Making Grapefruit Juice

I once saw a show on PBS where a self help guru (Wayne Dyer?) used a metaphor that stuck with me. I was so taken with it, it became one of my stock Dad speeches. If you squeeze a grapefruit, what comes out? No matter how much you wish for milk, grapefruit juice comes out. If you paint the grapefruit purple, you will not get grape juice. So what comes out of you when life squeezes you?

Lately life has been squeezing me quite severely, and I can say without any false modesty that I am pleased with what is coming out of me. I am standing side by side with my wife as she battles for her life against cancer. I've never loved her more dearly. I cherish every minute I have the honor to spend with her. In the face of utter uncertainty, I have remained strong and determined to see this through to whatever end. In the face of this overwhelming adversity, I have been and remain an honorable and loving husband. To what higher goal can a man aspire than to rule himself?

Li’l Sparky

He came into my domain one spring morning, more dead than alive. His face was a mess of wounds; his eyes were nearly glued shut from the gunk issuing from the corners. He limped toward me as I sat on the back stoop enjoying my morning cigarette and coffee, his coat as dull as an old butter knife. His approach was wary, but his spirit was clearly at its nadir. I went inside and grabbed a piece of lunch meat and offered it to him. He wouldn’t come close enough to take it, so I threw it down to him on the sidewalk. He gobbled up the offering with gusto and went on his solitary way. It broke my heart to see any critter in such straights.

As the days progressed, the little fellow stopped by each morning and had breakfast with me as I smoked a smoke and drank a cup of coffee. I took to calling him Sparky and he soon realized I was referring to him when I called him that. He grew steadily bolder until one morning I hazarded an attempt to pick him up for a little triage. My mistake! He hauled off and bit me almost through the tip of my left ring finger as I attempted to wipe the goop from his eyes and see how his ears were healing. Now you can’t blame a cat for being a cat. How was he to know?

Our breakfast meetings were tense for a few days, and we eyed each other suspiciously, one wounded being to another. Eventually, hunger won over my little vagabond and he eventually deigned to let me pet him while he nosed down in the cat food bowl I resurrected from storage.  My other cats eat from a feeder in the basement that ensures they always have dry cat food available. As Sparky’s diet improved, so did his coat and his attitude. As spring turned to summer, and the swelling in my finger subsided, we reached a sort of truce.

As summer came into its own, I shifted my morning smoke and coffee to the huge front veranda of the old Victorian the Missus and I share. It didn’t take Sparky long to figure out that the lunchmeat and cat food was in a new location. One morning, I was sitting on the steps petting him as he chowed down on his dry cat food and finishing, he rolled over onto his back and let me rub his belly. He played with me in his little ornery cat way, but did me no lasting harm but a few light scratches. You can’t blame a cat for being a cat now, can you?

After that, we became good friends. I looked forward to slipping him a dose of Lycine with his lunchmeat treat, and he pretended not to notice that I had. That cleared up his eyes and he started breathing better. His earlier wounds were pretty well healed and with a good steady diet of cat food, his coat was starting to take on a shine at last. He made no objection to getting a dose of flea and tick treatment on the nape of his neck while he ate. He started mingling with our other cats whenever they were outside with mixed results. They can figure out their pecking order without my interference.

A week or so ago, I again hazarded an attempt to pick little Sparky up and he didn’t struggle at all. He curled up on my chest and purred as he made biscuits on my arm. He’s a sweet little guy, and time is fast approaching to take him to the vet for shots, tags, and . . . neutering! I don’t know how I can ask him to forgive me for something I would never forgive myself, but that is simply the way of things. I almost feel sorrier for him now than when we first met. 

Scottie

Under the Same Old Management

I've been away for a while, but I have much to share with you. If you stop by and see this, would you do me a favor and pass the word that I'm back in the saddle. I promise some good stuff on your return.

Scottie

Racial Fraud

The NAACP is shocked!, shocked! to find posters mocking the president as a monkey or as comparable to Hitler. This can only be interpreted as rampant racism on the part of the various tea party organizations throughout the country and it must be repudiated! Perhaps they would have a better leg upon which to stand if a couple of other inconvenient facts weren't in such stark relief.

First, let us recall the eight years prior to the coming of the Obamassiah. If you need your memory refreshed, Google chimpymcbush or bushhitler. The left dismantled all traces of civility during the past administration with their deranged rants against a president they didn't agree with. Now they are shocked!, shocked! that political discourse is at such a low. That Obama is now subjected to the exact same insults that the political left mainstreamed during the Bush administration is somehow no longer acceptable. What was hurled with uncompromising regularity at George W Bush is now disingenuously described as racist today. That's pretty thin gruel.

