There is a column in my refrigerator. I’m just not sure where, exactly, in my refrigerator it is. Perhaps if I stare into my refrigerator long enough, I’ll find it.
I pull one of the dining room chairs over to the fridge, open the door and sit. “What are you doing?” wife Jennifer asks.
“I’m looking for a column,” I answer.
“What would a column be doing in the refrigerator?”
“Um…staying fresh?”
She gives me a puzzled look and walks away. But she brings up a valid point. What would a column be doing in the refrigerator?
After all, the refrigerator is not the usual place where I find my columns. Usually I find them in the newspapers, on the TV, online in the political blogs. Hardly ever do I find a column in the refrigerator.
Actually, the truth is it was kind of a dare. I asked some of my Facebook friends to help me brainstorm on topics for my next column. That’s when my friend, Mary, challenged me to write a column about the contents of my refrigerator. Kind of like one of those silly Andy Rooney rants about labels, or things that collect in junk drawers, or something.
So, I sit. And I stare. Somewhere amongst the plastic containers of food, beverage, condiments and leftovers there is a column in there.
Then it dawns on me. Nothing in my refrigerator is real. Well, at least not real in the way God intended – loaded with fat and sugar.
The milk is skim. The butter is a flax oil-based spread that only looks like butter. The little containers of yogurt, pudding, jello and applesauce are all sugar-free, loaded instead with artificial sweeteners like “acesulfate potassium” whatever that is.
The tartar sauce, mayonnaise, ranch dressing, Italian dressing, pancake syrup, sour cream, and chocolate sauce are all low-fat, sugar-free imitations.
Nearly every item in my refrigerator, except for the fruit and vegetables in the lower tray (and I’m not even sure about them; they could be genetically engineered and irradiated for all I know) is a watered-down simulated version of the real thing.
In other words, I have a refrigerator full of phonies.
And, even more distressing is this thought: if it is true that we are what we eat, then I am a phony as well.
“Shut the door or stuff will get warm and spoil,” Jennifer warns.
“It can’t spoil,” I tell her; “none of it is real.” She rolls her eyes and goes back to her laptop.
She’s probably hanging out on Facebook (that site is addictive). This new thread weaves itself into my train of thought.
I, too, spend a fair amount of time on Facebook. At the present moment I have 352 Facebook friends.
But how many of them are real friends? A few are, but many of them I hardly even know. Some are friends of friends – people I’ve maybe met once, or never.
When someone asks to be your Facebook friend, you can’t just hit the “refuse” button, can you? You can’t just tell people point blank you’re not interested in being their friend. That would be crass.
And if you neither accept nor refuse, then these poor souls just sit there, languishing in Facebook limbo, their fate uncertain.
So I accept; and that’s why I have 352 Facebook friends.
But can you call people like that real friends? Would they come through for you in a pinch? Would they give you the shirt off their backs?
Would they take a bullet for you?
Or are they all low-fat, low-cal, sugar-free imitations of real friends?
I go to my laptop and bring up my Facebook page. On my “status” line I type, “Ray is wondering which of his Facebook friends would take a bullet for him and if there is one single thing in his entire life that’s real.”
I hit the “share” button. Immediately the message goes out to every one of my 352 so-called friends.
It takes only a few seconds for the first response to come through:
“You’ve been staring into your refrigerator, haven’t you?”
*****
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Lord on Healthcare
BETWEEN THE LINES
Now it happened on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him for healing.
Luke 5:17
The Pharisees and teachers of the law were scornful. “Who is this man who professes to heal all who come before him?” they asked. “Doesn’t he realize many are poor and cannot pay? Somebody’s got to pay for the healing, and it will fall upon us.”
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
Matthew 9:35
Word of this healing got back to the temple. Then there was much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth among the Pharisees and the moneychangers. “He’s going to bankrupt us all!” they cried. “Everyone will have to pay higher premiums!”
Now he arose from the synagogue and entered Simon's house. But Simon's wife's mother was sick with a high fever, and they made request of him concerning her.
Luke 4:38-39
“See now what you’ve started,” they said. “Now everyone expects free healthcare. You could have just sent her to an emergency room.”
Then as he entered a certain village, there met him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" So when he saw them, he said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.
Luke 17:12-14
“Priests? Priests? Sounds an awful lot like death panels!”
So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, "I see men like trees, walking." Then he put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly.
Mark 8:23-25
“Now he’s even treating those with pre-existing conditions!” they said. “What’s he going to do next, raise the dead?”
And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
John 10:43-44
“That has got to be an experimental procedure. There’s no way we cover that.”
"Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give."
Matthew 10:8
“Free? What makes these people think it’s free? What do they think, healthcare is a right? Well it’s not, it’s a privilege!”
Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him, how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all. Yet he warned them not to make him known, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet...
Matthew 12:14-17
“You’re darn right we plotted against him. And we organized demonstrations. We said ‘YOU LIE!’ and called it fascism. We knew we had to discredit universal heathcare before it caught on.”
So they were offended at him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house."
Matthew 13:57
“And we compared his universal healthcare to the holocaust. And made images of his face painted up like a joker or a hated dictator.”
