pinions of buddy don:
march agin tragedy, war on terror, globalizayshun of everthang

a few years back, whenever princess diana gut killd in that car acksident, miz bd pickd up a flyer over in man hattan frum sumbidy trine to organ eyes a march agin tragedy. we wunderd could it be a joke of sum kind, but ifn twuz, it dint give nun of the clues ye eggspeck. fack is, the fella wuz serious. he figgerd we had let tragedy push us around fer too long n we had to let it know we wuznt a'gone take it no more.

he listed instuntses of how tragedy had dun attackd. corse, thar wuz princess diana gittin killd. then thar wuz a mudslide over in colombia. starvayshun in afrikie. genocide in ruwanda. n albania. n serbia. n palestine. i wishd i had saved it on a counta i dont member all the tragedy this fella wonted everbidy to march agin.

innywho, i dont speck that innybidy readin this thanks ye kin do much by marchin agin tragedy. march all ye wonta, but acksidents is gonna happen, mud is gonna slide, earthquakes is a'gone shake thangs up n kill folks, hurrcanes is gonna blow, n ifn ye dont know no better, all of em wood be proof of how tragedy is takin over n attackin at will.

this mornin i noticed whar terror is makin its presents felt: (1) eight arrested in british terror raids, (2) terror in uzbekistan, (3) terror arrests in phillippines, (4) colombia: media ignores death squad terror campane, (5) and the next stage in the war on terror: indonesia. ifn ye search around a lil, ye kin find plenty more.

as most innybidy figgers out by the time they kin walk, thays a heap of thangs ye caint control. fer instunts, ye mite wont a sunny day fer a picknick, but ye caint cuntrol the weather. ifn ye ever had kids, then ye know ye caint even cuntrol a child that ye razed yer ownself frum the day twuz born.

tragedy is one of them thangs ye caint cuntrol. but wait, thars more.

durin the fussin n fitin a'goin on bout offshorin n outsourcin of jobs, folks lacks to act lack tiz sumthin they could cuntrol. mayhap they kin have a lil influents, but since we bleev in the profit motiv above all, then thay aint no way to stop it. inny person goin into bizness wood be a fool to pay $10 fer sumthin they could git fer $1. one thang is fer sartin, capitullism dont repeck no borders, dont practiss no patriotism. tiz a simple math questchun:

profit = (price ye put on yer goods) minus (the cost of makin em)

razin yer profit is thonly motive that matters, witch that means innythang that kin hep ye lower the cost of makin thangs -- whuther tiz avoidin payin taxes or movin jobs to the injun subcontinent or skimpin on safety measures or eggscapin frum regulayshun by gummints that wonta keep ye frum ruinin the common thangs lack the air we all breathe or the water we drank -- innythang that reduces that cost of making thangs is fair game. ifn ye kin doot well, yer gonna git noticed n prazed.

point is, ye caint stop it, so ye gut to thank how kin ye live with it? is thar sum kinda way to graft a moral order on a eckonomick practiss lack capitullism? are ye gonna git folks to thankin that it mite be better to pay a wurker (also a perspecktiv customer) over here $10 in sted of payin a wurker (who wont be no perspecktiv customer) over thar $1? ye wont cunvints em by makin laws on a counta nex thang ye know, ye gut ye a trade war a'goin on, witch twood be a hop skip n a jump frum thar to a worlwide deepreshun.

point is, ye half to attack the problem whar tiz -- in that equayshun above n the absolute bleef that profit is the only criterion on witch everthang else kin be judged. ifn ye caint git folks to bleev nuthin else, then ye shouldnt cumplain bout yer jobs disappearin. thar jes follerin the money.

so tiz with terror, witch moren innythang else, tiz jes a idee. taint lack a perscripshun drug that one cumpny gits the patent on n kin charge whutever it wonts n caint nobidy else make it. tiz sumthin that ever skool child kin larn bout by the age of bout 10 or 12. thanks to our new ability to global eyes most innythang, the idee of terror is gittin roun to everwhar n mos everbidy.

thays sum that thanks ye kin attack a idee usin a army. ifn twere so, we woodnt be havin so much truble beatin it. we dun showed the worl that ifn thars inny cuntry out thar that wonts to take us on, they aint gut a chants. we gut the force to git inny cuntry to surrender or be wiped out.

but terrsts aint cuntries. they kin use cuntries, but they dont need em. they dun proovd how they kin operate in cuntries, lack ireland n spain n israel, whar the gummint hates em n duz everthang possibull to wipe em out. but no matter how much force ye brang to the problem, it dont go away long as the idee lives.

thats cawz ye caint kill a idee with a bullet. ye caint kill it with a smart bomb. ye caint kill it with a cruise missle. ye caint kill it with a nukular weppon. ye caint kill it with inny weppon, even ifn twuz one that kin pull off mass deestruckshun.

as the romans dun provd with the early christchuns, ye jes caint kill idees with force. lions eat folks, but idees live on. ye kin kill the messenger, but the message lives on n sumtimes gits a boost frum folks that makes the killt messenger into a martyr.

fack is, n aint nobidy lacks this on a counta how tiz hard to do, ye kin only attack a idee usin better idees. ifn ye cunvints mos folks that yer a force fer good, aint minny thats gonna wonta attack ye. if ye kin cunvints a nuff folks that terrsts aint nuthin but criminulls, then purty soon, lots of the folks that heps em n hides em now wont be be willin to doot no more.

twood be nice ifn ever terrst had a state sponser, witch thats the way mr bush wonts to fite terrism. ye caint hardly blame him. ifn ye gut the worls biggest army, ifn yer spendin more on yer miltary than the nex 21 cuntries cumbined is spendin, then ye wood kinly lack to use that weppon agin yer enemies. ifn ye gut a state thats sponserin terrsts n terrism, lack them talibans wuz doin in afghanistan, then ye gut a battle yer reddy to fite.

ifn ye could point to a state sponser of ever terrst, then ye could put up a list of cuntries sponern terrism on the innernet n tell em all they gut till high noon to change thar ways or face incumin marines.

but whenever yer fitin a idee, ye aint gut no state that kin surrender fer it. ye kin kill as minny terrsts as ye kin round up, but ifn ye dont kill the idee, yer jes plantin futchur terrsts whenever ye bury em.

tiz a miss take to thank thays jes one organizayshun lack al qaeda doin all the terrism on a counta they dont have the patent on it n it kin be used by innybidy that thanks twill wurk.

the idee kin infeck all kinds of folk: christchuns (cathlick vs. protestunt), muslims, drug cartels, basque separtists, palestinians, white aryan nayshun types, yew name it.

ifn i knew the best way to attack terrism, i wood rite it down n send it in a letter to mr bush, but i dont. i do have a few idees bout how we mite larn to fite the idee, so here they are:

1. 
   
   ye gut to larn to put yerself in thar place n wunder whut could git em to the point of wontin to attack.
   
   
2. 
   
   ye gut to wunder bout folk that wood be proud of thar children givin up thar lives to kill thar verr self in suicide attacks: ifn ye really wonta beat the idee name of terrism, then ye gut to figger thisn out.
   
   
3. 
   
   ye gut to be willin to look at gittin the beam outta yer own eye sos ye kin see clear to take out the speck frum otherns eyes, witch that means ...
   
   
4. 
   
   Ye caint settle fer simplistick splainayshuns bout whut motivates them terrsts lack claimin they hate us cawz we gut freedum or they wuz born pure evil, witch the bible sez all folks has fallen short of the glory of god n all folks is in a state of evil needin fergivness on a counta inherted sin, witch the point is, all of us is imperfeck.
   
   
5. 
   
   ye gut to larn bout the cultchur that wood create so minny folks thats willin to do evil to ye.
   
   
6. 
   
   ye gut to look at whar ye mite be open to attack, whar ye could be hurt mos, n perteck it, even ifn it means razin taxes on a counta whut good does it do a man to half the hole wide worl back in taxes ifn hes bombed to death by a terrst?
   
   
7. 
   
   ye gut to do yer bes not to give terrsts new reasons to hate ye, witch is why so minny folks wuz upset bout attackin iraq, witch whut osama bin laden sed he wonted wuz fer a western christchun power to attack a weak muslim cuntry on a counta how twood hep him spread his idee of terror n git new recruits to hep him use it.
   
   
8. 
   
   mos of all, ye gut to ackcept the fack that bombin cuntries n innocent folk (even by acksident) aint no way to stop terrst frum bombin. lease, taint wurkd yet.

fack is, havin a war on a idee, even a idee calld terrism, is a lot lack havin a march agin tragedy, speshly if thonly idee ye gut is to fite terrsts with yer army.

pinions of buddy don:
addicktiv blogs -- my faverts amung the biguns

tiz tuesdy, time to look over sum blogs. today lets take a look at six of the more sucksessfull amung em -- them that gits more comments on their most recent articulls than the hits i git in a week. i half to add mitt to becumin addicted to a few, witch i know thar all more or less on the left side of thangs, but theys well writ, purty to look at ceptn fer The Daily Howler, n almos always loaded with info i wonted but dint speck to read. so here's my list of faverts amung the biguns:

1. The Daily Howler: twuz the furst blog i gut to readin on a reglar basis, witch i dint even know twuz a blog fer the longest. whut mr. somerby dun to lock me in wuz to show how awful the press wuz treatin al gore. once i wuz hooked, i larnt that the man has no limits on who he wood attack, witch tiz innybidy in the press who dont play far. he makes his readers mad ever now n agin whenever he points out folks on the lef usin shady tackticks. fer me, tiz the best blog fer press criticism i ever found. let me know if thars a bettern.
   
2. liberaloasis: i found thisn frum plastic, witch thats whar i found media whores online, witch thats a nuther purty goodn but they take thangs too far fer my taste on a counta they git to be actin lack them thar critisizin. whut i lack best bout liberaloasis is the insights on how eleckshuns wurk, how issues gits played in the press, whut kinda stratgy mite wurk agin mr bush.
   
3. Altercation: i gut to readin thisn frum a tip on media horse (as tiz calld by minny folk), but it dint take till i had red a cuple of books by eric alterman, witch the furstn wuz What Liberal Media n the one im jes bout dun readin is The Book on Bush, witch that book has gut ever thang ye could wont on the problem of how we aint gittin the truth frum our gummint at the moment. ye know whut point of view to speck frum eric alterman, but his readin is vorayshus, his taste in musick is eggcellent, n his readers write in bout half his column everday, witch sumtimes they put in the best bits.
   
4. Talking Points Memo: thisns the blog of joshua micah marshall, witch ye dont hardly find a better mind in the land of bloggin. he aint satisfied with makin a quick joke n givin ye a lank to the story, witch that seems to occupy bout half the space on three quarters of the blogs out thar. in sted, he gives ye insight n analysis. fer eggzample, long befor condi rice finely add mitted mr bush had indeed pushed richard clarke to find a iraq conneckshun on 9/12, mr marshall had analyzed it thisaway: ifn thar wuznt no meeting, thar wood be no witnesses, witch that wood mean that ifn thar wuz a meetin that could be denied, couldnt nobidy but mr bush n mr clarke be thar n the claim that no such meetin happend wood be a he said vs he said situwayshun. but on 60 mints, twuz sed thar wuz two witnesses, witch that dint git mr steven hadley to add mitt nuthin. point mr marshall wuz makin is how it had to be mr bush tellin the lie that thay wuznt no meetin on a counta how other witnesses couldnt verr well say that, witch turnt out they wuz sayin the verr opposit. (corse now everbidy knows the meetin happend.) tiz hard to find a blog that has dun a better job of keepin up with the smear campain agin richard clarke than thisn. 
   
5. Whiskey Bar: i aint been readin thisn verr long, but tiz a goodn. whut i notice bout all these biguns amung blogs is how they post sevrul times each day (not countin the furst two, witch they post jes the one time). that means ye kin go back agin n agin to git billmon's take on thangs thats brakin news. i find his analysis wurthy. taint a site ye go to fer lanks to stories. ye go thar fer insights into thangs.
   
6. Political Animal: thisns the new blog of calpundit, witch thats probly a nuff sed fer minny folk. whenever i wuz furst readin mr drums old blog, whut amazed me wuz how quick he wuz to reack to news n how apt his obsurvayshuns wuz. so he has turnt into one of them i wonta read ever day.

whuts best bout how blogs has cum on is by the time i git home frum wurk, me n miz bd has dun read all the news, witch we also watch the bbc world news ever evenin on a counta how ye git a lot of news that dont make it into the poplar entertainment news that amurkin news cumpnies speshulize in. but we save them blogs i listed above n then read em together over a lil jack daniels, witch ifn we kin find that mythicull $20 sangle malt scotch, we mite switch, but fer now, we save the scotch fer the weekends. but we save the blogs listed above fer the evnins . . . n yes, i am a verr lucky man to have a woman that lacks to read the same stuff i lack n lacks to eggsplore sangle malt scotches. bof good blogs n that sangle malt scotch is real addicktiv.

 

sufferns of buddy don:
migrainus bloggus interruptus

couldnt do much bloggin this weekend thanks to a visit frum a migraine. wuz out of thangs on saturdy but dint know why, but woke in the dark of nite sundy mornin with all the classick symptums, witch the 'disaffeckshun' is the wurst. innywho, bout all i wuz good fer wuz watchin them ferries go by:

life of buddy don, chaptur 111:
alone in the dark

emily flew back to amurka durin the furst week of july 1980. i figgerd i wood git a lot of ritin dun n jes enjoy the chants to be alone fer a while. whenever we wuz gittin her thangs packed up n belly-achin bout how twuz a sad thang how we wood spend our furst weddin anniversairy apart, all i wuz really thankin bout wuz how twood be almos lack a lil vacayashun to have sum time alone. taint that i dint luv her, but i nursed this lil thought bout how twood be nice to git to do whutever i wonted without wurryin bout ifn emily wonted to go long with it.

that summer, the phillies wuz good. fack is, they ended up winning the worl series later on that year. i had been a phillies fan frum the age of 8 when i wuz home watchin a game twixt the phillies n the cubs. up till then, i had been a fan of the new york yankees on a counta twuz easy to root fer winners. i member how it seemd to me i wuz always rootin fer winners n eli fer losers. when we wood play civil war, i wuz in blue, he in gray. when it cum to sports, i lacked the yankees, he the white sox, jes lack daddy dun. but then cum the series in 1960 n that famus home run by bill mazeroski to give them pittsburg pirates the win over roger maris n mickey mantle n whitey ford n yogi berra n elston howard n the res: one of the gratest teams ye could magine.

i dont reckon ill ever fergit the mornin after that home run. bof daddy n eli ackted lack i had throwd the losin pitch. daddy even sed sumthin lack, tiz so easy to root fer the top dog that ye cant take the lease lil upset. corse, he had dun been hopin to see his white sox in the series fer so long that he knew whut twuz lack to watch the perpetchul winners beatin his team. i wood later larn that lesson overn over agin frum bear bryant.

innywho, whut thay sed stung me so i deecided not only how i wood git my own team but i wood pick it frum the nashnul league, witch fer sum reason, daddy made it seem lack the murkin league wuz fer publicans n the nashunul fer dimcrats. that mighta held me back, but then cum that saturdy afternoon when twuz rainin outside n the phillies wuz playin the cubs on tv. so happend that i had a colleckshun of baseball cards, n in that colleckshun i had cards frum more phillies n cubs than inny uther team. i member how i wood watch games n try to see could i lay out my cards in the posishuns of the players. turnt out i gut to countin my cards n had a equal number of each team.

