Don't Let The Door Hit You...

 

 

Over the last year this blog has gained a sizable number of followers for what I perceive to have been two reasons.  1) I have been writing on this blog more consistently over the past two years plus and have not failed to add a post each month for nearly four years.  2) I have consistently confronted the TREASON of the Russian Agent who has been living illegally in the White House for the past three years based on his TREASON with Russia, Ukraine, Syria, and Turkey.  The number of followers had actually reached 92 recently which is quite high for a blog being written by an ordinary citizen instead of someone relatively famous.  But overnight, someone left the blog and the number dropped to 91.  I suspect as I always do when a follower leaves that some recent political post has irritated someone who is still stupid enough to support that same TRAITOR and Russian Agent.  I have one thing to say about that.  DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU WHERE THE GOOD LORD SPLIT YOU!  I will continue to confront this TREASON as long as the TRAITOR and I are both alive and I will confront it just as I always have from June 16, 2015, to the present.  I will confront it anytime, anywhere, from anybody and I will use my research and writing skills to produce the truth about his life of crime and TREASON.  If he does not spend the rest of his slimy life in a federal prison cell after having been convicted of TREASON, it will be the worst miscarriage of justice in the history of America. So let me repeat myself: DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU WHERE THE GOOD LORD SPLIT YOU! Attached below you will find a list of telephone contact numbers for #MoscowMitch McConnell who is a co-conspirator in the TREASON and attempting to orchestrate a cover up.  Some of these numbers will actually be answered by a human according to Chuck Eddy, who is running for congress from Central Kentucky against Andy Barr, another Right Wing Radical co-conspirator.   Chuck describes himself as a moderate Republican. 

Mail Order Seed Catalogs--A Sure Sign Spring Is Coming!

Today, January 28, 2020, I received my first mail order seed catalog in my mail box.  Yesterday, while walking at the Lexington Kentucky Arboretum, I saw several robins.  Spring cannot be far off.  For most of my life since I was a child, I have known that the arrival of mail order seed catalogs was a sure sign of impending spring.  Yes, I know that the commercial seed companies do mail those catalogs in the dead of winter.  But, in addition to bringing photographs of perfect produce, these catalogs also bring hope to the hopelessly home bound.  When your first seed catalog arrives in the mail, you know that the earth has continued on its rotation around the sun, that the days are probably already getting a minute longer a day at least, and that the normal rotation of four seasons will likely once again be honored in the universe. 

 

 

 

For most of my life, the Stark Brothers catalog has been my favorite.  But I also enjoy all the others, especially Burpee, .  Any of them can get my blood circulating faster; get me to believing that I should once again raise a garden even though I haven't done it in years; get me to lusting after the taste of a fresh, warm, sun ripened, homegrown tomato eaten with a salt shaker in the garden beside the plant on which it grew and less than one minute after it was plucked from the vine.  Nearly all of these spring catalogs will contain photographs of several varieties of fruits and vegetables which I have never grown but always wish I had such as salsify, kohlrabi, rutabaga, Jerusalem artichoke, figs, lingonberry, currant, or marionberry.  

But now that I have read Bill Best's excellent book "Kentucky Heirloom Seeds Growing, Eating, Saving", I know that I, and all of my readers, should exercise caution in making any decision about which seed company to order seeds from, which varieties to plant, and which to actually eat.  Nearly all the major commercial seed companies are primarily marketing varieties of fruits and vegetables which have been genetically altered to produce fruits and vegetables with a variety of characteristics which were not selected with your best interests as a goal.  They are not selected for long shelf life so they can be shipped from a plethora of Third World countries and retain their marketability over a long period.  Most of them are hard, thick skinned, flavorless but beautiful specimens which will attract your attention from a mile off, hold their shape and appearance for days, and taste like cardboard or Styrofoam.  Whenever it is remotely possible, we should all be producing, purchasing, and consuming fruits and vegetables of proven heritage varieties which have protected and preserved over hundreds of years, passed from one grower to another, from parent to child.  They should have been dealt with in a manner which preserved their genetic purity and produced several generations with the very same desirable characteristics.  I do not presume to be an expert of heritage seeds but I learned enough to know that heritage garden plants, fruit trees, and berry vines are best for the entire human race and the planet as whole.  

 

 

 

Yes, it is fun to open that first commercial seed catalog of spring and lust after fresh tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beans, and watermelons.  But out desires should be channeled toward the same varieties our ancestors carried across the oceans from the land of our personal heritage, varieties which have been handed down to beloved children and grandchildren from ancestors who carried those seeds on a pilgrimage to a better home with a vibrant, nutritious garden just behind the house.  Enjoy spring whenever it comes and take some personal action to protect, preserve, and propagate heritage fruits and vegetables.  

"The Appalachian Renaissance at Berea College 1944-1994" by Bill Best--Book Review

For many years, Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, has been recognized as being at the forefront of  post secondary education in Appalachia.  But the story of Berea College and their efforts to educate and train leaders in, of, and for Appalachia has not always been without bumps along the road.  My friend Bill Best is both a Berea alumnus and a professor emeritus at Berea after having attended the college from 1954 to 1959 and having taught there from 1962 to 2002. Bill Best is also the author of two excellent books about saving, planting, and preserving heritage seeds.

During his time at Berea, Dr. Best served as an athletic coach, administrator, Director of Upward Bound, and in just about any other capacity in which the college asked him to serve.  He is still actively involved with the college and lives on his farm not far from  Berea.  No one was better qualified to write about Berea and the role it has played in the history of education in Appalachia.  The book is divided into three sections with an epilogue of a few pages.  The sections are labeled with Roman numerals and cover college history; the career of James Stephen Brown, a Berea alumnus and a person who was also deeply involved in the life and work of the college for many years; and a section of "Testimonials" from a large group composed primarily of other Berea alumni who have become successful in a variety of fields.  The book discusses the careers of the various presidents of the college over the fifty years the text addresses.  It also discussed honestly and openly a period of time when the college became more focused on changing Appalachia, Appalachians, and the culture of the region.  This period was eventually proven to be counterproductive to the goals of the college and was eventually changed to an effort which recognized the validity and importance of the deep seated and widely loved Appalachian Culture.  Naturally, my friend of the last few years, Loyal Jones, one of the most important figures in all of Appalachia and Appalachian Literature, played a large and irreplaceable role in that effort to cause Berea College to protect the culture of the region.  

The testimonial section is written by a sizeable group of figures who were important in the history of the college and the region.  Although I recognize the intentions of Bill Best in constructing the book in this manner, I also see this method of having others write a key section of the book is a double edged sword.  On the positive side, it clearly demonstrates how important Berea College has been both in the lives of these alumni and the region.  But is my personal opinion that the book could have been better served if the author had chosen to write this section personally based on his knowledge of these people and personal interviews with them.  But I do not make the statements in this paragraph with any intentions of denigrating the book or diminishing my respect for the book and the author.  I state it simply as a difference of opinion between two writers about writing style and arrangement of the work.  Each of the people whose lives are discussed in this section is an important figure in the life of Berea College and the region. I simply believe that an impartial third person assessment of these people and their work might have suited me better. And let me conclude this discussion with the strongly worded statement that I respect and appreciate the book, the author, and his writing.  This book is well worth your time to read.  If you are an Appalachian scholar, a Kentuckian, or an alumnus of Berea College, you will learn a great deal from this book.  Buy it!  Read it!  Enjoy it as I did!  And most of all, learn from it. 

Local Second Amendment Sanctuary Acts

In recent weeks, we have seen a plethora of county governments, mostly in the rural south and southeast or the far west pass, no doubt at the behest of the NRA, what they are calling local Second Amendment Sanctuary Acts.  At the time of this post, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and several states in the southwest have passed these asinine local ordinances which state most often that "local officials will not enforce federal laws which infringe on the second amendment".  The governor of Virginia actually was forced to utilize a short term ban on guns on state capital property recently in order to protect innocent potential victims of self-described gun rights activists who marched on the capital to oppose the possibility that the Democratically controlled state legislature would pass some form of rational gun control legislation in order to help control gun violence.  Yet, several thousands of these Right Wing Radical domestic terrorists marched on the capital which had been temporarily fenced off and was being protected by several hundred state police officers.  Call it what they will, acts like this by supporters of unrestricted gun ownership are acts of terrorism, their perpetrators are domestic terrorists,  and are in direct violation of the Preamble of The US Constitution when it says "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."  The acts of these people in pursuit of self-centered, irrational, and ignorant local ordinances are acts which endanger "the general welfare and domestic tranquility" by promoting the ignorant belief that the Second Amendment allows any one who wishes to, regardless of their mental impairment or arrest record to own, openly carry, and endanger their neighbors with any weapon they choose.  These people and these acts are also in direct conflict with the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution which states "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."  Eventually, the US Supreme Court will be forced to issue an opinion concerning one or more of these local ordinances which will make all of them unconstitutional.  But until a case somewhere, brought to the courts by people more intelligent, patriotic, and altruistic than these idiots who are supporting this local stupidity, these acts and their supporters will endanger the general public over a large portion of the country.  Any public official who refuses to enforce federal law is immediately in guilty of obstruction of justice and malfeasance of duty and should be fired, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. 

