Democracy in action
This is being written prior to the election results. Those who voted are to be commended, regardless of their political affiliation. This is democracy in action.
I have confidants who are Republicans. I have friends who are Democrats. I have acquaintances who are Obamocrats.
Most of the latter are loyal Americans. Some call themselves Christians.
“None are so blind as those who will not see.” God bless the USA!
BOB G. TANNEHILL
Winston-Salem
Serious concerns
Some passing thoughts. I have some serious concerns about a health-care bill that affects me but exempts the Congress and president. I do not believe a person who pays no taxes should determine how much tax I have to pay. Do some people actually believe that an individual receiving government assistance would vote for a candidate who might stop or cut back that assistance?
Mark Twain once said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” Ain't it the truth.
J. FRANK JOINER
Winston-Salem
Romney was gracious
The author of the letter “Romney's retirement,” (Nov. 21) should be ashamed of himself, but I doubt that he will be or understand the reasons he should be.
President Obama won the popular and electoral vote and needs the support of all Americans during these troubled times. I hope he will govern from the center and pick intelligent, astute replacements for the departing members of his administration.
The author of the above-mentioned letter is probably someone who accuses all he labels as conservatives as “Fox News watchers.” I have news for him — no conservative would mention similar retirement goals for President Obama if he had been turned out of office.
Mitt Romney was gracious in defeat. His sons, along with millions of other young men and women, have chosen not to serve in our volunteer army. Perhaps the president’s daughters will choose to serve, although I do not remember President Obama serving in our armed forces, either. I also seem to remember President Obama having canine troubles when he was growing up and both President Obama and Romney have money in blind trusts that are most probably invested in foreign companies, defense contractors, non-green corporations and other investments that they are not aware of.
I wish the author happy retirement from the Journal pages; I hope he will not continue to bore us with such meaningless tripe.
TOM D. JONES
Winston-Salem
A courageous vote
This is a hearty “Thank You!” to the members of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board for their support of the new athletic facility at Reynolds High School. In the face of unrelenting wind, their courageous vote to allow us to provide for our young people is a breath of fresh air.
This facility will be designed and constructed with every good purpose in mind, foremost of which are the needs of the kids; without compromising the beauty of the area. Once it stands, I believe even present detractors will find it difficult to deny what a vast improvement this is over an ugly bus parking lot, an unused field and an ancient eyesore of a gym.
I'm also happy that our friends in the Parkland High School community will have their own facility now as well.
I hope the members of the school board will know that many people across our city, especially the thousands of Reynolds graduates, applaud their courage for doing what was right a long time ago.
JON BOLING
Winston-Salem
Anti-tax man
Apropos of your Nov. 27 Associated Press article “Some GOP lawmakers now flout anti-tax man” and Eugene Robinson’s column (“Cracks in the anti-tax wall”) of the same date, I read somewhere recently a quote from one of my favorite public people of recent decades, George H.W. Bush, who personally got into political difficulty over breaking a “pledge” not to raise taxes.
Former President Bush, during an interview earlier this year with Parade magazine, is said to have remarked, “Who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?”
This is exactly how I think the world should view old Grover.
MURRAY C. GREASON JR.
Winston-Salem
Post-election America
In post-election America, taxes are going to go up, and the government has become the source of all good things. So I've advised my grandchildren not to study too hard for fear of making too much money, which the government will immediately take away. There's no point in working hard, anyway, since food stamps and other federal handouts are readily available.
If they insist on studying, I suggest they learn to lie, loudly and often, so as to become politicians. That way, many otherwise unavailable perquisites will be theirs.
Furthermore, I am assured by those who admire Rep. Charles Rangel and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: Politicians needn't pay taxes.
RICHARD MERLO
Elkin
So "most" are loyal Americans? "Call" themselves Christians?
ReplyDeleteSo glad we have Bob to give us his seal of approval.
Regarding Mr. Merlo:
ReplyDeleteI'm very proud to be a "maker" and not a "taker" and could not imagine ever purposely wanting to live off food stamps, and could never envision teaching my children not to study hard although I believe wholeheartedly that food stamps should exists for those who are unfortunate to need them.
