The Second Assault on Newtown

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

There are days that we never forget, days when our ordinary activities are interrupted by an event of such magnitude that what we were doing becomes forever linked in our minds to colossal happening that suddenly overtakes us.  I’m certain that if my father were still living, he would be able to recall with complete clarity what he was doing on the day Japan surrendered and thus brought World War II to an end. 

For my generation, one of the most defining moments was the assassination of President Kennedy which occurred fifty years ago next month.  Another monumental event occurred in the summer of 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon.   While my activities on most of the days of my life have slipped quietly into the murky miasma of time, the things that I was doing on those two days remain starkly embedded in my memory.

Last year, on December 14^th, a tragedy occurred that was so god-awful that it seared my memory with a scar that cannot – and should not – disappear.  That was the day a mentally disturbed young man, armed with automatic weapons, forced his way into an elementary school and began firing with deliberate aim.  By the time Adam Lanza’s bloody shooting spree ended, he had killed twenty students, mostly first graders, and six adults.  He ended the ordeal by taking his own life.

My workplace was having a holiday party that day.  Just before going into the office celebration, I saw a brief mention on the Internet of a shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut.   As someone who has worked in the field of education for years, I know that there are few places in any community that are more innocent and accepting than the local elementary school.  I was bordering on being emotional as I entered the holiday gathering, just knowing that children were being exposed to something that scary and awful.

By the time our little party ended, the news was being blared from every source.  A mad man had gunned down children, lots of small children, each of whom had left home just hours before with concerns no greater than getting ready for Santa’s visit.  There had been a bloodbath in a place that normally served as a sanctuary for love, laughter, and learning.

Hell had visited the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  Children had died, families had been destroyed, and innocence was gone forever.

I had a medical appointment in town that afternoon.   My tears flowed, unashamedly, all the way to the doctor’s office, and all the way home again.  It was a terribly sad day – a day I can never forget.

There were some good-intentioned efforts at gun reform following that school shooting.  Parents of the victims lobbied Congress and other government entities for laws limiting the size of ammunition clips for automatic weapons.  There was also a national push for better background screenings to slow or stop the purchase of guns by habitual criminals and the mentally ill.  America was outraged – for awhile.

It didn’t take the usual suspects long to put up a counter-offensive.  The National Rifle Association’s combative mouthpiece, Wayne LaPierre, began braying about the need for more guns in schools to protect the innocent little kids from armed intruders.   The love, laughter, and learning would flourish when more teachers were packing heat.   The windbag sheriff in the county where I live, Joe Arpaio, sent his armed and basically geriatric “posse” to patrol the parking lots of schools in unincorporated areas of Maricopa County. 

The philosophy was pure through-the-looking-glass:  more guns make us safer.

Now, as the anniversary of the Newton massacre draws near, another brutal travesty is about to be unleashed on the still grieving community.  A group of gun enthusiasts calling itself the “Second Amendment Foundation” plans to show its contempt for responsible efforts to curb gun deaths by sponsoring an event in Newtown on Saturday, December 14^th, the one-year anniversary of the event that snuffed out so many young lives.   The affront to decent people everywhere will be called “Guns Save Lives Day.”  One of the staging points will be the local Starbucks.

Fred Phelps and the morons who populate his family church (sic), the Westboro Baptist Church (sic) in Topeka, set the bar for crude insensitivity with their loud screaming protests at funerals – particularly the funerals of American military service men and women.    Now the Second Amendment Foundation is planning something so offensive, vulgar, and disrespectful to a profoundly grief-stricken community, that the Phelps’ organized hate-mongering pales by comparison.

Saturday, December 14^th, 2013, would be a good day for torrential rains in the northeastern United States - served up with a healthy side dose of lightening.  It would be a day we all could remember for a very long time.

Monday's Poetry: "God Is Gay"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Elliot Darrow is a young college student who recently performed an original poem of his own creation at the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam at Barnard College in New York.  His performance was filmed and ultimately made its way to YouTube where it created a firestorm in cyberspace.

Mr. Darrow who describes himself as a "straight male" and an "out Christian" says he began pondering the notion of "What if God is gay?" eighteen months ago.   Over the ensuing months he delved into the Bible looking  for clues to God's sexuality.  His resulting poem, "God Is Gay," has been described by Time magazine as "a dynamic work of gay liberation theology."