As a nation, we are facing the most horrible time in our history, at least since World War II.  Russia and Vladimir Putin have placed a TRAITOR in the White House and that TRAITOR, under the pressure of impeachment, is attempting to foment domestic terrorism by people like these who are supporting this gun rights terrorism.  His generally poorly educated supporters are falling for his lies by the thousands. They listen for every rant on Twitter from this career criminal and hope to be able to defend him and his crimes with whatever weapons they own.  This is an incredibly dangerous time in America.  We are the laughing stock of the civilized world.  We are literally facing an attempt by these Right Wing Radicals to destroy law and justice in this country and replace it with a society which has already begun to make Old Dodge City look a daycare center.  If the forces of reason and true constitutional democracy do not succeed in convicting TRAITOR Trump in his impeachment trial in the senate and removing him from the scene of his three year crime spree, we will literally lose this country. Russia will have won and will have fulfilled the words of Nikita Khrushchev when he said, “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within...."  Now is the time for all decent, rational citizens of this country to stand up for the US Constitution, representative democracy, and the last great hope for the entire world, American Democracy. 

Mourning The West Virginia I Love

It was about 1974 the first time I went to West Virginia and I have been in love with it ever since.  I was a potential student at Antioch University Appalachia which at that time was in Huntington but moved shortly thereafter to Beckley where it remained until Antioch University shut it down.  Beckley and Raleigh County were the first place I lived in West Virginia in 1974 to sometime in 1976.  I also lived in Logan and Mingo Counties from 1985 to 1989.  I was married to my wife Candice in 1992 at the main overlook of Grand View National Park.  I have loved West Virginia every day since the first time I ever went there and I will love it until the day I die.  But over the last few years, I have become deeply disappointed, disgusted, and ashamed of what West Virginia has become which is nothing more or less than a political cesspool, a quagmire, a reprehensible home for several thousand, and sadly, perhaps several hundred thousand members of that basket of deplorables which Hillary Clinton spoke of on September 9, 2016.  The West Virginia which for all its history since statehood on June 20, 1863, was a home for progressive, liberal, conscientious, and admirable acts, people, arts, and actions has deterioriated over the last twenty years into a place which is run by some of the most reprehensible politicians in the nation and its citizens espouse right wing radical political opinions which are detrimental not only to West Virginia but to the entire nation.

The state which produced Pearl S. Buck, Breece D'J Pancake, Cyrus Vance, Chuck Yeager, Walter Reuther, Bill Blizzard (both senior and junior), Rod Harless, Tom Woodruff, and Arnold Miller is now frequented and horribly negatively influenced by the likes of Jim Justice, David McKinley, Carol Miller, and Alex Mooney.  The state in which brave miners fought proudly for union representation on Blair Mountain is now home to thousands of scabs who have bought into the lies of coal companies and the billionaire thieves who own them.  The state which was proudly represented in congress by Ken Hechler and in Charleston by A. James Manchin is now misled and misrepresented by the likes of McKinley, Miller, Mooney, and Shelley Moore Capito the daughter of Arch Moore, one of the worst criminals the state ever produced.  

It is long past time for West Virginians to come to their senses and return the state to the proud place it once held in American History when the Kennedy brothers both campaigned there, when Jesse Jackson, Jr. was welcomed to Logan County, and when the state voted solid Democratic and was considered progressive and socially responsible.  I hate to have to say that I mourn for the West Virginia I love. 

Authors Addendum: January 21, 2020

This is evidently an important post, possibly one of the most important I ever written.  It has gotten more than 500 page views in less than 24 hours and several comments, most of which help support and prove my argument in this post.  No matter how ignorant the comments are on this blog, I always leave them up unless they require me to report the comment to legal authorities as a threat of harm, because they nearly always prove me to be correct as these have.  So, all of you who read this blog who turn out to be members of the basket of deplorables, Right Wing Repugnican Radicals, or just idiots, have fun!