WANT TO BE SOMETHING SPECIAL? BE A SCRIBE

My mother had beautiful cursive handwriting, and she didn't have to practice much at it.  She was taught to write that way while in school, something schools spent a lot of time on back in her day.  I came along in the school system half a century later and learned to write fairly well . . . but nothing like her style.  My kids came along and can't write well at all, but they ended up with fairly good educations.  My grandkids are handicapped when it comes to handwriting, can hardly do it at all . . . but they graduated from high school and went to college.

One of the most respected jobs in ancient societies was that of being a scribe.  Not many people were selected to learn to write, but it's a good thing some people learned to write well or we wouldn't have much in the way of recorded history.  We still have a few people in our modern society who can actually write beautifully . . . but they are rare.  School districts all over America are abolishing cursive handwriting from curriculums, saying it is no longer needed.  Needed?  Replaced by what?  Oh, I forgot, it's being replaced by keyboards and hand held gizmos.  What to know what else is being replaced?  People who can actually spell and read, and if you want to blame that on anything, you can drop that pile of poop at the feet of our modern educators.

Here are a few analogies for you: 1) We no longer have real photographers because the modern generation of snapshot takers don't know diddly-squat about a camera.  They've gone digital, and that has robbed the world of photography of some great photographic art.  These days, there is very little art to taking pictures . . . and 2) Modern high tech digital equipment has done damage to what real music is supposed to sound like.  It's good, for sure, but it's missing all the things that brought warmth and realism to music recorded the old analogue way.  Translate that to writing, and you get the picture.  If you can't write without pecking out words on a keyboard, you can't really master the language.  Education has taken big strides backward in the last half century, almost to the point where we're now managed throughout by a bunch of linguistic cripples.  Good reading goes along with good writing, and if you can't read, you're doomed to ignorance.

I'm pissed off about all this because I've been victimized along with millions of others.  The only time I actually write these days is when I have to sign my name to something, and I'm not very good at that anymore.  I wouldn't even start to present an argument that we'd be better off if everything was written by hand.  We moved past that centuries ago, to the printed word, what generation upon generation of people saw on paper.  Those words have now moved mostly to monitors, screens, tablets, laptops, etc.  But I remember well the learning experience, of how I used to pour over notes taken in class by hand before taking exams.  I remember having to write down the things I needed to remember because seeing the words take shape by my own hand caused them to stick in my memory. I've still got most of those old notes stored away.  I've got most of my old papers from graduate school, and I can still remember writing them.

And now, I've written dozens of books, all of them on either typewriters or computers using some fancy digital word program . . . and I can't even remember my own books.  You'd think they'd be stuck in my brain forever, but they aren't because in a twisted sort of way they're artificial.  I could argue that those books would've never been written if I'd been forced to write them by hand, and that's probably true.  I did considerable research on some of those books, now lost to me . . . unless I go back and read the notes I made by hand.

Want to be something special?  Be a scribe, and you'll be like few others.

FLAWED RESEARCH

Beware, all ye brethren who love to cite statistics.  The research you depend upon for your facts and figures is tainted, often wrong . . . and more often than that, misrepresented.  How many times do you pick up a magazine, newspaper, or read on the internet (for all you gizmophobes) some article starting with "A recent study has revealed that . . . .?"  Yeah, I know, and you read it and went, "Wow!  I didn't know that."  Consider this:  What you just read is more than likely just bullshit.  I use the term bullshit metaphorically, for it all the stuff you read based on research these days was actually bullshit, we'd have no further use for commercial fertilizer.  

I'm a retired political scientist, lots of graduate work and teaching behind me, and I've had a lifetime of dealing with research.  Don't get me wrong 'cause I'm by no means against conducting study to find the truth about one thing or another . . . but I've run into more false information from these research and study groups than I have real factual information.  Here's a good one for you, one you've probably seen before.  "A recent study revealed that one in three marriages will end in divorce."  That's false, just flat out not true.  I've seen studies that put the number at forty percent of marriages ending in divorce.  They reached that erroneous percentage by taking the number of marriages in a particular year and measure them agains the number of divorces.  Let's say there were 5 million marriages and 2 million divorces, and that means forty percent.  The only way you find out what the real extent of divorce is would be to track specific marriages over a period of time.  So, in the year 1990, five million marriages took place.  If you could follow each of those marriages, you'd find that after 10 years an overwhelming percent of them would still be intact . . . and after 20 years, you'd still have a high percentage intact.  We know this from taking smaller samples, like following 1,000 marriages over that period of time.  The results of all good studies like that show that the alarming results most often found in published reports is wrong . . . way off the real mark.  

I'm a cat lover, take care of quite a few of them, and I've come to recognize several entities out there who are anti-cat organizations.  Bird people, for instance, are out to get the cats under control, and I see all sorts of reports about how cats, and we're talking here about domestic cats, are destroying the bird populations of America.  And they cite all sorts of statistics that won't hold water under close scrutiny.  I won't deny that cats are natural hunters, and even your sweetest house cat is going to kill and eat a bird if it gets a chance.  I've got 16 cats here at my home (it's a large house with a big yard), and I've still got lots of birds around.  Besides, a bird has wings, a cat doesn't, and that's pretty much a mismatch . . . other than the cat is a lot more intelligent.  My next door neighbor has a parrot, a very friendly bird at that, and they used to turn it loose "to get some exercise."  And it would come to my house and follow me around while I worked in the yard.  It just jabbered away at me, would sit on the

fence within feet of me.  But the cats took note of this, and on two occasion I had to rescue the parrot from a cat attack.  Maybe you've noticed - cats are quick.  I didn't want the parrot hurt or killed, and so I told the neighbor that my cats had a contract out on her parrot.  Now, the parrot has a big cage on the front porch . . . where he sits some days and calls the cats.  Maybe birds aren't that dumb after all.

Sometimes I think they're smarter than the ornithologists who study them. 

A recent report on cats says that they are responsible for disease in deer populations.  Comes from feral cats that prey on the poor deer by giving them diseases.  I've never heard of a deer eating a cat or cat poop, don't think I ever will.  That particular study is highly flawed, as has been pointed out by a number of detractors.  Most of it was done based on statistics that showed where the deer had this particular disease, lots of cats were around.  The study badly overestimated the number of feral cats, even said that their populations were increasing.  Real research shows just the opposite.  

Even wrong research sometimes has a good effect in the end.  There's no doubt that we need to continue working toward decreasing feral cat populations.  We need more spay/neuter clinics, more pet owners who show some responsibility, and more people who understand the problem of dealing with neglected animals.  Unfortunately, we live in a nation that does very little about neglected people, much less neglected animals.  Information about any problem doesn't have to be right on when it comes to actual facts . . . as long as it points us in the right direction.  How long did it take us to understand that smoking cigarettes causes cancer, heart disease, other problems?  Or . . . have we even learned that yet?

THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST

My biggest problem with Christmas is dealing with the blues that come from too many bad memories.  At the age of 73, I should remember a lot of Christmases . . . but I don't.  If pressed into making a decision, I couldn't say which Christmas was my best, or worst.  The bad ones stick out like sore thumbs, though, and I remember them distinctly.  I spent one Christmas, my 21st, pretty much flat on my back recovering from an early November car accident that nearly killed me.  1999 was a bad one because we'd just buried my father-in-law, and other family problems added to that being perhaps the worst Christmas ever.  My first marriage ended on Christmas.  I lost several close friends within a few days of Christmas.  There's no need to go on and on about the bad ones, but the point is that they've never completely stopped haunting me.  And that usually ruins the best holiday of the year for me.

But . . . I'm married to a Christmas gal, a woman who despite all the bad Christmas seasons she's had, still throws herself into trying to make it a good time.  I'm the problem, and I'm fully aware of that.  It's hard for me to hide depression (wish I could), but this year I'm going to make myself toughen up and deal with Christmas.  Yesterday, I tried to finish up shopping for presents, and that always makes me angry.  I'm lousy at it.  I've tried giving cash money enclosed in cheery cards, have spent upwards of five thousand dollars on a single Christmas, and none of that has worked.  And, it's not them . . . it's me.

I got a badly needed lecture yesterday from my wife telling me to forget the money, forget about fretting over what I give people, forget about the past and all the bad memories . . . and just enjoy the time you have with people.  Give something small and inexpensive, she said, but give it with a glad heart . . . and nobody will care much about the present itself.  I went over to my shop after that, took care of some chores there, and then flopped down on a daybed and slept awhile.  The dream I had was about as strange as they get, visitations from people I haven't seen in many years, some of them no longer around.  But it wasn't a gloomy dream, wasn't like Scrooge's ghosts of Christmas past.  They were all happy to see me, and although the dream was bizarre, it was a wake-up call for me.  I woke up in tears, not so much from having seen people I've missed a lot, but from shame.  Yeah, just like Scrooge.

I've got two days to turn things around, see if I can make something out of what could be my last Christmas.  You never know at my age what tomorrow brings, and I don't want my family to remember my last Christmas as something that will spoil their future Christmases.  And if I have a few more Christmas seasons to live through, they will be different.  I'm not a poor man.  I've got enough money to buy people nice things, but I've never given them the thing they want most . . . me in a good mood.  It's gonna happen this year.  I promise.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MIDDLE CLASS: A FAMILY STORY

My parents were born in the early part of the 20th century, 1906 and 1908 - my mother in Mississippi and my father in Oregon.  Both were born into blue collar families, working class - farmers and ranchers and day job people.  But they both ended up well educated and working as professional class people - a minister and a school teacher.  That was beneficial to me because I grew up in a solid middle class home, upper middle class to be exact.  I married a woman first time around who came from a blue collar background, but she ended up with a college degree and in a profession that has pushed her into upper middle class status.  My second and current wife owns her own business, started as a hairdresser, turned it into a productive profession.  She saw to it that her daughter got well educated, college and advanced degrees.  She the director of a health care outfit, does well.  I spent 35 years being a college professor, saw to it that both of my children were well educated, expecting they'd carry on the family tradition of upper middle class status.