"God Is Gay" generates thought and promotes acceptance.   It is a wide-ranging literary effort that goes so far as to even acknowledge America's premier homophobe, Fred Phelps.  It is a welcome mat to all of us who have fled the Church due to the hate generated by the misinterpreters of the Word of God.

True Christianity is not about hate.


God is Gay
by Elliot Darrow



What if I told you God is gay?

Do you think belligerent bible-belters

Would still holler hate speech to the hilltops

In His name?

Or do you think they would reread the scriptures

They say they swear and survive by

See, I’ve been reading the Bible again lately

And I think I’ve taken a leaf from their holy book,

Picking passages for my purpose

Which is in short

To let you know it’s very possible God is gay.

I mean think about the book of Genesis

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

And it wasn’t just good, it was fabulous.

I mean what else is our planet but the pinnacle

Of exterior design, and I don’t mean to generalize

But it certainly seems like that the Garden of Eden

Was designed by queer, I mean divine eye for the straight guy

But some Christians would go as far as to call

God’s creations abominations

Heretics calling themselves faithful

When their faith is full of belief that only God may pass judgment

Matthew 7:1 Judge and you too shall be judged

Luke 6: 37 Condemn not and you shall not be condemned

Fred Phelps 2006: You’re going to hell! God hates fags!

A history lesson: A faggot is a bundle of sticks

Originally used as kindling for fires that engulfed gays

When they were burned at the stake, people were firewood

But Moses came across wood on fire and saw God in it,

What is a burning bush but bundles of branches

On fire, isn’t it funny how faggots and God can look the same sometimes?

Keep in mind Jesus had two dads and turned out just fine

In fact, Jesus had two dads and a surrogate mother

That never had sex with either of them,

Maybe Mary was a lesbian

And I remember the prayer going

“Hail Mary, full of grace”

Not full of sin,

“Pray for us sinners”

For we have become blinded by bigotry.

And forgotten that God gave us the rainbow

As a promise that we will never be flooded again

Either with rain or ignorance

And now all the homosexual Homo sapiens

Stand more united under God’s rainbow

Than all of his denominations do around the cross.

I was brought up believing that my Savior loved us all

And never had to specify “no homo”

But if you have hate in your heart

Say it don’t pray it

Don’t teach it and for the love of God don’t preach it

Because I am tired of these fire and brimstone sermons

Slinging slurs when they’re not firing brimstones

From voices that should be filled with love and praise

Instead of raised with hate and rage

I am a Christian, and I believe in saying the Christian thing.

Which used to sound like “Love thy neighbor as thyself”

But now sounds more like hate at the top of your picket signs

The closest thing to God being “Hell, is waiting for you”

They’re passing out damnation pamphlets

Filled with out-of-context Bible verses

Trying to define God

When his meaning is clear.

He is acceptance, He is pride, He is humility, He is just,

God is perfection, God is protection, God is love,

But most importantly

God is gay

Red Meat Weekend

by Pa Rock
Struggling Fry Cook

Last week I found a pair of nice-looking, small, boneless steaks on sale at Ralph's Pretty-Good-But-Overpriced Family Grocery.  I can burn a steak on the grill to the point of just barely being inedible, but beyond that I am rather clueless on how to handle good cuts of meat.

Friday evening I was talking to my son, Tim, on the phone when I mentioned the steaks.  I told him that my toaster oven has a setting for "broil" and wondered if it would work for steaks.  Tim didn't know, but said if I tried it and it worked, perhaps I should blog and brag about my adventures in cooking.

I lined the little pan in the toaster oven with copious amounts of tin foil, seasoned the steaks with the handiest spices in the cabinet, turned the dial to "broil," and let her rip.  After about four cycles with the timer, the steaks looked and smelled like they were ready to eat.  They were tender and delicious!  The entire episode was probably nothing more than a lucky accident that I will never be able to repeat, but I did manage to get one exceptionally good meal out of the effort.

