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Swine Termination
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
***************

The recent near arctic weather we have been experiencing brought back some fond and not so fond memories of my Carolina country boy heritage.

(Before I delve into this missive, allow me to set the record straight -- in the spirit of full disclosure, don't you know.  

The original title of this piece was:  "Hog Killing Time."  But, since I am a thoroughly modern ole codger, I am aware of the, shall we say, sensitivities of the younger set.  Therefore the change in  the title to a kinder, more gentle, description of the "Slaughter of the Swine."  Just thought you ought to know.) 

As I walked down my concrete driveway to retrieve my morning  newspaper from it's delivery box, in a nine degree temperature, memories came flooding back of cold January mornings like those when I was a lad. It was hog killing weather!

Now, we had a small country place about thirteen miles south of the North Carolina border in South Carolina. We were eight to ten miles out "in the country."  I don't mean suburbs -- no.  I mean in the country.

From the time I was old enough, and strong enough, to heft a 5 gallon paint bucket filled with edible garbage,  referred to as "slop," it was one of my chores to "slop" the hogs and water them before I went to school each morning.  That was my job -- summer, or winter, rain or fair, the animals always came first.

I kept a stick cut from a nearby tree, from which I had stripped the bark  and this I used  to break the ice in the watering trough for the hogs on those frigid winter mornings.

Rarely did we have any breed of hogs other than Hampshires.  The Hampshire hog is a domestic swine breed characterized by erect ears and a black body with a whitish band around the middle, covering the front legs -- and a quite unpleasant disposition.  They could, with the slightest provocation, or none, become violent -- with no notice -- and attempt to take a massive bite from the human limb nearest and most exposed to them.  Having virtually no neck, the irritated swine would, turn his head as much as he could and upon grabbing said limb in his mouth, in one smooth action, snap his head back to the normal position, thereby breaking said limb of the unfortunate human who had been so careless as to get too near and drop his guard for an instant.  It was a constant danger when dealing with those Hampshires.

The could also climb -- (Hogs usually prefer to go under a fence rather than over it.  They are, after all "rooting" animals.)  and DID more often than I care to remember, leading me on a several day's long chase tracking them through the woods and muddy bogs and the many hardwood thickets on our little country place.

Dad's hog pens always seemed to have the tallest sides.  Once he was asked if he was penning up a hog -- or a gorilla.  I am happy to report that we tracked each one of the swine escapees down and returned them to their place of confinement. 

As killing time approached we'd build a wooden floor in a section of the pen.  The hogs to be butchered were moved to the floored area and from then until their demise they were fed the choicest food, such as corn, and store bought hog feed that contained some of the sweetest smelling molasses I have ever, to this day, smelled.  

The near-by neighbors and relatives would begin gathering at our house before dawn.  (They would receive generous and  choice portions of fresh pork at the close of the day's proceedings.) Fires were built around huge black cast iron wash pots.  A frame for suspending the carcass was erected -- usually in the form of a tripod. 

I won't walk you through the entire process, but allow me to say that we ate very well.  Nothing went to waist that could be eaten, in some form, from that animal.

It was a daylong process and by nightfall everyone was exhausted and nearly frozen from the near frigid temperatures.  And it was messy ... very messy.  Slaughtering always is. But as is the case with making omelets, well, you know the expression.  But all that hard work was rewarded with some of the finest, tastiest, dinner table fare to ever grace the palate of man.

So why am I writing a piece about something that is totally off the "narrative" of the conservative commentariat today?  Simply because it IS off the narrative.  

Then there is, I suppose, a bit of me that hopes you begin to see that when I speak of self sufficiency, of responsibility for one's self, of dependance on no one but yourself, I really do know what I'm talking about -- first hand.

I proudly hail from a background of red necks and blue collars, of moonshiners and smugglers, of rakes, rogues, rebels, rascals, and reverends.  We even have a long, and colorful,  history in local law enforcement. In other words, the salt of the earth -- all off-spring of the family that sailed into the Charleston Harbor in 1789 (just five years after the British and Tories were kicked out and the name changed from Charles Town to Charleston) and settled in the ninety-sixth precinct of South Carolina.  

You will note that I said nothing above of the family being, at any time, involved with politics.  While my ancestors did not shy from, shall we say, shadowy activities, some less than circumspect, ahem, politics was considered just too, uh, distasteful.     

They were proud, tough, independent, thoroughly southern and thoroughly American.

