Talking Sh*t

The National Rifle Association (NRA) just had their annual convention in St. Louis. Musician Theodore Anthony Nugent serves on the Board of Directors at the NRA. At the convention Theodore Anthony said,” the Obama administration is a “vile, evil America-hating administration” that is “wiping its ass with the Constitution.” At a concert in 2007, Theodore brandished two assault rifles while yelling, “Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun,” adding, “Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.”

The thing that shocks me is for Theodore to call anyone a “piece of shit.” Theodore Anthony’s life has been one shitload of crap after another. When Theodore was called up to serve in Vietnam he was shitting bricks. He decided he had to get his shit together and come up with a way to get out of serving in Nam. As he has said in various interviews over the decades, “I got 30 days’ notice of the physical, I ceased cleansing my body. Two weeks before the test I stopped eating food with nutritional value. A week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. My pants got crusted up.” This got Theodore out of being drafted which I’m sure did not please his drill Sergeant father.  Theodore now a days likes to think he is a patriot because he has concerts for U.S. troops. In 2004, he was in Iraq playing for U.S. soldiers. He got the opportunity to visit Saddam Hussein’s war room.  He stated, “It was a glorious moment. It looked like something out of Star Wars. I saw his gold toilet. I shat in his bidet.” He added, “Our failure has been not to Nagasaki them.” Of course if he had actually been a soldier he would have shit his pants the minute the troop carrier landed in Iraq.

Theodore is a conservative who has endorsed, Mitt Romney for president. That really is funny as you’d have to have shit for brains to want Theodore to endorse you if you are running as a candidate in the “family values” party. Theodore is a hypocritical sack of crap that has had the nerve to call out “hippies” for living an “irresponsible lifestyle of random sex.” Theodore Anthony has had two wives and has eight children, including three out-of-wedlock in two liaisons almost 30 years apart. Prior to his first marriage, Nugent fathered a boy, Ted and a girl, whom he gave up for adoption in infancy. The siblings were adopted separately and had no contact with one another. In 2005 he was involved in a legal battle for not paying enough child support for a child he had out-of-wedlock in 1995. In 1978, at the age of 30 he began a relationship with a 17 -year-old Hawaiian girl. Her parents signed documents to make Theodore her legal guardian, an arrangement that Spin magazine ranked in 2000 as #63 on their list of the “100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock. In a 1998 episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, Theodore admitted to being a serial pedophile. He celebrates his pedophilia in his song, “Jailbait” with the lyrics, “Well I don’t care if you’re just thirteen. You look too good to be true. Jailbait you look fine fine fine. I know I got to have you in a matter of time.”

Theodore Anthony thinks he’s tough shit because he’s a hunter. He owns a ranch near Jackson, Michigan where you can pay to hunt for bull bison ($5,000), Russian boar, or white-tailed deer ($1,000 each). Theodore has bought the animals so it is what people call a “canned” hunt. Theodore hates that term and prefers, “high fence hunting.” It is real bullshit hunting for old shits like, Dick Cheney. Theodore Anthony was busted for deer baiting during filming of his short-lived reality show and fined.

Theodore is one of those conservatives who have no use for “Big Government.” Guess who was one of the first musicians who ran scared shitless to “Big government” when websites like Rhapsody featured music that could be downloaded for free to fans? He needed the government’s help because he was up shit creek without a paddle. He hasn’t created any music people have wanted to buy in decades, so he wants to protect any money he might make on his oldies. Ted likes to think he’s some kind of working-class hero yet he told union Detroit Free Press workers to stop their strike and go back to work and the employer would pay what the market dictates. Yet when the music market is innovative and creates technology for consumers to download music for free he wanted “Big Government” to give a shit.

In the past Theodore has been criticized by people for making racist remarks and writing misogynistic songs. To those people I’d say, “No shit Sherlock that’s because he is a misogynist and a racist!” Now at the NRA conference he has said comments that many suggest are threats against President Obama. He was cheered for those comments by the shithead NRA members in attendance. He got himself in deep shit and was investigated by the secret service. He can’t say he was drinking and was shit faced as he has claimed for years he doesn’t drink or do drugs. He said he was just shooting the shit with NRA members. They cleared him when they realized he has been full of bullshit for years. The cowardly NRA has sensed the shit might roll downhill and they might end up in deep shit. To avoid the shit further hitting the fan they have scrubbed their website of Theodore’s speech at their convention. He has been dropped as an opening act in June at Fort Knox because of his public comments.

