If you buy products or services from any of the 50 companies listed below (and you likely do), you are supporting modern American slavery Return to Now | June 13, 2016 American slavery was technically abolished in 1865, but a loophole in the 13th Amendment has allowed it to continue “as a punishment for crimes” […]
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute, Patrick Buchanan is an informative and interesting writer. On foreign policy, especially, he’s long been one of the most reasonable voices among high-level American pundits. When it comes to cultural matters, however, Buchanan has long held to a peculiar and empirically questionable version of American history in […]
via The US Is Not “One Nation” – And It Never Was — peoples trust toronto
After sweating through three clothing changes; the one I walked in, the one I worked in, the one I thought I was lounging in, it’s easy to grasp at straws, but there was something different about the wind yesterday evening. Thunderstorms had rumbled around and about, none finding us. With them came a change in the late afternoon wind. Could there be a herald of better days to come hidden in its breath?
Sometimes we don’t even have fall. Indian Summer will hang on like an old river cooter battling you for a fish. Tantalizingly cool mornings turn into blazing hot afternoons with high humidity hanging on until a late October cold snap sends us straight into winter…but there was something whispering in the voice of this northwest breeze. It was the voice of hope…but don’t get excited quite yet.
My excitement was tempered this morning. I had to face the fact, it is still late July. As I met my friend Hawk for our weekly seven miler, I made the mistake of checking my weather app before we began to solve all of the world’s ills. Ninety-seven percent humidity with a DEW point of seventy-three. It didn’t matter the temperature was only seventy-three at five thirty in the AM. Even we South Carolinians living in the foothills of the Blue Ridge know, “it ain’t the heat, it’s the humidity.” We returned to our cars covered in sweat, our running clothes five pounds heavier than when we began and the world was no better off. From experience, I remembered, despite the flip of the calendar, there is little difference weather-wise between late July and August…unless it gets worse.
Still, later this same morning, as the heat rose and the humidity decreased to a DEW point of ONLY a tongue in cheek seventy, there was something about the wind. As I made ever decreasing circles on my lawnmower I noticed it again, the breath of the wind. Instead of blowing hot and moist as if from the lips of the devil, there was the underlying coolness of Autumn…like a cool lover’s kiss. There were even a few leaves falling from the trees, caused more, I’m sure, by the strength of the wind than a change in season. But they were falling.
I hope for an autumn. Pumpkins and sweet potatoes, coffee and sweat shirts as I sit around a campfire watching the sparks defy gravity in the thermals created by blazing, dry wood. Cool, crisp morning air causing me to see my breath rather than drowning in the humidity. Long vees of geese and leaves changing from green to red, yellow and gold. I hope for autumn like a child hopes for Christmas morning.
Damn, just saw the extended forecast. Looks like summer will last into November. We may go straight from flip flops and tees to long johns and polar gear…but then global climate change doesn’t really exist.
Don Miller has written several books that can be purchased or downloaded at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM
His latest release is a fictional novella entitled OLIVIA which may be downloaded at https://www.amazon.com/Olivia-Don-Miller-ebook/dp/B0742DF8B2/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Featured picture attributed to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn
How many times have you read something similar? Ever since their massive defeat in 2016 the Dems have been looking for their new niche before the next election…..they are hoping for a little redemption in the eyes of the American voter. Let’s be honest…their message sucked all the way to the voting booth…..as an opposition […]
My apologies. There are times it’s okay to show your naked, lily-white derriere. Taking a bath or shower, weighing one’s self, sleeping in the buff, skinny dippin’ or faire l’amour…which I guess the last two or three could be related. I would say, unless you are in a nudist colony, baring your butt outdoors in your bean patch ain’t one of those times. Especially if your bean patch is adjacent to a well-traveled highway.
My apologies are for the three car loads of folk and the loaded church bus passing by while I was trying to get out of my shorts and skivvies. My intent was to run and get behind my small stand of raccoon ravaged corn. I was embarrassed because it’s hard to get out of your shorts if you’re not trying to get out of your boots first. I was embarrassed because there were no cheers emanating from any those vehicles as I displayed my butt and other body parts. I guess it could’a been the shock. I was also embarrassed by the face and head plant into the crooked necked squash plant when I became tangled in my shorts. It could have been worse; the cops could have shown up.
In a previous post, I admitted to weed eating while wearing shorts because I found myself to be less susceptible to multiple yellow jacket stings that way. Well…to be honest I wear shorts all the time this time of year unless I am picking blackberries or raspberries. For some reason, one of the devil’s stinging minions decided my pant leg would be a great place to fly up and into. Note to self, when wearing shorts choose jockey style underwear and not boxer style. With the little bastard zeroing in on my soft inner thigh, just under my dangling body parts, you understand why I wasn’t too concerned with embarrassing myself.