When Jesus heard that, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, rather those who are sick."
Matthew 9:12
“Besides, why all this talk about fixing our healthcare system? It’s not even broken. We’ve got the best healthcare system in the world.”
Then he called his twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Luke 9:1-2
“We can’t compete with the Divine Option. This is socialism!”
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
Now it happened on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him for healing.
Luke 5:17
The Pharisees and teachers of the law were scornful. “Who is this man who professes to heal all who come before him?” they asked. “Doesn’t he realize many are poor and cannot pay? Somebody’s got to pay for the healing, and it will fall upon us.”
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
Matthew 9:35
Word of this healing got back to the temple. Then there was much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth among the Pharisees and the moneychangers. “He’s going to bankrupt us all!” they cried. “Everyone will have to pay higher premiums!”
Now he arose from the synagogue and entered Simon's house. But Simon's wife's mother was sick with a high fever, and they made request of him concerning her.
Luke 4:38-39
“See now what you’ve started,” they said. “Now everyone expects free healthcare. You could have just sent her to an emergency room.”
Then as he entered a certain village, there met him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" So when he saw them, he said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.
Luke 17:12-14
“Priests? Priests? Sounds an awful lot like death panels!”
So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, "I see men like trees, walking." Then he put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly.
Mark 8:23-25
“Now he’s even treating those with pre-existing conditions!” they said. “What’s he going to do next, raise the dead?”
And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
John 10:43-44
“That has got to be an experimental procedure. There’s no way we cover that.”
"Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give."
Matthew 10:8
“Free? What makes these people think it’s free? What do they think, healthcare is a right? Well it’s not, it’s a privilege!”
Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him, how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all. Yet he warned them not to make him known, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet...
Matthew 12:14-17
“You’re darn right we plotted against him. And we organized demonstrations. We said ‘YOU LIE!’ and called it fascism. We knew we had to discredit universal heathcare before it caught on.”
So they were offended at him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house."
Matthew 13:57
“And we compared his universal healthcare to the holocaust. And made images of his face painted up like a joker or a hated dictator.”
When Jesus heard that, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, rather those who are sick."
Matthew 9:12
“Besides, why all this talk about fixing our healthcare system? It’s not even broken. We’ve got the best healthcare system in the world.”
Then he called his twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Luke 9:1-2
“We can’t compete with the Divine Option. This is socialism!”
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A Story you won't see in mainstream media
The story has not gotten much airplay in the United States. I only learned the details of it from an online article written for the British newspaper The Guardian.
Major American news organizations have only touched on the story – specifically, a December 2007 piece by ABC News, and, more recently, a sprinkling of articles and opinion columns in such widely geographically separated newspapers as the San Francisco Chronicle, The Tennessean, and The Dallas Morning News.
The reason for the recent mini-flurry of activity was an amendment added to a senate appropriations bill by freshly sworn-in Minnesota Senator Al Franken.
Franken’s amendment would bar the US government from contracting with companies that require employees who are victims of rape to submit to company arbitration rather than taking their attackers to court.
Rather cut and dried you would think, right? No senator would vote against something that is meant to protect the victims of sexual assault, would they?
Well, yes they would. In fact, thirty of them did.
Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), Christopher Bond (R-MO), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC)…
In 2005, a young woman named Jamie Leigh Jones, who was working in Iraq for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, joined some of her fellow workers for a few drinks after work.
It was then, Jones contends, that she was first drugged and then repeatedly raped by as many as seven male KBR employees. A US army doctor who treated Jones handed over forensic evidence supporting the rape allegations to KBR.
Company officials responded by, believe it or not, placing Jones in a shipping container under guard to prevent her from initiating legal action. She was not freed until more than 24 hours later after her father asked the US embassy to intervene.
…Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Bob Corker (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Crapo (R-ID)…
Halliburton/KBR defended itself by saying Ms. Jones was threatening to violate the terms of her work contract. It seems all company employees are required to sign a contract that includes a clause, buried in the small print, mandating all employee disputes go to company-managed binding arbitration. This is something corporations, especially those operating in war zones, have started doing to avoid both bad publicity and legal action directed at themselves.
Halliburton/KBR’s position was that even allegations of gang rape amounted to little more than a dispute between employees.
Jones says she wasn’t even aware of the clause in the work contract. She has been fighting the company’s lawyers since 2005 to get her day in court.
…Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), Michael Enzi (R-WY), Lindsey Graham (R- SC), Judd Gregg (R- NH), James Inhofe (R-OK)…
Ms. Jones lawyer, Todd Kerry, says that Halliburton/KBR along with other big contractors have created a climate in which some employees feel they can get away with sexual assault. By forcing such incidents to arbitration, the company allows perpetrators to walk away with little more that a slap on the wrist after committing serious felonies.
Kerry said one of Jones assailants “was so confident nothing would happen that he was lying in bed next to her the morning after.”
Kerry says he has received up to 40 calls over the past two years detailing other assaults at Halliburton/KBR.
…Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R- AZ), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), James Risch (R-ID)…
Earlier this month, Senator Franken spoke on the Senate floor after introducing his amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill:
“The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.”
