Saturday, October 16, 2010

North American Aborigines and Other Folks

There is adequate evidence to suggest that the lands we now collectively call the Americas were first settled by people able to migrate across a land bridge between modern day Alaska and Siberia. These folks crossed barriers and moved to lands that, at least in their minds, held promise for an improved future.

These people became what are now known as aborigines, or native Americans as we are so often taught is the politically correct term, although that suggests they were native to the lands when, in fact, they were just the first to move here. They emigrated from distant lands just as my ancestors emigrated from Ireland, England and Wales. They lived their lives, built their villages, grew crops, caught fish, and hunted animals just as we today go about our daily hunt for food and shelter.

What began as a small migration between 17,000 and 50,000 years ago grew into a population that by 1492  may have numbered as high as 100,000,000 people. Now, barely 500 years later, that population as been so decimated that, without knowing where one should search, it is difficult to identify more than a few communities, or to identify more than 18,000,000 aboriginal people.

Why did it take so little time for the aboriginal people to virtually disappear? First of all, they didn't understand the threat when the first Europeans landed. Second, they lacked the means of defending themselves from invasion. Third, and in my own mind, most important, they lacked cohesiveness between the various governments, or tribes, if you will, to put up a united front to the threat.

Their initial response to Europeans in North America was more or less cordial and curious. Then, as more and more came, the response tuned hostile. Sound familiar?

OK, where are we going with this?

Today, we face another invasion from outside our borders, and by our own laws, we welcome them. They come here because, like the aborigines, they are seeking a better life. Like the aborigines and the Europeans, they bring their own culture, but unlike the aborigines and Europeans, they are finding a well-established culture, properly maintained by sets of laws and governed from within by fifty separate states under a unifying federal government.  That federal government has established a means by which people from other countries may enter the United States of America legally, and in reality, those means are not unattainable.

My English ancestors came here before there was a United States, but they most likely came for a number of reasons, among which would be freedom of religion, freedom to pursue economic success, and adventure. . The locals put up with my earliest ancestors for a number of years, then the aboriginal folks realized that the Europeans were up to no good and began trying to get rid of them. It didn't work and the new folks ended up changing the way of life for everybody.

My Irish ancestors came to Canada , then down to the United States, not because of the an Drochshaol, or bad times as the potato famine was called, because Michael McNamara emigrated from County Clare some ten years before the potato rot.  In general, they found themselves unwelcome and unable to get good jobs, so they took low paying menial jobs.. My great-grandfather was listed as being a night watchman in a lumber yard when he was 75 years old and I have a photograph of him driving a team of oxen. The Irish did things differently than those who came to these shores in the 1600's, though. They were soon able to assimilate themselves into the mainstream, and the son of that night watchman became a farmer, a plumber, an insurance agent and a respected local politician.

To those who are causing so much discussion by the way they come here now, I say this: it is far easier to come here legally than it is to always be looking over your shoulder - don't bring your way of life with you - it didn't work back there and it won't work here, and finally, become an American citizen, send your sons and daughters to school and the military, vote, pay taxes, and be assimilated into our way of life - it works.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

E-Mail and other thoughts

From Jim Thompson - Editor, Athens Banner-Herald (Used with absolutely no permission)

"IT'S ON YOU: Among the recent e-mails forwarded to me was a set of photographs supposedly taken on the Mexico-Arizona border depicting huge caches of weapons and vehicles. Accompanying the photos was the provocative statement, "Definitely not Jose coming to pick lettuce."

Well, as it turns out, the photos were actually taken several hundred miles from the border, and the weapons and vehicles were connected to Mexico's internal drug wars. So, I e-mailed the person who'd sent me the e-mail, and got a reply to the effect that, oh, well, I'd gotten him that time.

A couple of days later, that same person sent me a seven-page e-mail describing the "three great waves" of tax hikes coming to swamp American families and small businesses. At the top of the e-mail, my correspondent had written, "How can I check ALL this out?" To which I replied that if he hadn't bothered to check it out, maybe he shouldn't bother to forward it.

I say all that to say this: If you're among those people who insist on forwarding all this knuckleheaded stuff, you need to consider what I can tell you is the absolute fact that many of the people you send it to will believe it, and you will have done your sad part in dumbing down the public discourse. As I told my recent e-mailer, if you're not willing to check it out, don't forward it. You just might escape making yourself look like an idiot."

Just in case you don't know it, I'm adding a few things about me and some of my thoughts.


I believe in God and the Federal Government, but religion has no place in government and government has no place in church.

Barry Obama is my President. I didn't vote for him and I don't necessarily approve of his way of handling things, but he is my President. He got elected by promising the world and cannot deliver, but he is still my President. Stop haranguing the man, he is your President, too. If he does something wrong, get on his butt, but don't stay on it for BS stuff. An example is the outcry over his comments about the Muslim center in the neighborhood of the World Trade Center. Read both statements.

Yes, I know we have free speech, but the best way to show ignorance is to continue harping on idiocy - two examples would be the claims that Barry O was not born in the US and that he is a Muslim.

My feelings on Congressional term limits is that they might be unnecessary if we'd stop electing the same people over and over. I've got an idea - lets start voting against the incumbents - you go first.

I am a Republican and I usually vote Republican, because I think a fiscally responsible government is the best way to ensure and perpetuate our way of life. My vote has nothing to do with any stand on abortions nor with any stand on homosexuality. It has nothing to do with Glenn Beck, a former alcoholic and drug abuser, it has nothing to do with college dropout (I'm one, too) Rush Limbaugh, it has nothing to do with washed-up comedian and former bad football announcer Dennis Miller, and it surely has nothing to do with Al Franken, the guy who acted like a politician when he was a comedian and now, as a politician, acts like a comedian. My vote is based on the way I see the way things are going. I'll freely admit that I am embarrassed because I voted twice for Richard Nixon, but when you consider that his opponents were Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, and George McGovern, I made a pretty good choice. I'm proud of the choice I made with George Bush 1st and 2nd and with Bob Dole.