 If I was Mitt Romney and a shit for brains like Theodore Anthony Nugent gave me his endorsement I’d say, “Eat shit and die” and hope he’d get angry and endorse my opponent. Willard Mitt Romney already has enough problems with his shitty record as governor of Massachusetts and the way he treated people like shit when he was CEO of Bain Capital.

And that Dear Readers is the latest poop or all the shit that’s fit to print.

Wally Pleasant: The Day Ted Nugent Killed All of the Animals

Goldfinger: FTN

“Apartheid isn’t that cut-and-dry. All men are not created equal.” ~ Ted Nugent

Earth Day Under Attack

I’ve had some people asked me why I haven’t talked about or reviewed any restaurants or other businesses in our valley lately. I still want to do that but thought Facebook might be a better venue for that so I invite you to check out something I set up on Facebook called, “Mahoning Valley Citizen Promoters.” I invite you to check it out here and send things to that site promoting our wonderful valley.

Earth Day is April 22 so I think it is something we should reflect on. It started in 1970 and was created by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin. He created the day after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. The first Earth Day had over 20 million people participate.  It is now observed by more than 500 million people in 175 countries. It has become an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.

The results of that first Earth Day helped set the United States on a path to protecting the Earth. We soon saw: The Clean Water Act, The Clean Air Act Extension, The Endangered Species Act, The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, Fuel Economy Standards for cars and several other environmental acts to protect the planet. Do you think everyone was happy with these acts for a better Earth? Wouldn’t you suppose corporations, the oil and gas industry, the tobacco companies, right-wing think tanks and the corporate toadies at the Chamber of Commerce would fight back? They did with the secret Powell Memo, lawsuits, lobbying, conservative appointments to an activist Supreme Court, propaganda and after decades total success with the Citizens United ruling that gave corporations personhood. I encourage you to go to this link which explains better than I can the history of where the infamous Citizens United decision came from and how we can fight to overturn it. I think it is one of the most important articles I’ve seen in a long time. I want to thank Rev. Ray for turning me on to Yes! magazine that had the article in it. I am including Yes! as a link on my blog under, “Well Worth Reading.” Happy Earth Day!

The Earth is My Church

From 1971 Freda Payne: Bring the Boys Home

After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world.  ~Pam Shaw

View From a Small Town

In my sleepy little borough of, Vienna (pronounced Vie Anna as we aren’t uppity), Ohio the busiest worker is employed at the gas station on the corner of Rt. 193 and Old Rt. 82. He is the employee who changes the sign with the station’s price of gas. It seems to be an hourly job and the numbers always get larger. It’s a busy place with the pumps either having a yellow bag over them as they are empty or have a car filling up the tank. People are trying to beat the signs next hourly jump. Depending what time of day it is at the corner of 193 and New 82 at Yankee Kitchen the cook is either flipping an omelet of a burger. Both are delicious and should be had with a side of hash browns. The place is noisy as it is crowded and who ever designs libraries was not consulted in sound deadening this diner. If it’s near breakfast time a block down Rt. 193 the convenient store is hopping and the parking lot is full.  Java junkies on their way to work have stopped to get their daily early morning fix. Those who have taken out a second mortgage on their home now have the cash to buy a pack of ciggies. They exit the store opening the pack after doing the smoker dance (holding the pack in one hand while smacking it back and forth in the palm of the other hand). Every other worker on their way to work buys a few scratch off lottery tickets. They then sit in the car scratching the tickets hoping for enough of a win so that they don’t have to go to work that day or any other day.

You don’t see any homeless begging for money outside of any of the businesses. On the other hand outside the locally owned IGA grocery store the American Legion is selling their paper poppies. If they aren’t there it’s the high school band or pee wee football team collecting donations. The IGA’s owner/operators the Turners are good community folks who let the local schools organizations use their water supply to wash cars for fund-raisers in the parking lot. The Turners have a great wine and beer selection at their store. They carry my favorite beer, Straub and Mr. and Mrs. E’s favorite wines, New York’s Bully Hill, Sweet Walter’s Red and Ohio’s Chalet Debonne’s, River Rouge.  They have a great in store bakery and deli and a nice selection of meat. The town’s Chevrolet dealer closed up a few years ago but the other two parts of being an American apple pie and hot dogs can be found at the IGA. Until recently we had two hardware stores (one’s elderly owner died)  which makes us more of a hardware than software town. There is one doctor located in town and also my dentist. We are a town of churches having over half a dozen.