Hard to disagree, wouldn’t you say? Not if you’re one of the thirty senators, all Republicans, who voted “Nay” to Franken Amendment No. 2588. They say the government has no business intervening in private company matters.
…Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), John Thune (R-SD), David Vitter (R-LA), Robert Wicker (R-MS).
I guess it all depends on your perspective, and who you put first – people or corporations.
Major American news organizations have only touched on the story – specifically, a December 2007 piece by ABC News, and, more recently, a sprinkling of articles and opinion columns in such widely geographically separated newspapers as the San Francisco Chronicle, The Tennessean, and The Dallas Morning News.
The reason for the recent mini-flurry of activity was an amendment added to a senate appropriations bill by freshly sworn-in Minnesota Senator Al Franken.
Franken’s amendment would bar the US government from contracting with companies that require employees who are victims of rape to submit to company arbitration rather than taking their attackers to court.
Rather cut and dried you would think, right? No senator would vote against something that is meant to protect the victims of sexual assault, would they?
Well, yes they would. In fact, thirty of them did.
Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), Christopher Bond (R-MO), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC)…
In 2005, a young woman named Jamie Leigh Jones, who was working in Iraq for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, joined some of her fellow workers for a few drinks after work.
It was then, Jones contends, that she was first drugged and then repeatedly raped by as many as seven male KBR employees. A US army doctor who treated Jones handed over forensic evidence supporting the rape allegations to KBR.
Company officials responded by, believe it or not, placing Jones in a shipping container under guard to prevent her from initiating legal action. She was not freed until more than 24 hours later after her father asked the US embassy to intervene.
…Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Bob Corker (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Crapo (R-ID)…
Halliburton/KBR defended itself by saying Ms. Jones was threatening to violate the terms of her work contract. It seems all company employees are required to sign a contract that includes a clause, buried in the small print, mandating all employee disputes go to company-managed binding arbitration. This is something corporations, especially those operating in war zones, have started doing to avoid both bad publicity and legal action directed at themselves.
Halliburton/KBR’s position was that even allegations of gang rape amounted to little more than a dispute between employees.
Jones says she wasn’t even aware of the clause in the work contract. She has been fighting the company’s lawyers since 2005 to get her day in court.
…Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), Michael Enzi (R-WY), Lindsey Graham (R- SC), Judd Gregg (R- NH), James Inhofe (R-OK)…
Ms. Jones lawyer, Todd Kerry, says that Halliburton/KBR along with other big contractors have created a climate in which some employees feel they can get away with sexual assault. By forcing such incidents to arbitration, the company allows perpetrators to walk away with little more that a slap on the wrist after committing serious felonies.
Kerry said one of Jones assailants “was so confident nothing would happen that he was lying in bed next to her the morning after.”
Kerry says he has received up to 40 calls over the past two years detailing other assaults at Halliburton/KBR.
…Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R- AZ), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), James Risch (R-ID)…
Earlier this month, Senator Franken spoke on the Senate floor after introducing his amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill:
“The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.”
Hard to disagree, wouldn’t you say? Not if you’re one of the thirty senators, all Republicans, who voted “Nay” to Franken Amendment No. 2588. They say the government has no business intervening in private company matters.
…Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), John Thune (R-SD), David Vitter (R-LA), Robert Wicker (R-MS).
I guess it all depends on your perspective, and who you put first – people or corporations.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
I miss a tree named Chris
The following is my current column for The North Florida Herald...
The massive oak was easily the biggest tree on our land – the Blue Moon property north of Alachua. It stood guard at the western end of our woods, just a few feet inside the fence line.
Way back when it was a much younger tree someone had carved the name “Chris” into its bark. As the tree had grown, so had the letters of the name. By the time we came on the scene in 1990, the carved letters had reached about a foot in height, their furrows deep and V-shaped like ancient runes.
We, the members of our little artists’ community, always referred to it as “the tree named Chris.” We made up stories around the campfire, speculating who Chris might have been. A young boy, no doubt; probably the proud owner of a brand new pocketknife he’d gotten for Christmas or a birthday.
Chris was a landmark on our property, the two-hundred-year-old great granddaddy of all the other oaks.
In 2004, the year of all the hurricanes, we lost Chris. It had survived the hurricanes all right, but it didn’t survive the act of a neighbor.
Late in the summer of that year, not long after the last of the barrage of hurricanes dumped a lot of water on the area, members of our community discovered a water pumping operation on our northern fence line.
Thousands upon thousands of gallons of water were being pumped from the yard of the nearest house in the Rock Meadow Farm development onto our property. The pump hose had actually been stuck through the wire fence directing the water onto our land.
A quick walkabout discovered that already many acres of our woods had been flooded. No one had asked our permission to do this (we wouldn’t have given it anyway).
The members of our community who had made this discovery went back to the pump hose and did the thing any reasonable person would have done under the same circumstances – they turned the hose with its gushing stream of water back on the yard of its origin.
Within the hour we received word that our neighbor wanted us to come over so he could talk to us.
He introduced himself as Clovis Watson, Jr., City Manager of Alachua.
Mr. Watson apologized profusely and said he’d been told there was a dry creek bed over on the other side of the fence that could handle the water. We told him no, that was our land and he was flooding it. Mister Watson said the pumping would stop.
