Gloomy In Black & White

                                                                   

It's Saturday.  Two days have elapsed since Thanksgiving and I still haven't enjoyed a single bite of turkey.  The stomach flu that came on last Tuesday persists.  Anything I try to eat sends ribbons of fire through my belly so I ingest an ounce or so of chicken broth every few hours, like a terminal patient with a chicken broth IV tube providing minimum nourishment.  If I have to do this for another couple of days I will begin to cluck.

Turkish Bath

                                                           

Okay, people...your salivary glands have been activated more than once in recent days, as you contemplate that plump roasted turkey taking center stage on your Thanksgiving table.  Some of you "be prepared" boy scout types already have tom turkey cooling it in your freezer; others, the die-hards, are waiting for Albertsons or Fry's to give you a free turkey with a minimum purchase.  Either way, millions of turkeys will give their lives for you fowl eating heathens in the coming days.  

There are always two trains of thought, yours and that of the turkey.  Old Tom has noticed a tragic surge in the culling of the herd lately and he, being one of the smart ones, is hiding in the bushes, watching the more gullible of the species gathered up for a feather plucking and a hot Turkish bath, something his mother warned him about months ago.  "Never get caught", cautioned mom, "these heathens will cut off your head, gouge out your liver and your giblets, tie em around your severed gullet, then they'll stuff all that up your ass and send you on your way for a second Turkish bath on the night before Thanksgiving!"  "Holy crap!".."what kind of beasts these humans must be", thought Tom.

So old Tom he just kept himself hidden in the tallest grasses and watched his brethren led to slaughter, and as the days grew shorter, Tom began to feel a bit safer.  Then, just when he was feeling more secure, a big truck pulled into the turkey ranch.  Tom noticed a big red box painted on the side, but not being able to read, he could not have known the Stouffers folks had arrived to gather up the main course of their Turkey Medallions Dinner and Turkey Tetrazinni meals.  The Stouffers people nearly got old Tom as they had to range farther out to fill their turkey quota.  Miraculously, old Tom escaped again.  

By this time the only turkeys left on the ranch were a dozen or so fat chested Toms and hundreds of little chattering turkey chicks.  If turkeys smoked cigars these turkeys would have been puffing away, so self satisfied they were at having escaped the "grand slaughter".  As the weather cooled all these Toms had to do was to stuff themselves with seed corn and squat lazily in the warmth of an autumn sun.

Then, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Thursday a long black limousine pulled into the turkey yard.  A rather proper looking fellow got out of the car, and accompanied by a contingent of armed men, walked over Tom's way.  Tom, having stuffed himself so fully in the last few days, was far too fat to even scurry away.  With great ease they threw a net over old Tom and put him in a cage before placing him in the back seat where he faced armed guards on both sides of him.  

After a long ride, Tom was taken to a big white house, brought in the back door and into a huge kitchen.  Though with a grand flap of feathers Tom expressed his indignation, he soon found himself manhandled by a lady wearing a pink smock.  And then, indignities upon indignities, Tom was plunged into a sink of luke warm water....."oh no", thought Tom "it's the Turkish bath for me after all".  

But, instead, Tom felt gentle hands massaging his huge chest and working some sort of aromatic into his feathers, down his back and a most pleasant chest rub followed.  Then, he was plucked from he sink and was subjected to a device that blew hot dry air over his feathers until they were all dry and fluffy.

They then tied something around his neck and led him by a rope into a rather large room into the house itself.  Dizzied by all of this manhandling, Tom could have sworn that the room was egg shaped rather than the normal four walls.  It was hard to tell because of several forms of artificial light and some sort of whirring devices with glass fronts and all focused on him.  At least two dozen humans filled the room as Tom was lifted up onto a table and held firmly with the neck leash.  Enough slack was given for Tom to herk and jerk his neck around and emitting an occasional "turkey squall" to let them all know he wasn't pleased.

Just then a rather pleasant looking man entered the room, smiling, then moving over to Tom where he took Tom's neck in hand, complimented him on his plumpness, said a few words to those present, then raised his hands in some semblance of grand gesture and uttered the words "Presidential pardon".   The humans then applauded loudly, scaring Tom a bit which always tends to loosen the bowels and old Tom left a steaming pile of turkey poop on an otherwise well polished table.

This prompted Tom's handlers to quickly lead him back to the large kitchen where he was released into the custody of a white-coated gentleman who again placed Tom in a cage.  He was then taken out to a farm where he was released in a golden meadow, free to live to an old age.

But with age comes wisdom...so that many years later, old Tom wondered what turkey had given its life so that he might live, what poor bastard was whisked into that big white house in the dead of night, given that final Turkish bath and served up on the Presidential table, so that a silly human tradition of pardoning the star of Thanksgiving dinner could go on...

Old Tom, despite his increased wisdom was unable to figure that out...and why should he...the American people have never figured that out either.  But then, the American people have been baffled by a lot that goes on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  :)

May your Thanksgiving be a happy one,  dear friends.

Ferguson, Missouri RIP

                                                                   

Ferguson, Missouri was founded in the 1850's when a farmer allotted a small parcel of his farm, to be used as a railroad depot.  From those humble beginnings the Germans, the Irish, The Scotts and other "hybrid Americans" began building a community there.  They farmed, they laid plots to build homes, they planted trees and gardens, built churches, established businesses, and began living their lives in a community built of strong moral values and a strong work ethic.  And life was pretty damn fine in small town Ferguson, Missouri.

Then, some 140 years later, the fastest example of "White Flight" occurred right there in Ferguson, Missouri.  It first began as urban blacks began moving into the area, drawn by federal projects designed to attract urban Blacks to move out of the decaying ghettos of St. Louis, and out to the more friendly confines of 75% White Ferguson, Missouri.  In one single decade, 1990 to 2000, that demographic was turned on its head.  As crime surged, as working White folks began to feel unsafe in their neighborhoods, as their streets were trashed and their neighborhoods plagued with urban decay, the Whites moved out in droves.  And Ferguson, Missouri became 75% Black and doomed to failure.

Old Joe Zisser stayed around.  Joe owned a tire business.  For decades Joe stayed, offered his customer a fair price for his tires, employed local workers.  Then last August the Blacks burned Joe's business down to the ground.  

Monday night Blacks drove a stake into the dying corpse of Ferguson, Missouri.  They destroyed a McDonald's, burned down 27 buildings, including grocery stores, a Walgren's Drug Store, a Little Caesar's Pizza joint, beauty shops and phone stores and little restaurants just barely getting by as it was before the riots and looting and burning.