Vienna can get a little exotic as we do have Zebras, Camels, Water Buffalos, Ostriches, Llamas and Buffalo. Luckily, they are fenced in at Wagon Trails Animal Park. You won’t find such an assortment of animals anywhere else in Trumbull County. A note to hunters, Wagon Trails is a no hunting zone but a great place for school field trips.

We don’t have any strip clubs but we have a place where you might be strip searched. That would be the Youngstown Airport and the airbase which are both located in Vienna. The airport seems to be always struggling to get more flights out of it. Ridge Road is our enterprise zone which in capitalist speak means the area where businesses set up because they have hit the lottery know as taxpayer-funded, corporate welfare. I couldn’t tell you what business is in the few large structures on that road as they tend to leave after their tax abatements are up in search of new taxpayer suckers. We have a country club on Rt.193 that most of  Vienna’s citizens have not ever been at unless we were cutting their grass or washing their dishes. Near the country club is an exclusive neighborhood called, Creekside. Most of the lots these huge homes were built on cost more than the average person’s home in Vienna. Our children do not know the children that live here as these children go to fancy private schools in the Cleveland area like, Gilmore Academy.

I stop at the IGA after work to get a gallon of milk and the cashier informs me my wife just stopped and bought milk. When Hillary Clinton said, “It takes a village to raise a child” (originally an African proverb) she was talking about, Vienna. Next door neighbors or any other parent from the community will tell you they saw your child driving too fast, not wearing a seat belt, smoking or cursing etc. They’ll also compliment you on some accomplishment your child has done in sports or academia. A number of years ago I was proud to have a new Vienna resident tell me my son was the first student to welcome their son to school and befriend him.

What I really want to say about living in a small town like this is how people come together in times of need. I remember how the community put on a local carnival to help with medical bills for a boy who had cancer and one hit by a car. My 92 year-old mother-in-law lives in Vienna also. Her neighbors have taken it upon themselves to snow plow her drive, take out her garbage and get her newspaper and mail. A number of years ago Mrs. E. became ill and my neighbors brought food, flowers, cards and got my kids on and off the bus.

These are the kinds of things people only think happened back in the 1950’s. I’m here to tell you they happen in small towns across this country today. When people see others in need I believe they want to help but don’t always know what to do. A good place to start is to ask these four little word of the person needing help, “What can I do?” You can also just do what you can. For example my neighbor who is retired has a snow plow on his garden tractor and plows out the neighborhoods drives during heavy snowfalls. At the end of your life which is more important things you saw or things you actually contributed to? I think people don’t want to be mere spectators in life but want to be participants. If people try it I think they will find that volunteering and participating is the highest form of nourishment. The people I like to hang out with all have heart problems. That problem is that they have bottomless pockets on their hearts which is the best kind of heart problem to have! Wouldn’t the best eulogy someone can say about you be, “He lessened the pains of the Earth.”

I may live on a dead-end street but I don’t have to have a dead-end view of the world. Look around and see how you can make your local community better and then keep broadening your size of community until it includes the entire planet. We’ll all be better for it.

Hal Ketchum: Small Town Saturday Night

Justin Moore: Small Town USA

“One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city — as I once did for a couple of years. Edward Abbey

This will show you the great humor my fellow Viennese have.

“Family, Baby, Family!”

To spend Easter together as a family we had to drive a twenty hour round trip. That is because my son now lives in Vermont. Mrs. E. our daughter and I packed up the car and took turns driving.  No one wants their children to graduate college and have to move far away to get a job. We’d all like to keep our family members near because we love them and worry about them. It was wonderful to have a few days off for Easter to be able to go visit and see where my son was living and working. I can tell you Mrs. E. and I had more than a little bit of tears in our eyes when we had to leave him the other day. If you’ve gone through this you know exactly what I mean. You might be thinking that kids have to move for a job and that is just the way things are. I suppose it could be pointed out that our ancestors came to this country and left family behind knowing they would never see them again. I’m sorry but none of those statements make me feel less sad that my son is so far away. It was great to have good highways to be able to go visit him. Those smooth highways didn’t make it any easier for my arthritis that has me feeling like a cripple today for spending so much time cramped up in a car. I don’t even want to think about how much money I spent in gas or anything on the green side about how much pollution my car put out on the trip.

I could have flown but I don’t do airplane travel well and it is also costly. It is great to have technology like telephones and be able to text to stay in touch with loved ones. I know Americans like to think we are #1 in things but I have to tell you we are behind the world in transportation. If we had current transportation technology like one of these I could make it to see my son in about 1.5-2 hours tops! I would hope as more and more of our children move away to get jobs we will consider these high-speed trains that Europe and Japan have had for decades.

