Walt's blog

We’ve had a couple of days to digest John McCain’s decision to select Sarah Palin as his choice for VP.  Apparently most of us are stunned because no one has said a word about this.  I kinda figured Solo would have at least mentioned this in passing.  I guess I’m a little stunned about this myself but the more I think about it, the more reasonable it seems.

   Sure, Sarah Palin is a novice when it comes to national politics but is that necessarily a bad thing?  Her political career has been centered around local issues that have dealt with problems that the common man faces everyday and has not been influenced by the dog eat dog society of the Washington politician.  She based her run for the governorship of Alaska on the ethics problem and won.  Her stand on ethics caused some heavyweights in the Alaska Republican Party to pack their bags and leave town.  She reminds me a bit of the movie “Mr. Smith goes to Washington”.  Wouldn’t it be grand if an openly honest person held some power in the U.S. capital?

Angela Corey and Jay Plotkin participated in a debate tonight on WJXT TV4. It appeared to me that Angela Corey won the contest hands down. Just the weight of her personality buried Mr. Plotkin. She answered all the questions forthrightly while Plotkin kept telling everyone how proud he was to have a particular person sitting in the audience. If I were one of the bad guys sitting in the defendants chair, I’d be a lot more afraid of Ms. Corey than I would of Mr. Plotkin.

Jimmy Carter cured the gas shortage crisis back in the 70's by lowering the speed limits to 55MPH. Now Obama has found a solution to the energy crisis. Make sure your tires have plenty of air. That should boost your Miles Per Gallon average up to compensate for the rising gas prices. Maybe we should go one step further and fill our tires with Helium instead of just plain old air. That should make our cars lighter and the engine wouldn’t have to work so hard to push those heavy pieces of metal down the highway.

Since Obama and the Democrats are promising change for us in the future, I can’t wait to see what earth shattering ideas they come up with next.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, there is hope for all mankind and it is finally revealed today. At long last the NFL season is about to begin again. I realize that the games being played for the next few weeks will only be preseason "practice" games, but at least it is football. Ahhhh, football. I can start breathing again and enjoy life as God meant it to be enjoyed. I can vent my rage at the T.V. screen when a play is botched instead of keeping my rage stifled deep inside. My dog can relax instead of giving me a wide berth for fear of me taking a swift kick in his direction. My wife can again engage me in conversation instead of just receiving a blank stare. I feel my pulse racing just talking about watching football again.

We are fast approaching election day and all the candidates are telling us all about why they should allowed to execute your personal proxy in governing this county, state and country. This is supposed to be a nation that is "Of the People, By the People and For the People", but is it really? Have any of the people that you’ve elected into office represented you personally as you would have voted yourself?

In particular, what sort of legacy is the Board of County Commissioners leaving us after these last four years? Is this county in a better state of affairs now than it was before the last election? Has your representative used your proxy to make this county a better place to live? My own personal issue is the condition of the roads and highways within this county and in my opinion, my commissioner isn’t as concerned about it as I am. Therefore, my proxy isn’t being used the way I want it to be used and now I’m ready to award it to someone else. There is nothing my commissioner can say to convince me to re-invest that proxy into his care for another term.

Last weekend, a friend of the family drove to Alabama to spend a day or two with her family for a short visit. On her way back to Jacksonville, near the Tallahassee area, her car started making strange whirring and growling noises that were very loud. Since she was alone on this long journey and any friendly help that she could call was hundreds of miles away, she naturally started to panic. She stopped at the nearest rest stop and looked her car over but no source of the sound could be found. The wheels and undercarriage looked good and nothing looked amiss under the hood. She decided to continue down the highway because all gauges looked good and nothing appeared to be broken. When she got back up to speed, the loud growling and whirring started up again so she immediately pulled off on the shoulder. She looked the car over again and decided to unload her cargo for a better inspection. Lo and behold, she found the source of the noise. It seems that her cargo shifted somehow and her portable "Kareoke" machine had switched on with the microphone pressed against the side of the car. All the road noise was amplified throughout the car causing one heck of a racket.

After an exhaustive review of the research literature,
here's the final word on nutrition and health:

1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer
heart attacks than us.

2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer
heart attacks than us.

3. Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer
fewer heart attacks than us.

4. Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and
suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

5. Germans drink beer and eat lots of sausages and
fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink whatever the hell you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you, but the
U.S. Government is trying to correct the problem

When I was young, growing up in the days of Beaver and Wally Cleaver through the good times of Eisenhower and the Camelot of the Kennedy administration, there seemed to always be something to do. Bicycles could share the road with cars without much fear of getting squished by an inattentive driver. Neighbors kept their eye out for all the neighborhood kids to make sure everyone stayed safe. Backyards were playgrounds and any tree was fair game for a tree-house. When the teenage years arrived, the high school had a dance after each home football game and the Catholic church was good for a dance or two during the course of the year. There were places to hang out like "Arnold’s" of "Happy Days" fame and any movie worth seeing was at the local Drive-in. There was no such thing as a shopping mall, the local stores closed at nine o’clock and maybe the drug store opened up for a while on Sunday. McDonalds was just getting started and its menu consisted of $.19 hamburgers, $.12 french fries and sodas for $.10, $.15 and $.25. $2.00 worth of gas kept you going for most of the week and you didn’t even have to pump the fuel yourself.

Daddy always told me that there are two things you should never talk about in discussions with other people, Religion and Politics. I’ve found that to be one of the truest bits of advice that he ever gave me. Every person has their own idea on what is right and contradicting them in even the slightest way can only lead to bitter arguments.

When I was young, I was raised in a deeply religious family and I learned to quote the Bible with the best of them. My God and I still walk pretty closely together but I’ve stumbled more times than I care to mention. Thankfully he has always forgiven me and accepted me back into his arms. I can’t say that about organized religion though. I’ve learned that some of the most hurtful people are the ones that are quick to tell you that they are "Good Christians". Woe be the person who questions the dogma of that particular sect. I’ve always wondered why we are taught that there is but one God yet it is necessary to divide up into different denominations. Is the God of the Baptists the same God of the Catholics or Methodists? Is the God of the Jews the same God of the Muslims? Inquiring minds want to know. I guess I’ll just keep worshiping my God in the same way I’ve always done and let the all knowing elders of the different churches argue out the specifics.

Forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tennessee.  I was 18 years old at the time so I remember the event very well.  I also remember that the community was terrified that race riots would erupt nation-wide and our white race would have to continually look over our shoulders.  Race riots did in fact occur in some cities but other cities remained calm but wary.  I lived in Kansas City at the time and I recall that the only real measure taken by the local government was to restrict the sale of gasoline.  Gasoline could only be dispensed into cars and not in any portable containers for fear that it might be converted into Molotov cocktails.  Thankfully, Kansas City was spared any major conflicts and life continued on basically as usual.