My son graduated from college and got an advanced degree in fine art, but he works now as a bartender in a large city, does OK financially, but has no plans to ever teach or work as an artist.  My daughter got a degree in biology, taught school for a while, married another teacher the first time around.  She didn't take to teaching, ended up in management - restaurants mostly.  She married a police officer the second time around, but he now works in the oil fields.  He's a decent man, works hard, provides well for his family, but is not well educated.  My son has never married, lives with a long time girlfriend who also works in the bar business.  My two grandchildren, both from my daughter, are leaning toward lower middle class lives.  The grandson flunked out of college in a hurry, had gone from job to job since then and shows no inclination to do much with his life.  My granddaughter is a freshman in college studying for a profession in criminal justice.  She plans to marry a guy before long who is a high school dropout, works as a welder.

My sister and her husband have also enjoyed upper middle class life.  She's mostly a housewife, is big time involved in church work, and he's a retired chemical engineer.  Their four children have done fairly well, with three of them getting college and advanced degrees.  Her two daughters live in New York City, do not work at jobs that require those hard earned degrees.  One of them has a doctorate she never uses professionally.  One son dropped out of college, went to work as a computer specialist in drafting, has done well . . . perhaps better than the others.  My sister's family has done a little better at upholding the family standard to upper middle class status than has mine.

Am I disappointed with how things have turned out so far?  Yes, I most surely am . . . but I'm also aware that my kids and grandkids are growing up in a society that is far different from the one I grew up in.  What has happened to my family has happened all over America in recent years - the lowering of class status and the demise of the middle class.  If you asked the average American what class they belong to, they'd likely list one higher than then qualify for.  The worst of the slippage in class status has occurred at the lower middle class status, among those people we call working class people. What we're talking about here just might be more critical than what has happened to the white collar set . . . the loss of the craftsmen, trained technicians, trained workers, the people who make the wheels go around in a society.  Many of those people, because of poor economic conditions and dwindling job markets, have slipped from lower middle class down to upper lower class.

You could write forever about what has caused this, and many are these days.  You can blame it on the workplace environment, businesses going high tech, modernization of equipment, outsourcing jobs to other countries, etc.  The workers themselves have changed, and so have their expectations. Reality sets in when they discover that what they're trained to do just isn't available, and you can believe me when I say that when the jobs went down in quality, so did class status.  You can only do what you can do, if that makes any sense.  We all have to work at something, and if what we really want isn't available, we have to do something else . . . and often jobs like that won't sustain us in a lifestyle that keeps our social status at an acceptable level.

I could blame it on anything, I suppose, but I choose to blame government.  Put plainly, they let us down when it came to protecting the American worker, both white collar and blue collar . . . and they did that to the benefit of the rich, the upper class, the vested interests.  One of my right wing friends recently told me, "Well, all those jobs going to foreign countries was a smart business move. Workers here in America demand too much, and you can't pay what they demand.  It's their own fault."  I always write comments like that off to just being words out of an idiot's mouth, shake my head, and walk off.  My thoughts are that if foreign companies can come here and hire American workers to build their products, why can't our own companies?  It's done all the time.  And that makes the real culprit here greed . . . just plain greed.

Here's a good question:  Why doesn't government do something about that?  Why do we not have some rules in place that would keep jobs at home?  The answer is simple, at least in my mind.  Our politicians are in the pockets of the people outsourcing the jobs, giving away our future . . . and we just keep electing the dumbasses to office . . . and our middle class is going away . . . and with it goes our chances of ever being a dynamic, self-sufficient country again.

Damn, I'm glad I'm old and near the end.  I hate watching anything die.

YOU HAD TO KNOW IT WAS COMING . . . AND IT DID

So, the Republicans have taken control of the Senate . . . and in a big way.  Talking heads now will speculate about what that means, blow lots of hot air (and even more bullshit), and in the end will say little of importance.  You had to know it was coming, but what will it change?  Not much.  Gridlock will still be the order of the day with Congress passing measures the President will veto.  Forget about Congressional override of the vetoes 'cause that's not likely to happen.  The shoe is now on the other foot with Democrats having to become an obstructionist party, something the Republicans are very good at.  Democrats are less proficient at obstruction, but they'll likely toe the line and do fairly well at it.  What changes come about will be minor.

Second term presidents are often faced with the same thing now facing Obama. In many ways, he's been facing it all along . . . the frustration of trying to lead his own divided party and at the same time deal with a right wing dominated Republican party.  We'll never know if he would've made a good President; all we know at this point is that he hasn't been.  The divisions won't end with this Republican victory in Senate races, might even grow more intense.  If you are a Republican, the victory gives you some cause to feel confident that you can be even more of a thorn in Obama's side, and in the side of Democrats who are now in the scramble mode.  They just took a serious ass-kicking, so now it's time to do some self evaluation . . . and that will cause some real squabbles within their ranks.  If they don't make some adjustments, they're looking at another loss in the 2016 elections.

This could be a good thing for Democrats in the long run.  They need to change, and that's a fact.  They need to forget the Clintons and Bidens and any other old school candidates and start looking for people who can deal with a rejuvenated Republican party.  I don't see anybody in their ranks at the moment who can pull that off other than Brian Schweitzer, former governor of Montana.  He's a moderate to right kind of Democrat, a practical man who is often a critic of his own party.  He can run against a Republican candidate and at the same time run against Obama, and that's what the next election is going to come down to.  Obama has been disastrous to Democrats, and that should be obvious by now.  Since Schweitzer has been a critic all along, he's tailor made as a candidate who can run for office promising change . . . and I think that's what voters are going to want.  The answer to our problems isn't going to the right, to the hard line Republicans.  They never have been able to run government.  But voters need a choice other than either the left leaning Democrats or the right leaning Republicans.  We need someone in the middle because that's where most reasonable thought comes from . . . and never from the extremes.

DOES THE GHOST OF COLONEL REB HAUNT OLE MISS?

I started being an Ole Miss (That's the University of Mississippi) fan as a youngster, have followed them ever since . . . and that's a long time.  I still like seeing them win, but it's been a while since they've had a top quality football team.  This year has been a little different - new coach, new program, new players, and new success.  They lost their second game of the season tonight to Auburn, a game they should've won.  Bad luck cost them the game, and the same was true last week when they lost a close one to LSU.  I wrote a blog back in 2010 when Ole Miss dropped their long time mascot, Colonel Reb in favor of some stupid bear.  Yeah, a bear called Rebel Black Bear, or something dumb like that.  Colonel Reb faded into history, and I predicted in my somewhat angry blog that his ghost would haunt Ole Miss.  I said it mostly in jest, of course, but now I'm starting to wonder if I wasn't right.

What irked me about dropping Colonel Reb was the criticism of him as being a symbol of racism. That's just plain and simple bullshit, and I'm not the only former fan who lost some interest in them.  That's what I said - former fan.  I was a fan of the Ole Miss Rebels, a team with a mascot that well represented the state.  But a bear?  Mississippi isn't home to bears of any kind, but it is home to a proud tradition that's partly based on lots of brave soldiers who died in the Civil War.  Nobody remembers that war, not from a first hand experience of having lived through it, but it's history, dammit, and you can't ignore that.  My great, great grandfather fought and died in the Civil War, and he fought for the south as a native of Mississippi.

One well known Mississippi historian says that the former mascot, Colonel Reb, was based on a black man, not some hotshot confederate officer.  Even if he wasn't, he still shouldn't have been scrapped because some people who'd rather not remember Mississippi's proud history didn't like him. But times change, and so do universities, and the bear replaced Colonel Reb.  The Ole Miss loss tonight put an end to any chance of them making the finals, the playoffs for national champion.  It also puts an end to any hopes they had of being SEC champs.  With a demanding schedule remaining, they could lose two more games.  Arkansas almost beat Miss. State tonight, and Ole Miss must play them . . . and they play State the final game of the year.  They could, of course, win both games, finish the season 10-2, and end up in a respectable bowl game.  But I'd be willing to bet that they don't win out.  As I watched the seconds tick down in tonight's 35-31 loss to Auburn, I could almost swear I heard the rattle of sabers and distant cannon fire.  The ghost of Colonel Reb is alive and well . . . and my guess is, he's pissed off.  Good luck, Black Bear.  You're gonna need it.

THE GOOD RACE: CHRISTIE VS. SCHWEITZER

I've been both a Republican and a Democrat, and in that order.  I quit the Republican Party back in 1992 when Bill Clinton ran for President, haven't voted for one since . . . in any election.  To make a long story short, the Republicans pissed me off when they allowed the right wing fundamentalists to take over their party.  I swore then to never vote for anyone with the big R behind their name again, and I haven't.  But if Chris Christie runs for President in 2016, and the Democrats come up with another candidate like Obama, I will break that vow, bite down hard, take a deep breath, and vote for Christie.  The only thing that will change my mind is if Brian Schweitzer wins the Democratic nomination, in which case I'll probably stay with the dumocrats and vote for him.  I might have to think hard about it, though, 'cause at the moment I don't see a lot of difference between the two men. Schweitzer looks like a moderate to right leaning Democrat, and Christie looks like a moderate to left leaning Republican.  I like both men.