Yesterday as I walked through Costco, still savoring the steaks from the night before, I found myself drawn to the meat counter.  I wound up buying a big double roast that cost about what I used to pay for rent back in the seventies.  This morning at 6:00 a.m. I loaded the very big roast and several small, golden potatoes (halved) into the crock pot.   I seasoned the meat and potatoes liberally with several odds and ends from the cabinet and then doused the whole thing with A-1 Sauce.  Nine hours later I had another wonderful red-meat meal with enough leftovers get me through next week.

I am sure that my nephew, Reed Smith (who has a college degree in meat science), would have found both experiences to be cringe-worthy, but somehow they worked out.  Perhaps I will be able to survive retirement on my own - just me, a  good farm dog, a couple of dozen chickens - and a microwave in case I want to try my hand at baking a pie!

I can't wait to find out!

More that a Century On, Earnest Remains Important

by Pa Rock
Theatre Fan

My first exposure to the work of Irish playwright, poet, and novelist, Oscar Wilde, was as a youngster when I came across an old black and white movie version of his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, playing on television.  While I didn't have the maturity or sophistication to appreciate the complexity of the work, by the time I finally read the novel in college I was able to truly appreciate the mind and writing ability of the author.

Oscar Wilde was primarily a playwright.  (Dorian Gray, was in fact, his only novel.)  His characters have entertained generations of audiences with their awkward social situations and clever dialogue - and no play reflects Wilde's brilliant and scathing humor better than his last play, The Importance of Being Earnest.

I had seen Earnest performed on stage (years ago) and also watched the recent movie version - twice, so I entered the Herberger Theatre in Phoenix last night feeling some trepidation that the current production of the play by the Arizona Theatre Company might fall short when it came to inspiring my enthusiasm.  Nothing could have been further from what actually transpired.  The Arizona Theatre's version was a fresh and invigorating experience that nevertheless remained true to the playwright's original work.  The words may have been strung together more than a century ago, but they were still laugh-out-loud funny!

Oscar Wilde, a man whose personal life was far more colorful than any of his character creations, was the master of stage comedy during his short lifetime, and one of the most recognized and enduring playwrights of the Victorian era.   None of Wilde's works display his brilliance more than The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Arizona Theatre Company and their fine cast did a wonderful job of polishing that gem of a play for a twenty-first century audience.

Great works transcend time, and those of Oscar Wilde do it better than most.

Olive Noel Macy is Two Years Old!

by Pa Rock
Proud Grandpa

Today is Baby Olive's second birthday.  I am not able to be in Kansas for her party, but I know that her little cousins and numerous relatives and friends are making her day very special.

Olive was born in Overland Park, Kansas, and now lives a few miles down the road in a town called Roeland Park.  I was able to be in Kansas the day she was born and returned to Japan a few days later secure in the knowledge that I had a beautiful and healthy granddaughter.  And while it might not seem as though she has ventured far from her place of birth, during the past two years Olive has visited Okinawa and Canada, lived for awhile in Los Angeles, and been to Oregon, Phoenix and the Grand Canyon.  I hope she is able to keep traveling and exploring the world as she gets older.

I wish that I could be at her party today, but Olive and I were together a couple of weeks ago when she visited me in Arizona.  She has grown and changed so much in her first two years.

Olive, very soon I will be living closer to you - and we will have some wonderful times together.  That's a promise!

Much love and happy birthday from Pa Rock!

Eating the Elephant

by Pa Rock
Form Filler

My plan is to retire on February 28^th, 2014, and to begin drawing federal retirement and social security the following month.    To my naive way of thinking, that ought to be as simple as giving my supervisor two weeks’ notice and then cleaning out my desk on the last day.

Forget that!

Social security is a process, but one that looks like it can be tackled and completed during a couple of quiet hours at the keyboard.   The federal retirement system, however, is another species of animal entirely.  The retirement package is literally dozens of pages in length, confusing and/or contradictory instructions for filling out each segment of each form, and requests for obscure attachments – some of which should have been maintained by the folks at the retirement system.  It will literally take weeks to prepare, then the materials must be submitted for an initial evaluation, and then, if the federal employees are back at work, someone will contact the applicant – me – with a list of corrections and further demands.

The government can put a worker on furlough status by issuing one poorly written form letter, but when the worker wants to leave it’s a whole different story!