Secondly, I witnessed no hue and cry over a pair of armed and uniformed black racist thugs openly intimidating voters at a poling place over a year and a half ago coming from the NAACP, did you? Of course not. And this blatant oversight brands the NAACP as racist as those upon which they now wish to project their own racism. I cannot accept, nor should any rational being of sound intellect, that black people cannot be racist. The rhetoric and behavior of this organization is patently racist and it's time they were called out for it.

What we are witnessing are the death throes of a once admirable organization that couldn't declare victory and move on once their admirable original goals had been largely achieved. It has been taken over by its most radical remaining elements still bartering on a name and reputation they have long since squandered. They now pursue with zeal their new mission of manufacturing grievances where none exist and promulgating different standards for black people based on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. The NAACP's allegations of racism should simply be ignored as the mere projection it is. Until this behavior is marginalized as it should be, harmony between the races will remain impossible, notwithstanding a black president in office.

Dissonance

Leftys don't like corporations. Just ask one the next time you see one of them at Starbucks (Inc.), looking something up on Google (Inc.), on their I Macs (Apple, Inc.). Then ask them if they'd be more comfortable flying in a plane made by Ike and Edna's Airplane Company rather than Boeing (Inc.)? Quick now, before they escape in their Prius (Toyota, Inc.)

The president implied it would be a noble gesture on the part of hesitant Democrats to vote for his bill in spite of the public's overwhelming lack of support for it. Wouldn't it have been equally noble for them to stand up to the thuggish tactics of their party and actually represent the wishes of their constituents?

Leftys claim to be opposed to "institutional racism", while advocating and supporting racial set asides, affirmative action, and desparate impact lawsuits.

Leftys believe we must treat black people differently from white people because they suffered so much in the past from being treated differently from white people.

Leftys believe women and men are essentially the same, but having more women in your organiztion makes it more "diverse."

Leftys believe a woman has absolute the right to control her own body on the one hand and that you shouldn't have the right (and responsibility) to determine your own medical care and how to pay for it on the other.

Leftys believe that the rich don't pay their "fair share" while the top five percent pay more taxes than the other ninety five percent combined.

Leftys believe it is fair that nearly half of the people in this country don't pay any income tax, but still get to vote on how much the other half must pony up for more programs to benefit those that pay nothing.

Leftys claim to be opposed to special interests. If you confront them on this, they will turn out crowds of people from the public employees and teachers unions to keep you busy while the trial lawyers prepare to sue you into oblivion.

Leftys hate the military. They say we should be more like Europe which lavishes generous social programs on its citizenry . . . which they can afford because they are protected by the US military.

Leftys think that allowing Israel to build apartments is a bigger threat to world peace than letting Iran build an atomic bomb.

Leftys believe our government is corrupt, imperialist, jingoist, racist, and beholden to entrenched special interests and also the the perfect entity to run our health care system, our auto industry, the financial sector, the energy sector, and the education sector.

Leftys decry how uncivil politics has become while calling their opponents racists, homophobes, evilmongers, biggots and teabaggers.

Leftys believe that five hundred politicians are more insightful and have better judgement than the combined wisdom and experience of the three hundred million people they alledgedly serve. No really, they believe that!

Someone pass me a couple of Advil.

Time To Stand and Fight

If we let these arrogant willfull elitist politicians get away with this healhcare bill in the disgusting way they have done it, we will have surrendered our countrry to them. Nothing prompts a bully to continue running roughshod over you than meek compliance and nothing will ultimately stop him short of confrontation. Either we push back on this with every legal means at our disposal, or have our ankles measured for the chains of mediocrity that will inevitably follow.

What is there to discourge these people from further insults to our expressed wishes, further disregard for the inegrity of the system they serve, and further ganster tactics and thuggery in the name of what they believe is best for us (and accruing more power to themselves in the bargain)?"

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

It's the Soldier

On this Memorial Day, let us remember and contemplate the wise counsel of Father O'Brien:


It's the soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It's the soldier, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It's the soldier, not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to demonstrate.

It's the soldier, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

And it's the soldier who salutes the flag,
who serves the flag,whose coffin is draped in the flag,
that allows the protester to burn the flag.

Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USN Chaplain Corps

On this Memorial Day, give some thought to the freedoms you have. Freedoms that are paid for by the sacrifice and dedication of the warriors that defend them with their lives. Freedoms you take for granted in this great nation. Be grateful to those that serve, and respectful of their sacrifices. They don't ask for it, but they most assuredly deserve it. And never forget the freedoms you enjoy aren't your's to give away; they were earned by the blood of your forefathers and given over to your stewardship to be passed on to the next generation, in as good or better condition than they were when you received them.

Scottie