tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76437161221316106812024-03-05T08:15:35.044-08:00The Eyes of TexasKent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.comBlogger207125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-32485480208978342332012-12-19T07:53:00.000-08:002012-12-19T07:53:13.505-08:00Baby Jesus in a Onesey<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Baby Jesus in a Onesey<!--?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">A few more hours, and the big day is
here.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Merry Christmas to all, whether it be Kwanza or
Hanukkah or the celebration or not of your
choice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I heard a report the other day that 78% of
Americans still believed in the traditional Christmas. Of the remaining 22%, 8%
believed in nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I was glad to hear the 78% figure for given all
the hue and cry in the media, Christmas is on the way out. And that would be
such a shame for there is nothing to my way of thinking any more precious to a
parent than the excitement and anticipation twinkling in his child’s eyes as he
hears the Christmas story and looks upon his presents under the tree. And how do
you measure the joy in his face when he tears into his
presents?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The weeks leading up the day of Jesus’s birth
have always taken on something special to me. I can’t explain it except that it
seems as if everything about us is a little more hopeful, a tad more promising,
and bit more happy. Maybe it is all in my imagination, but I don’t think so. I
like to think it is the inherent goodwill in mankind making its way to the
surface after months of wear and tear we’ve endured living the ‘normal’
life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Churches around us help stimulate the feeling
just like the children’s play last week at Proctor Street
Baptist.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The play wasn’t the typical Christmas story, not
exactly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Entitled ‘O Little Christmas Town,’ it was a
musical with a subplot of the community trying to decide whether they wanted to
let their town grow larger or keep it small. The discussion was moderated by a
character named ‘Mrs. Talkalot’ who was played by Anna
Licatino.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The youngsters did a fine job. The three
citizens were Raegan Graves, Vivien Thames, and Keegan Johnstone, the latter who
happens to be my grandson. Darrell Marsh played the Inn Keeper, Alyssa Licatino
was Ima Gossip, and Ross Marsh played the
shepherd.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The townspeople were Logan Chapa, Ayden
Licatino, Caylee Licatino, and Mikey Wood. Mikey is also my grandson. Ayden and
Caylee also played the angels in the next
scene.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">During the community discussion, word came of
baby Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The players left the stage, and then here came
Joseph and Mary with baby Jesus in her arms. Baby Jesus was played by the world
acclaimed actor, Noah Wood, who incidentally happens to by my little
five-month-old grandson. Mary was his sister, Hannah Wood, who was a perfect
Mary. Eric Bankston was an excellent Joseph.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Little Noah’s whole family, both sides, was
sitting on the second and third rows, holding its collective
breaths.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Decked out in his striped onesey, an infant
sleeping type garment, he did fine, no crying, no tantrums; he just lay quietly
in his sister’s arms staring out as the hundreds of eyes watching him. He was
perfectly content as long as Mary kept feeding him his
pacifier.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, there were couple spots that didn’t fit in
that time frame, but I’m sure the fact that baby Jesus was wearing a striped
onesy instead of swaddling clothes, and was nursing on a pacifier did not
detract from the story. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The only grandchild not in the play was my
younger granddaughter, two-year-old Kenli-bug. She’s a little fireball. She
would have been all over the place, even inspecting the star on the tree.
Fortunately, she was quite content back in the nursery drawing Christmas trees
and making decorations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The little production was very enjoyable, and
fortunately, my two grandsons, To our relief, Mikey and Keegan, didn’t stumble
over their long robes or fall down the
steps.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, I might be mistaken here, but after the
service when we went to the nursery to see Kenli, I could have sworn I saw the
nursery attendant breathe a sigh of relief when my wife and I walked into the
room.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Thanks, Proctor Street. I have a feeling that if
the other 22% who don’t believe in Christmas had seen the little play, some of
them might have given their beliefs a second
thought.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-19004295095938032072012-12-12T07:40:00.000-08:002012-12-12T07:40:25.464-08:00Christmas is on the Way<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Decorations are strung (almost), tasty treats
are being prepared, folks are enjoying cheese and libations in front of a cheery
fire, a sense of goodwill is in the air.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Unfortunately, there are always the
Scrooges.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">It once was that the bah-humbuggers made only
themselves miserable, but today, they do their best to make everyone as
miserable as they.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Regardless, the season is here despite the war
the folks are trying to wage against
Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">How well I know times today are different than
fifty years ago. People claim to be much more tolerant, but if you’ll permit me
to say, I’ve noticed that their tolerance extends only to the points at which
you begin to disagree with them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I watched a news story recently of an elementary
school taking some of its students to see a play called ‘Charlie Brown’s
Christmas’, being held at the local church.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">One parent did not like the idea so she went not
to the school, but the local ‘Free Thinkers Organization’, an Arkansas group
whose mission is to create a supportive non-religious community for atheists,
agnostics, skeptics, scientists, and free
thinkers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And no, I’m not making this up. Check the group
out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But, back to the
story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">From one disgruntled parent’s complaint, the
Free Thinkers bombarded the church with tons of hate mail and threats of
lawsuits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The church
caved.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The kids stayed at
school.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Who lost here? Not the idiot parent. Not the
idiot Freethinkers. The kids lost, little kids who possess an innocent sense of
fair play of which that parent and Free Thinkers have no
concept.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Christmas is that time of the year when grownups
make themselves happy by making kids and the less fortunate
happy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">So maybe you think that’s corny.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Those of us who believe in Christ (supreme
being- sorry, satan not included) understand that helping others is a bottomless
source of satisfaction and joy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Living only for yourself insures you a cold and
withered existence despite surrounding yourself with expensive
toys.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">What someone wants to believe is his business.
Why do they assume they have the right to make life miserable for others just
because their decisions have made them miserable?
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I feel sorry for those
people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">A perfect example of Christmas joy took place at
our house the other day with Keegan, my grandson. He’s eight, and he’s already
been questioning his Mom about Santa Claus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">My older daughter, Susan, an RN working in
hospice, is pretty good with the computer. She found a program called
portablenorthpole.com. A cute program, it personalizes, via email, a youngster’s
visit with Santa Claus at the North Pole.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">She did it for her son, Mikey, and he was blown
away with it. I would have loved to have seen his reaction. It was probably
pretty much the as Keegan’s when he saw the
video.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">She put it on my computer. When Keegan came
over, we told him there was a message to him from Santa. “He wants to talk to
you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">His eyes popped open. The cold see the
excitement on his face. Money couldn’t measure the anticipation in his
eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I said ‘Let’s go watch
it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“Oh no.” He insisted on watching it
alone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Gayle and I grinned at each other. The little
guy was kinda leery about what Santa had to
say.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We let him got to the computer by
himself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">A couple minutes later, he called out. “Mee-mee,
Pa. Come see.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Apparently, he liked what Santa had to
say.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The video was cute as Kenli Bug, my little
granddaughter. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The North Pole was as we all imagined, snow, big
house, gadzillions of stars. Santa welcomed Keegan by name, went to a huge
library of books, found the one titled, KEEGAN, and sat down by the fire. He
showed pictures of his elves looking over Keegan’s room as well as reading notes
from the book about Keegan’s behavior. Keegan had been a good boy, but he needed
to be sure to keep his room clean, mind his Mom and Pop, and be nice to
everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then he showed Keegan through the workshop with
all the toys, pointing out a couple boxes slated for Keegan’s Christmas tree.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Talk about excited. His eyes shone and he
jabbered on and on about Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">There was no one any more tickled than his
grandmother and me. Right before us was the epitome of
Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now you can see why I feel sorry for those who
do not believe in Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"> www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</a></span></span>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-35574592327869129112012-12-05T07:43:00.000-08:002012-12-05T07:43:06.970-08:00Don't Forget Pearl Harbor<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Hard to believe it’s been seventy-one years
since Pearl Harbor. Not too many of us around who remember it, at least in real
time. Last figure I saw was that about 13 or 14 percent of the population is
over seventy. That means around 85 percent of our country came along after
December 7, 1941. (you see, I’m not too bad in
math)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I tried a little experiment the other day, and
in doing so probably reaffirmed what a lot of folks probably think about me,
that I’m halfway nutty.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">At random I asked various individuals (as in
strangers) what they knew about Pearl Harbor. I followed that with inquiries
about Fort Donelson. Gallipoli, and Luzon<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I was not surprised at most responses, or lack
of.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Time is a devious foe and/or collaborator. Time
soon erases the memories of battles the carnage of which at the time shocked the
world. None with whom I spoke remembered Fort Donelson where, according to
AmericanHistory.com, over 30,000 casualties were suffered in February, 1862. In
all fairness, that was 150 years ago. Only a Civil War scholar would recognize
the name.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Nor did any remember the Battle of Gallipoli in
WWI where 400,000 casualties took place. Some thought it was Italian
pizza.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, some recognized the WWII Battle of Luzon in
August 1945, but naturally everyone knew Iraq and
Afghanistan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Some, the younger, had never heard of Pearl
Harbor. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I can still remember when we heard the islands
had been attacked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In our little town, there was one picture show
(theater, movie), The Rogue, and it had Sunday afternoon matinees, one showing,
preceded by a newsreel and a cartoon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“Wizard of Oz’ was the matinee feature. Halfway
through the film, the lights came on. The owner, Mister Guthrie, hurried up on
the stage and gave us the terrible news.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I didn’t know what was wrong. All I knew they
weren’t going to show the rest of the film. It wasn’t until I got back home
where a lot of the family had gathered, that I realized whatever had happened at
Pearl Harbor, wherever that was, was bad.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">For all I knew, Pearl Harbor could have been
over in the next county by Pampa or Borger.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">All the men in the family talked about ‘joining
up’. Dad too, but Mom was pregnant with my younger brother,
Sam.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Dad was thirty, and they didn’t take him right
away. He kept trying to volunteer, and finally got the Navy where he wanted to
be. He trained on the East Coast, then was shipped to Los Angeles, Albuquerque,
Kansas, and then South America.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Our little town of farmers and small business
people were furious over the sneak attack. People all around the country were,
and while there was some dissent, by far the majority pitched in with work,
sacrifice, and hard-headed stubbornness that screamed victory at the top of its
lungs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We followed Dad to Los Angeles. Mom worked at a
service station. She left my brother with our neighbor in the duplex in which we
lived. Days I wasn’t in school, she took me to work with
her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">It hurts me to say I don’t really believe our
country will ever again see such strength, such cooperation, such support from
ninety plus percent of its population.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Those at home gave the men and women overseas
all the weapons and ammunition and supplies they needed. Aircraft and tanks
rolled off the lines. Great battleships were launched one after
another.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Talk about working
together!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">For four years, Americans did without so our
fighting women and men could have what they
needed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We had paper drives, metal drives. We rationed
gasoline, tires, sugar, and just about everything else except sweat and
determination.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I couldn’t help noticing there wasn’t too much
said a few days back on the anniversary of President Kennedy’s death. I hope we
don’t forget about Pearl Harbor like we did
him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’ve been urged to ‘get with the changing
times’, but there are some times that we need to
remember.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-78706920739347968152012-11-28T07:08:00.001-08:002012-11-28T07:08:18.426-08:00Even a Blind Dog Finds a Bone
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">A few months back, I did a column about being orphaned as a
writer. To rehash the incident without boring anyone, I’d been publishing with
Avalon for about twenty years and Leisure, an imprint of Dorchester, for about
seven or eight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then bing, bang, and
bong!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Avalon sold out to Amazon and the next week, Dorchester went
on the block. Amazon put in a bid for Dorchester and around the end of
September, won the bidding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent3" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> So now, my snug little writing homes were blown sky
high. My security blanket was rudely jerked away with the same alacrity that
Snoopy employs when he yanks away Linus van Pelt’s blanket.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Old Charlie Brown was right when he said, ‘happiness is a
warm blanket.’ I can tell you, it is mighty cold out there in the publishing
world when your blanket is abruptly taken away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Some of my friends say it’s getting colder. On the surface,
it might appear as such. Traditional mortar and brick bookstores are being
forced to rethink the way they do business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">One thing is certain. Publishing today is a heap different
than fifty years ago, than twenty years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now Amazon did say they were going to publish all of our
backlists in paperback and ebooks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And they have. At least, they’ve started. My first with them
is ‘Murder in a Casbah of Cats,” a Tony Boudreaux cozy on the edgy side. I say
without shame I posted an image of the cover on my Facebook
page.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">The beauty of Amazon is they offer the books in Kindle at
around four bucks; in paperback at around eight; and hardback for around
fourteen or so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">In all the years I was with Avalon, I had no paperbacks, only
hard cover. You see, Avalon’s primary subscribers were libraries, so all of our
books were hardcover with accompanying prices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And who could blame any reader for not wanting to fork over
twenty plus bucks for a writer they didn’t know. Even if they knew a writer,
most would prefer a six-dollar paperback to one three or four times the cost.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then seven-eight years ago, Leisure bought one of my
westerns. They put out one a year for the next five, all paperback. I was on a
roll. I figured within a few years, I’d have ten, fifteen soft covers out there
selling and reselling, drawing those royalties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”, drawn from a Robert Burns’
poem, said it better than I, ‘that the best laid schemes of mice and men often
go astray.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">My dreams of royalties from fifteen or twenty books went up
in smoke as Dochester went down in flames. My sixth western with
Dorchester/Leisure was caught up in the bankruptcy and has yet to see the light
of day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">The old world of publishing is
changing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Do I like it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’m like all old codgers. Not crazy about change as some of
my faithful critics will testify, but I’m smart enough to know everything
changes. This last presidential election made that clear. It’s like I always
taught not only my own children but those hundreds in the classroom during
forty-one years in education. “If you’re not moving forward, then you’re going
backward.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">I still prefer the physical book that I can dogear, crumple,
stick in my back pocket, toss up behind the seat or level a
table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">But electronic books are coming
fast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Last year I put three young adult books up on Kindle just to
see what would happen. They were the kind I grew up reading, but they haven’t
done too well. I guess that tells me something about how I fit in today,
huh?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">I did make contact with a European publisher with whom I
signed a contract for several books, all electronic. I kept all other rights. My
first one comes out in March. It is another Tony Boudreaux mystery titled,
“Galveston.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Here in the United States, I have three or four under
consideration with the brick and mortar publishers.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And who knows what lies ahead. I’m like that blind dog
looking for a bone. Maybe I’ll stumble on it sooner or
later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">In my writing classes in Continuing Education with Lamar
before the last Texas legislature cut funds, I always started my classes by
telling students that if they had a choice between writing and bullfighting,
they’d be smarter to take up bullfighting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">But then, as writers reading this little opinion piece are
aware, writing gets in your blood—for better or
worse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-59102310212919554302012-11-14T07:09:00.000-08:002012-11-14T07:09:10.446-08:00<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">
</span>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Booze, Mangoes, and Dead
People<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">It’s over. ‘And in more ways than one,’ remarked
one of the old boys during lunch the other day, referring to the election. He
pretty well summed up all our feelings on the
subject.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’ll make no bones about it. I was disappointed
in the outcome of the election. I still find it hard to believe that my
conservative values are now in the minority in this
country.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">On the other hand, when I look around at the
state of welfare today; the garbled mass of new regulations being put on us, I
don’t guess I should be too surprised.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Thomas Jefferson said it
a lot better than I ever could when he proclaimed that ‘democracy will cease to
exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those
who would not.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Maybe if it were just
welfare, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, we could get a handle on it,
but when you add deliberate waste of tax money to the entitlements, then the
country’s asking for trouble.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">There’s one guy who
takes the time to point out this waste, Senator Tom Coburn, M.D, from
Oklahoma.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">On your 1040 tax return,
have you noticed the little box that asks if you want to give $3.00 to the
Presidential Election Campaign Fund? Your insignificant three bucks morphs into
over thirty-five million by the time all the returns are in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">This year, according to
Senator Coburn, $17.7 million was given to each major political party for its
convention to help pay for the stage construction, confetti, balloons, food, and
booze during the three or four day affair.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">That’s $35 million of
our taxes for wild parties. If the high rollers want such a gala, let them dig
into their own pockets, not mine. Why not let the Super PACs pay for the
bacchanalian event? Really, what was the need for them? Was there any question
Obama would not be chosen as the Democratic candidate? Or Romney the
Republican?</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">That’s the reason I
never check that box. If I have to pay taxes, I want it to go to the general
fund. (where Congress will find other ways to waste it)</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">According to Senator
Coburn, in 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) undertook
a four-year, $90 million effort to spur hiring and sales among Pakistani
businesses. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">You read right.