I told my friend, Glinda, how frustrated I was with the process.  She replied, “Rocky, it’s like eating an elephant.  Just take it one bite at a time.”

So for the next couple of months I will be sitting at the kitchen table in the evenings, keyboard at the ready, slowly chewing the fat and plodding through the forms – item by tedious item.  

Once I learn this process, I'm wondering if it might form the basis of a retirement business.  I could call it "Elephant Eaten Here."

So much elephant - so little time!

Notes from the Land of Contented Rattlesnakes and Satisfied Scorpions

by Pa Rock
Desert Rat

It rained last night and early this morning in the Valley of Heck, not much, but enough to get the ground wet.  That lovely rain was followed today by a high temperature somewhere in the seventies - with a nice breeze!

This wonderful weather is playing itself out in many ways.  Jan Brewer, our perpetually angry governor, has lightened up.  Not only did she accept the Obama Medicaid increase, then she forced her legislature to go along with that unprecedented expansion of the welfare state.  Now she has pointed her evil finger at our state's representatives in Congress and told them to back-off of trying to defund Obamacare.  Jan had an epiphany that the Republican effort to kill medical care for the masses was a fool's errand.

As the temperature dips into the two digits, Jan's IQ rises into the three digits - or thereabouts.

It has been days and days since any prisoners have died in Joe Arpaio's jails, and some people (not me) are actually trying to paint John McCain as a statesman.

It has to be the weather!

And if all of that wasn't enough, today the mailman brought two letters from Publisher's Clearing House, one of which almost assures me on the outside of the envelope that I have probably already won $7,000 a week for life.  It has been years since the last time those folks found me - so it must be fate, and the wonderful weather!

 Why would a person want to live anyplace else?

GOP Wheezing, Gasping, and Trying to Add Hostages to Its Shutdown

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The Republican shutdown of the federal government has dragged into its second week with few people speaking openly of ending the pitiful affair.  But whether they are talking of an end game or not, the American people are beginning to have their say - and that is bad news for the tea-bagger hostage takers.

The Associated Press, a relatively trustworthy news organization, released its most recent poll today showing that 62% of those surveyed blame Republicans for the current shutdown.  A Washington Post / ABC poll released yesterday noted that 70% of Americans disapprove of how Republicans are handling the budget negations.  (Sixty-one percent disapprove of the job Democrats are doing on the negotiations, and 51% don't like the way the President is negotiating.)

But those are just polls, and the best polls remain those where people are actually voting.

Yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina, a fairly conservative and Republican area, Democrats retook control of the school board and "swept" the city council races.  And those good voters also elected a Democrat to be their new mayor.

Signs of things to come?  It's almost a situation where all the Democrats need to sit on its collective hands and just keep quiet while the Republicans flush themselves out to sea.

Congressman Paul Ryan, the GOP's budget guru and former veep candidate, had an opinion piece in today's Murdoch Daily (The Wall Street Journal) in which he proposed "modest" reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code in order to end the stalemate.  He didn't mention Obamacare by name, so Fox lit into him.  As he hastily backtracked, Budget Boy noted that "entitlement programs" would necessarily include Obamacare.

Entitlement programs also include Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Add those hostages to the mix, Paul, and see how fast the public shuts down your crime spree!

Hey, Cher, I'll Meet You in St. Louis!

by Pa Rock
Cher Fan

The thing I will miss most when I move back to the Ozarks - in fact, probably the only thing that I will regret about vacating the Valley of Hell - will be the wonderful live theatre.  I have tickets for two classic shows in the next two weeks:  The Importance of Being Earnest and The Thirty-Nine Steps.  Of the couple of dozen theatrical productions that I have seen since arriving in Phoenix, only a couple have been less than stellar.

It will be more challenging to find good theatre venues around West Plains, Missouri.  The community has a little theatre that reportedly does good work, but for truly professional live theatre I will have to travel a hundred miles to Springfield, or two hundred miles or more to Kansas City or St. Louis.  I am sure that I will be doing that occasionally.

(They do get creative in the Ozarks.   I remember going to a traveling production of Neil Simon's Star Spangled Girl at a campground on a riverbank thirty years ago.   A related activity was audience members passing around cans of mosquito spray during the performance!)

