Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Tuesday, September 1. 2009
Secession, Fires and Dirty Dancing!
Well, my week vacation is over. It wasn’t really a vacation. I was doodling away time with things that were either meaningless or immoral or both. I really like the immoral! Actually went to the beach a couple times and even went in the water! Pneumonia be damned! Well, it was mostly cured, but it felt great to have the the Pacific Ocean wash over me, if only for a few minutes.So, I’m back, just in time too because Texans are about to secede from the Union! Really! There was a rally on the steps of the state capital in Austin, TX demanding Governor Perry follow through on his threat from two months ago to have Texas secede from the United States. One of the yellers screamed into the microphone, “See the flag above the Texas flag? That’s the United States flag! I hate the United States! We hate the United States!”
One woman, Deborah Medina, also a candidate for governor (or president) of Texas, said “they” were ready for a “bloody war,” paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson — which has an irony all its own — with “the tree of freedom sometimes must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” Oh jeez … the blood of tyrants and patriots again. Like the guy who showed up at the president’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire with a sign expressing that same sentiment … and wearing a handgun on his thigh. The threat was implicit, but the man, William Kostric, tried to weasel out of admitting he was threatening bloody confrontation when he appeared on Hardball With Chris Matthews.
These people, the Texas Nationalist Movement, really want to secede from the United States. Can you imagine how nice the U.S. would be without Texas? Aw man, we can dream! Move the Johnson Space Center from Houston to ... err … San Diego. I’d like to get a job with NASA! There are quite a few military installation in Texas, Fort Bliss by El Paso and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi comes to mind, as do Lackland and Randolf Air Force bases, not to mention all the military hardware — owned by the U.S. government and operated by the Texas National Guard and Air National Guard — take that all away from Texas.Thanks to former Speaker of the House Tom Delay, Former President George Bush — and the entire Texas Delegation in Congress — Texas receives more money per capita on its tax dollars than any other state in the Union. So, let Texas secede! They can keep all those federal tax dollars they send to Washington, but they won’t get back the dividend those tax dollars produced.
Now, that’s not likely to happen since only a third of the state’s population supports secession … but think about that! The population of Texas is just over 24 million, which means roughly eight million people support Texas leaving the United States. Eight million! Certainly not a majority, but really a lot of people.
More than likely, the Texans for secession would be in a bloody war with the Texans, Democrat and Republican alike, who are against secession. I’m betting blood will flow before this issue is decided. Texas is one of those states that allow its citizens to carry weapons, concealed and otherwise. It’s the will of the people.
I’ve sent an e-mail to my sister, who lives just outside of Houston, asking her about seceding from the Union. She’s a Republican and hates President Obama — or at least his policies — but I gotta wonder if she supports leaving the U.S.
Still, the idea of the United States without Texas sounds so good. No more Dallas Cowboys!
It’s fire season in California again. Fires all over the state, but the biggest, most publicized, fire is in Los Angeles County (mostly) and is now threatening high population areas. In other words, it’s threatening Los Angeles itself.Two years ago in this area of San Diego, fires threatened residents. Many of the residents in Scripps Ranch were evacuated and many of the evacuees lost their homes.
Six years ago my brother Carl and I lived in a community called Sabre Springs and we almost had to evacuate due to the 2003 Cedars Fire, the largest in California’s history. About 2,500 homes were burned in that fire. Some of my friends were affected by it and still remember with some fear what we went through. When the fire season starts, those same fears well up.
Los Angeles burning is a reminder it can happen here as well. It will probably happen here as well this year. It has been especially dry, both the brush and the air. Humidity has dropped to single digits as the temperature has risen to triple digits.
California has been in a drought for years and we’ve instituted mandatory water rationing. What we really need are some torrential rains, or at least a steady rain for a day or two, but that’s not likely to happen at this time of year.
Thankfully the Santa Ana Winds aren’t blowing otherwise that L.A. fire would have been far worse than it is now.
And on a lighter note: many times a day there’s been a commercial for the Sandals Resort chain featuring a familiar song, but I could never put my finger on where it came from or who was performing it. No, it isn’t the Sandals title song for the Bruce Brown film Endless Summer, although that’s a pretty cool song.
The song I’ve been bombarded with whenever the Sandals commercials come on is of more recent vintage, but, as it turns out, still over 20 years old. Yes, I’m speaking of the Dirty Dancing song, “Time of My Life,” sung by Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers and Jennifer Warnes. You remember Dirty Dancing, the film that made Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey stars.
Let’s not forget the legendary (and late) Jerry Orbach as the disapproving dad.
Man! Loved that movie just to watch Jennifer Grey! “But she was underage,” you say! No, not really. When she made Dirty Dancing Jennifer Grey was 26. She just played a teenage girl. She was also in one of my favorite movies of all time, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, playing the 16 year old sister of Ferris, the most beloved son of their Chicago suburb. Grey was 25 when she made that movie. She had that look of being much younger than her actual age, a real benefit in the 1980’s when teen angst movies had their golden age.Anyway, Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes aren’t performing the version in the commercial, that much is evident. Still, it’s a song I can’t get out of my head and now watching a YouTube Video of Swayze and Grey dancing to it … I can’t get Jennifer Grey out of my head. Dirty indeed!
Calendar
Quicksearch
Archives
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport