to be president of the slackers too?
You know, guys who just sit behind a keyboard, making up sentences or digital images after a dozen hours or so every day giving away somebody else’s money?
What about professional golfers? Does that qualify as hard-working? Or professional bass fishermen ... or NASCAR drivers ... or Talk Radio hosts?
What about movie stars like ... I don’t know ... Ronald Reagan (descendant of Riagan -little king)? Do Joe the Plumber or Bob the Builder or Fred the Fireman or Doug the Ditch Digger allow lazy millionaires, or people who married them, into their club?
I have this plan to win the lotto, after which I’ll probably become a world famous international playboy, like Jethro the Bodine. Jethro doesn’t do much work if you don’t count hooking up two record players to the truck so he’ll have stereo. Is he going to have a president?
For some reason, the candidates, and lots of other folk, like to pat people on the back if they get up early and go to work and keep working until late into the night and then get up and do it again. Amen.
Those who never see their own kids, because the pursuit of legal tender is the definition of being a good American.
And we all want to be good Americans. Or “great Americans,” like Sean Hannity. That’s what we’ve all had drilled into our heads for as long as I can remember. Give ’em a gold star or something, but just make sure they keep working, “like a workin’ man do.”
I’m questioning that now. Could it be that if you’re too dog-tired to do anything but work, you’re easier to control?
Just askin’.
It seems that, if a guy figures out how to survive without breaking his back and ignoring his family, he better not plant a flag in his yard. He might as well move to the wasteland with low shrubs. Or, better yet, to France.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Barack 'n Roll Revolution
I tried to copyright (ala Stephen Colbert) that phrase, “Barack ‘n Roll”, on the Arkansas Times blog, but some smartypants pointed out to me that there’s a whole website by that name, so I was too late. Story of my life, I guess.
Here we go. Hillary has stepped aside and now the formal Republican trashing of Barack Obama begins in earnest. He’s best friends with some of the most radical leftists in the country - guys who condoned the blowing up of things in the ‘60’s. He’s a Muslim. Doesn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel. Refuses to eat apple pie. His wife hates Caucasians. His preacher’s a loudmouth. He’s going to put all the white people in chains. And the best one: He’s the AntiChrist.
I’ve received about 20 of those “antichrist” e-mails from various people who either actually believe it and are trying hard to save the world via the Internet, or they just have too much time on their hands. Considering the gems I have received from most of the same people in the past, I suspect the latter. But I won’t waste time and exacerbation of my already-arthritic fingers here trying to persuade any of you who might seriously entertain that thought of the likelihood that you are wrong. If you believe it, go ahead and send me all your good stuff, because the end is neigh and you won’t need money, cool cars, motorcycles, boats, rare coins, Cognac or artwork where you’re going. I could also use a couple of new computers. If my understanding of The Rapture – as learned from talk radio, bumper stickers on SUV’s, & TV preachers – is correct, only flag-pin-wearing Republicans will be sucked up into the sky. Guys like me, and all those poor jerks who live in other countries and/or subscribe to phony religions, will be left down here, scurrying around, siphoning what little gas is left in those abandoned vehicles, and apologizing daily to our Darth Cheney dartboards.
Of course, if Obama is indeed the boogieman, it is part of the Divine Plan that he comes to power, so all of ya’ll who are planning on voting against him for that reason might as well forget that, and get ready for the carnival ride of your lives.
It’s hard to understand how anybody could win a primary based on “change” – what with everything going so well and all. And, in case you didn’t know this, my preference for the office of President was Hillary Clinton. Not only because I thought she would make the best president, but also because I thought she would be more difficult for the right wing machine to discredit. They’ve been trying for about 16 years, and she’s still standing. It was so painfully obvious, listening to them as I do, that Obama was the preferred Democrat by Republicans, because they knew they’d have a better chance of waging a successful smear campaign against him. Little jabs, here & there, but no big punches until now. They were either waiting for Hillary to do that, or waiting for him to secure the nomination. Well, she didn’t. He did. Now it’s on, brother.