Pakistani businesses. To hell with U.S. small businesses struggling in the
recession. Let’s help foreign countries, which I might add is simply an
extension of the present administration's intent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Two years later, the
USAID Inspector General found ‘no measurable increases in sales and employment
in four of five product areas the USAID had targeted, leather, livestock,
textiles and dates’. The agency then abandoned its efforts on those products and
focused on funding the fifth product area, mangoes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Mangoes! Can you believe
that nonsense?</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">So, how did the mango
production project go? </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">It failed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Why? Good old
bureaucratic planning. It seems like of the thirteen farmers picked for the
mango project, only one had received the promised equipment, but could not
operate it because of a design flaw.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">And to add insult to
injury, the bungled project hurt the farmers by forcing them into default on
loans they had taken out against expected sales that now would never take
place.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Ninety million down the
drain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">It gets
worse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Over the last five
years, the federal government has sent $601 million in retirement and disability
payments to deceased former federal employees.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">That’s right.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">In a September 2011
report, the Inspector General for the U.S. Office of Personnel reported that
every year for the last five, payments averaging $120 million have been paid to
dead people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In one example, wrote Senator Coburn, an
annuitant’s son cashed his death father’s checks for thirty-seven years. The
only way the Office of Personnel learned of it was when the son
died.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now if that doesn’t illustrate just how
cumbersome and ineffective large government is, maybe the next example
will.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">What do you think about the government wanting
to spend $398 million on a bridge to nowhere. The Gravina Island Bridge was to
connect Ketchikan, Alaska to Gravina Island, which had 50 residents so they
would not have to use the ferry any longer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">How about almost a million for generators for
Vietnamese villages so the University of Pennsylvania State could research ‘the
causal link between television and family formation and reproductive
health?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I don’t even know what they’re talking about,
but they got over $700 thousand to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">There are hundreds of more examples of
government waste, spending our taxes for frivolous
nonsense.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Yep, the election’s over, but not our
troubles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/</span></a></div>
</span>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-11113286968016070462012-11-07T07:02:00.000-08:002012-11-07T07:02:51.746-08:00<br />
<div>
<div align="center" class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Thanks to My
Heroes</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> Well, the elections are over, but I don’t want to talk
about them today. Instead, let’s talk about those heroes who have given us the
freedom to have elections.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> Now, I always enjoy the holidays. The richness of our
national celebrations add to the fabric of our lives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">The blessings of Thanksgiving, the gaiety and joy of
Christmas, the holiness of Easter, the exuberance of July 4 are all important to
me, but the one holiday very precious is Veterans’ Day because so many in my
family, as in hundreds of thousands of others, have shouldered the arms of war
and went out to do battle to preserve the freedom we all now enjoy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> November 11 is the anniversary of the Armistice, which
was signed in 1918 in the forest of Compiegne by the Allies and the Germans
“bringing a halt” to World War I. At five a.m. that morning, an order to cease
all firing was issued. Arms were lowered, whistles blew, impromptu parades
erupted, and business closed in celebration.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> You’ll notice in the preceding paragraph the quotation
marks around bringing to a halt. And that’s exactly what the Armistice did, but
contrary to what the majority believe, it was not a proclamation of Germany’s
surrendering, but rather a truce—one that lasted almost twenty-one years until
Hitler made his move.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> In 1938, Congress passed a bill that each November 11
would be celebrated as Armistice Day. Fifteen years later on November 11, 1953,
instead of only an Armistice Day
program for WWI veterans, they honored all veterans of all
wars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> Ed Rees, of
Emporia, was so impressed that he introduced a bill into the House to change the
name to Veterans' Day. After this passed, Mr. Rees wrote to all state governors
and asked for their approval and cooperation in observing the changed holiday.
The name was changed to Veterans' Day by Act of Congress on May 24, 1954.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> In October of
that year, President Eisenhower called on all citizens to observe the day by
remembering the sacrifices of all those who fought so gallantly. The President
referred to the change of name to Veterans' Day in honor of the servicemen of
all America's wars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> I served, but
during peacetime, which to me doesn’t count. Many of my family served during
world conflicts. My father spent a year on the west coast, a couple years in
South America; a cousin served in the Army Air Corps; an uncle served in the
Army, and one in the Navy. Another uncle served earlier in the Philippines, but
was discharged with a blood disease that, according to oral family history,
eventually took his life. Another cousin served in Korea and is still listed as
a MIA after sixty years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> During the war, family gatherings were filled with empty
chairs. Word always turned to those not present. I can remember seeing every eye
in the family filling with tears as their innermost prayers went out to their
loved ones.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> We were one of the lucky families. Dad returned. My uncle
in the Army returned having received a shrapnel wound on Okinawa. My uncle in
the Navy made it back. My Air Force cousin returned safely. The only casualty we
faced was my uncle who had served prior to the war in the Philippines.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> Then five years later, another cousin, Henry Shoop, whom
we always called Dooley, shipped out to Korea.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">We never saw him again. We never heard a word of his fate.
All we know is he went out on patrol one night. The patrol was attacked. None
returned, and no bodies were found. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> You might remember Dooley from some of my other stories
about growing up in the country. My main tormentor, he was about six years older
than me. Dooley was the one who hauled a box of damp cow patties up on the roof
of the Papa Holley’s milk shed and bombarded my cousin Ed and me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> We got him back later though when we cornered him under
the windmill and let loose with Roman candles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> I just checked the MIA database a couple days back, and
Henry G.’Dooley’ Shoop, Sgt. U.S. Army, MIA since 1952, is still one of the
thousands of our men and women who have yet be accounted for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"> I look around now at our brave men and women going into
harm’s s way for America, and I want to cry out of compassion and pride. I know
the families of those serving realize just how dear the sacrifice our military
is making, but I wonder about the rest of America. Do they understand?
