Climate of Fear: The War for America's Shy People

The rhetoric in this countryhas become ridiculous - on both sides! Saying this will not get me a large audience as a blogger. Many conservatives have decided that telling lies is okay as long as your intent is good. The hard left has been doing so for years. Wild stories and inflammatory language is one way to have a popular blog, though.

Me, I'm congenitally unable to do some of the things you have to do to be a successful blogger - among those, tell "good" stories if I know them to be untrue. I'm not very good at writing to be search engine optimized. It seems dishonest to write so that you repeat key words that are popular search words on Google, Yahoo, Bing and the rest. Technically, I should find a way to mention, for instance, Ted Kennedy, Mary Jo Kopechne, Chappaquiddick, Robert Novak, Michael Jackson or Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane (some sort of romantick entanglement I believe). All these are high on the most often searched list of keywords this week. Unfortunately, four years of Mrs. Creel's English classes taught me the evils of artificial writing and I cannot do it and feel good about myself, no matter if it would help me get one million "hits".

If I wanted to rile up some conservative readers and win their allegiance, I should mention Van Jones, Glenn Beck or Town Hall. I do, if I have something to say about those things, but writing an article where I repeat those names simply to get the search engine to move me up in a word search seems as disingenuous as Michael Savage calling himself by his full name instead of using pronouns like "I" or "me". Makes me want to smack him!

According to master blogger, Robert Stacy McCain, some other tricks include finding ways to insert popular women in not much clothing into your blog, picking fights so that you gain lots of enemies and spending a LOT of time self-promoting.

Ah, well, I guess I didn't really want to be a wildly successful blogger anyway. I think I'd rather write honestly. I sleep better at night that way.

Now that I've wandered off topic, let me get back to it. I read a piece in which a liberal someone had gone to a town hall and waved around a map with Iraq on it. He found (surprise, surprise) that 75% of those who opposed Obama's health care initiative were:

1. Unable to find Iraq on a map though it was brightly colored and in the center of the map.

2. All stupid white people who only memorized anti-health care junk that Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity had sent them by e-mail or were paid by some mega-insurance companies that had paid them to spread lies about Obamacare.

3. All were probably either on Medicare or Veteran's Care and were hypocrites anyway.

Again I am shocked.

Okay, that was sarcasm. I admit it. It's just that once again, we're getting the same old Democrat tactic. I remember it from high school where it was a popular way to keep the cool kids in power. No matter what happens, if you don't believe and act the way the popular kids did, you were labeled stupid and ignorant even if you have a 139 IQ, a 4.0 GPA and actually knew what you are talking about.

It's the rhetorical equivalent of the masterful comeback, "Oh, yeah!" The Democrats are masters of it.

They'er using it to marginalize the frighteningly large numbers of angry mainstream Americans who are showing up for Health Care Town Hall meetings this summer. The target to be intimidated and "guided" into correct liberal thinking by this particular anti-free speech campaign, however, is not the mythical moderates. It's not conservatives. It's not even the liberal base that supports the health care takeover. This tactic is aimed at people who, by nature, don't want to make a fuss. They don't want to get into a screaming match. They don't want anybody to be mad at them and they do not want to be thought of as "different". This is the group that is truly the swing vote in US elections. They are the go-alongs. It takes a lot to move them and fear that something bad will happen that will upset their world is one of the biggest things that motivates them to action. It takes a lot to get these guys out to a town hall meeting. It is not in their nature to go against anything, much less their duly elected congressman or woman. They don't really understand all the ramifications of political stuff like this because it really doesn't concern them. Only when something threatens the health, comfort and safety of their families. Why else do you think the message is, "Don't worry. Health Care Reform won't hurt you. It will make everything good for all Americans. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain....."

If you go to a town hall, watch how these plain simple folk react when they get really angry at their congressman. Watch them shake their heads as they speak. It's as though they are saying "No, no, no, no, no..." all the time they are confronting this powerful person that they may actually have voted for because they were comfortable with him. They don't want to be there. They don't want to confront this person. They look over at the union guys and the liberal plants sent there to intimidate them and they just flat want to go home and hide. Even their body language says "I don't like doing this."

The problem is that even if they agree with someone, if that person or group resorts to the tactics of shouting, fear and intimidation, they drive those same people away. It's a careful dance between just enough intimidation and too much. Joe McCarthy failed to understand that back in the early 50's. He was right about Communists infiltrating Hollywood. It really was happening. Americans were frightened by it. But when he resorted to Gestapo like tactics, he lost America's shy people. There was a point in the McCarthy hearings where the country gave a collective cringe and turned off their radios. After that, no one cared how much of what he said was true. They weren't listening anymore.

