Henny Penny or Chicken Little is at it again!

IN PERSPECTIVE

   by Bill Neinast

Henny Penny or Chicken Little is at it again.  This time, however, she has morphed into members of Congress and the TV networks.

Her message has changed too.  The sky is no longer falling but all the guns going off have her clucking that Armageddon is just around the corner.

Members of Congress are getting hours of free TV time bemoaning the spate of mass shootings in this country.  Their agitation, of course, is that the government must do something to prevent this from ever happening again.

Henny Penny did not convince anyone that the sky was falling.  Will Congress have better luck in panicking the country?   

This is not to belittle or treat lightly the tragedies of the Navy Yard, the theater killings in Aurora, Colorado, the Newtown school rampage, the Fort Hood terrorist attack, and similar incidents.  None should have happened.  None should happen again.

The task facing Congress, however, is much  simpler than the one faced by the chicken. Why can the hand wringers not see it?  

All that is needed is a law to prohibit such activity.  Just make it a crime for anyone to kill another person and impose a punishment of life in prison or execution for anyone who violates the law.

What?  You mean there are already laws on the books that do just that?

Well, then pass laws to keep guns out of the hands of individuals who might use them to kill someone.  Requiring back ground checks on anyone who wants to buy a rifle might be the answer.

What?  There are already laws requiring such checks?

Gee, this is harder than it first seemed.  Is there not a single new law that can be dreamed up to stop this slaughter?

What about prohibiting assault weapons with magazine clips that hold more than ten bullets?  That, at least, would prevent incidents like the one at the Navy Yard.

What?  Aaron Alexis did not use an assault weapon?  TV newscasters reported for 48 hours or more that the murder weapon was an assault weapon.

What?  You say he used a 12 gauge shot gun like the one quail and water fowl hunters use in their fall and winter outings?

Well, unless those things are plugged to the three shell limit, they can be loaded with six shells.  So why not ban all weapons that hold more than two or three bullets or shells?

What?  That would ban weapons like the old faithful “six shooters” that helped tame the west?

All of this seems to leave only one solution.  The possession of any weapon, regardless of size, shape, magazine size, and possible use, will have to be prohibited.  This is a law abiding country and every man, woman, and child with access to any prohibited weapon will certainly scamper to turn it in for scrap metal.

OK, it’s time to take my tongue out of my cheek.  The foregoing is a facetious attempt to illustrate the obvious.  Laws to prevent the rash of mass shootings were already in effect when the killings occurred.  In every case, the weapons were either legally acquired or stolen.

Unfortunately, also, the recent mass murders are nothing new in this country.  Grant Duwe’s  2007 book Mass Murder in the United States: A History chronicled 909 cases of mass murder between 1900 and 1999.

There is, however, one major difference between the murders of the 20th and 21st Centuries.  That difference is today’s instantaneous, mass communication, particularly TV coverage.  There is concern by some that flooding the airwaves with the repetition of what was done and how it was done may encourage copy cats or some who want to make a name for themselves.

Aggravating that weeklong repeating of the gruesome pictures and detail of each crime scene is the tendency for the news coverage to be slanted and inaccurate.

An example is the totally inaccurate reporting of the Navy Yards massacre for at least 48 hours.  That slanted reporting was that Alexis entered the facility with an AR 15 and several pistols. 

The facts that finally broke through are that he entered the installation where he worked with a 12 gauge shot gun that he had bought legally a few days previously and acquired the pistols from security guards that he killed or wounded during his shooting spree.

So here’s the perspective.

The loss of the innocent lives mentioned above is hard to understand and accept.  

The grieving surviving family members deserve our sincere sympathy and understanding.

The number of innocent lives lost is those massacres, however, pales in comparison with the number of lives lost in automobile accidents caused on highways every day by drunk driving, speeding, reckless driving, texting, inattention and negligence of every imaginable type.  

There are ample laws on the books to prevent every one of these deaths at the end of a gun, in an automobile, or under other circumstances.

Let’s send Henny Penny back to her cage.  Quit screaming about the lack of protection of life and begin enforcing existing laws.  One more law will not avert a single heinous act being hatched in the minds of sick individuals.

Politics

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”

It Don't Cost Nuthin' to Be Nice. . . .

This story has probably been told and re-told, embellished and perhaps improved upon many times.  I got this from the internet so . . . . . let’s just call it a legend because Bear Bryant certainly is a legend.  Regardless of whether this story is true or not is irrelevant, however the message certainly is profound and one we all need to heed.

The message:

The lessons your mama taught you are right. It don't cost nuthin' to be nice. It don't cost nuthin' to do the right thing most of the time, even when it cost, it always cost less to keep your word than it does to lose your good name by breaking your word to someone.

Enjoy the Legend

So the legend goes like this . . .

At a Touchdown Club meeting many years before his death, Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant told the following story:

I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player and I was having' trouble finding the place.