I'll cut Obama some slack when it comes to his mediocre performance as President because he had one helluva mess to clean up when he took office.  I'm not sure anybody could've fixed all the problems left by the Bush bunch when they left town.  We were left with too many Republicans still in office, plenty enough to keep screwing things up.  Put plainly, right wing Republicans could fuck up a one car funeral procession, much less a highly complex government.  If I end up voting for Christie, I'll have to overcome some deep-seated resentments toward his party, but I think he's capable of bringing about some change.  The same is true of Brian Schweitzer.  He's not a mainstream Democrat, and that's what I like about him.  He too could bring about change in the country, and in his own party.

You can bet the liberal leaning Democrats will fight Schweitzer's candidacy, as will the right leaning Republicans who'll fight Christie's run for the Presidency.  I'm hoping lots of Americans are like me, sick to death of both sides - the extreme left and the extreme right.  Liberals tend to be naive, out of touch with what's practical and achievable.  Conservatives are limited by narrow mindedness, sort of a brain freeze when it comes to critical thinking.  And if you can't think, you can't run anything.  It's hard to lead anything when you're systematically limited by an obstructionist stance, and if there's anything Republicans do well, it's obstruct.  It's likewise difficult to lead if you work from a stance of considering too many options.  That's another brain freeze thing, I think - not being able to decide what to do, which way to go.  Liberals tend to struggle with that.

I loved Harry Truman because he was a practical man - perhaps not the brightest President we ever had, but he didn't get bogged down by either restrictions brought about by not being able to see the problem (Republicans) or by seeing too much of it (Democrats).  Bill Clinton had that quality about him, some of that Truman practicality.  And I'm seeing some of that in both Christie and Schweitzer, and so far, I like what I see.  I'm not optimistic at this point that either man can win the nominations of their parties, but I hold out some hope it might happen.  For once in my life, I'd like to vote in a Presidential election where either candidate would be acceptable to me.  Maybe that's just a dream.

WHAT YOU SPEND IS CRITICAL TO SURVIVAL IN A HARD ECONOMY

Ok, here's the deal:  It's all about spending.  Think of it this way, and it will make more sense to you. What got the government into so much trouble with their budget?  Simple.  They spend far more than they make, and they spend money on a things that almost any nation will call extravagant.  What if the government spent half as much money as they now spend?  If they cut military spending and social programs in half, they'd be back in the red . . . and they're not about to do that.  If they trimmed the size of government, they'd be far better off.  We wouldn't, but they would.  Cuts in social programs leaves many people hanging by a string, a cuts in military spending leaves us more vulnerable to terrorists and other foreign threats.

Remember Pogo, the comic strip character?  He's credited with saying, "I have met the enemy, and he is us."  We are our own worst enemies, that's for sure.  We do that at the government level, and we do it to ourselves at the private level.  Did you ever sit down a figure out what you could do with your family budget if you had to go into a crisis mode?  I'm talking simple survival here, just hanging on, should the need arise.  Nobody wants to do that, but it can be done.  We all have choices to make each week or month with what we spend, and those choices determine how well we live.  If you cut out everything except what you need to stay afloat,  you'd be surprised at what you come up with.

If it's any help, here's my cut first list:

1) Get rid of car payments altogether
2) Cut back drastically on driving to save gas
3) No new clothes
4) No recreational budget
5) No vacations or travel except what's absolutely necessary
6) Shop carefully for food, get what you need, not what you want
7) Drop all insurances unless required by law or what's absolutely necessary
8) Minimize your utility bills (unplug everything you're not using, etc.)
9) Get medical attention only when it's a must
10) Rid yourself of the parasites (demanding family members included)

Doing that would save me over two thousand dollars a month, cut my budget by a third.  Not enough? If I absolutely had to, I could cut the budget in half.  Like everyone else, I don't want to . . . but it could be done.  Hard times would require doing hard things to survive.

GLOOM AND DOOM, OR JUST KEEN OBSERVATION?

There's always money to be made as a prophet of gloom and doom, and you have to take that stuff with a grain of salt.  Still, few people want to believe the worst can really happen, and that means not many are prepared for it when it comes.  Some gloom-and-doomers tried to warn us about the financial collapse of 2007-8, but it happened and pretty much caught us flat-footed.  We're still trying to dig out from under that big pile of political poop . . . and that's what it was - a government that badly mismanaged that dismal affair.  But all the blame should've fall on them alone because we're all to blame for it.  Greed caused it, fed by a lusty public wanting more and more and more.  Houses were selling like hotcakes, business was booming, and almost everyone thought it would last forever. The hard times fell on us, took the air out of our sails, left us adrift for a while . . . while government and business leaders tried to figure out ways to get us back up and running again.  But did they want to return to a time when some sanity ruled, when things were good but not fantastic?  Nope.  They wanted it all again, and the measure of success they set for us has been too high and unrealistic.

Well, the gloom-and-doomers are at it again, this time with some really dire warnings about what's to come.  Some of these people aren't just hawkers of books of prophecy; they're legitimate specialists who should know the system, and they're pointing to some indicators that show the direction we're headed.  I'm not an economic wizard by a long shot, but I do know something about politics and government.  At the cost of sounding like just another all hell's fixing to break loose pessimist, I've got to agree with some of what I'm reading about an impending depression, one that might last  a while.  And in doing so, all I'll be accomplishing is throwing in just one more voice of warning. Damn few people will listen, or care.  Too many of us live in a world of the right now, immediate gratification . . . and we're still too greedy, want too much.

With that aside, I'll take aim at the let's-go-with-the-flow folks who just won't listen and will suffer the most when and if there's another serious economic downturn.  By that, I mean just your average American who's trying to survive in a world of ups and downs . . . and without much planning for the future.  There's a problem with planning for another economic downturn, like . . . just what do I plan for?  And even if I believe it's going to happen, what can I do about it?  The answers to those two questions are easy, but they're most certainly bitter pills to swallow.

As for what you can plan for, my suggestion is to go down the middle.  I'm not at all convinced there'll be a big, long-lasting depression like we saw many years hence in the 1930s.  On the other hand, I see some hard times ahead, due mostly to the government's inadequacy to deal with it.  Not much is going to change in regard to a sharply divided nation when it comes to liberal vs. conservatives.  Elections will be close with winners barely getting public approval and leaving us with lots of dissatisfied losers.  Congress will not break out of gridlock, regardless of who wins the elections this fall and in two years.  It won't matter much who becomes the President when Obama leaves office, but what little difference it makes could be for the worse.  I think Obama's unpopularity will hurt the Democrats some, but few people really love Republicans either.  In fact, public approval of Congress is around 15 percent.  15 percent!  That means 85 percent of folks, me included, don't think much of how they've handled things.  Can that get worse?  Not much, but the economic situation we face might . . . if Congress calls the shots.  Obama's approval is at least three times higher, if that tells you anything, but he's no financial wizard either.

By going down the middle, I'm suggesting that things will get worse . . . bad enough to cause some difficulties for almost any family, especially middle income folks.  Maybe you've noticed this about government, but when things get bad for the basic wage earner, the crowd who really pays most of the taxes in this country, their solution to shortfalls in revenues is to increase taxes.  Atta boy, big brother and little bro.  Take more from those already suffering, drive us into deeper water and cause more anger and despair.  And they won't back off because they are the most greedy of the greedy. Too many people look to government for jobs, and they'll scratch and claw for every dime they can raise through taxation.  That means those of us who actually tote the load will have an even bigger load, and that means we cut back on other things.

I don't know where everyone else plans to do, but my plan is to simply spend less money.  You won't get any help from government here because they want you to spend, and spend a lot.  The more you spend, the more they make off various taxes.  I plan to be observant, pay close attention to what's going on, and they try to act accordingly.  I've already started the process, just so I'll be used to it when the times comes to hunker down, do the turtle thing and pull back into my shell.  Nothing I do can save me from a wholesale meltdown, and it won't save most other people either.  But should we go into a moderate depression, I'll survive.  I no longer have credit cards, don't owe any bank or lender except my house and car payment . . . and I'm closing in on getting those paid off.  By the time Obama leaves office, I won't have a car payment.  I don't buy clothes, don't have a recreational budget of any kind, don't take vacations, travel, or even go out much.  In short, I'm not buying anything that isn't essential.  Will I be ready when and if the hard times come?  Not completely, but I'll be in a lot better shape than most people.

I'll write more about living on less later on, just in case anyone is interested.  And I've got a queasy feeling that we damn sure need to pay attention.

DO ANIMALS TALK TO US?

Can animals talk?  Do they have a language of their own?  Oh, you bet they do, and it's mostly all Greek to us.  I understand only one language - English.  That puts me at a communication handicap at times, but fortunately for me, I live where most people speak the same language.  Half the people who live where I do speak Spanish, or a form of it we call Tex-Mex down here in Texas, but they also speak English.  I've studied French and Spanish, don't speak them well but can read a little of it.  Some folks might argue that I don't even speak English well, but I seem to be able to get my point across when I speak or write it. And I communicate with animals on a regular basis, and that's 'cause I understand dog and cat language.  I learned to do that by simply paying attention to their mannerisms, their barks and meows and other sounds.  The tell me when they want food, or when they want in or out, or when they want affection.  If you observe and listen, you learn their language . . . and animals are a lot smarter than most people give them credit for being.

