Sunday, May 31, 2009
Baseball and Apple Pie
Call your mothers, and thank them for being there all of those times. When she asks why, tell her that you were just thinking about her.
It’ll make her day.
However important Mom may be, she is only one leg of the triad of Americanism - baseball and apple pie being the other two. I can’t do much more than point you to the official baseball website for the official rules.
It’s the unofficial games that make it perfect, though. “The sewer cover is home plate.” “Get that damned goat away from that haybale - we’re using it as second base, dadgummit!” “Anything into Old Lady Nussbaum’s yard is a home run, because we’re never getting it back anyway.”
But that’s why they use the term “ground rules” - the grounds make the rules.
However, there is one way I can spread that little bit of Americana to all and sundry. I can give you a simple recipe for homemade apple pie.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Lack Of Intelligence
National Geospa...geospati… whatever.
I’m not saying the president has to know everything about everything in the government, but it would have been nice if he at least knew the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency existed.
I’m not saying anything, I’m just saying…
Even God worked on Saturday
But most of us here in America not only don’t have to work six days a week, our bosses would have to pay a 50% financial penalty in order to have that happen (commonly referred to as “time-and-a-half” or “overtime” for anything over 40 hours per week).
That penalty is to ensure that others would also have a job, by “encouraging” employers to hire less capable people to fill those extra hours and do that extra labor. At the current Federal Minimum Wage (currently $6.55 per hour, rising to $7.25/hour on July 24th of this year), and working precisely 40 hours per week, the minimum wage works out to $13,624 per 52-week year, comfortably above the “poverty level”. (Of course, it would be a little less if any vacation time is taken or shorter weeks are worked.)
For most of Human History, the routine was unchanged from father to son to grandson: get up at sunrise, work as hard as possible until the sun goes down, get drunk on whatever homemade brew is available, sleep, and repeat. (Sundays were the only breaks, when half the day was spent in pews being lectured about how evil they all were, followed by trying to get the necessary work done without the priest finding out.)
Six days shalt thou work, doing all thou art able.
The seventh the same, and clean out the stable.
That condition held steady for generation upon generation, until the Industrial Revolution, when machinery started to take over, putting lots of people out of work. Those people started branching out, looking for alternate means of supporting their families, while at the same time, many more goods of uniformly high quality became available, driving the price down. Specialists began improving things around the population, such as when a former lumberjack (who lost his job to a machine-driven saw) became, say, a furniture-maker instead, and with motorized delivery, stores began to sub-divide and specialize. Gone was the town’s “General Store”, and in came the greengrocer’s, the butcher’s, the dry goods store, the fabric store, the candy shop, and sporting goods store to replace and expand the options.
Nowhere was this effect more clearly seen as in the United States during the 19th century. John Deere tractors and Winchester rifles. Eli Whitney’s cotton engine ("gin") and the mechanical printing press. McGuffey’s Readers and Farmer’s Almanac. Electric lighting and coast-to-coast railroads.
Forty acres and a mule. (Just as an FYI, forty acres is equal to a square of land measuring a quarter-mile wide and a quarter-mile long, about as big an area as can be handled by a single adult man without machinery.)
There are still occupations and businesses out there where the ownership and responsibility is passed down from father-to-child, but damned few, because we are the Land of Opportunity. Every child has exactly the same opportunities as every other. Our current President is the product of a broken home (his black father abandoned him at a young age), but that stunted beginning was not enough to keep him from becoming the most-powerful political figure on the planet. I was raised in similar circumstances (my father abandoned us when I was very young), and my mother raised five of us all by herself, yet today I have my own business which has nothing to do with any of the jobs either of my parents once held. (She was a Medical Administrator and he drove a school bus for years before starting his own taxi company.)
The lives we live are entirely based upon the choices we make, rather than the choices our grandparents made, and all it takes is enough sense to not draw to an inside straight. To become wealthy? Even easier. All it takes is a lifetime of effort and the occasional partial denial of immediate gratification (going to the movies rather than Disneyland or choosing Hamburger Helper over filet mignon). The fact that we can is one of the greatest things about our country.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Okay, that does it
I cannot resist any longer.
Get ready for some LOLcat cuteness
I tucked them below the fold so as not to erase the front page…
Is the sky green and the grass blue?