Of course it would be nice if our children could find work in communities near their parents. Our steel mills closed years ago causing people to move to find jobs. The next area boom job we had brought us from steel to steel bars. Those steel bars being prison bars as we had a private prison, a federal prison and a Supermax prison being the only thing offered our valley. Our valley’s children who wanted to make this area their home attended YSU seeking criminal justice degrees. We have a new opportunity to keep our children from going elsewhere to seek jobs. That is being provided by oil and gas companies who have come to our valley in an attempt to purchase and lease land for drilling. One such company, Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. a Houston-based energy company has located its office at the end of my street. When they tried to locate in a Virginia county it’s residents stood up and said no to Carrizo. That county was worried about the environmental impact on the community. A lot of this drilling for natural gas is done by “fracking,” the process by which a high-pressure mixture of chemicals, sand, and water are blasted into rock to tap into the gas. People’s wells have become contaminated and the waste water from fracking can be extremely dangerous. According to the Endocrine Disruption Network, “25 percent of the chemicals used in fracking can cause cancer. Fifty percent can affect the immune, cardiovascular, and nervous systems.” New Year’s Eve in Youngstown was welcomed in with an earthquake. It was the area’s eleventh since D&L Energy began injecting drilling waste underground in December 2010.

I wish this new business was just the ticket to keep our children from having to leave this valley. I know some people aren’t concerned with any environmental impacts. They are just desperate to see their children be able to get a job and be near them. That I totally understand. Then we have those who are going to sell and lease their land and only care about making money. If worse comes to worse and this area turns into an environmental disaster they have made their money and can move anywhere they want. They will have escaped the disaster they helped to create as they leave those of us who can’t afford to move to suffer in their wake. The “drill, baby, drill!” conservative crowd somehow always thinks that the private sector can do no wrong. Do they really believe that corporations put people before profits? Have they forgotten about the tobacco industry, exploding Firestone tires, Pintos that turned into fireballs, lead paint, asbestos etc?

I suppose people think the EPA, elected officials, medical experts and government agencies are looking out for us so if fracking is happening around the country it must be safe. If you look close enough you’ll see officials who deal with complaints are being bought off, donations are buying co-operation with the gas and oil companies and laws have been passed to protect the companies from disclosing the dangerous chemicals they are using. Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction — but they won’t be able to share it with their patients. This law will “gag” doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public. The oil and gas companies have already infiltrated the very folks that would protect us here in Ohio. A member of an Ohio commission that decides oil and gas-drilling complaints also gets a percentage of what the companies pay the landowners, when the deals are struck. See info here.

Then we have some of the creepy people involved in the gas and oil business. Ones like, Texas oilman and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens. He is a major financier of natural gas exploration across the United States. If fracking destroys the water in this country Pickens has that covered.  You see, according to Business Week, “Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more.”  It’s a win-win situation for T. Boone. Pickens spent $2 million as the money man behind the Swift Boat political hate ads that attacked John Kerry when he ran for president in 2004. Then you have the Koch brothers the money men behind the Tea Party and several right-wing think tanks. Koch Pipeline Company LP, owns and operates 4,000 miles of pipeline used to transport oil and natural gas. In 2010, Koch Industries was ranked 10th on the list of top US corporate air polluters. From 1999 to 2003, Koch Industries was assessed “more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments.” The Kochs are the oil and gas industry’s biggest donors to the congressional committee with oversight of the hazardous Keystone XL oil pipeline. They and their employees gave more than $300,000 to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2010 alone. Add in the local creeps who support the area’s bum rush to drill like, Frank Robinson editor of the Warren Tribune, Dan Rivers from WKBN and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber that all supported the SB5 attacks on public sector workers. Having these guys on board with fracking should give you some real pause to take a cautious slow approach to this new valley industry. These are folks who’d sell their mother for a dollar let alone protect our children.

I like most of our valley’s residents would love to see more jobs so our children can have opportunities here. The gas under our land isn’t going anywhere so I think we should slow down and spend some time investigating what the long-term costs to our valley is going to be. This mad rush to “drill, baby, drill!” just makes me think we are all being “swiftboated.” What parents want most for their families is health and safety so the number one issue should be, “family, baby, family!”

Fracking problems in Texas.

Ziggy Marley: Family Time

All Stars: We Are Family

“Pre-smokers”
Interesting term in 1973 draft paper, written by R. J. Reynolds’ research planning department.