Republicans will try to cite Obama’s lack of governmental experience as a reason he shouldn’t be President. It just so happens that’s the same reason they can’t discredit him based upon what he actually did in government. (Like they can be discredited themselves.) That won’t work. People who are smart enough to figure out how to find a voting machine will realize that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had more experience in government than any two white men in modern history, and their counsel, whispered into the ear of that cool cat dancing badly behind the big desk in the oval office has brought us to this point in the nation’s history where, if you’re really rich, everything is hunky-dory. If you’re not, you’re actually considering the prospect that everything is so bad, the end might be just around the corner. So that is the fire they will pour the fuel upon.
It’s a frenzy. A movement. A revolution! Them youngins and black folk and homos are even voting. That can’t be right. It must be the end of the world!
From the opposite perspective, I don’t believe another four years of George W. Bush (via McCain) would bring about the end of the world. Maybe just the end of the United States as a so-called “world power”. But don’t look for prophetic doomsday e-mails from me explaining how McCain fits into the boogieman role better than Barack does. I could make the case, but I don’t have time. Busy working to get money to pay $5 a gallon for gasoline, so I can keep working to buy gasoline, so oil executives and other friends of the president can retire very, very rich in November.
Expect to hear, in the next four months, some of the wildest stories you have ever heard. Clean out your e-mail boxes to make room for the incoming revelations. Like I said, believe them, if you will. I need the stuff.
© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
Here we go. Hillary has stepped aside and now the formal Republican trashing of Barack Obama begins in earnest. He’s best friends with some of the most radical leftists in the country - guys who condoned the blowing up of things in the ‘60’s. He’s a Muslim. Doesn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel. Refuses to eat apple pie. His wife hates Caucasians. His preacher’s a loudmouth. He’s going to put all the white people in chains. And the best one: He’s the AntiChrist.
I’ve received about 20 of those “antichrist” e-mails from various people who either actually believe it and are trying hard to save the world via the Internet, or they just have too much time on their hands. Considering the gems I have received from most of the same people in the past, I suspect the latter. But I won’t waste time and exacerbation of my already-arthritic fingers here trying to persuade any of you who might seriously entertain that thought of the likelihood that you are wrong. If you believe it, go ahead and send me all your good stuff, because the end is neigh and you won’t need money, cool cars, motorcycles, boats, rare coins, Cognac or artwork where you’re going. I could also use a couple of new computers. If my understanding of The Rapture – as learned from talk radio, bumper stickers on SUV’s, & TV preachers – is correct, only flag-pin-wearing Republicans will be sucked up into the sky. Guys like me, and all those poor jerks who live in other countries and/or subscribe to phony religions, will be left down here, scurrying around, siphoning what little gas is left in those abandoned vehicles, and apologizing daily to our Darth Cheney dartboards.
Of course, if Obama is indeed the boogieman, it is part of the Divine Plan that he comes to power, so all of ya’ll who are planning on voting against him for that reason might as well forget that, and get ready for the carnival ride of your lives.
It’s hard to understand how anybody could win a primary based on “change” – what with everything going so well and all. And, in case you didn’t know this, my preference for the office of President was Hillary Clinton. Not only because I thought she would make the best president, but also because I thought she would be more difficult for the right wing machine to discredit. They’ve been trying for about 16 years, and she’s still standing. It was so painfully obvious, listening to them as I do, that Obama was the preferred Democrat by Republicans, because they knew they’d have a better chance of waging a successful smear campaign against him. Little jabs, here & there, but no big punches until now. They were either waiting for Hillary to do that, or waiting for him to secure the nomination. Well, she didn’t. He did. Now it’s on, brother.
Republicans will try to cite Obama’s lack of governmental experience as a reason he shouldn’t be President. It just so happens that’s the same reason they can’t discredit him based upon what he actually did in government. (Like they can be discredited themselves.) That won’t work. People who are smart enough to figure out how to find a voting machine will realize that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had more experience in government than any two white men in modern history, and their counsel, whispered into the ear of that cool cat dancing badly behind the big desk in the oval office has brought us to this point in the nation’s history where, if you’re really rich, everything is hunky-dory. If you’re not, you’re actually considering the prospect that everything is so bad, the end might be just around the corner. So that is the fire they will pour the fuel upon.
It’s a frenzy. A movement. A revolution! Them youngins and black folk and homos are even voting. That can’t be right. It must be the end of the world!
