Hello Everyone. Today’s podcast is not very cantankerous. It does however discuss a very important holiday, that I feel is underrated, Veterans Day.
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Please utilize all social media to get the word out and leave your comments in the comments section below!
-Justin
Link to more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Day
No, I’m not kidin’. Jack Lalane’s death over the weekend has made me think about just how true it is that old things and old ways are far better than our newfangled plastic world.
Now, I’m already pretty much of a throwback, having been variously described as a Neanderthal, a caveman, a Luddite, and, by those who wish to be kind, retro, and I am all of those and probably more.
But I get in a hurry, and I skim, both in my talk and in my actions. It’s not that I don’t believe in what I say or do, I just have a tendency to get in a hurry and hit the high spots.
Jack Lalane didn’t get in a hurry, and he didn’t “hit the high spots”. In short, he didn’t skim.
I remember watching Jack Lalane back when I was little more than knee high. I don’t really know what I liked about him at that point. I was around 10 years old, a bit young to be a fitness buff, but there was something about his show that I actually liked watching. Maybe it was just all the energy, I don’t know, but I was always in front of that black and white console TV watching Lalane show American mothers how to stay fit. Looking back, what was really amazing (though I didn’t realize it at the time) was that Lalane was 50 years old even then.
Now, though, I find that there are two things about Jack Lalane that I find inspirational:
First, he was living proof that it didn’t take every newfangled exercise machine in the world, every exercycle, every treadmill, every stair stepper, every nutritional supplement, every protein rich shake this and nutrient dense bar that…in order to stay in shape.
Jack Lalane showed us that if you want to lose weight you simply burn more calories than you take in, and you could burn those calories with little more than a straight back chair and a 3 foot piece of stretchy cord. He would have been the nightmare of every 3:00 AM infomercial pitch man in the world (including Billy Mays, my hero and a Great American, RIP).
The second thing Jack Lalane taught us was that in our quest for good nutrition there was one cardinal rule:
“if God didn’t make it, you don’t put it in your body.”
Now, Jack Lalane is dead and the country (including me) is fat.
See… I told you Retro Is Right.
Folks…it is hard to believe how dumb many a DA can be…all over the country. Last week in Georgia, this week in Pennsylvania…the DA DA’s seem to be running amok.
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So here we are, two weeks with no government. Do you miss it yet? It all reminds me of a song- actually it reminds me of several but I’m struggling to stay focused here. What kind of world is it where stopping government means it is all over. And what makes us think that the people in charge are smart enough to fix it?
Sorry, we’re closed.
I’ve come a long way during my life. When I was a kid, the US was the bomb! Literally, but we were the good guys and WWII was proof. We beat the evil Krauts and the evil Japs, and we did it pretty much single handed because the rest of the world was either brutalized by the bad guys or too spineless to stand up. We were a free people, proud of it and proud of our country. Government was a joke.
Nobody back then expected the government to save us from anything. We could take care of ourselves. We were Americans. We didn’t win the war because of our government. We won the war because of our American spirit. We won in spite of the government. If anyone back then had threatened to shut down the government, we’d have laughed because we knew it didn’t matter. Today, shutting down the government is viewed as a disaster. We are supposed to drag our dependent asses into a corner and weep. There seem to be a few weepers out there but they all live in Washington. Who does the shutdown really hurt anyway? It’s those government workers who work daily to make us miserable.
Hello All. Today I am going to write again about cantankerousity. I have good reason to believe that the most cantankerous animal will be revealed here.
Now, I can make a good case for Ralph, he is bringing us cantankerousness and leading the charge here at Cantakerous Old Coots. He only gets an honorable mention today though.
I have been reading a book that was written in the early part of the 20th century by a British Soldier who lived most of his life in India. The man is Jim Corbett and the book is called the Maneaters of Kumaon. This book is about the authors treks through the wilds of India in search of todays most cantakerous animal, the man-eating tiger.
While this book sound like Great White Hunter vs lowly animal, it is not, in fact Corbett was a conservationist who would not shoot a tiger that was not proven to be a man eater. One of the largest tiger preserves in the world is in India and named for him. This book is a great adventure story and reading it I keep hearing the voice of my Great Grandfather recounting his stories. Check this book out, it is good.
Now onto the Cantankerousness… Tigers are huge, powerful animals. They are designed to be one of the ultimate predators. Zoo tigers cannot compare to the yarns spun out by Corbett about the intelligence and cunning of the tiger.
Further research shows that they are, or were depending on populations, the apex predator in several of the jungle regions of Asia. Leopards are close. Tigers are just magnificent. Now I am going to get comments (hopefully) about lions, crocodiles and sharks being the most cantankerous. Maybe they are in their spheres, but in a fair fight, (impossible for sharks) I would put money on the tiger.
Their intelligence is obvious from the fact that they can be trained for the circus and other acts. Their cantakerosity is obvious, just ask Sigfreid and Roy. I think they will be your friend until they are hungry. Then you are just meat.
Which is what the book is about. The tigers in this book were hunted and shot by Corbett on behalf of the Indian (dot not feather) Government. All of these tigers were Man-Eaters. And, just as an aside, most of them were female….Many similarities to human females…but that is another post.
Between 1907 and 1938 Corbett hunted and killed 19 tigers and 14 leopards, all proven to be Man-Eaters. All together these cats were responsible for the deaths of more than 1200 people. One tiger, by itself was responsible for 436 documented deaths. Who knows how many it killed that were not documented.
These tigers were later proven to have physical problems that prevented them from hunting other prey and so they turned to something easier, people. Many of these tigers had broken teeth or claws, old gunshot wounds that healed badly, and a good many had deeply embedded and infected porcupine quills that kept them from being natural hunters.
Tigers are smart as I have said before. They know how to stalk within feet of people without being seen. They attack quickly, and they are strong enough to drag away their prey quickly. They hold grudges. They remember people and situations. They don’t give much of a crap if you yell or wave your arms.
I have learned much about tigers and their inherent cantankerousness. Something to strive for when pursuing Cootness. Heck my Chinese zodiac sign is the tiger, most of those say beware of the monkey, I say the monkey better watch his ass.
What are some of the most cantankerous animals you can think of? I would love to know.
Later, Justin