One item, a concert, has already made it onto my Missouri calendar.  My youngest son is making arrangements for me to go to St. Louis in June to see Cher in her most recent farewell tour.  I have been a big fan of hers for almost half-a-century.

One of my most vivid Cher memories is of her television show in the early seventies after she and Sonny divorced.  Her guests that night were Tina Turner and Anthony Newley.  The three of them did an astounding, rock-out performance of Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show.  I would love to have that on tape.  (I am also a super fan of Tina Turner!)

(I told Tim once that if he ever made it to the Academy Awards, I wanted to go if he could get me placed at Cher's table.  He replied that he might be able to get me in the same building as Chaz, but probably not at the same table with Cher.)

Tim has redeemed himself by helping me to get a good seat at the concert in St. Louis!  

The Long Road Home

by Pa Rock
Traveling Fool

We are back in Phoenix tonight following what felt like a day-and-a-half of driving through the mountains and desert.  It must have been the pull of San Diego and the push of Phoenix that made for such slow going.

One big hindrance to speedy travel today was our stop for lunch.  Gail and I are both fans of Cracker Barrel (an old people's thing), but stopping at the one in Yuma was a bad decision.  The service was abominably slow, and when our food was finally on the table they had gotten my order wrong and it was not up to Cracker Barrel's usual high standards.  In fact, my meal was not good.   The slow service cannot be blamed on crowding because there were not that many customers in the restaurant.  Perhaps the low volume of customers was an indicator that locals eat elsewhere.

In fairness to the corporation, the Cracker Barrel in Goodyear, Arizona, is a great place for a meal!

Gail flies out of Phoenix tomorrow, and I return to work on Wednesday.  Our trip to San Diego went well - and much too quickly!

A Walk Through San Diego's Old Town

by Pa Rock
Traveling Fool

Gail and I spent the morning and early afternoon in San Diego's historic and bustling Old Town.  There was a craft show taking place that featured some especially beautiful and unique art.  Some of the art and a good deal of the tourist junk was focused on the upcoming Mexican holiday, "El Dio de Los Muertes" (the Day of the Dead), a celebration that occurs each year around Halloween in which our neighbors to the South honor their deceased family members.   Happy skeletons are pervasive in art related to the Day of the Dead.

I purchased a ceramic tile of a skeleton wearing a sombrero and standing along a desert stretch of Route 66.  It doesn't take much to amuse me.  (Someday my kids will be digging through all my treasure trying to decide what goes in the estate sale and what goes in the trash, and the most common comment will be "What the hell did he buy this for?")

I also came away with a really good camping cookbook - lots of recipes for things to make in a dutch oven.

After walking and gawking through Old Town and having a nice Mexican lunch, we returned to the hotel for our naps - an old people thing.  This evening we will walk back into the town of Coronado for an evening meal and a bit more browsing through the stores.

Phoenix tomorrow.

GOP Shutdown Begins to Fizzle

by Pa Rock
Non-Essential Government Employee

The cruel and completely needless Republican shutdown of our government appears to be fizzling out. The bogus "shutdown," which never actually brought government to a screeching halt, began last Tuesday with all kinds of exemptions to insure that much of government did not stop.

Today I learned (through about a dozen text messages and a phone call from my boss) that our office will be back on-line and fully staffed tomorrow.  (I am still in San Diego and will be on leave until Wednesday.)  The whole thing seems to have begun with a bang and ended with a whimper.

Secretary of Defense Hagel, a remarkable good person, made a ballsy decision to bring Department of Defense civilians back to work.  That was much appreciated, sir.  

Now let's get everyone else back to work.  You've lost this one, Orange John.  It's time to lick it up and move on!

Wading in the Surf

by Pa Rock
Traveling Fool
(and Non-Essential Government Employee)

Gail and I drove north of San Diego today to a beautiful little seaside community called Cardiff by the Sea.  We met Aunt Mary there along with our cousins, Linda and Janet, and had a wonderful meal next to a large picture window with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean.  The surfers were out in full force!

After lunch we all doffed our shoes and socks and went for a walk in the surf.  While we were wading along, my friend Valerie telephoned from Okinawa.  Her call led to me stare wistfully out across the big Pacific and think of my friends who were looking at the same ocean but several thousand miles west of where I was getting my feet wet.