Getting hungry I spied an old cinder block building with a small sign out front that simply said "Restaurant." I pull up, go in and every head in the place turns to stare at me. Seems I'm the only white fella in the place. But the food smelled good so I skip a table and go up to a cement bar and sit.  A big ole man in a tee shirt and cap comes over and says, "What do you need?"

I told him I needed lunch and what did they have today?

 He says, "You probably won't like it here, today we're having chitlins, collared greens and black eyed peas with cornbread. I'll bet you don't even know what chitlins are, do you?"(small intestines of hogs prepared as food in the deep South) I looked him square in the eye and said, "I'm from Arkansas, I've probably eaten a mile of them. Sounds like I'm in the right place." Everyone in the restaurant smiled as he left to serve me up a big plate. When he comes back he says, "You ain't from around here then?"

I explain I'm the new football coach up in Tuscaloosa at the University and I'm here to find whatever that boy's name was, and he says, "Yeah I've heard of him, he's supposed to be pretty good." And he gives me directions to the school so I can meet him and his coach.

As I'm paying up to leave, I remember my manners and leave a tip, not too big to be flashy, but a good one and he told me lunch was on him, but I told him for a lunch that good, I felt I should pay. The big man asked me if I had a photograph or something he could hang up to show I'd been there.

I was so new that I didn't have any yet. It really wasn't that big a thing back then to be asked for, but I took a napkin and wrote his name and address on it and told him I'd get him one. I met the kid I was looking for later that afternoon and I don't remember his name, but do remember I didn't think much of him when I met him. I had wasted a day, or so I thought.

When I got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, I took that napkin from my shirt pocket and put it under my keys so I wouldn't forget it.  Back then I was excited that anybody would want a picture of me.

The next day we found a picture and I wrote on it, "Thanks for the best lunch I've ever had."

Now let's go a whole bunch a years down the road. Now I'm back down in that part of the country scouting an offensive lineman we sure needed. Well anyway, he's got two friends going to Auburn and he tells me he's got his heart set on Auburn too, so I leave empty handed and go on to see some others while I'm down there.

Two days later, I'm in my office in Tuscaloosa and the phone rings and it's this kid who just turned me down, and he says, "Coach, do you still want me at Alabama?" I said, yes, I sure do.  And he says OK, “I will come”.

I ask, well son, what changed your mind?

His answer surprised me, "When my grandpa found out that I had a chance to play for you and I had to you no, he pitched a fit and told me I wasn't going nowhere but Alabama and wasn't playing for nobody but you. He thinks a lot of you and has ever since y'all met."

Well, I didn't know his granddad from Adam's housecat so I asked him who his granddaddy was and he said, "You probably don't remember him, but you ate in his restaurant your first year at Alabama and you sent him a picture that he has had hanging in that place ever since."

That picture's his pride and joy and he still tells everybody about the day that Bear Bryant came in and had chitlins with him since y'all met."

"My grandpa said that when you left there, he never expected you to remember him or to send him that picture, but you kept your word to him and to Grandpa, that's everything. He said you could teach me more than football and I had to play for a man like you, so I guess I'm going to."

I was floored. But I learned that the lessons my mama taught me were always right. It don't cost nuthin' to be nice. It don't cost nuthin' to do the right thing most of the time, but it costs a lot to lose your good name by breaking your word to someone.

When I went back to sign that boy, I looked up his Grandpa and he's still running his place, but it looks a lot better now; and he didn't have chitlins that day, but he had some ribs that would make Dreamland proud and I made sure I posed for a lot of pictures; and don't think I didn't leave some new ones for him, too, along with a signed football.

I made it clear to all my assistants to keep this story and these lessons in mind when they're out on the road. If you remember anything else from me, remember this. It really doesn't cost anything to be nice, and the rewards can be unimaginable.  ~ Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant 

What determines your station in life?

It isn't your race, it isn't religion, it isn't your education, where you were born, who your parents are,  or how much money you have, it is your attitude.  As Zig Ziggler says, "It's your attitude that determines your altitude!"  Your attitude is contagious.  If you are positive, confident, and friendly almost everyone you meet will smile and treat you with respect and most will want to find a way to help you.  If your attitude is negative, bitchy, and sour few people will lift a finger to help you or feel sorry for you and no one wants to be around you.  If your attitude is that someone other than you is responsible for your station in life you are simply wrong.  You will never improve your life until you improve your attitude!

Try it before you scoff at this advice!  What do you have to lose?

And BTW, contrary to what you may hear from the Inside the Beltway crowd in DC, or some leftist follower of the latest fads, no one owes you anything!

Communism never works, but progressive liberals keep trying!

Bill Neinast

IN PERSPECTIVE It would be wise to read and heed History!

Twenty years ago my wife and I visited Poland.  Our focus was the area that was Prussia until after WWI.