Tuesday morning the pictures were chilling.  Fireman and Police strung yellow crime tape around businesses already destroyed, making the yellow crime tape almost comical.  Business owners walked through the rubble of a business where they had pledged a lifetime of work and small bank loans to build a life for their families.  All gone now.    One looks at the pictures and  one sees community volunteers, all White, sweeping up broken glass and hauling off the trash left by hundreds of angry Blacks....angered beyond belief that our justice system would not allow them to lynch Darren Wilson...damn the evidence!

So Ferguson, a healthy community less than 25 years ago, goes the way of Detroit and Baltimore and downtown Atlanta and South Central Los Angeles and the South Side of Chicago...all now dead by the hand of three generations of pampered Blacks who don't believe the rules of civilization applies to them and who have staked claim to an "out" no matter how barbaric their behavior.....somewhere in their bloodline their great, great, great granddaddy was a slave and honkies will always owe them a green check and an excuse.

Brown Rice & Broccoli

                                                             

The liberal left are not happy with just calorie counts posted in restaurants.  Democrats are pushing for it in theaters, bowling alleys and, now, in your home.  Democrats are demanding stove manufacturers begin producing "smart stoves".  Smart stoves will synch with your smart freezer and pantry and report to our government masters what we are about to cook.  Before the heat elements activate you will be required to punch in what food you are about to prepare using a government provided password.  If your previous entrees have already exceeded your fat and calorie count your smart stove will not activate.  

A recent survey in a restaurant in suburban Washington D.C. indicated an impressive number of patrons who would be in favor of the government regulating their diet; it would reduce obesity, diabetes and bring down Obamacare premiums.  Many patrons said that they simply didn't have the willpower to make their own nutritional decisions and having someone else making their nutrition choices would relieve them from the burden of self choice.  Some said that they already make wise food decisions but are disgusted to see other Americans making such poor choices and driving their health premiums up to support those who choose poorly. 

 One survey patron expressed the hope that, when Hillary Clinton is elected President, she selects Michelle Obama as America's "Food Czar".  Get used to brown rice and broccoli, kiddies.  The future is now!

"Cue The Laugh Track"

                                                             

Cue the laugh track, folks.  Remember when those Guatemalans came flooding across the border last summer?  Remember how Obama threw out the welcome mat, fed em, medicated em, sent em off to various resorts and told them to report first thing Monday morning to an Immigration Court?  95% of em couldn't be found on Monday afternoon.

So, last Thursday night Obama announced blanket amnesty to a minimum of 5 million illegal Mexicans, told them they had to register, pay fines, apply for a green card and fess up to where they are making their money and paying taxes on the dough.  Yeah, you got it; cue the laugh track...he's telling two generations of Mexican lawbreakers to get right with all of our various laws.  Now, let's see..what's the chance of that happening...oh, I don't know...how about NONE!

Barry, something of an outlaw himself, is telling folks who execute "hit and runs" like they were a picnic in the park, who routinely stroll down to the nearest Mexican mercado, pay $50 bucks for brilliant forgeries of social security cards and state driver's licenses, get paid tax free under the table, and they're gonna rush right in to an immigration office and do exactly what Obama says?  Ain't happening.

And really, Obama doesn't care.  He was just using all that "law stuff" to placate the 70% of America who somehow don't think it's right that these cheating Mexican bastards are getting rewarded for breaking our nation's immigration laws.

And just as previous amnesties resulted in further invasion, you can bet your sweet asses, dear readers, that Central and South Americans are even now packing their bags for a roof top train ride to the American border.  Play it smart folks and invest in Univision, Sombreros, Mission Tortillas and the refried bean industry.  We officially became third world at 6PM MST last Thursday night.

Oh, and you can cue up the violins too cause your taxes are gonna go sky high trying to support another 40 or 50 million Central and South Americans.  Viva America Norte'!

Sad.  Damned Sad.

My Occasional Descent Into Communisim

                                                                 

Forgive me for a little navel contemplation this morning. I'm 90% free market capitalist and 10% communist. When I'm feeling a bit communistic I become a bit scornful of the ultra rich who play us for fools even as they fail to understand what kind of life the average working stiff goes through. Somewhere, at this very moment, the 1% are sitting in their million dollar suites, having a champaign brunch with Eggs Benedict while millions wake up hungry, homeless, without hope. Millions more have a job but struggle to pay the bills. 

Even the luckiest of us who might have put away a small nest egg and live comfortably still feel guilty at indulging in even a little luxury. We worry if the nest egg will last, and half of century of careful living and hard work make us self conscious of wasting anything or indulging too much. Yet, there are investment bankers in their penthouses in New York, or out on their Long Island or New Jersey estates, living the high life because they are able to clip 1/16th of a penny in profit from millions of investment transactions ever day....and that 1/16th of a penny gives them income of $100,000 a day...for which they have not expended one drop of sweat and where no intellectual talent is required. 

Politicians accrue their wealth differently; they trade on insider information about favorable legislation, the retire from politics and get paid $100,000 dollars to spout wisdom for an hour, or they serve on the board of G.E. or Walmart and collect a million bucks a year as a figurehead of corporations who care only for the bottom line and not a scintilla of sympathy for the average working joe. 

Billionaires use their money like it's monopoly money; the only meaning their wealth has is determining how they can manipulate its movement in order to accrue even more. The only thing that makes me a capitalist is seeing how the government can waste money like no one else on earth. I think I'd have far more sympathy for imposing higher taxes if the damn government didn't waste it in giving it out to so many frauds who delight in living off the carcass of the productive. 

If government should ever buck up, and begin to self audit their massively wasteful programs I'd be the first guy to jump up and say tax that damn investment banker more!...No one should be drinking Champaign and eating Eggs Benedict for brunch as long as someone's is really hurting. Okay, I'm done...my oatmeal is getting cold.

"Where's Idi Amin When You Need Him?"

                                                             

Where the hell is Idi Amin when you need him?  For you youngens, Idi Amin was the dictator of Uganda for about the same two terms that our dictator, Obama will serve.  The guy was amazing...he was an equal opportunity cannibal who literally ate both friend and foe.  He found his political enemies particularly tasty.  If he liked you just a little bit he would just throw you to the crocodiles.  When he was finally overthrown they found human body parts in his freezer as he was unable to finish off his kills before the overthrow.

When I first got to Saudi Arabia in the late 80's old Idi was living over in Jeddah, having embraced Islam at the last moment and given sanctuary by the Saudi King.  I think he died in Saudi, from indigestion after ingesting a Philipino houseboy.  

