Recently posted quotes:

"There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress." Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.” -Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it." -James Madison (1751-1836)

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported." -John Adams (1735-1826)


Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Shirley Sherrod - Missing a crucial point!

Ref: “Walk on Eggshells, get egg on your face” and “others”

You guys call yourselves journalist. I believe you have missed the larger point in the Shirley Sherrod debacle. It seems that everyone is too quick to jump to the race issue and completely overlook a value that has been around much longer – Truth.

The capability to sway large and somewhat informed throngs in the age of “anything posted by anybody (signed or anonymous) on the internet – true or not” has almost overtaken the print media in readability.

In this country, since the time of Ben Franklin the populous has looked to journalist to be the watchdogs of our well being. We have always asked the journalist just for the Truth. Are we at a point where we will not be able to believe anything we read, see or hear? I hope not.

In a society that wants to regulate everything, the largest task confronting Truth may well be “internet journalism.” Maybe it lingers in the mind as too large to tackle. Well, here’s your chance. In the past week, journalist you were not! How could you have ignored this? Well, except for Arnold García Jr. who came as close as anyone to addressing the issue.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Roomin’ with Dutch

I am having a real kick getting down the events that took place during the summers of 1966 & 1965 and might go into 1966 just a bit if I still feel like it.

Giving up summer baseball and asking Dutch if I could spend the summer as a full time hand on the rig was a big decision for a guy who had just finished his Junior Year in high school. The previous summer had been my last in Babe Ruth League ball. Now I had to decide on Pony League and possibly high school ball. The big problem here was that Bryan was going to be on probation for the next two years and hopes were not high.

There would be no more lazy mornings and afternoons laying around and doing absolutely nothing; well maybe going to the pool every now and then. There would also be zero time with my friends; I would be somewhere else. Oh, maybe I would see them on a weekend every now and then but probably not many times during the entire summer.

Who knows where the jobs would take us, but you can bet they would – and they did.

Remembering back to those high-line days cutting across country and the greasy, warm cheese, hang down and onion lunches is fun to do. Operating the dozer and towing the rig, water truck and pickup from hole to hole up in East Texas sand was about the filthiest part of the first summer – not necessarily the muddiest, but filthiest.

Then there was the summer of 1965 and the travel unmatched by the previous summer. We seemed to be everywhere and pretty much were.

Good days, great guys to work with and some tough, but sometimes funny experiences.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Justice Sonia Sotomayor let us DOWN!

I don’t believe the committee meetings taking place with candidate Elena Kagan are the real issue of the last week’s Washington news. To me it’s the Gun Control – 2nd Amendment case decided by the Supreme Court and how our trust has been dashed by the most recent addition to that court. I provide the following as evidence.

Quotes come straight from the Austin American-Statesman article posted in today’s paper:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/goldberg-the-challenge-for-a-supreme-court-nominee-779098.html

Justice Sotomayor sided with Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the dissent. Jonah Goldberg (Tribune Media Services) put it this way:

“However, the more newsworthy opinion came from rookie Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She concurred with Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent, which held that there is no fundamental right to bear arms in the U.S. Constitution. "I can find nothing in the Second Amendment's text, history or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as ‘fundamental' insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes," Breyer wrote for the minority.”

I believe this to be a real threat to the U.S. Constitution.

Goldberg continues:

“But when Sotomayor was before the Senate Judiciary Committee one year ago for her own confirmation hearings, she gave a very different impression of how she saw the issue. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy asked her, "Is it safe to say that you accept the Supreme Court's decision as establishing that the Second Amendment right is an individual right?"”

When can you believe Justice Sotomayor? She says one thing in her conformation hearings and then does another when it is time to do her job. The world did not change between those two occasions. What are we to believe?

She even got favorable treatment from the Dems after her testimony. There is supposed to be a definite distinction between and a check on the balance of power between the three branches of government. If there isn’t and the wool has been pulled over our eyes; is this not a threat to our Constitution?

You tell me.