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
If they don’t, they should drop to their knees and pray for the understanding be
given them.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-92015563707696954662012-10-31T10:28:00.000-07:002012-10-31T10:28:27.647-07:00Government Waste<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In a couple days, you’ll be out voting if you haven’t done so already. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We popped into the Port Neches Library Friday week ago and carried out our responsibility as U.S. citizens. I hope you do also.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you do not, don’t you dare complain in the coming four years. Voting gives you the right to fuss and gripe. Not voting means keeping your mouth shut.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’ve said it for years. We need a change, not just in the White House but in most of Congress. Most of the research I’ve read concerning the intents of our Founding Fathers was they did not mean for legislators to make a career out of legislating.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Pardon the cynicism, but much of the legislating that goes on in Washington and state capitols today is legislation benefiting those doing the legislating.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But let’s just talk about the federal guys and gals.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Trish Turner of Fox News reported on the waste of taxes documented by the Government Accounting Office, the GAO, one of the few trustworthy sources of federal finance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Do you have any idea how many job training programs are funded by the federal government? How about 10? 20? Would you believe 47? And would you also believe that 44 of that number overlap in duplication of services.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">How about 80 overlapping programs for the ‘transportation disadvantaged’? You know, people who don’t have cars.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And keep in mind, we’re just talking about federal programs, not state.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Ms. Turner went on to point out that the GAO stated the feds have 82 programs spread across 10 separate agencies designed to improve teacher quality, a task every school district in every state has been working on for the last two hundred years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">How does something like this happen?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Pork! Earmarks! The fodder for reelection. "Let’s build a bridge even if we don’t need one." The community picks up some unexpected income and the political sponsor of that project picks up another term in office.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The problem is, as you all can now see, is 16 trillion debt—and climbing by three billion daily.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">Representative Eric Cantor claims the GAO report “</span>confirms what most Americans assume about their government. We are spending trillions of dollars every year and nobody knows what we are doing. The executive branch doesn't know. The congressional branch doesn't know. Nobody knows." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Ms Turner reported that Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn stated "This report also shows we could save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars every year without cutting services."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Without cutting services?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">That’s hard to believe, but read on. This information comes directly from the GAO report. Look at the duplication.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> 1.Fifty-six programs across 20 agencies dealing with financial literacy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">2.More than 2,100 data centers--up from 432 a little more than a decade ago across 24 federal agencies. GAO estimated the government could save up to $200 billion over the next decade by consolidating them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">3.Twenty programs across seven agencies dealing with homelessness. The report found $2.9 billion spent on the programs in 2009. "Congress is often to blame" for fragmentation, GAO wrote in this section, explaining that the duplicative programs in multiple agencies cause access problems for potential participants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">4. Eighty-two "distinct" teacher-quality programs across 10 agencies. Many of them have "duplicate sub-goals," GAO said. Nine of them address teacher quality in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And now our president wants to spend more money of math and science teachers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">5.Fifteen agencies administering 30 food-related laws. "Some of the oversight doesn't make any sense," the report stated. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">6.Eighty overlapping economic development programs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And there are many more, writes Ms Turner in her analysis of the GAO report. “In some cases, the programs in question struggled to account for what they did. In the domestic food assistance initiatives, for example, 18 such programs are administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Health and Human Services with GAO estimating $62.5 billion spent on them. States the GAO, "little is known about the effectiveness" of 11 of those programs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And of the 47 job-training programs run out of the federal government, only five could provide an "impact study" since 2004 looking at outcomes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">About half of them have provided no performance review at all since 2004.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now stop and think about the last couple paragraphs. Political parties be damned. We’re talking taxes, yours and mine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">In the domestic assistance, $62.5 billion is spent on 18 programs and those monitoring have no idea just how effective are 2/3s of the programs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And of the 47 job training programs, around 90% failed to come up with impact studies since 2004.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">If a private citizen ran his business like that, he’d be bankrupt even before he got started.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">There is much more, but you get the idea of the waste going on. Sooner or later, we’ve got to do something about it.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-51511016371238769162012-10-24T07:20:00.000-07:002012-10-24T07:20:51.424-07:00Chased by a Dead Rustler or Memories of an Old Fogey<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’ve been lucky over the last almost four score years for not only do I have a wonder family, but I’ve also had some of the most frightening and exciting Halloweens ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Our little town in the Texas Panhandle was so small we were assigned only half a zip code, but that did not make Halloween any less frightening or exciting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">The night of All Hallows saw all the dusty streets filled with little ghosts and goblins. Not many of us back then could afford costumes. The lucky guys usually had a black mask like the Lone Ranger. Some of girls even had masks of pink or red. Sometimes an old sheet or Grandpa’s cowboy hat and a handkerchief were utilized.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Soaping windows was a big trick for us. We’d grab one of our mother’s bars of lye soap and set out. It was amazing how much writing you could get from a bar of that soap. Some of the older and more daring boys toppled outhouses, what few there were. The next morning’s sun always came up on cows on the second floor of school houses or old-timey wooden wagons on the porch roof of downtown buildings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">But it just wasn’t kids who were out. Oh, no, there were always a few adults who planned on putting extra fright in some of the trick or treaters—all in fun.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">I had a couple of those experiences I’ll never forget.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">I never tire of telling my favorite, the night we were chased by the dead rustler, Burl Taggart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">One year, I had to spend Halloween on my grandmother’s farm with my cousin, Ed. With only one neighbor a mile away, I figured Halloween was shot. Who could we treat or treat, the chickens? Certainly not the hogs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then one of my uncles told Ed and me that if we really wanted to see a scary ghost that night, all we had to do was put our clothes on backwards and then walk backwards three times around the old hanging tree by the cow tank. According to our uncle, if we did that, old Burl Taggart, a rustler who had been hanged on that very tree, would reappear that night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, we didn’t really believe him, but that afternoon, bored with riding calves and shooting snakes in the creek, we put our clothes on backward and walked backward around the hanging tree three times. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">That night, Ed and I trudged down the lane with handkerchiefs over our faces like bank robbers in the Saturday picture shows, and trick or treated the neighbors. Of course, they let on like they didn’t know who we were and pretended they were frightened.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then their two boys accompanied us back to my grandparents so we could trick or treat them. Before we left, we told our friends about conjuring up the ghost of Burl Taggart. They snickered at us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, you’ve got to get the picture here. The full moon was straight overhead. On either side of the lane were pastures dotted with mesquite, and I promise you, in the dark, the twisted mesquite limbs took on mighty scary shapes, at least in the eyes of spooky ten and eleven year old boys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And the fact we were talking about ghosts and werewolves and such didn’t help. Our frightened eyes made every shadow into Dracula or the Frankenstein monster. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And then we saw it. Far to the north in the pasture, a floating white object. The wind seemed to be carrying it toward us, and then a mournful, whining moan came through the mesquite.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">I remember leaning forward and squinting at the apparition. When I looked around, I saw to my horror I was all alone. My cousin and his pals were a hundred yards down the lane. Well, you can believe me when I can tell you, I did my best to catch up with them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">The apparition grew closer, and I ran harder. I caught them as they reached the house, and we burst inside, four breathless, frightened boys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">It must have taken us ten minutes to stammer out what happened. The grownups shook their head, and one uncle growled at us. “Did you boys put your clothes on backward?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Reluctantly, we nodded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">He groaned. “That did it. That brought back old Burl.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Another one nodded. “How long’s it been now,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> fifty-sixty</span> years since he got cut all to pieces after the hanging? I reckon he’s still looking for his missing hand.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">“Story is, they never did find who cut him down and chopped him up.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, you can imagine when we heard that, our eyes bugged out like a stepped-on toad frogs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And I don’t have to tell you how big they got when my grandfather said, “Well, Kent, it’s getting late. You and Ed walk your young friends back home, and then hurry back.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Wild horses couldn’t have pulled us from that house.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">One of my uncles had to take our friends back home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">And they couldn’t get us outside the next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Years later, we learned the whole family had played a big joke on Ed and me. It was my Uncle Bud, Ed’s daddy, who played Burl in a sheet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">As I stare into the flames in our fireplace now, I tell you this, folks, those are memories I’ll never forget.</span></div>
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<a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Courier New;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-79950430857503986552012-10-18T10:13:00.000-07:002012-10-18T10:13:05.761-07:00A Realistic Look at the Health Bill<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you’re like me, you get junk emails daily. You know the kind I mean. They’re the ones warning you about everything from online cremations to One-Man-Rule-of-the-Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I got one through You Tube concerning the health care bill. Actually over the last few years, I’ve received several. Now since I oppose a large part of the bill, I was curious about the video.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Have no doubt in your mind that I do believe we need reform in health care. I can tell you more than one instance when six, that’s right SIX pills cost almost $300. Now, you can’t tell me that isn’t outrageous. Somebody is making a killing, and it ain’t the American public.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">This video was unbelievable even to someone like me who opposes the bill. Whoever put it must be the one putting out many of the truth-deficient presidential videos for it is toxic with deliberate falsehoods. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Here are a few examples of how both sides are manipulating the contents of this bill. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">First, the video states the government will audit all books of all individuals who are self-insured.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I looked that up in the bill myself. The words ‘audit all employers’ isn’t in that section. All that section talks about is studying markets to make sure all are conforming to the law.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, we can get picky on the meaning of ‘audit’ and ‘study’. Either one will reveal deficiencies in a company’s plan. I oppose it because it smacks of BIG BROTHER looking over every self-employed individual’s shoulder, which in my estimation is too intrusive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Another misrepresentation in the video is that illegals receive health care. On page 129 of the bill, it states ‘Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payment for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, you tell me. WHO determines ‘lawfully’? Executive orders pouring out of the White House in recent months have been mighty forgiving of illegals, bending rules to fit the present administration’s desires.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">This next one has generated much discussion, i.e. ‘the dreaded ‘committee’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Yes there will be a committee comprised of the U.S. Surgeon General and primarily private medical and other experts selected by the president and the comptroller general. This committee will only have power to ‘recommend’ benefits included in the various insurance packages. It will have no power to decide what treatments folks get.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Three expressions in this paragraph concern me and should concern you, ‘other experts’,‘selected by president and the comptroller general’, and ‘recommend’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In my way of thinking, anytime committees have the freedom to recommend benefits, such suggestions it makes are often colored by the unspoken but well-recognized attitudes of those who appointed members of said committee. Again, you tell me. How many of those recommendations will turn into requirements? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If the committee recommends one treatment, then what do you think will become law?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Some sources claim Medicare services will be cut.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">One of the many items to be trimmed is the fee doctors are paid as the result of a Medicare patient.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, if you stop and think about it, if a doctor makes less per patient through Medicare, there is always the possibility that he will see more patients to make up the difference. And most doctors I know are swamped anyway. If they try to see more, that means they’ll have to fit them in an already packed schedule. Such a result has to lead to a decline in service to each one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That would never happen with the doctors I know, but as unpleasant as it might be to recognize such a fact, there are those out there pad and fabricate Medicare invoices.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">There are many more misleading criticisms of the health bill floating around in cyberspace. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And deservedly so.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Have you ever tried to read any legal contract from top to bottom? That is how this bill, all 2700 pages, is written—in a legalese to be interpreted by committees appointed by the president. And on purpose so it can be interpreted however those in charge wish.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">It my estimation, it is too long, too convoluted, too vague, too all-encompassing, and too demanding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">From it will spring hundreds of new bureaucracies, that dreaded government organization that creates paperwork just to have something to do, and at taxpayer expense. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">To illustrate the government’s insatiable thirst for power, just this last May, according to Liveleak.com,, when questioned by Congressman Trey Gowdy about the contraceptive and abortion mandate in Obamacare, </span>Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted that she had not taken into account any of the Supreme Court's standard tests for balancing religious liberties against government power, nor could she cite any legal memo written by her lawyers that shows that HHS or the Obama administration considered the constitutionality of the mandate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">If there had been a robust exchange of ideas on this bill, many of the problems that will be haunting us in the future could have been avoided.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">And no, I don’t blame one party; I blame both. Government is there to help its citizens, not set up sheer walls of partisanship that prevents exchange of ideas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">This one-sided bill is too long, too vague, too controlling. Give us simple explanations that offer clear outcomes. That’s what the U.S. citizen deserves.</span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-609530091397927672012-10-11T08:13:00.000-07:002012-10-11T08:13:10.672-07:00Lesson From a Bobblehead<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Sometimes folks get too carried away with life about them to remember to live and enjoy their own lives.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’m not trying to be cryptic or enigmatic; I’m simply pointing out that which goes on around us beyond our own lives is simply a transitory process while our own life is the reality in which we live.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now that I’ve confused both you and myself, let me see if I can explain. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Never before have I been so concerned about our country. As a kid, listening and watching adults gathered in front of the newspaper reading World War II headlines posted to the window, I never sensed the worry or concern among them that resonates from so many today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Oh, yeah, back they, everyone worried over their loved ones overseas, but as far as the United States was concerned, they knew it would win the war. There was no doubt. It was just a matter of time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Today, the demeanor of the general populace has grown more passive, and the future looks more of a tossup than ever.