Pelosi & Reid spell out Democratic vision for the future.

( deafening silence )
We hate George Bush and will oppose everything he wants, thank you for watching our response to the State of the Union.

Oh, you want our plan?
We'll have to get back to you on that.

P.S. Get the troops out of Iraq now.

John Kerry,,,,,,,whew, that was close.

I was only able to watch a few minutes of the Tim Russert's show this past Sunday with John F-ing Kerry. What were 57,288,974 democrats thinking? He is Al Gore without the magnetic personality. It's a good thing Gore took credit for the internet, John Kerry would have invented it while on his tours in Cambodia running guns to the Khmer Rouge, with his secret CIA hat. Can this man stop lying to us? The election is over, you lost. Please have a modicum of decency and go away. Tell these stories to your 20 year old interns back in Boston that have no grasp of history, not a national TV audience. There are folks out there who won't let you get away with flat-out fabrication.
The Swiftboat Veterans were told to shut up and go away, you weren't there, oh you were there, well you weren't on his boat, oh, you were on his boat, well, you weren't John Kerry.

I cannot believe that people can't see this man for the fraud he is.

Anita Creamer, bad journalism and intolerance.

Reading this morning's article by Anita Creamer, one could come away with the conclusion that the only intolerant and hate filled people in this land are (gasp) conservative Christians. What hypocrisy.
Creamer's conclusion that Dr. James Dobson was somehow 'outing' Spongebob is false and shows her bias and prejudice against conservatives, especially Christian conservatives.

So SpongeBob's a little light in the loofah.

Dobson, founder of the conservative Focus on the Family group, outed SpongeBob during an inaugural event speech.

"Does anyone here know SpongeBob?" he demanded.

Demanded? Hmm. I wonder if you have audio or video of that clip? Dobson sounds like he is asking a simple question to me. I have googled for an hour and found only one other quote from Dr. Dobson on this; Their inclusion of the reference to 'sexual identity" within their 'tolerance pledge' is not only unnecessary, but it crosses a moral line," James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said in a statement released Thursday.

Maybe the problem here isn't James Dobson issue with using a very popular cartoon character to draw young children to a website that has content that is not age appropriate. Maybe the problem is parents that have watched Spongebob with their children, as I have, and like the cartoon's positive message will have no problem taking their kids to a website that Spongebob endorses only to have the question of sexual identity brought up to their five year old.

Creamer goes on to insult me again with this wonderful line of thinking.

SpongeBob teaches sweet little moral lessons, and he's tolerant of others, which has gone a long way toward turning him into a camp icon among some gay men.

Uh-oh. You see the problem here. Some people have no tolerance for tolerance, and for them, there's no bigger issue.

Way to keep your priorities in line, guys.

Don't place your values on me Anita.

Oh, I see, a Christian conservative cannot like Spongebob because he is tolerant. That is the most insulting aspect to her story. We are all a bunch of bible thumping hicks that are full of irrational fear and utter loathing?. I can't speak for all of Dr. Dobson's readers, but Christians are a very diverse group. Many of the people in my church would not have an issue with the tolerance pledge including sexual identity. I do.

I can't help but wonder how effective a tolerance pledge is? If a child takes this pledge then goes home to an environment of racism and bigotry, is this child going to be inoculated

Respect for others remains the ultimate diss to the especially narrow-minded.

Especially narrow minded, that's nice. Anyone who does not openly celebrate the gay-right agenda is especially narrow minded.? Who is prejudice and intolerance here? I am not intolerant of progressive liberal ideas, I think they are wrong. Going to the extreme, I think Osama Bin Laden's agenda is wrong, evil in fact, does this mean I am intolerant and especially narrow minded? No, it means a disagree with his ideas.

Anita, please let me raise my children. I teach my children about tolerance, respect for others, and keeping an open mind about people and cultures that you are not familiar with. I don't need a 'tolerance pledge' to teach my children that all men are created equal.

A 'vox blogoli' response to Jonathan Rouch.

Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for the platform;

Jonathan, I learned early on that when someone insults you or gives you a back handed compliment and then says "just kidding" when you confront him, that person has just told you exactly what he thinks.

My two cents: "Better they [religious conservatives] should write anti-abortion planks into the Republican platform than bomb abortion clinics" is not a sentence I would have included if I had thought harder about it. It shows carelessness on my part, always blameworthy in a writer.

Your remarks do not show carelessness, they show your unconscious bias and prejudice towards Christian Conservatives. I have read your piece in full and have come away with many more questions than answers. Here are few.

The 2004 post-election maps, which looked almost identical to the 2000 ones, further entrenched the conventional wisdom, to the point where most newspaper readers can recite the tropes: red America is godly, moralistic, patriotic, predominantly white, masculine, less educated, and heavily rural and suburban; blue America is secular, relativistic, internationalist, multicultural, feminine, college educated, and heavily urban and cosmopolitan. Reds vote for guns and capital punishment and war in Iraq, blues for abortion rights and the environment. In red America, Saturday is for NASCAR and Sunday is for church. In blue America, Saturday is for the farmers' market (provided there are no actual farmers) and Sunday is for The New York Times . An odd thing, however, happened to many of the scholars who set out to map this culture war: they couldn't find it. If the country is split into culturally and politically distinct camps, they ought to be fairly easy to locate. Yet scholars investigating the phenomenon have often come back empty-handed.

Where did these scholars look?

If you want to find the red state/blue state phenomenon you may look no further than Yolo County. A largely agricultural county near Sacramento, it is also home to UC Davis. The people's republic of Davis as we call it here in the country is not as 'progressive' as say UC Berkeley, but it is cobalt blue. Some 7 miles away is the City of Woodland, population 50,000 or so. The 62,000 folks in Davis voted for John Kerry in 51 of 52 the precicts. In Woodland, George W Bush carried 16 of the 29 precicts. President Bush won the vote in Woodland by a 53% - 47% margin, very close to the national average. In Davis, well let's say they will host the winter Olympics in Hell when Davis goes republican. Thanks to the liberals in Davis, Yolo County goes blue.

To Mr. Rouch's point that it is just a political divide and not a cultural one, a dark blue Davis resident has nothing in common with the construction worker or cattle rancher from the Capay Valley. Likewise the construction worker isn't going to the gay pride day march or the earth day celebrations in Davis. In my County, 20 miles may just as well be 2,000 miles. Take any Davis student or professor and transplant them to the east village and they would be very comfortable. Take that same person and transplant them to a cattle branding on a ranch just a few miles away and they would go into shock and run screaming as fast as their Birkenstocks could carry them.

Two different worlds in the same County.

As for your claim of independent voter status, I will tell you for whom I voted in the past 5 presidential elections, will you?
I'll wager you lunch at the best (only) restaurant in town that we have not voted for the same candidate once.

Starting a new book, without finishing the last one.

I now have 4 books I am trying to finish right now. I started on the first a month ago and since then I have purchased half a dozen others. I can't stop myself from reading the dust cover or just the forward, I find myself two chapters in and then stop after I realize I need to finish the other books I have started. It must be a sign of some sick twisted affliction I suffer from. Or I have a discipline problem and suffer from being a lazy slacker. I am trending toward the lazy slacker diagnosis.
Are there any others commitment phobic readers out there?

An attention span is a terrible thing to waste.

Are we seeing the last gasp of the Democratic party?

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Dr. Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National committee. Please tell me that will be the headline next month, pretty please with sugar on top. I cannot think of a more polarizing, unstable, liberal, scare the hell out of the red-state-voter, person to lead the Democratic Party. Well, maybe one, but I don't think Michael Moore will give up his multi-million dollar career making fraudumentaries to run the DNC. Besides, Christmas is over and you have to be thankful for what you have. Howard Dean will do just fine.

