Where has my cantankerosity gone?

 Posted by at 18:17  Plain 'ol Cantankerous
Jul 072014
 

It’s embarrassing.

Image via Wikipedia

Here we are winding up a year that set records for making sow’s ears out of silk purses. The world is going to hell in a hand basket (yes I know this is a trite cliché but sometimes only a trite cliché can convey your meaning). What I’m trying to say here is that the only thing good about 2011 is that we are almost done with it.

I say good riddance.

But what I’m embarrassed about today is that I’ve lost the will to rant. Search as I might in my inner being, it’s just not there. It may be just the joy and happiness of the season washing away all that bitter acid. Possibly it’s that I’m just overwhelmed by peace and joy not to mention too much to eat. I’m at a loss to explain it. You see, I’ve never had this problem before. Ranting has been second nature, easy as falling off a log.

This year, it’s different.

I’m a weepy wuss. Getting that cloying Christmas update from Cousin Zach never overwhelmed me before. This year I actually thought his new grandson was cute and reading about his road trip to Cedar Rapids made me envious. Then there is the food. That extra piece of pie never overwhelmed my natural distrust of human nature. This year stuffing my face completely unnecessary high calorie treats isn’t just making me fat. Each piece of pie or glass of eggnog is turning me into more of a pussy cat.

It can’t be old age.

Heck I’ve been old for years. There is no way to deny it. Sometimes I can fool myself into forgetting it, if I stay away from mirrors and the arthritis goes quiet. It’s just not something you can hide. If old age were the reason, this would have happened years ago.

So on this final week of what has to be one of the worst years yet, I am full of the milk of human kindness and unable to think a negative thought about anybody. It’s a sorry state of affairs. Whatever the cause, I have hopes that 2012 will restore my life to its former state.

So that’s my resolve for 2012.

I aim to restore my natural distrust in the judgment of others and my honest and completely justified lack of faith in human nature. I think if I can just finish off the last of the holiday food and get the decorations put away, there is hope that I can begin the year in a suitably cantankerous frame of mind.

Meanwhile, while the Christmas spirit and food buzz still clouds my mind, I can’t help myself from wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

 

Down with Protesters

 Posted by at 04:14  Down with, principles, rants
Jun 112014
 

I don’t know  if this is a phenomenon local to Salt Lake City or not.  It seems that businesses all over the valley have been targeted for years by a group of protesters.

These protesters always have a large printed sign on a PVC pipe frame that declares in large red letters, “SHAME ON….” the business name, and “Labor Dispute” on the bottom. I have never been able to see a pattern to it or a reason for it.

These signs are attended by usually 3 or 4 people of various races, genders and persuasions.  Again, no real pattern to it.

Now I am all for Free Speech and the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of these United States, but come on, When you start protesting the hospital that saved my baby girls life with 2 years of dialysis and then a transplant, you piss me off no matter what minimum wage, questionable legal right to work in the US,  labor dispute your tiny mind dreams up on  bottom shelf liquor and who knows what other substances.

I don’t know what their issues are, I can’t find out anything about them on the net.  And forget asking the protesters themselves, they just look at you an shrug like they don’t understand English.

You know I did see one of these signs outside of Disneyland last year.  I guess it is not local to SLC.  That was the guy I asked what they were protesting.  “Labor Dispute” was all he would say.

You know, go ahead and protest, just know what in the name of all that is holy  and right you are protesting about.  Or at least have some sort of….something on the net to tell me why I shouldn’t bring my right to bear arms in direct conflict with your right to assemble and freely speech.

I’m just sayin’

-Justin

Let California fail

 Posted by at 04:14  Plain 'ol Cantankerous, rants
Jun 112014
 

Yesterday voters sent a message to Washington:  “Change course, or the price will be worse next time.”

Sure, the slaughter could have been worse…indeed many wished it had been…but the reality is the change was historic.  I’ll cover the post-mortem over at JuicyMaters.com later today, but here and now I’d like to make one point:

It’s time to cut California loose and let the self-destruction be theirs to deal with.

Californians, with skyrocketing unemployment, home foreclosure rates far above the national average, and a border war with Mexico being sabotaged by sanctuary city after sanctuary city, had a choice.  They could continue with the single most partisan senator in congress, Barbara Boxer, a woman who is more concerned with being called “senator” instead of “M’am”, a woman who considers feeding at the government trough high cuisine, a woman who has never had to make a payroll or create a job, or…

They could choose Carly Fiorina, a proven CEO of a major tech company, who actually created jobs (despite lies told by the Boxer campaign) and who understands living within a budget and not spending money you don’t have.

They could choose “Governor Moonbeam”, a governor from the history books whose failed policies in the past were a large part of the start of the state’s present woes, a classic tax and spend big government liberal, or…

They could choose Meg Whitman, another female former big company CEO whose business background would serve California well these days.

In both cases, Californians chose the big government, big tit to suck, alternative.  Fine. Let them rely on the nanny state…but let their nanny state be their own, not the rest of the country.

Republicans now control the purse strings in congress.  When California comes begging for the inevitable bail out, congress should tell them “folks deserve help when they first help themselves, and you didn’t, California.”

“You are on your own.  Tell Jerry and Babs to fix it.”

Haiku, Haiku, Why?

