I'm not a vegetarian.

The best description of our current political climate I have ever heard goes like this: “A conservative vegetarian does not eat meat.  A liberal vegetarian does not want you to eat meat.”  The blood of the victims in the latest mass shooting in Oregon was not even dry before liberal pundits climbed up on the corpses to scream for more gun control.   My social media exploded with people posting and re-posting state sponsored propaganda from pretend news agencies.  Lots of rhetorical questions like: “How did this happen?” And, “How can we prevent this?”  They are rhetorical because we know the answer already.  We have given you the answer time and again.  You just refuse to listen.

Every day across this country, thousands upon thousands of Americans, some responsible, some not so much, take their firearms to shooting ranges and fire those weapons.  Millions of cartridges are expended.  High capacity magazines are used and reused.  Fully automatic and semi automatic rifles are shot.  Some guns with pistol grips and barrel shrouds.  Some are benign and some are black and scary looking.  Ammunition designed to pierce body armor and sub sonic ammo is fired.  But do you know what absolutely NEVER happens at those shooting ranges?  Mass executions.  Do you know why?  Because it would be foolhardy at best to walk into an area where every soul is armed and start pointing a weapon at people.  In fact, it has generally been my experience that folks at the gun range are all extraordinarily polite to each other.  It doesn’t take a whole lot of common sense to understand the folly of picking a fight with a person holding a loaded gun in their hand.  Yet, according to the arguments put forth by the liberal gun control advocates, these places should be littered with corpses on a daily basis, yet they are not.

The military uses the term “soft target”.  It’s defined as “A person or thing that is relatively unprotected or vulnerable.”  Every mass shooting execution in the last several years have one thing in common.   They all happened at soft target locations.  Just about every single successful attacker commits his crime in “Gun Free Zones”.  They do this because they know that there will not be anyone there with the capacity to stop them.  Gun free zones have been created across this country as “common sense gun control” with the intent of making people feel safe.  When in reality it is creating a danger zone for those very people.  All they successfully do is disarm the people who would have the capacity to defend themselves and others in a violent situation.  Congratulations, your common sense gun control laws just created a bunch of soft targets for these psychopaths.

When these psychopaths strike, the reaction from the media is swift.  My television has been lit up for hours now with “Mass shooting” and “Gun Control” stories.  If you have not been paying attention, let me clue you in on something.  Every one of these psychopaths who have left behind some kind of manifesto, have all cited a common thread:  They ALL wanted the attention given to the killers that struck before them.  So much so, that they repeatedly cite them by name.  If you want to know what is causing it, just turn to the media.  We are giving these people exactly what they desire; Story after story about the incident. By giving these animals the notoriety they desire, and showing it to the world, you are only creating future killers from the pool of psychopaths who are watching you glorify these idiots.  Who is to blame? Easy, the media, combined with your common sense gun control laws- end of story.  Your gun control is contributing to the problem, not preventing it. 

I saw an article recently that made the claim, that the notion that only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun, was hogwash.  Their logic was that they never hear about this happening.  The reality is that it happens EVERY single day in this country.  I see it every day, posted on low key websites.  Stories about armed citizens stopping criminals from committing a crime.  Here is the difference:  Media outlets do not publish those stories.  It does not fit their liberal agenda.  An agenda that includes making sure you follow your new vegetarian diet.  The media is canonizing the criminals and ignoring the heroes that actually do manage to stop them.  Then has the audacity to wonder why we never hear about it. When they do publish those stories, half the time they don't even mention the heroes name.  In Warren Michigan last month, an armed customer at a bank stopped a bank robber in his tracks.  The Washington Times posted less than an entire paragraph about it, and never cited the hero by name. 

These kind of criminal mass shootings are a relatively modern phenomenon. But guns have been around for centuries. So why is it happening?  It’s happening because the media makes instant celebrities of these criminals, so that they can use the story to push their agenda to disarm the common citizen. All the while, creating more soft targets and future criminals.   So how do we stop it?  You will never legislate crime away.  If you think that banning guns in this country will solve the problem, think again.  Even the liberals in Washington have the common sense to understand that attempting to ban guns would most likely result in a civil uprising. You will also never be able to fully prevent animals from committing violent acts.  The option we are left with is to be prepared to protect ourselves. If you want this crap to stop, then we need to start educating ourselves, and our children about firearms, how to use them responsibly, and how to defend ourselves with them.  This is something that all of our great grandfathers did before us, and they didn’t have these problems.  You have the right to chose not to do that.  But you have no right whatsoever to tell me that I can’t.  Now pass the pot roast, I’m sick of these vegetables.

The Working Man.

On Monday, a man named Bob will get out of bed before the sun comes up.  He will get dressed and fix some coffee and set off for his days routine.  Bob will drive off to spend the day on the second floor of a run down office building in Jacksonville Florida.  Usually there is a whole office full of people that work to manage the 500 or so employees in the company where he works, but today he is the only one here.  Bob is a dispatcher for Cypress Trucking.  Bob covers the weekends most times.  He has been doing this way too long and usually works a 60 hour week. He is that one guy that goes above and beyond to keep the ship afloat and takes the most grief for his commitment. Management is constantly on Bob’s case about logistics while drivers call and whine about the load assignments and getting home.  A couple months ago, Bob had to take a week off work.  It was almost instantly visible to the drivers he deals with that things weren't being handled quite the same.  Bob left because his brother passed away.  He had to take care of some things, including how to handle an invalid family member that his brother had been taking care of.  That responsibility now falls to him. It’s wearing on him, and the stress is reflected in his eyes.  It might be easy to mistake Bob for a grumpy guy, but he deals with a disproportionate amount of grief—especially lately.