At first, Washington, the Adams boys, Jefferson and Patrick Henry were considered rabble rousers and the American colonists by and large really didn't want to hear them. Mel Gibson captured the sentiment in his character's reaction to the revolution in "The Patriot". He just wanted to take care of his kids and his farm. He wasn't looking to confront power. He knew what the cost would be and he shrank from paying that cost.

I don't blame him. I don't blame any of the grandmas and grandpas that have driven to the town halls in their pickups and big grandma Buicks. It happened during the Revolution. Britain got cocky and pushed their grab for power too far too fast. They made the silent majority, the shy people of America fear for their way of life.

That's what's happening in the first months of the Obama administration. They chose the quick grab for power over the slow, steady approach. The Cap and Trade and Health Care Initiatives are the equivalent of a "Hail Mary" pass in football. I think they've decided that this is the last chance for socialism and if they risk it all on this one roll of the dice, they can win!

Bloggers, talk show hosts and conservative action groups are fighting a delaying action, hoping Americans will wake up to what's happeing before it's too late. We need to block that Hail Mary pass or time may actually run out on us. We'll be left with a frightening new system of government with the power to destroy all opposition in its way.

Delay and Sound the Alarm!

We need night riders like Paul Revere to wake up the country to its peril. We also need the informants that found out the British were coming and where they were going to. Soon we'll need the patriots at the bridge standing toe to toe with a foe that is disciplined, well-armed and confident. But on that day, which side will America's shy people be standing behind? That's the critical factor in whether we win or lose in this fight for freedom.

I think I can tell you which side they'll take. It'll be the side that best convinces them it can protect their way of life - the things they most value. The side that best articulates its case without malice or brutality (or at least without the appearance of malice and cruelty) will carry the field. As Ghandi and Martin Luther King, the original Martin Luther and Jesus Christ himself demonstrated, it may require some of us to have nerves of steel - the ability to hold our fire till we see the whites of their eyes. We may have to risk our lives and our honor, our wealth and our safety. Some of us may be ruined in the effort. Some may not survive. The way to win may well be for enough of us to go down with dignity and reveal the foe as a cruel tyrant by his behavior. We may lose talk radio, conservative news, religious broadcasting and independent publications before it's over. We may lose a lot of things we value before America fully wakes.

I hope not.

In this current, and what I believe may be final, conflict, we must tell the truth, no matter what. We must not pass along lies and rumors just because it works to make people believe like we do. Our opponents do that very well. They lie themselves and then convict us in the press of lies we never told. They make up things to support their agenda, no matter whether they are the truth or not. We must not do that too! We must not resort to the tactics of Goebbels, Stalin, Mussolini Saddam Hussein and their ilk simply because lying is an effective tool to get what you want.

Let us be careful in this conflict to tell the truth. I'm listening to both sides and there are many out there who believe that what our government is trying to do is wrong. Many tell the truth scrupulously no matter what their critics say to the contrary. Others say exciting things that will get them ratings without any concern for whether the things they say are true or not. If it sounds good, they'll use it. I get a dozen e-mails a day from people I care very much for with stories in them that are lies. They are great stories and may make me mad at people I should be mad at. Nonetheless they are lies and we hurt ourselves by telling them.

It is harder for a righteous man to fight a war. There are weapons we may not use; tactics in which we may not engage. The clerk at my local grocery store believes that Jesus's coming is imminent. That may well be the answer to the prayer that many freedom-loving Americans have been praying lately.

God help us!

Publish Post

The Tyranny of Multiple Choice

Over the past decade, I have watched American culture become polarized in a way unprecedented in history. It's almost Biblical in its scope. Jesus described it as a separation of sheep and goats. This ever sharpening division between Americans is not a simple right vs. left, religious vs. non-religious, urban vs. rural schism. Throughout our history, Americans have always maintained a broad culture with room for a wide range of belief sets and opinions.  