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That is what bothers me. Sometimes, I think ‘what if we end up like some European countries? What if government exerts even more control than it has the last few years? What if George Orwell’s <u>1984</u> comes to fruition?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I could come up with a hundred ‘what ifs”, and probably all for nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Concern can sometimes skew our priorities.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">My grandson Keegan made me realize that one day when I was taking him home. He looked up and said, “What’s wrong, Pa?” When I asked why he thought so, he replied. “You look mad.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">At the time, I had been listening to more of the nonsense so prevalent with this administration in Washington. I laughed and turned off the radio. “Nothing. So, how was school?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">My little six-week-old grandson, little bobblehead Noah, reinforced my recognition of spending too much time worrying about things over which I had very little control.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now I enjoy the grandkids. I don’t mind putting important things like mowing the yard and cleaning the cats’ litter box on hold so I can baby-sit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Anyway last week, I took care of Noah while his mom, our daughter, Susan, and my wife went out for a little shopping and lunch before Susan goes back to work after her maternity leave.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Noah was on his tummy on his blanket on the carpet when the two of them left. He’s starting to hold his head up in a fashion. The little feller could be a model for the bobblehead dolls. But he sure tries.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Just before Susan and Gayle left, Susan mentioned Noah had been trying to roll over. Well, they couldn’t have been gone five minutes when I witnessed one of those ‘baby firsts’. The squirt rolled from his tummy to his back. And yes, I was excited and thrilled to see that move. Naturally, I called Susan, after which I probably took a dozen pictures of him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I guess I should feel kinda bad, but I wore the little guy out putting him on his tummy and watching him roll over. After a while, he got tired of such play and decided he was hungry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">After giving him his bottle, we played a few more minutes. The little guy is better natured than any of our others at that age though Keegan will run him a close second. He’ll laugh, and he’s starting to coo.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Knock on wood, but he eats, sleeps, does his business, and goes right back to sleep.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">There have been times Susan brought him in asleep and he doesn’t awaken before she gets back. I’ve been tempted to wake him so we could play, but, I restrained myself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">After Noah left that day, I picked up Keegan, the eight-year-old. He had an early dismissal, and his mom, Amy, had to stay at Woodcrest where she’s doing her student teaching to sit in on conferences with parents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Keegan and I played football in the front yard.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, he played; I hobbled, but it was fun. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">He’d take off; I’d throw a pass; he’d catch it, turn and run back for a touchdown. He’s still a small feller, but he’s fast.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Over the last few years, I’ve been amazed at how much improved he is in physical activities, but then my wife reminds me, he’s growing up, developing those muscles, learning skills.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;"> Just like all kids. Mikey, Noah’s older brother, is the same way, just as is Kenli, Keegan’s two-year–old sister. They’re all growing, developing, changing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;"> I’m a lucky guy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Regardless of what the result come Election Day, I have family; I have loved ones; and they are my real treasure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;"> And isn’t that most important?</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentc</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-89695692750489874852012-10-04T06:59:00.003-07:002012-10-04T06:59:41.817-07:00Healthcare from Hell<div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">Last September, the independent Newsmax surveyed </span><span style="color: black;">3,660 doctors nationwide in all 50 states. Their political affiliations were mixed with 35 percent Republican; 24 percent Democrat; 26 percent Independent; 6 percent Libertarian; and 7 percent unaffiliated.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">This survey showed that if the election were held today, 55 percent would vote for Romney and 36 percent for Obama. The remaining were undecided or claimed to support another candidate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">The survey, conducted by Jackson & Coker, a division of Jackson Healthcare, said Newsmax, is the third largest healthcare staffing company in the US.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="color: black;">While other polls show opposite numbers, what is it doctors see that the rest of us do not?</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">It could be the following five downsides pointed out by Nick Tate, an award-winning journalist, in the ‘Obamacare Survival Guide’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Downside One: Robbing Peter to Pay Paul. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">How? Obamacare has taken $716 billion from Medicare over the next ten years, which means less funds for those of us who use Medicare.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Downside Two: Insurance companies are free to pass on increased costs in the form of higher premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. There is nothing to keep costs in check. AARP has already raised its premiums, says Tate, from 8-13 percent.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Downside Three: Doctor shortage anticipated due to lowered payment rates for Medicare among other areas. Up to 40% of those surveyed could retire on seek other aspects of health care. With the additional millions covered by insurance coupled with a 30-40% decrease in doctors, I’d hate to think how long I’d have to wait to get in to see one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Downside Four: Delayed implementation of Obamacare as well as hundreds of unwritten rules.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">According to Tate, many of the rules of the new healthcare system have not been written. The author surmises that as costs balloon, benefits for consumers are likely to lessen significantly, particular for seniors who are the highest users of health services.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Downside Five: Unelected government official will have control to make decision about your healthcare. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">The previous drawbacks are shocking enough, but now let’s get into some specifics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Downside Four for example-delayed implementation of rules.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">If you’ll think back, you’ll remember how we were told many of these ‘benefits’ would be phased in over the years. That was clever political maneuver designed to delay any public outrage until after this upcoming election.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">The Americans for Tax Reform has pointed out taxes thast are slated to kick in after the election.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">2.3 percent tax on medical devices including pacemakers, prosthetics, stents, even the operating table.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Deductible medical expenses must exceed 10% of your income instead of 7.5% for income tax purposes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Funds for Flexible Spending Accounts will be capped at $2,500. Currently, there is no cap, allowing families to spend untaxed funds on everything from glasses, contacts, braces, crutches, bandages, anything not covered by insurance. It will even impact families with special needs children.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">4.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Surtax on investment income that pundits estimate will take over $123 billion taken from taxpayers’ pockets over the next ten years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">5.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Medicare payroll tax increase, which could cost employers over $86 billion in the next decade.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">You want to know how bizarre, how ill-thought out this plan really is? Read on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">In one of the rulings, the Health Resources and Services Administration says </span><a href="http://www.hrsa.gov/womensguidelines/"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">h<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">ttp://www.hrsa.gov/womensguidelines/</span></span></span></a><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> "Non-grandfathered plans and issuers are required to provide coverage without cost-sharing consistent with these guidelines in the first plan year that begins on or after August 1, 2012. ... <i>All Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for ALL (author capitalization)women with reproductive capacity.</i>" <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">All women. In Oregon, a woman’s age of consent is fifteen, which means a fifteen-year-old girl in that state can request sterilization without her parents’ permission.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Is that the type of idiocy you want to permeate our health care in the years come? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you watched the presidential debate, you know that not even President Obama could explain his own plan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-77007200652588046862012-09-26T07:58:00.001-07:002012-09-26T07:58:38.633-07:00Best Ways to Catch Fleas<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Recently, we spoke of how our president’s philosophical beliefs have taken the U.S. toward a much more defined socialistic road.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And hey, that cannot be denied. If you would dispute such a direction, explain how the 70% increase in food stamps is not an example of more citizens and non-citizens turning to the government for help. Explain to me how nearly half of our citizens not paying income taxes is not an example of citizens turning to the government for help.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I hope you noted that only citizens were mentioned in the non-payment of income taxes for illegals skip them anyway. They cannot afford to pay them not because of their income, but their fear of deportation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Perhaps you don’t remember, but just after Obama took office, he made a number of his cronies czars, individuals to head certain agencies and who would not be answerable to anyone except him or his appointees and certainly not to Congress. (for all the good Congress might do given their inept performance)</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You know, old timers might not have all the sophistication and frills of modern folks, but they possessed a great deal of common sense. The old axiom ‘you sleep with dogs, you get fleas’ is as true today as when it was first coined.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Let’s take a look at some of these dogs—oops, I mean czars.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">According to Rense.com, Richard Holbrooke is the Afghanistan Czar. He is an ultra-liberal and anti-gun former governor of New Mexico. He is pro abortion, and pro-drug legalization who also wants to dissolve the 2<sup>nd</sup> amendment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Ed Montgomery is the Auto Recovery Czar who is a radical anti-business black activist. He believes in Affirmative Action and job preference for blacks. The University of Maryland Business Dean, he teaches that U.S. business has caused world poverty. He an ACORN board member as well a member of the Communist DuBois Club.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Jeffrey Crowley is the AIDS Czar. He is a radical gay rights activist. Believes in gay marriage and a special status for gays only, including complete free health care for gays.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Alan Bersin is the Border Czar who is a failed superintendent of San Diego and ultra liberal friend of Hillary Clinton. He served as Czar under Janet Reno to keep borders open to illegals without interference from the federal government.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">David J. Hayes-California Water Czar who is senior fellow of radical environmentalist group, Progress Policy. No management experience whatsoever.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Ron Bloom is the Car Czar. An auto union worker, he is anti-business and anti-nuclear. He now sits on the board of Chrysler, which now is union owned.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The Central Region Czar is Dennis Ross who believes U.S. policy is the cause of war in the Middle East. Anti-Gun and Pro-Abortion, he is the Obama apologist to the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Lynn Rosenthal is the Domestic Violence Czar and the Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. An Anti-Male feminist, she supports male castration.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Former Seattle chief of police, Gil Kerlikowske, is Obama’s Drug Czar who espouses the belief no one should own a firearm and supports legalization of all drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> The list goes on and on. There’s Paul Volcker who headed the Federal Reserve under Carter when the economy nearly failed; Carol Browner, <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Energy and Environment Czar; Stimulus Accountability Czar, Earl Devaney, and numerous others. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Forty-one in all.</span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> The lowest salary of the bunch is $102,000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of that number 35 salaries are listed as ‘unknown,’ which in the current vernacular means they’re well up in the six digits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;"> One of the czars, Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar, has resigned, but take a look at his credentials. According to Glenn Beck, Jones is a Black activist and a member of American Communist Party and San Francisco Communist Party. He said George Bush caused the 9/11 attack and wanted the president investigated by the World Court for war crimes. A Marxist, he says whites are poisoning blacks; and that the transformation from ‘suicidal gray capitalism’ to ‘econ-capitalism’ is the way to a complete redistribution of wealth. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Jones is no more extreme that the Science Czar, John Holdren, who has NO science training, but is a intense supporter of the Sierra Club, and anti-business advocate, and claims U.S. business has caused world poverty. He believes it is okay to abort a child until the age of two, and—are you ready for this? The thinks trees—that’s right, trees should be able to sue humans.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I tell you, folks. Stuff like this can’t be made up. It’s too bizarre.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The credentials of these idiots are so off-the-wall, you want to laugh until you realize the guy in Washington who is directing our country, is the one who appointed them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I mentioned earlier about sleeping with dogs. Well, you’ve seen what kind of fleas these canines carry, so you can easily understand the kind of fleas Obama has to scratch. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="color: purple;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-9984041466068054702012-09-19T08:06:00.000-07:002012-09-19T08:06:33.192-07:00Eye Openers<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> try to be a good citizen> I try to stay informed and active. There are millions of us, and I’m quite certain I was not alone when I confess I did not stay glued to the TV during either political convention. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You pretty much know what is going to take place at those little <i>fais-do-dos</i>, so why waste time unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool party addict? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, I missed something at the Democrat Convention this year. I saw it on replay, after replay, after replay. And the Republicans lost no time in jumping on it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You know to what I refer, the God business.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Initially, the Demo platform left God out. Fortunately, there came an outcry, so the powers that be were forced to call for an oral vote on whether to put God back in or not. ‘Aye’ for yes; ‘nay’ for no.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I had to watch it a couple times to understand what was going on with the subsequent voting. You know how these political voting statements go for either side. They’ll say something like ‘all those who support the negative decision to uphold the positive referendum that denies negative agreement for farm supports, say aye.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Three quarters of the time, I have no idea the point on which the vote is taken.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’ll be honest, folks. That very fact God was left out set me back on my heels. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But back to the voting. I might be old and kind of hard of hearing, but I listened to those oral votes. The ‘nays’ had it, but the moderator called the turn for the ‘ayes’ against an overwhelming ‘nay’ vote.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I still couldn’t believe the majority did not want ‘God’ in their platform.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Where did such a proposal come from?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">What gave it birth?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You and I know there are folks out there who want to take God out of everything. That is their right in our country even if many of us disagree. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Progressivism? Socialism? Communism? Democracy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I don’t know. I do believe the socialistic trend that began decades back has been given a huge boost with the present administration. And it was the administration’s philosophical precepts that nurtured the disdain for God at the Democratic Convention.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The whole thing puzzled me until I ran across a guy named Wayne Allyn Roots. He connected a lot of dots for me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">He was a classmate of our president when Obama was at Columbia University. He claims that if Obama is re-elected in 2012, the U.S. is finished. “Obama,” he says “Is no fool. He is not incompetent. On the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he’s doing. <b>He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis, and social chaos thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.”<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">“He is a devout Muslim. Look at his czars, anti-business and anti-American.