Sunday, September 23, 2012


PARENTHOOD
"Put that junk back" the lady said to her child as she purchased quarts of Old English 800 , Colt 45 and Newport cigarettes. "You don't need none of that shit."
THREE BROTHERS HAVING FUN
 
An earlier post got me to thinking about my oldest brother, Horace.

Horace was mentally challenged due to a birth defect. He used a Cushman golf cart to commute the neighborhood. My brother, Donnie and I would often steal it and take it joy riding, sometimes wrecking it and almost always running the battery down. It would really piss Horace off.

In his last days a local dealer sent a brand new

Harley Davidson golf cart to park outside his bedroom window. He didn't know he was dying and would say "I'll be glad when I get well so I can ride my new golf cart."

One Sunday, Donnie and I went to Moms for lunch. It was a chilly March day. We got Horace dressed and took him for the ride of his life on that brand new Harley Davidson golf cart. That thing would fly. We took him throuh the woods and down the same paths that we joy rode his other one. We had an absolute great time.

That was the last time my brother left the house and it may have been the last time he got out of bed. We had a lot of fun that day and I wouldn't trade the experience for a million dollars
STICK IT TO THE MAN
HUGE SALE NOW GOING ON: Hurry, Hurry, Hurry!!! The Big 6% off Sale is now in progress. The lines are worth standing in because you will get a whopping 6% (7% on selected items) and get the chance to stick it to the man (tax man). Never mind that the merchants are offering little or no discounts and that an unscrupulous merchant can steal taxes collected by shifting last weeks sales revenue to this weekends big sale event. We could've gotten a 30-40% off sale and felt thrifty but the Stick It To The Tax Man Sale feels almost orgasmic.
 THAT WAS SOME GOOD S***
According to Bizarre News a Vermont farmer was first arrested for marijuana charges which upset him so much he retaliated against the sheriff's department. Driving his big tractor, he totally destroyed eight sherriff's deputy cars in the parking lot of the sheriff's office, totally crushing some of them. When he finished the deputies didn't have a vehicle to pursue him.

Now, when I was young I observed lots of incredibly in depth experiments with marijuana and none of the experiments resulted into this type of behavior.
MURDERER OF 70 GETS 21 YEARS?
Today, the man who murdered seventy people in Norway was deemed competent to understand what he did last year. He was given the maximum sentence of 21 years, which apparently doesn't mean that he will be released in 21 years.

Apparently in Norway a criminal serves his sentence but if it is deemed that he is a threat to society at that time, he will not be released.


I was surprised at the seemingly short sentence. This prompted me to wonder if our system orders sentences which are too long simply to satisfy our own emotions. There are certainly people that my emotions want incarcerated forever and a day but I would not be wise to pretend that our system is working. It is failing tremendously.

In the U.S. we have more prisons that any other industrialized nation and more people in them yet crime continues to grow. What are we doing wrong? Emotional responses do not work.

Perhaps our system is similar to that of illiterate and irrational parents who yell at their children and beat them only to rear children who grow up to abuse their spouses and children. Yet when we watch those that talk to and express love to their children those same children typically are kinder to everyone they encounter and become better parents and spouses.

Maybe our society is criticizing our at risk population too much instead of finding ways to develop character which law abiding and responsible. If we fill a child's ears and heart with positive affirmations they are likely to live up to those high expectations. Are we instead, setting very low expectations? If so, when they end up in jail or court there is no sense of shame or remorse because they may very well be living above the low expectations we have.

Perhaps we should take a good look at other cultures and integrate some of their solutions with our own. What we've been doing isn't working.
SHOVE YOUR TOUR DE FRANCE TITLES
Lance Armstrong has had his titles taken away and banned from competition for life. Maybe he was a doper. Maybe he wasn't. I will take him at his word since the very organization that questions him is the same organization that qualified him to compete. They qualified him over and over again. If he was doping their own integrity should be in question.

How does BS

like this come up so long after the competition? When a man has built his livelihood around the celebrity he earned has the very organization that awarded him question his validity, he becomes a victim.

