Low tech--No tech, I'll bet you know someone who wears that badge!

The tech-no-people are a dwindling bunch. They are a minority who are resisting the world wide movement to be connected to the web. Everyone knows a few of them. There people who don't use the web or don't own a computer. These people are saying no to the very technologies that increasingly are captivating most everyone else. The tech-no- people are not avoiding the latest technologies because of poverty, age or lack of education, their just making a decision to say no to something their afraid of. Most of them understand the convenience of cell phones and even own one. They have hundreds of channels on their TV rather than only the two or three local broadcast channels. They never leave the house without their cell phone and God forbid they lose the TV remote. Yet they don't think they are missing out on anything because of their lack of an e mail address or a connection to the web. I've questioned a few of the tech-no-people about having no e mail address and I always get the same answer "Buy a stamp and send me a letter" or "Call me if it is important". Even worse are the Tech-no-people who could not e mail someone even if their life depended on it but when someone sends then an e mail they get their office staff, wife or kid to either print it up or read it to them.
Some day it might be very fashionable to be disconnected and the Tech-no-people will wear their dis connectivity like a badge. Until that day arrives I will not rush out to buy my badge, I'll just wait till the last minute and buy my badge on E bay.

That's just spinach! I was fixing to make a salad

A Willie Update: On Sept.18 2006, Willie Nelson's bus was stopped by the La. State Police. A couple of weeks after Willie's bust I wrote a blog about the Willie salad fixings fiasco. The salad is long gone but yesterday Willie finally came clean and plead guilty to misdemeanor marijuana possession. Willie was spared jail time, fined $1,024 and put on probation for six months. Willie signed autographs and shakes a few hands at the court house. I wonder if that had anything to do with State District Judge Paul deMahy dismissing the charges against Willie's sister and the two bus drivers that were on Willie's bus.



Willie has been busted once again. This time he had a pound and a half of marijuana and some psychedelic mushrooms. Hell! that's just breakfast for Willie Nelson. Mabe Willie should put a spice rack on his bus. He could put the weed into the oregano and basil jars and the mushrooms in with the garlic pieces. The next time Barney Fife entered Willie's bus, Willie could invite Fife to dinner and everybody would be happy.
Don't the Louisiana State Police have something better to do than messing with a 72 year old hippie? The police said they stopped Willie's bus based on probable cause. What cause is that, that it contained Willie Nelson? Until we win World War Three and crush the evildoers that our president calls a struggle for civilization, all law enforcement people should have to work on that and not busting Willie Nelson. I guess Barney Fife didn't see that Willie had his stash in a heart shaped tin can. That should have been a tip off that Willie was no evildoer.
I don't think all of this bothered Willie too much. He and his entourage probably used the misdemeanor citation to roll up a joint with the stash the cops did not find! No one has ever had much success trying to mess with Willie. Oh! the IRS did Willie a little damage but after time Willie even came out on top of that one.
If Willie Nelson lives another 15 years and it looks like he will, the odds of him getting busted again are pretty good. I just hope he is not on Snoop Dog's bus the next time it happens. There won't be any get out of jail misdemeanor citation. Everybody will be tied up with Snoop Dog's gold chains and driven straight to prison
Willie is a lucky man and luck always rides with a good hearted person. He was probably standing next to the Tin Man when the Wizard of Oz passed out hearts. Little did the Wizard know, Willie would keep pot in his. Things could have been much worse for Willie. If that had been a bag of spinach on the hood of the police car instead of marijuana, Willie's luck would have ran out and everybody on the bus would be dead.

A world of Nincompoops

If the Nincompoops had a political party, Don Imus would certainly be their presidential candidate. He has been whipped for almost two weeks by every group in America and now he has finally been thrown off the airwaves. His story and nappy headed remarks have made him famous, that's why he will be back bigger than ever. He will draw bigger ratings than he did before his description of the Rutgers basketball team
Today's news media has too much Nincompoop news. I don't care who fathered the daughter of a trampy blonde drug addict nor where the tramp is going to be buried. I don't give a crap about a insane astronaut wearing diapers who drives across the USA to confront her lovers shack-up. I don't understand why people are hypnotized by the sight of the cops chasing OJ up and down the LA freeway. Who's sleeping with who only matters if I am the one having the sex, I mean sleeping!
Most people have lost their ability to distinguish what is noteworthy from what is simply notoriously stupid. It's beginning to look like everybody wants their news to come one of those English Tabloid or Access Hollywood. I miss the news broadcast of my youth. When I wanted real news I watched Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. When I wanted entertainment I watched Ed Sullivan. When I wanted stupidity I watched Sid Casar.
In the end it's not about Don Imus or any of the other Nincompoops of our time, it's about us! We all sit in judgment just waiting for the next Nincompoop to throw him or herself on the mercy of the court of public opinion. The court always panders to the Mob and the Nincompoop is lynched. Yet for all the Nincompoop's sins he or she is usually no worse than the mob swinging the rope.

Heaven and Hell

Easter morning I had planned to attend an outdoor sunrise church service but the 35 degree temp along with rain and a gusty north wind caused me to cancel plans to attend the Easter service. I tried to remember if I had ever been to an outdoor Easter sunrise service. Surly I had but I could not remember ever going to one. I'll admit the sole purpose of going to the April 8 2007 sunrise service was not totally religious. The church was going to serve breakfast after the service and I was not about to pass up a free breakfast even if I had to sit with a bunch of other sinners while I ate it.
One of the good things about the Christian faith is that it is not imposed on anyone. It is a gift, an offer to mankind. God gave men and women the free will to chose whether or not to accept salvation, but is Heaven and Hell really a place or are they just religious symbols designed to galvanize the faithful? What happens when we admit blame and promise to sin no more then we go back on our word? Are we really thrown into the inferno of eternal damnation? Hell is really just a state of eternal separation from God. It's more symbolic than a physical place.
The goal of every Christian should be the communion with God, that's the true Heaven. It's not a physical place in the clouds we strive for. We are all sinners, Jesus knew that when he said "He that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone"
That big halfway house between Heaven and Hell that most of us live in is only a theological hypothesis and not a definitive truth of our faith. It's true that birds of a feather flock together so on Easter Sunday many people including myself who never go to church all year long gather to renounce their sins. I hope God didn't get too mad when I did not attend this years sunrise survive. I did read my bible Easter morning, accomplishing the Christian's goal of communion with God and ask for forgiveness just as I would have if I had been setting in the front row at the outdoor service. Hopefully that will give me enough God credit until this time next year. Besides God can use the bacon and eggs I didn't eat to feed some other sinner. There will never be a shortage of sinners with empty stomach because God makes sure the food is always terrible in the halfway house.

Father time always catches up with mother nature

Recently my family celebrated our father's birthday. Next to my father I am the oldest of the family so its only natural for me to reflect on my age and the so called art of growing old gracefully. Growing old gracefully is hard in a society that values achievement and youth. Travel or plastic surgery is not a guarantee of happiness, contentment or even grace. Graceful aging requires forgiveness, gratitude and personal development.That personal development is what a lot of senior citizens fail to grasp. They are not open to change, wanting everything just as they had them in the past. Its the personal development of giving when ever possible and receiving from others when the need arises that brings a joyful retirement. When retirement arrives and has time to sink into life, most people are shocked to find things that used to give their life depth have disappeared. That's why I never complain about work or family. I realized long ago the feelings of accomplishment and meaning I derive from those activities.
I have not put in any where near a forty hour work week for almost 15 years so I guess one could say I've almost had unlimited time to do what ever I wanted to do. I used to think no pressure meant no pressure to do anything at all but that only got me stuck in a rut. I do not ever want to become inflexible or ridged like some people do when they retire. Allowing forgiveness of old resentments, healing wounds of the past and coming to terms with dreams I did not achieve, balances out some of the body's aches and pains.
Life comes in stages. As babies we grasp each moment with curiosity. In our youth we test our abilities. The middle years are filled with achievement. During old age hopefully we have developed the meaning of the first three. In death no one really knows what to expect. Hopefully my family will remember my birthday long after I am gone from this earth! I don't expect them to sing happy birthday to a dead person but they sure better put a cake a pie or bowl of ice cream out where I can see it or I'll come back and haunt them until the next anniversary of my birthday.