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Glenn Beck, years back, stated Obama was following the plan of Cloward and Piven, two of his professors at Columbia University. The two outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Note: Government spending--$16 trillion in debt, five of which came in the last four years</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Note: Entitlement demands--47 million on food stamps, the usage of which has increased 70% under Obama</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Note: Almost half of our citizens pay no income tax</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">When I read that, I went back to the books to find out just if there really were a Cloward and Piven, or if this were some of the crud floating around on cyberspace. Even Snopes confirmed it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Professors at Columbian University School of Social Work, Cloward and Piven were a married couple whose political strategy called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system to create a crisis that would replace the present welfare system with a national system of ‘a guaranteed annual income’ and thus end poverty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Obama’s game plan, Roots asserts, is to turn the U.S. into a Socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival. As such, they can be counted on to always vote for even bigger government.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Universal Health Care has more to do with unionizing millions of hospital and healthcare workers as well as adding 16,000 new IRS agents than it does with healthcare.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">In all honesty, folks, I had to think about this. Looking back over the last few years, I saw the trend.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Cap and Trade for example has nothing to do with global warming. Instead it has everything to do with spreading wealth, government control of the economy, and payoffs to Obama’s biggest contributors who can be counted on to support whatever he wants to do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">What about making Puerto Rico a state?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Who benefits from one million new welfare recipients and government entitlement prospects? Obama. He picks up two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressmen, and a million loyal Democrat voters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">What about legalizing 12 million illegal Mexican immigrants?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Same as Puerto Rico.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">What about Stimulus and bailouts?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">The funds went to Democrat contributors and unions. Teachers’ unions up north got S125 billion. Texas teachers-$3.2 billion. (and our esteemed governor, Rick Perry, did some slight-of-hand with the $3.2 to balance the state budget—if you and I’d pulled that kind of stunt, we’d be in Huntsville right now)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">You know, I’d often wondered what the Obama had in mind. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Driven by a lust for power, he and his regime have created—and you can’t deny this, a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialistic rulers by overwhelming the system.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-7096576029304772432012-09-12T07:50:00.000-07:002012-09-12T07:51:50.492-07:00Reasons not to LIke Romney<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The political conventions have come and gone. A lot of folks are still confused as to whom they will give their vote. Big surprise, huh?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, with the help of a little research and the learned critiquing of a couple friends, I came out of the two weeks with the understanding of why many would not vote for Mitt Romney.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And naturally, being a conscientious citizen and an all-around great guy, I decided I’d pass the information along to you. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Right off the bat, on top of having the looks a casting director would want for a film about a president, Romney has been married to one woman since 1969, even through her struggles with MS and breast cancer. Why, there aren’t even any smoking guns or skeletons in his closet. Squeaky clean. Like one of my buddies remarked, ‘he’s boring, boring.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">He speaks with the accent of his upbringing. He finds it impossible to articulate in a fake, southern black accent of a hellfire and brimstone preacher whenever he chooses.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">He graduated from Harvard Law School and Business School, cum laude. His records are there. They can be verified.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Someone like that is really too backward for today’s presidency. He doesn’t smoke or swear; has never done drugs despite their prevalence during his college days. He is a boring reminder of yesterday’s America where people believed in God, went to church, remained faithful to his spouse, worked hard, and became a success.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">To illustrate just how out of touch the guy is, he has five sons none of whom can boast of arrest or rehab records. And they were reared by a mother who remained at home with them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And look at how wealthy he is. Would you believe that he didn’t marry into it or inherit it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the guy is so out of touch with the world that when he inherited his father’s great wealth, he gave it all to charity. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, just how un-American is that by today’s standards?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Shameful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">No, he believes you go out and work your butt off to earn your own money.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">And worst of all, he’s a Mormon. Now, I kid you not, that’s a bunch you’ve got to watch. The religion teaches all of its people—are you ready for this? It teaches all its followers to be clean-living, patriotic, hard-working, thrifty, charitable, and self-reliant. Can you imagine how much trouble a bunch like that could cause?</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">He started Bain capital, and from that office, turned it into Staples, now 2,000+ stores, 90,000 employees. He did similarly with Dominos’s, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel, and numerous others. He created jobs, and from today’s welfare rolls, that seems to be the last thing Americans want, jobs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, you tell me. Do we really need that sort of energy leading our country?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Look at us today. Almost half our people don’t even pay taxes. That must mean we’re doing something right, huh?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">And another thing, he’s one of those goody-goody volunteers. He’s always volunteering. After high school, he spent almost three years as a Mormon missionary in France with no pay. He worked as an unpaid volunteer for his </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;">dad's gubernatorial campaign; as an unpaid intern in his dad's governor's office for eight years; an unpaid bishop and state president of his church for ten years; an unpaid President of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee for three years; and he took no salary and was the unpaid Governor of Massachusetts for four years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Oh, yes, did I mention he gave his entire inheritance from his father to charity? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Disgusting. Someone like this is hard to trust.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We need someone like Obama or Biden who know the ropes. Last year, Obama got away with giving 1% of his income to charity while his partner, Biden, gave .0013%. ($300.00)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And what did showoff Romney do? Showboating, he gave 19%, $4 million, almost twice the biblical suggestion of a tithe. How silly was that?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">There you are. You can see obviously, the guy doesn’t stand a chance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">He’s a dummy. He should have rubbed shoulders with communists or terrorists. Or maybe he should have attended a church where the preacher damned the United States. Maybe he could have made it then.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">What do you think?</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-3430144801495216062012-09-05T07:38:00.000-07:002012-09-05T07:38:34.068-07:00Technology Snafu or dumb Humans?<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, I did something the other day I swore I wouldn’t. I promised in blood I wouldn’t do it, but I gave in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I bought a lawn tractor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You see, at my age, I don’t get enough exercise. I know, I know. It’s my fault. Most of what I get was walking behind my little Lawnboy self-propelled and playing with the grandkids in the swimming pool. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But, I tell you, the way grass has been growing plus the heat, I wasn’t just pooped when I finished mowing, I was flat pooped out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And if you know anything about poop, flat-pooped-out is to pooped like a double dog dare is to dare.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">What started all this was a few weeks back when I had cataract surgery. Couldn’t even read the big E at the top of the chart.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, it had been almost seventy years since I’d been a patient at a hospital when I had my tonsils out as a boy, but that’s another story. The eye doc told me no strenuous activities for four weeks, so I hired a local gent to mow my yard, which is fairly good size. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">At least it’s fair sized in my estimation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">It takes about two hours with a hand mower, and that’s not counting weed-eating, another task I heartily dislike.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">To top it all off, the once a week business just let the grass get too high. Don’t misunderstand, tall grass doesn’t bother me. I can watch it grow all day without the least bit of guilt or shame.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I just don’t have the get up and go I once had. Like the old cowpoke drawled, ‘it just got up and went’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That’s enough rambling. Let’s get back to the story. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I went to my local lawn mower specialist, an independent business owner in Port Neches. I buy all my lawn stuff from him and he maintains it, a service you don’t find too often today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">He gave me a few hints, and I headed out, spending the day looking through Mid-County.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I followed his suggestions: at least 17 hp; front engine; Briggs and Stratton; local maintenance; and a cup holder in the fender so I’d have someplace to put my beer and keep both hands on the steering wheel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You know, they say sometimes even a blind dog finds a bone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That summed it up for me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I found what I wanted in Mid-County, paid for it, made delivery arrangements.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I should have expected trouble when the clerk handling the process kept asking a second gentleman questions--profound questions like ‘which button do I push now?’ or ‘do we deliver?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I glanced at my wife and rolled my eyes. Why is it I always get the new clerk—oops, I mean ‘sales associate’ that the store is breaking in?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That was Wednesday. Delivery was Saturday. Here’s where the trouble started.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We received a call that next day informing us the tractor would be delivered Friday instead of Saturday.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Great—give me an earlier chance to play with my new toy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Next morning we got a call saying there was not one at the warehouse. They wanted me to call the store, which I did, and got hold of another one of those ‘sales associates in training.” Patiently, I started going over all that had happened. By the time I finished, my hair was standing on end in frustration. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Somehow communication suffers between two people when English is a sixth language for one of the participants.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I was ready to call it off, but my wife said just wait.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">A couple hours later, a call informed us it would at our house by noon that day.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I didn’t hold my breath, but by golly, here it came in the back of a pickup. No delivery truck. Simply a pickup with no logo on the door.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The deliveryman unloaded the tractor and showed me how to use it. I’ll tell you one thing, while appearing pretty much same as they did twenty years ago, lawn tractors are a little more complicated. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t catch on as fast.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">After he left, I forgot all he had said. I had to read the directions to figure out to start it. You can follow my trial run by the shaved flowerbeds, knocked-over shrugs, skinned yard, treed cats, and angry wife. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But if you think, as I did, that with the delivery of the tractor, my dealings with this company were over, you’re wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Next day, Saturday, I got call saying delivery was delayed. If I’d call them, we’d set up a time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I called and explained the tractor had been delivered, then added “But I’d be happy to take another if you won’t charge me for it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">She didn’t laugh. I guess some of my humor is lost on someone with English as a sixth language/ I had more calls the next two days informing me delivery would be delayed. I called them again Monday, explained it and was told everything was fine. Not to worry. Tuesday morning I received two more calls.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">What do you want to bet that if I’d bought it at a local Mom and Pop business that Pop would darn well have remember delivering it? Unfortunately none are available around here.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Technology gone haywire? Or humans botching technology?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Even this morning, I received three calls before ten a.m. I’m tired of explain. I’m tempted to let them deliver it. Since I never signed any delivery papers, I could claim I’d never received it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You think?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Naw, wouldn’t be right, but if they keep calling, wanting to deliver one, I might just break down.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-68714998589083251362012-08-29T08:33:00.000-07:002012-08-29T08:33:16.066-07:00New Indian in Town<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’m proud to announce a spanking brand-new Indian has joined the reservation at Port Neches, Class of 2030.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-9uNUCBKAN4lgvgL3U_DYthlpSlgd48h6uzW7N-MRe6bNuYKNTbiRAfWV1Me94WdOj3bKiz9z4duB-zynESb3WmgSy7mtWou6HBcm0jJh4HSjG7hD8UOQU5LZO-w-MMvBqxjJyNYOoA/s1600/test+noah+3_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" fea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-9uNUCBKAN4lgvgL3U_DYthlpSlgd48h6uzW7N-MRe6bNuYKNTbiRAfWV1Me94WdOj3bKiz9z4duB-zynESb3WmgSy7mtWou6HBcm0jJh4HSjG7hD8UOQU5LZO-w-MMvBqxjJyNYOoA/s1600/test+noah+3_edited-1.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">My little grandson, Noah David Wood, was born August 21, 11:37 a.m. to Susan, Gayle and my elder daughter. Mom and son are doing fine. Dad is a wreck. Siblings are both puzzled and curious and feeling a little left out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The little guy has ten toes, ten fingers, and he is healthy. What more can you ask?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We held him within two or three hours of his birth, and what surprised me most was that he was pink—a healthy pink. He wasn’t yellow with jaundice, red and wrinkled from being so scrunched up in his tiny abode of nine months, but pink and smooth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, all babies are precious, a gift to us from God to nurture and rear to be a decent human being. But the truth is, and if you’ll admit it, most infants fresh into this big wide world don’t look exactly like Gerber babies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Once when Bill Cosby was talking about the birth of his children, he claimed when he saw the first one, he thought his wife had given birth to a lizard.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Think back. Remember?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But Noah was different. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">I held him for about twenty or thirty minutes all swaddled in his blankets and cap. He slept the whole time while I marveled at his color. Most infants take a couple days to pink out.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">His brother, Mikey, is six, heading off for kindergarten this year at Taft Elementary in Groves. Mikey takes after his Dad, Big Mike, euphemistically called such because of his height, one so lofty he has to duck to come in the door.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Mikey comes to about my chest and probably scares the dickens out of ninety pounds. The Peewee football coaches love him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">His older sister, Hannah, is in the sixth grade at Groves Middle School.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I have a feeling Noah might take up acting or some sort of drama because for the last few weeks, he kept us all in suspense. Just like the consummate actor, he has a sense of perfect timing. Hold off until the last second to milk all the tension possible from the audience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You see, Susan had a feeling the little fella might come early, so each day for the last few weeks, we halfway expected him to put in an appearance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Day after day, he was a no-show. Day after day, we waited, holding our breaths, keeping our fingers crossed. And day after day, he just remained warm and snug.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Gayle and I laughed about it. Who could blame him? What kind of sense does it make to leave a warm abode with all its security for the world outside where nobody knows what might happen in the next moment?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">His due date was August 15.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">August 15 came and went. By now, Susan was—how do I put it. Susan was somewhat peeved at her recalcitrant infant who was already in position. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">She contacted her doctor for an exam. All he could do was shrug and report the obvious. Noah was playing hard to get. Give him another day. If he hadn’t stuck his head out by then, they’d take steps to help the stubborn little squirt make up his mind.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">So Tuesday the 21<sup>st</sup>,at 6:30 a.m., they gave the feller a nudge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I couldn’t help imagining little Noah there, upside down, his tiny arms stuck out in a last ditch effort to hold back the inevitable. I even imagined him shouting “No, no. I don’t want to go out there.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But he did, and he is, and we’re all tickled pink that he’s out here with his family, both families. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Mike’s mother and grandmother live in Beaumont. Wonderful folks. Judy, Mike’s mom, took care of Mikey while Susan and Mike were at the hospital. Noah and his big brother, Mikey, and their sister, Hannah, are lucky. On their Daddy’s side, they have a great grandmother, Marie, a remarkable woman herself who served in the U.S. Navy Waves in World War II.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And they have us on the other side.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Noah got a break, a special break. Unlike so many million other babies, he was born in the U.S.A., where, despite all our problems, we still live in the greatest country in the world. Unfortunately, you’ll be one of those helping straighten this out in the years to come. But that all comes later. You just sleep and eat and grow. You’re in good hands.