 Posted by at 04:14  Plain 'ol Cantankerous, rants
Jun 112014
 

Haiku.  Who picks these topics to vote on….ok it was me so I guess I asked for it.  I sat down to write this post and tried to figure out how to address haiku without writing a bunch of them.  (I did write this part of the post before Ralph got his post out, but had I written a bunch of haiku I would just look like a follower and that is in no way cantankerous.)   So I decided to see how many words I could think of that rhymed with haiku.

Here goes: achoo, pew, phew, do….. Eventually I am going to get in trouble for words that people get offended by.  Sorry Bob, I’ll stop with the list.

So now, I have to laugh at this picture, explaining a Japanese poem in Russian with a bit of English tossed in.  Just struck me as funny that’s all.

 

 

Ok so haiku, a small poem with a 5-7-5 structure.  Used to create something profound or beautiful in a structured, disciplined way.  I am not good sticking to those rules.  I like my meter to flow better.  Iambic Pentameter is kind of fun, sticking each like to 10 syllables but haiku is just not long enough.  That must mean I am too wordy.  (Shut up Ralph).

I do agree that limericks are much more fun to write and to read but that is not the topic.  You know I went and read the Wikipedia article about haiku and as much history and significance as they put into it,  it still sounds like a bunch of drunk Japanese guys writing BS and passing it off as art.

My opinion.  If you are a huge fan of the art, write me a post about it and I will run it.  Other wise…..at least limericks written by drunk Irishmen are funny or even profound.

So here is a Coots toast to Haiku:

I hope I never

am forced to write another

a stinking Haiku.

Have a good weekend kids, we will be back with more on Sunday with Ralph’s look at the news.  Right now, I have to go shovel some snow.  Spring in Utah, gotta love it.

 

Osama bin Laden…easier, faster, and cheaper

 Posted by at 04:14  Coot Comedy, rants
Jun 112014
 
US propaganda leaflet used in Afghanistan.

Image via Wikipedia

Well, apparently Osama bin Laden is dead, and this is a good thing. As much as I get on Obama’s ass on just about everything he does, I’ve got to give him props for the “kill, don’t capture” order he gave when approving the operation that last week resulted in bin Laden sleeping with the fishes.

With that said, I must say that the government, as usual, took far longer than was necessary to kill the SOB, and spent a crap load more money, our money, than they needed to.

I guess it’s just a Washington, DC thing, but the government is always fixing things with long, drawn out, complicated, and expensive solutions, when there is a quicker, easier, and cheaper way to accomplish the same thing.

10 years ago, when President Bush said he wanted bin Laden’s head on a platter, he should have come and asked me how to do it. I said then, and I repeat today, I knew how to kill bin Laden in less than a week, and for under $10,000.

Before you dismiss that claim out of hand, remember I live in the foothills of the southern Appalachians, and many of my neighbors are folks that most of America believe only exist in movies like “Deliverance”.

I’ve got news for you people. Those folks do exist, and for the most part they are pretty nice people… right up until you piss them off. Once you make ‘em mad they will open up a giant can of whup ass on you like you have never seen.

To kill bin Laden on the cheap all that would’ve been necessary would be to get 4-5 of these good ol’ boys around here together, cracked open a cooler full of Budweiser, and get a good ol’ fashioned bullshit session going, and let the conversations slowly work its way around to deer hunting. At some point one of the boys, probably the one who has sucked down the most Budweiser so far, is gonna start bragging about his tracking skills.

Bingo. You’ve got your hook.

“Bubba, you can’t track your way out of a paper bag. Steve over there can out track you any day of the week, and besides…once you track something you have to be able to kill it, and you couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with an open choke shotgun, much less a deer at 500 yards with a rifle.”

That’s going to generate a half-hour long argument about tracking and shooting skills, with each claim, and the story that goes with it, getting bigger and bigger.

All that’s left is to reel ‘em in.

“Bubba, if you think you’re such a great tracker, and since you seem to think you can shoot the eye out of a fly at 1000 yards, I’m gonna call you on you shit. Not only do I think you’re lousy at tracking deer, I don’t even think you could track a clumsy human being. The president says we’re gonna kill this bin Laden guy, and it’s a good thing we’ve got them there Green Berets, ‘cause you couldn’t even find the right country, much less find bin Laden hisself.”

Once again, you’ve got a good argument started. There would be lots of back and forth about who could actually find the right country AND find bin Laden himself.

At this point you have five or six good ol’ boys, all of whom are actually great trackers and super accurate marksman, all fired up about who is best. Now, you need to understand something. Folks down here in Appalachia are as patriotic as anybody in this country, BUT they are not totally convinced that the twin towers and NYC are really part of the United States. They sort of look at New York City like they do at Canada, Mexico, and Berkeley,CA…attached to, but not really a part of, the United States. You need to push them just a little bit more to get them jumping up and down, fired up and ready to go prove their hunting skills with bin Laden as their target.

These boys down here are mostly whore-hounds the likes of which you have never seen. Most of them would have sex with a rattlesnake if somebody would hold its head. When it comes to family though, all of their immediate female relatives, including their mommas, are virgins, and these good ol’ boys are real, REAL protective. You just need to give them one more piece of a “information” to set them off on a trip to the Middle East.

“hey guys? You know that bin Laden fella? Well, besides knocking down the World Trade Center, and besides killing about 3000 of our fellow Americans, and besides just being a general, all around piece of pond scum, he’s done something else y’all might not like.

“He’s been sneaking over here for the last couple of years, screwing all of your sisters.”

Bin Laden is toast within 10 days, all for the cost of 5-6 plane tickets.

Hell…they’d even buy their own bullets.

 

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