Maybe Obama’s campaign ads are working (you do know all those trips around the country…on your dime…were really campaigning, right?), but I’m beginning to agree with him that there are folks out here who don’t pay their “fair share”, and something needs to be done about it. Dammit, EVERYBODY needs to pay their fair share! Let’s figure out who the slackers are, shall we?
For three over three years, Obama has waffled on human rights.
He supported the Arab Spring…but didn’t actually DO anything, and now we have a terrorist organization, that ignores rights, running Egypt.
He was all for going after Moammar Gaddafi, but seems afraid to act in Syria.
He doesn’t act, even in diplomatic support, when Iranians take to the streets, giving the United States and the world it’s best shot at stopping the Iranian nuclear weapons program…but he supports, and encourages, rag-tag groups of students, led by union organizers and American Socialist Party leaders, when they “Occupy” banks, crap on police cars, overrun restaurants and other businesses, and steal and rape other protesters among them.
He has failed to take a firm stand on human rights…but he can’t any longer. A Chinese dissident has his back against the wall, and his choice is human rights or kiss some more Chinese ass:
Now…if you are like me, you don’t trust Obama to do the right thing regarding the topic in the video…but we, you and I, can…CAN…force his hand if we yell loud enough, so…
Start yelling…to congress, to the state department, and to the White House.
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**Editors Note: Today is actually a happy day here at Cantankerous Old Coots! My friend Bob has here, written below, what is the 100th post published on this site! That is a great milestone and one we are most definitely not going to stop at Not bad for a blog that started on a whim with a sarcastic comment. Thanks for coming and reading our stuff and you can look forward to more, number 200 is coming! Now onto Bob’s post! -Justin**
Sometimes I just think the know-it-all kids might be able to run things better than us old farts (and fartettes). Maybe we just ought to turn all the country’s problems over to them to solve. They’ll probably do it in about a week and a half.
Just ask them…they’ll be glad to tell you. Apparently, from about age 18 to age 25 is when a human is the smartest and can do the best analytical thinking, and after that it’s all downhill. So…if they are so damn smart, let them figger things out for us.
This was brought home YET AGAIN this past week when Megan McCain, the dumb blonde bimbo highly intelligent and discerning daughter of Sen. John McCain opened her mouth…again.
Does anyone besides me wish she would just shut…the…hell…up? If she weren’t Sen McCain’s daughter she’d be just another dumb blonde…like, awesome…Valley Girl wannabe. Instead, the media treats her like the second coming of Socrates, spreading her insight far and wide.
How does a 26 year old who hasn’t yet learned to wipe her rear without a diagram and written instructions get so smart so young…and she must be smart…
Last week she shared with us…and with the breathlessly listening main stream media…that Christine O’Donnell, the senate candidate from Delaware, shouldn’t be elected because she is not qualified. Well, just what makes one “qualified”, Megan?
(“Megan” because you are a know-it-all snot-nosed brat. Gain some age…and wisdom…and you might earn a Ms. McCain.)
Megan, just what kind of qualifications do you feel someone needs to have in order to hold elected office? Let’s look at a couple of elected officials for guidance, OK?
There once was a small town country lawyer from Illinois. He was mostly self-educated, and was not a lawyer with a polished resume. His political career consisted of several failed attempts to get elected to local and state office before his single win. He was not a polished speaker and was not notably educated on national and foreign policy of the day. He was much like Christine O’Donnell in that he was simply a good man of average intellect who wanted to just do the right thing.
The second politician was also of average intellect, but had a far more extensive unofficial political education having been raised in the politics of a navy admiral’s household and absorbing the politics of national defense. He attended the US Naval Academy and served as a Navy carrier pilot where his only notable act was to be shot down over North Vietnam. As a POW he showed himself to be an American patriot. So far, so good…but after being released from captivity and leaving the navy he was bitten by the political bug and was elected by his wife’s money and his war hero status to the United States senate, where he changes his position on issues as often as I change my underwear, always sticking his finger in the air to test the currents before deciding what he thinks.
I like inexperienced and unqualified better.
Meghan, the first inexperienced, unqualified (by your standards, anyway) politician was Abraham Lincoln. The second is your father.
I think it’s best you, like, you know, just shut up.
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As anyone who has read much of what I write knows, I am more than just a little bit retro. The fact is I could easily be described as rather Luddite-ish. I have often been heard to say (only partly jokingly) that I am one of less than 10 people in the country who actually wishes Y2K had been as bad as advertised.
One thing I have enjoyed since I was a teenager is cars. Real cars. Not the sissified crap cranked out by automobile manufacturers these days, but serious cars, cars with large bore Detroit iron.
I use to watch the NASCAR races, or as they were called colloquially in the south “stock car racin’. You could spend a Sunday afternoon watching the likes of Cale Yarborough, Fireball Roberts, and Coo Coo Marlin banging on each other’s doors, and then go down to your local Ford, Chevrolet, or Dodge dealer on Monday and pretty much buy the car that won the day before. Except for stripping out the interior and adding a roll bar, there wasn’t much difference.
But times change. The original crowd retired (or died in wrecks, like Fireball Roberts, RIP), and the next generation turned out to be a bunch of pansies. Instead of getting their start runnin’ moonshine and being chased by the revenuers, a lot of them got their start up in Yankee land, drivin’ those things with a big ass motor, four wheels, and a wing on top big enough for a 747. And when they got to NASCAR? Hell, they all had PR people and couldn’t get out of their car after a race without combing their hair first. Pussies.