The first night, we rented a room in a new motel near the village of Liebenau from which my ancestors migrated to Texas in 1856.  That night, someone tried to steal our rental vehicle and left it inoperable. 

While trying to navigate the antiquated telephone system the next day to get a replacement car, we met Stanley.  

Stanley was reared in the area but had migrated to California and was back home for his annual visit.  We met him through his cousin, Wanda, who was the cook in the motel and who had called him to tell him that we, the first Americans to stay in the motel, were there.

Stanely became our guide for the next three days and we got to see and learn things and meet Poles rarely enjoyed by individual visitors to a foreign country.

Our visit was just a few year after communism had fallen under its own weight in Poland and throughout Eastern Europe and new forms of government and private enterprise were emerging.  Stanley, for example, was highly critical of what communism had done to his homeland and his people.

He believed that, among other things, living under a government offering to be responsible for everyone from the cradle to the grave had destroyed the work ethic of the country.  There was no pride of workmanship and even the simplest of jobs required four or more workers when one could have done the job adequately.

In discussing the loss of the work ethic and the pride of workmanship, he pointed to several things in our motel room.  The baseboards in the bathroom did not meet in the corners.  One or more had been cut an inch or two short.

Then, pull an extension cord out of a wall socket.  The entire socket comes out of the wall, as junction boxes were either unavailable or forgotten.  We saw further evidence of that in a fairly new home in which we were visiting.  The chandelier in the living room hung from the ceiling on its electric wires.  There was no junction box or connection cover.

Stanley also introduced us to a spry octogenarian who was reared in Poland before communism and who had worked for the Germans during the WWII occupation.  He had learned to be responsible for his life and had begun a savings plan for his retirement when he began working.  He now had a comfortable retirement based on his savings and a government pension.

Later in the evening, we joined some younger men around their Stamntisch (reserved regulars table) in a local eatery.  They were commiserating about their circumstances under communism and now without it.  They relied on the government’s utopian promise of taking care of them from the cradle to the grave.  They had lived from day to day with no thought or plans for the future and were now left to exist on meager pensions. 

Finally, we visited the ruins or remnants of the Liebenau brick factory.  The unique clays in the Liebenau area when the factory was built under a free enterprise system in the 19th century made Liebenau bricks premier building materials.  That clay was depleted by the time the communist government assumed ownership, but the anti-capitalist bureaucrats kept the plant open by importing inferior clays from other regions.  As soon as the plant reverted to private ownership with the fall of communism, it could not compete with plants in areas where clay did not have to be imported and ceased operation.

So here’s the perspective.

Hold the picture painted above in front of a mirror.  What do you see?  The image reflected back could be one of Detroit.  The one looming dimly in the background could be Washington, D.C., and the whole nation.

Detroit, once the fourth largest city in the U.S. and the one with the highest per capita income in the nation, is now in bankruptcy with debts it cannot pay.  The city was brought to its begging knees by a half century of inefficient, corrupt, and illegal administration and union contracts that promised cradle to grave care.

Remember the Liebenau brick factory?  Could it be reflected in Detroit?  Although the city is broke, it still maintains a bloated city work force with twice as many municipal employees per capita as comparable cities.  It even maintains a farrier or horse shoer on the water and sewer department pay roll even though it keeps no horses.

The city’s debt of 18.5 billion dollars is tottering on a rapidly deteriorating tax base.  That sounds like the 16 trillion dollar federal debt tottering on tax payers’ pocket books that are becoming very frayed.

Do you now see the images of Detroit and the U.S. reflected in the images of Poland from 20 years ago?    

Obama Lies!

It is a fact that President Obama has spewed lies from the moment he took office in the Illinois.  It is as if the Obama team really does believe that all history begins tomorrow!  We have all heard them and read them.  But the folks at Obama Lies have compiled a list of his lies and linked for your reference to the facts and in many cases his own words.  This would be a fun site to view if it were not so serious for America.

Spending Away the Civilization!

Great insight by Peter Morici (Twitter @pmorici1) a a widely published columnist and a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland School.  Sign up to read more of his stuff if you like this!

"If growth continues at 1, 2 or even 3 percent, then the weight of the baby boom retiring on federal entitlements will push federal deficits through the ceiling in the next decade.

"Higher taxes won’t help much. If tax rates are too high, successful people work less and take their skills elsewhere. Technology companies and financial institutions--where the real fortunes are made these days--can park their patents and profits in Ireland or some other low-tax jurisdiction.

"Sooner or later, Washington won’t be able to continue borrowing. Just as unions and banks will now tussle over whether pensioners or bondholders should have first claim on Detroit’s remaining revenues, Washington can dicker with Beijing over whether the Social Security checks should go out or the Middle Kingdom gets all the interest due on its holdings of U.S. bonds.

"At that point, we can auction off the Grand Canyon and spend the Fourth of July remembering what a great civilization we spent away."