Across the country, a man named Kevin will be awakened by a beeping coming from his computer.  It’s an email from Bob wishing him a happy holiday.  Kevin drives a truck.  He is also working today, in Texas, halfway across the country from his wife and child. Kevin is sharing the cab of his truck, which is smaller than a jail cell with a trainee for the next 4 weeks.   Kevin is the sole breadwinner for his family and despite the extra pay he gets for training the new guys, it’s hard to make ends meet. He stays out on the road on weekends and holidays like this because it provides a little extra income for his wife and 12 year old daughter.  She is growing up while he is away and he knows it. But the responsibility of providing for them far outweighs his desire to be home today grilling up some burgers and having a beer.  He needs this extra holiday pay to cover the cost of a new mini fridge for his truck.  His old one died and he cant carry food with him right now to save money, so he is forced to eat out at a lot of fast food joints.  Kevin will wake up his rookie and hit the road.  He has a delivery of construction materials to make on Tuesday morning.  Those materials will insure that the folks home celebrating the holiday will have work to come back to tomorrow.

Back in Illinois, a young woman in her 20’s named Amanda is already moving.  She has two young children to take care of, but she wont be able to see them long this morning.  She has to get to the Flying J across the county where she works as a manager.  Truck drivers like Kevin are out there in her lot.  They will need fuel and clean showers and most definitely coffee—LOTS of coffee.  Sometimes she wonders if they don’t just pour it in their radiators and come in for another thermos. Amanda is working to make her own ends meet.  She lost her dad two weeks ago to cancer.  He died too young and he left her in charge of handling his affairs and his tiny estate.  She still has a lot of things she needs to work through, but it will have to wait.  She has a job to do and she needs to get to it. Despite the overwhelming grief she feels, she picks herself and heads off to work for the day.

Down near Cleveland Florida, a woman named Leslie is checking on her husband Raymond.  Ray was also a truck driver, but he has fallen ill with age and can no longer get behind the wheel.  Leslie is working hard to take care of him and she loves him dearly.  Ray’s truck is up for sale.  That might help cover some of the medical bills, but there have been no serious offers yet.  So Leslie needs to get in to cover her shift today at the grocery store in town.  Like Amanda, she works retail and has to deal with all manner of ill tempered patrons.  Today is going to be especially bad and she knows it.  The mud park down the road is open for the holiday and that always leads to intoxicated, self serving idiots running through the store tearing things up.  She has enough to worry about with Raymond.  She should not have to be babysitting these people.  Quite frankly she has earned this holiday with her ailing husband.  But she has a responsibility, and a job, and bills.  So Ray will have to spend the holiday without her.

Across town, a man named Dylan is slipping into his bullet proof vest.  He does not want to wear it.  It’s hot in Florida this time of year and that vest is a sweat box.  But there have been so many random attacks on police officers these days that there is no way in hell his wife would let him leave without seeing it on him.  Dylan has four beautiful young daughters.  He wants to work this 12 hour shift today because its holiday pay.  He too can use the extra money.  The police Department where he works has not offered up a decent pay raise to officers for nearly a decade.  After paying into his medical plan and his retirement, he brings home a pretty small paycheck for what we ask him to do.  Christmas is right around the corner though, and Dylan knows that the extra money will help put a few items under the tree this season.  Dylan will spend most of the day keeping an eye out for intoxicated drivers.  Revelers who don't know their limits and head out on the road possibly endangering the lives of people like Leslie Amanda and Kevin.

In Wichita Kansas, a woman named Abby is also stirring.  She is slipping into her scrubs and talking to her husband.  Abby is an RN.  She works taking care of people like Raymond.  During her down time, she has been studying to get her doctorate.  Abby’s husband has a pretty good job.  They don’t want for much, and they would probably be just fine if Abby chose to stay home and focus on trying to raise a family while he worked.  But Abby feels a deep sense of responsibility for the people that she cares for.  It’s a thankless job that no one really wants to do.  But it absolutely needs to be done and she knows it.  So while her husband is firing up the grill and watching football, Abby is probably going to be cleaning up vomit and other nasty stuff.  RN’s all across the country just like her are also preparing for their shifts today, just in case something goes wrong.  Dylan and Kevin are working today at jobs that are consistently listed in the top ten most dangerous professions.  Someone needs to be on standby—just in case.

Later in the day, Dylan may just take a quick lunch break at the restaurant where an attractive young lady named Felicia is working her shift.   She gets the unenviable job of serving drinks and food to holiday patrons all day.  Felicia is a magician when it comes to dealing with horses. She has an unrivaled love of everything equine. She has a couple of her own, but horses are an expensive habit.  She needs to work through the holiday in hopes of landing a few extra tips to keep her animals in feed.  Ideally, she would be working a career training horses and the people who want to ride them.  But fewer people these days can afford the luxury of time and money that it takes to care for such an animal, and horse training jobs are hard to come by.  So Felicia works full time serving drinks and part time with her passion—when she can find the work. She is working tonight because holiday customers will usually tip a little better.

At the Crossties farm and garden store across town, where Felicia buys her feed, Kerry is fixing to close up shop for the day.  Kerry has been struggling the last few years to keep her small business afloat.  She came in with her most loyal employee Velvet today to open the store in case any of her regular customers like Felicia needed anything.  Kerry has been running her store for years.  Lately business has taken a swift hit in the gut.  The down turned economy means that fewer and fewer people can afford to take care of farm animals, especially horses.  She has seen her customer base dwindle off over time.  She wonders how long she can hold on, but she feels a driving need to be there for the people who have loyally shopped at her business for years.  She came in to work today herself so that several of her employees could enjoy the holiday.

While we take time this Monday to celebrate the working men and women who built our great nation, lets not forget that scenarios like this are playing out all around the country all day.  I’ts not hard to look around and see the people working on the working mans holiday.  People who should be celebrating with their own families, but have commitments and responsibilities that take greater precedence.   It wouldn’t hurt to say thanks to Kevin, Leslie, Amanda, Dylan or Abby if you see them. Tip Felicia an extra 5 and find a reason to spend some money at that locally owned business… They earned it.   

Me?  I chose to work the holiday simply because I wanted to.  If I read my cards correctly, I will probably be sitting at the Hooters in Waco Texas about a hundred miles up the road from my trainer Kevin, waiting to make my own delivery of construction materials on Tuesday morning.  I think that maybe I will have a pizza, breadsticks and a 2 liter of soda delivered to our dispatcher Bob in Jacksonville--and have them put Kevins name on the receipt......

