Giving Newt the Boot

Whether anyone really cares or not, I am offering a brief series on my thoughts regarding the Republican primaries. 

Today's candidate is Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich - I like Newt.  I hold a deep appreciation for revolution he led in 1994.  I appreciate the way he has articulated conservative thought so eloquently over the years.  However, in my opinion he just falls flat now.  I just cannot gin up any excitement for Newt.

I was privileged to attend Newt's first "Renewing American Civilization" class at what was then Kennesaw State College in the 90's.  From the first day, when he gave a compelling and competent defense of prayer in  school, I was hooked.
He was always holding up books - many very old - and reading excerpts from them.  I found his class to be very inspiring.  In fact, no other class in my secondary educational experience left a more long-lasting mark.  I have read numerous books since that time either directly or indirectly resulting from his lectures. 

The same inspiration he brought to his RAC class, he held forth among the new wave of Republicans in office.  They took the stage and quickly fulfilled their list of promises for the first 100 days (as I recall, pretty much all of them) on time.

Then all of a sudden Newt went mute.
I kept waiting for him to step up during the "Government Shut Down" facade, to defend the actions of congress and to present compelling arguments for conservatism but Newt was strangely silent.

It later became apparent that Newt had joined the growing list of politicians under threat of Clinton, Inc.'s Scorched Earth Policy due to ongoing extra-marital affairs.

Newt did his requisite quiet time lurking in the background for awhile (a practice common among exposed politician's and Southern Gospel Music performers).

Then he was back; and in 2008 he toyed with the idea of getting in the Presidential race.  He dangled the prospects of his decision for quite awhile - milking it, savouring the attention - and then decided not to run.

I think that is where Newt missed the train.

He could have stepped into a primary race dominated by moderates and would have been the ONLY conservative alternative.  And if he had held to the conservative arguments - I think he would have exposed Obama for the "empty suit" he is.

But alas - Newt had "skeletons"; possibly some yet unexposed.  I think Newt was fearful going up against Clinton, Inc. again.  And my guess is that he saw that whether Clinton or Obama won the Democrat nomination, he would be cast as the dastardly villain ... again.

For whatever reason, he bowed out - but for me his prolonged "flirting" with the option just left a bad taste in my mouth.  I think we needed  Newt in 2008.  To top it off, he seemed to join a chorus of other milk-toast Republicans who, at the time, were saying that just maybe the era of Reagan was over and we needed to move on. 

At that point, Newt showed up on my list of stuff I'm done with.

As you may see, most of my decisions were made prior to this election season.  Don't expect much analysis or deep thought for tomorrow's offering... I will be looking at Ron Paul.

Almost Done With ... Walmart

This will not be a hate-Walmart post. 

I am of the opinion that most people that go on and on complaining about Walmart probably dislike the organization simply because it is an icon of American capitalism. Therefore it is capitalism - not Walmart - that they truly hate.

I am not one of those - in fact I find myself vigorously defending Walmart (albeit quietly and within small circles) for the most part because of its testimony to the powerful effects of the free market.

However, due to recent incidents, I am considering limiting my purchases from the retail giant.  I am - at least for awhile - done with buy wheat straw from Walmart.

Before I recently pawned off my two hay-consuming quadra-peds, it was necessary for me to occasionally supplement their diet with hay.  On my last attempt to purchase hay from the Garden Center at Walmart, I arrived with my son on a Saturday morning, before the crowds arrived. AA and I walked around in the Garden Center for a time - there was no cashier there yet so we worked our way up front.

Hesitantly, I went to the open register - I was hesitant because I had done the same thing on an earlier trip to Walmart and the cashier could not ring up wheat straw...

I will give them this much - they are consistent.

As we made our request ..."would like to buy some wheat straw" she did not seem to know how to reply (no ChicFilA "My PLEASURE!" here).  Soon she brought in the apparent Lead cashier who informed us that we could make that purchase in the Garden Center. 

Upon learning that no one was back there, she proceeded to try and find a price they could charge me.

Eventually she called and apparently found a cashier back in the Garden center who gave a price and a code.  The lead cashier told the regular cashier and the regular cashier told me ... then she began to complete the transaction however....

...the little lights on the screen facing me all worked together to form the words "Pine Straw". 

"Wait, that says 'pine straw'  - I wanted 'WHEAT straw'" - I protested.

The regular cashier told the lead cashier - "that was 'pine straw'"
"Isn't that what you said?" replied the lead cashier to me.
Now I had listened real closely to everything I said and I am certain I said "wheat straw".
When I assured her that I needed WHEAT straw she asked me if I could just go back to the Garden Center.

That's when I felt my inner Big Daddy rise up.

My Dad, Big Daddy, would have used this occasion to say something like - "this would be a good place to build a retail store!" and then speak loudly to the embarrassed boy at his side "Remind me not to come here anymore!" as he pointedly walked out.

I curbed my instincts - but only slightly - smiled and said thank you.  AA and I headed for the door.

"Sir, you can go this way" the lead cashier called... assuming that I was so bewildered by the exchange that I couldn't find my way through the store to the Garden Center.