What I had not planned on was one of the devil’s stinging minions deciding my pant leg would be a great place to fly up and into. Note to self, when wearing shorts choose jockey style underwear and not boxer style. With the little bastard zeroing in on my soft inner thigh, just under my dangling body parts, you understand why I wasn’t too concerned with embarrassing myself.
Sometime later, as I was readjusted my clothes and inspected body parts behind the stand of corn, I remembered a childhood experience. At a very young age, four or five, I had followed my grandmother into her garden. As I did whatever four or five-year old’s do, I noticed my grandmother’s movements suddenly becoming reminiscent of a body being possessed by some devilish spirit. Her gyrations were quite violent and featured a lot of slapping and yelling. Suddenly, to my surprise, she began stripping off her “feed sack” dress in the attempt to rid herself of what we called a Russian hornet. It had flown up her dress and was in attack mode. Her revelations did not scar me for life but I was momentarily struck blind by her whiteness. “Them” body parts had never, ever seen the light of day.
Oh well, in case you were wondering, I avoided major injury or an insect sting to my physical person but my pride might have suffered just a bit…and I don’t think the crooked neck squash will survive…hope the folks on the church bus do.
If you enjoyed this, please take a bit of time to like Don Miller’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cigarman501/ or follow his Amazon author’s page at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM.
Don has also released his first paranormal fictional piece, a novella entitled Olivia which may be purchased and downloaded at https://www.amazon.com/Olivia-Don-Miller-ebook/dp/B0742DF8B2/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
An excerpt from the contemporary romance Olivia by Don MIller
I had the odd thought as we drove down Edessa’s tree lined streets. This was the first time I had enjoyed the company of a woman in five years. A real estate agent, she was attempting to sell a parcel of Florida landscape sitting on a quiet river for more money than I wanted to spend. A very attractive redhead in her late twenties or early-thirties, her good looks would be an asset in her line of work I mused. She had a glowing, coppery complexion with more than a dash of cinnamon tinted freckles to go with her large, brown eyes and dark red hair. Smartly and professionally dressed in a dark blue pants suit and white shirt, the jacket did little to hide impressive attributes. Tall, with a firm handshake and a husky voice, I startled myself as it dawned upon me I was evaluating her as a potential partner. My evaluation garnered her an A plus.
She didn’t realize I had died a little over five years ago and only been recently resurrected. I still walked the earth, I inhaled the sea air, bodily processes continued but I had been dead none the less. I had been dead until the dreams began.
Olivia came to me in my dreams. The original dream was codeine fueled after coming down with walking pneumonia this past winter. She sat on the foot of my bed…our bed, all blond and bright. She was the Olivia I had met and fallen in love with my freshman year in college and married three years later. She wore the same bell bottoms and calico peasant’s blouse as when we first met. Olivia smiled her sky-blue eyes twinkling.
“You’re looking a bit rough Big Boy.” I was tall, she was not. She was petite and slender. I was built like the outside linebacker I had once been. She was blond and pale, I was dark on top of dark with hair going gray since I found myself on the wrong side of thirty-five.
“You need a haircut. You look like a hippy. Jethro, you must begin to start to live again. You’ve lost too much weight. Shouldn’t you back off your running at least until you get rid of that damn cough?”
“Nag much? Some people drink or do drugs to avoid the pain. I run. I’m alive ‘Lovey’ but I do need a haircut.”
“Jethro…you walk, you talk, you even breathe… but you are not alive. You have all the money from the settlement and from selling the place squirreled away. It’s not blood money you know. You let the house and land go too cheaply. You could have held out for more. Just to rid yourself of memories you can’t get rid of. Memories you don’t want to let go of. You could retire and move to another state. You’ve got twenty-five years in. Your dream was to be on the water and to write. Why don’t you move? They are not making any more shoreline. There are plenty of teaching jobs in other states. You could coach…or not. And Sweetie, you don’t need to be spending all of your time alone…especially in the bedroom.”
I smiled. Olivia was the progressive one in our union…especially in the bedroom, inventing new and wonderful ways to…she noticed my reaction and smiled.
“See, you still think about it. You should date. I’m dead and that’s not going to change. You are still a young man.”
“I’m forty-six and I’m not sure how young that is.”