so i made a fateful deecishun whar i wood be a fan of whoever won that game. ifn ye know much bout baseball, then ye know twuz a lucky brake fer me when the phillies won. i had always lacked the wurd philadelphia fer sum reason, sumthin bout how smooth it rolld offn yer tung, sumthin bout howt used the 'ph' combinayshun twice to make the 'f' sound. so i reckon by time that game wuz near over, i had dun started rootin fer em.

as ye mite member, pete rose had cum over to play fer the phillies in 1979. whenever he dun it, he sed he wuz gonna turn mike schmidt into the mvp n hep them phils win the worl series, witch tiz rare fer a person to make such a perdickshun n then git it to cum true. innywho, by july twuz purty clear they had em a good team.

so one of the furst thangs i dun as quick as emily wuz gone wuz to stay up till i could listn to the afn broadcast of a baseball game, witch since them phillies wuz winnin, they gut to be on sevrul times. since we wuz six hours ahed of the east coast in amurka, them games wood cum on roun 1:30 am ifn they wuz a 7:30 game on the east coast. i wood stay up readin till the game cum on n then listn to git as much infermayshun as i could on the phillies. ever sports fan knows whut i wuz a'goin thru ifn they have been in the situwayshun whar they caint hardly git no news bout thar team.

as ye mite know, a game of baseball lasts sumwhars tween a hour n a half n three hours, generly speakin, witch that ment them games wood be endin not long befor the sum cum up, durin the darkes part of the nite. i wood turn off our lil radio n roll over to go to sleep n bout as quick as i shut my eyes, i wood git a asthma attack.

furst time it happent, i dint hardly wont to add mitt twuz a'goin on. after all, ye mite could thank i wooda had asthma attacks rite reglar lack when emily wuz aroun on a counta all the tubacka smoke, but i dint hardly have nun whenever she wuz aroun. n quick as she wuz gone, i give the place as cumplete a cleanin as i could do, keepin the winder wide open long a nuff to make shore thay wuznt nuthin but frische luft in it. so i know twuznt on a counta sumthin i wuz a lergick to. lucky fer me them germans had em a medicin name of columba fer asthma that wuz sum of the bes i ever had, so i wood take a pill n listn to whutever i could git on the radio fer a lil while till i could breath easy agin.

but i wuz puzzled by whut wuz a'happenin. wuz i lonely? wuz i missin emily? could asthma be jes a trick the mind played on the bidy till the bidy fell fer it? wuz i afraid of bein alone in the dark?

i hated to thank that but truth wuz, i missd emily lack she had been my lef hand.

corse, frieda wonted to do her bes to keep me frum bein too lonely, so she invited me here n thar. i gut to go to the home of a rich frien of hers over in sachsenhausen durin this time. i member it well on a counta how ye almos never gut invited into sumbidys home. turnt out the parents wuz in mexico so thar oldes son wuz havin him a lil party, witch seemed to me i wuz invited mainly to brang my amurkin ears to hear bout how awful amurkins wuz. they even give me a hard time fer cumin to west germany whenever i traveled. i member that rich kid with his purrfeck english n purrfeck german sayin i had wasted a opportunty, that whenever he traveled, he lacked to go to the thurd worl.

by then my german wuz good a nuff to argue, but quick as i wonted to say sumthin, twood git turnt frum a argument to a fuss n fite till i finely told frieda i felt lack i needed a lil walk. she run out with me to make pallgies bout her friend, witch i tole her it dint bother me on a counta i had to agree we wuz usin way to much oil in amurka n acktin lack twuz our rite to use up as minny of the worls natcherul resources as we could. i sed i wuz even a'gonna vote fer john anderson on a counta him having the idee of puttin a 50¢ a gallon tax on gasoline, witch twood still have been a lot cheaper in amurka than twuz in west germany.

innywho, i gut to walkin n made my way over to die zeil, witch thats a long walkway thru town that tuck ye rite past good places to shop in all. as i wuz walkin along thar, a cuple fellers cum up to me n ast me did i have inny matches. i dint notice rite away how they wuz speakin english on a counta how by then, german dint sound all that forn, so i anserd em in german, witch they sed, spreksy english? then it hit me how they wuz amurkin soljers n i gut to speakin english agin n twuz rite nice. i tole em i dint have no matches, but i knew whar we could git sum, witch they dint know the lease thang bout whut they calld livin on the economy since they wuz livin on the army base in darmstadt.

i gut em sum matches frum a kiosk n they ast me did i wonta git hi. i almos laffed out loud. i hadnt been hi in near a year ceptn fer one time when marketta frum finland had a lil bit of a joint she had gut frum a boyfrien she had, witch twuz a nuther murkin soljer who give it to her, only twuznt inny good. but these two fellers had em sum hash but no pipe, witch they sed they couldnt use no pipe lessn they wonted to throw it away on a counta whar wood they put it whenever they went back on the base?

but they knew bout the cocola can trick whar ye make a lil indentayshun near the tail end of the can n poke ye a few lil holes in it n set ye a lil piece f hash on them holes n then suck thru the openin that ye drunk the coke frum while litin yer match toot. twurked ruther well, so they give me a lil piece to take home.

ye caint hardly magine how hi i felt. fer one thang, whenever ye git hi after goin without fer a long time, seems lack ye git higher than yer customd to. i gut blown away by it n the walk home wuz a purty add ventchur. seemd lack i wuz seein beeyootiful thangs bout frankfurt that i hadnt hardly noticed befor.

whenever if gut back to that lil apartment on ginnheimer strasse, i set myself down n gut to thankin bout the hole trip in west germany. it hadnt been nuthin lack i wuz specktin, but i had larnt a lot. i knew i dint wonta try to be no flossofer, even ifn i did lack studyin the subjeck purty good. in sted, i wonted to larn more bout literchur. but i also had larnt sum thangs that seemd to stick with me.

fer one, emily had tuck a class in 'amerikanisch,' witch twuz a study of how amurkins used the english langwage. i shoulda tuck it my ownself, but i wuz too busy makin a big deal bout how we shouldnt be readin n talkin n studyin thangs in english on a counta we wuz thar sos we could git good a german. as ye know, i wuz rong bout that.

innywho, that perfesser she had sed sevrul thangs that stuck with me. fer one, he showed how the folks that settled in the mountain hollers of appalachia, witch thems the ones i thank of whenever i thank of hillbillies, how they wuz purty much isolated fer the longest n turnt out he figgerd they wuz speakin sumthin close to shakespeares english. they wuz mainly frum scotland n ireland n the west coast of england n ifn ye studied how they talked, ye could trace em rite back to the counties thar ancestors cum frum.

i wish to this day i hadda tuck that class. i caint member much of nuthin bout all the good thangs emily larnt. she tride to tell me thangs she wuz a'larnin but i wonted to fuss n fite bout how we should be studyin german thangs. i wish i could member them four counties in england whar she sed most of them folks that settled in middle tennessee cum frum. turnt out she could splain thangs lack why they sed 'let me carry ye to town' whenever they meant they wonted to give ye a ride in thar car n other thangs lack that. but i wuz too pighedded to git it.

but a nuther thang that perfesser sed to her stuck even more n turnt out to be a grate hep to me in my futchur life, witch he tole the hole class that the way amurkin english wuz a'goin, in 200 years, english wuz manely gonna sound lack whut folks calls 'black english.' he splaind how over time, langwages gits simpler but more eggspressive. by n by ima gonna cum to sum eggzamples of that, but fer sum reason, i couldnt stop thankin bout all the thangs emily had larnt in her classes. mayhap twuz on a counta me bein hi fer the furst time in so long, but it  seemd lack she had gut more out of the year than i had n whenever i wuz trine to thank whut had i gut frum it, the mane thangs that cum to mind were thangs she had studied.

innywho, by then twuz bout time fer the game to cum on n i wuz in luck on a counta twuz the phillies n steve carlton wuz pitchin. bout halfway thru that game, i pored out the contents of one of emilys leftover coke cans n made me a lil pipe out of it sos i could lite up a lil of that hash. carlton wuz on his game n i wuz hi n feelin grate, almos lack i wuz back home.

thang wuz, i kep thankin emily wuz about to cum home or cum out frum the bathroom. seemed lack she had to be thar. twuz a trick of bein hi i reckon. twuz a shock to real eyes how much i missd her.

it tuck me a long time to fall asleep on a counta how i couldnt stop thankin bout emily n how much i wishd she wuz thar. i hadnt writ nuthin since she had gone home. i hadnt enjoyed bein on my own. fack is, the mane thang i larnt frum them three weeks of freedum wuz jes how much i missed her.

i wuz smart a nuff by then to take me a columba tablet befor turnin off the lite.

pinions of buddy don:
faith-based gummint

tiz a awful shame how sum folks wonts to pick on the gummint of mr bush. i reckon them folks jes aint gut the faith it takes to be part of a faith-based gummint. that bein the case, thays nuthin fer em to do but quit, witch that mite be ok, but why do they half to start tellin thangs bout the gummint they dont bleeve in? jes cawz they jes caint brang tharselves to bleeve in revelashuns, witch i aint talkin bout the last book in the bible but bout all them thangs god has deecided he wood reveal to his chosen leader, mr bush, aint no reason to trash whut others is trine to bleev.

corse ye probly need to give them folks -- yer paul o'neils n eric shinsekis n wurse of all, yer richard clarkes, witch tiz funny how his name is almos the same as 'dick clark' of amurkin bandstand fame -- ye probly need to give these faith-challenged folks a lil benefit of the doubt in a more or less 'luv the sinner, hate the sin' kinda way n heres why.

twuz mark twain who pointed out how even yer avridge skoolboy knows the obveeus fack bout faith:

It was the schoolboy who said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

sad to say, thays folks that jes caint git past whut they know to whar they kin have the kinda faith ye need to be a member in good standin in mr bushs addministrayshun. fer sum reason, they jes caint see how lucky we all are in amurka to have a presdint lack mr bush who wuz chose by god, witch as we probly all member, god had to intrupt the vote-countin to git the spreme cort to make it ole fishy offishull.

corse ye knew god wuz gonna cum thru fer us n pick the rite guy. aint nobidy claimin god is a dimcrat, whuther the 'd' is big or not.

lots of folks is upset over that thar seleckshun of 2000, but seems lack they aint cunsidderd the benefits of havin a presdint who starts with the cunclushun n then wurks back to the reasons why the cunclushun must be true. thays sum that jes keeps on a astin, how kin he know tiz true? n the anser couldnt be simpler: mr bush knows his cunclushuns is true on a counta how they wuz reveald to im. lease thats all i kin figger.

so lets list the benefits of havin a presdint chose by god n instruckted by revelashuns:

1. 
   
   ye dont half to pay no tenchun to so-called facks of science, witch that means ye kin jes ignore them silly reports on global warmin yer own beaurockracy cums out with. ifn god dint wont us all the have the benefit of global warmin, he woodnta revealed the secrets of burnin thangs with far or makin thangs go usin infernal cumbustchun.
   
   
2. 
   
   ye kin also ignore the report frum the pentagon on the same subjeck, witch tiz a lil too late to stop the apockalips, so why waste time a'trine?
   
   
3. 
   
   ye dont half to pay no tenchun to them folks that thanks stem cells aint folks lack yew or me, witch that means ye dont half to let all them docters n such cum up with new cures fer old diseases, witch thats good on a counta how mos of the money spent on health care is fer trine to keep ole people alive n ifn ye keep wipin out diseases n keepin ole people alive, purty soon medicare will be insolvunt. seems purty obveeus god has splained to mr bush how ye gut to quit makin all that medicull progress on a counta ifn ye dont stop it purty soon, ye lackly to be overrun with ole people n nex thant ye know yer a'gone have a nuther florda on yer hands. witch a nuther one of the problems with them ole people is how they lacks to vote n keep up on thangs, witch that means they could git tharselves confused by facks n lose thar faith.
   
   
4. 
   
   ye dont half to wurry bout makin yer budget add up, witch fer one thang, twuz sumthin that beelzebubba clinton dun, witch that meant creatin all them jobs n makin folks go to wurk n changin welfar n all. dint beelzebubba know how folks hates to wurk? thays a slew of em that dont half to wurry bout wurkin ever since mr bush wuz seleckted.
   
   
5. 
   
   corse, sum folks thanks that creatin all them jobs n makin the buget add up wuz good thangs, even if clinton wuz the one that dun em, witch that jes shows how low faith has dun fallen on a counta how everbidy knows how ifn clinton dun it, mr bush has to go tuther way on a counta how twuz reveald to the publican spin machine how beelzebubba wuz evil in-car-nate n desurved to have $70 million spent trine to git the reasons fer that cunclushun.
   
   
6. 
   
   ye dont half to pay no tenchun to folks lack richard clarke, witch twuz the verr same clarke that wuz trine to git mr bush offn the track of pertecktin us all usin stars wars, witch thatn takes a lil faith to bleev in also on a counta how it dont wurk n seemed lack mr clarke had more faith in beelzebubba than in god mr bush.
   
   
7. 
   
   whenever ye cum into offus, ye dont half to pay no tenchun to them deeciples of beelzebubba who thanks ye orte spend a hole lotta time -- not to menchun politicull capitull that ye need to git more importunt thangs dun lack givin the rich sum tax relief -- goin after sumbidy lack osama bin laden, witch whenever ye thank about it, ifn god hadda meant fer mr bush to stop osama, then ye gut to wonder how wood god have been able to give mr bush his definin moment?
   
   
8. 
   
   bes of all, ye kin deetermine how twuz iraq n saddam hussain that needed attackin on a counta all the wmd he had n how he used chemiculls we sold him on the folks of iran n them in kurdistan n all. bes thang is, all ye gut to do is keep on a'sayin saddam n osama often a nuff till folks caint hardly tell the differnts: tiz the resureckshun of the big lie.

thays plenty other benefits, but i reckon ye gut the idee. tiz time fer folks to look deep inside thayselves. ifn ye try hard a nuff, ye mite could bleev everthang ye wood need to bleev to have the faith ye need to bleev whut mr bush bleevs, witch ifn ye dont bleev it, why dont ye jes shut up?

thang is, with folks lack paul o'neil, eric shinseki, richard clarke, or even richard foster, witch they wuz able to cunvints mr foster to keep his job by keepin his trap shut, with folks lack that leevin yer addministrayshun n then turnin into virtchul trayters, it kindly makes ye wunder how gods chosen presdint could make so minny miss takes by hirin such instermints of evil. but then ye member how god lacks to test folks.

i reckon mr bush is passin the test on a count how he never loses his faith no matter how minny evil facks keep a'cummin out.

ok then. im shuttin up fer now.

pinions of buddy don:
mayhap thay aint nuthin thar?

i wuz lookin at the washington post this mornin n saw whar newt gingrich wuz eggsplainin the publicans strategy on jobs. heres whut cum up:

ole ritin of buddy don:
story writ not long after me n emily gut back frum west germany

aint gut much time this mornin, so heres sumthin frum over 20 years ago. tiz a story writ not long after the last events deescribed in chaptur 110: hurtin them ye luv of the novel, life n pinions of buddy don, hillbilly. odd thang bout this story is how whenever i red it to 'the group,' witch yer a'gonna here plenty bout 'the group' by n by, everbidy wuz laffin lack twuz the funniest thang they ever herd. then later on when sum folk red it on thar own, they calld me up to say twuz one of the saddest thangs they had ever red.

