Can You Hear This?

As most of you that visit regularly know, I get some pretty interesting stuff via email from friends, family and, of course, my Mama! I got the following list of rules from a ‘Bama friend. For those that are fortunate enough to be traveling through God’s country, otherwise known as THE SOUTH, pay attention!

Now, I’ve copied these rules for all you non-Southerners for your enjoyment, enlightenment and safe passage through our great land. It does occur to me once I read through these rules that they could be slightly altered and applied to the many foreigners (pronounced here “furrr-rin-ners” down here) that have decided to visit or move here. Bottom line, if you’re going to come here, and I mean anywhere in the entire US of A now, then don’t complain. We didn’t invite you and we don’t require you to stay if you’re unhappy with what you find. Go home and be happy!

For the inexperienced traveler, these are fairly simple rules, easy to follow and will definitely ensure that you don’t “borrow trouble” while you’re here! Cheers to the author!

Subject: South Rules

If you are going to live or visit in the South, you need to know these rules.

1. That farm boy you see at the gas station did MORE work before breakfast than you do all week at the gym.

2. It’s called a “dirt road.” No matter how slow you drive, you’re going to get dust on your Navigator. Drive it or get out of the way.

3. The red dirt — it’s called clay. Red clay. If you like the color, don’t wash your car for a couple weeks — it’ll be permanent.

4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years old. Yeah, we saw Bambi. We got over it.

5. Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis Fly Rod. Don’t cry to us if a flathead breaks it off at the handle. We have a name for those little 13-inch trout you fish for — bait.

6. Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.

7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards (ducks) are making their final approach, we will shoot it (the phone). You might want to ensure it’s not up to your ear at the time.

8. No, there’s no “Vegetarian Special” on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef’s Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.

9. Tea - yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and is really, really sweet. You want it hot — sit it in the sun. You want it unsweetened — add a LOT of water.

10. You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice.

11. So, you have a sixty thousand-dollar car. We’re real impressed. We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine (it’s farm equipment) that we only use two weeks a year.

12. Let’s get this straight. We have one stoplight in town. We stop when it’s red. We may even stop when it’s yellow.

13. We eat dinner together with our families. We pray before we eat (yeah, even breakfast). We go to church
on Wednesdays and Sundays and we go to high school football games on Friday nights. We still address
our seniors with “yes, sir” and “yes, ma’am,” and we sometimes still take Sunday drives around town to see friends and neighbors.

14. We don’t do “hurry up” well.

15. Greens - yeah, we have greens, but you don’t putt on them. You boil them with salty fatback, bacon or a ham hock.

16. Yeah, we eat catfish, bass, bream (pronounced brim) and carp. You really want sushi and caviar? It’s available at the bait shop.

17. They are pigs. That’s what they smell like (money). Get it - pig farms - income - money? Get over it. Don’t like the smell? Interstate 75 goes two ways - Interstate 20 goes the other two Pick one.

18. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some pepper on them. If you want to put milk and
sugar on them, then you want Cream of Wheat - go to Kansas. That would be I-75 north then I-40 west.

19. The “Opener” refers to the first day of deer season or dove season. Both are holidays. You can get
pancakes, cane syrup, and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.

20. So every person in every pickup waves? Yeah, it’s called being friendly. Understand the concept?

21. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don’t hit in the water hazards. It spooks the fish and bothers the gators -
and if you hit it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they’re not baseball players.

22. That State Trooper that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot — his name is “Sir,” no matter how young he is.

23. We have lots of pine trees. They have sap. It drips from them. You park your Navigator under them, and
they’ll leave a logo on your hood.

24. You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No questions. The liberal contingent of our state legislature — all four of them — enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a $2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.

25. No, we don’t care how you do things up North. If it is so great up there, why not stay there?

26. And no, down here we don’t have an accent, you do.

Ya’ll have fun and come back now, ya hear!