Anyway, I'm kind of nostalgic these days for old African dictators.  And I'm longing for those days when an African nation's name coincided with the one I learned in Geography class.  I mean, really, Idi kept his kill count down to reasonable thousands...he didn't raise whole armies and drive an entire nation across national borders and he didn't go for those mass murders of ten thousand or so.

And Idi had no problems with Christians or Jews and only picked up a Koran when he needed to sit his human barbecue plate on while watching re-runs of Gilligan's Island.  And remember the Israeli's Raid on Entebbe?  Idi had pigged out on "leg of umgawah" that night and slept through the whole thing!

But, again, I just miss our old dictators.  Where's Momar Quaddaffi?  Where's Haile Selassi?  Where's Hosni Mubarrak?  Where's Anwar Sadat?  These guys could be bought and stay bought!  Now it's all mass chaos out there in the Mid East and we're drowning in Arab Springs!  Hell, even Sadaam Hussein is starting to look good!...he kept the camels running on time and he killed fewer people than ISIS is shooting for.  So, I'm missing some of those old time dictators, especially Idi Amin.

Besides, I like Idi's medals.  When I become dictator I'm gonna wear that same uniform.  :)

"Mr. Obama Goes To Washington"

                                                             

We have all witnessed Barack Hussein Obama's rise to the Presidency.  We've all seen the devastation his Presidency has wrought on our national fabric.  We've seen him break every golden promise about honesty and transparency, a willingness to work with both parties, about bringing us together, about sending the lobbyists scurrying for cover, and about restoring faith in government.

Then, on the first day he took office, he brought in his Chicago Mafia and his Chicago corruption and his dirty Chicago politics...and declared himself Emperor.  He took political donations from his electric battery and solar pals and, in turn, gave them "favored industry status", loaned them hundreds of millions of dollars, then sat back and watched as each declared bankruptcy.  

He hired a socialist pal from MIT to write a complicated and convoluted health care plan that taxed the hell out of the working class, but kept that fact buried beneath so mud gobbly-gook that even the Speaker of the House said we'd have to pass it to see what's in it.

He immediate declared war on the Republicans, hosed them down like the St. Valentine's Day massacre and rammed through a $870 billion dollar pork stimulus bill that stimulated nothing.

He then employed his racist Attorney General to strong arm the states into accepting illegal Mexicans in their midst, wire tapped reporters phone lines and intercepted their emails in an effort to quash all criticism of his administration.

And as each new crisis arose, we could be sure that Barack Obama would abandon a leadership role and go out campaigning...even when there was no campaign to win!  

He boasts of restoring jobs even as 93 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed.  He brags that his healthcare plan is working even as Americans see their healthcare premiums soar.  He points to a lower unemployment rate but fails to mention that tens of millions have given up looking for jobs and have left the work force.

In winning his elections he has employed voter fraud and resorted to demonizing his opponents; always taking the low road when given a choice.

His foreign policy has been disastrous; six years of "Arab Springs" and he's been AWOL, absent without leave, every time leadership in foreign affairs has been called for.

Yesterday Barack Hussein Obama crossed my own personal "red line" when he declared the United States open to any and all invaders who wish to come and drag us kicking and screaming into 3rd World status.  Obama's declaration that laws are no longer sacred, that they can be declared null and void at his whim, means to me that Obama too is fair game for lawlessness.  

So, for the first time in my long life, I'm praying hourly that some lawless hero, with steady hands and a good eye, will blow this socialist bastard's head off, hopefully while he's out on the golf course, fiddling while America burns.  I'll even settle for a less violent but equally deadly onset of bladder cancer that will do Barry in post haste.

God Help America.

"Love Hurts"

                                                                 

Be still my heart.  You know, folks, I'm not getting any younger, and sometimes I come across something on the internet that proves to be dangerous and alarming. I'm going to have to be more careful what I'm reading because yesterday I came across an article about an alarming rise in Americans who are being injured while having sex.

I was minding my own business, reading an article about how to host a Thanksgiving dinner without lifting a finger when, just below the article I was reading, came a "teaser" about folks having sex injuries.  Seems an online dating site called "Meetville" recently ran a survey of folks they helped to hook up. The results were startling!  40% of those in the survey have reported being injured during the act of sex.  So scary!  These poor buggers have been impaled by broken tea cups and shattered wine glasses, have had pictures falling off the wall and been showered by broken glass, had their backs broken by collapsed bed frames, have been scalded by naked light bulbs when a bedside lamp shattered and crashed upon them and all manner of sexual disasters.

The survey goes on to report that the most dangerous places to have sex are the couch, the stairs, in the bath tub, on the toilet, in the car, on a chair, on the dining room table and, for god's sake, in the garden.

These sexual athletes have gotten themselves stuck in the toilet bowl, have cracked their head in the bathtub, have brought perfectly sturdy dining room tables crashing down around their ears, have slid off of granite countertops when the lube flowed a bit too freely, have picked up a good case of chiggers in the most unlikely of places  by screwing in the garden, been stabbed in the ass by rose bushes, have sprained their backs and cracked their heads on travertine tile when a dining room chair collapsed on them, have plummeted down whole sets of stairs while in "coitus delecto" and similarly injured in the aforementioned incidents in their own bedroom!

Survey respondents reported numerous incidents of total embarrassment as they showed up in hospital emergency rooms and had to explain their injuries, the most heinous being those times when neither they, nor their partner, could extract various and sundry items from an exotic vaginal or anal canal.

Folks, I'm too old to be reading stuff like this!  You may recall that, a couple of years ago, I dutifully reported the dangers of "coffee and sex"...I thought that was bad!  But here I am, more than an hour after reading this survey, still trying to get my blood pressure down...and some of those images out of my head.

Sigh.

Liberal Logic Hits The Street

                                                               

Arizona has our share of liberals, about 20% of the voting populace...the rest are Republican or Independent.  Our liberals tend to congregate in our large city centers; Phoenix downtown and Tucson downtown, as well as our university communities.  As you might expect, their budgets are always in peril.  This year alone Phoenix is running a $38 million dollar deficit.  When that happens the city's politicians begin imposing a tax on food and finding new fees they can hit the taxpayer with.

Well, after a citizen's revolt on food taxes, the pols backed off and looked elsewhere for new revenue (god help them should they ever have to actually cut spending!).  So the city decided to hike parking fees...to as much as $4.00 an hour in some locations!  