Happy Labor day my friends.

A few bad apples

I am not going to beat around the bush this time, and you will not find my usual dry humor in this blog.  But I have remained silent on this issue long enough, and its tearing me up inside thinking about it all day long.  Every day I am reading or hearing about another law enforcement professional in this country being killed or attacked in a cowardly manner by thugs.  The outcries on the internet are vast and sad.  There are too many officers out there now who fear for their safety.  And there has been a whole lot of finger pointing about why this is happening.  I am going to take some time today to point out the obvious for the many masses who cant seem to see it or say it.  I am also going to tell you how to fix it, but no one is going to listen.

I want to start by saying that I IN NO WAY SUPPORT OR AGREE WITH ANYONE ATTACKING A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER EVER!  I really don’t feel the need to explain my mentality on that, but what I have to say may come out sounding at times like I agree with these attacks- I do not. But at times, I honestly feel like I am the only one who understands why it's happening.

I recently watched a video of a female police officer on Facebook questioning these attacks and stating her concerns for herself and her fellow officers.  In 4 minutes, she repeated the phrase “a few bad apples” no less than 4 times.  “Every profession has a few bad apples”  The implication being that people should not be attacking law enforcement because of the actions of a few bad officers.   I agree with this, however lets deconstruct the bad apple scenario.  If you have a bad apple in a pile of apples, the approach to fixing this problem is you remove the bad apple from the pile and toss it.  If you remove the bad apple, set it on the shelf for a few days, then proceed to place it back in the pile, it not only does not solve your problem, but it makes the problem worse by corrupting the apples around it.

Law enforcement is the only profession in this country that we trust to police themselves in the matter of removing bad apples.  Over the last 30 years, just about every agency in this country has shown a nearly complete inability to handle this task with any reliability.  We have historically trusted the media to hold them to task on this issue, but in that arena the media has also failed.  Corrupted officers who have shown a continual disregard for the rights of the citizens they serve, are punished (if they are ever punished) by being given a few days of paid vacation and returning to work, committing the acts on more people.  The administrations of these agencies have continually failed to show good judgement in regards to handling these kinds of people.  Most news organizations will sit silently and speak little of this practice for fear of alienating the very agencies they rely on for their news stories and soundbites.

There was one particular officer that worked at the Police Department where I live for over a decade.  “Officer X” was very well known in the community.  I distinctly remember sitting at a bar one night downtown as he drove by in his cruiser.  “There goes crooked cop Officer X” I heard one patron say to another.  Now, almost the entire community knew that this guy was dirty.  He had a very long history of abuses and crimes he had committed on the job.  Administration did very little if anything to curtail it because he was a “good producer”.  They let him go on violating peoples civil rights for almost 10 years in my community and did nothing to stop it until he got himself into such a pickle legally, they had no choice but to fire him.

The Sheriff in my county is no better.  Several years ago, two of his deputies leveled allegations against my wife of interfering with an official investigation.  After six months of internal affairs work and investigations, these two deputies finally revealed that she had not in fact interfered with their investigation, and they admitted that they both lied under oath.  The Under Sheriff’s response to this: A shoulder shrug. I guess these things happen huh?  I caught that same Under Sheriff stealing from the citizens on election night several months later.  He had just been elected the new Sheriff of the county, and he celebrated the victory by having the Sheriff’s office helicopter do three flyovers at his party.  This being a violation of several election laws in Florida, I took the footage of the event that I shot to my then supervisor in the news business.  I was assured the story would be “handled” and then,  it quietly went away.  This happens because the news organizations do not wish to stir bad blood with the law enforcement agencies that they deal with.  It happens every day folks.  It happens in every agency, in every community in this country.

Offten times, when a foreseen disciplinary action is appearing to actually be a severe one, the officer is allowed to resign with no mark on his record.  That way he can move to another law enforcement agency and continue his disregard for laws.  This activity got so bad, that the Sarasota Herald Tribune built and maintains an entire website dedicated to tracking these officers in Florida and the agencies they move to.  You can check it out here:  Unfit For Duty.  When we take this back to our “Bad apple” analogy, if you remove all the bad apples from one pile and put them into another pile, well then you have still solved nothing. 

If you think that citizens have not noticed, that people who act more like the law,  than law enforcement officers, are being protected, then think again.  People see it, they talk about it, they share it.  It angers them.  That anger has been building and bubbling for years.  The recent trend in violence against law enforcers was not an overnight decision.  The people we have trusted for years to to be responsible for throwing out the “bad apples” have failed time and again.  Citizens know it, and they are letting that anger manifest itself in the most horrific way possible.  And it needs to stop-right now!

From where I sit, I can tell you the things that I can see that we need to do to.  It would probably go a long way if we formed some kind of organization that deals exclusively with allegations of police brutality and civil rights violations.  This agency should contain no current law enforcement officers-I’m sorry, but you have proven yourselves inept at policing your own.   It will take money.  It will take time.  It will take the commitment of retired law enforcement professionals with a track record of honesty.  Next, we need to seriously strengthen the whistle blower laws.  The first hand witnesses to these events are usually other law enforcement officers who are great at their jobs, and terrified to speak up.  Lets get them some real protection and let them speak out to help end this.   Affirmative action laws that insure that unqualified candidates are being hired to fill empty positions need to be repealed.  I know for a fact that there is a man working in my community as a law enforcement officer who can not read or write.  He was hired because he is black.  He was hired to fill a quota. Lastly, we need to abandon this unconstitutional war on drugs.  During prohibition, it didn’t take us nearly this long to figure out why gangsters were shooting at cops with Tommy guns.  Do the math people. Moving to make these changes would show people that we understand the problem, and we are trying to fix it.  But instead, we are standing around scratching our heads and pretending to wonder why people are so pissed off.