Why is Hillary Clinton criticizing Israel, and not Iran?
Why are weapon-wielding Black Panthers being exonerated, when they were caught on tape intimidating voters? And, another thought, why is a weapon-wielding Black Panther an elected member of the Philadelphia Democratic Committee (thanks to Michelle Malkin)
Why are people not seeing the pattern that is evolving that shows the Chrysler dealership closings are politically motivated?
Why, with all the technology and five generations of vaccinations, are people acting so damned stupid with their children’s health?
Why the guy who said that global warming can be combated by painting all the roofs in the world white isn’t being laughed out of his position in our government?
What full moon am I missing?
Feed the homeless to the hungry
What would be a good definition of “poor”? The dictionary says that “poor” is defined as “"lacking material possessions” or “of, relating to, or characterized by poverty”, and “poverty” is “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions”.
That bolded part is mine, because it clearly shows that poverty is a relative term.
According to the Federal Government, a family is defined as “poor” (or “below the poverty line") by having an income level below certain published minimums.
$10,830 per year for a single person is considered “poverty” level? Yet, according to the U.S. Census:
- 43% of “poor” households own their own homes (average size = 3 bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio).
- 80% of them have air conditioning.
- Only 6% of “poor” households are considered “over-crowded”, while 2/3 of them have two or more rooms per resident.
- The “typical poor person” in America has more living space than the “typical” European citizen. (NOT the “poor” in Europe, but the average citizen.)
- Nearly 3/4 of “poor” families own a car, and 31% own two or more.
- 97% have a color TV, and over half own two or more, not to mention 78% having a VCR or DVD, and 62% getting cable or satellite reception.
- 89% own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.
- Roughly a third have both cell phones and a landline phone.
Overall, the typical American defined as “poor” by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, hot and cold running water, a stove and oven, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs.
Compare that with the poor in other countries. No home, no food, and no hope of improvement if your grandparents had the wrong connections. Where Death, War, Famine and Pestilence aren’t just the Four Horsemen, they are your next-door neighbors always wanting to come hang out. Where a suicide mission looks like it might be worth it, as long as your family was taken care of afterward.
So poor that even Sally Struthers would say, “Oh, you poor dears.”
And remember that we, as a nation, are so rich that even the poor are wealthy beyond dreams of avarice for the poor elsewhere. There but for the Grace of God, right?
Amen, folks.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Two out of the three so far
We’ve had a post celebrating those that help maintain Life, another that celebrated those who protect our Liberty, so today we will talk about the massive industries that offer many different ways to Pursue Happiness.
So tell me, what do you do when you’re bored?
That was a rhetorical question, by the way, because I’m about to tell you what you do. Every time.
You find some way to pass the time. You read. You listen to music. You play a game. You watch a TV show or movie. You watch the pretty girls/hot guys walk by (as your personal preference opts). You ski. Take a vacation. Go to an amusement park. Or a casino. Or shop. Or drink. Or eat. Or cook. Or help others.
Or blog.
There are too many ways to Pursue Happiness to list here, but for every single one of those pursuits, there is an entire industry needed to support those practitioners, whether it is as solitary as knitting or as gregarious as a game of hide-and-seek. Whether it is as barren of equipment as someone taking a walk or as complicated and esoteric as partaking in an SCA tournament.
Think about what you enjoy doing, and then think about anything that you have to have in order to participate in that activity. (Don’t forget the extras that you will want later in order to improve the experience - better shoes, special tools, fan paraphenalia, season tickets, what have you.) Then remember all of the shops, stores, people, manufacturing plants, transportation infrastructure, advertising and all the rest.
For all of those people, it’s just a job. For YOU, it’s your “inalienable right”.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
A Little Bit Of Pessimism
I hate to sound like a pessimist, but things are looking crappy for the world. Maybe it’s just my rabid cynicism, but I’m not seeing the cup as being half-full at this point. Allow me to explain.
Over in North Korea, there is a funny looking little guy with giant 80’s hair named Kim Jong il that likes to starve his people, steal money from gullible nations, and build really big bombs that go boom. A few days ago, he launched a few missles that could cause some serious damage. What did we, the United States, do to combat this a-hole? Nothing. We’re teaming up with the UN to write another strongly worded letter.