Most people have an anthropocentric relationships with animals, and that comes from the erroneous assumption that we are superior to them.  Have you ever seen a human being as graceful as a cat? Can you jump six feet off the ground, or navigate along the top of a wood fence only a half inch wide?  No, and you can't move at an unbelievable speed either, and you can't climb a tree like a squirrel either.  Compared to a cat, you are slow and clumsy and plodding . . . and perhaps stupid. We can't take on any of the physical attributes of a cat, but they can sure take on some of ours.  Anyone who takes time to work with them knows how much they are capable of learning.  I've got an Australian cow dog with a working vocabulary of several hundred words, and that's because she pays attention to what I say.  So do my cats, and I talk to them a lot . . . and they talk back.

Animals don't need to wear a wristwatch to know what time it is, and they don't need to watch the weather reports to know what's ahead.  My cow dog knows in advance when rain is coming.  She hates it because the thunder and lightening scare her, and I can tell from her movements when something is in the air.  My cats tend to huddle up when bad weather is coming.  They tell me when it's time to eat and sleep, their two favorite things.  I've got one cat that sits and stares at me when he comes inside for the night, makes repeated trips to the bedroom, looks up at the bed and then at me, saying, "Hey, I'm sleepy.  Let's hit the sack."  And he won't go bed without me, likes to sleep curled up behind my knees or around my feet.  Another cat crawls up in my lap and gives me a little nip to remind me it's time for his rubs, his attention for the day.  They all have a way of telling me what they want, and like children, they act up sometimes.  If Gracie, a calico cat, doesn't get what she wants, she pees on something that belongs to me.

Animals can be selfish, moody, angry, sad, disappointed, happy, or playful, just like people can, and they show that through behavior.  Animals grieve when one of their own kind dies, or is sick.  My little cocker spaniel dogs knows when you feel bad and tries to comfort you.  The cats have ways of telling me when something isn't right, when they feel bad . . . and you only know these things when you pay attention, listen or observe their language.  And like with people, some dogs and cats have certain personality traits and mannerisms.  In fact, each one of them is different from the others in some way, and what works for one of them might not work for the others.  You can't treat all of them the same way.

Some of my cats, for instance, are totally dependent, while others are free spirits that want to be allowed a lot of freedom to move about and do things their way.  Not all of them are friends, and some conflicts develop between cats that don't like each other.  Sometimes that changes when they reach an accommodation.  Sometimes they never do that and you have to keep them separated.  And sometimes, you'll notice some real love affairs between two animals.  Some of our cats are more attached to the dogs than they are to the other cats, want to be around them all the time.  Do they share a language of some kind?  I think so.

IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AIN'T IT?

I see disturbing news reports of American teenagers trying to leave the country to join up with ISIS. A few if them have apparently been successful . . . and I'm glad.  What disturbs me most is that we actually go to lengths to stop them from leaving because a part of me says, or rather shouts, "LET THE LITTLE BASTARDS GO!  Another thing that disturbs me is how small the world is getting to be due to all the media devices now at our disposal.  As long as we have Facebook, Twitter, global websites, cell phones, and other electronic gizmos, we're shrinking boundaries that have protected us some in the past.  Everybody seems to know what everybody else is doing these days, and that's not always good.

The war against terrorism has become one of technology, ours against theirs.  Bombs are no longer as important as we would like for them to be . . . not unless we resort to using the really big ones . . . you know, the nuclear bombs.  That's a quick and easy solution to the problem in terms of disposing of those who want to tear you down, but it presents an even bigger problem:  Who and where would we bomb?  We knew exactly who the enemy was and where they were when we nuked the Japanese back in 1945, but we can't do that with terrorists.  For one thing, if we did, we'd have to consider bombing ourselves.  We could bomb Iraq, or Syria, or Iran, or any number of middle eastern countries, but that would cause problems we might not recover from.  That would make us one of the bad guys, and we don't want to wear that tag forever.

Perhaps the solution is really in the very thing we find most threatening right now, and that the technology explosion that makes the world a smaller place.  We can no longer protect our borders because they aren't as clearly marked now.  And then there's the threat of disease, like the ebola thing. Here we become victims of our own craving for liberty, the freedom to move about at will, go where we want, do what we want, all that.  We might also be victims of our inclination to be the good guys who rush to the aid of stricken nations . . . like doctors going to Africa to help fight ebola . . . and then bringing it home with them.  We hate any form of government interference with our freedoms, even during times when we're under attack from disease or terrorists.  A good, far-reaching propaganda campaign against that might be in order . . . and some good old common sense might work too.

OLIGARCHY: A WARNING COME TO PASS

One of the first books I was required to read while studying political science was The Iron Law of Oligarchy, written by Michels and Pareto.  It pointed out a flaw in democracy, saying oligarchies would arise among them.  An oligarchy is rule by a few from behind the scenes, such as a strong military or religions group or a wealthy elite.  Sound familiar?  It should because that's what you're currently living under in these United States of America.  We aren't a full-fledged oligarchy, not in the sense perhaps like you'd find in other countries, but we're definitely no longer a full-fledged democracy either.

We still vote politicians into office, but what's behind all that?  Nobody can get elected to Congress these days without the support of big money, and the country is full of monied people looking for influence in government.  Most of your representatives in Congress are essentially bought and paid for, and beholding to groups with money who put them there.  That, partner, ain't democracy.  Want to be President?  You'll have to sell yourself to these monied interests, or you won't get there, and the same is true all down the line.  I grew up in a small town that was essentially run by a few wealthy and prominent men, and they never held public office.  Everyone who lived there knew this, didn't care because they trusted the elite more than they did the politicians.  I now live in a small town run the same way.  None of the people who really wield power around here hold public office, but they still run the town, and again, nobody cares.

We have a hard time getting people to vote in America, and when the public doesn't vote in big numbers, the changes grow that somebody behind the scenes will end up running things.  They have a better chance of getting their folks elected to office with a low voter turnout.  If we can get over 60 percent of the registered voters to the polls for a Presidential election, that's good.  That percentage goes down some for other public offices, and it seems that the further down the line you go, the lower the percentages go.  Here in my home town, which has a population of around 6,000, city council jobs are usually won with some 500 votes.  County offices are won with low vote totals.  Members of the state legislature are likewise won with low vote totals.  That means most people choose not to vote, and if you ask they why, you get a response like, "It doesn't make any difference."

I've studied voting trends for a long time, and I used to tell my college classes that democracy in this country has turned out to be lazy and indifferent.  Most people just don't care enough to vote in big numbers, and the people who do care enough want something from government.  And when the people who want the most have big money, the outcome is inevitable.  They buy government.  The grand idea of an independent representative going into public office has not come to pass . . . but the warnings from Pareto and Michels has.  It's a basic fact of life that the elite will always look for ways to take over, run things, reap the rewards of those efforts, and that's not part of the democratic principle.  I wouldn't dare say that allowing the elite to govern, whether it's out in the open or behind the scenes, is always a bad thing.  But it's a bad thing for democracy, for the people who live under it. The only way the masses can stop that is by voting, and you can't do that until you work toward organizing people.  That's a near impossible job.

We work through political parties in America, and most people don't like politics much.  I suppose one could make the argument that a political party itself is an oligarchy wanting to control government.  We choose not to identify them as such, and that's perhaps proper.  That's the system we have, so it's the one we must work with.  We have choices between candidates from the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, and from a few independent office seekers.  The best we can hope for is that our party wins, and that means that for a while we have government by Democrats, or government by Republicans.  That way, we know who to give credit to when things go well, and who to blame when they go wrong.  My worry is:  Who should we blame when things go wrong most of the time?

AGING GRACEFULLY JUST NOT IN THE CARDS

You wake up one morning and something is missing, and it takes you a while to figure out what's gone.  You still have demands, obligations, duties to perform, but for some reason they just don't seem all that important anymore.  You don't really look forward to anything; you're just passing time. Yeah, time, the thing you're running out of.  That alone should put anyone into panic mode - the thought that before long you'll be gone.  The big problem isn't that the end is just around the corner; it's a matter of what to do with what time you have left . . . or think you have left . . . and there's no way of knowing when or how it ends for you.  It almost seems like a waste of time to do anything at all, and that's what old age is all about - dealing with short time.

But regardless of how short time might be, it's still here, and you've still got things to do, or should do.  My closest friend died about 15 years ago, and shortly thereafter his wife said, "I'm so disappointed for him because he had such big plans.  He wanted to write more, go places, be involved in things, and all that got cut short."  My response to her was a simple question:  "Would you have wanted him to die doing nothing, just sitting and waiting on an end to it all?"  Those words come back to haunt me now.  I was with him just hours before he passed, knew he was in desperate shape, and I let him send me away.  I had been pleading with him to return to the hospital, see if they couldn't do something for him . . . but he was resolute about not going back.  I know now that he didn't want help, that he'd had all he wanted and was ready for the end.