We have our officers operating under guidelines to fill Universal Crime Reports, quotas, mandatory minimum actions for maintaining federal grants and conviction rates for our county and state attorneys.  Hey, here is a novel idea: How about we let our law enforcement officers be law enforcement officers?  Make no mistake, EVERY single agency in this country has quotas for their officers to fill, despite the fact that numerous courts have found it to be unconstitutional.   Just because you don't call it a quota does not change what it is.  I have actually had it explained to me from a sitting Sheriff that there is no other way to gauge an officers performance.  Really? Here is another novel idea: How about you get off your lazy ass and review your officers performance individually. I thought that's what we were paying you for in the first place.  Quotas force officers to make bad judgement calls because they fear for their own "performance" and need to keep someone in handcuffs to make the boss happy.  That leads down the road to rotten apples. 

“The administrations” silence on this issue speaks volumes.  From our inept President down to our inept Police Chiefs and Sheriffs.  It really sucks that I feel like I have to be the one to point all this out, but I have been waiting, and no one else seems to want to.   The recent actions of these people, if escalated could possibly lead to either a mass abandonment of law enforcement officers, or a civil uprising or both.  I fear both scenarios, but I can tell you without hesitating, that if it comes to the latter, I will proudly stand on the blue line and defend my officers to the death.  I still believe that a vast majority of them are great people and deserve our support.  However, the apple cart needs to be upended.  We need to pick through the apples and toss the bad ones once and for all, and we need to save and protect the good apples for our future.  The apple of my eye is a law enforcement professional.  She is one of the good ones.  I write this today because I fear for her safety, and the safety of her peers.  I honestly hope that it will pry peoples eyes open just a little…. But I fear that it wont.  

Rainbow Effect

Chips? Check! Salsa? Check? Little Smokies? Check! Remote? Check! Popcorn? Check! Beer? … Oh crap, are we really down to 2 beers 30 minutes before the game on Sunday?  How the hell did this happen?!   No time to worry about it now, gotta run to the gas station and grab a quick case of suds.  I know most of us have been here:  Squealing of brakes follows you into the door at the Quick Mart and you swiftly stride to your favorite brew, tug on the glass door—LOCKED!  As you stand there, inches from your goal, your breath accumulating on the cold glass with your hands curled into fists, you ask aloud:  “What is this? Some kind of sick joke?”   The voice of the cashier behind you answers curtly: “Sorry hon, no beer sales before noon on Sunday, it’s the law.”  As you stand there, cursing under your breath about what kind of barbaric, bohemian would conceive such laws, you suddenly ponder the merits of driving to the neighboring state---- “I don’t think they have these stupid laws”.

Those laws are called “Blue Laws”  The first Blue Laws started showing up in Colonial America as early as 1620.  They were written in an effort to honor the Sabbath according to doctrine specified by individual religions.  The ranged from banning business sales and travel on Sunday, to the banning of sales, including alcohol.  Over half of the states in the US still have some residual blue laws of one sort or another. They vary in times and days and content, but they all share one thing in common: They are all secular.  The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of these laws several times in the past, but that could soon all be changing. Or at least it should.

I am sure that I do not have to educate readers about the recent Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.  By now everybody has heard about it.  But what I want to point out is the logic they used to come to their conclusion.  The Supreme Court found that the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects gay couples from the direct discrimination applied vial laws created from religious viewpoints.  It is also Unconstitutional for individual states to have laws in place that discriminate against individuals based on their personal viewpoints. In other words, Laws that discriminate based on religious practices, are unconstitutional.   By doing this, the Supreme Court has set a precedent that so far has been unheard of in this country.  It’s a legal precedent, which we can use to come back and fight against some laws that are currently in place on the books that lay down some pretty stupid and discriminatory practices.

If you take this decision and apply it to the existing Blue Laws, you can start to see how, with a little legal wrangling, it might not take long for Blue Laws to disappear entirely in the US.   In fact, we can probably take the application even further.  “Sin Taxes” are a tax applied mostly to the sales of alcohol and tobacco.   Just the name “sin tax”  betrays itself as one of secular origin.  If religious laws are now deemed unconstitutional- then maybe there is a possibility that Illinois and New Hampshire may soon see the end to $15.00 packs of cigarettes.  It could also possibly put an end to state and local Governments illegally placing unduly large tariffs on things they find distasteful.

Bob Owens over at Bearingarms.com also sees an application of the new ruling in a much more meaningful way.  He contends that the decision by the Supreme Court could be applied to the existing variation of firearms laws in states across the country.  The Idea is that by application of the law, it would force states to adopt a universal reciprocity for concealed carry permits, thereby making it much easier for the transport and carry of legal firearms across the country.  Currently, the laws vary so much from state to state, that law abiding citizens risk prison time just for transporting firearms they legally own to another location.  Owens contends that this ruling could end all of that and apply universal legal framework for firearms in the United States.

To take this even one step further, If Owens is correct in his assertion, that means you could apply his same logic to laws regarding marijuana.   Forcing all states to recognize the legality of pot based on the recognition of just a few.  All of this might ultimately lead to an end to the war on drugs.   Of course all of this is speculation right now, but it has a legitimate basis in law, and we could and might start seeing some of these challenges pop up really soon.  That means that our great friends in Colorado who have already blazed the way for us, may have done the entire rest of the country a huge favor by getting rocky mountain high.

So if you have been trying to decide in your head if the decision on gay marriage is good for you or not, I would really wait to pass judgement until you are sitting in front of your television, gun at your side, bowl on the table, with a big cold brewski before noon on Sunday before you pass judgement…. At that point you may want to call up your gay friends and thank them for paving the way for the rest of us. 

Happy Birthday

I am fairly certain that I spent some portion of last night with a lampshade on my head.  I honestly don’t remember.  The house is a mess, I have a four wheeler that needs some fixin, there is too much food and too many empty beer cans laying about and my boots are full of mud-on the inside. BUT DAMN IT WAS AWESOME!  I was blessed this 4^th of July to get to spend some time with my family at my home in South Florida.  There was too much food, there always is.  We grilled brats from Carroll’s Sausages in Georgia and they were fantastic.  Pasta salad that Melissa made with home made duck egg mayonnaise was out of this world.  We bought corn on the cob, but we forgot to cook it.  That’s OK though because the horses love corn on the cob-more for them I guess.    There was the screaming of small children in the house and it was music to my ears. 