Well, guess what!  Downtown businesses are seeing a drastic drop in their customer count...and they're not happy!  Business revenue has dropped some 20%, the difference between making a small profit or facing bankruptcy!  Accordingly, the city is now collecting less sales tax, which makes the budget shortfalls even more dire!  The increased parking fees is projected to earn the city an extra $1.4 million per year....but the 20 percent decline in business sales taxes is projected to cost the city $10 million a year!

Well, the Democratic Mayor and the Democratic City Council are wringing their hands and fretting about what to do!  They have yet to realize that their outrageous parking fees are why business is declining and their tax base is declining.  Just about now they are thinking about laying off their meter maids in an effort to cut costs and then folks can ignore the parking meters and park for free without fear of retribution!

So now downtown businesses are hurting, and unemployment is rising as waiters and cooks and drink servers and ticket takers and valets and front desk clerks and, yes, meter maids are laid off who can then apply for unemployment and food stamps and further strain the already strained city and state budget!

All the Mayor and Council need do is get in the car and drive out to the thriving suburbs (where parking is free) to see how to balance their budget....but then that might cost them a little gas money and might imperil their own special sense of business realities!

Sigh.

"Senior Wingnuts"

                                                                 

How's your memory holding up?  Can you remember three years ago, those town hall meetings where folks were rising up in anger and declaring war against Obamacare?  Nancy Pelosi called those folks "wing nuts".  Harry Reid called them "domestic terrorists."  Barack Hussein Obama called them "right wing radicals."   Well, now America is learning that these protesters seemed to be the only ones who weren't asleep when Obamacare was shoved down their throats.

The media is having a field day trumpeting this Gruber fellow, from MIT or somewhere, who wrote the Obamacare bill and, ever since, has been bragging about how he got it passed over the heads of "stupid Americans."  Seems Gruber took the $400,000 dollars that Obama paid him, then went out on the lecture circuit talking about how he pulled it all off; how he filled the bill with such gobbledygook that no one would understand it, not even the legislators who passed it.  It was, as Nancy said, "something we needed to pass in order to see what's in it".  

One thing that was clearly not in it was that "if you like your doctor you can keep him, and if you like your health plan you can keep it."  Also, not obvious in it was Obamacare's basic premise; that working Americans would pay higher premiums to subsidize those who don't or won't work.  Nor did anyone point out that, even in the most optimistic conditions, the taxpayer would be paying for Obamacare deficits for years to come.  So Americans got "double taxed....they got taxed on those higher premiums and they got taxed again, money coming out of the general fund to make up the $200 billion in program deficits.

Try to remember that Obama's pleading before the Supreme Court nearly did them in until they changed their wording and called Obamacare a tax...since the feds can tax all they want Barry finally got Supreme Court approval.  But, it seems nearly all of America was asleep as the Congressional Budget Office estimates projected Obamacare to cost an additional $5 trillion dollars over the next decade.  Yeah, folks, that's a tax...a tax "stupid America" fell for hook, line, and sinker.

So before you even consider how many doctors and private hospitals have opted out of participating in Obamacare, before you even contemplate Obama's death panel, yet to kick in, before you ever consider that companies will continue not to hire additional employees because of the high costs of Obamacare (the mandates won't kick in until January 15), and before you even consider having to battle still another government bureaucracy that comes between you and your doctor, you learn that the whole damn thing was one big ruse inflicted on the American people.  One big Ponzi scheme that is hell bent on destroying the America economy.

So, now no one's happy.  The elderly aren't happy that Obama robbed $500 billion from taxes they paid into Medicare to pay the medical premiums for deadbeats, the docs and hospitals aren't happy, the medical device makers aren't happy, working America is not happy because Barry promised them a 25% decrease in their premiums...and now they are seeing their premiums soar, and now the Democrats are unhappy because they lost 9 Senators in the last election!

But Barry's happy.  Barry's always happy.  He's so damn happy he just might go out and play a round of golf, then come home and sit with Michelle and the girls and plan their $7 million dollar Christmas vacation in Hawaii!

But America would be far happier today if they had just listened to the few that were awake three years ago when this whole mess started.   Instead, most of America was guzzling the Kool Aid, believing The Anointed One was doing something else great for them.  Wing Nuts, indeed.

Tetelestai

                                                   

                                                        





The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke 




                                                     Tetelestai

Democrat Racists

                                                               

Bob Woodward, the Washington Post journalist who broke the Watergate story, was on Face The Nation last Sunday.  What he said about Barack Hussein Obama was quite surprising; he said Democrats, even before the election, have been disgusted by Obama's extreme arrogance and refusal to listen to anyone except his own counsel.  

Woodward says he's talked to many Congressional Democrats and he says they're saying the same thing about Obama that Republicans are.  Says they have the same problems dealing with "The Anointed One" as those on the other side of the aisle.

One Democrat called Obama no more than a "hologram", so shallow and weak that he's barely visible.  Frustrating Democrats the most is that Obama simply lives in his own little personal world and absolutely refuses to believe that his actions have brought down his own party.  Privately Democrats suggest that Obama's Executive Orders and his circumventing Congress is as disgusting to them as it has been to the Republicans.  His failure to consult with Congress, his absolute refusal to come up to the Hill and try to work with Congress as poisoned the well for anything to get done.

Who would have thought Harry Reid, post election, would say the Democrat Party election losses are Obama's fault!  

Well, I think this is all fine and good but, you know what?  Everyone one of those Democrats are racist!  How dare they question this Black President?  After all, anyone who openly criticizes Obama has been declared "racists" by the party faithful so why is it any different if they do it in secret?

All I can say to the Democrats is that you'd better not let Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson hear that you don't like Obama's handiwork!  Hell, you might have real trouble with the Black vote; they might vote for you only 90% of the time if they ever hear that you criticized a Black man!

P.S.  I've only seen this kind of Democratic traitorous retreat once before; yep, it was when Jimmy Carter occupied the White House...Jimmy Carter...the "next to worst" President in our history.

Sigh.

Of Arlington...And Other Fields of Green

                                                     

             

We are the spirits of Arlington, resting here, gathered from disparate times and places
Mother country carried us here...from Des Moines, from Little Rock, from the Red River of The North            
They lay us to rest here and in the evening we still hear the call of trumpets...and Chapel bells..and the cool evening winds whisper through the Birch and Ash and Chestnuts..and cool our fevered brow

Majestic Oak and Pine and Redwoods stand tall, sentinels who watch over us and sing the songs of old.
A little farther up the hill, across a span of a thousand white crosses, rests a young man who once commanded us; he rests below an eternal flame that says death cannot destroy a dream
Only defer it, for the dream is real..and the dream shall never die

And the people come!  They come from all over the world, to bear witness to America's great sacrifice in the name of freedom, to fortify a belief that personal liberty is the providence of our God.
And there are mournful times, when the family of a comrade carries him to his ultimate rest
Tears of loss are shed, and yet, as they look about at thousands of alabaster crosses all about them,
they take comfort  in knowing their loved ones have reunited with old friends, old comrades.