I'm now a good dozen years older than he was when his life ended, just short of being the same age my father was when he died.  Neither of those men waited it out, didn't stop doing things because they're bodies were shutting down.  They knew time was short, but they kept going, kept making plans and looking forward to something.  I've stopped writing, have book projects going but can't find the inspiration or determination to finish them, and I don't work on much of anything else anymore.  I have chores to attend to because I'm a caretaker for quite a few small animals, dogs and cats mostly.  I've got those daily chores to run, bills to pay, upkeep of property to see about, and so I'm not idle.  But I know what's missing, and I have no idea how to get it back.  I'm not excited about anything, don't have any real plans for the future.  And I'm not afraid, not really worried either.  As of just last week, when I had my normal six months check-up, the doctor said everything was fine, that my tests were the best he'd seen in me since I'd been his patient.  I'm in decent physical shape, but somehow that hasn't translated into anything productive.  I am not aging gracefully, at least not when it comes to actually doing anything worthwhile.

I went to the refrigerator the other day and looked inside at all the jars and packages of things that were 90 percent used up but still there.  Why had I not finished off that jar of mayo?  A couple of sandwiches, and it would've been gone, just another jar I could toss into the trash.  Then it hit me.  Why bother?  It's just a few tablespoons of mayo, so why not just throw it away and clear out some
space in the refrigerator?  Because it's a bother, that's why.  You have to dig deep into the jar to get out what's left . . . and old age is the same.  I'm down to having to work harder to get what little is left out of life, and I'm letting that shut me down.  You can't save it, that's for sure . . . so why not just go ahead a use it up?

Maybe it's just a gesture, but I'm going to have a sandwich, and it's not even lunch time.  I might be wrong, but I figure the last few slices of ham or those few last bites of mayo will taste just fine . . . and then, they will be gone.  And that's the way it should be.

ROOT ROT: SMALL TOWN AMERICA IN DECLINE

Sunday morning in rural America, a small town in central Texas, a place that's been around since shortly after the Civil War.  You can see the oldness around here and in other towns nearby, and like all small towns, some old time traditions hang on.  Nobody around here gets in a big hurry, so life here is comfortable (if you don't mind the slow pace).  The countryside around here is good to look upon, the weather in always pretty nice, and the people are friendly.  From the outside looking in, this place looks fairly prosperous.  Few people worry much about the future, don't pay a lot of attention to what's going on in the world around them, and their philosophy is rooted in rural stoicism.  You take life as it comes.

So, on this Sunday morning I drove across town to take care of my shop animals, those cats and dogs that expect to be fed twice a day.  Chores here at home with animals are done for the morning - front porch cats to feed, inside cats to be fed and let out for a while, check the yard to make sure everything is secure there, and then go to the local donut store for some breakfast.  People are stirring around, heading for church, and there's a crowd at the place I buy breakfast . . . a place run by Cambodians.  If you get your nails done in a salon, some Vietnamese gal will likely do that, and there's a Chinese restaurant just off the square.  Last night at a drive through place, the vehicle in front of me was a big foreign made SUV, driven by a grossly overweight Mexican/American lady (this town his half their numbers), with kids hanging out every window.  At the local high school football game a few weeks back, I noticed few white kids on the field for our team.  My waiter at the Italian restaurant on the square didn't speak good English when I went there not long ago, and all but one motel in town belongs to Indians.  You know, like from India type Indians.  A hamburger place on main street is owned by some dude from Afghanistan.

My home town is dependent on the oil business, and when that goes bust, the town takes an economic nosedive.  Since some seven highways cross there, we've got lots of trucking companies.  A factory outside of town makes big trailers and oil field equipment.  We've got sand plants here, those places that supply the sand used in fracking for oil . . . big businesses, lots of money into the local economy.  Yeah, things are sorta booming around here . . . and the town is still dying.  Dying in the sense that it's no longer what rural America used to be; it's no longer a place that keeps up a culture that became the roots of America.  And we all know what happens to a tree that gets root disease.  It can stand lightning strikes and survive, blistering winds, drought, all sorts of things, but when the roots go bad, the tree is a goner.  America is suffering from root rot, dying from the bottom up, and we're too dumb to see it.

But wait!  Not everyone is totally unobservant or ignorant about what's happening to us.  Cities, where most of our population lives, can't save America from root rot.  They are there for reasons - the need for jobs, the lust for the urban experiene, all that . . . and I'm glad they're there.  Cities are also magnets for almost everything that is wrong with us as a nation.  Overcrowding is causing us big time problems because people in need flock to the cities.  Taking care of them costs billions of buck, and some of those costs are not easy to recognize.  I like the cities because I want those people to stay there, not come out here to our rural areas and fuck it up like they have their own backyard.  Maybe you've noticed, but city folks are always wanting to dump their waste on the country folks.  There's a value out here opposed to that, and I want that preserved.  Country culture is important to this nation because we are the root stock, the beginning place, and not because we provide the urban areas with more people.  Yeah, we're backward in some ways, but that's not always bad.  Somebody needs to take action to save the small towns . . . or we all go down with them.

I welcome the newcomers, the foreigners and the minorities, to small towns . . . but only if they are able to adapt to our way of life.  Do it our way, the root way, or don't come.  Everything changes, and that's a fact, but we need to resist the changes that tear us down.  We need to, but we probably won't, and that will bring about the demise of what made us a great nation.  We die from the roots, and I'm not sure we can stop that process.  My advice to anyone who lives like I do, in a small town that still has something worth saving is to resist the rot.  Hang on, baby . . . hang on.

OBAMA IS AN ENVIRONMENTAL DUD

He talks a good line about environmental quality, but when it gets right down to it, Obama is a dud.  In other words, listening to him talk about environment is just more political bullshit, sort of like listening to Republicans talk about family values and all that.  Obama once said that fracking for oil could be a bridge to a cleaner environment, when in fact, it's been disastrous.  It's hard to believe the man in the White House is that blind, or just indifferent . . . but anyone who drives through a fracking oil patch sees the burn-off spouts billowing flames and smoke into the air.  That's gas, partner, and it's going to waste . . . and it's polluting the air.  And Obama likes that?

There is nothing good about fracking other than it provides more fossil fuel, and that's something we are greedy for.  The costs of having that are enormous.  My son-in-law works for an oil company, is currently in the oil patches in eastern New Mexico.  He doesn't work with a fracking unit, says he won't do that.  My daughter went to visit him a while back, came home talking about what a shithole the place was.  She talked about the gas spouts, about how they burned off the gas, about how the entire area smells rotten, how it looked awful.  I know that area fairly well, have watched it go into the crapper over the years.  Now the oil companies are in North Dakota and are doing the same thing there.

I'm told that fracking is the worst job in the oil business, and that it takes a special breed of worker to do it.  It's hard work, demanding work, and it attracts the dregs of society to do it.  Wherever fracking outfits go, so goes the bottom feeders, the lowlives, the desperate worker who needs the money.  And with them come the other lowlives, those who feed off them . . . the vendors of booze and drugs and prostitution.  And what they leave behind when they're done raping Mother Earth is ugly . . . and Obama likes that?  Is he just too misinformed to know what's going on?  Is he just playing politics as usual?  Or . . . is he part of the problem and needs to go?  Oh, I forgot, he is going before long, and in my mind, that's not all bad.

I'm a Democrat, by the way, who voted twice for Obama.  My votes didn't come out of total ignorance of what to expect from him.  It was one of those grit your teeth and do it things because I couldn't tolerate the idea of voting for the men running against him.  His stance on any number of things don't sit well with me, but it could have been worse had the other guys won.  And the election of 2016 is not far off, and I'll probably vote for another Democrat . . . if he comes out with a believable statement about fracking indicating a desire to stop it.  And if no one does?  For the first time in my voting history, I'll sit home that day.

GLEN CAMPBELL'S LAST SONG

I got a late start as a guitar player, was about 25 years old when I bought my first one and started learning to play.  That first guitar started a lifelong fascination with that particular instrument . . . and with music.  That passion grew into becoming a guitar maker, owning a shop where I could build the guitars I loved so much.  My second guitar, a present from my mother, was an Ovation, the same guitar Glen Campbell played.  It even had his name on it, and it was one of the first guitars of that kind the company made.  I still have that guitar, and it's still in pristine condition.  I treasure it more than any guitar in my collection.

My second wife turned out not to be a big Glen Campbell fan.  She didn't dislike him, just didn't care for his music . . . and that didn't sit well with me at first.  When I took her to Mississippi to meet my mother for the first time, I offered a warning.  "Don't say anything unkind about Glen Campbell's music around my mother.  She adores him."  My mother passed away back in 1992, but to this day when I hear one of Glen's songs, I think of her.  Maybe she loved him because of my interest in him.  I used to make cassette tapes for her - me singing and playing the guitar, and many of those songs were Glen's songs.  I never met the man, but I owe him a lot.  His music encouraged me to work hard at learning guitar, learning how to sing,

Maybe you've noticed, but you don't often hear anyone trying to perform one of Glen's great hits.  There's a good reason for that, I think.  Nobody in the music business wants to look bad, or come off as being second best . . . and nobody can sing Glen's songs like he did.  Damn few people ever learn to play a guitar as well as he did.  And now he's recorded his last song, "I'm Not Going to Miss You."  Well, maybe not Glen, but at least one guy out here is sure going to miss you.

SOMETIMES YOU PLAY FOR A TIE

Everything in life can't be measured in terms of wins and losses.  Hardly anyone plays the game of life to lose; it just works out that way sometimes.  We might be tempted to think we always play to win, but that's not the case either because we're smart enough going in to know that a win isn't possible.  David slew Goliath, so goes the biblical story, and perhaps that's an encouragement to always consider coming out on top.  You won't know until you've tried, and the implication there is that you must first try.  Winning usually takes some luck, but I've noticed that good luck won't come your way until you've first put yourself in a position to accept it when it presents itself.  We posture ourselves, in other words, so we'll be ready for it.  And if we don't get lucky, it could well be that we at least come out with a tie because we prepared for it.