Scattered Afternoon Showers

Jack Adams, Jr., had always loved the feel of sweat dripping from his face onto his chest.  He loved it because it meant he’d been working hard and staying in shape.  Jack was a robust thirty-eight year old father of two who preferred mowing his three-quarter acre yard to all other methods of getting the blood and sweat to flow.  He enjoyed the hard pounding of his heart and the sense of fatigue that came from pushing himself to his limit.  Other men might sit around watching kids play games on TV and drinking beer, but not Jack—no, Jack would not let himself go fat in the belly, frail in the leg, and flabby under the chin.  He would be a fine, well preserved, handsome man, whose dark good looks and broad-shouldered, sturdy physique would only be enhanced by the good, honest sweat of physical exertion.  He pictured himself as a distinguished, sixty-year old, with a dignified mane of white hair to set off the brown, healthy look of his seemingly young, athletic body.  He guessed he would be even more attractive to women then than he was now.  He would play tennis rather than golf, mow his own yard, and in every way live up to the sterling example left him by his father, who had suffered an aneurism when Jack was ten and who had impressed everyone with his good looking, brown-skinned, silver-headed corpse.  Jack would live out the vigorous years his father had been robbed of so unjustly.  And to insure his success, he would work hard, eat right, see his doctor annually, keep his wife totally satisfied in bed, coach his sons’ little league team, drink moderately, smoke not at all, and both “take a dump” and break a sweat every single day.

Thus it had come as no surprise to his wife, the former Rose McGhee of St. Louis, Missouri, a slightly faded beauty whose best features were her new penny colored eyes, prominent high cheekbones, and long, slender brown legs—no, it was no surprise to her that her husband Jack should choose to spend almost four hours of his thirty-eighth birthday mowing and raking the yard.  She couldn’t help smiling when the rain began falling before Jack had finished raking the grass, forcing him to bring his soaked body into the house for protection.  She knew that even the sudden afternoon shower would not have slowed him down had it not been for the distant booming of thunder.  Before she suggested he go ahead and get his shower out of the way, she let him lean over from the waist to kiss her on the cheek—his moustache, like his shirt and shorts, was soaked.

“I worry about you working so hard in the hot sun and muggy air,” she said as she handed him his towel and wash cloth.  “It must be ninety degrees out there—pretty hot even for June, Jack.”

It was, indeed, a very hot, very humid, very tropical, East Tennessee June day.  The sun had been bright in the morning and the clover lawn was alive with honeybees and June bugs.  The humid waves of heat hovered over the lawn, causing the trees and the back of the lot to waver and dance.  Rose felt like fainting just watching her husband making his steady, even rounds of the yard, spraying up bits of grass and raining sweat from his brow onto his chest.  She whispered a little prayer of thanksgiving when she noticed a broad, black bank of thunder clouds marching slowly from the West toward their well-tended tract of houses.  She watched anxiously as the black clouds began rumbling, causing her husband to speed up his raking.  He had nearly finished when the rain began falling.  When the gloom of the late afternoon was suddenly shocked by a bright flash of lightning and a quick explosion of thunder, Jack pushed the lawn mower onto the carport, put away his rake, and came inside.

Jack saw his wife’s concern for him in her eyes, and he smiled to himself, very satisfied.  He would not be one to die unexpectedly before his time by tempting a bolt of lightning.  His corpse was by no means ready yet.

“Why don’t you talk to me while I take my shower?” Jack asked as soon as he’d finished his second glass of Gatorade.  He took his towel and wash cloth into the bathroom.

“Where are the boys?” he asked.

“I took them by your mother’s this morning.”

“So you and I could be alone?  How thoughtful.  Of course, it is my birthday.  We gonna celebrate at Mom’s later?”

Jack unzipped his pants, flushed the toilet, and began pissing into the vortex of the rushing water.

“Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Flush before you pee.”

“I don’t know.  I never really thought about it.”

“Did your father do that?”

Jack didn’t answer.  He squeezed the last two or three spurts of urine from his bladder and was just before shaking his penis off when Rose cried out for him to wait.  He started to shake anyway, but she slapped his hand.

“Let me do it.”

“Oh Rose,” he said in mock protest as he let her take his penis in her hand and shake it.  In fact, he loved his wife’s childish and inexhaustible curiosity about his body.  He stood up, put his arms behind his head and stretched.  He felt hard and strong and powerful, the stoic counterpart to his wife’s soft body and moody emotional nature.

Rose finished shaking droplets of urine all over the bathroom floor and walls and then dropped Jack’s penis against his zipper.

“Ouch!” he said as he ran his fingers along its length mechanically to squeeze out any urine that might still be left.  “Somebody ought to teach to to be careful, Baby.”

“Oh yeah?”

“And I think I know just the man for the job.”

“His name wouldn’t be Jack, would it?”

“Might be,” Jack said as he let his shorts and underwear fall to his ankles and, feeling both proud and sure of himself, pulled his shirt up over his head very slowly, letting his wife feed her eyes the sight of his remarkably well preserved physique.  He was, therefore, quite disappointed when he finally freed his head from the fabric and saw that Rose had stepped into the hall to get something out of the linnen closet.  He kicked his shorts from his ankles, removed his shoes and socks, and stepped into the shower.

After pulling the shower curtain behind him, Jack began adjusting the water.  His was a combination shower and bath, so he always adjusted the temperature before he flipped the lever from tub to shower.  Unfortunately, the temperature was very difficult to get just right.  First Jack turned the hot handle.  When the water became hot, he turned on the cold.  Three revolutions of the handle did not cool the steaming hot water.

“Damn this stupid thing.”

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“Oh, this water.  You can never get it just right.”

“If you didn’t have to take a shower, you’d have no trouble.”

“You told me to take a shower yourself,” Jack said as he began twisting the hot water knob to lessen its flow.  “Ouch!  This damned thing!  You turn it down and it gets hotter.”

“You wouldn’t have that problem if you’d take a bath.”

“I can’t stand baths.  I mean, how can anyone stand soaking in their own dirt?  I want to be washed clean by a clean, hot shower.  Nothing makes me feel better.”

“Aren’t you ever tempted to soak in a hot tub?  You might like it.  No better way to relax.”

“I don’t really want to relax.  I don’t like to feel rested.  I like to feel clean and vigorous.”

“Yes, yes, the healthy vigor of hard work.  You can have it.  Give me a little comfort.”

Jack didn’t answer, having finally found the right temperature.  He flipped the lever to shower and stood with his head only inches away from the nozzle.  He let the hot water soak his dark brown hair—hadn’t turned the least bit grey yet!—and spill onto his face and shoulders and chest.  He then drenched his wash cloth and rubbed it over his face three times, just as he had done since he began taking showers at the age of thirteen, when his mother had moved him and his two older sisters from Oklahoma City to Knoxville, where they had a shower for the first time.

“Rose?  Can you get me—”

“Some soap?  Here, I just opened a new one.”

“Thanks.”

Jack began his shower routine—lathered the cloth, lathered his crotch, washed his butt with his left hand, rinsed his left hand, washed his left hand, lathered his arm pits, rubbed the cloth against his back and chest as roughly as he could stand it, washed his ears, first outside, then inside, and finally, washed his face.  He then picked up his left foot, rubbed soap onto it and scraped it clean with the nails of his right hand.  He repeated this with his right foot.  Then he washed his hands, squeezed out a green glob of shampoo, closed his eyes, and began working the goo into his scalp.  When he’d finished lathering and massaging his head, he stuck it under the nozzle and rinsed it.  Finally he checked his ears, hair, and crotch for soap.  Finding none, he turned off the water and began shaking himself.  As he did so, he used his fingers to squeeze his hair dry.  He wore his hair just long enough to grab with his fists, which made it easy to squeeze out the last of the water.

“Need a towel?” his wife asked, pulling the shower curtain open.

Jack extended his hands towards her with his eyes still closed.

“Your hair sure is coming out!” she said.

Jack wiped the water from his eyes with the backs of his hands.  He then looked at his palms.  There he saw maybe fifty or sixty limp brown hairs.  He shook his hands over the toilet, but the hairs were wet and stuck to his hands.

“It isn’t raining rain you know,” his wife sang teasingly,  “it’s raining Jack’s brown hair.”

“Give me my towel,” Jack answered, jerking the thick green towel from his wife’s hands.  He very lightly began drying his hair.  He couldn’t believe he’d seen so much hair coming from his own head.  He felt the crown of his head with his right index finger.  It felt smooth, but then, his hair was wet and therefore very likely to leave a spot that felt a little like a bald spot.  Surely he, the son of the distinguished grey-haired Jack Adams, Sr —surely he could not possibly go bald.  He would go grey.  Bald was for fat men, grey for trim, athletic types.

“Honey?” he called.

“Yes, dear.”

“Have you ever looked at my head very carefully?”

“Now and then.  Why?”

“Well, if I ask you something, will you promise to tell the truth?”

“Of course.”

“Well, it feels to me like I’ve got a little bitty bald spot on the crown of my head.  I’d say it’s about the size of a dime.”

Jack paused, feeling the place carefully.

“Yes, dear?  What about it?”

“Well, do you think it means I’m sick or what?”  Jack feared a disabling illness more than anything else, but he could think of no other reasonable explanation for the sudden appearance of a hairless patch on his head.

“Only if age is a sickness,” Rose said.

“What do you mean?”

“Jack,” Rose said in her most matter-of-fact-let’s-not-mince-words voice, “surely you don’t mean to say you just now noticed that men grow bald with age.”

“I didn’t say that.  But my father was silver-headed.”

“So?  Some go grey, others—and you might as well face it, honey, you are in this second category—others go bald.”

“But, I don’t understand.  Why would my hair suddenly start to fall out all at once like this?”

“What do you mean, ‘suddenly all at once’?  You’ve had that bald spot for three years.  At least three years. And it’s certainly much larger than a dime.  I’d say it’s more like a silver dollar.  Maybe even bigger.”

Rose took the towel from her husband and began drying his hair with it.

“Not so hard!”

“Relax, honey.”  She pulled his head down and began picking up small clumps of his hair and dropping it, running her fingers through it.

“See how thin it is?  Surely you’ve noticed, Jack!  Everyone else has.”

“What!?” Jack jerked the towel from his wife’s hands and began drying his back.  “Who’s noticed?”

“Well, honey, I don’t know exactly.”  She was impatient.  “But you’ve been getting thin on top for years.  You probably will be bald, say by the time you’re, I don’t know, maybe forty.”

Jack felt his eyes ache as they had not ached in years.  They were hot.  They were wet.  He felt as if hot rain was falling inside his body—he felt the warmth against his skin, he felt the tingling flush in his muscles, and he feared that the thick cloud in his throat would burst into a thunderous sob.  How could Rose be so cruel, so unfeeling, so insensitive?  He remembered the terrifying, sinking feeling he’d felt as a teenager when one of his worst pimples burst and emptied itself, leaving a visible scar.  He’d stared at the scar in the mirror, tears rolling down his face, his knees buckling before the absolute terror he felt to think that his body would be scarred for life.  Now he felt the same sinking fear, the same trembling helplessness before the finality of his physical fate.  He would be a bald, pockmarked, fat man, he thought, blinking violently.

He looked at Rose, after using the towel to dry his eyes.  She sat on the closed lid of the toilet, watching her feet.  He, too, looked at them.  He’d always hated them.  The first and last toes were too long, almost twice the length of the little ones in the middle.

“I think bald men are terribly sexy,” she said.

“I suppose,” he answered, but he watched her toes carefully.

“They say that bald headedness is a sign of virility.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Read it in a magazine.  Cosmopolitan, I think.”

“Did it say anything about feet?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“Nothing.  I love your feet, by the way.”

He padded out of the bathroom into the bedroom.

“Thank you.  They are rather unique.”

“How can anything be rather unique?  That doesn’t make sense.  Either they’re unique or they’re not.”

Rose followed him into the bedroom.

“You don’t like them, do you?”

“I just told you I loved them.”

“You’re lying.”

Jack looked down at her feet.  They were truly ugly.  Then he looked into her eyes.  He felt himself blush.  She was crying.

“Oh, baby, what’s wrong?”

“You hate my feet.”

“No, no, I don’t.  I love them.”

And suddenly he did love them because, ugly or not, they were Rose McGhee Adams as much as anything could be Rose McGhee Adams.  And Rose McGhee Adams loved him, Jack Adams, Jr., a bald, pockmarked, fat man.  He fell to his knees and began kissing Rose’s toes.

“Oh baby, I love you so.

She bent at the waist, stroked his head.  Three short hairs came loose in her hand, and a sharp pain caused a sudden sob to burst from her mouth, but when he looked up at her, she smiled.

Looking up into her eyes, he felt as if he were a child again.

pinions of buddy don:
interst on the nashunull debt: how gross!

tuther day whenever i wuz ritin bout the nashnull debt in a lil articull bout how to git publicans to fall fer runaway borryin, i had a lil chart on the net interst everbidy is a'payin on the debt. heres one of the quayshuns i put in:

net interst equayshun

net interst on publick debt =

gross interst on publick debt - (interst earned on soshul securty trust fund + interst on miltary retirement fund + interst earnd on medicare + interest earnd on unemployment insurants + interst earnd hiway n airport n airways trust fund) - (interst on loans to publick + interst on loans to rtc and bank insurants fund)

but ye cant tell much of whuts a'goin on with this here quayshun ceptn whut the net interst is. twuz a lil bit of a struggle, but i finely found a listin of the gross interst bein paid on the nashnull debt. heres a cuple of quayshuns to show whut i mean:

accordin to the OMB, fer 2003, the gross interst to be paid on the nashnull debt is $318,141,000,000 ($318 billyuns). the net interst is $153,000,000,000 ($153 billyuns). that means the furst quayshun could be rewrit lack this:

net interst on publick debt ($153 billyuns) =	gross interst on publick debt    (ye gut to subtrack everthang below to figger the net interst paid)	$318,000 millyuns
	- interst earnd frum Civil service retirement and disability fund	($37,261 millyuns)
	- interst earnd frum Military Retirement fund	($10,740 millyuns)
	- interst earnd frum Foreign service retirement and disability trust fund	($776 millyuns)
	- interst earnd frum Medicare trust funds	($17,243 millyuns)
	- interst earnd frum Unemployment trust fund	($3,766 millyuns)
	- interst earnd frum Railroad retirement fund	($763 millyuns)
	- interst earnd frum Airport and airway trust fund	($591 millyuns)
	- interst earnd frum Other on-budget trust funds	($1,383 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Interest received by social security trust funds	($83,545 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Interest on loans to Federal Financing Bank	($2,449 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Interest on refunds of tax collections	($3,316 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Payment to the Resolution Funding Corporation	($1,717 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Interest paid to loan guarantee financing accounts	($3,614 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Interest received from direct loan financing accounts	($10,674 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Interest, DoD retiree health care fund	($196 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Interest, other special and revolving funds	($544 millyuns)
	- earnins frum All other interest	($1,192 millyuns)
	- earnins frum Private sector holdings,    National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust	($2,450 millyuns)

i figger thays a lot i dont unnerstand bout budgets, but seems lack in sted of usin the money to lower the gross interst paid, we coulda been squirrlin away lots of that interst earnd frum other investments to take care of the obligayshuns of them funds, witch ye know folks is a'gonna wonta draw on em sooner or later.

but meanwhile, this table frum tuther day looks a lot differnt ifn ye put in the gross interst we all has to pay on the nashnull debt:

costs of thangs
(outlays, includin offsettin receets in billyuns of $)

year	gross interst	defence	homeland securty	soshul securty	medicare
2003	$318	$405	$23	$471	$274
2004	$319	$452	$23	$492	$294
2005	$349	$447	$27	$513	$317
2006	$397	$439	$30	$533	$369
2007	$445	$445	$32	$559	$418
2008	$491	$464	$33	$587	$448
2009	$535	$485	$35	$618	$478

when ye put thangs thataway, they git to lookin a lot wurser. did ye notice how the gross interst to be paid gits to equal the nashnull defence spendin in 2007? tiz a lil scary when ye cunsidder how much the usa spends on nashnull defense compard to other cuntries: "According to Chris Hellman of The Center for Defense Information in Washington, using President Bush's budget increase requests for fiscal 2004, the cost of the U.S. military will be ... equivalent to the size of the next twenty-one largest militaries in the world combined." (Alterman, Eric and Green, Mark: The Book on Bush, Viking Press, 2004, pp. 186-7).

lucky fer everbidy, mr. bush has a plan to cut the deficit in half in jes 5 years.

revus of buddy don:
sum blogsurvayshuns

i aint a'gonna try to do no revus of blogs today, but i did wonta menchun sum deevelopments in blogs i lack to check, witch seems to me lack thars a lot of good thangs a'goin on in the blogosphere:

1. ifn ye aint a fan of oldcatman, ye mite wonta git started. the deevelopment here is how he went frum a site bout oldcatman's brain farts to a new format, oldcatman: a man of letters. tiz a good form fer his idees.