And tonight we spirits will gather around the ancient campfires, drinking bad coffee from tin cups, and tell stories of Bull Run, of Cold Harbor, of San Juan Hill, of Pork Chop Hill and Khe Sanh and unnamed villages in the mountains of Afghanistan.
We'll gaze into the embers of our camp fire and recall the booming of cannon and thump of mortar
And take heart that we did the very best we could..that we gave our all for our beloved country
We are the spirits of Arlington

                                             
                                                 

We are the spirits of Normandy...and St. Germaine.  We rest 3,000 miles away, in a land never ours, for we fought for freedom..and never territory!
Too many of us then to bring us all back for America's last embrace
The Frenchmen, who still gratefully remember, visit us.  And sometimes Americans, far from home, will venture down on a Sunday morning to breakfast on cheese and baguette...and marvel at the vastness of our sacrifice as the sun rises and chases the shadows from ten thousand crosses.
And sometimes the old ones come....the ones who were here on those June days when hell rained fire upon us.  They wander down row after row, looking for a familiar name...to match a sinewy and youthful face they've visited in their dreams for half a century.
And they will stop, kneel and caress the alabaster remnant, and whisper words of solace and comfort
And in the evening, when everyone is gone, we rise in unison and march to the sea wall..and remember
And then God arrays the sea with a golden moon..and urges us to rest...our job is done..

                                       
                                             

                   
We are the spirits of those who are buried in 10,000 small places across America.  Our little hometowns, in loving memory, have set aside a place of rest for us.
The towns folk drive past us time after time throughout the year; a mom taking her kids to soccer practice, the fellow on his way to his factory job, the waitress heading for the diner.
And on "our day" miniature American flags will be set beside our graves...and the living will slow down as they pass, perhaps nod in appreciation for our sacrifice, perhaps say a prayer that the sacrifice will have proven to be worth it.
And in the evening we rise as one, and walk the streets of our home town.  We'll ramble past the home that once gave us succor and comfort...and love.  We'll stop to sit on a curb where once we tumbled from roller skates on an endless summer day.  We'll stroll past the church and remember the Sunday school lessons taught to us, with patience and care.  We'll linger beneath an Aspen tree and gaze up at the same stars that shone on the night we had our first kiss.
And those same stars will remind us to return to our resting places...and sleep peacefully beneath the same heavens that shone down on once youthful faces, immersed in an innocence that shall never be again.
We are the spirits of those buried in 10,000 small places across America.

And as long as America remembers us, our sacrifice will not have been in vain...and the dream shall never die.

Gridiron Idiocy

                                                               

Earlier this year Philadelphia's DeSean Jackson, professional Black thug,  caught a long pass from Quarterback Nick Foles and took it to the end zone.  Problem is, the arrogant son of a bitch rolled the ball off his fingertips half a yard short of the end zone and the score didn't count.  This is the same DeSean Jackson who earned headlines for not tipping White waiters for hundred dollar lunches in restaurants around Philadelphia.  Still, I let the incident go with a simple declaration of "idiot" and moved on.

So last night I'm watching the Utah-Oregon game and I'm rooting for an upset of Oregon so my Arizona State Sun Devils can move up in the bowl standings.  The 17th ranked Utes scored first, then kept Oregon's high powered offense scoreless into the middle of the second quarter.  Further boosting their upset chances the Ute quarterback thew a 79 yard pass down the field to teammate, wide receiver Kaelin Clay.  However, Clay, with no one around him, decided to get fancy and he too rolled the football off the tip of his fingers a yard short of the end zone.  (Which was pretty hard to miss since it was colored flaming red!).  Clay then went into his boogie dance  with the end zone crowd.  While he was doing the boogie an Oregon player picked up the ball and sprinted 99 yards to the Oregon end zone.  So instead of the Utes leading 14-0, the score was 7-7 and momentum had switched to Oregon.   By halftime Oregon led 21-7 and would go on to rout the Utes.

As Clay moved to a seat on the sidelines a couple of his Black friends came over and patted him on the shoulder.  The rest of the team ignored him, including the coach who stood in stony silence, wanting mightily to say what needed to be said.  And I'm ashamed to say I DID say it:  "you dumb fucking arrogant nigger."  I was immediately ashamed.  The comment came from the culmination of just too much Black arrogance this human season.  From Barry and Eric and Jessie and Al and Charlie Rangel and those thousands of arrogant Black thugs down in Ferguson, Missouri, I had just had my fill of Black arrogance.

Then I looked at that kid on the bench.  He first just had this really dumb look on his face.  I could not help but equate this 80 IQ college football player to an ape one sees dragging his long arms around the zoo.  It was then that a spark of humanity came back into me and I began to feel a bit sorry for the guy.  Once the realization of what he had done set in, he began licking his lips and turning his head to and fro like one sees a dog do when he can't comprehend what his master is saying.   I mean, it's bad enough that most football jocks are as dumb as boards, both Black and White.  Most struggle just to maintain a "C---" average in order to qualify to play college football.  And they struggle with courses like basket weaving, African American Art, and such.  But this Clay kid seemed seriously mentally deficient.  No doubt there are millions like him, all bred by a liberal elite who have given three generations of Blacks a pass on everything from education to behaving decently in public.

And as long as we keep giving Blacks a pass they'll continue to come up short of the goal line.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

The Sophistry Game

                                                               

The Sophists were a band of philosophers who plied their trade in the same era as Socrates and Plato.  They served as educators to the wealthy and politically ambitious.  They specialized in teaching their students in the art of rhetoric and proper speech.  But the basis of their philosophy was simply the art of questioning, never burdened with the demand to provide answers to the questions posed.

So Socrates and Plato dissed them mightily.  They criticized the lack of mental discipline that is required for solid and feasible philosophy.  While that is probably true I would think it fun to be able to ask all the questions and let someone else deal with the answers.  Having said all of this, kiddies, let's play a little round of sophistry and see what line of thinking we might follow.

Political;

1) Have you ever wondered why politicians seek office?  Are they on a power grab?  Why do people who are vastly wealthy seek political office?  Why don't they just buy a yacht and sail around the world sipping champagne and eating caviar?  Is their quest for political office indicative of something noble in them?  Or is it a sign of poor character?