This afternoon Gail and I went to the San Diego harbor where we walked along looking at the city's collection of ships and submarines.  I had been in most of those vessels of previous trips to San Diego, and Gail wasn't interested in crawling around through Cold War-Era submarines. I earned Gail's ire on this trip by feeding popcorn to the seagulls as we traversed the harbor's edge.   The resulting scene, with the gulls almost flying into us and screaming at each other as they fought for the kernels of popcorn, could have been planned and directed by Hitchcock.

Late in the evening we drove to Imperial Beach near the Mexican-U.S. border and explored that old surfer community.

And on the furlough front . . .

The House voted 407 to 0 today to grant pay to federal workers for the time they are off work due to Congress's game-playing.  The Senate and President would still have to agree to that plan - a contrivance that essentially would mean that furloughed workers were now on a paid vacation status.  That makes even less sense that the GOP's prior twisted logic that sent us all home to begin with..  Now the word is that most Department of Defense civilians, of which I am one, will be invited back to work on Monday.

One thing would appear obvious:  even a modest intellect is not a requirement for serving in Congress.

The Shutdown Road Trip

by Pa Rock
Non-Essential Government Employee

My sister Gail arrived in Phoenix yesterday afternoon and this morning we hit the road for San Diego.  It took longer than usual to cover the distance between the two cities, because we weren't in any hurry. In fact, I haven't felt rushed about anything since the Republican shutdown of government began last Tuesday.

Our stops on the way west included Gila Bend (where Prince Harry learned how to fly Apache helicopters two years ago), Dateland (primarily one business adjacent to a date grove that sells date products and other tourist paraphernalia), Yuma (for the cheap Arizona gas), El Centro (can't remember why, but probably a bathroom pit stop), and the Golden Acorn Casino in the mountains about twenty-five miles east of El Cajon (for lunch - my prime rib special was $7.77 - included salad, baked potato, green beans and carrots, and a big slab of prime rib!), and finally the Naval Amphibious Base on South Coronado Island where we are staying in beautiful rooms on the ninth floor of the guest house -$53.00 per night per room).

This afternoon we strolled into the town of Coronado, walked through the beautiful Del Coronado Hotel (where Some Like It Hot was filmed in the 1950's), walked along the beach behind the Del Coronado (where my daughter, Molly, and her husband, Scott, were married a few years back), visited some tourist shops, and had a nice Mexican dinner before walking back to the Navy base.

It's San Diego - so the weather is beautiful.  Tomorrow we will have lunch with Aunt Mary and our cousins, Linda and Janet.  We may go to the harbor in the afternoon and also possibly Imperial Beach, a funky old surfing community that I always enjoy.  Sunday we are planning to take the trolley tour of San Diego and Coronado.

Home Monday.

I almost feel like I should thank Speaker Boehner and the Talibangelicals for the time off, but I can't bring myself to heap any praise on people whose primary aim is to wreck the economy.  I need to be working - and so does the rest of America!

One Tough Car

by Pa Rock
Non-Essential Government Employee

Day Three:  The Republican shutdown of our nation's government continues.   Today I ate breakfast and lunch at home, did not buy my standard Mega-Millions lottery ticket, and put off getting an already overdue haircut.  Also today the DOW slipped beneath 15,000 for the first time in weeks.  Believe it or not, there once was a time when Republicans were thought to be pro-business!

I did make a trip across Phoenix today to pick up my sister at the airport.  She and I will be driving to San Diego tomorrow morning to see our sweet Aunt Mary - and wade in the Pacific Ocean.  I parked at a commercial lot close to the airport, and after boarding the shuttle, I noticed that I did not have my car keys.  I got off of the shuttle and walked back to where my car was parked, securely locked with the keys in plain view on the driver's seat.

My insurance company sent a locksmith who arrived quickly.  The young man pulled up in what appeared to be his personal car with a magnetic sign on the door that assured me he was a locksmith.  He had the look of an experienced car thief, and was sporting an abundance of very artful tattoos. - so I assumed that I had the right man for the job.   But, all was not as it appeared.  The fellow had a very difficult time breaking into and entering my car.  In fact, it took him almost an hour to get the job done.  He never did spring the lock, but was finally able to snag the keys with the glorified coat-hanger that appeared to be the only burglary tool in his kit.  He told me that mine was the toughest car he had ever tackled.