Democracy in action.“None are so blind as those who will not see". Always true. Even worse though is when they do see, they can't understand what they are seeing.
ReplyDeleteSerious concerns. "Do some people actually believe that an individual receiving government assistance would vote for a candidate who might stop or cut back that assistance?". That's the plan.
ReplyDeleteRomney was gracious. If you hope Obama will govern from the center...he won't. That's not who he is.
ReplyDeleteGracious on camera, audacious when he perceived he was off.
DeleteAnti-tax man. George H W Bush broke his tax pledge and broke any chance of re election. Mistaxation is the trouble with the tax side. Exploding spending is our main problem. The more money taxed to support the government sector is that much money no longer available for tax reform.
ReplyDeletePost- election America. No, we are beginning the "post- America America.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that one.
DeleteIt seems we are headed to an inevitable economic crash. Democrats can't get through their thick skulls we don't have enough money for all of their give away programs.
Politically, we've created an underclass of dependent people that can out-vote the worker bees. So we have nowhere to go but down the tubes.
Thanks Democrats.
Hmm, "seems we are headed to an inevitable" is incongruent. Try "seems we are headed to an economic crash" or "an economic crash is inevitable."
DeleteI wonder if the Supremes will take up the backend issue? How about you Bob?
DeleteI have no issue. Like you said before, I have a beautiful ass.
DeleteI have Diana Ross and the Supremes "Merry Christmas" Album (1965), Captured Live on Stage (1970, and Anthology: The Best of Diana Ross & the Supremes (1995). I think Jack Fowler of Winston-Salem once sued the Supremes.
DeleteIt seems the Galtian supermen have a disproportionate amount of free time to futz away on blogs.
DeletePhargo...I have to wear two wallets to make it appear I even have an ass.
DeleteYes, Mr. Merlo, in NC with a yearly income of $13,500, one is eligible for $16/month in food stamps. Not a lot, but it does buy a large quantity of dried beans. Perhaps your grandchildren can visit on Sundays and pass the gas with Grandpa.
ReplyDeleteIn the old days, that was also called "indoor heating" :)
DeleteBeano!!!
DeleteOne of the top ten movie scenes of all time:
DeletePork & beans scene in "Blazing Saddles"
'scuse me while I whip this out
DeleteThis could go on and on:
Delete"I get a kick from champagne..." What a great scene, right down to when Taggert lassos the handcart.
I was in grad school when this came out and we had been talking about it for months. My whole class went to the opening matinee, loaded up with popcorn and sat in the front row like kids. When Frankie Laine started singing "Blazing Saddles" we started laughing and didn't stop until the final credits had rolled.
One of the most intelligent, and certainly funniest movies ever made.
"I must've killed more men than Cecil B. Demille"
___The Waco Kid
Slim Pickens was an underappreciated talent.
DeleteMy goodness: WW, OT, Arthur, and I all in agreement. Must be the season.
Delete"You boys have had enough beans!"
"work work work...pass these out in lieu of pay"
DeleteOK, Stab, that's enough. I am going to be forced to watch "Blazing Saddles" again, for the eleven zillionth time.
DeleteAnd Mr. Taggart was wrong...there is no such thing as "enough beans". I love beans, all kinds, even lima beans, which seem to have fallen out of favor in recent times. As Bob points out somewhere above, you can buy a hell of a lot of dried beans for $16.
Not to mention that beans are not the only things to blame...broccoli and peppers, for instance, could possibly be adapted to propel fairly large vehicles sometime in the future. Just feed the driver the proper diet and position him properly.
I must also agree with Arthur, indeed, Slim Pickens was an undervalued actor, and a very interesting man to boot.
DeleteHe was a Californian who dropped out of school at age 12 to join the rodeo where he got his stage name from someone's saying that there were "slim pickins" for rodeo performers. He ended up being a fairly famous rodeo clown.