2) Why do Bill and Hillary, having accumulated $100 million dollars in speaking fees, continue to pursue the world of politics?  Is it a "god" syndrome?  A need to be worshipped?  A need to feed the ego?

3) Given that Barack Obama is out of offices to seek, why is he so hell bent on giving amnesty to 30 million illegal Mexicans?  Is it simply a need to be worshipped by a wider audience?  Or does he really advocate for the Sol Alinkski model of social engineering and is sincerely trying to destroy the old America in order to establish a socialist state?  What is in Obama's DNA that has motivated him to do nothing except campaign for six years?  Why is he so sensitive to criticism?  Do we have another Richard Nixon as President'?...someone who has serious mental illness?

4)  Do liberal Democrats truly believe in their own political philosophy?  When their way clearly doesn't work why do they continue to embrace failure?  What do liberals, deep in their soul, really think of Blacks?  Do they really accept the premise that you can spoil a culture with free government benefits and believe that culture will thrive, and not be spoiled just like you would spoil a child?  Or is there some genetic flaw in the liberal brain that prevents them from applying logic to the life experience?

Social:

1) To solve our massive crime problem, with all the expense and harm to innocents, wouldn't it be better just to execute every felony prisoner to make room for a fresh batch?  Then, why couldn't we just declare martial law and round up all the violent thugs and run them all through the execution chamber?  Could we accept that some innocents might be caught up in those mass executions?  What kind of people would we be knowing we have taken some innocent lives as the price to pay for a society free of crime?

2)  What would America look like today if our forefathers had simply shipped those Black slaves back to Africa?  Would we be much farther ahead in our national progress without having to expend $100 trillion dollars in the last fifty years trying to educate and make more human the African race?  

3) What about the Muslim problem that the western world has had to live with for the last thousand years?  Would it not be better just to drop a few tactical nukes over Cairo and Baghdad and Syria and Damascus  and Indonesia and selective regions of Africa?  Should we give them a month's notice to afford Islamic moderates time to turn against the savagery of their militant brothers and end the violence or perish along with them?  Would that salve our conscience by issuing a warning?  And again, if we did that, what kind of people would we be?  Would we be any better than those savage Islamic militants?

Sophistry is a game we all play, without even knowing it.  And why not?  It's an easy way to vent frustration.  And, when we are feeling truly ambitious we can even provide the answers to our questions...answers that are more likely to be flawed than not.  I think Socrates and Plato were right; developing a workable philosophy on how we are to guide ourselves, how we are to find answers that are workable and acceptable requires more rigorous thinking.  But sophistry can be a useful tool as well.  It gives us the opportunity to shoot from the hip, throw out some of the most dangerous of ideas...to let us see them in the light of day so that we might know ourselves a bit better.

I hope you have taken this little essay for what it is...kind of a "contemplate our naval" type of thing where we look hard at who we are and who we want to be and learn to think and act accordingly.

Tuesday America Took Out The Trash

                                                               

In 2010 America marginalized Nancy Pelosi.  Last night America marginalized Harry Reid.  But, most of all, America marginalized Barack Hussein Obama.  Oh, Barry, with his massive ego, tried like hell to be relevant during the last two weeks.  Having little regard for his own party, Obama flew home to his home state of Chicago and made a speech and said "Yes, I'm on the ballot, and yes, my policies are on the ballot.  And, despite his own party avoiding him like he had a serious case of Ebola, Barry was able to bring his party down.

Obama and his legion of yes men sat in the White House Tuesday night and saw the writing on the wall early in the returns.  Trying again to be one of the "big boys", Obama announced that he wants to get together at the White House on Friday.  He'll try again to paint himself as a "uniter", all the while insisting that he'll grant amnesty to illegal Mexican invaders and he'll insist that no one touch his disastrous Obamacare program.

Yes, I enjoyed Tuesday night very much.  Not a single Republican Senate incumbent lost their seat and, though we won't know the results of Alaska until later in the week, and Louisiana on December 6th, Republicans may very well pick up nine seats from the Democrats.  The television coverage was interesting.  While Fox was trotting out both Democrats and Republicans to get their take on the election, CNN had disgraced Black culture thug, and Obama appointee Van Jones and Obama's old press secretary to do damage control.  Both denied the election was not a "wave election" and pointed out the low voter turnout.  What they wouldn't admit is that Barry's minions did not turn out in any significant numbers for a good reason; he ain't done nothing for them.  Black unemployment remains at 30% and Hispanics are beginning to believe Barry can't deliver on his amnesty promise...so they stayed home.  Conversely, Middle Class America came out in greater numbers, and in all age groups while Obama's college kids stayed home in Mom and Dad's basement and pouted, refusing to caucus with Obama who hasn't been able to deliver an economy that will win them jobs.

Back to the TV coverage.  I must admit I kept switching over to MSNBC to see what Rachel and Chris and Big Al were saying about their idol's ass whooping.  Early in the evening Rachel Maddow was rubbing her hands and crowing that Democrats were projected to take a lot of the Governor races.  By midnight Eastern even those dreams were smashed; Liberal Massachusetts elected a Republican governor as did deep blue Maryland and even Illinois, saddled with $100 billion dollars in unfunded union pension liabilities voted in a Republican to see if he could straighten out the mess. Overall, Republican governors actually extended their lead in the governor state count, another message for big spending liberals.

Also thrilling was the massive defeat of the socialist union thugs in Wisconsin as Governor Scott Walker trounced their candidate Mary Burke in a landslide.  The AP reported that the unions in Wisconsin spent hundreds of millions of dollars in Wisconsin alone and now have nothing to show for all those union dues.

It was interesting that it was Iowa's Joni Ernst victory over a closet liberal who put the Republicans over the top.  She won the hearts of Iowans in her very first ad when she said she was a pig farmer and was well schooled in castrating hogs.  Accordingly, her victory castrated Harry Reid and his six years of ruling like a despot in the Senate, refusing to bring House bills to a Senate vote, refusing to allow Republicans to add amendments to Senate bills, and closing off any discussion of Senate legislation.  

It was also interesting to see that Bill and Hillary were largely ignored.  Slick Willie spent half his time campaigning in Arkansas and the people of Arkansas responded by electing a Republican governor and a Republican Senator and turned Arkansas red from blue faster than any time in political history.  Hillary visited Democratic campaigns 114 times and did little good either.

So, Tuesday America took out the trash.  They sent a dozen liberals to smashing defeat, extending their already impressive majority in the house, and told Obama he is no longer relevant; that they are no longer enamored by all his "perty words".  