The next day we got a phone call from Mike New, Alachua Public Services Director. Mr. New said the pumping operation was official City of Alachua business and that they were resuming the pumping. He didn’t use the phrase “eminent domain” but that was the idea.
We told Mr. New that was an interesting point of view but completely irrelevant due to the fact that our property was actually in the county, not the city. In fact, the county/city line coincided with the fence between our property and Mister Watson’s property. We also told Mr. New we were calling the county sheriff to put a stop to the pumping.
Soon thereafter, an Alachua County Deputy Sheriff came out and told the City of Alachua pumping crew to desist.
After we got the pumping stopped, we demanded, through Mr. New, a letter of apology from Mr. Watson as well as testing of our wells to make sure our water supply had not been contaminated.
Then, two weeks later we noticed the tree named Chris was leaning dangerously toward our western neighbor’s property. The flooding of our woods had loosened the tree’s root system and now it was slowly falling over. Our majestic old tree would have to be cut up and removed.
The bill for the tree removal was $600. We made the new demand that Mr. Watson reimburse us; which he did, with a City of Alachua check.
Five years have passed since this incident. During those years the story has been told and retold to friends and acquaintances but never in a public forum. Now it has.
I only bring it up now because the story has been alluded to along with my name in recent comments posted on the online version of this newspaper.
If you think I’ve been holding a grudge all this time you’d be wrong, although I still get a little riled up telling the story. But I’m not angry.
Mostly, I miss our great old tree. I miss the tree that had so much personality it had a name. I miss a tree named Chris.
The massive oak was easily the biggest tree on our land – the Blue Moon property north of Alachua. It stood guard at the western end of our woods, just a few feet inside the fence line.
Way back when it was a much younger tree someone had carved the name “Chris” into its bark. As the tree had grown, so had the letters of the name. By the time we came on the scene in 1990, the carved letters had reached about a foot in height, their furrows deep and V-shaped like ancient runes.
We, the members of our little artists’ community, always referred to it as “the tree named Chris.” We made up stories around the campfire, speculating who Chris might have been. A young boy, no doubt; probably the proud owner of a brand new pocketknife he’d gotten for Christmas or a birthday.
Chris was a landmark on our property, the two-hundred-year-old great granddaddy of all the other oaks.
In 2004, the year of all the hurricanes, we lost Chris. It had survived the hurricanes all right, but it didn’t survive the act of a neighbor.
Late in the summer of that year, not long after the last of the barrage of hurricanes dumped a lot of water on the area, members of our community discovered a water pumping operation on our northern fence line.
Thousands upon thousands of gallons of water were being pumped from the yard of the nearest house in the Rock Meadow Farm development onto our property. The pump hose had actually been stuck through the wire fence directing the water onto our land.
A quick walkabout discovered that already many acres of our woods had been flooded. No one had asked our permission to do this (we wouldn’t have given it anyway).
The members of our community who had made this discovery went back to the pump hose and did the thing any reasonable person would have done under the same circumstances – they turned the hose with its gushing stream of water back on the yard of its origin.
Within the hour we received word that our neighbor wanted us to come over so he could talk to us.
He introduced himself as Clovis Watson, Jr., City Manager of Alachua.
Mr. Watson apologized profusely and said he’d been told there was a dry creek bed over on the other side of the fence that could handle the water. We told him no, that was our land and he was flooding it. Mister Watson said the pumping would stop.
The next day we got a phone call from Mike New, Alachua Public Services Director. Mr. New said the pumping operation was official City of Alachua business and that they were resuming the pumping. He didn’t use the phrase “eminent domain” but that was the idea.
We told Mr. New that was an interesting point of view but completely irrelevant due to the fact that our property was actually in the county, not the city. In fact, the county/city line coincided with the fence between our property and Mister Watson’s property. We also told Mr. New we were calling the county sheriff to put a stop to the pumping.
Soon thereafter, an Alachua County Deputy Sheriff came out and told the City of Alachua pumping crew to desist.
After we got the pumping stopped, we demanded, through Mr. New, a letter of apology from Mr. Watson as well as testing of our wells to make sure our water supply had not been contaminated.
Then, two weeks later we noticed the tree named Chris was leaning dangerously toward our western neighbor’s property. The flooding of our woods had loosened the tree’s root system and now it was slowly falling over. Our majestic old tree would have to be cut up and removed.
The bill for the tree removal was $600. We made the new demand that Mr. Watson reimburse us; which he did, with a City of Alachua check.
Five years have passed since this incident. During those years the story has been told and retold to friends and acquaintances but never in a public forum. Now it has.
I only bring it up now because the story has been alluded to along with my name in recent comments posted on the online version of this newspaper.
If you think I’ve been holding a grudge all this time you’d be wrong, although I still get a little riled up telling the story. But I’m not angry.
Mostly, I miss our great old tree. I miss the tree that had so much personality it had a name. I miss a tree named Chris.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Of Beer, Gator Football, and Bovine Flatulence...