Beginning in his 30s, he got both bad guy and comic roles in a number of western movies, then caught a break by being chosen by Marlon Brando to play Karl Malden's despicable deputy Lon in "One-Eyed Jacks", which I think was his best role ever…pure, sorry evil. But it was Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" that made his career, playing the unlovable buffoon Major T.J. "King" Kong who makes the memorable rodeo ride on an H-bomb to perdition.
"Blazing Saddles" gave him an opportunity to display his full range of talent by being a jackass for comic purposes.
But I think that his best moment was in "One-Eyed Jacks", which also may be the best western ever made. Brando's only pic as director, and one of his best performances, plus Karl Malden's best performance as the sleazy Dad Longworth (Brando: "You might be a one-eyed jack around here, Dad, but I seen the other side of your face." *) and a classic bit of Ben Johnson, another of my favorite bad guys.
BTW, Brando and Malden were a mutual admiration society, but only worked in three pix together… "On the Waterfront", "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Jacks". Not a bad run.
* I seriously doubt if you can find the correct quote anywhere online. Even Rotten Tomatoes blows it, and they take at least two shots at it. Almost all "quotes" have many mistakes, but the most egregious and most common error is "…I've seen the other side of your face". Brando said "I seen", not "I've seen." Sad because it tells us that people missed one of the best parts of the movie, Brando's marvelous command of vocabulary and enunciation.
I liked Ben Johnson in the "The Wild Bunch" and in one of John Wayne's westerns. Johnson was a wrangler before he started acting.
DeleteBeans: I like beans, too, especially black eyes, crowder peas, butter peas, and lentils (OK, legumes). River Birch makes a great white bean chili and white bean soup. Either of those and few beers and you can propel a Saturn V to Alpha Centauri. There are other effects, however, such that one chili fancier depopulated one end of the bar. Other regulars now have the bartenders on retainer to report to him that the restaurant is out whenever he orders it.
One of the things that amazes me about science is the rapidity with which some beans can convert from vegetable form to gaseous form, ergo your bar problem.
DeleteAnd clearly, some homo sapiens are better hosts than others for this conversion process. I suppose we will need some government grants to study the problem before we can reliably convert beans to fuel.
But once we get it all calculated, it's going to be "look out, Alpha Centauri". Let's hope that they don't shoot back.
LTE #1 – Poor Bob. Believe it or not, 30 years ago Bob Tannehill was an intelligent, relatively sane person.
ReplyDeleteWho knows what this means?
LTE #2 – More Republican sour grapes.
LTE #3 – Since I do not recall the LTE referred to, I am out of the loop on this one.
LTE #4 – “Unrelenting wind?” That’s not nice.
Assuming that thousands of RJR alums support the stadium is pretty windy itself. Most of my RJR grad friends oppose the stadium.
LTE #5 – Norquist is your typical greedy, selfish tax whiner to the tenth power.
LTE #6 – Another Chicken Little pipsqueak.
“…I suggest they learn to lie, loudly and often…” Sounds as if he’s bringing up a litter of new Republicans.maybe they can do better than Mitt’s Jeep speech.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteRe LTE #3…someone reminded me of some things. Mr. Jones wrote "Mitt Romney was gracious in defeat." Really?
DeleteI seem to recall that he whined that the President had "bought" the election with gifts to minorities, just exactly the kind of chickenshit that one would expect from somebody like him. And that brought plenty of criticism from people in his own party. Stand up and be a man, Mitt.
The truth is that he and his crackpot colleagues in the Tea Party dominated GOP were rejected outright by voters who read him like a comic book.
And anyone who wants to claim that it was close need only look at the 332-206 electoral result. Despite massive popular vote margins in the backwoods redneck/gun states, especially Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma, Mississippi, etc, as it turns out, the President did not need Ohio, Florida or Virginia…he still would have won 272-266.
Decades ago, one of the greatest of all poets, T.S. Eliot, wrote a poem that exactly describes Mitty, a man who stands for nothing, and the outcome of his political career...a whimper indeed. Eliot knew plenty of "hollow men" in his time.
The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
---
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.