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Sleep tight.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Signed,<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-68279717186590841032012-08-22T08:51:00.000-07:002012-08-22T08:51:24.654-07:00A Stinking Gift<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you’ve been following the news, you are well aware the political fur is flying. One accusation after another is being hurled by all sides at each other. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">More than once in the last few weeks, my jaw has hit the floor upon viewing various political advertisements. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Who or what can we believe?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">All I can suggest is take it all with the proverbial grain of salt. It is difficult to pin facts to the mat, a heck of a lot more difficult than trying to give a cat a bath.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">When I ask myself if I’m better off now than I was four years ago, I have to say ‘no way’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Why? Basically, the economy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I base it on my own personal and family expenses.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Four years ago, my weekly trips to Walmart averaged about $90. Today, the same items hit almost $120, a $30 increase. And if you’re on a fixed income, that $30 takes away from some of your other ‘like to dos’. The same type of increases hold true all other areas. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Fast food is up; medical expenses are higher; insurance costs more; autos are outrageous; and on and on and on.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">When prices increase, most families, me included, look for ways to shave our own spending so we can balance our budget.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Let’s forget politics for a moment. Let’s forget that some fanatics bleed blue or red--Libertarians? I don’t know. Maybe they bleed pink. But let’s forget about the color of our blood and concentrate on putting the American budget back in shape.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Unless you are a welfare cheat—no, I shouldn’t have said that. Welfare cheats don’t read columns like this. They’re too busy spending food stamps on lobsters and beer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">There isn’t a concerned citizen who doesn’t know the ultimate fate of our country if such spending continues.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">With all its moles and warts, the Ryan tax plan addresses the issue. At least it is a start on winnowing the chaff from the grain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I know, I know, there are hundreds, yea, thousands of questions, but we have to begin somewhere. The House has sent a couple budgets to the Senate where they died and long and painful deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I found a list of items the Republican side of Congress wants to cut. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">After reading them, you’ll be as shocked as I was not only by their number, but by the way obscene amounts of tax monies are spent.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Right up front, the plan doesn’t cut Social Security nor Defense. What I read is that while it does make an effort to reform SS, those citizens over 55 are not affected.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">There are fifty-four items on this list. They range from e<span style="color: black;">liminating taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for a $12.5 million annual savings to repealing the eighty-one year old Davis-Bacon Act for more than $1 billion annually.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Some of the other programs on the list to be either required or eliminated are:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Eliminate Presidential Campaign Fund. 775 million savings over ten years. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Eliminate Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants $2.5 billion annual savings</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget -- $1.8 billion savings over ten years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees.$1 billion total savings.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees $1.2 billion savings over ten years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Eliminate Mohair Subsidies $1 million annual savings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">Sell excess federal properties the government doesn’t use. $5 billion total savings</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">No funding for federal office space acquisition. $64 million annual savings. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">A perfect example of just how careless those jokers are with our taxes is clearly illustrated in the two previous examples.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">One wants to sell unused government properties and the other wants to eliminate funds for federal office space acquisitions. (only in Washington can they justify spending money by working against each other)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Here are only ten examples of the list, which contains forty-four others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">They are all as wasteful as these next two. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">For example, we could save $1.565 billion by eliminating Amtrak subsidies and $17 million by getting rid of the International fund for ‘Ireland’ (whatever that is)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">One last example of Washington’s obscene spending is the Congressional Death Gratuity. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">When a member of Congress dies, his family is given his yearly salary as a death benefit. In addition to insurance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Some deal, huh?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The list totals $2.5 trillion savings over ten years. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Will Congress follow these suggestions? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I doubt it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">While the alternative is unthinkable, we best think about it or we’ll end up like Greece.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Like I said, we’ve got to start somewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If we do, then in six decades, our kids and grandkids can have it all paid off. That’s some stinking gift we’ve left them, huh?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you should want the entire list, e-mail me. Happy to oblige.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-14932972301723716632012-08-15T08:32:00.001-07:002012-08-15T08:32:26.490-07:00I Told You So!<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> </span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Over the last few years, I’ve ranted and raved about the folly of Obamacare. From the beginning, I claimed it was being jammed through without enough time to peruse thoroughly the 2700 pages. That was enough to make me skeptical.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And then when you turn around and realize the document is written in such a manner as to be open to interpretation depending upon the mindset of those making the final decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I caught some flak from those who disagreed. Nothing wrong with civil discourse. Some wasn’t quite so civil, but you and I both know that’s the level to which ignorance stoops when it is backed into a corner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’m just an average guy trying to make it from day to day, hoping for the best. Neither Democrat nor Republican, I want what is best for my family and our country. And I have always believed that the health bill, as written, is not good for us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Before you pull out the tar and feathers, I hasten to add there are parts that are super for all of us. You know them, no one will be denied insurance; folks get help on medicines; and many others. There are those who need help, and in all decency, we should help.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">No, what I’m talking about is the errors brought about by a fanatical rush to pass the law without proper discourse. Sometimes, maybe we can discuss our president’s true motives for jamming it through Congress, but now, let’s talk about a couple mistakes in the monster bill that could make the ‘affordable’ ‘unaffordable’ or that would permit couples making up to $60,000 eligible for Medicaid. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Yep, I said Medicaid, M-E-D-I-C-A-I-D. You know, that federal insurance designed to aid the less fortunate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">The New York Times</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">, a predominant liberal newspaper, stated “a </span><span style="color: black;">glitch in the language of Obamacare could make the “affordable” health plan unaffordable for millions of American workers.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Let’s take a look at the ‘glitch’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Of course, where Obama is concerned, even a full-fledged disaster is only a ‘glitch’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But, let’s get serious. Obamacare says insurance provided by an employer is not affordable and thus eligible for subsidies if the employee’s premium is more than 9.5% of the household income.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">So far, so good, Right?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, here’s how the bill sticks it to the average American.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">IRS (and remember, the government hired 16,000 more agents to handle Obamacare), states this 9.5% is based solely on the individual coverage of the employee, not the cost of covering his family. I shouldn’t have to explain to anyone family coverage is considerably more.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">For example, a family has income of $40,000. The employee’s premium is $200 a month, $2400 annually, but his family’s premium is another $2,400. That’s $4,800, around 12% of the family income. On the surface, they are eligible for help with premiums.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, here is the glitch.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Since the employee’s premium is less than 9.5%, he is not eligible for subsidies, but what about the additional $2,400 for his family? That puts him over the 9.5%. His family should be eligible for subsidy, but he is, according to Obamacare, not eligible for subsidized help on his premiums.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you remember, last week I wrote about how complicated the bills were written, and now you can see why. The more confusing, the more lawyerish, the less the average Joe Sixpack wants to mess with them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Hey, and there’s more.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“<i>The Mail Online</i>’, a political watchdog, reported that up to three million people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 because Obamacare includes a clause that Social Security benefits would no long be counted as income for determining eligibility for the program.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">For Medicaid, the law states an eligibility of 133% of poverty level ($22,350.), which comes out right at $29,700 for a family of four in 2011. Say the retired husband and wife have a sum total of 2,500 SS benefits. That’s another $30,000 for a grand total of almost $60,000.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Extreme case? I hope so, but can you imagine the games the welfare cheats will play with this?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In all fairness, The House of Representatives passed a bill to rectify this mistake and sent it on to the Senate where nothing, as far as I can discover, has happened except they’re all on five weeks vacation now.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Doing nothing must be mighty tiring.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In forty-one years of teaching, I worked with thousands of youngsters. I tried to teach them to think for themselves, avoid dogma, and to always think though their decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I wish those folks in Washington had done the same thing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-32522281595845334312012-08-08T07:35:00.000-07:002012-08-08T07:35:17.247-07:00Time to Speak Out<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I can remember decades back how surprised I was when I discovered how political parties, unlike leopards, have changed their spots over the last couple hundred years. Their political philosophies did an almost 180 degree turn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">At first I puzzled over it, then I realized such is the natural course of any endeavor in which individuals participate for their beliefs and philosophies will affect their decisions involving the venture.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That’s one reason you often hear remarks such as ‘this is not the Democratic (or Republican) party of my grandfather’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You’ve heard similar comments.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">So it is no surprise that over the last three years, the current administration has been changing the philosophical premises of the Democratic party. Some of these changes, however, are so subtle as to have slipped past many of us. While I was aware of some of the obvious changes, others passed by me like the proverbial ship in the night.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">What opened my eyes was an article by Steve McCann on <i>The American Thinker</i>, an online political site with conservative views. I repeat, ‘conservative views’, not Republican, not Democrat, but views held by a majority of Americans--the same kind of Americans that stood up for Chick-fil-A.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I, as Mr McCann and just about everyone I know, recognize the upcoming election as one of the most important in the history of our country. I firmly believe if Obama is re-elected, America will change dramatically in that it will no longer be the dominant country in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And what is wrong with being dominant?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We are dominant because of the free enterprise system. Free enterprise and capitalism has made America a world leader. Work you butt off and you succeed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But if you are one of the ignorant who believe we should lower our own standards of living so those who take advantage of welfare won’t feel slighted or have their poor feelings hurt, then while I wish you no harm, I hope that your car breaks down, or the bus doesn’t run, or a wheel falls off your bicycle when you go to vote in November.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Obama, during his first term, put in place, says Mr. McCann, executive powers that enables him in his second term to fulfill the campaign promise of transforming America, regardless of which political party controls Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">During his first term, he has made Congress irrelevant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Don’t believe me?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Look what Congress has done. Nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Cleverly exercising executive orders, Obama continues making decisions that alters the direction we are going, and Congress sits on its collective thumb.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">During his election honeymoon, he was clever enough to pass a wide variety of laws that transferred vast, almost unlimited powers to the executive branch. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you say, ‘so what?’ then please don’t vote. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You see, the Executive Branch (Obama), the Judicial Branch (Supreme Court) and the Legislative Branch (Congress- ha, ha! What a joke!), by our Constitution have equal power.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">He has taken those powers and established them in the Executive Branch <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Why do you think the health care plan was 2700 pages long?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">A Chicago political move, it was deliberately written in vague terms so that Obama’s bureaucrats appointed to interpret the laws could place just about any interpretation they wanted on them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">No? Then why did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi imploring the House to pass the bill<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>screech out to pass it ‘so we can read it and see what is in it.”?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In this 2700 pages, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is referenced 2,500 times; he is instructed he ‘shall’ do something 700 times; he ‘may’ take some action on his own discretion 200 times; the law states ‘the Secretary ‘determines’ 139 times.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In essence, Mr. McCall concludes, one person, appointed by the present, will be in charge of the health care of 310 million Americans once Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Look at the way the Secretary of Health and Human Services is ordered to be in charge. He ‘shall’; he ‘will’; he ‘may’; he ‘determines’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Where, I ask, is there room for our input, for our doctor’s input?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Are we back to the Middle Ages where a landlord ‘shalls’, or ‘wills’ or ‘determines’ what we do?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And if that isn’t enough, the same holds true for the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act, which confers almost unlimited power to control financial, banking, and investment sectors; and create new agencies not subject to any control by Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“This overall process,” concludes Mr. McCann, “Was repeated numerous times with other legislation all with the intent of granting unfettered power to the executive branch that is controlled Barack Obama and his radical associates.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">It’s time for America to stand up and reclaim the inalienable rights guaranteed us in the First Amendment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I can’t help thinking of that mournful soliloquy regarding the holocaust.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">First they came for the communists,<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then they came for the trade unionists,<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And I didn’t peak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then they came for the Jews,<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then they came for me<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;"><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">And there was no one left to speak out for me</span></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="googqs-tidbit-1"><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">.</span></i></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Right now, folks, there’s enough of us left to speak out. It’s time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-4908659945949459972012-08-01T08:28:00.003-07:002012-08-01T08:28:57.904-07:00Dog Heaven on the Neches<div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I heard about an old East Texas bachelor who had a small cabin on a few acres near the Sabine River. Seems like the last two fingers on his left hand were frozen shut from a boyhood accident. His only companion was an old mongrel hound, Barney.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, the old boy was out hunting one day when he got snakebit by a fat cottonmouth. After tending the bite best he could, he headed home, but along the way, he grew dizzy and sat to rest, He closed his eyes. His old hound lay at his feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">When he opened them, he struck out for home once again, but the trail was different. Puzzled by the changes about him, he paused at a strange road with a fancy gate. Up the road a piece sat an elegant two-story house with music coming from the windows. A well-dressed gent opened the gate. “Welcome. Come in.”</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The old bachelor asked where he was. “Things look different. And I feel different.