So I’m sitting at my favorite sports pub watching the Gator game on Saturday afternoon, and the place is packed with rowdy fans shouting out a running commentary at the top of their lungs, which is exactly the way I like my Gator games.
I’m drinking light beer from a bottle because I’m a purist who prefers his watered-down beer served in chilled glass, when a friendly sort of gent whose name I can’t remember sits down on the bar stool to my right.
Before long we’re cheering on the Gators and engaging in conversation on topics ranging from sports to politics to making a living (he’s a dairy farmer).
Meanwhile, our #1 ranked Gators are sleepwalking through a sluggish first half, which seems to be their way of starting games this season, until the coach calls a timeout and our quarterback goes all Tebow on his teammates, and we’re all yelling “YOU TELL ‘EM TEBOW.” And suddenly they’re clicking and marching down the field.
That’s when my new friend whose name I can’t remember starts telling me about some group called the AFIB which is rallying opposition to a proposed cow tax, which is a new one on me.
It all has to do with the Environmental Protection Agency and greenhouse gas emissions and methane and bovine flatulence, except he didn’t use the term “bovine flatulence.”
I ask him what the AFIB stands for but he doesn’t know so during halftime he calls a friend who also doesn’t know. I suggest the American Federation of Idiot Bureaucrats, but he doesn’t think that’s correct.
My new friend whose name I can’t remember says this AF-whatever-it-is has figured out the methane tax per cow will be $87.50 for beef cattle and $175 for dairy cows and it’ll put him out of business.
I tell him the whole thing sounds like a really bad idea, and that I write a column for The North Florida Herald, formerly The High Springs Herald (he says he’s heard of it which I take as an endorsement), and I’ll look into this cow tax thing.
By now the second half is well underway and the Gators have a modest lead. Then, during the part of the game when they’re usually running up the score, Tebow throws an interception and later coughs up a fumble, and suddenly we’re all wondering if the unthinkable can happen.
But one of our guys intercepts a Tennessee pass, and now Tebow and the Gators can run out the clock and all is right with the universe.
When I get home I open up my laptop and google the words “cow tax.” I find a statement by the AFBF (not AFIB), which stands for American Farm Bureau Federation, denouncing the EPA’s cow tax (that is also a tax on pigs but only $21.87 per hog).
Also, I find a bill, which the AFBF strongly supports, sponsored by one Republican senator and one Democratic senator, which would prevent a national cow tax. Plus, I find plenty of other statements and commentaries, and it seems like every politician and agricultural expert in the country is lining up to condemn the EPA’s wrongheaded cow tax.
But something is beginning to smell fishy to me. Why would the EPA even propose such a tax that would put thousands of ranchers and farmers out of business?
That’s when I find the article by Factcheck.org and I learn the truth: There is no cow tax.
It seems this is one of those things like Sarah Palin’s “death panels” that take on a life of their own and get a whole lot of people riled up over nothing.
According to Factcheck.org, the EPA never has had any intention of instituting a cow tax and wouldn’t have the jurisdiction if it did.
Apparently, the AFBF was crying wolf, speculating how the EPA could end up creating such a tax now that it was getting into regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Then a few newspaper editors jumped on the bandwagon, and the Associated Press ran the story, and those two senators proposed their bill, and there you have it – anatomy of a runaway political rumor.
So this coming Saturday I’ll look for my new friend at the pub and tell him he can relax, there is no cow tax. Then we’ll have a big old time cheering on the Gators, and toasting Tebow with watered-down beer in chilled glass.
Maybe this time I’ll remember his name.
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
I’m drinking light beer from a bottle because I’m a purist who prefers his watered-down beer served in chilled glass, when a friendly sort of gent whose name I can’t remember sits down on the bar stool to my right.
Before long we’re cheering on the Gators and engaging in conversation on topics ranging from sports to politics to making a living (he’s a dairy farmer).
Meanwhile, our #1 ranked Gators are sleepwalking through a sluggish first half, which seems to be their way of starting games this season, until the coach calls a timeout and our quarterback goes all Tebow on his teammates, and we’re all yelling “YOU TELL ‘EM TEBOW.” And suddenly they’re clicking and marching down the field.
That’s when my new friend whose name I can’t remember starts telling me about some group called the AFIB which is rallying opposition to a proposed cow tax, which is a new one on me.
It all has to do with the Environmental Protection Agency and greenhouse gas emissions and methane and bovine flatulence, except he didn’t use the term “bovine flatulence.”
I ask him what the AFIB stands for but he doesn’t know so during halftime he calls a friend who also doesn’t know. I suggest the American Federation of Idiot Bureaucrats, but he doesn’t think that’s correct.
My new friend whose name I can’t remember says this AF-whatever-it-is has figured out the methane tax per cow will be $87.50 for beef cattle and $175 for dairy cows and it’ll put him out of business.
I tell him the whole thing sounds like a really bad idea, and that I write a column for The North Florida Herald, formerly The High Springs Herald (he says he’s heard of it which I take as an endorsement), and I’ll look into this cow tax thing.
By now the second half is well underway and the Gators have a modest lead. Then, during the part of the game when they’re usually running up the score, Tebow throws an interception and later coughs up a fumble, and suddenly we’re all wondering if the unthinkable can happen.
