Inevitability

This is a bit of a departure for me. This is not my origional material and even though I am not a "Bush" fan I think it is certainly worth considering.
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About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;

2. From spiritual faith to great courage;

3. From courage to liberty;

4. From liberty to abundance;

5. From abundance to complacency;

6. From complacency to apathy;

7. From apathy to dependence;

8. From dependence back into bondage

"Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million;?

Bush: 143 million;

Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000;

Bush: 2,427,000

States won by: Gore: 19;

Bush: 29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:

Gore: 13.2;

Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds:

"In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

PS . If the Senate grants Amnesty and citizenship to 20 million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then goodbye USA in less than 5 years.
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Uncle Dave

The Spare

It was raining up on Look Out Mountain one fine Saturday morning and I needed groceries so I loaded up (Well actually unloaded) the old VW bus and headed for town. As I was coming up on the intersection at Noccalula Falls I heard a pop and realized my left rear tire had gone flat. I pulled into the gas station at the intersection and got out to get the spare. Of course I realized then that I had no workable spare as I had noticed when taking it out this morning to make room for groceries that it had a large bulge on the side and was not likely to hold air much longer. Besides, I was ten miles down the mountain from where I had left it.

Thinking of who might come to my rescue on this cold wet Saturday morning I came up with my nephew Sam, so I gave him a call. Sam arrived in about twenty minutes with the grin that is perpetually found on his face and I thought how good it is to have family around when you need help. Sam couldn’t keep himself from pointing out that if I had a spare I wouldn’t have had to drag him away from watching Saturday morning cartoons with his daughter Hannah. I allowed as to how I was sorry and I really appreciated his coming out to help his poor old uncle. We discussed the options for a bit and decided that since the other tires were all new I should get another new one to replace the blown one.

Sam went to work jacking up the van and removing the tattered wheel. We put it in the back of his pickup and went into town to search for a like replacement. Once the new tire was purchased and mounted on the rim we headed back up the mountain and reversed the process to get the wheel back on the bus. While Sam was re-mounting the wheel I was standing up in front of the van and it wasn’t until he was letting it down off the jack that I realized what I had been leaning on… It was the vinyl cover of the spare tire mounted on the front of the bus.

Uncle Dave

A Restaurant Review of the Roadkill Café, Bait Shop and Tanning Salon.

The Restaurant or, more precisely, The Place of Business is situated in a building that formerly housed a gas station and garage. The seating area is in the open bay that used to hold cars being repaired. The kitchen is in the machine shop. There is still a hint of burnt motor oil in the air and when you walk over the areas where the oil pits used to be, there is a hollow sound to your footsteps. Above the kitchen area is where the tanning beds are located. It is where they used to store tires, hoses and fan belts. Behind the counter in the front office area is where they have the bait and lobster tanks.

The matre’de is wearing coveralls with a red bandana hanging out of his back pocket and he speaks with a pronounced southern accent. His fingernails are clean but he has a two-day growth of beard and the name "Jose" above the left pocket of the overalls. The application of well worn $5 bill to his palm means we’re seated at an intimate little table near the window of what was once a large garage door, now poorly disguised with planters full of slightly dusty plastic plants. Our waiter "Mike" (I know this because it is stenciled above the pocket of his blue work shirt) quickly approaches with a wine list and a pitcher of ice-water. I suggest "maybe later" on the wine list and he brings out an old chalkboard with the daily specials on it. We have: Fried Rabbit (Taken by blue 67 Ford Pickup on Hy77 near Rt11 at 8:35 this AM), Deep fried Alligator bits (From the Coosa River just below South-Side by the blade of an Evenrude 225hp at noon yesterday), Doe Deer Tenderloin in wine sauce (Somewhere on Sand Mountain by Ms. Story’s Crown Vic sometime this morning)… And the list goes on, but I’m sure you get the picture.

We choose the deer for a main course and for sides we took wild steamed polk salad and fresh corn-on-the-cob. The waiter brought back the wine list and we choose a nice Tennessee Valley Red I know to go well with venison. The garden salad was excellent with a nice light soy and vinegar dressing and the recurring pallet cleanser is a wonderful wild persimmon sorbet with just a hint of ginger, The vegetables are excellent and the dessert we decided on (blackberry mousse with vanilla ice-cream) is very good as well.

The only surprise of the evening was when one of the tanning beds had a short circuit and sprayed sparks all over the dinning room. There was some disruption to the service when the paramedics came to take the tanning customer away to the emergency room, but all in all it was a very pleasant meal.

On a scale of five I would give it a solid 3-½ stars.

Uncle Dave