Having been a Democrat in my youth, I see the method to their madness. The Democratic leadership can't come to terms with the fact that more people like Republican ideas. It is that simple. If I hear the 'we didn't get our message out' line one more time I will laugh. Your message came through loud and clear, with extraordinary help from the old media. America heard your message and a majority rejected it.

Let's look at the modern face of the Democratic leadership. Who do you see on TV?
Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Harry Reid. Are these the people who will win over the red-state voters? Can they bring back the cultural moderates who voted for Bush in 04?
No.

Look, I like fire and brimstone conservative speakers who pull no punches and call it like they see it, but do I want these people the face of my party? No, I want to send Governor Schwarzenegger and Rudy Guiliani out to speak with Katie Couric and Larry King. You may call it bait and switch, but it's not. The Republican Party is far more inclusive than the Democrats. How many pro-life speakers were on stage at the Dems convention? Zero.
How many pro-gun rights speakers were on stage at the Dems convention? That's right, zero.

Here is the Canary in the Democratic coal mine, Michael Newdow, and the ACLU. When ever he files a motion to stop any and every form of religious expression from taking place in the public arena, who supports his efforts? It's not the GOP that's for sure. Taking the cross off the Los Angeles seal? It is not Republicans behind that effort either. The Democratic party doesn't get it. These are the issues that people remember, they do not care about an appropriations bill or an up-down vote on aid to Honduras, they care about people changing the America they grew up in.
Pretty simple stuff. But hey, us ignorant serfs and peasants can't figure out all that 'important stuff' like social security and Iraq, so I guess we have to go with what we know. We may be stupid, but when a school tells a history teacher that he can't teach about the declaration of independence because it mentions God, well we understand that just fine.

The Democratic Party is past the crossroads, it took the wrong turn years ago, the only hope they have is to look at the map and make a U-turn. Hitting the Nitrous button when your heading in the wrong direction doesn't get you back on track, it just speeds you further in the wrong direction.

The Red Bluff Bull Sale, I spent a week there one night.

Ah January, it ushers in the new year and all the events that come with a new start. The new year's resolutions that by this time of the month have become new year's suggestions. The promise to start this project, or finish that one. January is full of lists, promises, and for me the Red Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale.

I have been going to the bull sale for twenty years or so, more if you count the times I went with my father when I was a boy. For Muslims it's a pilgrimage to Meca, to Christians it's a trip to the Holy land, to Cowboys, well to Cowboys there is nothing quite like The Palomino Room on Friday night of the bull sale. In my younger and wilder days, I would show up on Thursday of bull sale week with nothing more than my bedroll and 100 dollars spending money and come home broke on Sunday with a smile on my face that would last for a month. No hotels rooms, no warm showers, just a bedroll in the horse shavings and cold hose to wash the hangover away. Ah the good ol' bad ol' days.

About ten years ago, I brought a friend with me to the bull sale. We had a blast and the next year , we invited about two or three more, this year I bet half of Yolo County will be there. I bought a Brangus Bull up there two years ago, and I believe that is the only animal I have purchased. In the past I have made a point to leave the Gelding Sale long before I was intoxicated enough to bid on a $20,000 horse. It truly is a cowboy's paradise. You can purchase a finished bridle horse, a fantastic stock dog, and a range ready bull for $50,000 or just walk through all the exhibitors, watch the horses work and talk to some great people and never spend a dime.

If you have been to the sale, please post a comment.

Make your own damn sandwiches.

Sometimes living in rural community has it's own special challenges. Case in point, newspaper delivery. I was making breakfast for the family this morning and wanted to read the Sunday paper. As I looked out on the driveway, no paper. This is not a unique experience. Out here in the sticks paper delivery is about a three week career. With the price of gas I guess there is not much profit in this endeavor.