2. whut used to be calpundit is now policital animal, which tiz a eggzample of a reglar blogger gittin hired to do his bloggin fer money. tiz a good deevelopment fer us that lacks the kinda thankin kevin drum has been sharin with us.


3. finely, a nuther nice deevelopment happend over to the whiskey bar. as ye mite know by now, bartender billmon had so minny folks cummin to read his thoughts to whar he wuz a'gonna half to pay exter fer the bandwidth. so he deecided he wood put up a lil tip jar to see ifn folks wuz innerested in heppin him pay to keep in bizness. i musta blanked on a counta how i missd that thar tip jar: he colleckted over $4,000 in under a day.

life of buddy don, chaptur 110:
hurtin them ye luv

the secunt half of our year in west germany wuz much bettern the furst half, manely on a counta how we give up sum of the thangs we wuz a trine to do thar, witch in my case twuz to do sumthin in flossofy n in emilys twuz to git all her research into the weimar republick dun. in sted, we quit doon much of innythang besides studyin english n amurkin literchur. corse, that meant we had plenty of time to take trips, eethur with frieda or not. fer instunts, she tuck us on a lil tour of the wine lands n we ate down in binge. but we also tuck trips on our own, such as one to luzern, switzerland.

so twuz a lil bit of a sprize n even disappointment to find out in early june of 1980 how emily dint have but bout a munth left before she had to use her ticket. i wood be stayin fer bout a nuther three weeks after she wuz gone. we had been dreamin of when we could go back home but whenever twuz time, seemed lack we wuz a'wishin we could stay sumhow.

corse, thangs woodnt never have been lack they wuz then. we dint half to wurk on a counta we had that stipend a'cummin in. we had friends n books n plenty of time. lookin back, tiz easy to see how twuz one of the best years of our lives, tho at the time i dont thank we saw it quite thataway.

in sted, we bof kep ourselves a lil deepressed by how we wuznt able to git no good ritin goin. we wuz bof trine to git a new novel a'goin, me on a counta havin had the grate eggsperients of ritin crap notes, emily on a counta how she always dreamed of bein a riter but jes dint lack to say so out loud.

mayhap that wuz why we gut to fussin n fitin lack we dun. thang wuz, it drove me to distrackshun how emily wood not ever do innythang that meant she wood half to speak no german. so i had to do all the bankin n mos of the shoppin n all the bill payin n yew name it. so twuz that one evenin we gut into such a fite that i wished i coulda slept sumwhars else.

i had finely gut sumthin goin, or so i thought. lookin back on it now, tiz easy to see how twuz jes a nuther blind ally i wuz ritin myself into, but at the time, it thought i had finely gut a nuther novel a'goin. we wuz sittin thar in the englisches seminar jes a'wurkin away. twuz maybe two hours befor the bank wuz spozed to close. emily had a class that tuck a hour n i wuz hopin she could go by the bank afterds n then cum git me to go home. she wonted me to take keer of the bankin n meet her after her class. that meant i woodnt hardly have no time fer ritin, so we gut into a lil fuss n fite overt to whar i couldnt git myself to rite nuthin no how.

we parted unhappy. she sed ifn i dint wonta go by the bank, twuz my bizness n we could git by fer the weekend however we could, witch thay wuznt no way we wuz a'goin thru the weekend with no money, so she won by refusin to go. off she went fer her class n i tride to rite a lil but purty soon i give it up n rote a angry note in my diary bout how awful she could be.

witch that brangs me to a point i wonted to make bout folks that rites. bad thang bout ritin is how it seems lack nuthin gives ye the urge moren bein eethur mad or sad. so ifn innybidy wuz to read my diary, they could thank i wuz miserbull my hole life long, witch tuther half of the reason fer that is how whenever yer feelin grate, ye dont hardly have no urge to go rite it down.

innywho, that afternoon i member ritin one of the angriest thangs i ever writ bout innybidy. i finely left n did the bankin n went n splurged on a wurst n pommes frits n a coke, witch the hole thang cost dm2, witch that wuznt much but twuznt sumthin we wuz in the habit of buyin. innywho, i dint enjoy it.

in sted, i stood at the lil stand whar i bought it n scribbled out a lil story bout a fella who had gut in a huge fite with his wife n then stormed out of the house. he tuck a lil walk to calm down n finely deecided to go back. whenever he gut thar, he found po-leece had dun surrounded his place n sumbidy had murderd his wife. he knew he hadnt dun nuthin, but he reckonized the anger in his own self, how he had dun wished she had been gone, so whenever he saw whut had happend, he confessd.

once i had finishd ritin that, i felt better, even a lil guilty bout buyin myself the sausage without thankin bout whut wuz emily a'gonna eat. but i cum home, story in hand, lack twuz sum kinda treat that wood make up fer her not havin no dinner reddy. we had a habit of readin whutever we had dun writ out loud to each other. i wuz alreddy later than she wuz eggspecktin me, so whenever i cum in, she wuz eager to make up, witch that meant she wonted to know had i writ sumthin n ifn i had, wood i read it to her.

i tride, but bout half way thru, i couldnt read no more fer how it made me wonta cry. i knew as i red it how twuz a hurtful thang. purty soon she sed twuznt her fault i couldnt git a new book goin n she walked out.

twuz a awful nite. i dint know whar she coulda gone, but i figgerd she had called frieda, witch twuz eggzackly whut she had dun. i stayed home, waiting n wonderin till up in the wee hours of the mornin, in she cum, a lil drunk n reekin of cigrettes even wurser than normal. i pertended to be asleep.

thang is, i caint hardly member nuthin that happend twixt the time i red her that story n whenever she wuz gone back to tennessee alreddy. i do member jes how awful i felt bout bein alone. i deestroyed that story, witch i thank tiz bout the only one i ever dun that to.

thays a sayin that ye only regret that thangs ye dont do. ye dream of sangin in a rock n roll band n never try? then yer a'gonna regret that. ye wonted to be a famous astronut but never tride? yer fixin to regret that. ye wonted to be presdint but never tride pall ticks? more regrets to pile up.

but im here to tell ye how the wurst regrets kin be bout the thangs ye dun n wished ye could undo, the pain ye give to them ye luved that ye wish to ungive. wurst of all, i had dun revealed how i felt to emily n she never forgut it.

wurse than that wuz how i couldnt fergit it neethur.

seasons of buddy don:
man hattan sprang

click the pitcher to see sum spranglack animayshun

spar time of buddy don:
strange new sangle malt scotch whiskey

last time me n miz bd went to pick us out a differnt sangle malt down to the likker store here in town, they tole us bout this place overn man hattan name of park avenue likker only tiz on madison n 41st street. as folks lacks to say up in here, 'go figguh!' twuz sed to have one of the best seeleckshuns around, so i tuck a brake at wurk n walked down.

fer one thang, bleeve it or not, thar prices wuz better. i ackshly found a sangle malt name of glen garioch 10 year fer roun $20, witch i bought it in honor of the rocky top brigade. thay wuz also this uthern thar name of linkwood aged 15 year in a sherry butt. twuz such a odd color that i figgerd id git it jes to see whut wood sumthin lack that taste lack. the manjer thar sed twuz rite poplar overn europe, witch that dont bother me. heres a pitchur of bofem whar ye kin see how odd the color is of the linkwood, witch ifn ye caint read, tiz the one on the lef.

heres a nuther perspecktiv on it:

nuther odd thang bout it is how each bottle is hand numberd:

we tested the glen garioch last night, witch twuznt bad, but sartinly not the best eethur. i plan to do a revue of all the ones we dun colleckted plus sum macallan 12 year for a total of 8 of em side by side. but fer now, back to the tastin, alreddy in progress.

ole ritin of buddy don:
pomes frum hi skool

There once was a cat who lived on a farm,
In the hay, in the hayloft, inside of the barn.
In the very same barn, there lived a brown cow,
Who made chocolate milk, nobody knew how.

Now the cat fell in love with the cow's silent eyes,
And finally proposed, in spite of their sizes,
But the cow only sighed with a weary, "Ah me."
For she was already in love with a tree.

*************

My Friend Lives in a Balloon

One of my friends lives in a balloon,
the other one lives
      on the other side of the mirror.

They admire each other.

*************

this is only a test 
for the next seventy years
your soul will be undergoing
a series of tests.

do not adjust your body.

do not call the station for information:
none will be forthcoming.

at the conclusion of the test
normal programming will be resumed 
thank you for your cooperation.

cuzins of buddy don:
innerducin cuzin zac

i dun been braggin bout my cuzin janet dagley dagley, witch she jes started that blog name of second day lede. but she aint thonly one i gut. the one i wonta innerduce to ye today is cuzin zac, witch hes a hole lot smartern mos of us n has dun made a success out of hisself. i respeck his privacy, so i wont go into no grate detail bout him. in sted, id lack to shar sum comments he rote to me in a email, witch as ye kin tell, hes a purty astoot pallitickull obsurver:

Buddy Don...

It seems to me the international scene is messy enough right now, and Bush foreign policy is muddled enough (other than being thematically mean-spirited), that Bush lacks much strategic edge over Kerry on foreign policy regardless of world events. As you pointed out today, there's no clear cut understanding for much of what is going on...other than it's scary and multi-faceted. But it's scary with deaths in the 10-200 folks at a time range. It's "over there" scary, not "scary here on my sofa" scary. Even 9/11 itself was somewhat remote to us out here in the hinterland. That's a change from the 1945-1985 period in which Republicans very effectively mined fear of the nuclear threat from the Soviets and China -- well defined enemies with big weapons pointed at every inch of U.S. soil. Today, short of a known nuclear bomb coming suddenly into the hands of bin Laden (and maybe even then), there's not enough foreign policy traction for Bush to win this election no matter what al Queda may or may not be up to.

Oops, my point...

We who oppose Bush (esp. you, cuz yer verr good at it) should keep hammering on domestic economic issues, particularly the deficit. I'd think every white male in this country who votes for Kerry is about 80% a swing vote...and white men are going to respond most to what you have already said about the consequences of deficits and tax cutting ('a tax deferred' was awesome).

Even more specifically, I liked what you wrote because it brought into better clarity the economic harm of runaway deficits on even the relatively well-off, not requiring any sympathy for the poor or unemployed or those who may need Social Security. The stupidity of squandering "surpluses as far as the eye can see" resonates with relatively well-to-do white people...even those who hated Clinton. Of course, deep down, shagging your intern and sticking it to Hillary resonates with some of em too, admit it or not.

Please keep hammering on the deficit, and the consequences to even the relatively well-off. After all, poor people and those concerned about our belligerent foreign policy are voting for Kerry already. The swing voters simply don't want mortgage rates back over 10%.

Just my 2 cents for today. No need to reply. Keep up the good work. Congrats on the anniversary.

Best, Zac

corse i half to add mitt nuthin gits to my haid quickern a lil praze, so let me start by sayin, thankee, cuz, fer them kind wurds.

i wood lack to thank bush is weak on the innernashnull frunt but ye kin do a lot with the huge spin machine them publicans is a'usin, witch that skeers me on a counta how they lack but no cumpunckshuns bout sayin black is white n specktin everbidy to go long with it. so i did a lil look roun at the papers today to see whuther three conceps -- fuzzy logick on the war, fuzzy math on the deficit, blatunt hipocracy bout tellin folks to do whut ye say, not whut ye do -- wuz lanked sumhow. heres sum quotes i found:

• On April 23, 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, laid out in a televised interview the costs to U.S. taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq. "The American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this." (Off the Mark on Cost of War, Reception by Iraqis -- tiz free, but ye gut to register to read the washington post)
  
  
• Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, in February 2003, dismissed reports that Pentagon budget specialists had put the cost of reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion during the first year -- in retrospect, relatively accurate forecasts. In testimony to Congress on March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz said Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." In fact, the administration has already sought more than $150 billion for the Iraq effort. (ibid)
  
  
• In its predictions a year ago, the Bush administration similarly underestimated the resistance the United States would face in Iraq. "I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators," Vice President Cheney said in a March 16 interview. (ibid)
  
  
• In a morning meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Bremer warned the Iraqi leaders that they risked isolating themselves and their country if they continued to snub the United Nations. (Iraq Council, Shifting Stance, Invites the U.N. to Aid Transfer -- agin, tiz free, but ye gut to register to read the new york times. thankee to politicull animul -- wuz calpundit -- fer pointin out this incredibull bit of hipocracy via spencer ackermans iraq'd in the new republic -- agin, thays more registrayshun stuff ye gutta do)
  
  
• The president, as principal cheerleader for war, said on Sept. 25, 2002, "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." On Oct. 2, he said the issue "is a threat of unique urgency." On Oct. 7, he said, "facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." On Oct. 10, the House approved the war resolution 296 to 133; the Senate approved it 77 to 23 the next day. (Bush's Distortions Misled Congress in Its War Vote by Edward M. Kennedy in the los angeles times -- more registrayshun)
  
  
• Richard S. Foster, the government's chief analyst of Medicare costs who was threatened with firing last year if he disclosed too much information to Congress, said last night that he believes the White House participated in the decision to withhold analyses that Medicare legislation President Bush sought would be far more expensive than lawmakers knew. [thisns bout that medicare bill, witch the addministrayshun knew twood cost near $550 billyuns even tho they wuz a'claimin twood only be $400 billyuns but dint let the ackshuairy tell it to congress till after thay had voted -- oops! rong war! sorry bout that] (Foster: White House Had Role In Withholding Medicare Data)

seems to me lack a bidy could make a campane agin this addministrayshun jes by showin teevee clips of em tellin stories or even bein cunfrunted, witch ifn ye aint seen this innervue with donald rumsfeld, ye owe yerself a lil chuckle by followin this hear lank, witch thats whar ye kin find this here video of rumsfeld trine to splain hisself. [thankee to joshua micah marhsall fer lankin to thisn in his eggcellent blog, talking points memo]

finely, congrats to south knox bubba. i read his blog everday, but whut a nice sprize twuz whenever i wuz readin eric alterman's blog name of altercayshun n found this lede graf:

Since my hotel here in Santa Monica does not get CNBC, I remain among the category of the vast majority of my fellow countrymen and women who have never seen the Dennis Miller show.  So I don’t know how it looked to its miniscule audience.  There is a description here, however.

ifn ye foller the lank in the quote, ye mite be sprized yer ownself bout whar ye end up. also, ifn ye wonta see jes how bad ye kin be n still git on teevee, check bubbas lank to the clip from dennis millers lame innervue of eric alterman, witch eric wuz on far!