So why am I telling  you this?  Well, I suppose it's a part of my bona fides.  When I write of individual freedom and liberty,  it's because I grew up enjoying both. I know both the cost AND the value of each.  It is a part of who I am.  And I am not alone. 

See, when my generation observes the current crop of citizens who seem to be oblivious as they micturate away their individual freedom,  we are frequently dumbfounded.  I must tell you I have been more dumbfounded in the past five years than ever before in my life!

So.  I have come full circle, back to the conservative narrative. 

So many of my generation, are approaching, or have past, that point in our lives when we had hoped to hand off the mantle of  "apologist" for our representative republic to a younger, more zestful, more zealous, more healthful generation ... only to find so many have no clue what they have lost and are totally incapable of defending those freedoms that still remain but are tentative, at best. 

Do not mistake anger for bitterness.  I am not bitter.  I am angry.  The ravages of time and ill health have made it so that I can do little more, these days, than climb aboard my cyber soapbox and shake my verbal fist in the face of the spineless leaders in Washington who have taken advantage of a dumbed-down electorate to trash our constitution and steal our liberty.  I find very little in the way of redemption for any from either side of the aisle.

They remind me often of the hogs I described above, except -- they are slurping from the public trough.  At least the Hampshires wound up on our dinner table where THEY actually did some good.

J. D. Longstreet

Justin Bieber
The White House petition reads, "We the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly represented in the world of pop culture. We would like to see the dangerous, reckless, destructive, and drug abusing, Justin Bieber deported and his green card revoked. He is not only threatening the safety of our people but he is also a terrible influence on our nations youth. We the people would like to remove Justin Bieber from our society." It was created on January 23, 2014 and needed 100,000 signatures by February 22 for Obama's administration to respond.

We haven't seen the end of this assault on the U.S. Constitution and Bill Of Rights by this Obama government and related OATH OF OFFICE VIOLATORS:




Watch how Gabby Giffords gives a speech in Washington state...

 
...developing...

Even Cramer is selling SOCIAL MEDIA which is now the next frontier to become ultimately connected to everything everywhere.  There is no more privacy and no more rest as the world rushes to and fro now and knowledge is increased:






RELATED STUDIES:
http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2014/01/earths-magnetosphere-and-violently.html

http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2014/01/we-are-all-being-defrosted-by-microwave.html

THE INTERNET OF EVERYTHING:
http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-internet-of-everything.html

...developing...

National Review reports Pat Buchanan warns that an imminent Republican debate over immigration will play into the hands of the Democratic party. With the widespread unpopularity of Obamacare, Republicans should instead focus on the embattled health-care law ahead of the 2014 midterm election. By pivoting to the issue of immigration, Republicans are “walking right into the trap.”


“You will have a war inside the Republican party — a Balkan war — this year, which will knock it off its present gain,” he said on Laura Ingraham’s radio show​. Buchanan cautioned John Boehner against the pursuit of immigration reform, saying it would be his “last hurrah” and arguing that it would spell the end of his speakership. Boehner will end up “with a nice job at a trade association” as a reward from immigration-backers if he pushes for reforms, Buchanan said.

More here

 
I think Pat is on the money!

KMOV reports two suspects broke into Roosevelt High School in South St. Louis leaving much of the school's property in disrepair.


Stephen Mclean Jr., 18, and Christopher Webb Jr., 18, have been charged by the Metropolitan Police Department with 2nd Degree Burglary and 1st Degree Property Damage.

According to the police report, the break in occured sometime between Saturday, January 25 and Sunday, January 26.

The damages in the break-in include broken windows, smashed computers, a broken water fountain, and damage in the cafeteria.

St. Louis Public Schools is making repairs and assessing total damage.

Couldn’t they just go to the movies?

Cincinnati Dot com reports an 18-year-old was arrested in connection with an Avondale homicide Wednesday, the same day two teens appeared in court for killing the same man.

Cincinnati Police arrested Antonio Ruff, 18, in connection to the homicide of William Mortiz, 45, on Jan. 20. Tyrone Coleman, 16, and Dontay White, 15, have also been charged in that homicide.

Hamilton County Juvenile Court Magistrate Wende Cross ruled this morning that Coleman and White will be held without bond until the Feb. 11 hearing before Judge John Williams.

In addition to the death of Mortiz, White has also been charged in the homicide of Deshawn Hutchinson, 35, who was killed Monday night.

In all, White faces two murder charges in the deaths of Hutchinson and Moritz, as well as aggravated robbery and felonious assault.