Let's say, for instance, that you are going up against something that's just too big to beat.  An outright win is out of the question, but that doesn't mean we're out of options.  Should I fight or not?  Can I fight hard enough to at least tie with the beast I do battle with, or can I minimize the effects of the loss?  The answers here are yes to both questions.  You should fight, and even if you can't come out with a tie, you can minimize the loss.  It's like going up against the IRS over taxes.  Suddenly coming into some money reminds all of us that some losses are attached to wins, or good luck.  The IRS works with the mindset that your good fortune is likewise theirs 'cause they'll be the first ones in line to get what's due them . . . and more, if they can get it.  So, let's say a rich relative dies and leaves me
a million bucks, and the IRS steps up and says, "Hold on there a minute, partner.  We want half of that."  You can accept that, pay up, and be content with half a million, which is a lot more than you had to start with.  Or you can say, "Nope, ain't gonna do it without a fight.  If you take my money, partner, you'll have to jump through some hoops to get it."

Here's where you've got few chances of winning, but it's also a chance you can fight for a tie, or perhaps to minimize the loss.  And even if you just outright lose, you at least have the satisfaction that you fought back.  That's always worth something.  Everybody likes to see Goliath toppled, so you'll likely encounter some help along the way in your fight against him.  Did David kill the giant all by himself, or did he get a little help?  He had a slingshot and a small stone, supposedly . . . but he also had God on his side.  From my perspective, David had a lock going in, had the big advantage, and the giant fell dead when a rock whacked him in the head.  Good shot, little man.  Good shot!

I don't know for sure, but I don't think God would ever side with the IRS.  Even if there is no God, or at least a God who doesn't get involved in such battles, the underdog has some advantages.  A bully's greatest weakness is his arrogance in thinking he can whip you, beat you down.  A smart bully picks his fights, doesn't mess with anyone his size or bigger, and that means even the IRS will back off when it goes up against a tougher opponent.  Nobody likes taxes, and they sure as hell don't like tax collectors.  The court of public opinion is against them, and they are aware of this.  Forget outright legal action against them - too expensive and likely a waste of time.  It's an option, but a slim chance option.  Negotiators have better success against them because compromise is a better possibility.  And if you do that, remember that you're playing for no better than a tie . . . and sometimes a tie is almost as good as a win.

Using the IRS as an example might be misleading, so here's another one for you.  Let's say you have to have emergency surgery, a lengthy stay at a hospital, and you end up with a half million bucks in charges for that.  Your insurance balks, won't pay up, and you've got lots of outstanding debts to deal with.  That's when the sharks start circling, wolves go on the hunt, and you're the prey.  Here come the bill collectors, the threats, the various actions against you to retrieve the money.  I know this story well because that happened to me.  Not quite that much money, but a lot . . . enough to ruin me for life.  I fought with them.  I pushed aside my distrust and suspicions about lawyers, and came up with a good one.  I told him what I'd been doing to deal with the sharks and wolves, and he smiled and said, "You're a bill collectors worst nightmare because you're smart and literate."  I won that fight, by the way.  The insurance company paid more, and I was able to get out from under the big debt by negotiating it down.  And they ones who wouldn't negotiate?  I just didn't pay them at all, and I got by with it.  The statue of limitations expired on those debts some years ago, and I saved my family from financial ruin.  I did everything I was supposed to do (like paying big insurance premiums), just
got caught up in a rotten system.

My point?  Don't ever let the bully get the best of you without a fight.  I didn't win my fight against a corrupt health care system, but I came out with a tie.  I ended up paying plenty, but I didn't get ruined.  And they would've ruined me, if I hadn't fought back.  And maybe, just maybe, I got a little help from upstairs.

FOOTBALL IS JUST A GAME . . . OR IS IT?

I live in Texas where football is a religion, and that's just downright stupid.  I like to watch football, have been doing it a long time, and I like some teams.  I went to school at both Mississippi State University and Ole Miss, undergraduate and graduate school, and I feel compelled to support their football endeavors.  Sometimes that's not easy since neither school has been all that good in past years.  If either of them end the season with a break even record, that's acceptable . . . and that's the way it should be.  Even on years those two school come up short, I still like them . . . but it's not because of their football programs.  Without my education that came mostly from them, I would've had a much more difficult life than I've had.

But . . . I still like watching football, and I like seeing "my" schools win.  I'm having a ball this year 'cause State and Ole Miss are undefeated so far.  This past weekend, State beat Texas A&M and Ole Miss beat Alabama.  Being a dutiful Mississippian by raising, I don't like Alabama.  Being a Texan now with preferences, I don't like A&M either, and I don't know a damn thing about the place other than that they've got the most obnoxious fans on the planet.  Ever hear those Aggie jokes?  Well, folks, they're not really jokes in my opinion.  I usually enjoy seeing Texas schools win, when they're playing out of state foes, but I've got my druthers about which in-state teams I like best.

I lived in Oklahoma for 30 years, so I've got loyalties there too.  Watching OU get whacked by TCU yesterday was a little disheartening, but I sort of like TCU too.  The fact is, I don't get unhappy these
days when any team loses, even my favorite teams.  I don't get delighted at any team's loss, unless maybe if it's Alabama or Auburn, and then I have to grin a little.  I'm old enough now to accept football as what it is . . . a game, just a game.  And the longer I live, the more concerned I get about those folks out there who live football.  Ok, go ahead and have fun with it, but don't take it too much to heart.  In case you missed it the first time, I'll say it again:  It's just a game.

Somebody needs to get that point over with a helluva lot of colleges in this country.  Far too much emphasis is placed on football.  As a point of reference, do you know anything at all about Notre Dame other than its football team?  Do you even know where it is, what town and state?  Do you know anything at all about the academic programs at schools like USC, Oregon, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Miss. State, Auburn, or South Carolina?  Here's a news flash for you, if you don't already know.  Some of those universities that play good football have academic programs much better than their football team.  Even if Alabama won all it's games for a hundred years, the football program there wouldn't measure up to the academic success of that university . . . and that, partner, ain't no game.

Here's the deal about football or any other sport, about why you should never take it too seriously.  Yeah, I'm an Ole Miss fan, also a Miss. State fan, and they're undefeated right now.  It won't stay that way because a winner is only a winner for one weekend.  They beat two teams this past weekend they weren't supposed to beat, and the very same thing may happen to them this coming weekend.  At least one of those teams won't finish undefeated because they play each other the last game of the year.  If both teams have good records by then, say like 8-3 or 9-2, I'll be happy with that, and I won't care who wins when they play each other.  IT'S JUST A GAME, DAMMIT!   The good news is, win or lose on the football field, they'll both still be a couple of good universities.

I WANT TO GO TO MADRID

I want to go to Madrid, but not the city in Spain.  The Madrid I'm talking about is a village along the Turquoise Trail in New Mexico, a place with about 400 inhabitants.  I went to Madrid for the first time back in the early 1970s, when it was still pretty much just a ghost town.  About all I saw there then were a few hippies living in tumbled down old houses, but that was before the restoration of the village took place.  Madrid is now a thriving little town that's somewhat of an art haven, and some of those artists are the real thing.  I kept going back to Madrid on occasions over they years, watched it grow and come alive again, but I haven't been there now in twenty years.  It's time to see it again, to see if it became what I hoped it would.

The Turquoise Trail is an old highway liking Santa Fe to Albuquerque, and most folks who travel it are tourists out to absorb some New Mexico culture.  That's why most tourists come to northern New Mexico, especially to Santa Fe.  Santa Fe itself is a city of perhaps seventy thousand, but all sorts of smaller towns and villages around it bring the total population of that area to around a quarter of a million people.  Madrid is in the desert south of Santa Fe, near mountains, and within easy driving distance to a city.  I'm wondering if Madrid has been able to pull off what Santa Fe lost . . . that art colony atmosphere.  Are the artists really there, or is the village full of curio shops and stuff like that?  Just checking it out on Google Earth, it looks like some legitimate artists are indeed there, and I see few signs of all the tacky stuff showing up.  You know, the fast food places, the foreign made stuff sold in curio shops, the motels, etc.  Madrid is too small for most of that, and that's the really good thing about the place.

Even small places can have things worth seeing.  There's an old railroad museum in Madrid, and a baseball field with an interesting story behind it.  Why would such a tiny town have a fancy baseball park?  Well, because a guy who owned a coal mine there many years ago wanted the town to have a baseball team, so he build the field.  When the coal played out, the town played out too, and the baseball field went neglected like everything else around there.  I understand that the state took over the baseball field, but I don't know if it's used for actually playing baseball now.  It's worth preserving, I think, because even little Madrid once had a farm team associated with the Dodgers.  I'm old enough to remember when small towns sponsored baseball teams.  I even played on one for a while, back in the old days.  We lost something when town leagues disappeared, and so did the weekly games held in the fields built around the country.

Yeah, I need to go back to Madrid and hang out a few days, maybe drift on up to Santa Fe and see what's still there worth seeing.  One of the few advantages of being old is remembering how things used to be, back before corporate America spoiled so much of the traditional things people like me appreciate.  The one constant you can count on is change, and sometimes it isn't an improvement over what we already had.  Progress, under whatever name we call it, is sometimes a regression.