We started the day at Peace River Seafood right down the road.  I want to say a special thanks to all the folks who worked on the holiday so that others such as ourselves may celebrate it.  The seafood festival that followed was no less than spectacular.  Oysters, clams, shrimp and crabs were sampled by all.   Peace River is the kind of place where when you order blue crab, its still alive and waiting on the back steps when you place the order.  I have not found a place that serves fresher, or better seafood. 

We followed this up with the age old American tradition of mixing alcohol with explosives. We broke out the firearms and headed down to the range.  I honestly can’t think of anything more American to do on America’s birthday than spending an afternoon with my nephews and cousins disposing of old communist ammunition-one bullet at a time. My nephew Blaze got to shoot a .380.  The smile on his face and the approval of the range master at our absolute application of firearm safety were awesome rewards for this venture.  (And for the record, the alcohol only came out AFTER the firearms were put back away.)

Then it was off to the mechanical horses.  We own two four wheelers and it didn't take long before people started to notice that it’s the rainy season in Florida-so there is PLENTY of mud on the ground. The younger kids squeals of delight while being toted around on the four wheelers through the pasture was food for the soul.  You cant help but enjoy the smile on the face of a child that goes from ear to ear when the get off such a fun little machine. 

  That was of course followed by my two nieces who INSISTED that they were going mudding with Uncle Boo Boo.  They paid for it…they had to ride behind me.  

Of course, my boots are still soaked through and I am not sure what I will be wearing on my feet today.  I know better than to wear my good boots on the trails, but by this point in the evening, the Allegany Mountain 140 proof moonshine liquor might have been making a few decisions for me.

I have a brother in law who is pretty sick and may not be long for this earth,

   I very much wanted to spend some time with him and I am glad I got to do it.  My only sadness comes from the fact that my children: Alex, Nicole and Steven are all off living their own lives and could not be home for this holiday.  By the way- HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICOLE!  I am sure you thought I forgot.

Too many holidays I have wasted not caring too much about celebrating them.  This year, with everything that has been happening in society around us, I kinda felt it important to celebrate everything that makes America the best place in the world to live.  A day where we can put our petty political differences aside for a few hours and just reflect and celebrate all the things that our founding fathers did to insure that we would have this opportunity.  I am not sure they intended for me to do it with a lampshade on my head, but at least I am free to do it.

Flags and Such.

I’m a racist.  There, it’s out on the table.  When I am out on the road, I purposefully chose to not spend my money at fuel stops that are owned and run by Indians.  I do so out of choice, because that’s my right.  It has been my experience that most establishments that are run by Indians are not up to par with my expectations for cleanliness and service.  So I chose not to do business with those establishments.  It’s my right, I make that decision.  When I look for good BBQ, I purposefully look for establishments that are owned and run by black people.  I do so because it has been my experience that for the most part, black people make a mean ass BBQ—end of story.   When I am looking for help around the house in the form of manual labor, I deliberately seek out employees of Mexican heritage.  I do so because it has been my general experience that they work hard, don’t complain, they show up for work on time, and get the job done.  I also get on pretty well with Mexicans- so I chose to hire them.  Do these things make me a racist?  By the definition; “A person who believes one race is superior to another”. It makes me a racist because I believe that black people are better at (among other things) cooking BBQ, Jews excel at banking and finances, Mexicans are more physically built for tolerating working in the hot sun because of the climate they hail from.  And yes, I am generally unimpressed by the hygiene

standards that I have encountered with folks from India.  So I guess that makes me a big fat cracker racist.

It would be delusional to try to convince yourself that there is such a thing as a person who is not racist to some extent.  General life experiences will mold your thoughts and feelings about different groups of people.  That’s just the way things are.  I am sure that we all harbor some resentment somewhere about something.  Some people resent entire races based on skin color, nationality, sexual preferences, and more people have been systematically slaughtered throughout history because they do not share beliefs in the same deity.  The divide in the United States between black and white has a long and ugly history.  It is where we see and hear the most about racism in the news and in our conversations.  Racism has again been brought to the forefront of our lives by a wicked act in one of our oldest and most beautiful cities.  Now, I see my friends and neighbors pointing at a flag in South Carolina while screaming “RACISM!”.   It’s this cry of “racism” and what it really implies, that I want to address.

I don’t want to even discuss the heritage of the Southern Cross flag.  I will acknowledge that it was used in our Civil War by the Confederacy.  It represented the mindset that black people were property and not human.  Yep, it was carried by people who fought and died for a very backward and distorted viewpoint of other human beings.  Presently that battle standard is on display in front of the State Capitol in South Carolina and it is causing a media firestorm.  Countless pundits and officials have been propped up in front of cameras to call for the flag to be brought down.  They talk about how demeaning it is and how it only serves as a reminder of the hatred of the slavery and Civil War.  “It’s insensitive” I have been hearing over and over again.  “It flies in the face of the entire black community to fly the Confederate flag over the state capitol…..”   I disagree.

The thing that we keep seeing over and over again: “Confederate Flag still flying over South Carolina State Capitol”.  Usually accompanied by a carefully cropped pictures like these:

Usually the text of those articles stops just shy of calling Law Makers and residents of the state “Racist Cracker Klansmen”, but it sure wants to imply it.  People are asking how it is possible in this day and age that we are flying such a symbol of hatred over a government building…..well we’re not.