This so-called melting pot has never been about making us all the same, but about blending the vibrant array of "flavors" that our immigrant forebears brought with them to this land. Think of a good soup or a salad with all those wonderful flavors, blended, and yet distinct. To continue the food metaphor, American culture is a spicy gourmet dish. It is not, however, a dish that other, more insular cultures around the world necessarily understand or appreciate. We like it though and shouldn't that be enough? Why should we worry about whether others appreciate what we have here or not? Weren't those the guys that kicked our grandmas and grandpas out in the first place? Didn't our ancestors leave those places because THEY didn't like the choices those countries and cultures offered? And this brings me to my point.

Choices!

I notice that old cultures, long-established countries and civilizations have a tendency to eradicate choice. Democracy does not long survive the rise to power and so-called "greatness". It happened with Greece when Alexander came along. It happened to Rome under the Caesars and in France where the Revolution was followed by horror then Napoleon.

The question you have to ask is, "Has America set its feet on the downhill road to despotism?"

Can we stop it?

I think it has something to do with computers! Stay with me. I'm not going Luddite on you. I love my computer and I think it's one of the most wonderful communication devices and the most transformative tool to come along in Earth's history, standing only behind Christianity and the plow for sheer power to change humanity for the better or worse.

Are computers evil? No. A tool is a tool. A sword can harvest grain or slaughter innocent people by the dozens. It isn't the machine itself, it's how it stores and retrieves data that is the great problem. There's an old saying that goes, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." That applies here.

Almost single-handedly the computer has virtually eliminated the very thing we most despised about school when we were kids. There was always one sort of test that teachers gave that we dreaded worse than a trip to the dentist - The essay test.

I taught school for 5 years and I can tell you that essay tests are a pain in the butt to grade. Kids hate them. Teachers hate them. We used to give them out of a sense of duty to force kids to really think. They are hard to create and harder still to grade.

Since my teaching days, however, the computer has saved students and teachers from the dreaded essay. Because computers are very good at collecting data, storing it, crunching numbers and spitting out scores, they have seduced our education system away from the essay toward the multiple choice answer. Remember how we loved true/false tests as kids and how relieved we were to find out there wouldn't be any essay questions on the exam. True/false and multiple choice tests were great. You could guess and still get some right. An answer was simple. Right or wrong. A, B, or C. Just a matter of guessing which was the most correct answer.

I helped my granddaughter write a series of essay projects for school a couple of years ago. It was stunned watching her struggle to write. It wasn't that she didn't have the words. It seemed more that her writing was a frustrating attempt to guess the right answer using the same process by which she thought out multiple choice problems. She kept searching fruitlessly for the canned phrase that would "check off" the right box and reward her with a good score. She would string together lovely phrases and high-sounding words, but reading it, you'd find the words were more like interior decorating than like rationed thought. They look nice and make you feel good, if you don't really think about it too hard.

In reading blogs and forum posts on the Internet, especially by younger folks, I see them again and again, searching for the phrase that's always right; that always wins the argument. You see people filling up these little comment windows on the Internet with streams of phrases they've heard somewhere as though the "comment" window were a little checkbox they can tick off or cut and paste into and be done with it. That way they don't have to actually think. It's easier to check off a box than to think. Thinking hurts our brains. So much easier to endorse the "right" answer than to think of it ourselves.  

If something someone says troubles our preconceptions, then, simply pop a canned phrase into the comment box and all is well with the world. They used to call this rigid thinking style jingoism because of the tendency of people to recite platitudes rather than to make up phrases for themselves. Clever phrase makers used to come up with songs and jingles and canned stories to illustrate a point. Repeated often enough, these jingoisms became a kind of shorthand for thinking - thinking without thought if you will. It's a kind of intellectual blindness; a blindness that allows others to write the platitudes and to create the check boxes for us, while we go on about our business. Canned answers provide thinking shortcuts so that we don't have to trouble ourselves with figuring out things for ourselves.

It has been said that in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. There is some truth to that. When a culture stops thinking for itself and cedes its conscience to folks who write out our belief system in the form of multiple choice test answers, then we lose the ability to think beyond the limited range of choices offered. Someone once described the proposed new national health care system as having "fewer, but better choices". Who says these choices are better? More regulation, fewer companies, short term solutions, bottom line thinking.  

All these things, I believe, are an artifact of the availability of the tremendous data analysis power of the computer. Computers operate with a binary language at the heart of their process - either/or, on/off, black/white. It's a powerful tool and its very power has set us all up for polarization .