Coleman faces the murder charge in the death of Moritz, as well as aggravated robbery and felonious assault. He also has pending charges of receiving stolen property, forgery and misuse of credit cards.

More here

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

Following last nights rather mundane and short on specifics SOTU by President Obama I started thinking about the future and if there is anyone in the current ranks of the GOP or the Libertarian Party who could possibly be elected to the presidency in 2016. Frankly given the crop of malcontents and loonies(Christie doesn't fall into that group but he has shot himself in the big toe) that seem to be getting attention in the GOP it appears unlikely.

Tonight while browsing the net the following article popped up and given the headline was along my line of thinking last it was a must read. Got me thinking again and if the GOP can find the intelligence to act along the lines of thought presented in the article there may just be a real race in 2016 rather than a shoo in for the democrats.

NationalJournal - For a party that's accustomed to nominating the next-in-line presidential candidate, 2016 promises to be a very unusual year for the Republican Party. For the first time in decades, the GOP has no clear front-runner or even an establishment favorite at this early stage.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie looked poised to fill that role, but his home-state scandals are endangering any national bid before it even gets underway. Jeb Bush would be an obvious contender, but Republican officials are skeptical he'd jump into the ring—all too cognizant of the baggage his last name brings. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker might be able to transcend the gap between the tea party and the establishment, but he still faces a challenging reelection back home. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida lost some cachet after his high-profile advocacy of immigration reform foundered.

But there's one candidate who isn't generating much buzz and whose résumé compares favorably with any of the top-tier candidates. He's a battleground-state governor who's looking in strong position to win a second term. He defeated one of the more popular Democratic governors in the country, who happened to be a major Clinton ally. He's from the Midwest, likely to be the critical region in the 2016 presidential election. He entered office as a prominent fiscal conservative but compromised on Medicaid expansion. And most important, Republican officials familiar with his thinking say he's seriously considering a presidential campaign.

Enter Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the swing-state executive who's currently polling at microscopic levels nationally but who could have an outsized impact on the 2016 race.

"The presidential nominee is likely to be a governor, and, frankly, Kasich is as well situated as anybody. This is a guy who can connect with a crowd, he can emote, he's got blue-collar roots, and he identifies with average folks. He's certainly no Romney," said former NRCC Chairman Tom Davis, who served with Kasich in Congress. "In my opinion, he's the total package. And I think he's interested."

By all accounts, Kasich shouldn't be considered a sleeper. As governor, he's presided over a Rust Belt renaissance, with the state's unemployment rate dropping from one of the highest in the country in 2009 (10.6 percent) to around the national average (7.2 percent) last month. In 2013, Kasich signed a sizable tax cut thanks to the state's newfound budget surplus. Kasich was among the first Republicans to tout the party's need to reach out to the disadvantaged, and he lived up to his rhetoric by passing prison-sentencing reform with support from African-American legislators.

He ran for president before in 2000, parlaying his role passing four balanced budgets with Bill Clinton as a main selling point of the campaign. In effect, he was Paul Ryan before Ryan was elected to Congress. But he barely made a dent in a year when George W. Bush secured early support from party leaders.

"Mitt Romney's biggest problem was the perception he didn't care—that's a Republican Achilles' heel almost built into the party," said former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. "It would be constructive to have a candidate who could diminish that gap because they're cut from a different cloth, they have a proven track record of helping the poor and middle-class, and their policies show it. For people like John Kasich, he feels it as a social calling. That has the potential to be attractive so long as it's matched with conservative ideology."

Read the rest below the fold.

Via: Memeorandum

For years, low income Americans who lacked health care have been resorting to using and applying crazy glue or super glue for certain deep to medium cuts.

Suspect sought
Milwaukee Police Officer Michael Kopel from the Southside 2nd District Police Station says, that a series of armed robberies have occurred at night before midnight by several Hispanic males driving a small light SUV. The suspects have robbed victims walking in sidewalks and alleys in a five block radius from W. Scott Street and S. Cesar E. Chavez Dr.

Uncle Ernie discusses the dangers and perils of too much stacking and what kind of effect it may have on your financial solvency...

Q&A: What to Expect From Janet Yellen's Fed


And how long would we expect that unemployment rate to stay at 5.5%?

The following chart shows the 30 year moving average of the unemployment rate.


Click to enlarge.

Note that 5.5% seems like a pipe dream over the long-term (unless we can somehow magically undo the permanent damage done in the 1970s).



Yellen love you long time.

(Shame on me for going there, lol. Sigh.)

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Unemployment Rate