Having not thrown out Saturday's paper, I sat down to see what I may have missed. What I found is the best story I have read in the Sacramento Bee in some time. The column is written by Tim McGuire called 'More than work". It had a great story about a priest who fed the homeless with PBJ sandwiches. I googled around and found what I think was the original story.
Here is an excerpt-

Now, let me conclude by telling you a true story I heard this summer that continues to haunt me for a variety of reasons- many of them related to these remarks. My wife and I heard a speaker at Chautauqua tell the story of a friend of his who happened to be a priest. They had been friends for many years but in recent years they have been living a couple of hours apart and therefore did'nt get to see each other very often. But, still they stayed in touch.
In his parish the priest had organized a hunger center and apparently they specialized in providing sandwiches for the homeless and for those who needed a meal. I believe it was referred to as the "sandwich ministry".
Fairly recently the speaker had learned that the priest was suffering from a serious and fatal disease. Indeed, he knew and everyone else knew that his death was very near. The speaker wanted to see his friend one last time so he arranged to visit him. They spent a good day together and the speaker had an opportunity to see the "sandwich ministry" and was very impressed by it. When he returned home he wrote a note to the priest and included with it a check to support the sandwich ministry.
Within a few days two things happened. First, the speaker learned that his friend, the priest, had in fact died. But, second, at that same time he received an envelope in the mail with the name and address of the priest as the return address. Clearly the priest had written whatever was inside just before he died.
The speaker opened the envelope and unfolded the letter. As he did so, the check he had written and sent to the priest fell out and onto the floor. When he looked at what the priest had written just before he died, he read these words: "Make your own damn sandwiches."


The quote stays with me "Make your own damn sandwiches"
sometimes the tragedy is far away and making out a check to Worldvision is the best thing to do. But there are so many instances where warm bodies doing hard work can make such a difference in our local area. Giving is great, but doing helps both the giver and the recipient.

Do you watch CNN?

I was flipping between channels the other night watching the various network's coverage of the tsunami aftermath when I noticed CNN had preempted it's regular broadcast in favor of CNNI.
Wow.

CNN International should rename it's network to Al Jazeera West. I know that my friends on the left think that FOX News is a right-wing church organ, and from time to time , I see the news anchors slant their reporting to the right. But the main difference is I see it and recognize it. When I ask liberals about CNN or the legacy media network's coverage, they don't see the slant. They will not acknowledge it, they don't see any slant because it fits their view of the world.

If I were ever appointed to run the FCC, I would make the networks run a scroll below the talking heads and anchors stating who they voted for in the past 5 elections and a 'score" from the ACLU and the NRA. At the very least you could reasonably assume if the person talking about news story had a bias. They do a similar thing with financial advisors that talk about stocks and mutual funds. There is a disclaimer on the screen that must say if the advisor on the show owns that particular stock or fund.

Can you imagine Judy Woodruff''s score?

Tens of thousands are dead, let the eco-spin begin.

The old media is awash in stories from agenda driven journalist bent on using this tragedy to further their cause. Can we please stop blaming American capitalism for the deaths of people half a world away.
The real story of this event will start making itself known in a few days. As thousands of coastal inhabitants start dying from drinking contaminated water, cholera and typhoid. This situation will get much worse before it gets any better.

I would like to find the UN bureaucrat that had the gaul to call our initial 25 million dollars contribution to the UN relief fund 'stingy". I would like to yank his diplomatic credentials and send him back to Norway to find a real job without a US taxpayer funded expense account. Please show me a successful UN led program. Please?
Haiti? No.
Rwanda? No.
The Congo? No.
Oil for Food? Oh hell no.

A question for President Bush. When will we stop sending the UN money?
We fund about 22% of the UN budget, the most of any nation. Let them keep bad-mouthing the United States, but without using our money to do it.

Let us put that money to good use. Send it to Worldvision.

Tragedy strikes, the people of the United States respond.

Unless you have been in the County lock-up drying out, you have seen the story about the tsunami that has left 22,000 plus dead. My prayers to the families of the lost and missing. As Hugh Hewitt has suggested, please give to Worldvision, they will be need more than we can imagine.
I wonder how hard currency financial aid will come from the EU or Arab nations? I know that the people of the US will do most of the heavy lifting in this crisis, like most others that have come before. The 'Great Satan' helps more of the starving and stricken people on this planet that anyone else. Why? It must be because of the guilt we feel for driving SUV and hogging all the resources in the world. Or just maybe it is because we are a kind nation founded on Christian principals. My vote is for the latter.

