NPR is just full of shit

I have been listening to the chatter over juan williams getting fired from npr for admitting that he felt apprehensive when boarding a plane with muslim people.

Coming from a point of view that is right of center, I'm not surprised that he was fired. He gave fox news too much face time for the powers that be at npr to be comfortable with him.

The funny thing about all of this is that the folks over there that gave him the boot are guilty of the same thing that most of the more enlightened of our society that lean to the left are guilty of... They do exactly what it is that they bark about right wing nuts doing, but then deny it.

I've listened to talk radio for years, watched fox news for about the same amount of time... I've read democratic underground, huffington post, newsmax, etc etc and an amazing thing has taken place... I haven't been brainwashed yet.

What I have noticed is that most people on the right are willing to listen to what others have to say while our brethren on the left don't give a shit about an opposing view point. They hear the name of a person, group, or network and begin the usual diatribe of bullshit without simply lending an ear to the actual words that are spoken.

In all matters of opinion, common sense is usually the first victim. Take the tea party for example. The message is pretty simple, less government intrusion, less money taken from us by government and more freedom from government. Yet they are attacked almost hourly on websites and twenty four cable news as being xenophobic, racist, homophobic, illiterate people. When the truth of the matter is exactly the opposite. It's easy to watch a television program that depicts these people as such and believe it. If you were to subscribe to the talking head and blogosphere point of view of "tea baggers" you would think the entire group consisted of sarah palin, christine o'donnell, joe miller, and rand paul.

I've spoken with tea baggers, worked with tea baggers, been to political meetings with tea baggers... but wait!

I've also spent time around the enlightened ones on the left....

Democratic meetings, green party meetings, socialist party meetings.... Down through the years I've spent time with them all. I can say with absolute certainty that people that lean to the right hold far less vitriol than those that lean to the left. Besides, the parties of the right leaning people are far better....

I've said this before, reality versus popular opinion is never what people think... Skewing someones vision is easy business, give me a production company and budget similar to what michael moore spent on his last film and I could turn out a hit piece that would have you afraid to set foot in amish country, a nasty place full of serial killers, pedophiles, and cannibalism...

I went to a dinner with tea party members and all they discussed was political theory and proposed policies, while a similar dinner with democrats was nothing but a bitch fest about rush limbaugh and sean hannity...

I live in georgia, just south of atlanta.. This is hick central right? Home of abortion provider killing, knuckle dragging, racist, sister fucking, inbred mouth breathers right? You want to know something strange? I have not yet once heard race brought into any discussion about president obama.. not once... Policies about taxes, imports/exports, jobs, etc yes.. but not one mention of race.. strange that...

I'm not concerned with party affiliation or labels at all. I do however listen to what people say, and then I look at what these same people have done. Would I vote for christine o'donnell? Hell no... Why? because she's a fucking idiot. Sarah palin for president? You have got to be kidding....

But the thing about it is this... I'm not afraid of these people either. What jon stewart or bill maher says about them doesn't matter to me. When a discussion ensues about any of these people and the first thing that happens is an insult you know its going to be useless... a complete waste of time...

I recently enhanced my parlor game.... I have always enjoyed being in a group of people that are rabidly to the left and are depicting the right wing as nazis and destroyers of the earth, then introducing policy discussions to the conversation. It never fails.. if you talk policy without mentioning party or politicians names.. they always agree with what you say. Always. The new twist is to then discuss policies that the candidates they actually back endorse.... They actually get mad about it, aggressively so. "You believe what?"

The eye opener comes when people drop the hate, drop the junior high attitude, drop the fad and fashion and get serious. When people have an actual discussion about what the real time outcome would be if a president were to drop favored nation status in trade, charge fair taxes on imports, replace the internal revenue service with the fair tax, make all elected officials adhere to a restriction of two terms in office, get rid of most of the federal government's spending on everything except military (which could be cut in half), you would find an actual civil discourse taking place...

It's far too easy to toss up pictures of tea baggers in ridiculous poses and title them with drivel about witch hunts or nazis.... It's easy to call people hypocrites when they talk endlessly about family values while nailing their illegal housekeeper who gets drugs for them. It's much more difficult to come out of the closet of the twelve year old mindset who is looking for nothing more than ratings and validation and discover what people are really like. Spend time with people that you know you disagree with politically. You will find that corporate media has brainwashed most of us to keep us confused, because we all agree on more than you would believe.