Computers are fast, easy to use and save you tons of work and who doesn't want to save time? Who doesn't wish to simplify their work. You've got 30 tests to grade. Which fits into the computer better? Multiple choice, of course. So more and more our kids are given multiple choice questions. Over time they lose the ability to think outside the boxes we give them. Why do you think we have to retrain our workforce in thinking outside the box AFTER THEY GRADUATE? All their lives we've been teaching our kids that life is all about the box. Tick the right one and you are rewarded. What is outside the box anyway that's worth having? That's the implied message.  

On a multiple choice test, you cannot choose any answer except the ones the teacher has provided. So, if the teacher doesn't supply an answer, right or wrong, then such an answer is not worth thinking about. For instance:

1. Global warming is caused by:
____ A. Man ____ B. Man's Industry ____ C. Man's Trash
____ D. Greedy Capitalist Pigs ___E. All of the Above

The test taker CANNOT think outside the parameters given. If he or she thinks, "What about fluctuations in the amount of radiation we receive from the sun?" There's no place for that answer. It's not worth anything because it won't give you a good grade to even think of such things so that thought gradually becomes unthinkable. Such a thought is not rewarded and behavior that is not rewarded is extinguished as they used to describe the process in behavioral psych class.

Whether they be over-worked teachers, CEO's or presidents of countries, teachers face a huge temptation to reduce our teaching. Our financial planning and our culture is limited to a set of "approved" choices so everything will fit within the parameters that our computers require in order to perform all that miraculous number crunching they are so good at. The computers then reward us for fitting ourselves to meet their needs by spitting out all those lovely pie charts and bar graphs that convince us that we actually understand what is going on around us, when we really don't have a clue.

Because we are narrowing our world to make our data streams more efficient, Super-Mart can tell you how much money they made between 2 pm and 5 pm last Tuesday. Many companies have fallen into the trap of adjusting their company's practices in order to keep the daily or quarterly totals as high as possible while abandoning behaviors that might adversely affect the so-called "bottom line" - behaviors like long term strategic planning. Then one day they wake up to discover their companies are obsolete, having lost their way. They were so busy looking down at their feet, that they lost sight of where they were going. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the companies that have recently collapsed all had some pretty good numbers, right up until they lost track of where it is their company were going and why.

Don't get me wrong, I love my computer. I just think it's time we make our computers serve us and not the other way around. The current trend toward socialism makes sense to people who have grown up in a multiple choice world. We've been revising our very ways of thinking for decades to accommodate the multiple choice world of spreadsheets and databases. Why not revise our way of life for the convenience of that ultimate tool for putting everything and everyone safely into a little box where they won't cause trouble - government? Socialism, in the way it systematizes choice across large populations, is basically a model of society as computer - the bureaucrat's ultimate wet dream.

Do we really want to live our lives, giving up all those 'unapproved' choices in order to serve the state? In doing so, we need to realize that we are giving up the very soul of our country. The widespread ability to create something new from nothing more than a thought is a powerful economic engine. In America we've come up with things no one has ever thought of before because we know how to think unapproved thoughts, thoughts no one has given us in a box of thoughts from which we are forced to choose. Even the Internet, though computer based, is uniquely American in its unprecedented power to multiply choices, spread unapproved information freely, organize people or help them define themselves as unique individuals. There are those who find that frightening and you can bet we'll see efforts to choke off all that promiscuous sharing of information through regulation. They already do that in heavily regulated societies like that of China. The state-that-will-be-served will never tolerate such a thing for long.

In America, the state, as designed by our founders, was supposed to served us, not the other way 'round. Silly me. I probably took too many essay tests when I was a kid.

Just one man's opinion.....

Tom King

Oh, Daddy Don't You Moan

I wrote this mournful little ditty while walking the dog tonight. It's to the tune of "Oh, Mary Don't Ya Weep.


Oh, Daddy Don't You Moan
(Tune: O' Mary Don't You Weep)
by Tom & Daisy King

1. Every day about eight o'clock
Gotta take Miss Daisy and go for a walk
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
So, Daddy don't you moan.