Have you ever seen anything like the behavior of Democrats and Republicans when an election is on the horizon, the market goes up or down, there’s yet another natural disaster or some other political Snafu? I’ve seen toddlers in a pre-school playground fighting for the last ice cream cone with more manners.

And you can bet your last dime and win, whatever happens will always be blamed on the other party. Who do these idiots think they’re fooling? Best I can tell, it’s about time for Americans to re-capture America, land of the free and brave, “government of the people, by the people and for the people”…………remember from your elementary school teachings. Government’s not about the people anymore, it’s about the government or, to be really blunt, it’s about the money!

I don’t care who is to blame anymore…………what I want to know is who is interested in fixing it? Give me real solutions to the problems we face today and I’ll vote for you. I don’t care if you’re a republican, a democrat, a liberal, a conservative, blue, green or grey……….just be honest and forthright, tell me what you can do, commit to doing it and get it done !

I don’t want to hear about the lobbyists, special interest groups, big business, or some other political agenda. I want my government to be about the people it represents, the individuals, not the groups. I firmly believe that if you take care of the individual citizens, the groups will take care of themselves and, preferably, there won’t be any because everyone will have what they need! I’m not talking about socialism or utopia, but our system allows a person to stagnate instead of growing and living life to the fullest. Give people the tools to grow and prosper, be it education, subsidized day-care, vocational training, or simply an opportunity, rather than a choice welfare or living on the street.

We’re the richest country in the world and yet we don’t take care of our own backyard. It needs Weed-Eating, folks! We’ve got too many weeds and the Round-Up has run out. Time to go after those deep-rooted suckers with an industrial-sized Weed-Wacker.

If every single elected official were replaced by a real, live person, instead of some special interest group politician whose goal is merely to get re-elected next time around, we might have a chance to correct the spiraling mess we currently call government. It’s just like a hurricane, the bigger and more “organized” it gets, the more destructive it becomes and the more devastation is left in its path. So, the big question…………….are there any real, live public servants out there?????

I don’t care if you’re photogenic and look good on TV. I don’t care if you smoked a marijuana cigarette during your misspent youth. I don’t care who you sleep with or if you sleep at all. I don’t believe that a particular religious bent makes you more likely to do what you’ll say you’ll do. I don’t believe not having a religious bent means you’re consorting with the devil. I don’t want someone who’s preaching about finding the devil and burning him into hell, either. If I want that, I’ll go down to the local fundamentalist church and listen to the preacher while he froths and pounds on the pulpit.

I want someone who is looking at the problems we face. Not enough jobs, no health insurance for some and spiraling healthcare costs for the rest of us, not enough schools, not enough teachers or people choosing to be lawyers over teachers because it pays better, or lawyers who make a mockery of law and have no concept of justice, or the inability for justice triumph over prejudice, hate and greed………………and that’s just to name a few!

I don’t want our kids worrying about getting shot at school or schools needing metal detectors at the entrances and police pratroling the hallways. I want our kids to understand and embrace the concepts of self-respect and dignity, truth and sincerity, individuality and being part of a team.

Do I think that this is impossible to achieve, No! Will it happen overnight, absolutely not! Even if it’s difficult and takes forever, it will still be better to try than do nothing at all. Some things may get worse before they get better, but some things will just get better than they were before.

It is true…….the sage author of the book told us, Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten. You have to pay attention, tell the truth, respect your elders, learn to respect yourself, share, play, learn, give, try, work and want to make a difference. Embrace the positive and shake off the negative. Be grateful, believe in abundance, value the truth, make time for others, embrace everyday with energy, give and receive love, and listen to your soul when it whispers to you.

Important things are most often whispered, not shouted. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the difference!

The companies that make the packaging for the stuff we buy must be making twice as much as the companies that make the products in the packages. What’s up with that?