But one of our guys intercepts a Tennessee pass, and now Tebow and the Gators can run out the clock and all is right with the universe.
When I get home I open up my laptop and google the words “cow tax.” I find a statement by the AFBF (not AFIB), which stands for American Farm Bureau Federation, denouncing the EPA’s cow tax (that is also a tax on pigs but only $21.87 per hog).
Also, I find a bill, which the AFBF strongly supports, sponsored by one Republican senator and one Democratic senator, which would prevent a national cow tax. Plus, I find plenty of other statements and commentaries, and it seems like every politician and agricultural expert in the country is lining up to condemn the EPA’s wrongheaded cow tax.
But something is beginning to smell fishy to me. Why would the EPA even propose such a tax that would put thousands of ranchers and farmers out of business?
That’s when I find the article by Factcheck.org and I learn the truth: There is no cow tax.
It seems this is one of those things like Sarah Palin’s “death panels” that take on a life of their own and get a whole lot of people riled up over nothing.
According to Factcheck.org, the EPA never has had any intention of instituting a cow tax and wouldn’t have the jurisdiction if it did.
Apparently, the AFBF was crying wolf, speculating how the EPA could end up creating such a tax now that it was getting into regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Then a few newspaper editors jumped on the bandwagon, and the Associated Press ran the story, and those two senators proposed their bill, and there you have it – anatomy of a runaway political rumor.
So this coming Saturday I’ll look for my new friend at the pub and tell him he can relax, there is no cow tax. Then we’ll have a big old time cheering on the Gators, and toasting Tebow with watered-down beer in chilled glass.
Maybe this time I’ll remember his name.
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
High Springs FL, Where the Women are Strong....
The following is my current column for The North Florida Herald...
BETWEEN THE LINES
“HIGH SPRINGS – High Springs Police Chief Jim Troiano is accused of being a man with a short-temper who yells at officers, plays favoritism and has caused employees to feel sick when going into work, according to nine written, anonymous surveys taken recently by the police union.”
From the North Florida Herald 7/30/09
Having just returned home after spending most of the summer running my Renaissance festival business in distant states, I have to admit I’m a little out of the loop on the Great High Springs Police Chief Controversy.
My editor, Ron, suggested I might want to look into it. Thought it was “right up my alley,” meaning, I suppose, that there was enough foolishness and absurdity surrounding the meager facts to make it worthy of a Between the Lines column.
So, after perusing the articles, letters-to-the-editor, and online comments connected to the story, I have to say that I agree. Yep, there’s plenty of foolishness here, not to mention some downright stupidity (the City Hall parking lot press conference comes to mind).
The problem is, I’m not sure whose side I’m on.
On the one hand, you have quotes like the one above (from this newspaper) that would appear to cast aspersions on Chief Troiano’s work demeanor.
Truth is, I could have said the same things about virtually any of the bosses I worked for over all the years before starting my own business. Bosses crack the whip and make you perform; they’re not supposed to win popularity contests.
On the other hand, you have both the testimony of nine anonymous police officers (a sizable portion of a police department serving a town the size of High Springs), plus Troiano’s demotion at Alachua County Sheriff’s Office for an inability to work with others. Those two facts suggest a pattern.
But which is it? What is the truth? Is Chief Troiano an overbearing abusive ogre or is somebody lying – somebody with an ax to grind?
Well, don’t ask me.
Like I said, I’m having trouble picking a side on this one. And, if you want to know my true feelings, I’m finding it all a bit…well, quaint.
Not to belittle anybody else’s crisis; I know when you’re in the middle of something it can seem very serious, even Earth shaking.
But you have to remember, I just returned from New England, the great northeast political cesspool, home to both Elliot Spitzer and TV’s The Sopranos.
In one of those states, New Jersey – just across the state line from where I spent a couple of weeks in July setting up my business operation at the Renaissance festival in Tuxedo, NY – the FBI recently rounded up 40 people in a major corruption scandal.
Several of those arrested were town mayors. Many were assemblymen (like city council members). Several were rabbis. The charges involved bribery, money laundering and (I kid you not) “trafficking in human kidneys.”
One suspect-turned-police-informant spoke of handing over “a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000 cash” to a particular politician. So forgive me if our little High Springs Police Department controversy seems a bit tame in comparison.
Yes, Chief Troiano may be little on the gruff side when dealing with subordinates. But, as far as I can determine, neither he nor the mayor are receiving boxes of breakfast cereal stuffed with $100 bills, or plastic coolers containing freshly-harvested human kidneys for resale on the black market.
Now that’s the grist real scandals are made from. High Springs seems a far cry from Jersey City or Secaucus.
No, our local political peccadilloes seem more on the level of Lake Wobegon than Hoboken. You can almost hear Garrison Keillor droning on about southern variations of Norwegian bachelor farmers and the Sons of Knute (Sons of the Confederacy?).
We may not have Sven and Ole to pepper our local folklore, but we do have Charlie and Mister Two-Hats. How I have missed them during my travels.