Chorus:
Oh, Daddy don't your gripe don't your groan
Oh, Daddy don't you pitch and moan
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

2. When we meet another dog I stand and watch
Fifteen minutes of sniffin' crotch
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

3. Standin' in park our backs to the shore
Whackin' her suitor's with a two by four
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

4. Took Daisy paddlin' in the old canoe
She laid in the bottom and she ate my shoe
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

5. Took Miss Daisy out for a sail
She jumped in my lap and overboard we fell
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

6. Sailboat's headed off fast and far
Daisy's headed for the nearest shore
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

7. I said, "Hey Daisy, how about a tow?"
I got two legs, but you got four!"
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

8. Daisy climbed up on my back and then
She settled down comfy while I swam us in.
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

9. I crawled on home I was battered and wet
But guess who got rushed off to the vet
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

10. I complained next night that my feet was sore
Mama said "Hon, you need to walk some more!"
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

11. I thought we could take a quick stroll in the park
But 4 hours later I'm stumblin' round in the dark
Cause Daisy's gotta stroll round town
So oh, Daddy don't you moan

12. YOU wanted the dog Mama's quick to chide
I swear I'm gonna get gold fish next time
Daisy's gotta stroll round town
Oh, Daddy don't you moan

Out of the West...

Every time there's an article on Sarah Palin, a swarm of liberal commentators descend in full cry.

"Palin is less than bright."

"She's inexperienced."

"She's naive."

"She's a political lightweight with no credibility."

Okay, so if Sarah Palin is such a stupid, clueless bimbo as these clearly liberal posters would like to have us believe, why does she continue to frighten the left so badly? Why do they pour such energy into attacking her.

I think it's because, they don't want to make the same mistake twice. They ignored a certain TV cowboy actor back in 1976 and their dreams of a socialist utopia blew up in their faces. I think, Sarah scares them. She has the same self-assurance about her conservative beliefs as the equally, to them, incomprehensible Reagan. Reagan struck a chord with the American people in 1980 and successfully steam-rollered the attempt by the left to make over the government into a fully socialist state. Now almost 30 years later, they are poised again for a socialist takeover and they can't afford to have another conservative general come along and mess up their plans.

It must be so frustrating for the left to get so close to their socialist dreams and have conservatives come along and mess them up. Sarah Palin is a polarizing conservative figure like Reagan was. Her personal philosophy is crystal clear and resonates with main street Americans, at least, when she's not being filtered by John McCain's woefully inept and philosophically confused minions as she was during the election campaign.

Her greatest mistake was to play loyal sidekick to McCain. To recover, she needs 3 years of her own speeches and writings to show who she really is to conservatives. It was a tactic that worked brilliantly for the redoubtable Reagan. If Sarah can rally the conservative voting block and on-the-fence moderates, as the disastrous Democrat-led spending spree simultaneously crushes the country under the weight of debt (as it appears intended to do), Sarah will polarize the country indeed. She will not, however, divide the country according to who tests better in the marketing studies and polling data as happened in 2008.

Sarah will not be a feel-good candidate, although her followers will very likely feel very good. She will be a d0-the-right-thing candidate and for the Left that's absolutely terrifying.

Her resignation has confused her opponents. They don't understand it at all. The cardinal rule of the Left is that you NEVER let go of power, not for any reason, even for the good of the people you serve. It's better to lie to the people for their own good, destroy anyone in your way, allow the country to suffer, than it is to let go of power.

But Sarah doesn't think like that. If she's not the governor of Alaska, she effectively stops the endless bogus ethics lawsuits that her opponents on the left use to harass and cripple her administration. So, by resigning, Sarah just solved a lot of problems for Alaska and for herself. The new governor wants to do the same things Sarah did and he won't have the press dogging him. It will be good for the people of Alaska! I think that was Sarah's first consideration. It would be the last consideration for the socialist machine that opposes her.

The Republican Party hasn't had a good general in a long time. For too long they've run their campaigns like the Civil War's Union commanders, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Pope and the rest who practiced a sort of win and retreat approach to warfare. McClellan (a Democrat by the way), never fought a battle he didn't retreat from, even when he won.

We need a general in the Republican party who fights like Ulysses S. Grant - a general who fought and advanced. Even when Grant lost battles, he advanced relentlessly. He forced Lee to retreat time and again. Even when Lee won the battle, he had to retire from the field and withdraw to save his forces.

Ronald Reagan fought like that. When he lost the 76 nomination to country club Republicans and Gerald Ford, a lot of pundits wrote him off. But Reagan did not retreat. He took his message straight to the people through radio, television, writing and public speeches. As Jimmy Carter led the country left to disaster, Reagan hammered home his vision of a better America that stood in stark contrast to Carter's muddled socialist malaise.

I think the left senses that Sarah Palin may have the same ability to articulate that vision. That's why they are so desperate to marginalize and stigmatize her. She terrifies them. They successfully marginalized Fred Thompson, but I'm not sure they'll be able to do that with Sarah Palin.

In the meantime, it's fun to watch the growing panic in the liberal camp at the thought of Sarah unleashed. This should be very interesting.

Just one man's opinion.

Tom King

Apparently God Wants Me to Exercise

I promise not to let this blog descend into syrupy sonnets about my new dog. Let's face it, though. Old people and dogs - it's pretty disgusting to watch! Sheila and I are turning into THOSE people who have a dog that we lavish our attention on because our children are pretty much fed up with us obsessing over them and if we don't dote over something, we'll probably melt down. Not a lot of grandkids running around here, so Daisy, our half lab, half border collie gets the full treatment.

Haven't heard this much baby talk since Meghan was born.

As I said in an earlier post, I believe Daisy was a gift from God. Apparently, God gave her to us because he wants me to exercise! In the 3 weeks since we found her, I've walked 1 to 2 miles a day EVERY day and sometimes twice a day. I've now officially lost 20 pounds, quit worrying about dieting AND had to take in my belt two notches! My fat pants are getting loose on me and I laid about 10 concrete patio flagstones today and did not have a heat stroke or coronary arrest.

My feet hurt, I've got bunions and blisters, but I can, in just 3 weeks, walk two miles at a rapid rate without falling over in the ditch to "have a little rest". A month ago, I got winded running up the stairs.

I've also found that I'm more alert, write faster and feel more "up". And no, I am not going to get all self-righteous about fitness and start pestering you guys to go exercise. After all, it took God to get me out doing road work and he gave me a coach that thinks going 2 miles instead of one when I really wanted to turn back at about half a mile is a jim dandy idea!

I'm thinking of painting sergeant stripes on the dog! I feel like I'm in boot camp with a hyperkinetic D.I. dragging my short legs up hill and over dale.

I'm going to bed now. I have to get up at 5 am and mow the lawn. My other sergeant is in charge of lawn care duty!

.

Sarah Palin

The media will never get Sarah Palin. Those who lust for power will never understand a person who simply wishes to serve the people and then go home. We are in the hands of evil people. All they care about is getting power. As Air Force Col John Boyd once told his young officers in his revolutionary fighter tactics classes, "You can choose to be someone or do something. One path will lead to power, money, promotion and good assignments and you will compromise your principles and betray your friends. The other path will lead you to controversy, poor assignments, lost promotions and resentment by people in power, but you will hold fast your principles, remain loyal to your friends and you just might do something worth doing."

This is the path Sarah Palin has chosen. The media will never understand. To them it is more important to be someone than to do something. We are in the hands of Satan's minions.

...Tom

Spoiling the Baby - It Has Begun!

My wife got the brilliant idea to give Daisy one of her old shoes to chew on. I caught her chewing on it and fussed at the dog and then told my wife it was a very bad idea to give the dog shoes to chew and that she'd regret it.

I woke the next morning to find Daisy working her way through a whole pile of Sheila's shoes that she'd harvested from the closet.

"Bad dog!, Bad Dog!" I fussed at her.

My wife raised her head up out of the covers and told me not to fuss at Daisy.

"Bad wife!", I said, "Bad wife!"

I took the picture above of Daisy sulking. I don't have one of Sheila. She threatened to break my camera if I even thought about it!

When you need one....

God has worked a couple of small miracles for us this past week. They weren't quite what we asked for, but then miracles from God seldom are done the way we would do them. One of these small miracles happened today.

Sheila and I have never owned a dog. We had a sweet little beagle that belonged to my daughter, but we've never owned one ourselves. We're not cat people, so we've owned a half dozen or so one time and another. Go figure!

Madeleine L' Engle wrote that you shouldn't look for a dog. God will send you one when you need it. Sheila and I subscribe to this view. Dogs are a lot of responsibility and we were pretty sure we weren't up to the responsibility.

Apparently, God disagreed. This morning while doing my semi-regular good deed for the elderly woman my wife takes care of, I was minding my own business pressure washing Miz Mary Bob's house. As I turned toward the patio to fetch another length of water hose, I saw a black shape moving through the grass on its belly. As soon as I spotted it, the shape rose up and staggered toward me grinning.

I swear, she grinned at me. It was a skinny, lop-eared, part labrador puppy (I think) with enormous feet and ribs showing through thin fur. She approached me like a long lost friend and threw herself down on her back in front of me and begged to be scratched on her belly.

"Hello," I said. "Where'd you come from."