God Bless America.

Don't Get Your Hopes Up

                                                           

If you're a conservative don't get your hopes up after the Republicans success in these 2014 elections.  Here's why:  the Republicans will have 24 states up for grabs in 2016.  Many of those seats are in states friendly to Democrats.  So, as soon as the new Congress is seated in January, look for Republicans to start moving toward the middle in hopes of cultivating a few Blacks, lots of Hispanics, and Independents who live in the middle of the political spectrum.

What that means for issues such as immigration is a "sell out" of those Americans who believe we don't reward law breaking invaders.   As soon as Congress begins their session in January 2015 you're going to see an immigration bill much like what was voted down last year.  Those 24 Senate seats up for grabs in 2016, many in states turning purple, will loom large over the next two Congressional sessions.  Republicans know that, as hard it as it was in the mid-terms, it's going to be doubly difficult in a Presidential election where turnout will surge some 20% over the mid-term numbers.  With 24 Republican senators having to defend their positions they understand they are going to have to win some Hispanic vote and gather additional votes among independents who aren't so troubled about the illegal immigration issue.

I believe the House will go along with a Republican controlled Senate.  They've probably had enough of being called obstructionists and House members are always running, having to raise campaign money and court voters every two years.

The best we can hope for on immigration legislation would be a Republican Congress insisting on solid border security measures first, before they begin passing out green cards.  That's probably not likely for all the reasons already cited.

As to the other national concerns, I don't hold much hope there either.  Republicans have shown they are damn good at deficit spending so the most we can hope for there is that they spend less.  Maybe a Republican controlled Congress can stop some of Obama's appointments of liberal judges and socialist czars; that alone would be a benefit of a Republican sweep this year.  For example, I want Congress to look long and hard at Obama's next nominee for Attorney General.  The word now is that  Barry has picked a wild ass liberal out of New York so maybe Congress can kill that one; we don't need another Eric Holder ignoring our laws and making up his own.

Well, please go out and vote and let's hope for the best.  We know this; it can't get any worse than the Harry Reid led Senate who has sat on 387 House Bills, skipped doing a budget for four years, and was as divisive as anyone other than Barack Hussein Obama.

Red, White And... Blue Collar

                                                             

Over the weekend I read portions of two books that have turned into long term reading projects.  One is a biography of Franklin Roosevelt, the other an economic tome called Naked Economics.  Somehow the ideas in these two completely different books began to meld together and set me to thinking how dramatically America, and Americans have changed over the years.

For example, in Naked Economics the author writes about the great disconnect between what our college age children are studying vs the training that is actually needed in the current work force.  Several million American jobs remain unfilled.  They include electrical and industrial engineering and design as well as a need for welders and fine machine work.  The disconnect comes as our college graduates walk off the commencement yard with degrees in political science, gender studies, history of the oppressive white majority and other degrees that captured millennial interest.

So fully a third of college graduates now reside with their parents and are either not working, or working in lower paid jobs which have nothing applicable to their degree studies.  And American companies, desperate for workers, are pushing for legalizing illegal Mexicans because they know they'll take the jobs that Americans don't want.  To fill the higher end jobs, companies from Michigan to Silicon Valley are lobbying Congress to grant more Visas from highly educated folks from China and India.

What does all this have to do with World War II era Americans?  Well, Rosie the Riveter couldn't fix a screen door as World War II began.  But, since most able bodied American men were serving in the military, it became necessary for Rosie to manufacture the war materials and hardware their husbands would need to win that war.  How did they do?  Well that led me to re-visiting those American war production numbers from 1942 to 1945.  

Try to imagine America turning out 300,000 aircraft, 60,000 tanks, 36,000,000,000 yards of cotton textiles for uniforms, 41,000,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 12,500,000 rifles and carbines, 204,000 jeeps, 806,000 two and a half ton trucks, 124,000 warships of all types...so many that they were backed up in shipyards waiting their turn to bob into our naval harbors.  

Then Rosie went home from her ten hour shift, cooked dinner for her kids, washed their clothes, cleaned the house, then went to bed to get up early for another ten hour shift the next day.  When she did have a little leisure time she was saving her bacon grease, to be turned into her local butcher, to be carted off to plants that were making explosives.  And she turned her newspaper and scrap iron over to volunteers who collected anything that could be recycled for war production.  

Long ago, when I asked my mother about those years, she told me it was hard.  She talked about rationing and how their sharecropping harvest went toward feeding American troops and our allies.  Of the many sacrifices that people on the home front made in fighting that terrible war.  Others of that era said, while it was hard, it was an exciting time, a time when the entire country was united for one grand cause; the preservation of the free world.

Contrast that era, and those Americans, to those of the Vietnam War, or the Gulf War, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  While it was admirable that thousands rushed to their recruiting office on September 12, 2001, nothing else was asked of the American people.  We simply dispatched our all volunteer force to the Middle East while the rest of America sat back as if nothing had happened.  And we didn't try to sell war bonds...we just put all those wars on the government credit card.  And we Americans continued to war and snipe at each other and divisiveness thrived.

Now we are on Obama's "semi-war" footing...neither in nor out.  We dare not even call it war anymore..our President calls them "overseas contingencies".

As to the our economic battles, here at home, we're not doing very well there either.  Our young want American companies to create jobs around their liberal studies degree while the world demands something far different.  So the Millenials stay home with mom and dad, pictures of Barack Obama gracing their basement bedroom, and wait for the world to come to them.

Rosie The Riveter would be ashamed.

The Vagina Monologues

                                                             

Preface:
For those who don't know, The Vagina Monologues is a play about how a woman's vagina is her spiritual center, her place of empowerment, and the part of her that all other facets of life revolve around.  It has become a cult classic among the liberal set and nearly every actress of note has taken a shot at performing it.  Ironically, real life seems to be playing out around this play, and may now reflect our new political culture.


Tuesday morning millions of American women will go to the polls and vote their vagina.  Sounds crazy, huh?  Absolutely true!  In fact, all of this last weekend Democrats will be hitting the stump to warn women that, if Republicans win, they will lose their free birth control and right to abortions.  In Colorado Senator Udall has become so desperate to regain his Senate seat that he's paid for a commercial telling voters to stock up on condoms because, if his opponent wins,  condoms will be banned in the state of Colorado.

