What Is Wrong With Me?

In my heart, my real question is "What in holy hades is wrong with YOU?" Yes--you and you and you. But, I'm trying to consider the slim possibility that I'm the crazy person.  I mean people are just walking around everyday, acting like there's not a thing wrong with the world. It must be ME.

I'm trying to acknowledge, accept that the world progresses, life changes.  Wasn't there a time when parents thought Rock n' Roll was evil, that Elvis was nasty and vulgar?  The man could be the Pope in these days.  Speaking of ridiculous people for important positions---according to folks who obviously are much saner than myself, America has very intelligently pared down our choice of who will be the next president of our country to a few choices.  The ultra smart talking heads on media, the polls, the political predictors say that we will most likely either have a lying female who has political gain root-canaled into her teeth, a "let the government take care of you" admitted socialist or a white shoe salesman who believes money is the measure of success and talking loud and obnoxious will keep us safe from a world that hates and has no respect for us.

I must be the crazy one.  With millions of people in America, with all the intelligent, honest and patriotic citizens that I want to believe still exist in our country---even among the offered candidates of both parties, people who have character and care about the direction our country is moving, we are choosing to settle for these people. We are giving them the attention, the serious consideration. I wouldn't even give these bottom of the barrel folks the time of day. 

Maybe I'm hanging on to an America that doesn't exist anymore. I'm not saying that there isn't always huge space for change. Tearing down and throwing away every single ideal that has made our country a free and great place to be, can't be the answer to our problems.  As squirrely nuts as I am, who would I choose? who do I think should be our new leader?  I wish I had a real definite choice. What I do know is that I do not want a president who lies for their own political gain, who walks on a thin edge of legal and moral ground. I don't want a president who thinks that it's the right thing to do to use the forced taxes paid by hard working Americans to take care of all the citizens, as well as the non citizens who don't choose to work for their survival. I don't want a president who believes that law abiding citizens shouldn't have a gun to defend their property and families, who thinks the constitution is an outdated document that can be ignored.

Patriotism, character, hard work, constitutional guaranteed rights---freedom. What crazy radical ideals.

Are Preppers Crazy?

The answer to "Are preppers crazy?" changes and is varied. There was a brief time in recent years when television explored the philosophy and ideas of the survivalist, doomsday folks extensively. Then, like all things American, people quickly bored of it and except for The Walking Dead and a few hangers on, the wonderful world of tv is on to other things.

I was pleased that the Republican debaters last evening actually mentioned the possible threat of an EMP and the danger of ignoring (or practically enabling) those in the world who would love to have the capability of inflicting such a disaster upon America.  The world, at it's best, is a precarious environment. There's not only those that would engage in insanely reckless behavior and bring our comfy little lives to a halt---there's the natural occurrences that we have very little control over that loom always around our heads.

So, are those---and to some people's surprise, there are millions---that believe in making preparations for a catastrophic event, crazy?  I say a big fat NO.   You can laugh if you like, you can go about your daily life and just believe that if something horrible happens, well, someone will rescue me, someone will feed me, someone will protect and give me shelter. It's America, right?"

Just ask yourself a few questions:
                   Have you ever gotten really sick, say with the flu, a virus bug or such. You know, too sick to really take care of yourself, too sick to get out of the bed and realized that you barely had a can of soup on the shelf?  You just hadn't had time to get the store this week.

                   Have you ever had your car break down and were strapped to get it repaired and wondered, how in hade's am I going to function without that vehicle?

                   Have you ever been a couple of days from payday and had to just make your groceries stretch, invent something out of what was on the shelf?

                   Have you ever been truly captured inside due to bad weather, winter or stormy? Ever had to be without power or water for just a few days?

If you haven't experienced any of these temporary inconveniences, you're indeed fortunate. Just take a moment and imagine any or all of those events magnified and extended, perhaps permanently.  Could you literally survive and for how long and could you protect your family?

It's far from crazy to make some preparations for a bad day or future. I'm not talking about wearing a mask and a foil hat, digging a hole, giving up your pleasant life to hoard away supplies. I'm saying that it is smart for all of us to just make some preparations for a day when our world is not like we are accustomed to.  If you just bought three extra items, each week when you shop---canned goods, over the counter medicine, dried goods---at the end of the month, you would have 12 things on an emergency shelf or under your bed. At the end of six months you would have 72 items stored away. This does not have to be expensive or take up a lot of space. 

Just this one last question, when you're in your comfy bed tonight, in the dark. What if no one was any better off than you in a disaster, no one was there to come help? Or what if the only people coming were the bad guys?   Just buy that can of beans tomorrow, and stick it away. I promise, you'll never miss that dollar.

I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid.  JO



                  

                  

Homogenized America

What in the world has happened to our American game of football? Where are the tough, rough football players that I grew up watching?   Just this morning, as I was doing my typical business on the computer and listening to whatever the spouse had playing on the television in the other room...honestly, I could get by most of the time with a radio...I heard some player? coach? (not sure) that had lost a game, crying. CRYING, for pity's sake!  Give me a blanking break.

Tom Hanks said it so well in the movie about a 1940's all woman baseball team, "There is no crying in baseball" or football or sports.  Don't take me wrong. My very manly hubby, the one who played all sports from the time he was a boy, the one that was in the Marines, the one that served in the Fire Department for 30 years---that hubby has a soft and sensitive side. It is certainly something that I love about him.  Men most certainly are allowed to cry. Just like women, however, there is an appropriate time and place and reason for it.  Call me cold, I happen to think that the loss of a game, a screwed up play and national television doesn't qualify.  In competitive sports, someone wins and someone losses. That's just the fact, or at least it used to be.

There is a sickening and weak homogenizing of America and our culture,  a stupid movement to make everything even and fair, all smooth and pretty.  Nobody is to get their feelings hurt.  Even all this high drama about injuries and concussions, it's just inane.   When those football players sign on the line for their multi million dollar contracts, every single one of them knows the risk they are assuming. Football is not Ping Pong, it's a contact sport played by large, strong men. Do I think that football and any sport should have every innovation to increase the safety of the players? Of course, I do.  But, the players make a choice, just like all of us do in life, every day.

The hubby might have come home after a bad fire the night before and wept to me in private, cried for loss of life or property. He would've never complained about being burned. He made a choice to fight fires for a living.  I, like millions of women, chose to have children. Did I cry in childbirth? You bet your butt I did.  Childbirth hurts like hell and I knew it when I made my choice. I darn sure didn't wake up the next day and say, "You know, somebody needs to do something about this having baby thing. It's just dangerous and it hurts!"  

This, of course, isn't really only about sports. This is about a ridiculous effort to make everything in our society fair and easy.  An attempt by very misguided "fix the world" people to guarantee that not one person is offended, that not one person has less than another, that everything is all creamy and pure like homogenized milk.  This is not natural and it is completely destructive for the survival of America.  Humans cannot survive and thrive without challenges that test their character and build their strength.  Didn't your momma ever teach you that life is not fair? There's plenty of things in this world to just lay down and cry about---football isn't one of them.  Shake it off, suck it up, act like a man. If that is offensive, sexist, whatever, this old southern sissy girl couldn't care less.  Football, all professional sports are hard. If you don't want the big bucks and the pain, start practicing your ping pong, sweetie.