DOING IT ON THE CHEAP (JUST CALL ME TUFFY TIGHTASS)

If you're among those of us with lower or moderate incomes, your survival may hinge on just how tough you can get.  If you want to do more than survive, meaning getting some enjoyment out of life, you have to get even tougher . . . and tighter.  My income is moderate.  I'm not poor by statistical standards set forth by the government, and for good reason.  It's my income bracket they take more from than any other.  Poor folks don't pay income tax (or very little of it), don't own property that will justify big tax assessments, and they don't spend a lot of money the state can recover sales tax from.  Not all wealthy people get off lightly when it comes to taxation, not unless they move into the category of the ultra-rich, but their numbers are much smaller than the moderate income folks.  We're the ones who take the big hit, and you can blame that squarely on government.  They make the rules, and they sure don't go in our favor.   And the chances are that won't change anytime soon.

With that in mind, which means you have to accept it as a fact of life, it's toughen up time.  It's time to tighten up, get your priorities in order.  It might even take more than getting tough and tightening up; it might take getting downright mean.  Some suggestions about how to do that are:

1) Examine extravagant costs, buying those things you just want but do not need.  Do you really need a new car?  No, you don't.  You just need a dependable vehicle, and used ones abound.  I bought a really nice SUV in 2012, slightly used, still under warranty and got new car financing on it . . . for ten grand less than it cost new.  As a second car, I drive a 2001 Buick Park Avenue that's still a good driver, paid less than eight grand for it when it was only 6 years old.  You don't need new cars.

2) Keep energy cost lower by following some simple rules, like unpluging everything you aren't using.  Use only what lighting is necessary.  Close off rooms in the house you aren't using.

3) Hold sellers accountable for what they charge you, and shop carefully.  Don't be a label buyer, find the best deal.  If something is overpriced, complain about it . . . or just do without it, if that's possible.  Always assume that the seller doesn't give a damn about your financial well-being.

4) Drive less, save money on gasoline.  We all drive too much.  Don't be a run-and-fetch-it person who thinks they can't do without it until you need to make a trip to the store.

5) Take an active part in putting pressure on government at all levels to do better . . . and we all know they could do better.  Don't be timid about complaining about high utility bills, property taxes, or insurance costs.  There is no greater rip-off in America than insurance - car, home, health, or life.  Make sure you get the best deal you can for as little as possible.  Don't stay with the same company too long because they'll start taking you for granted.  Always examine the alternatives to what you currently pay.

6) Do your best to get off the tit, meaning you don't need to lean on government.  Just because you have Medicare, don't assume that you need to run to the doctor for every little thing.  Have done only what needs to be done.  Medical costs can most certainly ruin your chances are ever being more than just a survivor.  Always question the doctors carefully.  And don't assume that the health care system has your best interest at heart.

7) Don't get suckered into any investment that is not sound.  If there's any doubt in your mind about the legitimacy of something, get busy and do your own research.  Ask questions, and make sure you get the right answers.  We live in an age of the grifter, the mooch, and the opportunist.  Stay forever vigilant concerning what is offered as a favor to you.

8) Don't be the host for a bunch of leeches, and ridding yourself of the parasites can be hard because the chances are you are related to them.  I'm talking about kids who demand too much, needy friends, relatives who see you and as source of something.  Doing this takes some real toughness, but it can be done.

9) Let your home become your charity.  Don't give to anything unless you can easily afford it.  Most charities are bogus, so if you do give money to them, do the homework first.  Make certain the money goes where it's supposed to go, not into some CEOs pocket.  This includes giving money to candidates seeing public office, churches, and even local charities.

10) Last but by no means least, work on self-discipline, and this one requires more toughness than any of the others.  It's a simple question you should always ask yourself:  Do I really need that?  With that said, you should likewise keep in mind that there's no need in being frugal if you're not going to put the money you save where it should go . . . and that's on you.  Remember, life should be more than just survival.  Save something for  yourself that allows you to really enjoy being alive.  You weren't born to be nothing but a service for others.  Be as generous as you can to others, but don't forget to be generous to yourself.

DO BIRDS POOP IN THEIR OWN NESTS?

My dad used to say that often - you know, that old saying that a bird doesn't crap in its own nest.  It was his way of reminding me that I shouldn't screw up in my home town because I'd be remembered for it.  Well, I did screw up there, and just as he warned, people remembered it for a long time.  I figure as long as they remember me, they're remember my screw-ups.  Just to make sure the old man got it right, I looked it up and found that birds really don't poop in their own nests.  They do, however, poop over the side of the nest, and woe be unto him standing under the nest.  Birds poop on my cars all the time because they nest in the trees at night.  Maybe a bird keeps a tidy nest, but it sure doesn't have much respect for anything else when it comes to letting those tiny turds fly.

Which brings to mind how people are about disposing of their poop.  Unlike birds, we do poop in our own nests, then flush it away and let someone else worry about it.  And it's not just the poop we propel into the somewhere-out-there; it's all the other waste we generate.  The average person creates close to a ton of solid waste each year, and if we didn't find ways to dispose of it, we'd be buried under it by now.  It takes lots of water to flush away all the waste we create, and we're starting to realize a need to conserve water.  We also need to stop polluting the water 'cause what we shed in the way of waste sometimes end up back in the water we use.  When it gets right down to it, people are a bunch of nasty bastards.

I could go on and on about all the damage we do to the environment due to our anthropocentric attitude about life, but I'll save you the bother of ignoring it.  Nobody wants to hear about how nasty they are.  Suffice it to say you're a pollution machine, the worst enemy of the environment you live in, and we'll either have to change that or end up like a stupid bird living in our own excrement.  All living things excrete something, and we've been rather ingenious at finding ways to use it.  We process cow manure and use it for fertilizer, and we've learned to make great fertilizers from bird droppings.  We don't usually do anything productive with our own poop because unlike the cow or the bird, we don't eat things that generate good poop.  We are manufacturers of mostly worthless poop, but that hasn't stopped some people for learning how to use it.

I read an article some years ago about a town in Florida that got into the business of treating human waste as a useful fertilizer source.  It didn't work.  For one thing, they had a hard time with the seeds that commonly pass through out systems, still in condition to sprout and create growing plants.  This Florida town sold the human fertilizer to some folks (or maybe gave it away), who then put it on their lawns, who then ended up with hundreds of small tomato plants sprouting all over the place.  That would be all well and fine, but it's hard to make tomato plants look good in a lawn.  One Alabama town learned to raise worms in their sewage plant system, actually got well known for selling them at a profit.  Good for them, and good for the worms.  A city here in Texas, hard pressed due to water shortages, has started reprocessing sewage water into drinking water, and with good results.

People have demonstrated one thing in particular about themselves that is central to the problem of waste disposal, and that's this:  They aren't responsible enough to dispose of their own waste.  If they were left with that responsibility, you'd be seeing piles of poop in their back yards.  You'd see all sorts of unsanitary situations arising, so we can't allow people to do that.  At waste disposal, we're bad personal managers . . . and we can't stop creating waste.  We're made to do that, you know . . . what goes in must come out.  We have to turn that over to government, since the burden falls mostly on their shoulders, and here's a rare incident of where we can give them a pat on the back.  I for one appreciate what they do to get rid of my waste.  Excuse the pun, but I'd be up shit creek without a paddle without them . . . and so would you.

So, here's my suggestion.  Write your Congressman a letter, or send them an email, telling them how much you appreciate them taking care of your personal poop and pee problems.  Give them a pat on the back, and then make sure and tell them that just because they helped out with the waste disposal thing doesn't mean they need to give us back anything . . . you know, like all the shit they hand us when they can't handle the economy.  You'd think they'd do better, being as how they do a pretty good job handling other shitty things.

I WONDER WHAT THEY'RE DOING IN FRANCE

I've never been to France, other than via Google Earth.  I always wanted to, but that won't ever happen.  Too far away, too expensive to make the trip, and I'm too old now to go and do the things I'd like to investigate there.  In fact, I don't even travel much in the U.S. anymore.  America is a big country, but I spent a lot of time rambling around in it.  Lots of diversity here, all the way from swamps and lowlands to deserts and high mountains.  Since I'm a mountain person first and foremost, I usually investigated them thoroughly.  I've lived in the southern Appalachians of North Carolina, even in the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico for a while . . . but I never saw the mountains of any other country.  France has mountains, and that's attractive to me.

I'll always wonder what it's like to spend time in a foreign country.  I've always had a fascination with geography, about the different landscapes around the world.  What's it like down in Patagonia in Argentina?  What's South Africa like up close and personal?  And what about the south Island of New Zealand?  Are the mountains of France as beautiful as they look on Google Earth?  I've seen lots of beautiful mountains right here in America, and we've even got mountains right here in Texas.  I visit them from time to time, down in the Big Bend Country along the Mexican border.  Got friends there, always enjoy their company . . . and that's what it's partly about, isn't it?  If you travel, you meet people, and that tells you a lot about a place.

I met a man not long ago (he lives near here) who was born in England.  He became a seaman, eventually a ship captain, and he spent most of his years doing that in France.  When I discovered that about him, I had a million questions for him.  He still goes back there from time to time, especially when he needs medical care.  He talked about a doctor there in France, a half Vietnamese, half French guy who pretty much reconstructed his face after a bout with skin cancer, had nothing but praise for the medical system there and the doctors.  This doctor, he said, had a fascination with the American West and came to the U.S. each year investigate what he reads about.  I share that fascination with the man, hope he finds what he's looking for.  Were I a younger man, I'd probably contact him and cut a deal - you show me French mountains, and I'll show you my mountains.