Yes, it’s good to be back home in the “scandal-ridden” Crescent Communities. And now, a word about Powdermilk biscuits…
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
BETWEEN THE LINES
“HIGH SPRINGS – High Springs Police Chief Jim Troiano is accused of being a man with a short-temper who yells at officers, plays favoritism and has caused employees to feel sick when going into work, according to nine written, anonymous surveys taken recently by the police union.”
From the North Florida Herald 7/30/09
Having just returned home after spending most of the summer running my Renaissance festival business in distant states, I have to admit I’m a little out of the loop on the Great High Springs Police Chief Controversy.
My editor, Ron, suggested I might want to look into it. Thought it was “right up my alley,” meaning, I suppose, that there was enough foolishness and absurdity surrounding the meager facts to make it worthy of a Between the Lines column.
So, after perusing the articles, letters-to-the-editor, and online comments connected to the story, I have to say that I agree. Yep, there’s plenty of foolishness here, not to mention some downright stupidity (the City Hall parking lot press conference comes to mind).
The problem is, I’m not sure whose side I’m on.
On the one hand, you have quotes like the one above (from this newspaper) that would appear to cast aspersions on Chief Troiano’s work demeanor.
Truth is, I could have said the same things about virtually any of the bosses I worked for over all the years before starting my own business. Bosses crack the whip and make you perform; they’re not supposed to win popularity contests.
On the other hand, you have both the testimony of nine anonymous police officers (a sizable portion of a police department serving a town the size of High Springs), plus Troiano’s demotion at Alachua County Sheriff’s Office for an inability to work with others. Those two facts suggest a pattern.
But which is it? What is the truth? Is Chief Troiano an overbearing abusive ogre or is somebody lying – somebody with an ax to grind?
Well, don’t ask me.
Like I said, I’m having trouble picking a side on this one. And, if you want to know my true feelings, I’m finding it all a bit…well, quaint.
Not to belittle anybody else’s crisis; I know when you’re in the middle of something it can seem very serious, even Earth shaking.
But you have to remember, I just returned from New England, the great northeast political cesspool, home to both Elliot Spitzer and TV’s The Sopranos.
In one of those states, New Jersey – just across the state line from where I spent a couple of weeks in July setting up my business operation at the Renaissance festival in Tuxedo, NY – the FBI recently rounded up 40 people in a major corruption scandal.
Several of those arrested were town mayors. Many were assemblymen (like city council members). Several were rabbis. The charges involved bribery, money laundering and (I kid you not) “trafficking in human kidneys.”
One suspect-turned-police-informant spoke of handing over “a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000 cash” to a particular politician. So forgive me if our little High Springs Police Department controversy seems a bit tame in comparison.
Yes, Chief Troiano may be little on the gruff side when dealing with subordinates. But, as far as I can determine, neither he nor the mayor are receiving boxes of breakfast cereal stuffed with $100 bills, or plastic coolers containing freshly-harvested human kidneys for resale on the black market.
Now that’s the grist real scandals are made from. High Springs seems a far cry from Jersey City or Secaucus.
No, our local political peccadilloes seem more on the level of Lake Wobegon than Hoboken. You can almost hear Garrison Keillor droning on about southern variations of Norwegian bachelor farmers and the Sons of Knute (Sons of the Confederacy?).
We may not have Sven and Ole to pepper our local folklore, but we do have Charlie and Mister Two-Hats. How I have missed them during my travels.
Yes, it’s good to be back home in the “scandal-ridden” Crescent Communities. And now, a word about Powdermilk biscuits…
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Dear God, Charlie here...
The following is my latest column for the North Florida Herald:
BETWEEN THE LINES
In 2007 Governor Charlie Crist wrote a letter to God. He scribbled it on a piece of paper and slid into a crack of Jerusalem’s Western Wall.
Crist was visiting Israel on his first official trade mission as governor. Intermediaries acting on Crist’s request have delivered copies of the prayer to the wall these past two years.
According to the governor, the text of the prayer was short and sweet: “Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie.”
Crist believes the letter may be the reason our state of Florida hasn’t been hit by a devastating hurricane recently.
Nice thought, end of story, right?
You should know me better than that.
As a sometimes-humorous newspaper columnist with a penchant for the type of hard-hitting investigative journalism best done on Wikipedia and other Internet sites without leaving home, it has come to my attention that there was a great deal more to Crist’s letter than we were initially led to believe.
Here, then, is the full text of the letter Governor Charlie Crist delivered to the Western Wall:
Dear God,
Please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie.
That would be Charlie Crist, dear God. Like your son but without the “h.” By the way, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.
Would it bother you a great deal if I was to start including the “h” just to end the confusion? People put it in there half the time anyway.
As you may know, I’ll be running for the U.S. Senate next year. And perhaps even bigger things after that.
I figure, a little additional publicity for you, a little extra credibility with the religious right for me, it’s win/win! Well, think about it.
But getting back to avoiding natural disasters. I suppose you’re in a bit of a tight spot. Maintaining the order of the universe, no doubt, requires issuing a certain number of killer storms. You probably have some sort of quota.
And I realize you have to send these storms somewhere, but we in Florida were really hard hit the last couple of years before I took office – eight hurricanes in two years!
We’ve paid our dues and then some.