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“Why, you’re dead. Remember? The cottonmouth?” He smiled. “Don’t believe me. Look at your crippled hand.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The old gent wiggled his frozen fingers in surprise. He looked up at the man. “Is this heaven?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“What do you think?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">He reached down and patted his dog. “Come on, Barney. Let’s go in.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But the well-dressed man stopped him. “No dogs allowed. Only humans.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“Then I ain’t going in. If heaven ain’t good enough for my old hound, it ain’t good enough for me.” So he struck out along the unfamiliar road.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Around the next bend, he came upon another road that led up to a plain log cabin like his own. A jasper dressed in overalls sat on a fallen log. “See you didn’t take old Luke up on his invite.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">With a snort, the old feller replied. “Not without my hound.” He nodded up the road behind the smiling man. “What’s this place?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“Why, this is heaven.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">“Heaven?” He eyed the undistinguished road curving through the forest. “What was that place back there with the fancy house and loud music?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The grin on the younger man’s face grew wider. That was Hell.” He nodded to Barney. “Come on in. And bring Barney with you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, there was no sign on the second road, but if there had been, I figure it would have read ‘Port Neches,’ for our little city welcomes dogs of all breeds.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">A regular dog heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">No, I didn’t know it either, and I’ve lived in the area for over forty years. I’m just dumb, I suppose.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Even before we built our house, we constructed a fence for our little dog, Cim. That was what we had been told the city required. Fences for dogs. So we complied. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But I kept seeing loose dogs. I’d call about them, thinking the city would appreciate knowing about the canines. Nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I puzzled over it while I kept seeing more and more of various breeds roaming the neighborhoods--free and unhindered, chasing cats, eating garbage, and leaving ample evidence of their cavorting behind to help fertilize our yards.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then it hit me, like the proverbial ton of bricks. A dog heaven. The city wanted to keep it a secret so Nederland and Port Arthur wouldn’t take credit for the idea. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But why the idea in the first place?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The only answer was that previous city fathers wanted to lessen the stress on its hard-working citizens so they decided to provide a entertaining service not offered by any other community, a haven for dog owners to give their beloved pets free rein and let the citizenry enjoy the frolicking of the happy animals.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">What better way to wake up each morning than to see the different breeds of canines running the street and yards. Just the other day, I saw a Jack Russell terrier gamboling with the rare and elusive Basenji, but that was nowhere as memorable as watching a rare Bearded Collie and a Boston Terrier chase cats up my neighbors’ pecan trees.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Our city fathers have come up with a remarkable idea to help the city grow with this dog heaven business. They ought to change our city sobriquet from ‘Sapphire City of the Neches’ to ‘Dog City of the Neches’ or maybe ‘Canine City of the Neches.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Visitors will flock in, and we won’t have to bother with a riverfront park project that’ll put Kemah to shame.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';">At the base of the sign, we should inscribe the words, </span>"Give me your Rottweilers, your Malamutes, your Yorkies, your huddled mongrels yearning to breathe free."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">A catchy slogan might be “A Dog in Every Garage!”<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Who says our city doesn’t have vision?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Courier New';"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">www.kentconwell.blogspot.com</a></span></div>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-2073627912449301522012-07-25T07:16:00.000-07:002012-07-25T07:16:22.839-07:00Football Fever<div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Football fever? I don’t have it. Not like many folks here in Southeast Texas where all levels of football are taken very seriously. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">When I came to this area forty years back, I was surprised at the intensity of support football enjoyed. Having come from the Fort Worth area, I thought I knew something about football fandom, but SE Texas’ unbridled and enthusiastic support puts the northern metroplex to shame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Now, I enjoy football, but as a benign observer rather than participant. Years back, I played, but as in most of my sporting endeavors, I never made first team. I was lucky to make the last team, and in fact, a couple times—well, I won’t go there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">In addition to my PN-G Indians, I watch the Cowboys and the Texans, but if I miss a game, I don’t lose any sleep over it.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">My athletic shortcomings in no way reflect my enjoyment of the game so when all of the Penn State news exploded across the country, I was as stunned as the majority of readers, whether football fans or not.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and suffering of all involved so consequently, it is difficult to judge the appropriate steps to bring closure to all of the affected.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Last Sunday, I read where Paterno’s statue was taken down. I halfway expected demonstrations or sit-ins if the event took place, but fortunately, the removal was peaceful.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, no one can deny the guy built a great well-known that produced hundreds of solid citizens. But then no one can deny that the guy also made an error in judgment many years ago, an error worsened by years of silence.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">While to some, it might seem unfair to say as much, but that mistake will always be remembered instead of the 409 wins he racked up. Correction, 298 wins since 112 were vacated. Instead on the winningest football coach in the NCAA, he is now 12<sup>th</sup> on the list; 5<sup>th</sup> on the FBS list.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">One of the unpleasant facets of life is there are many decent people who have a lifetime of good work destroyed by a careless or thoughtless decision.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Should life be that way? I don’t know. All I can say is each of us has a moral compass that should always point us in the right direction. Most of us at one time or another have experienced difficulty in heeding the direction the needle points, but that’s where faith comes in. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And character.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">There is not a person reading this who can honestly say the Penn State/Sandusky cover-up was legitimate. Consequently, as wrenching as the problem is to the Paterno’s family, the victims and their families are given a modicum of satisfaction although the pain will be with them forever.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In addition to vacating wins, Penn State took a four year ban on postseason play, fours of year scholarship reduction, five years probation for football, and a 60 million dollar fine.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, at least it wasn’t the death penalty, but it comes as close to it as the actual sanction. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The death penalty was pronounced once in NCAA football history--SMU back in eighties. Sixteen players were paid over $61,000.00 over a period of time, a payout acknowledged and approved by the SMU Board of Governors on which Bill Clements served. Clements if you remember served as Texas Governor from 1979-83 and ’86-‘91.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The fallout from that death penalty led not only to the eventual dissolution of the old Southwest Conference, but the complete destruction of what had once been one of the most storied football programs in the county.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Since then, SMU has lost around seventy-five percent of its games.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">SMU deserved the punishment.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">They lied to the NCAA about maintaining slush funds to pay players. Bill Clements served as chairman of the SMU board of governors between his terms as Texas Governor. It was during his tenure the payments were approved, so it is obvious the practice was wide spread and well known among the school’s administration.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">As horrendous as the Penn State shame might be, I can’t see destroying a program when it was the administration not the players who perpetrated the situation. At SMU, players were involved. I’ve heard nothing of player involvement in the Penn State mess.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I think the NCAA wanted to make a statement to football, but naturally, with what little wisdom the NCAA possesses, it punishes the innocent with the guilty. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Whether you like the fact or not, college football is big business. And it will always be such. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">This decision will send financial difficulties surging through the university and community like a tsunami. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I wholeheartedly agree that justice must be done. So do it. Clean house of those involved; prosecute if necessary those who kept quiet so Sandusky could continue to sate his evil lust.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But don’t persecute the players, the university students, the community, or any of the attendant businesses relying on the business of football.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We all have feet of clay. That’s why none of us can walk on water. And that is also why we must always pay attention to that little moral voice in our head. Ignore it that one time too many, and like a building imploding, our life will come tumbling down about our ears.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</a></span></div>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-22035094371462674182012-07-18T06:58:00.000-07:002012-07-18T06:58:54.791-07:00Old Dogs, New Tricks<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Whoever says old dogs can’t learn new tricks is wrong. They can learn. It might be painful, but they can learn. Here’s how I know.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgce2_Z3_mmv7oxX0ycpV9Oc_CFQ9MqdcrJLO_Pqtsazba9BXVsrNXFo2dH4vP_OEtNPmKliCp-NuTlzD6211RVpM-1ZvOkFH4AzFsC0aqhObgJJDx46QoLSIZKOrJkRYB2DZ65_CxNcw/s1600/kids%2520beach-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgce2_Z3_mmv7oxX0ycpV9Oc_CFQ9MqdcrJLO_Pqtsazba9BXVsrNXFo2dH4vP_OEtNPmKliCp-NuTlzD6211RVpM-1ZvOkFH4AzFsC0aqhObgJJDx46QoLSIZKOrJkRYB2DZ65_CxNcw/s1600/kids%2520beach-2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">As much as we enjoy the beach, come the Fourth of July, we usually just hang around the house. Maybe barbeque under the live oak and enjoy a dip in the pool. Done it for the last twenty or so years.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">This year was a little different, and upon reflection, I understand a little better the relationship between the expressions ‘growing old’ and ‘wisdom’ and ‘pain’.<img align="baseline" alt="" border="0" hspace="0" src="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Kent/Desktop/images/kids%20beach-2.jpg" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You see, our younger daughter and her husband rented a cabin down around Crystal Beach for the week of the Fourth. We couldn’t decide when to go down. Bask in the sun, spend one night, then maybe visit Galveston for lunch the next day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now we knew the Fourth would be jammed along the beach, but we’d never been on that holiday, and remembering way back—way, way back to those halcyon days of blistering sun, sweat, cold beer, sand between the toes, we decided to give it a shot. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The day dawned bright and clear, an ideal beach day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We arrived around ten. Our son-in-law, Jason, was there to meet us. I headed back to the car for the last of our items. As I made my way across the yard, I heard what sounded like ‘Pa, Pa.’ I looked around, but all I saw was Jason’s pickup. Then came the words again. “Pa, Pa, Pa.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">All of a sudden, a grinning face popped over the windowsill and my little granddaughter, Kenli, laughed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Of course, grandpa had to pick her up and play with her.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Someone suggested walking to the beach. We were only in the second row back. I eyed the hot sand, the blistering sun, and opted for the pickup. Besides, someone had to hold Kenli. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">My eyes popped out when we reached the beach. That sucker was jammed. There wasn’t enough room for a greased goose to squirt through.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">As far as I could see up and down the beach, gaily colored canopies were sandwiched shoulder-too-shoulder with only enough space between them for one or two vehicles.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, Jason is one of those who guys likes to get everything in place. He’d gone down early to set up two ten-foot square canopies side by side, drop off several ice chests as well as lawn chairs and, not forgetting the little ones, a couple of canvas cots for naps.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">All that was missing was a TV, and I’ve no doubt he could have probably figured out how to do that if we’d demanded one—or if LSU were playing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The little ones played in the sand and water. Keegan and Mikey used their little boogie-boards and actually were growing somewhat adept at riding them. From time to time, Mikey or Keegan would run up and ask me to ‘boogie’. I begged off.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I was sitting in the shade sipping on a cool beer. Sand between the toes and sweat somehow had lost their appeal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The kids’ parents enjoyed the sun, gathering at the water’s edge, laughing and telling stories. I couldn’t help remembering how I once did that, way back when. Way, way back when.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">My wife, Gayle, braver than me, sat in the sun at the edge of the canopy with Susan, our older daughter. But I was content, relaxing in a lawn chair in the shade of the tent, nursing ice cold beer to combat the heat.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We had a nice breeze, and couple times, I started to take off my tee shirt and straw hat, but opted not too. Don’t misunderstand. The fact Jason and his friends’ bodies looked sculpted out of granite had nothing to do with my own physique. I was sculpted. When my chest dropped to my waistline, it left the smoothest sculpted little curve.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Gayle and Susan stayed out in the sun.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">After a few hours, Kenli, the granddaughter, grew sleepy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I’ll be honest For some inexplicable reason, I was tired. I’d had enough heat and sand for a while so I volunteered to stay with her a the cabin. Besides, I had a new mystery to read, and the idea of peace and quiet, a good book, an air-conditioned room, and a cold beer was like playing four aces on a pair of threes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">No way could I lose.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Later, we went back to the beach. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We planned on a lazy evening, and a relaxing night watching fireworks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But age has a way of creeping up on a body.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I never realized how tired you can get sitting in a chair in the shade drinking beer. Now, I have noticed over the years, I can’t take the sun like I did when I was just a younker. I can wear shorts eight months a year, but my legs seldom tan. Oh, they might grow one or two shades darker, but a couple days out of the sun and they’re lily white once again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">So, when I say my wife had just a wee bit too much sun, you know what I mean. Remember what it was like to get a sunburn and can’t stand anything to touch your skin?</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That’s how she felt., And I was exhausted. Don’t kid yourself, sitting in the shade an be tiring.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">By six o’clock, we were headed back to Port Neches for baggy clothes and a handful of lysine for fever blisters.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We missed the fireworks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Keegan said they were fantastic and he could even see the Galveston firework display across the channel.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">All in all, it was a great day even though Gayle hurt for a couple days. Me, I was still tired the next day. Seems like it always takes me longer to recuperate than last time. You know what I mean?</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></a><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</a></span></div>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-89570105278465273482012-07-11T08:05:00.001-07:002012-07-11T08:05:33.451-07:00The Day the Lights Went Out in America<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 36.7pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Most of you who are reading this are intelligent enough to realize just how severe the consequences for our country to be so deeply in debt. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Unfortunately, you’re in the minority. Such a small percentage of knowledgeable readers sometimes makes me wonder what’s the use to constantly point out the draconian future that lies ahead of us if we maintain our present course.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But that in itself, is the reason to keep trying. There are dreary times ahead unless you don’t mind paying seventy or eighty percent of your income as taxes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">As you know by now, the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare will be funded by taxes—taxes—IRS—that sort of thing to the tune of 16,000 plus new IRS hires to make sure we pay up. Got it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I ran across a little explanation the other day that rips all the flowery rhetoric from the political ‘rose-covered-glasses’ discourses and gives a simple account of just where America is today financially.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">You know, and if you don’t you should, that recently, the United States credit rating was downgraded by Standard & Poors from AAA to AA, a first in our history.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And that isn’t the kind of first of which we can brag.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Why did this happen?</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Simple. Too much debt.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you have lousy credit, you pay more to borrow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And that’s where we’re heading, No, that’s where we are.