Another change, the most disappointing really, was the cars. Except for a very faint resemblance, Detroit never saw iron that’s on the track today. Sure, they put a model name on ‘em, but I defy you to go down to your local Chevrolet dealership tomorrow and find anything that really looks like what Dale, Jr. climbed out of on Sunday.
Then came the final straw. NASCAR, which like baseball is as American as apple pie, let furriners in.
Toyota.
That’s when I quit watchin’ stock car racin’, except at the local dirt track.
And then, on Sunday February 20, 2011, it was Déjà vu all over again.
First, let me give you just a little bit of back story. In the 1970’s I was a teenager, I loved stock car racin’, and David Pearson was my hero. Pearson drove the Woods Brother’s Mercury, red top, white bottom, and the number 21 on the side. At the time, the biggest rivalry in stock car racin’ was between Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty, and Pearson.
One of the few NASCAR races I ever personally attended was the 1976 Daytona 500, a race that will go down in history as having the most exciting finish NASCAR ever had, or ever will, see.
David Pearson won that race. Driving the Woods Brothers Mercury number 21. Despite numerous wins in other races, Woods Brothers Racing has never won another Daytona 500, the Super Bowl of NASCAR.
Until yesterday.
I didn’t watch the race. I gave up on NASCAR several years back when Toyota joined Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge on the track. I just never got used to the idea of watching little Japanese sewing machines trying to run with the big dawgs.
I was trying to get some writing done and had the TV on mute several hours after the race ended, when I glanced up at the screen. To use an old southernism, I didn’t know whether to “shit or go blind”.
There, in living color, was a sight I had not seen in 35 years… A Woods Brothers Racing Mercury(well, Ford), red on top, white on bottom, and the number 21 painted the side, crossing the finish line in the Daytona 500 in first place.
I can sleep well. Retro ruled the day.
His name is Jhaqueil Reagan and he lives close to Indianapolis, Indiana. He may be a dropout, but we need more kids like him…LOTS more.
Jhaqueil is a dropout because he quit school a couple of years ago so he could take care of his brothers and sisters after his mom’s death. Right there I got past the fact that he dropped out. As far as I can see, that wasn’t dropping out, it was prioritizing and making the right decision.
From what I read, his leaving school didn’t mean leaving his education behind as he finished his secondary education before he would have graduated in the first place, getting his GED. Second prioritization choice, second good decision.
Ya know, though…a dropout with a GED who has younger siblings to care for also has their stomaches to feed…and that takes money, which means getting a job. Now, I may be wrong, but a dropout teenager might just find it hard to find work. He might decide to take advantage of our wonderful nanny – state giveaways and suck off the state, the taxpayer’s money tit. After all, everyone knows when the job market is tough the thing to do is suck off of someone else…you know, like the 20 – somethings, perpetual students that move back into their parent’s basements and go play in the streets at Occupy Wall Street style protests, all planned out on the iPads their mommy’s
and daddy’s bought them.
So this kid Jhaqueil can go suck the government’s welfare tit, right?
Um…no.
Jhaqueil heard about a job opening at a Dairy Queen across town. 10 miles across town. And it was snowing and icy and windy and CLOD…but what the hell…Indianapolis has municipal bus service, right?
Not for Jhaqueil, at least not until he gets a job. He cannot afford bus fare, so do you know what he does?
He walks. He needed a job, he heard about a job, so he went to try to get the job. Its simple, really.
The freezing weather didn’t matter, Nor did the ice and snow or the wind. Jhaqueil had good, simple, linear thinking:
Need a job>>hear about a job>>go apply for the job = Get the job. That simple, and anything between the first and last of that equation is simply an obstacle to be overcome.
But he did not get the job, demonstrating an obvious lack of management’s good judgement at the Dairy Queen.
That’s OK though…Jhaqueil got a job. He had stopped at another restaurant along the way to ask directions, and the owner had asked why he was out in the bitter weather, walking. Jhaqueil explained about the job and his lack of bus fare…then kept walking. Art Bouvier, the owner of Papa Roux Cajun Cooking, the place he stopped for directions, saw him later when he went out on an errand, still walking. He picked him up to take him the last mile, and got his name and phone number before the kid got out of the car.
Art Bouvier’s judgement is better thanthat of the Dairy Queen’s management. He recognizes character when he sees it. He can see beyond the school dropout, beyond a poor kid who doesn’t have bus fare instead of walking 10 miles in a blizzard, who simply sees something that needs doing and does it and apparently doesn’t have “I can’t” in his vocabulary.
Art Bouvier knows a good employee when he sees one, even one who hasn’t asked him for a job. He called the kid that night and asked him how the job search went. When he found out the Dairy Queen hadn’t hired him, hadn’t hired a kid willing to walk 10 miles through a blizzard to apply, he hired him right then.
Good catch, Art.
Now I have a new hero…two9, actually. A kid who just does what has to be done, and Art bouvier, one Coon Ass I’d like to meet. Indianapolis ain’t that far…I just may eat some Cajun food soon…surely they serve red beans and rice with a couple of links of boudin.
PS: I don’t normally do this, but this is an exception. After finishing the article I called Papa Roux’s. Great folks and, I’d bet my last nickle, great Coon Ass (Cajun to you uneducated folks…LOL) food, too. If you are ever in or around the east side of AIndianapolis, grab a bite to eat there. Call ’em for exact directions at 317.603.9861. Tell ’em Bob sent ya.
A Determined Teen Receives An Unlikely Job Offer