A few miles away, Iran is building nukes, and they are planning to destroy Israel as soon as they can. What did we, the United States, do to combat this? Our fearless leader is doing his best to make friends with Iran while blaming Israel.
Here in the United States, our economy is circling the drain, corruption is off the hook, and we keep pushing for more social programs.
Does any of this make sense to anyone?
* Blogged from my Palm Treo. My apologies for any typos.
America’s Heartland
The World’s Breadbasket.
I get a lot of hits from the Midwest, but none from what I would consider “farming country”. (I’m probably wrong, since my knowledge of specific geography from that region - to the county/city levels - is a bit fuzzy.)
My loss…
Farmers and ranchers combine to create almost every food you manage to buy in your local supermarket, and unless you have lived on a farm yourself (I lived on a small-acreage farm as a young boy; just a few acres of fruit orchard, one or two horses, and The Mule), you will never quite understand how tough that kind of job is, even with the help of technological advances. Modern machinery has only improved the efficiency (meaning more acres per worker), genetically calculated seed stock has eliminated some diseases and limited others, and chemical fertilizers have improved the amount of food produced per hectare, but the basic job hasn’t changed since Man first discovered that a pointy stick could slice a furrow into damp soil.
The ability to grow grains and fruit-bearing trees and vines on a regular basis was what kicked off that whacky little thing we like to call Civilization. (Domestication of animals had taken place centuries or millennia earlier, with the first wild canines hanging out with the nomad tribes, and small animals that could walk or be carried tagging along.) No, it was the ability to grow more grain than the local tribe could easily consume that encouraged them to set up shop in the Nile basin and in Mesopotamia. That name literally means “land between two rivers”; specifically, the Tigris and the Euphrates. (IOW, modern-day Baghdad.) Trading different types of grain/fruit/livestock (and keeping track of the resulting commerce) brought about writing and mathematics, and everything else developed from there.
But I’m talking about the farmers of America’s “fly over country”. Our farmers have managed to turn the most productive soil in the hemisphere into a cornucopia of food that could literally feed half the planet. Our farmers are so effective at growing food that we had enough to send to our enemies during the Cold War. So much so that the government was actually paying the farmers to not grow any more, because there just wasn’t anyplace left to store it. The farmers had filled every silo, barn, empty ICBM silos, and decommissioned warships they could lay claim to, yet the food just kept on coming.
Our ranchers are equally effective at overproduction. So muck milk and cheese, the government was literally giving it away. So much beef that you could buy… well, never mind.
We have so much food stored away that we were dropping crate-sized bundles of food on the Afghanistan people, even as we were dropping laser-guided 500-pound bombs onto their buildings, just in case some of it managed to make it to those who might have been on “our side”.
We have so much food that the number one health care concern in the US is obesity!
Just in case anyone says that the Midwest is an accident of location and we’re just lucky enough to live here, let me point out that there is a similar (in a geologic and chemical composition sense) area in the southern part of Russia that covers almost half a million square miles - twice the size of France - of the most fertile land in Eurasia, yet Russia only produced a smidge less than 4 percent of the world’s food, and was a net importer of food.
Now take all that food, and add in the Law of Supply and Demand. When you have too much of a thing, the price goes down as the quality available goes way up. When you get rid of just some of a thing, you always start with the very worst, and work your way up to “mediocre” before tossing out the cream of the crop. Lower grade apples are turned into juices, sauces and ciders, while only the very best are reserved for bobbing, candying and keeping the doctor away. When it takes less effort to earn enough money to feed the family for a day (only an hour or two, rather than almost all day), and the family is eating good quality food, it becomes easier to pay bills and even save a little (since the kids are eating all those apples, the doctors are getting bored).
A vacation trip to the beach on Memorial Day. (Didjaknow that 75% of the nation lives within a two-hour drive of a beach?) Take a day off on the Fourth of July to barbecue with family and friends (and even have some sparklers for the kids). Have the leisure to let your kids study something more than just enough Readin, Ritin and Rithmatick to keep the family business afloat.
Become prosperous! As a family and as a nation, and all because our farmers are too good at what they do: spreading Civilization…
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Yesterday, we remembered
... those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Today, we thank those who are still on the front lines.
