Why We Need Tea Parties and Oathkeepers

Would anyone like to make a bet on the political beliefs of the HOA president that sent this Marine the letter?

I'm ashamed that such a thing could happen in Texas. Stupidity like this is not only a wonderful argument for more Tea Parties, but also the resurrection of tar and feathers parties.

Get a Clue, Republicans!

The more I watch our spineless Republican politicians wallow around in mushy mediocrity, the more inclined I am to re-register as an independent. It's driving me nuts to witness such incompetence from our elected officials.

Since most who read this blog don't get the Tyler paper, this is a letter I recently wrote to the editor.

"Our senators and the Republican Party hierarchy seem convinced the recent tea parties and the seething voter anger that permeates the country will work to their advantage in the 2010 elections. Well, before stepping ankle-deep in drool, I'd suggest you take a moment to get a clue.

Last month, I wrote both our Texas senators expressing my displeasure over their political timidity and a perplexing obsession with mundane issues while the country is being driven off a financial cliff by big-government loving liberals. I suggested they take a national role in furthering real conservative solutions to our social and financial turmoil, and that they become highly visible leaders rather than just two minority votes in the Senate. However, either they don’t understand what leadership means, or they are content to fiddle while America’s economy burns.

Senator Hutchison didn’t even bother to respond with a form letter, but I imagine she’s too busy kissing Austin’s political derrieres as she seeks the governorship, to be bothered by national calamities.

Senator Cornyn’s only response was a subscription to his e-newsletter, so now I've learned his concerns about such critical issues as television’s switch from analog to digital. Unfortunately, he didn’t directly respond to any of the concerns I raised, but he hinted that he’s going to vote like a Republican.

Dang it, Senator, put some starch in your skivvies. We need a voice. I want to see you throw a body slam on Senator Schumer every time he sprints toward a TV camera. Fight for some air time! Wrestle him for the microphone, and don’t be afraid to use your knee to raise his voice a few octaves…he’d do it! I’d suggest our Republican delegation learn how to become hard-nosed conservative leaders by emulating Rep. Gohmert.

Furthermore, Senator Cornyn, please quit picking fights with Rush Limbaugh. Save your pique for Harry Reid. You won’t win elections without Rush and you certainly won’t win elections by being nice to the leftist media.

Perhaps you need a challenger in the next primary to test your conservative credentials. It seems to have awakened Mr. Good-hair."


I'm not the only Texas conservative who has become frustrated with the GOP, and we're letting the leadership know we're done being their loyal lackeys.

Off We Go, Into the Wild Blue Yonder

This last week of May is the 50th anniversary of a very memorable time of my life. On May the 24th, 1959, at the ripe old age of seventeen, I caught a train from Stanley, North Dakota to the Armed Forces Induction Center in Fargo. After a day of poking and prodding with fingers, tongue depressors, needles and various strange instruments, the Army doctor declared me fit for service…barely. I had to plead with him to ignore my flat feet, but at last he reluctantly acquiesced to my groveling. He told me my feet were bad enough to avoid service, but that was the last thing I wanted. After the many months of waiting for high school to end so I could enlist, it would have been an emotional tragedy to return home to face my friends as a seventeen-year-old nonstarter.

When it came time for all of us Air Force enlistees to leave Fargo for Lackland AFB, the NCO preparing our processing paperwork pulled what I considered at the time to be an evil trick. I was the youngest, the skinniest, and the shyest kid in our group of six, so he decided to put me in charge. I had to wear an arm band that signified that I was a temporary Staff Sgt, but I didn’t have a clue what a Staff Sgt was supposed to do. The NCO told me it was a simple job, and that all I had to do was carry all the paper work in a sealed packet, and to make sure that everyone stayed together, and that nobody got lost…simple. Sure!