"No Thank you"

And AA and I departed triumphant and frustrated.

I won't be "done with Walmart" at this point but there are some serious cracks in our relationship.

I still believe in this icon of capitalism - simply because that's what it is.  But capitalism doesn't answer all things and losing touch with the life's blood of business - customers is a serious error.

Stuff I'm Done With

Pardon my grammar - my daughter, Ab, has taken to correcting it quite frequently so I am offering this mea culpa beforehand for the title I selected for this post.

I am adding this as a category title also.

Sam Walton, founder of the Walmart chain, called it "voting with your feet": it's the act of walking away from something when you find it unresponsive, unsatisfactory, or undesirable.

My Dad had a similar phrase for it. It was one which he would mutter loudly as he and our family walked out of an establishment that offered less than satisfactory service. In those cases Dad would say "Remind me not to come here again!"

He actually never needed reminding but you get the point: Dad was voting with his feet.

R. and I have employed this practice several times; I am going to share some of them with you even though I know that many of my readers will find my reasoning silly (okay, I'm guessing three of the four readers will find my reasoning silly).

This stems from the fact that I am at the point of adding the National Football League to my list of Stuff I'm Done With. I will explain later, but for now here are a few items I have voted against by walking away from:

Cable TV - actually I am kinda' proud of the fact that R. and I made a decision together to turn in our cable box about a dozen years ago. We had a number of reasons - like the fact that our monthly cost had doubled but the quality of the programming had declined. The local cable company kept adding more channels when they increased our rates but the channels were mindless shopping channels.
We also felt that from a spiritual standpoint, it might do us good to do away with the clutter.

We left ourselves open to the option of installing a satellite dish if we just couldn't take it - we never did.

Our kids have grown up "without channels" as AA refers to it. They have missed out on being inundated with questionable moral messages, the tendency to fill empty time with so much empty inactivity, and the Siren's Song of irresponsible marketing practices.

Our kids may have also missed out on some pop culture and reality television, but I really think they can get more than enough pop culture on the internet - in small doses.

R. and I can get most any entertainment or news there also.

Disney - okay this is where I will lose a lot of you . . . when the Baptists boycotted Disney in the mid 90's we did too. And we did it for some good reasons, Disney had built an industry around safe, family entertainment and suddenly they veered away from that. We voted with our feet and determined not to spend our money there.

It helped that we didn't have very much expendable cash at the time and we didn't have any children begging us to take them to Disney world.

In all fairness, I have to tell you that we did eventually purchase some Disney movies (and still do) and we may take the kids to Disney world at some point. But having gone this long - we don't feel that we have missed anything truly important.

I must add that I couldn't care less if you take your kids to Disney. Not going did not make us better people - nor did it make us weird.

Professional Baseball and Football - having touched the proverbial "third rail" with that Disney thing, I will go ahead and plunge into an area that will have some people questioning my very manhood.

I have walked away from the diehard-fan approach to these professional sports. Here is why:

I am not a fan of Labor Unions. I think they might have served an honorable purpose -maybe - long ago. But I believe they outlived their usefulness and -for the most part- have become the epitome of corruption.

I believe that the failure of the U.S. auto industry can be laid solidly at the feet of Labor. And for that matter you could say the same for the economic depression that is the state of Michigan.

Nowhere is the uselessness of organized Labor more evident than in professional sports.

I think it was the mid to late 80's that we had a Baseball players strike and an NFL players' association strike.

I'm sorry, I do not believe these guys were beaten down by their employers. I fell out with both organizations because they had proven that their devotion no longer centered on the love of the game.

Couple that with the fact that no one seemed to want to be a role model anymore; and professional teams were cow-towing to every demand of the political correctness crowd.

Now, I need to tell you that over time I have not been solid in my protest. When the Atlanta Falcons did well, I saw some revival of my interest. But then R. and I began dating and eventually married and frankly I just had better things to do with my Sunday afternoons.

When the Atlanta Braves' Dynasty began to come into fruition in the early 90's I did become a solid and dedicated Braves fan. But now that their glory is fading somewhat - I am a fair weather fan.

Todays' headlines have pushed me over the - I'm done with that - edge.

Today I heard that Rush Limbaugh had been kicked out of his partnership in a bid to purchase the Ram's franchise.

I am a fan of Rush Limbaugh. I have been ever since the early days of Gulf War I when I was wildly searching every radio channel in hopes of learning more about our progress in that war.

All the other affiliates had left the latest news conference as I listened one day while traveling between my sales calls; then suddenly I happened upon this guy who was talking about the war. I soon discovered that he was coming from a strictly conservative political perspective, and he was articulate, confident and funny.

I became a fan because he passionately espoused the things that I believed in.

Whether you like him or not, Rush Limbaugh is a truly American Success story and he has overcome some major obstacles (including being a political target of Presidents and the U.S. Congress).

Now he is being denied this opportunity strictly because of his political beliefs.

I thought we didn't do that in America. Isn't that discrimination?

So, even though the deal never officially got into the hands of the NFL, I have decided that I'm done with the whole lot of them.

And in case you are worried that I won't have anything to do with all the extra time that I have now . . . oddly enough, I do.