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Look at the following figures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">U.S. Tax Revenue<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>$2,170.000,000,000</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Federal Budget<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>$3,820,000,000,000</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">New Debt<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>$1,650,000,000,000</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">National Debt<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>$14,271,000,000,000</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Recent Budget Cuts<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>$38,500,000,000</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">If you’re like me, all those zeroes are confusing. The author of this little matrix made it simple by removing eight zeroes from each line to approximate an average family’s budget.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Annual income<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>$21,700.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Family budget<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>$38,200.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">New credit card debt<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>$16,500.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Balance on credit cards$142,170.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Total Budget Cuts<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>$385.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now that’s sobering, and the figures are constantly changing, and not downward—except maybe budget cuts. </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Right now, I can hear folks nodding and saying, “Yep. That blasted Bush. He done it all.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Well, maybe we need to look at it from a little different perspective.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Before you grunt and figure I’m making excuses for him, figure again. There were events in his administration of which I didn’t approve; there were events that gave him no choice unless some of you think he should have asked the radical Muslins to forgive us for putting heavily populated buildings in front of airplanes they had stolen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The last quarter of 2006, the country under the Bush administration had a quarterly GDP of 3.2 right on the heels of another 3.2 and 4.4. From 2001 to 2007 (his administration), the Gross Domestic Products grew from 2.45 to 4.4 then dropped to 3.2. This last GDP was with both chambers run by Democrats.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The Bush economic policies set a record straight 52 months of job growth according to <u>Meet the Press</u>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">The Dow closed at 12,600.<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In December, 2006, the unemployment rate stood at 4.6%</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then came January, 2007- the day the lights went out in the United States.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That’s when Democrats took over. For the first time since 1995, the Democrats controlled both chambers, although under a Republican president. That was the 110<sup>th</sup> Congress.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In January, 2007, Barney Frank, Democrat, took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee, Nancy Pelosi the House, Harry Reid the Senate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Take a look at the political makeup in Washington at that point.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Democrats controlled both chambers; Democrats headed up Financial Services and Senate Banking.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Bush faced a hostile Congress the next three years</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now you tell me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Whose fault was the economic meltdown that came 15 months later, the lame duck president or the two chambers controlled by a hostile party that opposed Bush until they could get their own president? Remember, Congress controls the budget.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New;">Then there was Fannie and Freddie, and the blame was placed on Bush. But look again at what Congressman Artur Davis, D-Al had to say on September 30, 2008. “<em><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong.”</span></em><span lang="EN" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">In 2003, Bush urged Congress to tighten regulations on Fannie and Freddie, but Congress did nothing. In fact, Barney Frank suggested the administration had a ‘sky is falling’ wish.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Congress and Obama as a young senator fought against reform of Freddie and Fannie.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That doesn’t surprise me nor would it you if you knew that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae paid off politicians for their support. John Kerry was given $165,000; Barack Obama $126,000. and Chris Dodd, $120,000.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Congress is responsible for budgets, not the president. Using continuing resolutions, Reid and Pelosi bypassed Bush those last years while waiting for Obama to take over.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">From 2008 on, Democrats in both chambers had complete control of budget and the spending.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Whatever Obama inherited from 2007 came from two Democrat chambers. Whatever he’s inherited since came from him.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Courier New;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></a><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a></div>
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<br /></div>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-14152388660146168562012-07-05T07:18:00.000-07:002012-07-05T07:18:43.773-07:00The Great Horned Toad Escapade<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 37.05pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">A couple weeks we attended the closing session of our two grandsons’ Vacation Bible School at Proctor Street Baptist Church.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG5SFq6-aOl2DY6TP_Pug_Co7hJRMxtkqG86o4vewy64n5O6oMw9havdVcenzV8_IbaEWV0TWJDOBjuqgt2MXTarkTL1e4b_tSoNSuVMZVJY16ZsDJuQvUlLzuWXt4EJT8EV45NYrdFg/s1600/horned+toad+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; height: 192px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; width: 244px;"><img border="0" sca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG5SFq6-aOl2DY6TP_Pug_Co7hJRMxtkqG86o4vewy64n5O6oMw9havdVcenzV8_IbaEWV0TWJDOBjuqgt2MXTarkTL1e4b_tSoNSuVMZVJY16ZsDJuQvUlLzuWXt4EJT8EV45NYrdFg/s1600/horned+toad+2.jpg" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">It’s a fine church, led by a dedicated minister, supported by committed staff members, sustained by tireless volunteers, and blessed with faithful parishioners.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now, VBS today isn’t a whole lot different than when I was in vacation bible school back in the Middle Ages. I guess the big difference is in the music today. It’s sort of what I’d call hip-hop. For all I know it might be ‘rip rap’ or ‘slip-slap’, but whatever it is, the little ones really get with it, and the message remains the same. And I have no doubt Jesus is tapping His toes right along with them.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Sitting out there in the sanctuary, I looked on as grade by grade sang their little songs they’d worked so hard on throughout the week.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">I have to say, the youngsters put on a good show, and to a single one, they were all well behaved, not like some of us when we were in the spotlight.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And that brings me around to one of the worst, but most deserved spankings I ever got. Vacation bible school was right in the middle of it.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">That’s right.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now Dad was not a church-goer. Mom dutifully pulled my brother and me out of bed every Sunday and out of the mud holes on Wednesday and headed out for church.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now up in the Texas Panhandle, horned toads abounded.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">For those who have no idea what a horned toad (we called they horny toads) looked like, they were miniature creatures from Jurassic Park. Sort of light brown in color, they sported two spiked horns protruding from their heads and several smaller spikes covering their backs. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">They were gentle creatures. You could turn them on their backs and rub their tummies and they’d go to sleep. There was rumor that they would spit blood in your eyes and blind you, but I never saw any evidence of it. At the same time, even when I was rubbing their bellies, I was mighty cautious to keep the little guys at arm’s length. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Biggest one I ever laid eyes on was about five or six inches long and four wide. Real old timers. Come spring, tiny horny toads were everywhere, little one-inchers, and those are the ones that caused Jerry and me all the trouble. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">No, truth is Jerry and me caused Jerry and me all the trouble. For seventy years I’ve put the blame on those little horny toads, but the truth is, we two mischievous boys were the blame.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now at our vacation bible school, we sang traditional hymns, never venturing into different types of music. For two eleven-year-old boys, standing before a congregation and singing half-a-dozen hymns gets sort of boring. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Now I had an uncle who smoked Bull Durham cigarettes. He always had empty tobacco bags around, so Jerry and I stashed a dozen or so horny toads in a bag, and he slipped it in his pocket. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">We figured on turning them loose among the girls when we kids all gathered for refreshments after the service, but to our horror, the little toads slipped out of the bag while we were singing. Jerry later claimed some of the horns were sticking him through the thin cloth and he was trying to move them around. Whatever the reason, twelve or thirteen little horny toads shot out of his pocket and scattered like a covey of quail right under the feet of the choir.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Best I can recollect, we were in the middle of “Jesus Loves Me” when the screaming broke out. The word ‘loves’ turned into shrieks.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The girls in the choir clambered over the chairs, Two or three of the smaller boys shouted with glee and scrambled to catch a toad, the preacher’s face grew red, the congregation roared, and Mom fainted.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">A couple little fellers must have made it into the congregation for half-a dozen or so little old white-haired ladies all around the sanctuary popped to their feet and screamed.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If today’s Child Protective Services had seen my rear and legs after my spanking, they’d probably have tried to arrest Dad, which would have been s dreadful mistake on their part.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Things were a heck of a lot different back then.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Strange isn’t it. There I was in Proctor Street Church, listening to the little ones I cherish so much and at the same time, remembering the past with sweet nostalgia.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The only thing the VBS kids turned loose at Proctor Street was the Spirit of the Lord and a lot of fun.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">My younger grandson, Mikey, is shy. The first couple songs, he sort of laid back, but when the third came along, the kids were swinging their arms and bouncing around like rubber balls, the little squirt jumped feet first into the singing and dancing. I was proud as punch of that boy. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Keegan, the older of the two knows no stranger. He stood out in front of all of them, although I don’t think he was supposed to. He swung his arms and danced to all three of the songs.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But the little guy who stole the show looked to be about four or so. He bounced back and forth across the stage in time to the beat of the music, fell to the carpet, twirled on his back, leaped to his feet, did some break dancing, and dropped to the floor again.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">If any of us had done that as a kid, all of our moms would have fainted and our fathers would have reached for belts.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Afterward we visited their rooms, saw their work, then drifted over to the gym for ice cream. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">And there’s no doubt in my mind the Good Lord was looking down with a big smile on his face just like He did that time when a four-year-old, dressed in a black western outfit, stepped through the back doors of the sanctuary of the Wheeler Methodist Church during offering with two cap pistols in hand and told everyone ‘this is a hold-up’. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">But that’s another memory for another time..</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7643716122131610681.post-49382396202249393702012-06-27T08:18:00.002-07:002012-06-27T08:19:29.110-07:00Old Fashioned Fourth<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The Fourth of July!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">The very words conjure up rockets blazing across a black sky; fiery explosions lighting the night; and racketing firecrackers shattering the air.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">To a youngster up in the Texas Panhandle, the Fourth was second only to Christmas.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;">Independence Day! </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The one day </span>for which we’d hoard our pennies for strings of Black Cat firecrackers, rockets, Roman candles, torpedoes, cherry bombs, baby giants, and sparklers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">I’ve always figured myself lucky to have both a town parent and a country parent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Let me explain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Dad grew up in town. Although there were only around 800 folks who lived there, their way of life was different than Mom’s, who lived on a farm ten or twelve miles out of town with her folks and seven siblings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">One of the older sisters, Elva, had earned a beautician’s license, married, and lived in town with her carpenter husband, Jake Green, whose folks owned one of the town’s two hardware stores.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">On some holidays, the Fourth included, Mom’s family gathered at Elva’s for the two or three days of family reunion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Back then, most families were never too far apart that they couldn’t spend four or five hours getting to a central spot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">And always, the women would sit in the house and bring each other up to date on family and neighbors, and the men would squat in the shade of the old oak out back, sipping beer or whatever other beverage was handy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Out-of-town families came early, and usually there were so many that mattresses were spread on the floors and even in the yard to accommodate sleepers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">That was something I noticed early on. Town families seldom spread pallets or mattresses; country families spread them everywhere. If you had to pay the bathroom a visit at night, you had to clamber over half-a-dozen snoozing folks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">The Fourth was the one day the adults just about ignored us youngsters, knowing as long as they could hear firecrackers popping and kids screaming in glee, no one had drowned in the creek or had been run over by a passing car.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Those holidays in the years right after the war were the ones I remember most vividly for all the men had fought overseas. Some had been wounded, but they all returned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Now, me and my cousins were typical boys, full of vim and vigor with a heaping tablespoon of mischievousness tossed in for good measure. We were boisterous, loud, prying, and daring. Nothing could hurt us. Of that we were certain. I admit, we could get carried away at times, but instead of Ritalin, our folks used a much more effective medicine. And you didn’t need a prescription for it although it was mighty good for what ailed us. It was called, Leather Belt. Believe me, it cured whatever was bothering us at the time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Too bad parents today have forgotten it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Even before sun up, we cousins were all out popping firecrackers. One of our favorite contests was to see how high we could blow a can into the air.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Now, this is was way back before lighter punks, so our older cousin stole a pack of Camel cigarettes from his old man. We lit up. Usually one Camel would take us through a whole string of Black Cats if we popped them one at a time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">There isn’t a boy alive who, given firecrackers and a can, soon doesn’t grow tired of sending the can flying. He looks for further adventure, and one of my cousins found it with rocks stuffed down a pipe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">We huddled around him out between the garage and my uncle’s glassed-in chicken brooder(with a lot of glass) so we’d be out of sight for the grownups. My cousin dropped a handful of rocks in a two-inch pipe about a foot long and stuck a firecracker at the other end. When he lit it, he jammed the firecracker end against the garage wall. Well, in that position, the only way the pipe could point was at the brooder. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">I’ll say this. The experiment worked beautifully. Of course, it shattered the brooder. His dad gave him a blistering dose of Leather Belt, made him sit with the men for a few minutes, then turned him loose again. Retribution back then was quick and painful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">We coveted baby giants and cherry bombs. Their fuses were coated with something so they would burn underwater.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">We’d tie a baby giant to a rock and toss them in the water. When the firecracker exploded, it was like one of the depth charges you saw at the picture show. Once, Jerry came up with several boxes of Rit Dye. </span><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Those were neat, for we’d sink a box with a cherry bomb and when we blew it up, the stain would float to the surface just like in the movies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">More than once, Roman candle fights would erupt with our chasing each other around the yard, ignoring the men cussing us when random balls fell into their midst, sending them scrambling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">At night we set off the rockets, mesmerized by their graceful flaming arcs into a black sky filled with glittering diamonds. In the back of every one of our hooligan heads as we watched the rocket was the wonder of what travel through space was like.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">And that night, even before our heads hit the pillow on our pallet, we were asleep. Half-a-dozen, grimy, sweaty little cousins who had put in one busy day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">Yep, all was right with the world.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="mailto:rconwell@gt.rr.com"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">rconwell@gt.rr.com</span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><a href="http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/</span></span></a></span></div>
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<a href="http://%20www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Courier New;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26"><span style="font-family: Courier New; font-size: small;">www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26</span></a><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>Kent Conwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12767918330220791815noreply@blogger.com0