Trigger issues are easy to toss out there, things that are comprised solely of opinion. Abortion, gay marriage, religious theology... You will never change my opinions... just as I will never change yours. Enlightenment begins when we all realize this and discover that its ok to spend time with people that think differently than you do.

The noise of the global media is loud, violent, turbulent, and frightening, but just under its surface is common sense. Common sense is calm and smooth. When you move away from people who live with a personal agenda (which is always about them getting money, attention, and laid) and get serious about changing the landscape of politics in this country you will discover as I have... It's a sad state of affairs when we all agree on things that actually effect us, yet want to kill each other.

Murdered

I thought about this one... I thought for a while about it...

Earlier tonight as Patrick was on facebook he turned to us and asked if we remembered his friend that he used to hang out with a couple of years ago. We did...

He told us that he had died, we asked how and he told us that he was shot in a hunting accident and died this morning. He was getting reports from other people on line about it and was giving us details as he learned what had happened.

After a while he googled the names of people they were talking about. Turns out that the boy was shot Saturday afternoon during a dispute. He and his older brother were both shot. The younger child died this morning at a hospital in Atlanta. The nineteen year old that shot them has been charged with murder.

Patrick and this kid were friends for a long time until a little over a year ago... He was at our house a lot. He went places with us, we carted both of them around all over.... Patrick had just started running around with him and his older brother... When Patrick's fifteenth birthday rolled around last year he wanted a camp out type party in the front yard with his friends. During the party there was a bit of a falling out and they really haven't spoken much since then.

We saw him not long ago in town. I don't know any details as to what happened, but the impact has been profound. I have sat here this evening thinking about them together at the renaissance festival watching them act silly and play around.

I keep thinking about his mannerisms and the things he talked about. I have ran the last conversation we had through my mind over and over all evening. This is just beyond reproach. The child was too young to die. He was the same age as Patrick. He wasn't given the opportunity to live. I read articles on line about it and it appears there was a some sort of argument going on and other people showed up and gunfire broke out.

Many thoughts are swimming around in my mind, the injustice, the horror of their parents, the kids voice, and would Patrick have been with them if they had not have had the falling out they did.

That last one has weighed heavily on me....

Hand carved cypress knee with Santa and tree

I have completed the second piece of cypress that I got from my mother.... A couple of posts ago I spoke about going to my father's shop with my mother. While there I came across two pieces of cypress. The first piece, featured here, was painted a flat brown, the second piece was painted a bright red.


Dad had painted this one red with the idea of painting a Santa face and Christmas tree on it. He never got around to finishing the piece.


The first step was to strip the paint from the piece, which proved to be a long process... The bark was still in place on this one, which added to the over all frustration of the beginning steps. Once the bark and paint had been removed I had to hand sand the entire knee, being as old as it is, there was no way I could use any sort of power sander. The wood was so dry that it would have been damaged beyond repair.

Once the piece was ready I carved the Santa, then the tree.... I carved the tree resting on top of a brick wall, why I did that I have no idea, it just seemed appropriate...


I hope that I have grasped something of the vision my father had for the cypress knee...

The cypress knee stands twenty one inches tall and features a single stain and is coated in varnish... I decided to stain it a solid color rather to paint it, again, it just seemed appropriate for some reason.

If you are interested in purchasing this piece, the price is $150 You can contact me at 678-423-6541 or email me at crickhollowcarving@gmail.com

Studying with my Dad

Many years ago I was having one of those late night discussions with my father, this one was about family tradition... We had covered the basic points in bloodline historical moments such as moonshiners, thieves, soothsayers, preachers, mill workers, and carnies...

The lesson I was being taught then switched over to the Creek and Cherokee ancestry in our family. He began telling me the history of these people as if he had lived it. Names, dates, and places all rolled off his tongue as if he had been there. This was a disturbing thing that he could do, his recall was frightening.

The hour grew late and he was well into the story of the retaliation brought down on Red Eagle for his attack on Fort Mims in 1813. He told me about the slaughter of the people at the fort and how most Creek towns were decimated in the aftermath. He ended with the statement "When Red Eagle surrendered and shook the hand of that son of a bitch he sealed their fate..."