From the opposite perspective, I don’t believe another four years of George W. Bush (via McCain) would bring about the end of the world. Maybe just the end of the United States as a so-called “world power”. But don’t look for prophetic doomsday e-mails from me explaining how McCain fits into the boogieman role better than Barack does. I could make the case, but I don’t have time. Busy working to get money to pay $5 a gallon for gasoline, so I can keep working to buy gasoline, so oil executives and other friends of the president can retire very, very rich in November.
Expect to hear, in the next four months, some of the wildest stories you have ever heard. Clean out your e-mail boxes to make room for the incoming revelations. Like I said, believe them, if you will. I need the stuff.
© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
OBX Jumping Turtles
There’s something about the persistence of the ocean that’s inspirational. Maybe that’s why so many famous people come from or live on one coast or another.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina is kind of a different place. Me ‘n Mama took a few days to travel down to that part of Dixie, shoot a beach wedding at Nag’s Head, and seek out some light house photos for our art prints. I don’t want to jinx anything – writing this from the beginning of the trip home at the Norfolk, Virginia airport – but the journey down here went about as well as one who hates to fly could expect.
We handed off our rental car to our gracious host, who’s going on to Williamsburg for a graduation, so we’ve got about five hours to kill here in the airport. Perfect for telling ya’ll about some of the oddities of the narrow strip of land we spent the last three days on.
Down here, being in the heart of tobacco country, you can smoke pretty much everywhere – bars, restaurants, grade school, church…. But the “drinking” thing is really screwed up.
Beer & wine, you can buy anywhere. K-Mart has a nice selection. Mixed drinks & liquor is a situation about as complicated as the Democratic primary process. Down the Outer Banks, toward Cape Hatteras, you just can’t get them. If you order a mixed drink, it’s made with champagne. Yummy, I bet…
Back up around Nag’s Head and Kitty Hawk you can buy liquor, but only from the ABC stores that keep, pretty much, banker’s hours. These stores are owned by the county and regulated by the State of North Carolina. The guy behind the counter is actually an employee of the county. Bars & restaurants also have to purchase liquor from these stores, and, instead of getting a discount or wholesale price, they pay the same thing a retail customer does, plus a tax of about $4 a bottle. So mixed drinks in a bar are way expensive.
The “drive-thru” beer & wine stores are literally that. You actually drive your car through the building – like a “quick lube” or something. You just point out what you want and they hand it through the car window to you.
But, it ain’t like my only interest is in the local drinking and smoking customs. As many of you know, I also have a borderline-unnatural affection for turtles. And they’ve got some weird ones in Carolina.
We’re driving down Highway 12 toward Bodie Island, and I have to swerve to miss what I first thought was a dead Rottweiler in the road. As I passed it, I could tell it was what we call an alligator snapper – the biggest turtle I’ve ever seen outside a zoo. It didn’t appear to have been hit, so I pulled the car over and got out to go move it out of the road. The closer I got, the bigger that rascal appeared. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it had a head about the same size as that of a Boston Terrier.
My vast experience with turtles has taught me better than to try to pick this big fella up, but I wanted to get a picture before I did anything. As I walked up to it, a local schoolboy, maybe 12, came up behind me with a sucker in his mouth.
“I wouldn’t get too close to him if I was you.” He warned.
“No.” I said. “I’m gonna get him to bite this stick and I’ll drag him out of the road.
“You better get a bigger stick”, he said.
A school bus already had traffic backed up southbound, and a van had the northbound traffic stopped.
“Be careful”, he said, “these ones can jump.”
OK. I was glad the kid was trying to help, but what does some youngster know about turtles that I haven’t learned in a half century of intense study?
“Yeah. Thanks, kid”, I said, “I think this’ll do fine.”
So I stuck the stick down by the turtle’s head and he lunged at it, coming up about three feet off the ground. That was about two feet short of how high I jumped, screeching like a girl.
“These ones right here, you gotta get ‘em by the tail and drag ‘em.” The boy continued, without even saying “I told you so”.
Both of those lines of traffic, including that busload of impressionable children, were sitting there, watching, patiently waiting for me to move this monster from the road. I didn’t want to disappoint them, but, after seeing that thing jump, I was … (what’s the word?)….scared!
