Thursday, August 27, 2015

Another senseless shooting

As did much of the nation, I was horrified and saddened to see two young lives taken by a deranged gunman yesterday. The young reporter and camera man had their entire lives in front of them. Now they will never know the joys of marriage,parenthood, and so many other wondrous opportunities that have been snatched from them.

My next thought was that I wonder when the idiots running our country will begin to bang the drum blaming guns for this killing. That makes about as much sense as blaming spoons for fat people. My first weapon was my thumb and index finger. From there I graduated to a BB gun, and then on to real weapons that could kill. However, before I ever got to the real weapons, I had a father who drilled gun safety into me incessantly.

I grew up in a very politically incorrect generation. We played Cowboys & Indians every day at recess. I also watched Roy Rogers and Gene Autry fire at least 60 shots from a six shooter pistol almost every Saturday at what we called " The Picture Show". However, I never had any difficulty distinguishing between the real and the make believe. When my Dad placed that shotgun in my hands, I knew that it was the real deal, and I had a very real responsibility to handle it with respect and never point it at anything that I did not wish to shoot.

When I look at the many cases in our country of senseless violence and mass shootings, I really don't see guns as the root cause. I see a society where we have a breakdown of the nuclear family. Values that were drilled into me are no longer being taught. Secondly, I see a lot of mental illness that is slipping through the cracks and going untreated. We have plenty of laws on the books, but we have a bloated federal government who can't even enforce the laws that they pass.

The deranged gunman who killed all of the folks in Charleston should never have passed the NICS background search for purchasing a pistol, but he did. The illegal immigrant who had been deported six times yet still killed an innocent young lady in California should never have been in our country. But he was!

I'm old school, and I wish that we could see some old school justice return to our nation. I can assure you that the US citizens of my grandfather's day would not have tolerated what we see on television every day. Justice would have been swift and certain, and some limbs from a bunch of big oak trees would be getting a workout. I guarantee you that we would not have seen as many murderers,rapists, and pedophiles running around in those days.

Have we become a nation of sheep ?I pray that is not the case. As for me, I'm about to do something that I never thought that I would need to do. I've had a concealed carry weapon permit for a long time, but now I'm about to utilize it. I believe that our justice system is a joke, and the bad guys know that even better than I do.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

This & That

Well, like many of you I watched the stock market gyrations yesterday with more than passing interest. I feel kind of like the old cattleman who said, " I left the gate open, and all of my stock got out". I got up early this morning to watch all of the expert predictions as to what was going to happen today with the markets. Those predictions range from a minor correction to a Dow of 6000. They know about as much as I do, which is zilch.

What I do know is a feeling expressed by an old timer down here who once said, " Lord, please don't give it to me if you are going to take it away". If I never had it, I would not miss it. I can think of a lot of things that I was perfectly content to live without until they became a necessity in my life once they were invented. The cell phone is a prime example. However, I have always been kind of partial to eating well, and paying my bills.

This market correction, if that is indeed what id going on, is something that I predicted and anticipated. My only problem is that I was a good 18 months premature on my prediction as I went mostly to cash that long ago. I watched the market continue to soar while I have earned a magnificent one-tenth of one percent return on cash. Oh well, the sun doesn't shine up the same dog's fanny all of the time.

I'm still not ready to jump back into this market as I have always believed that pigs get fed while hogs get slaughtered. I've been patient this long; so I am comfortable to stay on the sidelines a while longer while the elephants trample one another. I wish that I had some confidence in the Fed or our elected officials, but I have absolutely no faith in them.

I have reached the sad stage in my life where I fear my own government more than I do ISIS. It seems that every day, they are eroding or taking another basic right of our democracy away. I feel a bit like a sheep, and I don't like feeling like a sheep. I firmly believe that it is time for us to fight for the future of our children and grandchildren. I have no idea as to who the best candidate for president of the US would be at the moment, but I have some strong feelings as to who would not be good candidates.

In the meantime, our garden is still feeding us, the pine trees are growing, and the quail are multiplying like crazy in the woods. Fall is just around the corner, and our weatherman is predicting that we will get a taste of fall tomorrow. Let's hope that he predicts the weather better than I do the stock market !

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

No place like home

My wife kidnapped me and took me on an all expense paid trip(paid by me) to Ireland for 2+ weeks. As Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz," There's no place like home,Toto". I enjoyed the trip immensely, but I sure was glad to see my house again. Sometimes we need to leave South Georgia to realize just how beautiful this place we call home is--heat, humidity, gnats, and all.

 The scenery in Ireland was just awesome, and the people were so friendly and helpful. It's more comforting to me to visit a foreign country where they speak a language I understand even if with a strong accent. Of course, we ran into plenty of US citizens who struggled to understand our South Georgia dialect. I enjoyed the countryside more than the cities, but that is just my nature. After a while, all castles and cathedrals look the same to me, but terrain is constantly changing.

Speaking of cathedrals, I located one of my ancestors who had a burial vault on the floor of the church. I was feeling fairly smug until our guide pointed out that Michelle Obama's uncle, six generations removed, was also buried in this church. My smart butt friend, Earl, quickly made the connection that I must be kin to Michelle. Now what I found interesting was that they could trace her lineage that far back, but we can't find her husband's college transcripts.

We also saw some of the best dog work I have ever observed with border collies herding sheep. A sheep herder gave us a private demonstration of two of the best trained dogs that I have ever seen. Each dog performed individually or as a team based on hand signals and whistles from their trainer. It was most impressive! Oh, did I mention that they have quite a few sheep in Ireland?

I will not bore you with all of the places we visited, but we covered both Ireland, and spent a few days in The Republic of Northern Ireland. My take on Northern Ireland is that those wounds have not healed, and it would not take much of a spark for a fire to blaze back up. We were more comfortable when we exited there and got to Dublin.

Guess what folks? College football season is just around the corner, and hunting season will be here before we know it. We are ready. The woods are beautiful, the quail are plentiful, and the guides and dogs are chomping at the bits!