We talked well into the wee hours of the morning when he brought up a book he had and suggested I read it. He retrieved it from his shelf and handed it to me, making me promise to return it as soon as I was finished with it. I made the promise and headed home. He called me several times over the next few days asking me if I was finished with it. The second I read the last line I took it over there and handed it to him, when he asked after a book with such perseverance you knew he was concerned about it and wanted it returned in good condition.

A few months ago my mother and I were talking about his reading habits and I asked her how he retained such vast amounts of information.. She told me that he didn't just read a book, he studied it voraciously.. She then told me to go through the books that were left on the shelves and pick out any that I may want. I looked around for a few and saw several that dated back to my childhood. Then my eyes landed on the book I had borrowed... I picked it up and asked if I might have it.. She said I could and I took it home and placed it on my shelf.

I haven't touched the book since I sat it in line with the Bibles and Tolkiens that I hold dear... Earlier this evening I was lamenting that I had nothing new to read, a situation briefly assuaged by revisiting Tolkien and then the Harry Potter series... I began looking through my books hoping for something to jump out at me, much the same thing as standing in front of a refrigerator for the third or fourth time in an evening thinking its contents would have changed in the past twenty minutes...

I noticed the little book sitting there and absentmindedly picked it up from the shelf and began to read. I thought about the discussion my father and I had that evening as I made it through four chapters before closing it and heading over here to the computer... For some reason I thumbed through the book before placing it back on the shelf and a piece of paper fell out. I picked it up and looked down at it, the paper was written over by my fathers hand... There were names, dates, and quotes written on it... I sat for a while and thought of him as I looked over the paper and read the things he had chosen to write down...

I knew he had read the book before he let me borrow it and this piece of paper wasn't in it when I had it, so he had read it again and made notes for himself... I am amazed by how he treated history, he held it in such high regard. He always told me that you could never learn enough about anything and that "most people talk too damn much to learn anything..."

I smiled to myself, folded the paper back in half and placed it where I had stopped reading... Over the years I have acquired many bookmarks, this one I shall keep with honor, I can assure you it shall not get lost or damaged.. it's funny that this is the only book I have ever had that I haven't dogeared a single page in..

Late night ride

I was sitting there on a Friday evening with nothing to do and had run around the channels on the television for the four hundredth time when I tossed the remote aside and headed for the car. I was feeling on edge, had been for several days and needed something. Back then I had 1985 pontiac fiero gt, a purchase I made in direct response to having been chauffeur for a group of friends for several years... I was actually surprised I could fit in the damn thing. It was small, fast, and only had two seats. Having driven that thing for a few months my habits behind the wheel had changed.. I moved from a 1981 chevy malibu four door piece of shit that topped out around sixty five on a good day to the fiero and my average cruising speed went from forty to seventy.

I was working north of Atlanta at the time and driving in the interstate free for all every day had honed my abilities quickly to an almost professional level. We've all been there, late night runs on the interstate just to feel the wind blowing and have the radio loud. I headed for I-85, but when I got on the bridge I did a U-turn in the middle of the road and headed back to jump on the south bound lanes... I drove the north bound side every day... time for a bit of a change..

The fiero had a six cylinder engine in a car that weighed next to nothing, the speedometer topped out at eighty five but with the power it had it would run smoothly around one hundred and twenty. When I reached the middle of the ramp I floored it and hit top speed with the needle quickly passing the eighty five mark to drop straight down and shimmy with that "you might be able to push out a little more speed" wobble.

I had gone up to what was then exit ten and was headed south. When the sign came for the Newnan exit I moved over to the left lane and maintained the gas peddle to the mat. When I reached the Moreland exit I suddenly had a destination in mind... I exited and hung the right turn with hardly losing any speed as I headed for sixteen toward Griffin. Normally that is a deer killing route to take late at night, but for some reason I never thought of either deer or police as as I pushed the car back to interstate cruising speed.

The only time I slowed down was when I reached the city limits of Griffin. I made the first stop at the gas station there by I-75 to fill the tank, then I hopped on and continued my way southward... The radio was loud and the wind was screaming through the cockpit of the little airplane I was flying down 75. I remember thinking "I will go to jail if I get caught" as I never once slowed down going through Macon.

I felt my front pocket as I exited onto 16 to make sure I had enough supplies, and it was full of quarters... excellent...