Now that you know some of the ways I feel, please don't automatically forward every e-mail you get to my address. If they are valid or humorous, I might enjoy them, but if they are BS, I will not. Please be advised that I check with Snopes on everything I deem questionable.






















Friday, October 1, 2010

Huh?

No ranting, just some odd things I've noticed over the years

- how the big beer manufacturers rarely mention the flavor of their product.  Yes, I know the purpose of advertising is supposed to make you think of the product when you go shopping, but the decline in sales of the three big brewers in favor of craft brewers ought to tell you something.
  • World's Most Refreshing Beer
  • Beechwood aged, with a "born-on" date
  • Cold activated bottle
  • Great filtered taste you love
  • Fresh, Smooth, Real
  • Drinkability

    - pickup trucks with snow plow adapters - not common in our part of Georgia, but nearly every pickup in NH has one, whether or not they even have a plow or plow snow.  Sort of a northern version of those off-road light bars you see on jacked-up pickups with chrome undercarriage parts

    -electric cords poking out of the grill on cars - when it is -40° in the morning, motor oil turns as viscous as Karo and car engines just don't turn over fast enough to start.  Savvy owners attach a tank heater to the radiator hose and plug it in at night.

    -how delivery pizza is rarely really good, but we keep on ordering them anyway, apparently willing to forgo any semblance of flavor for the convenience of have someone else do the cooking and being able to eat in front of the TV.

    -how the stop line for the light at GA211 and GA316 is too close the the intersection - it is so close that drivers turning right on red must nearly enter the highway to enable checking oncoming traffic.

    -how Athens apparently figures it is appropriate to allow delivery vehicles to use handicap parking.  There are signs on Clayton St explaining it.  Another thing - most places exempt cars in the HC parking from paying for parking.  Athens not only does not exempt them, they make you walk half a block to get a parking coupon then half a block back to put the coupon on your dashboard.  So, by the time you leave your car to run your errand, you've already walked a block.  So much for convenient HC parking.

    -how a well marked fire department pickup truck was parked in the fire lane while the occupants were inside a grocery store.  When I asked them about it, the response was that the lane was for fire trucks - I told them it was only for fires, not shopping.  This was in Waldorf, MD back in the 90's.

    -one coldish November day I went to my local fire station to vote.  Sitting outside was a fire department diesel pickup, empty and idling.  After I voted and left the building, that same truck was still there, empty and idling.   The county was in the throes of the recession, laying people off, eliminating positions, cutting services, and yet, this unknown fireman thought it appropriate to leave his truck running while he was inside a building.  Do you suppose he needed a warm truck when he came back out?  Or had he once heard the inaccurate old saw that it's better to leave diesels idling that to shut them off?  I sent the fire chief an e-mail on that one.

    -how police tend to drive well over the speed limit - all the time.  I set the cruise control at the posted speed limit and am often passed by police cars.  From time to time, a little bit later, I'll pass the same cruiser parked inconspicuously trying to catch speeders.  Is there something wrong with that picture?

    -how much time people spend on the telephone.  Everywhere you go you see people talking on their cell phones.  I was in a store recently when a woman behind me said something.  I turned around and she said something again, but she wasn't holding a phone.  Turns out she had one of those things that lets you talk and listen hands free so she wouldn't have to stop talking to do something.  How convenient.

    -the difference in snow removal techniques between New Hampshire and Georgia.  In NH, it's plowed up in high snow banks, in GA it is left to melt

    - how on a really cold day in North Dakota, your boots squeak in the snow

    -how some people can find fault with almost anything
    • overheard in a line at the movies in Berlin, Germany, one of the most vibrant cities in the world,  "I told you there is nothing to do here, look at the people waiting in line to see a movie."
    • overheard in a line at the Base Exchange cashier at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, "Three more weeks on this damned rock and I get to go home to Iowa."
    -how people move to a new town and job, buy a house 30 miles out in the country, and complain about the commute.  A few months ago I commented on-line because a fellow complained about GA316 making his commute from Athens to Atlanta nearly unbearable.  I suggested that he find employment in Athens or move to Atlanta and his response was that he couldn't afford to live in Atlanta and there were no good paying jobs in his chosen field in Athens.  If he moved to Atlanta and took Marta to work, he'd save $172 per month in the difference between buying gasoline and riding the train.  The median home price in Atlanta is slightly under $200,000 and in Athens slightly under $165,000.  Adding that $172 to a mortgage payment for a $165K home would just about cover the mortgage for a $200,000 home, so his argument held no water for me.    He just wants GA316 to be rebuilt with overpasses and high speed lanes so he can do as he pleases.

    - the proliferation of sex stores across the Bible belt south.  I know they exist up north, too, but you never see them the way you do here..

    - the sale of alcoholic beverages on western carriers out of Saudi Arabia - as soon as the seatbelt lamps go out, the men hie off the the toilets and change into western attire. When the aircraft is out of Saudi airspace, the flight attendants immediately bring out the refreshment cart with those little bottles of happy water and those now nattily attired men order their favorite.  

    - fake fingernails that look like pieces of cardboard glued over real nails

    -automobile advertising that has little or nothing to do with transportation
    • chocolate-covered strawberries pop out of the minivan's front console
    • touting the number of cup holders
    • exclaiming that the car comes with chrome tailpipe extenders
    • electronic gadgetry for the driver
    • rear seat movies
    • voice commands to operate unimportant functions
    Aint is just amazin' what things you can see in our world?