When a politician can offer no solutions to our current problems, when a politician's performance in office has been so bad, and the results so horrid, they must often fall back on some small hot button issue to distract.  And for six years now the Democrats have been pointing at the woman's vagina and screaming that the vagina is under assault.  If the Republicans won't spring for free birth control pills and taxpayer funded abortions, then they are assaulting your vagina.  And it's worked quite beautifully, until now.

Now, a few women are losing focus on the vagina and wishing someone would ease their mind about job losses, home affordability, finding their college sons and daughters jobs so they can move out of the basement,  dealing with the ISIS threat, educating their children better and making college more affordable for their kids.

So, some women, now distracted from their vagina, intend to go to the voting booth and vote Republican for god's sake!  And the Dems just can't let that happen!  While they successfully own the Black vote, keeping them on the liberal plantation, the Black vote is not enough to win them those Congressional seats they covet so fiercely.  Nor are there enough legal Mexicans to win the day.  No, they need those "vagina watchers" in order to stay in office.

There is hope for 2016 though!  There are more than enough "dumb cu*ts" who will vote for Hillary cause she's a woman and she'll be the first President with a vagina and that's all that matters!  And somehow a Republican woman's vagina just won't cut it!  We've seen this country's standing in the world decline in the last six years, we've lived with a stagnant economy, half of our college graduates are living at home and not working, we've lived with greater government intrusions into our personal lives, our health care premiums have soared in order to pay for 30 million Americans who won't pay for their own healthcare, and yet, women by the millions have voted their vagina because someone told them they'll lose their $20 dollars a month free birth control allotment.

Kinda makes you wonder if we should have given women the right to vote, doesn't it?  I mean if women are that fricking dumb maybe those male chauvinist pigs back in the 19th century and before were right after all!

If their whole life revolve around "the vagina monologues" we're all in big trouble.

Famous Political Quotes

                                                                 

"Politics have no relations to morals"...Machiavelli

"I tried pot but I didn't inhale"...Bill Clinton

"I did not have sex with that woman"...Bill Clinton

"You'll have to define what sex is"...Bill Clinton

"If you put the government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five short years they'd be a shortage of sand"...Dr. Milton Friedman

"So far I've travelled to 57 states"...Barack Obama

"Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything"...Alexander Hamilton

"For god's sake, Bill..put your cock in your pants and get in the car..she's not gonna fuck you here"..Hillary Clinton at an Arkansas campaign rally

"I don't make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts"...Will Rogers

"Who's going to find out?"  "These women are bimbos".."no one is going to believe them"  Hillary Clinton on Bill's bimbo eruptions.

"Never have so many owed so much to so few"...(on the RAF over Britain in WWII.)

"Ahh, we aren't falling for the old truism that businesses create jobs"...Hillary Clinton, October 2014

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that!"...Barack Obama, July 2012

"I am not going to have reporters pawing through our papers...we are the President"...Hillary Clinton during the Travelgate scandal.

"You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong"....Abraham Lincon

"At this point how does it really matter how they died!"  Hillary Clinton on Benghazi tragedy

"By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail"....Benjamin Franklin

"The Constitution says we should have freedom of religion..not freedom from religion"..Rev. Billy Graham

"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  If you like your current health plan you can keep it"...Barack Obama

"Well first we have to pass the plan before we see what's in it"...Nancy Pelosi on Obamacare

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquent.  Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master"..George Washington

"Why can't I just eat my waffle?"...Barack Obama when asked a foreign policy question while campaigning at a Pennsylvania diner.

"Where's the god-damned fucking flag?  I want that god-damned fucking flag raised at fucking sunrise every fucking morning!"...Hillary Clinton as Arkansas First Lady in 1991..said to Arkansas state troopers.

"Fuck off!"  "It's enough that I have to see you shit kickers every day...I'm not going to talk to you too!"  "Just do your fucking job and shut the fuck up!"....Hillary Clinton's response when she was wished a good morning by an Arkansas state trooper.

"Three groups spend other people's money; thieves, children and politicians...all three need supervision"...Dick Armey

"The Splendid Splinter"

                                                           

I'm currently through about three quarters of a long 800 page biography of baseball great Ted Williams.  It's a fascinating study about a very complex man...and I think it proves that you can achieve excellence in your chosen field if you're willing to sacrifice everything else in your life.  Ted Williams certainly did; he was a massive failure as a father and, thrice divorced, at marriage too.

But I'll bet you they could go over to that Cryogenic Lab here in Phoenix (Ted's son had him frozen over at the ALCOR facility in town), sew old Ted's head to his body, take him out to home plate at Chase Field and the guy could hit 250....Ted was truly the greatest hitter who ever lived.  In 1941, when "The Kid" was just 23 years old, he hit .406, the last player to do it.  Ted has a lifetime batting average of .344 and, despite missing four and a half of his prime baseball years for service in World War II and again recalled for the Korean War, Williams managed to clout 521 home runs.

Despite my advanced age, I only got to see Ted bat in one game, the 1960 All Star games (back then they played two).  Ted was 41 years old and he still went 1 for 2 (.500 average).  Lest you think old Ted was selected on a sympathy vote, you might want to look at Ted's stats for 1960, his last year.   The guy was almost 42 years old, was developing a little bit of a pot belly, and he still hit .316, clouted 29 home runs and drove in 75 runs on a team that was so bad they rarely had anyone on base for him to drive in.

I have only seen three swings that are as close to perfection as you ever hope to see; Ted Williams, Tony Gwynn, and current Los Angeles first baseman, Adrian Gonzalez.  All three great hitters have one thing in common, they are so balanced at the plate, so dedicated to maintaining a smooth and even swing, that they rarely struck out.  In 7,709 at bats over Williams career he struck out only 709 times, less than one chance in ten.  One year, with nearly 500 at bats, Williams struck out only 24 times in the whole season.  

While I still believe Willie Mays was the best all round player in baseball history (Willie hit over 300 for his career,  was the greatest center fielder of all time, had great speed in the field and on the bases, and hit 660 home runs while playing ten years in Candlestick Park where the swirling ocean winds blew homers right back into the park), Ted Williams was the greatest hitter.

For you readers who are non-fans, thanks for indulging me today.  I love baseball; the baseball season have marked the seasons of my own life and I'm enjoying this wonderful read on "Teddy Ballgame".  It's titled "The Kid" and it's written by Ben Bradlee Jr., son of the famed Washington Post editor and a great journalist in his own right.  If it weren't on my Kindle I'd let you borrow it.

And let me end here with my favorite baseball poem by former Yale President and Baseball Commissioner A. Bart Giamatti:

                         It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. – A. Bartlett Giamatti, “The Green Fields of the Mind”