And just what is my impregnable vehicle?  A 2005 Saturn Vue.

And what did I remember late this evening that would have been nice to know this afternoon.  Why, that would be the spare car key in the magnetic key box that I put on the underside of my car back when I bought it!  It's still there.

The mind goes first!

Republican Destruction of Government Marches On

by Pa Rock
Non-Essential Government Employee

This is day two of the GOP shutdown of the federal government, and my first full day away from work.  I didn't go to the local McDonald's for my customary oatmeal breakfast this morning, so this ridiculous Republican snit fit cost that business a few dollars, and it will keep costing them every day that the nonsense continues.  Most of the time I have lunch at the Sonic Drive-In just outside of the base.  That has ended, too.  With the loss of income, it becomes a necessity to eat at home.    This weekend I will not visit the local bookstore, or take in a movie at the multi-plex  down the road.  I am also getting ready to cut back on my cable selections.

And I suspect that the other 799,999 furloughed government employees are making similar decisions.

The teabagger wing of the Republican Party had the stated goal of defunding, or delaying and then defunding, the Affordable Care Act.   That, of course, won't happen, but they may very well succeed at screwing up the nation's economy - an outcome that many of the baggers will view with satisfaction and pride.

Right now it appears that one man holds the key to ending the craziness.  All House Speaker John Boehner has to do to resolve the situation is to bring a clean continuing resolution to keep funding the government to the floor of the House.  Several members of Boehner's own party, the GOP, are pushing to bring the clean continuing resolution (one that doesn't take the Affordable Care Act hostage) to the floor and get the government back in operation.

But Boehner is concerned with his survival as Speaker.  News flash, John - it ain't a-gonna happen, regardless of what you do or don't do to end this mess.   You, sir, are already toast.

The anarchists of the Republican Party in the House, those who openly want government to fail, recognize Boehner as a spineless wimp whose sole focus in life seems to be maintaining his cushy job with its cushy digs, and playing golf at every conceivable opportunity.  Many, though not all, held their esteemed noses and helped to vote him in as Speaker when the new Congress assembled and organized in January of 2013.  They won’t make that mistake again. 

If Boehner seeks re-election to his sad post, the firebrands who have grown amazingly brazen in wielding threats and intimidation, will threaten to either sit on their hands during the vote, or vote for someone else.  They will insist on someone of their ilk leading the House, someone with a big, thick spine and skull - and a world view filtered through Fox News. 

The horror!  The horror!

The good news for the rest of us is that this domestic terrorism currently being exercised by the teabagger Republicans in Congress is likely to cost them dearly in the next election.  They would be far better served by leaving the economy alone and concentrating on the next election  - but let’s not tell them that.   Speaker Pelosi will bang that point home with her big gavel when the House re-organizes in January of 2015!

John Boehner's Balls

by Pa Rock
Non-Essential Government Employee


Several news reports over the past couple of days have bluntly stated that some members of our U.S. House of Representatives have been stumbling around drunk on the floor of that august chamber.  So much for clear-headed and thoughtful governance.  It's past time that we sent these annoying adolescents and angry anarchists home where they could try working for a living.

Things might be different - if they had a leader.


John Boehner's Balls
by Pa Rock

The Speaker banged his gavel loud
And fought to hold back tears.

"Damn, I am" cried he,
"Late for a date with a tee,
And I cannot find my balls.

"I cannot find them in the House,
Nor with Eric, my sneaky mouse.

"They are not in my tissue box,
Nor in the drawer with my garters and socks.

"They are not in my closet deep,
Nor in the back room where I sleep.

"They are not in my tanning bed,
Nor on the shelves above my head
       (with the twelve-year-old scotch).

"Some gohmert must have hidden them,
So golf I cannot play,

"But if to the gohmerts I do kneel
and kiss their pious butts - 
Soon I may be back on the links
Making pretty puts.

"Oh where, oh where have my little balls gone,
Oh where, oh where can they be?"