Here is the image that the media does not show you:

The Northern Virginia Battle Flag does indeed fly AT the state capitol building.  It flies over a war memorial that is dedicated to soldiers who paid the ultimate price in one of our bloodiest wars.  It does NOT fly over the State buildings as the media would have you believe.   In fact, because the flag is not actually flying over a government building, it requires a legislative vote just to lower it to half staff.   So despite what you are being told, the calls from the media are nothing short of demands to desecrate a war memorial to fallen soldiers. Think about that long and hard for a minute because history will quickly tell you what comes next.  We start with the flag, we find it offensive, so we rip it down.  Well the rest of the memorial is still there—it also offends me, so we should just take it out.  Well now that I think about it, aren’t we spending tons of money every year to keep a museum open at Gettysburg? 

Good lord, this only serves as a reminder of all the hatred.  It hurts my feelings so we should stop spending federal dollars on such a thing.  Let’s close the doors.  Hell, we should probably go ahead and plow over the battlefield there and build a strip mall because such things only serve as a reminder-and that hurts my feelings.

COMING SOON: STARBUCKS!

Well, now that we have cleansed our society of the remind----OH WAIT, we have that other thing.  All those pesky Civil War graveyards, with markers and tombstones.  Well they represent hatred and slavery right?  We certainly can’t have all those graves out in plain sight for our children to see.  We really do need to just plow those over and build some low income housing there.  It would be a much more efficient use of the space and we would not have to have all those stones there reminding us—serving as beacons of hate.  Right? 

If you think I am being sarcastic, this is what people are talking about doing.  This is where it leads.  You are currently talking openly about desecrating a war memorial.  Where do you think that slope really leads?  What we are doing is blaming the actions of one sick individual on a war memorial to fallen soldiers, and I don't agree with that.  So if it makes you feel better to label me a racist because I don’t agree that it’s a good idea to start burning flags in South Carolina—go ahead, I guess I’m a racist.

Good Cop, Bad Cop.

Since people first came together in groups around campfires, there has been the problem of crime.   By it’s very nature, society begets criminals.  Some people just want to take advantage of other people.  It’s the way things are, it’s the way things have always been.  We learned long ago, that we can not rely on people to police their own behavior, so the idea was born of selecting a chosen few from among the masses to decide what rules we should follow as a society.  They were then tasked with enforcing those rules.   We try to carefully chose the most upstanding people among us to be the enforcers of our rules.  But despite our best efforts and intentions, like anything else, there has never been a way to perfect this process.   History has proven time and again that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Our law enforcers are not exempt from these rules.  They are the rules of the universe and that’s the way it is.  We try our best to weed out the corrupt, but the process can sometimes be difficult despite our best intentions.

You don’t have to turn far these days to see the headlines, webposts, tweets and newscasts screaming about the latest Police Officer being accused of use of excessive force or abuse of authority or even outright corruption.  Yes it’s happening.  It has been happening since the dawn of society.  There have and always will be people who abuse the authority vested in them by the rest of society.  As a Republican society, it is our duty to point out these people, call them out and do our best to weed them out of the positions of authority.  It is our responsibility as the harbingers of free speech to point these things out whenever we can.  Our founding fathers built our Constitution around this very principle. They thought so fiercely about it, that they made sure that the very first amendment to our Constitution protected the right to call out our elected and appointed representatives.

In our society, our media is a for profit business.  As such, the competition for advertising revenue is pretty fierce.  The historic trend in media has always been to look at what the most successful guy is doing and steal his ideas.  Right now, the most successful trend in media appears to be pointing out the abuse and corruption in our law enforcement and bringing it out into the light.  This attention is probably long overdue.  For way too long, our media has allowed too many incidents of abuse to fall by the wayside without the attention it deserves.  For some time, the media has had no interest in covering such events and have been more interested in making sure they keep up with their competition.  But now, the demand has come for stories about Police abuse, especially if we can mix some racial stuff in there with it to stir it up a bit.   If it’s a story about a white cop appearing to use excessive force with a black person, it’s going to sell.  It’s the story of the week.  That is just the trend in media right now.  News agencies appear to be attempting to make up for years of ignoring these stories by bombarding us with as many as they can, as fast as they can find them. 

While I absolutely applaud and approve of any effort to expose and remove any people from positions of authority who are abusive and corrupt, I have been starting to take exception to some of the stuff I am seeing floating around, especially on the internet where there is no standard for fact checking or accuracy in what people post and report. I see stuff posted every day that is postured like a news story, but lacks any actual quotes from witnesses or officials.  There is no evidence that the author ever asked for, or looked at any official reports. These posts are always chocked full of conjecture and hearsay and a whole lot of opinion, but usually pretty sparse on actual facts.  The end result of this is a lot of misinformation and innuendo being spread like a fire around corners of the internet.  I see way too many people that I respect and admire taking these so called reports as absolute fact without considering the source of the information.  I love the freedom and instant access of information that the internet provides, but these are the kinds of things that lead to conviction and sentencing of an accused before our society ever has a chance to give them their due process.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS ENTIRELY OPINION BASED SOLELY ON MY EXPERIENCE IN MY PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE.

(Not to be confused with websites pretending to be actual news outlets since this is a blog based entirely on my personal opinions)

As the “wife of a Police Officer”, I have had many opportunities over the years to see how much of the law enforcement process works.  I will state without hesitation that there are absolutely corrupt and abusive people in law enforcement that should not be where they are.  We need to weed them out for sure.  But there is something else that you are not seeing.  Something that I see every single day.  Something that will happen a hundred or a thousand times today in cities across the country.  It happens in every law enforcement agency in the United States with so much regularity that it becomes just another activity.  It goes mostly unnoticed and unmentioned.  It’s usually covered up by the perpetrators and hidden from view by the brothers on the thin blue line.  They will fiercely protect a fellow officer and lie about it to keep their secret.  If you ask about it, most officers will just shrug and give you a stupid look and turn away or change the conversation.