The next stop came in the town of Dublin when I exited to fill up the tank again, Dublin has the cleanest restrooms on 16 so it's the only place I stop. Once back on the interstate my senses got back to normal after having been assaulted by the fluorescent and neon harshness of the gas & sip.. My speed got back up to a good level again as the smell of the pines wafted in and mixed with Mr. Marley's songs coming from the cd player. As the median became wider and the land flattened to its monotonous soul sucking desolation, the trees began popping up between the north and south bound lanes. I thought about the way the cops liked to hide in the trees all through this stretch, yet I said fuck it and kept the speed going.

The signs started the count down as I headed south and with each one I would look at the clock and time the next few hours out in my mind.. It was looking good. The air coming in through the windows was growing more humid with each passing mile and I was starting to relax. Then I saw it..

The interstate dropped me off on the familiar streets and a sly smile broke across my lips when I saw the first palm tree my eyes had beheld in months... With no thought at all I traversed the well worn path over to Bay street and started the twenty mile per hour ride down to the islands expressway..

I took in the smells and sounds of my surroundings but didn't look at anything except for the tail lights of the car in front of me. When I was next to Bull street I put the windows up in anticipation of what was to come. I spared a look and quick nod to the old haunt on my right as I dropped off Bay street and started on the ride over to eighty... I actually laughed out loud when I went over the little grated bridge that raises straight up for the boats to pass under.. I was almost home...

I made the left turn onto eighty and gassed the car up a bit faster than I should have, but I was ready to get there... The first bridge came into view and dropped the windows to let that salt marsh smell fill the car. I breathed deep as the one hundred percent humidity and ocean water smell washed over me.. damn this was nice...

When I reached the traffic light I looked to my right and saw the flood lights on down at the shack and laughed again.. they were coming in.. perfect timing... I swung the car to the right then back to the left and drove down the little road to the dock. I got out and stretched, then walked over to the little building, Knocking once as I walked in.. I was met by the blood shot eyes of a man that had skin the color of a walnut and almost as wrinkled..

"You got anything in I could get?"

"How much you want?"

"Give me five or so.."

He reached in a cooler and handed me a bag, I tossed him a few bucks and headed back to the car, dropping the bag in the styrofoam cooler in the little trunk, I looked at the threadbare quilt next to it & smiled again...

I got on the road and headed back out. I crossed onto the island and took a deep breath just to let the world get tossed off my shoulders with the air coming out my lungs. I stopped in the first "chu's" I came to and got a bag of ice for the cooler and a single red stripe for the wading. A street or two to the left later I pulled in and parked next to a meter... I got out, fed all the quarters in, grabbed the quilt out of the trunk and started up the wooden walkway over the dunes.. I laughed again as I shook all the sand out of the quilt, there was no reason at this point... I made my way half way over to the pier and tossed the quilt on the ground next to the swing.. I kicked off my shoes and walked down to the water.. I didn't stop until I was knee deep. I took the red stripe out of my pocket and popped the top off. I stood as the sand slowly moved from under my feet and I drank deep of the beverage, almost as deep as I drank of the smell of the water and the womb like sound of the waves breaking around me. I stared up at the brightest moon I had seen in a while, then would look out as far as I could see to the tiny lights of the ships coming in from all over the world...

When the drink was gone I turned around and made my way back to the swing... I sat down and timed my movements with the waves coming in. When I began to nod a little I stood up, stepped over and dropped into the old quilt on the sand, that's a sleep that you can not beat...

I was awakened a couple of hours later by the sounds of people making their way out to the end of the pier for fishing. I stood up and brushed the sand off me as I sat back down in the swing and waited for the show.... A little while later I watched as the sun rose over the horizon... There is just nothing to compare... When the sun was blazing and the morning joggers started to show up I grabbed the quilt and made my way back to the car...

I drove down the street to the arby's and parked the car. I grabbed the cooler out of the trunk and started down the little side street, passing by all the rental properties until I saw the old two story house I was headed for.. I laughed as I always did when it came into view.. People passed out on the porch, Nets and shells all over the place, cars parked haphazardly with no thought of geometrical arrangement.. I walked up the steps, moving through the bodies... The smell of coffee met me as I dropped the cooler on the porch by the huge kettle and propane tank, then I walked through the screen door... The laughter that greeted me was full of cigarettes and a long night as I reached for a cup..

"I thought I would see you soon... You got the shrimp?"

"They're on the porch ready to go..."

"Well, lets get at these eggs before those fools wake up then we can put them on and wait for lunch..."

Damn... it was a good idea to go for a drive...