as ye kin see, cuzin zac gut me a lil fard up my ownself, witch i aint sayin im on eric altermans or south knox bubbas level, but i am a lil riled up by thangs thats a'goin on.

thankee, cuz!

pinions of buddy don:
how to git publicans to vote fer runaway borryin

all my life, folks has been cumplainin bout how the gummint spends too much money. whenever twuz the dimocrats a doon it, twuz attackd as 'tax n spend.' now that the publicans has tuck over, ye gut a differnt problem: 'borry n spend.' that means everthang git more eggspensive. heres the quayshun ye git fer that:

differnts twixt
'tax n spend' vs 'borry n spend'

tax n spend	borry n spend
(cost of thangs) = (cost of thangs)	(cost of thangs) = (cost of thangs) + (interst on the money that wuz borried)

now thays sum that thanks thangs wooda dun changed by now. after all, them publicans wuz able to rize above the librul media n the librul collidge faculties n the librul hollywood elite n all tuther libruls that cuntrols whut ye thank to take the congress n presdintcy n las but not lease, the supreme cort. aint nuthin holdin em back frum balancin that budget.

after all, even a hillbilly lack buddy don kin see how tiz a bad bizness to git yerself into a situawayshun whar the cost of interst on the nashnull debt makes it rite hard to keep on budget. furst ye gut to deefine whut the interst ye gut to pay is, witch heres the quayshun:

net interst equayshun

net interst on publick debt =

gross interst on publick debt - (interst earned on soshul securty trust fund + interst on miltary retirement fund + interst earnd on medicare + interest earnd on unemployment insurants + interst earnd hiway n airport n airways trust fund) - (interst on loans to publick + interst on loans to rtc and bank insurants fund)

heres whut were a'payin in net interst on the debt accordin to the congressional budget offus:

2003: $153,000,000,000 ($153 billyuns)

2004: $155,000,000,000 ($155 billyuns)

2005: $180,000,000,000 ($180 billyuns)

2006: $220,000,000,000 ($220 billyuns)

2007: $257,000,000,000 ($257 billyuns)

2008: $282,000,000,000 ($282 billyuns)

2009: $302,000,000,000 ($302 billyuns)

2010: $318,000,000,000 ($318 billyuns)

heres how thangs cumpars:

costs of thangs
(outlays, includin offsettin receets in billyuns of $)

year	net interst	defence	homeland securty	soshul securty	medicare
2003	$153	$405	$23	$471	$274
2004	$155	$452	$23	$492	$294
2005	$180	$447	$27	$513	$317
2006	$220	$439	$30	$533	$369
2007	$257	$445	$32	$559	$418
2008	$282	$464	$33	$587	$448
2009	$302	$485	$35	$618	$478
2010	$318	$505	$35	$653	$515

how did we git them publicans to go fer this kinda runaway borryin?

1. now aint nobidy that kin deny how the war has to be paid fer n ye mite thank folks wood put them costs in befor votin on the budget, but as it happend, the gummint couldnt figger out how much twuz a'gonna cost till after the budget had dun been passed: so one way to git publicans to vote fer runaway borryin is to make em vote befor ye give em all the costs of thar vote!
   
   
2. then ye gut that thar medicare benefit fer them drug cumpnies, witch as ye mite member, twuz hard to git them publicans to vote fer it. they had to have em a exter long votin session (in sted of 15 mints, they tuck near 3 hours), witch that hepped em git the last vote they needed: so a nuther way to git publicans to vote fer runaway borryin is to make em stay up real late till they finely vote lack thar spozed to accordin to thar leaders.
   
   
3. to git everbidy to vote fer that thar medicare benefit fer them drug cumpnies, ye had to threaten sum of em with attacks on thar kids politicull careers: so a thurd way to git publicans to vote fer runaway borryin is to threaten thar kids ifn they dont go along.
   
   
4. mainly, ye had to keep the real cost of that thar medicare benefit fer them drug cumpnies a secret, witch turnt out twoodnt a mere $400,000,000,000 lack twuz claimd but $521,000,000,000: corse, the best way to git publicans to vote fer runaway borryin is to keep em in the dark bout the real costs, witch thisns rilly jes lack method number 1 above.

pinions of buddy don:
mind-readin them voters

via skip perry from skiplog, i gut a lil reminder that thangs aint ever as simple as they seem, speshly whenever it cums to mind-readin them voters. i wuz ritin bout the spanish leckshun yesterdy n the main point i wonted to make wuz how ye caint say fer sartin that the vote wuz a victry fer al queda. my points wuz how 90% of the folks in spain wuz agin the war befor aznar tuck em into it. they even had a march with over a millyun folks cummin out. so to me, it seemd they wuz lettin him know they dint lack his ignorin the will of his people.

but twuz a fack that thangs seemd to be hedded tords a victry fer the party in power, aznars party, till them bombs went off. i jes now dun a scan of google news fer stories on the spanish leckshun n heres whut cum up n the reasons they give fer the vote:

1. 
   
   Analysts Disagree on al Qaeda Response to Spanish Vote
   Cybercast News Service - 22 minutes ago
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     'Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's decisions to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and to commit troops to the subsequent peacekeeping mission are almost universally blamed for his defeat in Sunday's election.'
     
     
   • 
     
     'Alan Caruba, founder of the National Anxiety Center, believes the election "sent a clear message to al Qaeda: Their bombing worked.'
     
     
   • 
     
     'Johnson predicted that Socialist Prime Minister-Elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's promise to pull troops out of Iraq will do absolutely nothing to protect his nation from al Qaeda. "This was not an attack carried out by Saddam Hussein supporters in order to weaken the ability of the United States in Iraq," Johnson continued. "These guys genuinely look at places like Spain as former Muslim territory that must be recovered."'in other wurds, wuz the spanish spozed to be defendin thar territory agin it gittin retuck by the muslims?
   
   
2. 
   
   LONDON: Spanish vote leaves Blair looking isolated on Iraq
   New Straits Times, Malaysia - 10 hours ago
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     'British Prime Minister Tony Blair woke up short of a key European ally for his Iraq policy today, after Spain’s newly-elected leader accused him and US President George W. Bush of going to war on the basis of lies.' (in other wurds, twuz the spanish folk reactin agin the lies they bleev they wuz tole by bush n blair to git em to go long with supportin the war.)
   
   
3. 
   
   Spanish vote shows fear has upper hand
   Atlanta Journal Constitution, GA - 22 hours ago
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     'Voters listened closely and, in direct acquiescence to terrorist extortion, decided to vote for the party that promised to take them out of Iraq.'
   
   
4. 
   
   Spanish Vote Studied in Europe
   Cybercast News Service - 16 hours ago
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     'Voters elected Socialist Party challenger Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero because they saw the government's failure to acknowledge al Qaeda's involvement as political manipulation. Spanish public opinion had already strongly disagreed with Aznar's pro-U.S. position on Iraq and the vote was a final disavowal of his foreign policy.'
   
   
5. 
   
   Spanish vote sends out wrong message
   The Scotsman, UK - Mar 15, 2004
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     'The bombers have achieved something which terrorists had never thought possible. Murder enough voters at election time, it appears, and it is possible to engineer your own regime change. Spain’s election shows that terrorism works.'
   
   
6. 
   
   Shock Spanish vote blamed on backlash
   Glasgow Evening Times, UK - Mar 15, 2004
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     'It is widely believed the former government's support for the war in Iraq and its initial insistence that ETA were to blame for the train bombs caused the shock result.'
   
   
7. Grieving Spanish vote out leaders
   Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX - Mar 15, 2004
   
   
   
   • '"The war they got us into, against our will, cost so much," said Alex Rierasanz, 24, a student walking a Madrid street after midnight, waving a red and white flag of the victorious Socialist Party. "We saw that Thursday morning. They lost because their lies angered the people and got many more out to vote against them." Exit polls and Spanish media reports indicated that Rierasanz was a typical voter.'

as ye kin see, thays plenty of folk that bleevs twuz a simple response to the terrsts attackin em. but thays a nuther thang to cunsidder, witch is whut skip wuz a'pointin out, witch twuz how the gummint tride to use the terrst attack as a eggscuze to attack eta. i reckon that could be a facter, but i caint find much support fer it.

but thays sum aroun:

1. 
   
   Why won't Howard let us trust anyone?
   Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 15 hours ago
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     'Does the government think we’re stupid? The former Spanish government thought its people were when it blamed ETA for the bombings without evidence, and look what happened to it!'
   
   
2. 
   
   Voters Oust Spanish Government
   WBBM, IL - Mar 15, 2004
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     'But the disaster, which the government initially blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA, threw the election wide open. The attack was followed by emotional rallies across the country.
     
     Critics accused the government, which had trumpeted its crackdown on ETA, of manipulating the investigation for political gain. That struck a chord with voters.
     
     “The Popular Party has made me lose faith in politics,” said Juan Rigola, 23, a biologist in Barcelona. “It deserves to lose and to see the Spanish people turn against them.”
     
     The electorate of 34.5 million included about 1.9 million mostly young voters added to the rolls since the 2000 general election.
     
     “I didn't intend to vote, but changed my mind,” said Javi Martin, 30, who works for a TV station in Madrid. “And not because of the attacks, but because of the responsibility of the Popular Party. They gave out information drop by drop. It would have benefited them if it were ETA.” '

thays plenty more, but ye git the idee.

so . . . conclushuns?

1. 
   
   sum voters wuz mad at aznars gummint frum the beginnin on a counta how they dint wont to support the war
   
   
2. 
   
   sum voters wuz skeerd by the bombins n figgerd twood be better jes not to fite terrsts who wood do such awful thangs
   
   
3. 
   
   sum voters wuz mad bout the way aznars gummint tride to use the attacks fer politicull gain
   
   
4. 
   
   sum voters wuz motivated to vote even tho they had plannd to say home, witch accordin to most of whut i red, they dint change how they voted but jes deecided they wood vote
   
   
5. 
   
   no matter whut ye bleev, tiz a mitey stretch to thank al quaeda could read the voters minds n figger witch way they wood react to bein attacked
   
   
6. 
   
   fack is, ye caint read the voters minds verr well, neethur befor nor after the eleckshun

whut could this mean fer our november vote? well, seems lack conslucshuns #3 & #4 could go agin bush on a counta how he has been using 9/11 fer politicull gain frum the verr beginnin. also, i know a slew of folks thats gonna vote this time n nun of em seem to be goin fer bush.

thays a nuther potentchull conclushun ye could make frum this:

isnt the way so minny folks on the rite wuz so quick to give al queda 'credit' fer the victry jes invitin al queda to try it agin fer the nex eleckshun that cums up sumwhar in a cuntry that wonted to invade iraq?

hmm . . . witch cuntry wood that be?

italy? 2006

united kingdom? 2005

usa? 2004

pinions of buddy don:
still 1984 after all these years

(ye mite eggspeck a few blogsurvayshuns on a counta how tiz tuesdy n i sed i wood rite bout blogs on tuesdys, but thays two problems: (1) i aint hardly had time to look at other blogs thanks to wurk, anniversary, birthdy, etc. n (2) i caint turn my tenchun away frum the events of this past week in spain)

in this mornins new york times, rnc foghorn david brooks asts the questchun (ye gut to register, but tiz free), "What is the Spanish word for appeasement?" corse hes a lil upset bout how the right wing wuz throwd out of the spanish gummint n he figgers it has to be sum form of appeasement on a counta he aint willin to look at sartin facks.

fer one, appeasement gut its bad name frum neville chamberlain trine to find "peace in our time" by lettin the worls most belligerunt military power, nazi germany, invade a small cuntry that had no chants to defend itself, witch twuz named czechoslovakia at the time. the folks usin that term these days is bush n his right-wing echo chamber that wuz rushin us off to a war agin sumbidy that hadnt attacked us n couldnt attack us. i dun splained bout appeasement in a pinion i rote on an algy.

fack is, whuts a'goin on is the use of 1984 langwage. ye mite member that book whar george orwell rote bout how war wood be defined as peace n slavery as freedum, that kinda thang. wurds git stood on thar haids to whar the mean the opposit of whut thar spozed to mean.

so not appeasin the worls most belligerunt military power, witch that wood be our belovd cuntry, the united states of amurka, is called appeasement. lettin that power do whutever it wonts to is sumhow not appeasement. so mr books wonts to claim the spanish has dun pulled off a lil appeasement by votin agin the party that tuck em to war.

fer a nuther, mr. brooks ignores the people of spain that wuz marchin agin the war befor thar leader tuck em thar. they dint turn agin the war jes caws of the bombin.twuz attempted appeasement by the people!

n mr. brooks dont wont thank twuz a problem of sumbidy payin no attenchun to the will of the voters, lack mr. aznar dun. in mr brooks langwage, mr aznar, by takin his cuntry to a war that as minny as 90% opposed, wuz excercizin 'bold leadership' in a democracy. that ole payin tenchun to the will of the people wood be a lot lack governin frum pinion polls, lack payin inny attenchun to the millions of folks marchin agin a war that wuznt needed. why should innybidy pay tenchun to that?

a nuther hallmark of orwellian thankin is trine to put everthang into a eethur/or mold: eethur yer fer bushs way of doin thangs or yer fer givin in to the terrists. eithur ye bleev in runnin up huge deficits by borryin n spendin, or ye are agin the economy ever recuverin. eethur yer for invadin a cuntry that wuz cumpletely surrounded n made harmless, lack colin powell had dun add mitted, or yer fer lettin the terrists take over.

here's that colin powell quote: " FEBRUARY 23 & 24, 2001 – COLIN POWELL SAYS IRAQ IS CONTAINED: "I think we ought to declare [the containment policy] a success. We have kept him contained, kept him in his box." He added Saddam "is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors" and that "he threatens not the United States." [Source: State Department, 2/23/01 and 2/24/01]"

ifn folks cant thank of no other optshuns, thar stuck with the false choices made up by the eethur/or thankers. ye aint gut no room fer shades of gray, no subtlety.

in sted, yer stuck with the pretents that the worl is in the middle of a grand melodrama, whar one side is all good n tuthern is pure evil. long as ye put it thataway, ye dont have to cunsidder whut mite make sumbidy so angry that they wood kill tharselves sos they could attack ye. aint no room to wonder whuther ye increase the risk of terrists ifn ye invade a cuntry n ack lack yer attackin a relijun of 1.2 billyun folks. aint no room fer the fack that thays good muslims n good christchuns n thays badns too.

ye aint even gut room fer whut the bibl sez bout whuther thays innybidy on the hole earth who is all good n not evil: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

we ack lack we dont have to look at our ownself atall to figger how we mite could improov, but agin, ye mite could thank the christchun rite wing wood be innerested in that:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (Matthew 7:1-5)

but in the 1984 vershun of wurds, ifn ye ast whut could we have dun better to keep folks frum wontin to attack us at ever chants, ye git accused of hatin amurka, of bein one of them that blames amurka furst.

thankin that ye mite wonta look at yer ownself to figger could ye have dun sumthing rong? twood take sumbidy lack jesus to bleev ye orta do that kinda thang.

or mayhap jesus jes aint lack he used to be: far as i kin tell frum them that luvs to foller him, he musta changed his view on military mite. no more turnin tuther cheek. no more luvin yer enemies. no more puttin down the sword. no checkin fer the beam in yer own eye.

in sted, ye kin use whutever 'means' ye need long as ye kin cum up with a 'end' that is good, use wurds backwards lack orwell warned we shouldnt never do, eggzagerate or even lie when ye need to, use shock n awe when yer plannin yer liberayshun bombin, praise jesus while yer gathern up riches on earth, stick yer fanger in tuther fellas eye while ye ignore the beam in yer own.