Every single day, Officers will dig into their own pockets to use their money to help someone in need.  They will buy food for a hungry person.  They will rent a hotel room for a homeless mother who has no food for her three children.  They will use their own time and resources to do their best to make sure she has some kind of foothold, any kind of foothold to get her started on the road to self reliance.  Officers will stop and help someone change a tire.  They will help someone cross the street, carry groceries for an elderly person despite the 45 pound gun belt they are already dragging on their hips.  They will dig clothes out of their own closet to bring to people at a hidden homeless camp in the woods because they know that the weather is about to turn.  They will take up a donation among the squad of underpaid road patrol officers to purchase a bicycle for an autistic boy because his parents are both struggling to pay the bills.  On his way home, that officer is going to bring a teddy bear that he purchased with his own money to a young boy at the hospital that was in a serious car accident yesterday.  There won't be any cameras there for that.  If there are, he will turn away and come back later after they leave.  It has been my experience that this kind of activity happens with far more frequency than abuse of authority.  I have personally witnessed these things hundreds of times, but pictures of an Officer fixing a tire apparently does not sell newspapers. That officer will go home at the end of a 12 hour shift, and turn on the news to a story about another officer abusing their authority, and they will sit and shake their head with the rest of us.  

With the sensory bombardment of “Cops being bad” it becomes very easy to allow ourselves to become enraged about the abuse of authority.  We should be enraged when it happens.  We should also reserve ourselves to responding with the appropriate jurisprudence for the situation. Bad people do bad things.  Sometimes good people do bad things. We need to remember that the media is in the business of selling us stuff. They are going to put their best spin on it to get us to buy it.  Rage is a pretty strong sales tactic and the media loves to use it.  It starts to become easy after a while to become jaded to all persons tasked with law enforcement positions. Especially if all we are seeing is stories of abuse repeated indefinitely only to be broken by the occasional commercial attempting to sell you the latest trendy prescription medication.  It becomes hard to remember that not only are Cops people too, they are almost invariably the people who go out of their way to help the guy next to them when there is no reward or gain in it for themselves.

So the next time that you are sitting in front of the television and you see a story come on about a Police Officer accused of using excessive force on someone, being corrupt or even being accused of general maleficence; just remember, there are probably dozens of law enforcement professionals watching the same story in front of their own TV's shaking their heads with you.  It is incredibly demoralizing for them because they know that not only does it cast a negative light on their entire profession, but it also washes over anything positive they have striven to silently achieve while no one was looking. 

Meaghan

Her name was Meaghan.  She was going into shock.  I was standing on the side of the road in northern Alabama holding her up so that she did not fall down again and hurt herself.  I urged her to sit down on a safe area off the side of the road and stood up thinking I should run to the truck to fetch a blanket.  Just minutes earlier, I had been following her and several other drivers down Highway 72 near Athens Alabama.   There was another semi in front of me so my forward visibility was somewhat obscured.  Because of this, I had been giving the truck plenty of room in case we needed to stop in a hurry.  Sure enough, without warning, I saw the two white cars in front of the semi flip end over end several times.  They had made contact at high speed in the middle of the roadway.  Plastic and glass rained down on the pavement and the smell of burning rubber filled the air.  

The truck driver in front of me and I both had the same reaction.  We braked as safely as possible and pulled off the right side of the road.  As I was slowing down, my mind raced to remember where I had stored my medical kit.  I cursed out loud when  suddenly remembered that I had gotten lazy about it and stopped carrying one just over 2 years ago.  As my truck glided to a crawl, my left hand instinctively reached down to unlatch the fire extinguisher that I keep there.  I glanced up and surveyed the situation quickly.  There was no immediate indications of a fuel spill or a fire.  I made a quick decision and spared some seconds to forgo the extinguisher for now.   This was far from the first time I had witnessed such and event, and I knew that time could be pretty critical right now.

As the air brakes popped in the two trucks, we were both out and on our feet in a full run before our engines fully shut down. There were also people already streaming in from several directions out of the businesses that lined the side of the road.  The driver in front of me veered left to the minivan that had landed in the middle of the median on its side.  Most of the other bystanders were also running in that direction.  So I turned my attention to the other vehicle.  The white Hyundai had rolled at least once and had veered off the right side of the road and about 150 yards down a pretty steep embankment.  Thankfully, it had landed on its wheels.  As I ran towards the car, a much younger man ran past me and down to the vehicle.  As we made our way down the slippery grass slope, a young lady exited the drivers side of the car and promptly fell down.  The young man in front of me reached her first and helped her up.  As they attempted to distance themselves from the wrecked Hyundai, they both took another tumble together.  I reached out and grabbed the young lady by the arm as we both asked her frantically: “Is there anyone else in the car?”  “N-N-No”.  She replied through her sobs. 

I pulled the young girl up to the shoulder with the young man right behind her.  He was a bit frantic and wanted to drag the poor girl down the roadway in the direction of the gathering crowd.  “No” I insisted.  “She could be going into shock and she needs to sit down before she falls down again”. He looked at me and nodded and ran off to some unknown direction.  I sat the young lady down and asked her name.  “Me-Meaghan” she replied, still crying.  She had a pretty, oval shaped face with long blond hair.  She could not have weighed 98 pounds soaking wet.  I asked her if she was OK.  I gave a cursory glance for any wounds and checked for any obvious compound fractures.  Still crying, she managed to let me know that she didn't believe that she was seriously hurt.  “How old are you kiddo” I asked.  “18” she said and drew another breath to continue her fit of anxiety.  I assured her that things were going to be OK.  At this point I looked up to see an middle aged woman trotting in our direction with some purpose.  I could see that this girl would be in good hands if I needed to run off to fetch that blanket.  I told the woman the young lady's name and that she might be going into shock.  “I’m going to run back to my truck and see if I have a blanket”.  I said, and quickly trotted back in the direction of my vehicle. 

It was right here that my little world suddenly crashed in on me.  As I looked up at the crowd that I had first seen running to the scene, I noticed that almost all of them- some 30 or 40 people, were all standing around in an almost semi circle, cell phones in hand, taking pictures and video of the event.  I looked over at the minivan still laying on it’s side in the median.  There were two or three people aggressively trying to get the drivers side door open.  Immediately behind them, some 25 or so people, arms outstretched, crowding in while holding their little black devices and pointing them at the action.  At once, I felt my lunch try to take leave of my stomach.  I suppressed the notion and realized that in my haste, I had not even thought to grab my phone out of the truck.  Now completely sickened,  I started back up in the direction of my vehicle.  Panic almost struck me as I started to wonder if any of these people had actually bothered to use those phones to call for help. 