When we arrived in Kansas City via Northwest Airlines, we had about a three hour layover before we were scheduled to catch an Air Force charter flight to Texas. Somehow, I let the older guys talk me into taking a cab into KC. It was around midnight, so the downtown nightlife was in full swing. Besides me, there were two other guys under 21, so we couldn’t enter the bars, but the guys that were of legal age wanted to grab a beer. I desperately tried to talk them out of it, but naturally, I lost, so there we were…three kids…one wearing a dumb armband…standing outside a bar waiting for the older guys to drink their beer. One drink turned into three or four and I began to panic over the idea that they would get drunk and I couldn’t get them back in time to catch the plane. I just knew I’d be facing a court martial on my very first day in the Air Force!

Fortunately, common sense prevailed and we all made it back in plenty of time to board our flight to San Antonio. Then things got interesting. Welcome to the Air Force, Rainbows!

When the "itis" Boys Arrive

Getting old is only fun when you consider the alternative.

I'm not complaining, as I've been fortunate to have avoided doctors for most of my life. However as age creeps up...well, things begin falling apart.

Four years ago it was my 2nd bout with kidney stones. That problem was resolved with a slick machine that uses sonic waves to blast kidney stones into small pieces that pass without a problem. After I woke up from that procedure, I felt perfectly normal and except for some bruising, I wouldn't have known I had been in severe pain only an hour earlier. Science can be wonderful!

Since then, save for some uncomfortable arthritis in my hands, I've been feeling pretty good. However, a couple of weeks ago I developed a case of bursitis in my elbow. Though the elbow wasn't sore, it looked like someone had inserted a golf ball under the skin. Apparently my body was telling me I shouldn't have shoveled nearly thirty yards of dirt and bark this spring. Who would have thought that could be a problem?

Anyway, I finally had to visit the doctor to have the dang thing drained, but the morning after the treatment, it was swollen almost to the original size. Today, it was a second visit to drain it again and this time he injected a steroid.I hope it works, because he said that sometimes surgery is required to resolve the issue. With all the work I have to do this summer, I'd hate to be nursing a bum arm for several weeks.

I'd been bragging that Medicare couldn't complain because I had only hit them up for two flu shots since I reached 65, but I suppose the doctor will submit a couple of inflated bills for these visits. I hope they haven't run out of money yet...but I guess they can just print some more.

D***** Computers!

As I mentioned before, I had a hard drive crash a while back and finally got the new parts installed. It's been a real headache trying to recover everything, especially those applications I downloaded from the Internet. They didn't have a CD, so I had to prove that I purchased them by providing the code sent to me in an e-mail so I could download them again. Well, like a dummy, I didn't back up my e-mail, so now I have no way to prove I paid for the software. I had written a couple of the codes down and kept the info in my file cabinet, but I lost some others, including the 2008version of MS Money.

As the hard drive was failing, I quickly backed up my files to a thumb drive, so I thought I was in great shape to have saved almost everything. Wrong! Apparently you have to indicate what types of files to save, and I didn't tell it to back up my photos. I lost hundreds of dog, house and car photos. I have a few backed up to a CD, but not even a fraction of what I lost. I also lost a lot of music, but at least I can re-record it from the CD's.

Not to be burned again, I visited Best Buy yesterday and bought an external hard drive with enough capacity to back up both of our computers, but I'm having trouble getting it to work right. Very frustrating!

The Back Yard

Here are a few pictures of the patio and back yard. We haven't really decided what type of landscaping we want in the back yard, so it's still mostly natural. Trying to decide what looks nice, but is easy to maintain, is not always easy.

Home Sweet Home

Here are a few pictures of the house and yard. Even though the flowers aren’t impressive yet, the grass is as green as it’s going to get. As the spring rains begin to slack off, I have to start watering and the price of water went up a substantial amount last year, so I’ll only be watering enough to keep everything alive.

The mounds that I planted flowers on are actually symbols of my laziness. I raked all the rocks and branches into piles and covered them with dirt. We tell visitors that they are Caddo Indian burial mounds and we couldn’t bring ourselves to destroy them.

I’ll be cutting back on my yard work for a while. I had to visit the doctor today so he could drain a half-cup of fluid from my elbow. He said it was bursitis caused by shoveling too much. It won’t hurt my feelings to have a legitimate reason to stay out of the yard for a couple of weeks.