So I hauled off and kicked him (the turtle, not the kid) in the butt. Then he pushed himself up, like a dog, and slowly walked off the road. I was off the hook.
We got our lighthouse pictures – two of four, anyway. But we were very careful walking around the marshlands to do it. You never know when a giant snapping turtle is gonna jump out of the weeds and take your head off.
© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
The Outer Banks of North Carolina is kind of a different place. Me ‘n Mama took a few days to travel down to that part of Dixie, shoot a beach wedding at Nag’s Head, and seek out some light house photos for our art prints. I don’t want to jinx anything – writing this from the beginning of the trip home at the Norfolk, Virginia airport – but the journey down here went about as well as one who hates to fly could expect.
We handed off our rental car to our gracious host, who’s going on to Williamsburg for a graduation, so we’ve got about five hours to kill here in the airport. Perfect for telling ya’ll about some of the oddities of the narrow strip of land we spent the last three days on.
Down here, being in the heart of tobacco country, you can smoke pretty much everywhere – bars, restaurants, grade school, church…. But the “drinking” thing is really screwed up.
Beer & wine, you can buy anywhere. K-Mart has a nice selection. Mixed drinks & liquor is a situation about as complicated as the Democratic primary process. Down the Outer Banks, toward Cape Hatteras, you just can’t get them. If you order a mixed drink, it’s made with champagne. Yummy, I bet…
Back up around Nag’s Head and Kitty Hawk you can buy liquor, but only from the ABC stores that keep, pretty much, banker’s hours. These stores are owned by the county and regulated by the State of North Carolina. The guy behind the counter is actually an employee of the county. Bars & restaurants also have to purchase liquor from these stores, and, instead of getting a discount or wholesale price, they pay the same thing a retail customer does, plus a tax of about $4 a bottle. So mixed drinks in a bar are way expensive.
The “drive-thru” beer & wine stores are literally that. You actually drive your car through the building – like a “quick lube” or something. You just point out what you want and they hand it through the car window to you.
But, it ain’t like my only interest is in the local drinking and smoking customs. As many of you know, I also have a borderline-unnatural affection for turtles. And they’ve got some weird ones in Carolina.
We’re driving down Highway 12 toward Bodie Island, and I have to swerve to miss what I first thought was a dead Rottweiler in the road. As I passed it, I could tell it was what we call an alligator snapper – the biggest turtle I’ve ever seen outside a zoo. It didn’t appear to have been hit, so I pulled the car over and got out to go move it out of the road. The closer I got, the bigger that rascal appeared. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it had a head about the same size as that of a Boston Terrier.
My vast experience with turtles has taught me better than to try to pick this big fella up, but I wanted to get a picture before I did anything. As I walked up to it, a local schoolboy, maybe 12, came up behind me with a sucker in his mouth.
“I wouldn’t get too close to him if I was you.” He warned.
“No.” I said. “I’m gonna get him to bite this stick and I’ll drag him out of the road.
“You better get a bigger stick”, he said.
A school bus already had traffic backed up southbound, and a van had the northbound traffic stopped.
“Be careful”, he said, “these ones can jump.”
OK. I was glad the kid was trying to help, but what does some youngster know about turtles that I haven’t learned in a half century of intense study?
“Yeah. Thanks, kid”, I said, “I think this’ll do fine.”
So I stuck the stick down by the turtle’s head and he lunged at it, coming up about three feet off the ground. That was about two feet short of how high I jumped, screeching like a girl.
“These ones right here, you gotta get ‘em by the tail and drag ‘em.” The boy continued, without even saying “I told you so”.
Both of those lines of traffic, including that busload of impressionable children, were sitting there, watching, patiently waiting for me to move this monster from the road. I didn’t want to disappoint them, but, after seeing that thing jump, I was … (what’s the word?)….scared!
So I hauled off and kicked him (the turtle, not the kid) in the butt. Then he pushed himself up, like a dog, and slowly walked off the road. I was off the hook.
We got our lighthouse pictures – two of four, anyway. But we were very careful walking around the marshlands to do it. You never know when a giant snapping turtle is gonna jump out of the weeds and take your head off.
© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)