I picked up the pace and ran past the first truck driver who now had his safety vest on and was directing traffic around the crowd.  Just as I reached my truck, I heard the sirens and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.  Someone had the sensibility to call after all.  As I climbed up, a police cruiser and two ambulances pulled up to the scene.  I watched two EMT workers head over in the direction where I had left the girl sitting on the side of the road.  Filled with confidence that she was now in better care than I could provide, I decided that myself and my truck were now more in the way of assistance than rendering it.   I sat down and started the truck and started to carefully ease it back into traffic. 

As I passed the scene, I noticed that the crowd of novice film producers were still aggressively working to hone their craft.  The sight once again sent tremors through my stomach and I was eager to depart the scene as quickly as I could.  As I drove away, I could not help but contemplate the absurdity of the things I had just witnessed.  Then the reality of it hit me full force: “They learned it from you” the voice in my head whispered. As I thought back over all the accident scenes I had photographed and documented in my 20 year career as a journalist, it sank in.  We taught these people this.  We showed them that there is some artificial value in documenting human misery and putting it on display for the our own sick satisfaction.   A new feeling washed over me: shame.  I was ashamed of what “media” had become.  The mad rush to get the next “thing” on your Twitbook page first so you can get some fake internet karma.  

I drove off wondering if what we have created may be our undoing.  If our instant information society may be more harmful in some ways than helpful.  I started to understand where the feelings of disgust and aggravation must come from that first responders exhibit toward this new breed of instant journalists.  I was reassured by the knowledge however, that there are still some people who can assess the situation and figure out what needs to be done: The people who worked to extract the driver from the minivan, the other truck driver, the young man who can run faster than this old man, and of course the first responders who arrived way faster than I thought possible.  I drove away knowing full well that I will probably never see that young lady again. I know that I left her in good hands and not much else about her.  But I do know this: Her name was Meaghan.  Which is a lot more that the people gawking at her picture on Facebook today will ever know about her.

But does she put out?

   In the six months or so since I started driving full time, I have had opportunity to learn many things.  I found out about being screwed.  I learned how to bend time.  Truck stops aren't what they used to be.  (They are generally cleaner with a lot less hookers and drugs).  I have also learned that if you commit to your cause and get on with the right company, they will reward your hard work well.  After several bouts of musical chairs, I finally landed myself into the seat of a truck that I am proud of and really enjoy driving,  Like most guys who land a sweet ride, I spent some time deciding on a a name for my new sweetheart.  I settled on “Dixie” for a variety of reasons.  I’ts a ritual that goes back as far as we have been riding horses to name your ride.  While pondering the reasons why guys always name their ride after a girl, I suddenly wondered: “If trucks were actually girls, what kind of girls would they be”?

KENWORTH: 

KW’s would be the athletic girl.  She is in reasonably good shape.  She looks pretty good.  She can run hard sometimes.  But she believes that she is way hotter than she really is.  KW looks ok in jewelry (chrome) but starts to look slutty if you give her too much.

PROSTAR:  

The prostar is the virgin.  Kinda cute but homely.  No makeup, fun personality but she is not fast or loose.  Good luck getting to second base, especially if you gotta travel uphill to do it.  Light jewelry for her-anything else looks silly.

FREIGHTLINER:

   Freightliner is the girl next door. Sometimes she is hot in a very subtle way.  Sometimes she is homely and would look a lot better if she cleaned herself up a bit.  She is sometimes carrying around a lot of baggage and because of this she breaks down a lot.  But she is easy to pick up and she will give just about anyone a cheap ride.  Even though she usually is not the best lookin girl in the bar, she is the Rosie the Riveter of the trucking industry.  She endures because she works hard for her money

VOLVO: 

 

The Volvo is the kinda hot foreign exchange student.  She is a bit exotic and different and fun to be around.  Easy to get along with and likes fancy clothes.  Problem is her fancy clothes cost a LOT of money, and when she has a breakdown, she loves to go shopping-with your money. Jewelry is optional

INTERNATIONAL EAGLE:  

The Eagle is the Catholic Schoolgirl.  Pretty simple clothes, generally charming and proper.  Easy to get along with. Every once in a while you can find one that’s fast and loose, and when you do, lookout.  Jewelry is sinful—no jewelry.

PETERBILT 579. 

  The 579 is the cute and reserved librarian chick.  Does not wear fancy clothes or show off her body.  Does not like jewelry in public.  But get her alone in a dark room with some jazz music and she will show you her inner tiger,

LONESTAR: 

 The Lonestar is the girl who wears way too much makeup.  She never fails to make herself look slutty. She is trying way too hard to be a prom queen when all it would take is to clean herself up a bit to look nice.   Guys always give her way too much jewelry to try to make her look like a stripper.

MACK.

  Macks are the bull dykes.  Enough said.

PETERBILT 379.  

 The 379 is the stripper at the club.  You know: the place where you can look but don’t touch.  Sometimes shes really hot, sometimes not so much.   To put it bluntly, she is the slut--every guy has been in her. Looks great in jewelry.  Has her own clothing line. You can see the jealousy in the eyes of the other men as you leave they club with her--but the jokes on you, you're gonna be sticky, broke and confused in the morning.

WESTERN STAR:

  The trophy wife. Looks great in everything.  Fantastic body.  You have never spent any time with her because you cant afford it, but you can tell just by looking that she is fast, loose and fun.  And the guy who hangs out with her is in debt up to his eyeballs, but he still manages to draw your envy.

CABOVER: 

 The cabover is the cougar that is hanging around the bar at 2:00 AM looking to score with some young stud.  You know for sure that you are not the first guy she has been with, but you might be the last. She can teach you things you never thought you would need to know. Every once in a while you see one that looks pretty hot, but generally, she is just a shadow of  her younger self..