twuznt appeasement to turn mr aznars party out of power in spain. twuz the will of the people. when they wuz marchin agin the war befor the war, they wuz skeered that attackin iraq wood make thangs more dangerus. but mr asnar wuz bold. he dint listn to his people. his vishun wuz clear. but he wuz rong. thangs gut more dangerus. 

corse, twuz sumthin that machiavelli wood advise. as a revuer of kevin phillips amurkin dynasty put it: 'Paraphrasing a passage from Machiavelli's The Prince, Kevin Phillips writes, "a ruler can ignore the mob and devote himself to the interests of the ruling class, gulling the inert majority who constitute the ruled." He then says, "Borgia references aside, 21st-century American readers of The Prince may feel that they have stumbled on a thinly disguised Bush White House political memo." These pointed words would sting regardless of who uttered them, but coming from Phillips, a former Republican strategist, they have an added piquancy.'

so once agin, orwell has cum into his own with a lil deja doodoo all over agin:

lettin timber cumpnies cherry pick the biggest trees in the forst? healthy forests.

lettin polluters increase thar pollushun? clear skies.

invadin n occupyin a nuther cuntry? liberayshun.

war is peace.

celebrayshuns of buddy don:
weddin anniversry

my pallgies fer not doin much in the way of bloggin this weekend. thays a good reason: saturdy wuz the weddin anniversry fer miz bd n me, witch thats one reason we gut us sum lowland sangle malt, witch twuz named glenkinchie n cum frum a distillery near edinburgh scotland, witch thats whar we went to tie the knot. we had us a fine time, spendin the day together, takin a lil walk (too cold to do much more) n pickin out our sangle malt. in the evenin we went to our favert restrunt in hoboken, witch thats the madison bar n grill. twuz miz bds birthday also, so twuz a doubly good time.

skolarship of buddy don (with plenty hep):
added usage eggzamples fer the letter 'b' to the hillbilly dickshunairy

i added sum usage eggzamples fer the letter 'b' to the hillbilly dickshunairy i been a'wurkin on here lately. i tuck almos all of em frum the novel this hole blog is more or less created fer me to rite, witch that wood be life n pinions of buddy don, hillbilly. to make em a lil easier to see, i colord the eggzamples blue. here's a lil idee how they cum out fer the letter 'b':

• 
  
  bettern: [contraction] better than  ("i stowed the bibl trax in the pouch of a seat next to mine thankin maybe sum one else could use em bettern me")
  
  
• 
  
  beverly: [noun] Beverly  ("corse, i wudnt bound fer no beverly hills, not with 80 cent n a box of moon pies to my name")
  
  
• 
  
  bidy: [noun] body  ("whut i hadnt figgerd on wuz how tard a bidy gits after cookin till 3 am, witch thats when the restrunt closed")
  
  
• 
  
  biggern: [contraction] bigger one  ("thang wuz my mamas fambly wuz biggern n bout half dixiecrat even if they wuz livin in east tennessee, so thay wuz lots of vote cancelayshun a'gone on twixt the two sides")
  
  
• 
  
  bildin, buildin: [noun] building  ("mos of oak ridge in them days wuz prefab housin that they brung in whenever they wuz bildin the manhattan projeck")
  
  
• 
  
  bildins, buildins: [noun] buildings  ("them bildins wuz mosly deserted overnite")
  
  
• 
  
  billyun: [noun] billion  ("the nashnull debt wuz all the way up to $380 billyun")
  
  
• 
  
  billyun: [adjective] billion  ("thay wuz a billyun ways to cut it, but it kep on a'growin")
  
  
• 
  
  bilt: [verb] built  ("i wuz sprized whenever the moon cum up at how cold it got so i bilt me a lil far")

evnin plans of buddy don:
agenda in pitchers

 

   

skolarship of buddy don (with plenty hep):
usage eggzamples fer the letter 'a' has been added to the hillbilly dickshunairy
wurd count is up to 1,905

i added sum usage eggzamples fer the letter 'a' to the hillbilly dickshunairy i been a'wurkin on here lately. i tuck almos all of em frum the novel this hole blog is more or less created fer me to rite, witch that wood be life n pinions of buddy don, hillbilly. jes sos ye kin have a  lil idee, heres how sum of em look:

• 
  
  a'larnin: [verb] learning ("he sed it felt better to live in doubt but to be a'larnin bout the truth, than to be sartin ye had the truth but livin in fear of doubt")
  
  
• 
  
  a'layin: [verb] laying ("the two of em wood play fer a hour at a stretch, tinker a'layin in daddys lap n battin at daddys hands n lettin daddy grab his hed")
  
  
• 
  
  albukerkee: [noun] Albuquerque ("10 cent fer albukerkee jurnl")
  
  
• 
  
  a'lettin: [verb] allowing ("she wuz a wunderin why she wuz a'lettin herself be hurt by the lacks of christopher martin")
  
  
• 
  
  algeria: [noun] Algeria ("he wuz in algeria durin the revolushun thar n gut half a ear cut off, witch we hadnt noticed it till then")

i added wurds frum the followin chapturs of the novel: 

• 
  
  8 a man that desurvs his own chaptur
  
  
• 
  
  9 a bird that kin sang n wont sang shud be made to sang
  
  
• 
  
  10 tellin thangs
  
  
• 
  
  11 wurk
  
  
• 
  
  12 dress lack the boss
  
  
• 
  
  13 the motorsickle
  
  
• 
  
  14 hatchin a plan
  
  
• 
  
  15 everthang is everthang n whut ye gone do?
  
  
• 
  
  16 the acksident
  
  
• 
  
  17 could this be all thar is?
  
  
• 
  
  18 stick it!

skolarship of buddy don (with plenty hep):
the hillbilly dickshunairy wurd count is up to 1,900

i aint gut time this mornin to publish it, but i dun added a buncha wurds to the hillbilly dickshunairy. i hope to git it reddy fer publicayshun saturdy. thankee all fer yer hep. i could use more, so ifn ye go here, ye kin see how to doot.

life of buddy don, chaptur 109:
the bankers bash in west berlin

long bout the middle of may in 1980, all 108 of us amurkin d-a-a-d stipendiaten wuz invited on a trip to west berlin with all our eggspentses paid by sum banks, witch if they give us the names of them banks, i faild to rite em down. tuwz a mixd blessin fer me on a counta how they dint allow me to brang emily along. but twuz too good to pass up, so i clumb abord the train n went.

they put us up in the berlin excelsior hotel on hardenburgstraße, witch we wuznt moren a cuple blocks frum the center of the ackshun over to that thar gedächtniskirche. the room wuz grate, the bar wuz open n free n they paid fer all our meals. they tuck us round in a bus to see all the sites emily n i had dun seen durin the two trips we had tuck together.

i broke away frum the crowd bout as quick as i could sos i could walk n give everthang that wuz a'goin on sum thought. durin the ride on the train i had red my diary up till then n as generly happens, i wuz a lil embarrassd n wishd i could git serious bout life n whutever twuz i wuz a'gone do with mine. amung minny cuncerns i had wuz wunderin whut folks wuz spozed to bleeve in. seemd lack the hole worl wuz jes waitin fer the inevtibull war twixt east n west.

wurser than that wuz how neethur side seemd to care much fer innythang but material possesshuns. twuz all a big battle over who wuz a'gonna git the mos. the communists dint bleeve thar wuz a god n ifn twuz true that thar wuznt, then lack dostoevski sed, innythang wuz possibull n nuthin matterd but this verr life. so why not git as much material goods as ye kin? aint nuthin else to go fer. in the west twuz claimd that everbidy bleeved in a life after death n how ye had to do good in this here life to git the reeward in the nextn, but i couldnt never make whut everbidy wuz pursuin n doin in the west match up with whut i had dun red of the bible, witch wuz all of it overn over again whenever me n darlene wuz a'studyin with them jehovuhs witnesses. i kep gittin stuck on thangs lack how ye wuznt spozed to gather up riches in this here worl but store up good deeds in sted, witch they wood be yer riches fer the nex worl.

whenever i wuz lil n bleeved everthang my daddy tole me, i figgerd twuz a grand battle twixt good n evil, but the more i studied on whut eethur side had dun, the more i cum away with the real eye zayshun that wuz a simple matter of us agin them. me n emily dint hang round with amurkins in frankfurt too much. our friends wuz frieda n erika, witch they wuz thonly germans we gut to know verr well, n markette frum finland n john thomas frum england n winston ngowa frum tanzania n branimir frum yugoslavia, witch he always correckted us to say croatia. thay wuz a passel of otherns that i dont member thar names, but thang wuz, everone of em wuz frum sumplace differnt, but even so, seemd lack they all -- n purty soon, ye could say, we all -- gut to seein thangs alike. ye couldnt say one side wuz all good or all evil on a counta how neethur side wood hesitate to do innythang to git its way. ye had yer soviets takin over afghanistan n yer amurkins payin muslim radiculls to fite agin em. bof sides had em a nuff atomick bombs to wipe out everthang n seems lack that kinda thang is hard to square with the bible, period.

so i walked the streets of berlin, trine to git away frum whar the forn tursts all lacked to go, a'thankin n a'thankin more on whut is it we should be a'doin? at one point i cum upon a lil narrow street. thay wuz a cadillack stuck on it on a counta twuz too big to turn roun n git out. thay wuz a lil bunch of kids gatherd round, all of em laffin n pointin thar fangers n sayin whut idiots we amurkins wuz fer wastin so much of the worls energy n awl resurves by drivin huge inefishunt cars. corse folks wuz payin bout four times as much fer gas in west germany than we wuz in amurka, so they dint wont no big cars.

but i couldnt git to no conclushun on thangs. wuz the anser gittin involved with pallticks n trine to make thangs rite? or wuz it better to wurk on savin yer own sole? did ye need to change socidey? or yer ownself? wuz it overly self-indulgent to wurk on yer own salvayshun when thay wuz so much sufferin caused by the ackshuns of yer gummint, witch twuz spozed to be under the cuntrol of the people, but it dint seem lack it sumtimes. they wuz this claim by so minny amurkins bout bein christchun, but when it cum rite down toot, wuznt hardly nobidy a'gonna give up thar possesshuns lack they dun in the bible in the early days. in fack, it seemed lack the hole relijun had been turnt into a eggscuse to try to git rich.

corse ye could walk yer laigs off n not cum to no ansers when yer astin such hard questchuns, so i cum back to the hotel n had me a good dinner. the nex day, witch twuz a mundy, they give us whut they call freie verfügung, witch that means free decree wurd fer wurd, but whut it meant wuz how we could go n do whutever we wonted. they give us dm70 as taschengeld n far as i could tell, mos everbidy did the same thang with it, witch that wuz to git over to checkpoint charley n go thru to east berlin.

twuz my thurd trip behind the iron curtain so i dint wonta walk round lookin at the places meant fer tursts, witch i had dun seen mos all of em. i tuck the mos deeserted side streets n tride to git to whar folks wuz livin thar lives without specktin no amurkins to cum by. i walked n walked till i cum on a bookstore that wuznt lack nun i had seen. they wuz sellin thangs lack the bible n new testament n other relijus texts. folks wood cum in astin fer eckumenicull or liturgickull texts. twuznt nuthin lack the big bookstores on alexander platz or spandauer straße, whar they wood have big sines sayin 'die klassiker' with arrows pointin at the sacred texts of the communists, the marx n engels n lenin stuff but nary a copy of no goethe or schilling or nietzsche.

i stayed thar lookin at the books fer quite a spell. twuznt a big store, so i could see mos everthang they had, but i wuz innerested in how twuz so differnt frum whut ye wood see in the better known places. i kep waitin till i gut a chants to talk to the woman that run the place. i gut to talkin with her n twuz odd how she sed almos the same thangs folks in west germany wuz a'sayin, witch she figgerd thay wuznt no way the worl wood let the germans to be together in a sangle cuntry agin. n she also sed sumthin that stuck with me to this verr day, witch she sed all the fussin n fitin n threats of war twixt the two sides wuznt all that importunt. all the problems in the worl cums frum inside folks but thar too scaird to look inside fer the anser. in sted, the spend thar hole lives lookin fer the anser outside, witch ye caint fix the outside usin a insterment thats deefecktiv inside.

that evenin them banks sent us out to a play, der hofmeister by jmr lenz, witch we all watched it n then gut into a big fuss n fite, all as plite as could be, bout whut we had dun seen. twuz almos as if we had seen differnt plays even tho the hole thang wuz in plane german, witch we all shoulda been able to unnerstand that by then. after all, we wuz all students thar a'studyin thangs lack geschichte n philosophie n deutsche grammatik n mos everthang ye kin thank of ceptn english, so shorely we could follow a play. i wuz purt shore i had unnerstood mos ever wurd, but thay wuz others jes as shore bout whut they thunk they had seen. thay wuz even a young lady amung us who had her a copy of the play in bof german n english, witch she had seen the same play i had, but even tho she wuz proovin her point a'usin it, thay wuz plenty that dint bleeve it.

nex nite they had a big party fer us all. turnt out they wuz wontin to thank amurka fer all the hep we had give em a'usin that marshall plan. i never saw such luxry. they had em a bank house with the finest art on the wall n antique furnitchur n a strang quarter providin the musick n the best food ye could eat n plenty of fine wines n good beer. n the idee wuz to let us all mingle whar we could talk.

twuz a nuther sprize. i dint meet a sangle person that had the kinda doubts bout the amurkin way of life i wuz havin. not a one seemd to thank twuz bad fer the soviets n the usa to be pointin atomick weppons at each other. they dint seem to keer bout the way we had the germans set up to be the furst fiters ifn the war cum or how twood put germans agin germans, whuther they lacked it or not. in sted, they wuz all talkin bout the cars they wuz a'gonna buy n how glad they wuz a'gonna be to git away frum the germs, witch they used that wurd moren inny bunch i ever met. they wonted to git rich n enjoy all the good thangs in life.

i couldnt git a sangle one of em to unnerstan the differnts twixt lookin fer the anser on the outside n lookin fer it on the inside. one feller even tole me twuz the rite of ever christchun to git rich on a counta thats whut god wonted fer em. i ast him why wuz it jesus had spent all his time with pore folk, but he sed he dint wonta argue relijun, so i quit astin him.

next day, most of em flew back to thar places in west germany. i larnt then that i wuz thonly one that had tuck the train, witch i wuz glad i had dun it on a counta havin so much to thank on, mainly how it seemd lack we wuz all watchin histry together, but still not seein the same play.

skolarship of buddy don (with plenty hep):
parts o'speech has been added to the hillbilly dickshunairy
wurd count up to 1,540!

well, i gut my lil eggcell program wurkin, witch that should make it a lil easier to add thangs lack new wurds n parts o'speech. by n by i hope to add eggzamples of usage n pernunceeayshun n such lack, but rite now i need to splain to them folks overn manhattan how im a'runnin a lil late.

ifn ye wonta hep with sum wurds ye know, thays instruckshuns bout how ye kin doot at the verr beginnin of the hillbilly dickshunairy. the pays piss poor, witch all ye git is a lil fame as a skolar n a lank to yer site . . . n my thanks.

revus of buddy don:
tuesdys blogsurvayshuns: cuple pundits

tiz tuesdy n that means tiz time to give ye sum blogsurvayshuns, witch thats my own hifalutin wurd fer revus of blogs. i dun picked on the followin blogs by doin revus of em:  

• Purls Before Swine
  
• Voluntarily in China
  
• SayUncle
  
• Straight White Guy
  
• Oh Really
  
• Old Catman's Brain Farts
  
• Sugarfused
  
• David Alan Wolters Photography
  
• The Blog Formelry Known as Queen Medb's Castle
  
• A Smokey Mountain Journal
  
• The Dagley Dagley Daily

today im gonna pay tenchun to cupla sites thats devoted mosly to punditry. the wurd pundit cums frum the hindi langwage, witch it means a educayted person, a learned one, a skolar, that kinda thang. nowdays, tiz used to point to folks thats given out thar pinions n the argumints behind em. to tell the goodns frum tutherns, in my pinion, theys a cuple thangs ye gut to watch fer:

1. intelleckchewall honesty: thays plenty of woodbe pundits out thar that lacks to take idees frum other folk n repeat em, witch when ye do that without givin credit whar tiz due, taint intelleckchewall honesty. 
   