I couldn't resist and scratched her belly. She jumped up against my legs and put her head in my hands and began licking and nuzzling against me.

"Oh, no, you don't," I thought. "Nice dog," I said giving her a dismissive pat and turning away. As I climbed up the porch I realized she was right at my heels. I sat down in a chair and she came over and laid her head in my lap, looking up at me with these sad brown eyes.

"Sheila, help," I called out.

Sheila was out the door in a couple of seconds expecting to find me bleeding on the porch. She took one look at the dog, opened her mouth and no sound came out.

"I think I'm in trouble, here," I groaned.

"Don't look at me," she said, coming over beside me and stroking the dog's head. "What are you going to name her?"

We have decided that we didn't have any choice in the matter. This little girl needed us and apparently, God had decided we need her. God immediately provide us with enough money to get her basic equipment - we are so broke right now, that we'd never have excepted the responsibility without a clear sign that God knew we'd be able to take care of her.

Besides, she likes to lie beside my chair, sit in my lap and comes when we call her. Our kids don't even do that reliably. I think this dog was meant for us. She followed me around lying in the various flower beds about the place where she could watch me scrubbing down the house. As I was finishing up, I looked over at where she was lying amongst the lantana. She had her head draped across the border of the flower bed, one ear lopped over and grinned stupidly at me with those big watery eyes.

I sniffed in disgust, "You had me at hello!" I told her. She jumped up and loped unsteadily over for another head rub. She is so weak from hunger, her muscles aren't very strong and she's kind of unsteady on her feet. Sheila will fix that though. Fattening up starving creatures is her forte'.

We tried out names all morning. I thought of calling her "Angel" and then "Honey" and then "Babe". Finally I realized I was trying to name her after Sheila.

She suggested flower names and thought Gladiola might be good (we'd call her 'Glad' for short). I thought, "Hmmmm?" and then tried out Gardenia, Rose, Chrysanthemum, Magnolia (Maggie for short) and Indian Paintbrush, but nothing seemed to fit. That made me think of Sheila's old college nickname (Indian Wheezer), then I thought of "Daisy".

It sounded right. I called her that and she responded a little. Probably my imagination, but that sealed it. We spent the rest of the afternoon giving her a flea bath, brushing and treating her for ticks. We fed her a little at a time. She was starved and ate every bit. She was dehydrated too and her body temp seemed high so we gave her water with bits of ice in it which she drank down eagerly.



It's nice to be able to do things for a creature that appreciates your attentions. She didn't much enjoy the bath, but she never snapped at us or growled. I haven't heard her bark once. She spent a good deal of the rest of the day sleeping in Sheila's lap, her belly full and warm. She was very reluctant to go in the house at first, but she's decided our room must be our den and since she's apparently joined our pack, she's taken up residence there. Sheila made her a bed and then got down on the floor to show her how to use it.



She's such a sucker for anything that needs to be fed. She spent the rest of the day worrying about how the dog was breathing, her temperature, her heart rate and whether she had Parvo, heartworms, Rickets or Scurvy. I had to look up on the Internet, whether she should give Daisy an aspirin or not. My oldest son Matt's comment when we introduced him to Daisy this afternoon was, "Well, at least Mom will have someone to obsess over besides me!"

Little Miss, Matt & Nancy's cat hasn't stated her opinion yet. We're delaying formal introductions because she's currently in her psycho cat phase and she hates dogs anyway. I think she'll like Daisy, though.

Mom passed out around ten o'clock tonight, exhausted from worrying over the dog. They're both sleeping soundly as I write this. Daisy has decided on her own sleeping spot and it's not her bed. Sheila may have a rival for her recliner.



Meanwhile, I better log off and go to bed too. Apparently, God wants me to take regular walks.

I'm just sayin'

Tom

Time to Fill the Feeder

Time to Fill the Feeder

By Tom King

Time to fill the feeder
Greedy little buggers come and gone
Left only dark husks on the ground and flew away
Once in a while they come and thump the window
They're mad at me.
I'm forgetful and it's late winter
And they like the sunflower seeds
Particularly well

I stall a bit and let them thump
When the tray is empty they have to fly further
To other feeders; even to dry fields and emaciated weeds
To stoke the little fires
That keep their bellies warm
And give them wings in winter

Oh, I'll give them a break soon.
Just want to make sure they understand
The proper use of wings and beaks
And brains and claws.
In case something happens to me.
And no one remembers about the feeder.

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