Please give. Tonight, far away a father combs the beaches looking for his lost children. He does not care about politics or the Kyoto treaty, he just wants to hold his children again.

Christmas, from a saddle.

I have tried over the years to keep a personal tradition. A Christmas day horseback ride. In my home growing up we opened our presents Christmas eve night. I loved waiting in my room to hear Santa land on the roof with his sleigh. I would hear footsteps on the roof and what seemed like three hours later, my mother would tell us to come in and see what Santa brought. I would later figure out that Santa's reindeer don't wear cowbells and the thought of my father running around the house clanging the cowbells while my Mom put the wrapped presents under the tree stills makes me chuckle. The best part was on Christmas morning, the parents can sleep in and the kids can wake at any hour and go outside and spend the entire day riding their new bike or skating or what have you.
When I met my wife and started going to her house for Christmas I was shown the other, more traditional way to open the presents. Christmas morning everyone gets up, the kids who will not stir any other day of the year until 8:00 am will wake at 6:05 and start pestering the parents to get up and start opening presents. Everyone stumbles to the tree and the paper storm starts. Then there is clean up, breakfast, a shower and then by 10:30 you can start playing with your toys in ernest.
Now that I have grown, I still love Christmas. My wife has won the battle and we open our presents on Christmas morning, but I do get to have some time for myself on that day. When we lived on the ranch, I would saddle a horse just after the presents were opened and ride for a few hours by myself. I don't think there is any better decompression for me than a quiet ride alone. Time to think, time to reflect, the rhythm of the hooves on the ground, the feeling of the horse moving under you is unique. This year we are going to the snow on Christmas day. We will go tubing with the family and have a picnic lunch in the snow. I am looking forward to it, but I will have to put off my ride until Sunday morning after church.

College Terrorism?

Frontpage magazine reports a disturbing piece about the College Republican Club at UCSF.

Tolerance? Peace? Free Speech? Oh, don't be silly, Republicans don't deserve any.
The left in this country wants to call themselves the party of free speech?

What a joke.

Agnostic? Secular Liberal? Merry Christmas anyway!

I spent the past few hours Christmas caroling with my local 4-H club through the town of Esparto, the kids had a great time and the residents of our small town enjoyed the entertainment. I am sure this would infuriate the ACLU members in our town, if we had any, a government supported youth group singing about Christmas!

How dare these rural hillbillies take our tax dollars and use them to celebrate a religious event. Start plucking the chickens and boiling the tar, we need to run these Jesus freaks out of town.

The people who want to eliminate all symbols of religion from public view are the same ones who rail at conservatives for not celebrating diversity. Let me give you a little something to chew on. Secularism is a religion too. Just look at the way the secular left in this country views the role of government. To them it is the way, the truth, and the light. The courts and the law have replaced God and the Gospels. The model that they want to emulate is socialism, if not out-right communism. Just ask any member of the ACLU, after they have had a few too many glasses of chardonnay.

The reason behind this pursuit of the all powerful government? The more powerful the government, the less powerful the citizens that inhabit that nation will be. If on the other hand, the rights of the people come from God and it is the job of government to protect and not to infringe upon them, the citizens remain free. Free to practice their religion, free to check the staggering growth and power of the government. Free to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

When George Bush outlaws all religions except his brand of Christianity, then I will be out in front of the Whitehouse with my picket sign, or rifle, marching on Washington. Short of that, this is still a Christian nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

Have a Merry Christmas, while you still can.

