Monday Maunderings
So many things going on it’s difficult to know where best to focus, so how about a run down of several things, not terribly related, and you can pick and choose which you’d prefer to discuss.
On Israel: It really bugs me that so many people can imply that what Hamas does is automatically Israel’s fault. Even if you spent very little time thinking about it, common sense should tell you otherwise. Now, one knows a bit more than just a little but I’m sure not everything about the Israeli conflict. However, even knowing nothing, if one took out a map, looked at the entire Middle East and how much of that Israel occupies, add to that what Israel has at its disposal to safeguard itself, yet, refrains from using, in spite of the aggressions against it, how can anyone believe that anyone who attacks them isn’t crazy? It’s a little bitty strip of land in the middle of nowhere, that you can spit across, but under constant attack in spite of nuclear reactors and weaponry that could wipe out the area surrounding it for miles upon miles away from their borders. The Dead Sea name would acquire a whole new meaning if that were to happen.
In addition, if one would just recall how many times this same thing has happened in just the past two or three years, you’d really wonder why Israel doesn’t wipe the Islamic world off the face of the map instead of the Islamic world vowing to do that to Israel. One of these days, Israel is going to “go postal” and the rest of the world, via the United Nations, that keeps pressuring and pushing them into untenable positions, will have no one to blame but them and those who keep attacking Israel. Suicidal people are usually diagnosed as having a mental condition. The Israeli conflict has all the prerequisites of such a condition.
On the RNC chairmanship: Apparently a number of conservative voices are aligning behind Ken Blackwell. I can live with that. I like what I’ve seen of him on TV. I was initially behind Steele simply because he’s so personable and I hadn’t heard anything bad about him as an elected official. There seem to be a few questionable occurences in his past and that’s the last thing the RNC needs right now. Be that as it may, what is most needed is someone who can speak and bring in the conservative base. If the RNC chooses another moderate nobody, the base is going to leave. It’s that simple. If the RNC wants to move to more liberal policies why do we need them? They should just join the far left instead of brow-beating the rest of us. I can’t say I’d accept anybody because I really wouldn’t care for Salsman after the tacky stunt of the video. It was never that good the first time around with Paul Shanklin’s initial production of the song, let alone set to video. Besides, that’s Shanklin’s job; to make tacky parodies of political figures. Talk about out of touch, Salsman proved that he quite probably is.
Bill Frist is not going to run for Governor of Tennessee. The names being proffered are probably all acceptable but we’ll see. There’s not much definitive information yet. The names are: A mayor from Knoxville, an attorney from Memphis, Rep. Zach Wamp, and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey. I don’t know much about the mayor, yet, but I had a visceral reaction to the attorney from Memphis which is more liberal than Nashville, if you can imagine that.
The accronym PMS needs to be redefined and made into a new medical condition. Instead of being short for premenstrual syndrome, I believe it should stand for: pity me syndrome. I have this cat, whom we acquired by virtue of stowing away in James’ truck’s wheelwell one day 4 or 5 years ago. This cat has mental problems. Undoubtedly, she was a stray because he was working in the airport area at the time and there’s nothing residential for quite some distance. The cat was about 6 – 8 weeks old at the time she stowed away. To put it bluntly, she has mental problems. She can’t stand her bowl being empty, even if she’s not hungry and won’t be for hours. In fact, if she sees the bottom of the bowl with food still in it, she’ll go berserk. Now, with the dog, who is also an abandoned fellow, keeping a full bowl of cat food down causes worse problems because he’ll eat her food before he’ll eat his because that’s just the way dogs are. He has his own little quirks but that particular one is common to just about all dogs. It’s in their nature.
So, with the bowl being empty most of the time now to keep the mooching dog from swiping it, this cat gets louder and louder and louder as she insists on a full bowl at all times. You’d be surpirsed how loud and insistent that little body can get, especially before I’ve had a cup of coffee. But, I’ll fill the bowl just to get some peace, only to witness her eat two or three bites and walk off like the Queen of Sheba.
This behavior reminds me much of many of the things this country is experiencing right now. I can’t help the cat was a stray when we acquired her. All I can do is provide the basics of a good home, food when she’s hungry, attention when she deigns to allow it, and medical care… but it’s not enough. After 4 or 5 years, you’d think she’d realize she’s never going to go hungry again and desist, right? How many people keep doing the same things over and over and wait for someone else to take care of it for them, catering to their problem behaviors? All the people snookered by Maddoff, for instance. Nobody twisted their arms to fall in with Madoff’s schemes. But, we’re supposed to make sure their bowl is always full? The same with the auto bailouts and every other bailout that has been put in place in the last few months. The government doesn’t make money. We make money through our jobs and productivity. They just take a cut of it, which is a bigger percentage than God ever asked for. How does a 100% cut sound to you? It seems we’re moving in that direction.
Not everything the government takes is in the form of taxes. Has anyone looked at the “fees” which we pay monthly for a number of services such as electricity, phone, cell phone, cable or satellite TV? Not to mention license plates and the like that are renewable yearly. I have Vonage business with a toll free number service. The bill total for those services is $54.98, 49.99 for the business service with an additional 4.99 for the toll free number. However, the bill is almost $75/month. The rest of that bill comes in the form of fees, FCC, interstate access, etc. etc. etc. to the tune of 35% of the base price for the service. I see similar trends in utility bills, our cable service, both for TV and internet access, and our cell phones. So, pardon me if I don’t jump up and down every time a politician utters the words: tax cuts. It simply means, to me, that they’ll make up the difference somewhere else by tacking on a “fee” to something. My electric bill in particular reflects this new trend of “fees.” I drastically cut my usage but I’m still paying the same amounts in the form of something called “fuel cost adjustment.” Ummm…. message to the utilities… fuel costs are way down now and have been for a few months. How come my “adjustment” keeps going up?