I guess my particular interest in foreign places is more about the people there.  It's Sunday here, a misty morning with the expectation of rain.  We don't get enough rain where I live, so that's welcome. I get up early, before sunrise, and drink coffee, take care of chores around the house like letting out the dogs and cats for a morning romp.  Shortly, I'll drive across town to my shop and take care of some animals there, and maybe I'll drink more coffee before doing the things almost everyone in small town America does.  It's a simple life for the most part, and I like it that way.  Half the people in town will go to church this morning, then gather somewhere for lunch.  People will go to the park and meet friends this afternoon, or some will go to the lake for a little recreation.  Since it's Sunday, the downtown area will be deserted, except for out of town motorists driving through.  It's a quiet day here at daybreak, will stay that way throughout the day.

And somewhere in France, I can only imagine that there's a town much like where I live - a place where people will do pretty much the same as I'm doing here in Texas.  Maybe that's the way it should be.  Maybe that's just proof that the world is really a small place after all . . . at least in some ways.

THE ECONOMIC SIDE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

At the risk of sounding like a rabid libertarian here, I'll say right up front that government has a big economic interest in making and enforcing regulatory laws.  They'd defend the fines, levies, taxes, excises, and fees as necessary to defray the expense incurred in the enforcement process, and there's some validity in that argument.  There's another way of looking at it, however, and that's this:  If you didn't pass the law requiring enforcement, you wouldn't have the expense.  Many of our drug laws, for instance, and unnecessary, and if we'd take the steps to do away with them, the government would save millions upon millions of dollars . . . and that would mean a lot of people who enforce them would be out of a job.  The economic factor in the war against drugs is two-sided at the least.  The makers and dealers of drugs make millions, and the government benefits from the need to have people to fight that.  Legalizing certain drugs, like marijuana, would go a long way toward cutting down on government expenditures in enforcing laws . . . and that would take a bite out of a lot of tax dollars, commerce in general, and the need to keep people employed.

Government isn't new in the regulatory business.  That's something that's been with us for a long, long time.  Forget taxes, that always fall back on source of revenue for the government, and consider how much they take in from fines, fees, levies, etc.  Almost any profession a person gets involved in will require licensing, and most of the time, those fees are reasonable.  But let's say, for instance, you want to get into the restaurant business, better yet one that sells alcoholic beverages.  Government at several levels already taxes the crap out of booze, but they get another chunk of change when a person applies for a liquor license or permit.  And one permit won't satisfy most states, since it's going to take several of them to get set up to sell booze.  You might well find, depending on the state where you set up business, that you've got thousands upon thousands of dollars invested in fees before you ever get started.

Don't mistake my statements here as being against regulation of the liquor business . . . 'cause I'm most certainly not.  What I question is the expense of it all, and I even understand the need for the high costs to some degree.  Bars are a pain in the ass when it comes to law enforcement.  Wherever and whenever people congregate to drink alcoholic beverages, you're going to have problems from time to time . . . and you might have problems all of the time with some establishments like your good old boy bars.  Police have to patrol those places, and they get frequent calls to take care of problems that arise at them.  That costs money, and you can't expect local government to do that without expecting some fee money to help offset costs.  It's the good guys, the ones who try to run responsible businesses that sell alcohol, who get screwed by the system of high costs.  Perhaps governments need to take a look at that.

Here's what I suggest in that regard:  If a business has shown that they can keep down disruption at their place of business, have a record of doing that, they should be cut some slack when it comes to fees required to stay in business.  If, on the other hand, an establishment has a lousy record, and I'm talking about a place where there's always trouble of some kind going on, they should pay more, and not just in the way of fines.  If they don't clean up their act, shut them down.  The same should be done with dirty companies, the ones who do little to stop polluting the air, dirtying our waters.  If they don't clean up, levy bigger fees against them, increase fines, and if need be, shut them down too.  Sounds reasonable, right?  If you do that, and it does happen occasionally, you'll lose the money from fines and fees.  Government at any level doesn't like to lose money.

I was in Austin some years back and saw something that shows a need for regulatory money.  My son was a bartender downtown in an area loaded down with bars, and I drove him there to start his shift.  A half dozen black busses pulled up and tough looking cops dressed like storm troopers piled off.  Down the street, a saw dozens of cops on horses, looking deadly serious.  "What's that about?" I asked, as I pulled up in front of the bar where he worked.  "They've got a big track meet in town tonight, and after a while, the street will fill up with people.  Thousands of spectators from that event will end up down here, and they usually cause trouble, and that's why the cops are here."

I guess the bottom line is that as long as you've got irresponsible people flocking to places like that, you're going to need lots of protection against the violence that will or might erupt.  And somebody has to pay for that.  Here's another idea for you.  On occasions like that, the city ought to require all bars to add another dollar to the cost of each drink, and that should go directly to the city.  Maybe more of a surcharge than that is necessary, but when it gets right down to it, the taxpayer often pays for cleaning up the messes they make.  All fees aren't bad, and that's a fact.

A HAWKISH VIEW FROM AN AMERICAN LIBERAL

I've heard it said that compared to world standards there are no liberals in America, and based on my own understanding of world politics, I believe that's true.  I've studied foreign governments for along time - as a student, a professor of political science, and just as a hobby.  Sometimes I get curious about a particular country and start digging up as much as I can about it.  Sometimes I do it following the old saying that one should know the enemy, and we most certainly have some of them out there.  Sometimes, however, you can't find out much studying a particular government because our real enemy in this day and age isn't confined to just one country.  I'm talking here about the threat of terrorism from Islamic extremists.  I happen to be an American liberal who favors a hard line against them . . . a very hard line.

President Obama is a very cautious man, but I think if you check the records you'll find that he's used bombs and other airborne devices against the terrorists more than any other President.  Now he's mulling over what to do about a new group of terrorists operating in Syria, this group calling themselves ISIS.  Should we bomb them . . . or not?  So far, he's holding off on doing that until our intelligence people can gather more information, and I support that move.  But I likewise don't approve of doing nothing, and here's my thinking on that.  If some terrorist group makes actual threats against you, openly vows to destroy you, that to me is a declaration of war that should be responded to.  That should signal an open season on them whenever and wherever we find them, and we should do that without gathering together a coalition force beforehand.  It's nice to have international support, but it shouldn't be mandatory.  World opinion is often against us, but that shouldn't hold us back.  It is us under the threat of attack, not them.

I've noticed that when other nations come under attack that they're not at all reluctant to ask us for help, and we've got a pretty good record of jumping in there and helping.  Regardless of what anyone wants to think, we are the most powerful military force in the world, and if you need help from a friend when trouble comes your way, it's smart to ask a big friend, one with some muscle.  We're often seen as arrogant by other nations, and perhaps we are, but when a real threat of violence arises, that's not something we should worry much about.  It takes some arrogance to really do a good job of kicking someone's ass, especially if they need it.  These Islamic terrorists need it, deserve it, and we deserve the right to give it to them.  You can't solve everything with bombs, and that's a fact . . . but you can sure send a message.  Even the most devout Islamic terrorist understands the bomb, especially when he feels the weight of one.  And if he believes death in service to his goals gains him a place in the hereafter, we should do him the favor and send him on his way there.

And we've got lots of bombs.

WRITE IN CANDIDATE WOES

If you read my last tongue in cheek blog, you know I'm running for President as a write-in candidate.  I'm running with the desire to get just one vote, but that might be difficult if no impossible.  I can run for the highest office in the land only if I qualify as a write-in candidate, and if you try to do that, I'll fail.  You'll find that most states who control voting laws aren't wild about having someone like me on the ballot.  In fact, I won't be on the ballot at all.  All I'll be, if qualified to run, is a blank where you can write in my name.  Well, that's the way it is in most states, and the rules vary from place to place.

And, if you check into it, you find that running as a write-in candidate is expensive.  You can't just declare your candidacy and expect to get a vote because they'll disallow that.  You've got to register with the state, shuck out the bucks which could be several thousand dollars, and then run almost in total anonymity.  Some write-in candidates have actually been elected to office, but that's a long shot at best.  The laws are set up to make it hard on write-in candidates, who are view mostly as an irritation or nuisance.  Come to think of it, that's exactly what I want to be - a nuisance.

Here in Texas, if I try to run as a write-in, I'd have some big buck in the campaign, and that's not what I want.  I've already promised not to campaign, won't make speeches, won't shake hands, won't ever show my face at a public rally, none of that.  I guess what that means is that I won't be able to get the one vote I'm looking for, just to say I actually got a vote for President.  The powers that be have made it practically impossible for me to present myself to the electorate as a protest candidate who doesn't want to hold office but will allow a fully disgusted voter to waste a vote rather than give it to someone they don't trust.  My name won't be on the ballot, and there might not be any way for  you to write me in.  Electronic voting makes it hard to do that.  But if you by chance vote in an old time precinct that still uses paper ballots, scribble my name on it and stuff it in the box.  They'll probably chuck the ballot, won't count it, and I won't know if I got my one vote.  Drat!

But . . . maybe between now and then I can figure a way to get my name on a ballot somewhere.  I'll keep working on it . . . not hard, but I'll check it out.  Maybe I'll end up in jail for violating state law, so I should qualify my candidacy as calling it unofficial.