Hogue vs. Williams - a Sacramento street fight

While I love a good debate, I am getting rather tired of the media mud-clod throwing match between KTKZ's morning host Eric Hogue and KFBK's evening host Mark Williams. While I do support Eric's side in this ongoing feud, I do wish both would get on to more important items, the upcoming media battle over Ted Costa's Fair Districts plan as one example. The Sacramento Bee's staff will be looking for ammunition to debunk any effect from talk radio, they will use the feud to undermine the influence both shows may have in the battle for the hearts and minds of the listening public. Lets agree to disagree. If there is another mud-clod thrown, duck. The capitol region listeners and blog readers deserve better.

Too smart for our own good?

I am sure that for as long as people have pondered things, people have pondered weather humans have grown too smart for our own good. I am sitting down at my laptop listening to Sheryl Crows' greatest hits on my headphones so as not to disturb my wife, blogging on the internet, sharing my random thoughts with people around the globe.

What would my grandfather think of that? Would he think it was even possible?

I often thought my father's generation saw the most change. My father was born in 1915, he rode a horse to school, lived through the depression, built PT boats during WWII, saw the advent of passenger air travel and a man walking on the moon through a device called television.

I was born in 1965, I remember Neil Armstrong's walk, remember listening to Walter Cronkite tell is how many US soldiers were killed in Vietnam that day, watched the "duck and cover" films about what to do in the event of a Solviet nuclear attack, saw the same Solviet Union die under it's own weight without a shot fired, bought a commodore 64 and thought it was pretty cool.

I now ponder what my children's generation will see? It is my hope that his generation will do wonderful things. Every son is sure that they are smarter than their father, every father is sure their son is a hopeless slacker. Every generation thinks the next will learn from their mistakes. I pray my son learns from our generation. The biggest mistake that I can think of right now is forgetting that there are people in the world that want nothing more than to see and your family dead. Democrat or Republican, a member in good standing of Greenpeace or the NRA, a pacifist vegetarian or a beer drinking redneck, they want to see you convert to their radical form of Islam or die a horrible death. That is a cold hard fact.

It would be nice if we could convince these people that we are not evil, but it's not going to happen. They want to send everyone back to the 14th century. That would be a bad thing. Although I would stop getting SPAM and popups, I would like my daughter to go to school and have the right to vote and run for the presidency. We have the means to make the world a better place, the technology, the most productive and creative workforce the world has ever known. What are we doing with these gifts? What does the world see when they think of American products?
Porn and fast food more than likely.

Why don't they think of the medicine and food we send around the world? When there is a natural disaster, who gives the most? The people of this nation are the most generous when it comes to the suffering of the needy. I should say that some of people in this country are generous. The American Christian, regularly maligned by the mainstream media and the liberal left are the most generous and the best friend of the poor anywhere in the world.

In our quest for new technology and a quicker buck, we have lost sight of what is most important. Leaving our children a better world than the one we inherited. A world without terrorists nations operating openly. A world where basic freedom is embraced. A world where America is looked upon as the greatest force for good. Let's start with a better America, one with a little less Hollywood and porn and a little more Christian faith.

Peggy Noonan

Reading this week's column, I find myself wishing that Peggy Noonan were my neighbor. I am reading her book "A heart, a cross and a flag" right now. It is a series of her weekly columns from the year after 9/11. What a great book, I am giving it to my son to read after I finish. We will have a great time talking about each chapter.

The average guy.

Who is this mythical person? There is a lot of buzz surrounding the average guy. I hear about his television viewing habits, how many pounds of red meat he eats in a given year, and for whom he voted in the last election. There seems to be no end to the amount of data gathered from this person. But lost in all the data gathered and examined is his character. What kind of man is he? Is he honest? Is he kind? Does he cheat on wife? I wonder who I am sharing this country, and the highway with. One can only answer the question by looking at who you see in your everyday life.

Living in Yolo County California, I will concede that my viewpoint may be a bit skewed, but this is my view of my common man: He is not very concerned with the world outside of his workplace, his house or his children's school. This is not a criticism of him, he thinks that he controls very little of his life.