The point is, the government is not going to do without as long as you have a penny to squeeze out of you. Why should it care if the National Debt increased by 23% just in the last two years? The government isn’t the one whose money finances the payback. Yours is. Witha greater majority in Congress, who has dibs on a 35% increase for the next two years? Do I hear 50? Obama’s little package is only one thing in the works.
I was told via a private individual who listens to a program called Coast to Coast that there is a prediction that the South is going to succede. According to her, the person who made this prediction is black so let’s not bring out the racial slurs over it. The fellow meant simply that the South is tired of being pushed around by the elite. If such a succession were really to happen, it wouldn’t be along racial lines. This is hearsay, of course. I don’t have a subscription to the program which airs at a time of day when I don’t have time to listen to it personally.
The first seccession wasn’t about that, either, but you’ll never convince the liberal historians of that. It was about States’ rights, including the detested right to institutionalize slavery… but only including, not the sole purpose… rather like WMDs were only one of 23 reasons for going to war with Iraq but still seems to be the only one that matters. I wish all those people who are fighting slavery that happened almost two hundred years ago here would fight as hard to combat the slavery that is occurring world wide in the present time. Instead, they don’t even acknowledge that it is still happening and institutionalized in some parts of the world.
As I wrap up, Obama is on the television, delivering some major speech, so they say. I can’t find anything major about it, unless you count the pauses between words. Unfortunately, all those people who complained about Bush’s speeches are just going to have to live with “word” pause “word” pause ad infinitum instead. Oh, nevermind. They’re just doing a press conference on the “new” Congress. Translated it means more of the same. I hope all those people who “punished” the Republicans for their profligate spending and do nothing else ways, understand nothing changed. If anything, it’s going to get worse.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Great column. I have switched to Blackwell over the Rush parody flap.
more later
January 6th, 2009 at 7:47 am
There are a number of websites promoting a second secession of southern states. Whatever revisionist history we choose, slavery WAS a major issue on both sides. General Pat Cleburne, CSA, saw that and suggested emancipation by the south, preempting
Lincoln’s top card. He was turned down cold and received no further promotion, dying in later battle.
Troop motivation for the then US miltary was very much
‘John Brown’s Body’ and ‘Trampling out the Grapes of Wrath’: graves of men of Wisconsin’s Iron Brigade ((kicked Stonewall Jackson’s derriere) still dot the
little old cemetaries of the north country..”Born 1838-died 1882-served in the Grand Army of the Republic to free the slaves.” That was then. Now, we have NH and Vermont grumbling secession, the former Idaho
Aryan Nations wanting their own (white) country and various other dissatisfied folk. Its like after every election, people threaten to move to Canada (depending if their side loses!) When one ponders a modern secessionist , we wonder whether ‘indivisible’ is less important than ‘under God’ in our pledge of allegiance.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:15 am
BB, there are always a number of sites and states promoting secession; so much so, it’s hard to take any prediction of such seriously, which if I were to listen to Coast to Coast much of what’s there I wouldn’t take seriously. A lot of “those” people are out there, so to speak. What I have heard from there and some few audios have been hilarious. It does mix some seriousness in the midst of all that but I perceive it to be mainly just pure entertainment.
However, I am at the same time perceiving a very angry nation; an anger that covers whole regions and multiple states as well as pockets of it in other states. One does have to wonder just what how much more will be taken from government before it becomes a reality rather than a prediction.
At the time of secession, slavery was only one of several issues. Over time it became the most popular issue, then, finally, the only issue. Lost in that was the issue of whether the states have the right to secede from the union. While Lincoln settled that issue for one and a half centuries, the angrier people get, it’s an issue that can, and most likely will, rear its ugly head once again.
One wonders, given all the factors, if the North would prevail in a second war of secession. Then again, with their meme of peace at any price, including self respect, they may just let the rest of the country secede and not even care.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Mike, I watched part of the “debate” yesterday. I had the boys which made it difficult to watch the thing in its entirety but I caught a lot of relevant questions and answers. In spite of the questions hovering over Steele, I find myself still quite drawn to him. He has such a passion for what he believes and he believes in conservative community activism. If the Republican party doesn’t start talking to people on their level instead of down to them, they may as well plan for a long haul on the outside, not only in Washington but at local levels. The Democrats may be elitist to hilt but they know how to talk at the right levels to get their message across, even if the message they’re imparting is more lies and hypocrisy in one tiny statement than most of us could concoct in a lifetime, they still know how to talk it at the right levels.
Barring him, Blackwell and Anuzis seemed about equal, although I trend slightly more toward Blackwell because he exudes a common sense I haven’t seen in most of the known faces in the Republican party barring a tiny minority of Congressmen and Senators. Be that as it may, Anuzis had some great answers, too. I could live with any one of those three, honestly.
Duncan and Saltsman, on the other hand, totally blew it. I fear if either of those two gain the chairmanship I’m not the only person who will be walking away from the Republican party.
January 6th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
We have many enemies around the world who would love nothing better than for the US to break itself apart.
When it comes down to it, I don’t think any of us want that! BTW, how’s the old gang from ‘Hang Right’ doing these days?
January 7th, 2009 at 7:13 am
They may get their wish, however, I’m banking on a revolt of a different kind… or at the least hopeful.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Oh, I don’t know how the old gang is doing. Steve may have given up on me with the holiday sabbatical and I rarely hear from the others these days.