Far be it from me to wish disaster on anyone else, but it’s got to be someone else’s turn.
Or better yet, couldn’t you just send most of these storms out to sea where they really don’t hurt anybody? If you do have to make landfall now and then, might I suggest Greenland? I think it has one town on an island the size of a continent. What are the odds?
Here in Florida, you can’t sneeze without blowing over a mobile home! Well, I could; you couldn’t.
I’m just trying to suggest some alternatives, dear God. It’s not like you have to automatically stamp every disastrous storm “Florida” before sending it down the chute.
I’ll be honest with you, God, I’m writing this letter in hopes of creating a little good luck. I’m trying to balance a state budget during difficult economic times; the last thing I need is a rash of hurricane hits.
You are no doubt aware (since you know everything) that I’m not just relying on this letter to create good luck. I’m also knocking on wood every chance I get, throwing salt over my shoulder, and carrying a rabbit’s foot. Also, I’m avoiding stepping on cracks.
And I bought a bag of gris-gris at a voodoo tourist shop the last time I was in New Orleans. I hope you don’t mind. Just trying to cover all my bases.
Oh, one other thing, God. If word gets out that I wrote you this letter and had some success with it, you can probably expect letters from half the governors in the country.
Perry in Texas will want relief from the heat. Pawlenty in Minnesota from the cold. Schwarzenegger will want not only relief from the fires, but also help balancing California’s budget.
Just remember I was here first, dear God. That ought to count for something.
Respectfully yours,
Governor Charlie Christ.
(Oops! Now I did it. See how natural that is?)
P.S. Is the Western Wall in Jerusalem the best way to reach you? Because it’s a little inconvenient for me. If there’s a suitable method closer to Florida, please advise.
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
BETWEEN THE LINES
In 2007 Governor Charlie Crist wrote a letter to God. He scribbled it on a piece of paper and slid into a crack of Jerusalem’s Western Wall.
Crist was visiting Israel on his first official trade mission as governor. Intermediaries acting on Crist’s request have delivered copies of the prayer to the wall these past two years.
According to the governor, the text of the prayer was short and sweet: “Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie.”
Crist believes the letter may be the reason our state of Florida hasn’t been hit by a devastating hurricane recently.
Nice thought, end of story, right?
You should know me better than that.
As a sometimes-humorous newspaper columnist with a penchant for the type of hard-hitting investigative journalism best done on Wikipedia and other Internet sites without leaving home, it has come to my attention that there was a great deal more to Crist’s letter than we were initially led to believe.
Here, then, is the full text of the letter Governor Charlie Crist delivered to the Western Wall:
Dear God,
Please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie.
That would be Charlie Crist, dear God. Like your son but without the “h.” By the way, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.
Would it bother you a great deal if I was to start including the “h” just to end the confusion? People put it in there half the time anyway.
As you may know, I’ll be running for the U.S. Senate next year. And perhaps even bigger things after that.
I figure, a little additional publicity for you, a little extra credibility with the religious right for me, it’s win/win! Well, think about it.
But getting back to avoiding natural disasters. I suppose you’re in a bit of a tight spot. Maintaining the order of the universe, no doubt, requires issuing a certain number of killer storms. You probably have some sort of quota.
And I realize you have to send these storms somewhere, but we in Florida were really hard hit the last couple of years before I took office – eight hurricanes in two years!
We’ve paid our dues and then some.
Far be it from me to wish disaster on anyone else, but it’s got to be someone else’s turn.
Or better yet, couldn’t you just send most of these storms out to sea where they really don’t hurt anybody? If you do have to make landfall now and then, might I suggest Greenland? I think it has one town on an island the size of a continent. What are the odds?
Here in Florida, you can’t sneeze without blowing over a mobile home! Well, I could; you couldn’t.
I’m just trying to suggest some alternatives, dear God. It’s not like you have to automatically stamp every disastrous storm “Florida” before sending it down the chute.
I’ll be honest with you, God, I’m writing this letter in hopes of creating a little good luck. I’m trying to balance a state budget during difficult economic times; the last thing I need is a rash of hurricane hits.
You are no doubt aware (since you know everything) that I’m not just relying on this letter to create good luck. I’m also knocking on wood every chance I get, throwing salt over my shoulder, and carrying a rabbit’s foot. Also, I’m avoiding stepping on cracks.
And I bought a bag of gris-gris at a voodoo tourist shop the last time I was in New Orleans. I hope you don’t mind. Just trying to cover all my bases.
Oh, one other thing, God. If word gets out that I wrote you this letter and had some success with it, you can probably expect letters from half the governors in the country.
Perry in Texas will want relief from the heat. Pawlenty in Minnesota from the cold. Schwarzenegger will want not only relief from the fires, but also help balancing California’s budget.
Just remember I was here first, dear God. That ought to count for something.
Respectfully yours,
Governor Charlie Christ.
(Oops! Now I did it. See how natural that is?)
P.S. Is the Western Wall in Jerusalem the best way to reach you? Because it’s a little inconvenient for me. If there’s a suitable method closer to Florida, please advise.
Ray St. Louis’ column, “Between The Lines,” is published in The North Florida Herald the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.
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