He works hard everyday. On Monday morning, when most sales reps and office dwellers are nibbling whole-grain muffins and sipping their venti mocas listening to the sales manager or department head groan on about what needs to get done this week, the average guy has been at work for three hours and is looking forward to lunchtime. He is concerned that just one more screw-up and he will be fired. He is powerless to change the day to day events at his company, so he goes along with the tide trying not to be noticed. He has learned that a nail sticking up gets pounded down.

When he is at home he tries to relax. This sometimes means not playing with his children, just blanking out in front of the television for an hour or two. He is paying more interest than he should on his credit cards, his home mortgage and his car loan. It's not that he wants to pay more, he just gets lost in all the lingo of personal finance and thinks that the person on the other side of the desk is going to screw him anyway. He does not save enough. When he gets to the end of the month, there is not much ‘extra money” laying around.

He loves his wife, although they don't have many conversations about how they are doing in their lives. They are doing alright, just as good as their neighbors anyway. They don’t go out on dates anymore, they both have to work. When they do get time away from the kids, they feel exhausted. He has not cheated on his wife, sure he has thought about it, but he know his wife would take everything and leave him. He is satisfied with a little flirting at the bar or at the store. He just wants to know he still has it. His kids are pretty good kids, they don't get picked up by the police and they are still in school. He would like to know more about what they think and how they make their decisions, but they don't talk much anymore. They ask for money to go out on the weekend, but they haven't sat down at the dinner table and spoke about life for a long time.

He doesn't care about politics. Once every four years he may go to his local polling place if he really likes a certain candidate or really hates one. He does not watch cable news on a regular basis. When he does, he sees two people on the show and they each tell a story that is opposite from the other. He thinks that these two guys went to the best colleges and they can't agree on what to do, so how should I know? He wonders why the host of the program doesn't tell one of them they are full of beans and tell the viewer why they are wrong.

He doesn't care about the Supreme Court as long as they don't take the pledge of allegiance out of the schools. He couldn't tell you what congressional district he lives in, although he may know the name of his representative, maybe. He has never met his local congressman or woman because they have never come to the small town he lives in. He wonders if his elected officials know anything about his daily life? He would like to ask them where does all his tax money go? He sees the City, County, and State employees driving new cars and trucks while he drives his 6 year old truck with 160,000 miles . When he goes to the city he sees the new three story City office building and he wonders what that must have cost?

He drinks beer during the week and something a little stronger on the weekends. He knows he should quit or at least slow down to just the weekends. But wherever he goes, someone is offering him a beer, or a Jack and Coke. Everyone he knows drinks, his friends and his family. This must be normal, everybody does it.

He is on the whole an honest man. He tells the cashier at the store when she gives him to much change back. He pays his taxes, but if he could find a way to pay less with a slim chance of getting caught, he probably would. It is his money after all.

So what can I say about the average guy in my world?

He is a good guy. He could be so much more, but then again, couldn't we all?

How thankful are you?

(I wrote this almost 20 years ago. Funny how so much has changed, and how much hasn't)

As Thanksgiving approaches, newspapers and blogs are filled with stories written by people telling about what they are thankful for. Many columns are written with wonderful style and prose, with good reason, this is the time of year to reflect on the blessings we hold dearest. My blog for Thanksgiving will touch on this theme also, maybe from a slightly different point of view. Are we thankful enough?

I can only speak on this subject from my own perspective. I could write about what you should be thankful for, however to do this I would have to burden you with my values. You may not, and probably do not, share my values.

Am I thankful enough for the blessings in my life? Not by a long shot. My life, as cluttered as it is with all the trappings of this modern life, is one that 95% of the people that inhabit this globe would trade for in a minute. I am reasonably healthy, the only health problems I currently have or am likely to have are of my own doing. I am never in want for food or clean water. I have a home that keeps me warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I live in an area of the planet that is free from war. I can walk down my street, and with the possible exception of getting hit by a bingo player on the way to the casino, I am perfectly safe.