He submitted to drug tests over and over and passed. He can't take one now to prove that he wasn't doping years ago. Sure, they can have someone come forward and claim to have seen him doping, sold him dope, helped him dope, etc, etc. Where the hell were they when it mattered?

Will they recall Super Bowl trophies, heavyweight belts or Winston Cup titles? Was Mark Spitz doping in 1972? Was Bobby Fisher doping when he beat Boris Spasky in chess? Who knows? Who Cares?

Lance Armstrong has been done wrong. He was given the Rope-A-Dope and it wasn't by Mohamed Ali.
A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
My grandparents were in church last Sunday. Grandma leans to Grand Daddy and whispers "I just cut one of those silent farts. What should I do?" Grand Daddy replies "Change the battery in your hearing aid."
CUT YOUR FOOD BILL IN HALF:
Another great story on WUNC today. They revealed that over 40% of the food purchased in the U.S. is thrown away. That is huge! Aside from waste this also causes problems that most of us would not consider.

Having operated restaurants for nearly thirty years I can assure you that my job was to sell as much food as I could. Whether it was consumed or not was not an issue. So long as the rea

son it wasn't eaten wasn't due to the guests not liking it, we were very happy to sell you as much as you were willing to buy.

Our trash cans would contain hundreds of pounds of uneaten food. Other leftovers were put into foam containers for the guests to carry home and put into their own trash can.

In our homes the story is the same if not worse. So much of our supermarket purchases are done without a plan. We fill our cupboards and refrigerators with stuff that sounded interesting only to discard it later.

What about when the date on the container expires. Many of us throw the product away, fearful that it will not be wholesome. The Public Radio International program told that these dates are listed with lots of wiggle room.

Another wasteful practice is buying so many pre-made products. Very often, all the ingredients to create things are already in our fridge or cabinet. Homemade sauces and dressings are easy, inexpensive and typically taste better. Preparing them yourself will also allow you to use up the ingredients before they go bad.

Having encountered financial struggles, I've learned that If I discipline myself I can prepare meals for my wife and me for about $7 a day. That's less than a morning Starbucks and danish. All it takes is a little creativity, a little planning and discipline.

Much of the wasted food ends up in landfills where it creates greenhouse gases. A better way to dispose of lost food is by composting.
AMAZING DISCOVERY AT SELF SERVICE COFFEE COUNTER
We should be impressed by some peoples determination. They try everyday to defeat mathematics, physical sciences , economics and intellectual void. I believe I've figured out this complicated dilemma and I am happy to make it simple for you; YOU CAN NOT PUT A LARGE CUP OF COFFEE INTO A SMALL CUP! Stop Trying.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

SO YOU'RE MAD AT THE PRESIDENT?
FOR WHAT?

After eight years of the Bush/Cheney disaster, now you're mad?

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a U.S. president.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allow Energy corporate officials to dictate energy policy and lead us to invade Iraq.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get mad when we spent $800 BILLION (and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than previous 42 presidents combined.

You didn't get mad when over $10 BILLION in cash disappeared in Iraq.

You didn't get mad when George Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped over 6 MILLION jobs out of the U.S.

You didn't get mad when they didn't catch Bin Laden.

You didn't get mad when they didn't find weapons of mass destruction.

You didn't get mad when Bush rang up $10 TRILLION in combined budget and account deficits.

You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed Hospital.

You didn't get mad when we let a major U.S. city, New Orleans drown.

You didn't get mad when we gave people with more money than they can spend over a $1 TRILLION in tax breaks.

You didn't get mad when we had the worst eight years of job creation in several decades.

You didn't get mad when 200,000 American citizens died with no health insurance.

You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulation from the Bush administration caused U.S. citizens to lose $12 TRILLION in investments, retirements and home values.

You've finally gotten mad since Obama was elected and decided that people in the U.S. deserve the right to go to the doctor if they are sick?

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the millions, stealing tax dollars to make the rich richer and the worst economic disaster since 1929 are okay with you but when it comes to helping American citizens who are sick? Oh, Hell No!!

You're mad at the president about what??



This is edited copy from a post by Floyd Johnson