2. arguments, not jes cute comments or the futherin of sumbidy elses fuss n fite: a good pundit will show ye the evidents, put it together in sum kinda coheesiv argument that makes a point. lots of yer commentary sites dont do much moren give ye a lank with a comment long the lines of how they knew the worl wuz goin to hell in a handbasket in this here lank is proof. or they mite rite, 'see here (n the lank wood be on the word 'here'), them [pick one] ... (1) publicans, (2) demcrats, (3) libruls, (4) cunservtivs, (5) wingnuts, (6) moonbats, (7) folks that dont thank jes lack i do or (8) folks that dont thank jes lack the party i root fer ... is at it agin.' this kinda thang aint whut i call good punditry. tiz lettin us all know whut ye red today n witch side yer a'rootin fer. a good pundit gives ye a argument that kin make ye thank or make ye a lil more educayted.

thays minny a one that tries this kinda thang. here's a cuple i lack a lot.

South Knox Bubba
far be it frum me to critsize mr. bubba on a counta hes dun more fer me than i could ever do in return. fack is, ye kin find a lil of everthang, good n bad, on his site. thang is, ifn ye stop by often, yer bound to run into gems lack Apocalypse November, witch tiz not only sum fine punditry, but well writ to boot. granted, he lacks to give ye the quick hit comments n thays purty perdicktabull, but im sprized at how often he finds thangs ye dont see everwhar, witch i preciate that. hes also dun sum grate bits of ackshul jurnalism, lack when he cuverd wes clarks or george bushs visits to k-town. he kin also sprize ye with his views, departin frum the standurd moonbat lines, such as his take on religious discrimination, the divinty student case. but fer me, whut makes his site speshul is his eggcellent punditry: The Whole World Is Watching:  A History of Uncivil Disobedience, SOTU Speech (he was as quick to spot this dog fer whut twuz as innybidy out thar), n his reportin of the real state of amurkin commerce with these two, one on pizza hut name of Happy New Year! n tuthern on his eggsperients with abercrombie n fitch name of 'Tis the Season.  hes also gut a real strong stummick, witch thats how he kin put together a Freepers on Parade: the Best of 2003. i reckon everbidy alreddy knows bout his talent with photoshop, witch that aint eggzackly punditry, but it aint eggzakly not.

Second-Day Lede
this here blog is purty much bran new but off to a grate start, witch that aint no sprize to me on a counta tiz the wurk of my cuzin janet dagley dagley. in case ye dont know much bout her, she wus the kind that made strate a marks in skool in even gut skipped frum secunt to thurd grade, the kind yer mama wood use as a eggzample of how ye oughta do. thang is, i dint git to know her much atall till jes recently when it turnt out we wuz bof in the nyc metropoltun area. innywho, she wuz born to rite bout whuts a'goin on in this here worl, witch she wuz gittin paid fer writin jurnalism by the time she wuz 18 years old. shes dun writ fer the dayton daily news, the orange county register n the los angeles times. in short, she knows jurnalism inside out, n thats bof the promiss n the best thang bout second day lede. shes lookin at how jurnalism wurks n how sum stories is played big to hide otherns. shes wurkin on doin pure punditry, witch thats verr hard to do. sum eggzamples: Why same-sex marriage isn't for the majority, or the states, to decide; The news story that wasn't; Lord of the Hats in the Ring; n Truffle-skin ballots may be our only hope. ye kin discount whut i say bout this here blog on a counta it bein writ by a cuzin of mine, but please give it a read furst. ye wont be disappointed. fack is, i dint lack folks tellin me i oughta be more lack her whenever i wuz lil, but im lackin her purty good now n wishin i could rite lack she duz.

add vice of buddy don:
dont waste yer time thisaway!

i wonted to cum up with a easier way of keepin up with the hillbilly dickshunairy, so i put it into a eggcell spredsheet n tride to see could i cum up with a lil vba program to do the hardes parts of cleanin up the wurds. i figgerd twood take mayhap 20 mints, witch that jes shows ye how long its been since i wuz doin nuthin but vba programmin full-time. fer one thang, tiz amazin how minny lil tricks ye kin fergit. fer a nuther, seems lack debuggin the program ye writ takes longern ever! so i dint git close to bein dun with it but i did waste my hole mornin thankin twuz gone be easy n quick. twuznt eethur one.

free time of buddy don:
todays agenda

they say a pitcher is wurth a 1,000 wurds. heres 3,000 wurth.

 

   

skolarship of buddy don everbidy:
the hillbilly dickshunairy hits 1,413 wurds!

The Hillbilly Dickshunairy
Vol I, No. 4                           March 6, 2004

im plum tuckerd out. i been wurkin on that thang all day, stickin in the wurds frum the furst seven chapturs of the novel im a'ritin name of life n pinions of buddy don, hillbilly:

• chaptur 1: leevin home
  
• chaptur 2: runnin away
  
• chaptur 3: tis better lucky than good
  
• chaptur 4: lil gurl in a pink dress
  
• chaptur 5: a athesit n a jehovuhs witness
  
• chaptur 6: this one gurl name of darlene
  
• chaptur 7: stayns n uther complicayshuns

i dun had sum fine hep frum other skolars in the field, listed below. i thank em one n all. ifn ye wood lack cuntribute, yed git the same treatment, witch ye kin find out how to git yer wurds er frazes added over at the hillbilly dickshunairy.

Thanks and Kudos
to the followin skolars
(wurds suggested so far)

SemiPundit (24)
South Know Bubba (19)
SayUncle (6)
lovable liberal (5)
Jean Jenkins (5)
Cleek (4)
[hay cleek: whut duz skeenk mean?]
Tommy Acuff (3)
Chris Woodby (3)
Skip Perry (3)
Phillip J. Birmingham (3)
andrew adams (2)
Smijer (2)
Dhawk (1)
Janet Dagley Dagley (1)

quizzes of buddy don:
whut is truth?

twuz a questchun ast in the bible by pilate (john 18:38):  'Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?' i aint gonna git into no flossofy here. i jes wonted to kindly ast fer hep in figgern out witch of these thangs below is true, so i put together a lil essay quiz.

 

statement #1 – frum a new york times editoryull: Speaking of 9/11 in January 2003, President Bush told The Associated Press that he had "no ambition whatsoever to use this as a political issue."

statement #2 – frum reuters news service via yahoo: 'Families who lost relatives in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks voiced outrage on Thursday at President Bush's first ads of his re-election campaign that use images of the devastated World Trade Center to portray him as the right leader for tumultuous times.'

questchun #1: kin bofem statements be true? n ifn they is, please splain it so even a hillbilly lack buddy don kin git it.

 

step #1 – frum a boston globe articull: 'To avert a funding crisis in Social Security due to the impending retirement of the baby boom generation, a commission headed by Alan Greenspan in the early 1980s proposed major changes in Social Security, including increases in payroll tax rates.

'These changes would generate revenues far in excess of monies needed to pay current benefits. The surplus would be used to pay down the federal debt so that future borrowing to provide Social Security to retired baby boomers would not strain the economy. Congress heeded the commission's recommendations and raised payroll taxes.'

step #2 – frum the same articull: 'The Social Security surplus has helped drive down federal debt by $1.46 trillion between 1983 and 2003. For fiscal years 2005 through 2009, the Congressional Budget Office projects a surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund of just over $1 trillion and a deficit in the rest of the budget of $2.49 trillion. Not only will that $2.49 trillion deficit in the rest of the budget entirely consume the Social Security surplus anticipated over the next five years, it will wipe out the Social Security surplus built up over the previous 20 years to finance baby boom retirements.'

step #3 – frum paul krugmans articull in the new york times: 'The payroll tax is regressive: it falls much more heavily on middle- and lower-income families than it does on the rich. In fact, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, families near the middle of the income distribution pay almost twice as much in payroll taxes as in income taxes. Yet people were willing to accept a regressive tax increase to sustain Social Security.

Now the joke's on them. Mr. Greenspan pushed through an increase in taxes on working Americans, generating a Social Security surplus. Then he used that surplus to argue for tax cuts that deliver very little relief to most people, but are worth a lot to those making more than $300,000 a year. And now that those tax cuts have contributed to a soaring deficit, he wants to cut Social Security benefits.'

questchun #2: since thangs dont add up in all them plans n statements frum our gummints mr. greenspan, thay must be a lie sumwhars. kin ye spot it? of ifn ye druther, kin ye spot the truth in it? n ifn ye kin, wood ye splain it so even a hillbilly lack buddy don kin git it?

 

statement #1 – frum a washington post editoryull: 'Anyone who questions his call for making the tax cuts permanent is seeking to raise taxes on ordinary Americans. "Our opponents have their own plan for these tax cuts -- they plan to take them away," Mr. Bush told a gathering of Republican governors.'

statement #2 – frum the same articull: 'Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) would both keep in place the parts of the Bush tax cuts that the president most likes to tout: the $1,000 child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, the new 10 percent tax bracket. Rather, they would undo the parts of the Bush tax cut that go to taxpayers earning more than $200,000.'

questchun #3: kin ye parse out the truth frum them two statments n make the anser simple?

 

cunundrum – frum paul krugmans articull in todays new york times: 'The annual report of the Social Security system's trustees reveals a system in pretty good financial shape. In fact, it would take only modest injections of money to maintain that system's current benefit levels for at least the next 75 years. Other reports, however, appear to portray a system in deep financial trouble. For example, a 2002 Treasury study, described on Tuesday in The New York Times, claims that Social Security and Medicare are $44 trillion in the red. What's the truth?'

questhun #4: same questchun mr. krugman is astin at the end of the cunundrum pargraf, whuts the truth? agin, kin ye splain thisn in terms so simple even a hillbilly lack buddy don kin git it? ye mite half to read the hole articull.

 

last eggzample frum the same articull: 'As Mr. Bush sounds his one-note economic theme, it's a good time to recall his ever-shifting arguments for his ever-present solution of tax cuts. At the start, Mr. Bush pointed to the budget surplus. He noted that taxes as a percentage of the economy were at their highest level since World War II -- and high taxes were needed back then to fight the war. But now that the promised surplus has vanished, taxes are at their lowest level as a share of the economy in 40 years and the country is in the midst of another war, Mr. Bush sees no need for any similar sacrifice. Instead, the argument now is that the tax cuts must be made permanent so as not to imperil the economic recovery. But many of the cuts don't expire until 2010. Is Mr. Bush suggesting that the economy will still be faltering then?'

questchun #lastn: witch cum furst, the policy? or the reason we need the policy? n ifn ye thank tiz the latter, why do them reasons keep on a'changin? member to make it simple a nuff sos even a hillbilly lack buddy don kin git it.

ifn yer brave a nuff to take this here quiz, ye kin put yer ansers in the comments. thankee.

medicull examinayshuns of buddy don:
pointment with famus dr. alexander mauskop

a cuple days ago, me n miz bd went on over to the upper east side of manhattan sos i could have my pointment with dr. alexander mauskop, witch hes famus fer bein hed of the new york hedache center. twuz a lil lack watchin one of them chefs that makes sushi, witch thats a deelishus kinda raw fish rapped roun a lil glob of sticky rice. ifn ye ever seen one of em in ackshun, then ye know they dont hardly waste no moshuns. so twuz with this feller. he gut me to lookin thisaway n walkin thataway n he looked in my eyes with a lite thang he had n made me walk a strate line lack he wuz a wunderin wuz i drunk, witch i wisht i coulda been. yew name it, he dun it to me to find out whut wuz a'cawsin the problem.

best news is whuts not cawsin it: taint no tumor, taint no anyourism, taint no other weird nuthin a'growin in my hed, witch i sorta dun proved that by puttin up them pitchers of my brane.

but the news wuznt all good. fer one thang, he tole me i wood half to quit drankin coffee, witch thays lil in this worl i luv moren a good cup of strong black coffee. then he give me a bunch of thangs to take everday lack migralief n Co Q10 n tole me i wuz a'gonna half to quit takin migraine strangth excedrin everday lack i been a'doin since bout a year ago. finely, he sed i wood half to git 20-30 mints or aerobick ecksersize everday, witch i dont know how ima gone wurk that in on a counta how i wurk 11 hours a day n spend a cuple on blogs n the res with miz bd. but twill half to be dun!

finely, i wonta send out a big thankee to deb of sugarfused fer sendin me this articull on migraines name of 'Not all headaches are created equal.' ifn ye dint know, deb is one of the worls best riters of haiku. go over thar n check to see if thay aint one ye lack near the top of the page or click on her lank to haiku.

more skolarship of buddy don everbidy:
30 wurds or frazes added to the hillbilly dickshunairy

nobidy could be more sprized than me bout how folks is heppin with the hillbilly dickshunairy. i gut goodns frum SemiPundit, andrew adams, tommy acuff of Big Stupid Tommy fame, the lovable liberal n the garden party. tiz almos moren i kin handle, but thats jes the kinda problem i lack. one thang i wood ast, witch ifn yer a'wantin to hep out with sum wurds or frazes ye know, please send em to me by email or by puttin in comments at the bottom of the dickshunairy. twood be even better ifn ye did bof.

sum wus wunderin bout whuther i wuz innerested in frazes lack 'it cum a flood' or 'my heds a bustin.' anser is ye couldnt hardly find nuthin i lack more.

progress so far: we dun made it to 936 wurds or frazes. thankee fer yer hep . . . n keep it a'cummin!

skolarship of buddy don everbidy:
the hillbilly dickshunairy is up to 906 wurds!

aint no way to thank folks proper lack, but i do wonta let the worl know how i been gittin plenty hep with the hillbilly dickshunairy. i ast fer a lil hep yesterdy n the followin folks cum thru:

• Chris Woodby
  
• Jean Jenkins
  
• Janet Dagley Dagley
  
• Skip Perry
  
• cleek
  
• Phillip J. Birmingham
  
• lovable liberal
  
• SayUncle
  
• South Knox Bubba

thankee one n all!

a quick note to them that wonts to hep: ye probly orta send me email to make shore i dont miss yer wurds.

skolarship of buddy don:
the hillbilly dickshunairy n how ye kin hep make it better

mayhap ye know sum wurds that blongs in the hillbilly dickshunairy. ifn ye let me know bout em, ye stand to win the follerin mosly wurthless prizes:

(1) a listin of yer wurd or fraze in the hillbilly dickshunairy;

(2) a lank frum wandering hillbilly to yer site with a wurd of thanks frum buddy don, n

(3) a lank to yer site frum the hillbilly dickshunairy.

heres how ye kin share yer wurd or fraze with the worl by gittin it into the dickshunairy:

1. figger out a wurd or fraze that oughta be in thar
   
2. rite it down in a email to buddy don OR . . .
   