The hundreds of thousands of active duty military personnel. The hundreds of thousands more who are in the reserves, still serving. They are well worth celebrating, but we also have others who are serving their communities, rather than the nation as a whole.
The millions of police and fire fighters. Paramedics and ambulance drivers. Emergency Room doctors and nurses. Random Good Samaritans. The people who run towards those in pain, seeking only to relieve that suffering, no matter the personal cost.
How many times have you seen a headline where someone was lost in rough country, with insufficient gear or training for long-term survival? Hundreds of total strangers will show up to search some of the most unforgiving terrain on the continent, and - occasionally - one or two of the rescuers will die in the attempt. Nevertheless, just as many searchers will turn up the next time the call goes out.
What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?—Luke 15:4 (KJV)
Maybe it’s the Judeo-Christian ethic (see the parable of the 100th sheep), but that mindset - that when one of our number needs rescue, others should not count the cost - is one of the most celebration-worthy things about our country. Thank them all the next time you see them - doctors, nurses, cops, paramedics and fire fighters. Without them, our society would be literally hell on earth.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Once more into the breach, friends
Welcome to my Sixth Annual Patriot’s Journey, friends.
Take a moment, if you will, to pray for those who died in the service of our country, to the Higher Power of your choice.
Thanks.
I write not to sorrowfully remember their loss, tragic though the loss was to us all. I write instead to celebrate the things that they thought were worth the cost of that Ultimate Sacrifice. Let’s face it. In order to properly understand their sacrifice, we have to understand what it was they were sacrificing for, don’t we?
The things that make our country great, instead of just “okay”.
”Take Me Out To The Ball Game”. Disneyland. The Empire State Building. Ernest Hemingway’s seven-toed cats. The Golden Gate Bridge. The Grand Canyon. The seemingly endless miles of the Great Plains. Superman comic books. Chewing gum. Dixieland jazz. The St. Louis Arch (the “Gateway to the West"). Billy Joel. For that matter, Christie Brinkley (wink, wink). Being able to fly from coast-to-coast in a single day. Mount Rushmore. John Wayne.
All of these things and many thousands more, all wrapped up into a single culture that made us the Greatest Nation on the Planet. We set the standards, and let others wonder what they are doing wrong.
Don’t ever forget it.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Saving up my energy
It’s three days and counting until the 6th Annual Patriot’s Journey, ready or not.
Last chance if you want in…
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Something else…..
Obama’s plan on rendition, on military tribunals...aren’t they the same as Bush’s?
Of course they are. The system put together is stable and effective. At Gitmo, we keep the bad guys away from the country and away from the battlefields on which they were captured. The threat of extremely uncomfortable incarceration or treatment (not torture as defined by our law) brought us actionable intelligence. And Obama, in all ways substantial, has kept to the plan.
However, the man used his time today to continue bashing the very man who authorized and oversaw the War on Terror. Why?
Because the only way that Obama can hide his huge shortcomings is to keep George Bush around.
Discuss why this is.
Let’s see…..
Cheney on foreign policy.....home run. Hits the nail on the head.
Obama, on foreign policy.....forgets his Defense Secretary’s name.
Who has the nation’s security at heart? Hmmmm?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Another long day
Up and out the door at about 5:45 am, working eight precincts (I managed three visits each), and home again just a bit after 11pm.
Good news is that the Props turned out exactly as I had hoped.
Massive and overwhelming majorities in each instance, too. With the exception of 1B, the results were unanimous when reporting at the County level.
1A lost 65.9%-34.1%.
1B lost 62.6%-37.4%, the closest result of the group, at just a smidgen over a 5-3 margin. Also the only one where some counties voted in favor*.
1C lost 64.6%-35.4%.
1D lost 65.8%-34.2%.
1E lost 66.4%-33.6%, almost 2 to 1 against.
1F, the Proposition regarding the limitation of legislator pay raises, won by a whopping 73.9%-26.1%, almost three to one in favor.
Thank you to all of my fellow Californians, and I strongly suggest you hunker down, because the threats from Sacramento are going to come fast and furious.
* - only three counties of the 58 voted “Yes” - Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Francisco