I love movies but I hate trying to get a DVD open once I bring it home from the store. It has cellophane around a plactic case and three strips of impossibly sticky tape on the opening edges of the case. If it’s shrink-wrapped, why the sticky tape, too? And if it’s a music CD you’re buying you get cellophane wrapped around a paper box, around a cellophane-wrapped plastic case with 3 strips of sticky tape. The cost for all this extra packaging is factored into the price we pay for the item and all that extra stuff just fills up the trash can.

If you buy an inkjet cartridge from the office supply it’s in a molded plastic container. If you can ever get that open then there is a paper box inside the plastic container. Open that and you’ll find a heavy foil-type wrapper and then finally the inkjet cartridge. I could write a tome in the time I spend opening packaging for an item not much larger than a box of matches.

You can fill up a landfill with the containers used to package other packaged items. Those molded plastic containers cover everything from ink cartridges, to kids toys, to disposable razors, to items found in the hardware store. It’s ridiculous!

You need one form of packaging per item and a price tag, thank you very much! And, no, I don’t think a bar code that has to be swiped by the clerk who’s annoyed you asked for a price in the first place is acceptable. While I’m in the aisle at Lowe’s comparing widgets, I want to know the difference in price between brand x and brand y.

I do understand extra packaging for some items such as OTC medication. They don’t want people in the store tampering or kids thinking it’s a new style candy, but I find those foiled bubble paks inside a box really annoying. For heaven’s sake, just put the stuff in a bottle with a child-proof cap. It’s been working great for years and you don’t have all that packaging filling up your garbadge cans.

Since most of this extra packaging is made from a plastic material, hence a petroleum product, those costs are going up too. Time to change, folks!

I don’t want to have to work that hard to get to the items I purchase and I don’t want to fill the trash up with the extra packaging, do you?

If you’ve visited my other websites, you know that I have one on credit issues. It is ProtectYourGoodCredit.com and I try to provide consumers with easily understood, comprehensive information on credit and protection against identity theft.

The most recent technological answer to identity theft protection is the use of biometric scanners. These are devices that resemble the swipe machines at registers everywhere. Only instead of swiping your debit/credit card, you press your thumb against a touchpad.

This touchpad then identifies you by your thumbprint and your purchase is deducted from your checking account like a debit.

Sounds great right! My thumb is always attached to my hand. I never go anywhere without it. I don’t have to worry that I’ve left it in my coat pocket, other pair of jeans or a different purse. I can shop all day and probably not build up a callous from the touchpad (they’re very user friendly, a light touch is all that’s required).

Okay, so what’s the catch?

Since I’m a bit of a movie buff and I love science fiction, I have a little bit of knowledge about advanced technology from a consumer’s perspective. Here’s the deal…………………

Way back in in early seventies, James Bond, played by Sean Connery, with the succinct assistance of Q, managed to fool the the affable Tiffiany Case, by having a copy of the bad guy’s finger print affixed to his own by means of a thin layer of polymer. (movie: Diamonds are Forever)

Later, in the late 90s, an interesting movie with lots of cool technology effects, the same Bond-type character, guised as an elusive thief, played by the same exceptional Sean Connery, managed to “fake and un-fakeable retina scan” planned and orchestrated by the beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones. (movie: Entrapment)

The point of this stroll down movie lane? If the creators and characters in these movies where able to devise means to effectively “steal” the identities of another person, do I really want to put great faith in the idea that because I have a unique anatonomical imprint that I will somehow be impervious to identity theft. I DON’T THINK SO!

Do I think there is merit to improved technology, even biometric technology, for protection against identity theft…………you betcha! Do I think that if these technological advances are instituted everywhere we are suddenly safe……………..absolutely not!

The point, folks, as the movies have demonstrated over and over again, if you can think up a new and improved way to foil identity thieves, someone else can come up with a way around it. That will never change.

The good news…………..it’s pretty much guaranteed no one can steal your thumb without your noticing…………your print, maybe, but, not your thumb! But, keep a close eye on it…………for safety’s sake!