 
I am married to a wonderful woman. She, like me, has her faults and areas to improve upon. Taken as a package, she is a better wife than I deserve or should expect. I have two great children. My son is 11 years old. He has a very kind soul. He will someday be much larger than I am. Six foot three or four, as the doctor has told us. My daughter is now four, she is a bundle of energy, and cute as can be. She will give me my heart attack, of this I am sure. Our two children are great kids, all though there are challenges and disappointments along the way, they have made me grow as a person and a father. I love them dearly.
So how do I show thanks for all the blessing in my life? I Complain.

 
Do I tell my wife that I love her everyday? No. Do I tell her how much she means to me, and that I would be miserable without her? Not as often as I should. I spend my life thinking about the things she does that I don't like. What about my children? No matter how wonderful my son is, I want him to be perfect. I know that if he tried as hard as I would like him to, he could be a better person. I want the Bs to be As, I want him to keep his room spotless. 

When I stand back from myself, I ask why I don't demand more from myself? Why am I so hard on my son when I should be doing much better running my own life? As for my daughter, she falls under my wife's care more than mine. My wife takes her to school and picks her up. My daughter would much rather spend the day with my wife than me. I love her, but she is Mommy's girl.

I don't think of myself as a bad parent, and if you asked the people that know me, they would say that I do a pretty good job. What I need is change of perspective. I need to stop concentrating on the negative, and start looking at the positive. I am trying to change these habits, however hard they are to break.

November, pheasants, coffee and good friends.

November is special, no other month brings back more memories for me. I love the crisp fall air, the first morning I step out my frontdoor and see my breath brings a little smile. My wife loves the warm weather of summer. If she could find a place that never gets below 75 degrees, she would move there. While I enjoy the warm summer nights on the deck with the barbecue going, there is nothing better in my mind than putting on a wool shirt and loading up my Labrador for the opening day of pheasant season.

The smell of gun oil on my Browning gives me a satisfaction that is hard to put into words. I search around the shop for my hunting vest, looking through the pockets to see what type of shells are there.

If they are low-base 8s, I remember last year's quail hunt down by Cache Creek. The excitement of a bursting covey as they scatter to new cover. The nod of the head given when you make a nice double. Those 8s may be from a late season dove hunt on a ranch that belongs to my friend's grandfather. I'm taken back to the kitchen table at the ranch, talking to my friends grandfather about life, cattle or his service in the Navy before and during and after WWII. My friend and I talk to both his grandparents for an hour or two over coffee, not because they let us hunt there, because they are good people and good company.

If I pull out a handful of high-base 6s, those must be from last year's pheasant season. My lab Jake has completed his metamorphosis from a bird dog to a gopher dog. The blame is mine. In my youth I hunted with my first lab, a yellow lab that I named Buddy. During my college years I spent many more days in the field than I do now. Buddy and I would hunt the ditches and barley fields around the County. Most days were unsuccessful if you base success on how many birds were taken on that particular day. When they are judged, as they should be, on the pleasure that comes from being in the field with a good dog, those days are priceless. I take no credit for the hunting ability of Buddy, he was great dog and we spent a lot of time together, time hunting. I do take all the blame for Jake, my current black lab, for being the out of shape, gopher killer that he is. When I came home today I found the garbage can knocked down, and the trash scattered all around. Jake the gopher killer strikes again.

November also brings the first of the holidays to us. Some people will say that Halloween starts the holiday season, I do not. I have never had family come from out of town to go trick-or-treating. Thanksgiving is possibly my favorite holiday. The Dallas Cowboys play in the afternoon, and the game is over just about the time the turkey is ready. The adults (myself included) sit in the kitchen and drink a fresh cup of coffee while the children play in the front room. We talk about politics and the plans for the ranch. We talk about the people we miss, those that could not make the trip from out of state this year.

For me, November is like the smooth surface of a lake. When you look at the surface you see your reflection, and your surroundings. But if you get a bit closer and look from a different angle, you look through the water's surface to what lies beneath.