Olivia may be downloaded on Kindle at https://goo.gl/yc6FyC
On this day, the moon landing took place. I remember it. I was a newly-minted thirteen-year-old. I watched the historic event downstairs. Downstairs was the cellar, or basement, as we called it, in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. That’s where the family room, laundry room, garage, and my bedroom were located. It used to flood when it […]
A week and a half before high school football practice will begin and I am already hearing her song. The siren’s call of heat and humidity, the smell of freshly cut grass, the scent of over ripe athletic socks and ammonia from sweat soaked practice uniforms. As bad as it sounds, it is still the perfume of a sexy and sultry mistress from long ago. Our affair ended years ago but I still feel her caress on my skin and her call in my head. She tempts me today as she did all those years ago.
It’s been sixteen years since I broke off the relationship, in favor of family, friendship, and health. I hung up my rarely used whistle and shoved my over-used coaching shoes into a closet. I do continue to temp myself, watching football on TV or attending the occasional game. My senses say, “It can’t be that long ago that I last answered her melody, can it?” The calendar proves it is. Somehow, I can’t quite believe it…the desire to answer her call is just as strong today as it was those not so long years ago.
There is something seductive about the call, it’s more than the potential glory of a successful season. It is more about the people…it’s always been about the people. Relationships forged in the fire of competition. I miss those people, those I left behind and those I never got to meet.
There is something destructive about her song too. The unbelievably long hours, too little time with family. Arm chair coaches who have all the answers. My own loss of religion when plays or games go badly.
A week from this coming Friday I will face the day as I face all days, probably with an early morning walk or run. Despite my endeavors to keep my mind off my former mistress, her song will call to me. I will relive those earlier days and think about the young men I had the honor to coach. I will mull over great wins and heartbreaking losses. The pull will be strong but I’ll make sure Linda Gail ties me to the ship’s mast before I destroy my ship on the rocks.
HAPPY FOOTBALL SEASON to all.
Please take time to visit Don’s author’s page at https://goo.gl/pL9bpP or like his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cigarman501/
Education should be in the hands of parents and educators and should not be a “for profit” endeavor.
There is no single education policy more harmful than test-based accountability.
The idea goes like this: We need to make sure public schools actually teach children, and the best way to do that is with high stakes standardized testing.
It starts from the assumption that the problems with our school system are all service-based. Individual schools or districts are not providing quality services. Teachers and administrators are either screwing up or don’t care enough to do the job.
But this is untrue. In reality, most of our problems are resource-based. From the get-go, schools and districts get inequitable resources with which to work.
This is not a guess. This is not a theory. It is demonstrable. It has been demonstrated. It is a fact.
What is in question is its importance.
However, any lack of intention or…
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I need to be working on the next great American novel but somehow my thoughts became twisted by a quote I happened to see on another blog site, “If you stumble, make it a part of the dance.” My problem? “I dance so badly…” and I stumble sooooo much! Thank you, Persia, “Blog of a Mad Black Woman”, for sending me into an afternoon’s tailspin of thoughts.
The statement is one of those make positive what is negative quotes, like “If life gives you lemons….” I probably make better lemonade than I dance. I’m just too self-conscience to let myself go without the benefit of large quantities of adult beverages…which causes hangovers and other stupid activities besides dancing. “Dance like nobody’s watchin’?” I have a hard time dancing when I know nobody’s really watching. Yep, I’m one tight-assed SOB.
My mind really got twisted into a knot or a maze of pig trails as I thought about my life. I realized most of my stumbles have been self-inflicted wounds. I tend to search out discarded banana peels to slip on. Many of those self-inflicted wounds were after evenings involving too many adult beverages. Some were more than stumbles, some were full-fledged, bust your ass, crash, and burns. Some make me wonder how I survived, others I just shake my head and smile. Somehow, I managed to regain my feet and will focus on standing rather than stumbling.
My favorite quote is by Walt Kelly’s philosophical, comic strip possum, Pogo. “We have met the enemy and it is us.” Two-word changes make it “I have met the enemy and it is me.” While I still occasionally imbibe I don’t stumble because of it. I guess I should celebrate not having had a hangover in thirty years and, despite those stumbles, my life has turned out awesome.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if I had just answered that email; the one where the foreign guy with the odd name and unusual syntax reached out to me thinking I might be an heir to a billion-dollar fortune. I really need to get back to that great American novel.
Don Miller writes on various subjects which bother him so. Check out his author’s or Facebook Page at
https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM
https://www.facebook.com/cigarman501/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
For a dose of daily inspiration check out Persia at https://blogofamadblackwoman.com/
Ravings of a Mad Southerner 