Sad news

I'm ashamed of my State. Well, not the entire State. But I am ashamed of those voted in office by the People, to be of service to the People, which seem to be doing a bad job of serving.

The NC Senate passed an "official apology" for slavery. In a Bill passed by the Senate, it afforded that the system of slavery that was LEGAL (an institution that grew thanks to the YANKEE slave trade, but that's another blog in itself) 150 years ago is the cause of the many dysfunctions of many Black communitites TODAY.

Well, I have a different theory. There are 2 major causes for the dysfunction of not only a large portion of the Black community, but for American society in general. The first is just down-right sin. That is the bottom line-a lack of godliness and a personal pursuit of Christ's holiness and righteousness. Because we've been inundated by the PC'ers, New Agers, Humanists, Evolutionists, Communists, Socialists, and other ungodly "ists", we have become a society that anything goes, if it feels good-do it!, super sexualized, immoral, immodest bunch of people whose critical thinking and common sense skills have been flushed down the toilet.

The second reason for the dysfunction of society is the government itself. When Abraham Lincoln destroyed America by making shredded wheat out of the Constitution, he set into motion the beast of federal tyranny that has grown larger than life and runs rampant amongst us today. When the federal government took away the Peoples' right to govern themselves, and exchanged it for the ability for IT to govern us, we started our downward spiral, slippery slope we are now on.

At the beginning of all of this, it left much of the Church in apathy. The job of the Church is social welfare; feeding the hungry, encouraging the poor in spirit, building and running hospitals, being a light to a dark world where those wandering around in the darkness would see the Light of Christ and come. But the federal government didn't say to the Church, "We'll help you do these things", it said "We'll do these things instead of you." And the Church instead of saying to the government, "No, you do your job and we'll do ours" said "OK, you can do whatever you want." That has left the Church in America floundering, and therefore is the basis for my first reason above.

Now, I realize there were some few courageous souls who have fought against this tyranny from the start. Today there are fewer still. And there dont seem to be any in the NC Senate.

Two Peas in a Pod

There are two things causing quite a stir around town lately. And while these two things are separate in function and in essence, they are definite bedfellows and where one is, you will most certainly find the other. I'm sure you've heard by now the 'insensitive' remarks made by Ann Coulter at a large conservative rally. I'm also pretty sure you heard the news that ol' Al Sharpton got the other day. And I'm even guessing that you may have heard the latest from the great state of Virginia. Oh, and let's not forget the buzz word 'reparations.'

In case you're still wondering, the two companions I speak of are "political correctness" and "offense."

Now, I happen to be a big fan of Lewis Grizzard. And for those few out there who have ever cared to read my posts in the past, you probably would remember this.

I was having a Grizzard moment tonight. I felt the desire to pull off my bookshelf one of my personal favourites, "Southern by the Grace of God." Lo and behold, to what did appear to my eyes! I had quite forgotten all about this piece he wrote called "I wish I was...Politically Correct in Dixie"; I figured I'd just might as well share it with you. So, y'all sit back and read this. Oh, and if you dont find this politically correct enough and you take offense, well, I just dont know what to tell you. But I do know that 'sorry' ain't it!

{I certainly agree with all those who have protested the playing of "Dixie" at Southern football games.

Although slavery isn't mentioned in the song, it still makes people think of the Old South, where every white person owned African-American slaves.

"Dixie" is definitely a politically incorrect piece of music. Even the word is offensive to some, and I apologize to those who are offended by my use of it.

But I'm proud to say my alma mater, the University of Georgia, years ago rid itself of any connection with the song or the word you-know-what (see, I didn't use the word that time, as I despise offending people).

The Georgia band used to play the song at football games. But not anymore. The only place they still play the song is at the University of Mississippi. They also wave Confederate flags and they allow prayer before a football game.

I'm not certain how long it will be before members of the Speech Police move in and shut down such rephrehensible behavior, but it could be any day now.

Georgia not only stopped playing the song, it even changed the name of the band, formerly known as the Dixie Redcoat Band. It became simply the Redcoat Band.

That prompted my stepbrother, Ludlow Porch, the famous radio talk show personality, to fire off a letter to the editor suggesting the following: "I applaud the dropping of 'Dixie' from the name of the University of Georgia band, but let us not stop there.

How can we allow the word 'red' which stands for communism? And the word 'redcoat' itself is an affront to the memory of all those Americans who fought against the redcoats of England in the Revolutionary War.

And 'band.' Poncho Villa had a 'band' of desperadoes and we had to send brave young soldiers into Mexico after him. So 'band' should go, too, and that just leaves 'The', which is a dumb name for a large group of musicians, so I guess they're just out of a name altogether.

I believe if we really try we can wipe away all symbols of the Old South forever. There's a company in Savannah that makes Dixie Crystal Sugar. Sorry, it's just Crystal Sugar from now on, and don't give me any grief about it.

And there's even a Dixie highway in the South. It should be referred to from now on only as Highway. As in, 'Well, you take Highway, then go down three blocks and...' There are even people named Dixie, believe it or not. They will have to get new first names, or go by their middle names. And if anybody named Dixie lives on Dixie Highway, the Speech Police will likely demand they be shot.

And if the song and word 'Dixie' are symbolic of the Old South, I guess we ought to stop using 'Old South' as well. Instead of saying 'Old South' perhaps we can refer to it as 'Back Then,' and we can roll our eyes when we use it so everybody will know we aren't talking about when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, but when slaveholders used to go around singing songs like 'Dixie' and 'Eating Goober Peas.'

But wait. 'Eating Goober Peas' is a song from Back Then, too, so don't anybody dare play that at a football game.

Songs about killing innocent people, incidentally, are just fine.}

Tribute to 2 "late, greats"-Lewis Grizzard and Fred Arnold

Sometimes people come along and leave their mark on the world and when they die, the world has lost something. I remember when I was in high school, my grandpa became ill and would eventually pass away from this illness.

As a kid "Papa" and I would watch "Hee Haw" together and thanks to him, I got my love of country and bluegrass music. Being with him, I got to learn the music of Eddie Arnold, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and the likes. He would take me on walks to my great-Grandma's house and we would walk through the rows of her garden and he would always point out what this was or that was.

I remember after he got sick, he couldn't really get out much anymore, so my mom would check out books from the library for him. I think she checked out every Lewis Grizzard book the library had at the time. And again, thanks to him, Lewis Grizzard became a favourite writer, commentator, comedian, and defender of the South.

Recently I came across a book in my library that I haven't read in about a year. Of course, I'm talkin' about a book by Lewis Grizzard. "Southern by the Grace of God."
I thought I'd leave a few of the more memorable excerpts here.

BORN RIGHT

"All of us native Southerners knew it was coming. And now, it is here. The Sunday paper carried a large article about Northern migration to the capital city of the South.

In the metro Atlanta area, the article said, native Georgians still have the edge, but it's not an overpowering one and the margin is dwindling. Said the article, "The migration patterns that brought Northeasterners to Atlanta's elite northern suburbs also sent people from the other regions to spots around the metro area. These settling patterns....have brought a new sense of place to dozens of Atlanta neighborhoods, influencing everything from the local politics to the inventory at the corner grocery store."

The article also quoted Yankee population expert, William Frey of the University of Michigan, as saying, "The nice Southern flavor of Atlanta may be diluted a bit with all the Northerners moving in."

The nice Southern flavor of Atlanta may be diluted a bit....

I certainly understand why somebody from the land of freeze and squeeze would want to seek asylum here. A friend, also a native Southerner, who shares my fear about losing our Southern flavor, put it way: "Nobody is going into an Atlanta bar tonight celebrating because they've just been transferred to New Jersey."

So what should I expect as my beloved Southland becomes more populated with migrating honkers? (Honker" Northerner with a grating accent who always talks at the top of his or her voice.) Will Southerners start dropping the last part of everybody's first name like the honkers do? Will I forever be Lew? Will Mary become Mare? Will Nancy become Nance? Will Bubba become Bub?

Will the automobile horn drown out the lilt of "Georgia on My Mind"? Will they dig a tunnel through Stone Mountain so native New Yorkers can remember the dark, choking atmosphere of the Lincoln and the Holland Tunnels? Will Harold's barbeque, 45 years in business, lose it's clientele to delicatessens where you have to scream at the top of your voice to get somebody to take your order for pastrami on pumpernickle?

Will the downtown Atlanta statue of the Phoenix, symbolic of the city's rising form the ashes, be replaced by a statue of Sherman holding a can of lighter fluid? Will grits become extinct? Will corn bread give way to the bagel? Will everybody, including native Southerners, start calling Atlanta's pro football team the "Fall-cuns" like the Yankee sportscasters, instead of the way it's supposed to be pronounced, "Fowl-cuns?"

Will "freeway" replace "expressway"? Will "soda" or "pop" replace "Co-coler"? Will Southern men start wearing black socks and sandals with Bermuda shorts? Will "Y'all come back" become "Git outta here"?

I was having lunch at an Atlanta golf club recently. A man sitting at another table heard me speaking and asked, "Where are you all from?" He was mocking me. He was mocking my Southern accent. He was sitting in Atlanta, Georgia, making fund of the way I speak.

He was from Toledo. He had been transferred to Atlanta. If I hadn't been 46 years old, skinny, and a basic coward with a bad heart, I'd have punched him. I did, however, give him a severe verbal dressing down.

I was in my doctor's office in Atlanta. One of the women who works there, a transplanted Northerner, asked how I pronounced the word "siren." I said I pronounced it "si-reen." I was half kidding, but that is the way I heard the word pronounced when I was a child.

The woman laughed and said, "You Southerners really crack me up. You have a language all your own."

Yeah, we do. If you don't like it, go back home and stick your head in a snow bank. We really don't care how you said it or how you did it back in Buffalo.

I read a piece on the op-ed page of the "Constitution" written by somebody who in the jargon of my past, "ain't from around here." He wrote white Southerners are always looking back and that we should look forward. He said that about me. He was reacting to a bumper sticker that shows the old Confederate soldier saying, "FERGIT, HELL!"

I don't go around sulking about the fact that the South lost the Civil War. But I am aware that once upon a long time ago, a group of Americans saw fit to rebel against what they thought was an overbearing federal government. Ther is no record anywhere that indicates anybody in my family living in 1861 owned slaves. As a matter of fact, I come from a long line of sharecroppers, horse thieves, and used car dealers. But a few of them fought anyway - not to keep their slaves, because they didn't have any. I guess they simply thought it was the right thing to do at the time.

Whatever their reasons, there was a citizenry that once say fit to fight and die and I come from all that, and I look at those people as brave and gallant, and a frightful force until their hearts and their lands were burnt away.

I will never turn my back on that heritage. I am proud to be a Southerner. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: I'm an American by birth, but I'm a Southerner by the grace of God."