3. rite it down in a comment to the hillbilly dickshunairy

i speshly favor eggspreshuns lack 'lawsy day' or sayins lack 'its untellin' or wurds that aint used everwhar, lack 'skillet' or 'vittles,' but innythang will be cunsidderd n probly put in.

revus of buddy don:
tuesdys revu of sum favert blogs

as ye mite have noticed, i try to hilight a few blogs ever tuesdy. i look fer them that seems to stand out fer sum reason. i dun tole ye a bunch of criteria i been a'usin fer blogs that relies manely on wurds. to date, we have looked at the followin fine blogs, either direck or by passin menchun:

• Purls Before Swine
  
• Voluntarily in China
  
• SayUncle
  
• Straight White Guy
  
• Oh Really
  
• Old Catman's Brain Farts
  
• Sugarfused

today im gonna pay tenchun to four sites that shares good originull pitchers with us. heres my criteria:

1. originull: the pitchers cant be stole frum sumbidy else, witch theys a passel of theeves out thar in the blogosphere who bleeves that ifn they aint makin money on a site, then taint rong to steal frum fotogruffers who sell thar wurk fer a livin, witch thats jes rong logick on a counta tiz theft ifn ye take it without astin. period. 
   
2. story tellin: theys a sayin bout ever pitcher tells a story, but lack folks, thays good story-tellers n them that aint so good n fer my money, the ones im revuin today are the goodns.

David Alan Wolters Photography
sos we kin all git a good idee bout how good pitchers kin git, heres the site of a perfeshnull feller i found out about via Purls Before Swine. with pitchers this good, ye dont need too minny wurds frum me to muck em up, so bes way to larn bout how good pitchers kin git is to go to the site.

The Blog Formerly Known as Queen Medb's Castle
far as i kin tell, queen medb aint no perfeshnull fotogruffer, but shes gut a grate eye fer a good foto. fer instunts, she cawt the bes part of the snow here n here. but thems jes a warm up, cold as they mite look. ye kin scroll thru all her pitchers here. amung my faverts are them of the stuff she dun found in stoneys attick, lack my favert, witch it looks a lot lack a gittar but smells lack a cigret butt. dont go lookin at them thangs frum stoneys attick ifn ye aint gut a strong stumach!

A Smokey Mountain Journal
a feller name of fletcher runs this here site n i have to add mitt tiz one of my verr faverts. i try to check it everday. ifn ye long fer the mountains n cant git to em verr often, this heres the place fer ye to go. tiz hard to pick faverts frum amung all his pitchers, but heres a few that oughta git ye started good: cow n genlemun, walking the line, just one more morning, n monarch of the mountain.

favertism alert: the nextn is a blog by my cuzin janet dagley dagley!

The Dagley Dagley Daily
my cuzin lives jes across the river frum manhattan n she makes good use of her point of view to take pitchers. tiz a hole nuther worl cumpard to fletchers smokey mounains with pitchers lack calm reflections, toy gun trick was no treat, n a series of fotos showin a cruze ship cum in name of watch this space.

skolarship of buddy don:
hillbilly dickshunairy up to 877 wurds

via SayUncle, we gut us a nuther wurd, thisn 'jeet,' witch he points out how that means 'have you dined this evening?'

revues of buddy don:
ledaig sangle malt scotch whiskey

this weekend me n miz bd deecided to add to our sangle malt scotch whiskey colleckshun. we gut us a bottle of ledaig from the isle of mull. we dint know nuthin bout it but we lacked the name n twuz under $50, so we gut it. thisn could turn into a favert, tho we aint tride one we dint lack. i wont say much else bout it ceptn to say i bleev twuz made fer luvers. we put on a lil brazilyun musick n gut to sippin n sparkin n all n i reckon ye mite could say we had us a gran ole time.

skolarship of buddy don:
hillbilly dickshunairy up to 876 wurds

a speshul thankee n kudos to smijer fer suggestin two more wurds fer the hillbilly dickshunairy: waller n eckscort. thays bof goodns.

notes of buddy don:
whut happend to chaptur 108

thays a ole sayin in the ritin biz, witch tiz that thar aint no such thang as riting, jes re-ritin. ye kin jes magine the kinda job i gut a hed of me whenever i git dun with the hole life n pinions of buddy don, hillbilly. tiz alreddy over 800 pages n the parts thats dun writ could be broke into a cuple of books, so to speak, two parts of the hole thang. i wuz talkin bout that verr thang with a publisher tuther day. she wood be reddy to cunsidder doin a volume or two now, but i dont wonta take my tenchun off gittin the hole thang writ thru befor goin back over everthang.

innywho, tuther day whenever i rote the furst draft of chaptur 108, i dint have a nuff time to doot rite. i had slept a lil late that nite n had a early meetin i had to git to, so i wuznt atall happy with the result. i know how twill be importunt to go over the hole novel once tiz dun sos i kin do a majur rewrite of everthang, but now n then i cant take how poorly a chaptur stands at a moment. so i dun a edit of chaptur 108, witch is whut ye see below. it still dont doot justus, but tiz a lil closer n should remind me whut i need to do.

i pray i live long a nuff n that my helth dont fail. thays a bunch yet to go on this tale n i dream of the satisfackshun of gittin it dun.

life of buddy don, chaptur 108:
good times in west germany

once classes cummenced fer the sprang, seemed lack me n emily finely gut the swang of thangs. fer one thang, we wuz bof takin classes in english. fer a nuther, we had larnt that i had been ackcepted to utk graduwait skool in english with a teachin assistuntship n she had gut a teachin assistuntship fer the secunt year of her masters program. we had finely sussed out the way the west german holidays wurked, witch till then we had us sum awful hungry times on a counta not stockin up on food when a three day weekend wuz a'cummin up.

but the mane thang that made everthang better wuz our good friend frieda muller. she wuz a skinny thang with skoliosis whar her backbone wuznt all that strate. her sister erika had the same thang. she had her the purtiest brownish red hair n a smile that wood melt the coldest hart. she n emily tuck up a friendship the lack of witch ye dont often see betwixt two folks frum such differnt cultchurs. they bofem lacked to smoke a lot, so sum evenins they wood go out while i lay aroun the apartment readin.

fack is, once i had quit trine to do sumthin significunt in flossofy, everthang got real good. thay wuznt minny people on the planet that lacked to read as much as me n emily did n once we knew whut we wuz a'gonna do whenever we gut back to knoxvull, well, we figgerd the rest of the time in frankfurt am main wuz more or less of a bonus. so ifn frieda wuznt gittin us to go off with her sumwhars lack heidelberg or würzburg or wertheim, we wood lay roun the house readin out loud to each other or jes readin in the same room together. we gut to whar thay wuznt hardly a book in the englische bibliotek that we hadnt dun red or tride to read. we even red sum folks we probly never wooda give much time, norman mailer fer instunts, witch emily woodnt read no more of him after the mane character in an amurkin dream killt his wife in the furst chaptur, or all of philip roths books or ever thang bernard malamud or saul bellow had writ up till then. corse we red sum of the big sellers of the time lack the worl accordin to garp by john irving n then once we sorta lacked thatn, we red up everthang else he had writ.

but manely, we let frieda show us her cuntry n twuz a wonderful thang to see thru her eyes. twuz as if she wuz makin shore we gut to know her corner of the worl befor we gut away. heres sum of the places she tuck us.

würzburg: die residenz
she tuck us to die residenz in würzburg, witch twuz one of the mos amazin sites we had ever seen. everthang inside wuz dun up in a style they call baroke. thay wuz more gold n ornaments n purty stuff in each one of them rooms than ye could hardly take in. one of the mos amazin thangs bout it wuz this long staircase in the middle of a huge room. the steps wuz barly three inches hi, so twuz a long walk to git frum on level to the nex. thay wuz a guide thar that splained how whenever die residenz wuz ackshly bein used by the church figgers that lived thar, mos folk that gut to visit wuz so fat they could barly climb inny stairs. twuz the furst time innybidy splained how twuz cunsidderd sexy to be a lil on the fat side on a counta twuz a sine ye wuz gittin a nuff to eat, witch dint everbidy git that.

wertheim: weiß bier
nuther thang frieda wuz rite proud of bout her cuntry wuz the bier. tiz a argument twixt yer germans n yer czechs bout who makes better bier, but frum whut i have sampled, ye cant go rong with either one. frieda lacked to splain thangs bout her cuntry that emily had dun splained to me, lack how ifn ye tuck a map of germany frum the 16th century, ye wood see sum 1,500 lil principalities n other lil gummints of sum kind. so twuz that in mos inny lil burg ye went to ye could find a castle n a differnt kind of wurst n a differnt kind of bier. she tuck us to wertheim am main, fer instunts, witch twuz jes down the rode frum frankfurt am main, but thangs wuz differnt. they had em a castle on the far side of the river, witch ye could see it in the distunts, witch we tuck sum pitchers, n then we hiiked rite up to it n went inside to look arond at all the ole stuff they had saved frum back whenever the castle wuz used fer kingly folk. after we had looked all over that castle, we went back down across the river to sum lil kneipe she knew bout n thar we had us sum weiß bier n sum speshul wurst, witch i cant ritely recall whut wuz speshul bout the wurst, but the beir wuz unlack inny we had ever tasted till then.

heidelberg in the rain
she tuck us to heidelberg one time with a cuple of other friends. i member how it gut to rainin fer a while n i wuz struck be jes how direck germans kin be. in english we say, 'tiz rainin,' but in german ye say, es regnet, witch that means 'it rains.' ye cant git no more direck than that, kin ye? innywho, i dont member much of whut we saw. the castle wuz clozed fer sum kinda renovashun, so we dint git to go in it. we did git the feelin bout how beeyootiful the lil town wuz, but the way twuz rainin on n off, twuz hard to member much else. i will never fergit a nuther moment of direck langwage. we had a cuple of friedas friends with us, witch one wuz a fat sloppy woman name of helga. we wuz wanderin roun in the rain fer the mos part, duckin into lil places fer coffee n hot chocklut whenever the rain gut too bad. twood fall fer a spell n then the sun wood cum out n jes when ye wuz gittin cumfterbull, twood rain agin. innywho, the sun cum out fer a lil while n i had my umbrella clozed up, but that wernt good a nuff fer helga. she cum over n tole me i had to open it. i ast her why n she said, 'sonst stinkt daß,' witch meant otherwise it stinks. twuz the kinda direck talkin i have always luved bout german.

frankfurt am main: friends in kneipes
n she innerduced us to all her friens, witch that hepped us larn a lot more german on a counta how sum of em figgerd we should speak the langwage of the land we lived in. we wood have long evenins in sum kneipe, witch thats a bar in english ceptn we dont use em lack fambly places in amurka the way they dun in west germany. folks treated drankin a lil differnt, lease in 1980 in west germany. ye could go to a lokal or kneipe n spend the hole evenin playin cards n mayhap ye wood buy a cuple of beers. nobidy wood shoo ye out. fack is, ye couldnt hardly git into no german homes on a counta folk wood generly meet up in sum such place.

twuz in such a place i wuz told sumthin that i never fergut. thay musta been fifteen or twenty of us all a sittin on a long table drankin beer n eatin our dinner. by then emily wuz happy to sit over by frieda n let frieda do the talkin fer her, witch i wood sit amungst folk that lacked to speak german. so twuz that i wuz sittin with the guys at one end of the table while the ladies wuz at tuther end. we wuz arguin over why english wuz a better langwage fer rock n roll, witch one of them germans sed that german wuznt no good fer rock n roll on a counta it bein too umständlich, witch wurd fer wurd that means stand-around-ish but in english ye put it down as pedantick.

we wuz a'goin purty good whenever a nuther feller cum in. he could here rite away that i wuznt no german, so he ast whar wuz i frum. i splained how i wuz frum tennessee, witch i had to splain how twuz in amurka n wuznt near california or texas or miami or new york, witch at that time, them wuz the main places yer average german seemed to know mos about. innywho, twuz a sprize whenever the feller sed he couldnt bleeve no amurkin could speak german thataway. i tole him how it had been a real struggle to git much of innythang fer the furst three munths, but after that, seemed lack i could more or less git whut wuz a'goin on.

he laffed n splained how ifn ye wonted a langwage, twuz a simple matter. ye git ye a lover n three munths later, ye gut the langwage. everbidy laffed. they gut to splainin how diffent ones of em had dun larnt czech or polish or french usin jes that method.

die hausfeier im land
innywho, frieda wuz the furst person to invite us into her home n fack is, she wuz thonly one ceptn she gut us invited into a nuther home fer a party n then out to a cuntry place fer a house party. that house party wuz down in the black forest area n twuz as close to real woods as we gut the hole time we wuz thar. thang bout west germany wuz how ever inch of land wuz bein used fer sumthin so ye dint see vacant lots or wasted area. if nuthin else, sumbidy wood cum a long n plant em a lil garden. turnt out frieda wuz friends with sum rich folk n they had em a exter house in the cuntry, so they wuz a party out thar fer a weekend with mayhap twenty folk. cant member all of em, but frieda n erika wuz thar. twuz a verr relaxin weekend.

best thang bout it wuz how thay wuz a feller thar frum iran name of ali. after we had et n wuz sittin roun the lil fireplace area outside n drankin wine or bier, we gut to talkin. turnt out ali had real good german n english bof n he had been in iran whenever the students tuck the amurkins hostage. everbidy wonted to here bout how the iranians had roused tharselves to fite back agin the amurkins, witch thats how everbidy wuz a'puttin it. but he sed twuznt thataway atall. turnt out thay wuz sum kinda nouncement on the bbc bout how ifn ye showed up in the main square thar in tehran, ye wood git ye sum tide detergent n sum mazola corn oil fer free. he sed that wuz whut gut the crowd out n once they wuz thar, twuz a purty easy trick to git em roused up agin amurka on a counta how they hated the shah n blamed amurka fer givin him power over em.

whenever he tole bout that, thangs gut verr quite. nobidy sed nuthin fer a long spell till he finely broke the silence by splainin how in his cuntry, when thays a bunch of folk sittin roun n everthang gits quite, tiz a sine that a basturd chile is bein born sumwhars. that made everbidy laff but him n seemed lack he wuz a lil sprized that folks wood laff at such a thang. i figgerd the odds wuz with him n a basturd wuz bein born, tho it seems lack ye could say that mos inny time, day or nite.

dinner at home with frieda n erika
but frieda n erika havin us over to thar house wuz the real honor. corse, they had to doot whenever thar parnts wuz out. we went over n had the typickull evenin meal of fresh bread n cheeses n cold cuts n butter n jam, that kinda thang. corse, we had us sum wine with it. twuz a grate evenin. they wuz rich folk, had em a indoor swimmin pool n a lil gym area whar the gurls wuz spozed to wurk on gittin thar backs to straten up. twuz funny to here em splain everthang they had in thar lack twuz a meedevil tortchur chamber. fer instunts, they called one of em the blutkopf folterung, witch that meant blood hed tortchur on a counta twuz a pair of boots they wuz spozed to put on sos they could dangle with thar heds down, witch the idee wuz how twood let thar backs git strate. then erika wonted us to splain sum of the lyrics to musick she lacked, witch her favert wuz joan armatrading. we also had to listn to the wall by pink floyd, witch i lacked em purty good up till wish ye wuz here but animulls n the wall never quite dun it fer me. but we had us a grate time n frieda insisted on drivin us home.

aint no way to tell ever good thang frieda dun fer us. mane thang wuz, thanks to the way she tuck us here n thar, the way she kep in touch with emily everday, the way she wuz the bes kind of friend, all that made it seem lack we had dun the rite thang whenever we cum to west germany. i aint sayin we wuznt homesick, but we wuz also gittin to whar we felt rite at home to whar twuz a shock to real eyes we had only a few months left.