Category → Family
Veterans. Our superheroes
All these superhero movies feature supermen with fantastic abilities.
What the hell is that? It’s totally fake.
We have real heroes among us, and some are superheroes. These are our military veterans.
Thank you for your service.
It’s duck season! No it’s turkey season! No it’s rabbit season!
In addition to picking apples with the family, one of Fall’s greatest attributes is the abundance of hunting opportunities.
A friend sent me a photo of a huge buck he arrowed last week. I am jealous of him because I have not yet had an opportunity to go bow hunt for deer.
Instead, I have been small game hunting, wild turkey hunting, duck hunting, and trapping.
So, it is not as if I have been missing out on the outdoor experience by failing to bow hunt. The problem is that I’m in a frenetic whirlwind of other, related recreational pursuits, because Pennsylvania is blessed with an abundance of wildlife and healthy natural habitat.
Spending time with my kids and friends outside in this environment is one of the healthiest, safest, most wholesome activities anyone can do. Hunting is safer than cheerleading, high school football, soccer, and baseball. It gets my son’s face out of whatever handheld device is sucking out his brain at any given moment.
Successful or not, time afield is the best family time possible.
Here are some old favorite cartoons about hunting, and most important is the Duck Season, Rabbit Season, Duck Season! episode.
Penn State Football deserves its wins back
The NCAA over-reached in its punishment of Penn State and its football program.
Some of the punishment has been reversed.
But Penn State still deserves to get their winning record back. Those wins had zero to do with Jerry Sandusky’s pedophilia.
Many of us PSU almni suspect that the NCAA aimed to hurt Joe Paterno, the Paterno Way, and his football records. The NCAA seemed disinterested in actual justice. Poking holes in heroes makes everyone else equal.
NCAA, you owe us our record back. Give us back our wins.
Hey, Obama, a storm is coming this Tuesday…
Mister Obama, your War on America, your deliberate opening of our southern border to whomever and whatever disease can walk, fly, or drive across it, your profiling and targeting of politically active citizens and those on your “enemies list” with government agencies like the IRS, NSA, EPA, Homeland Security, and others, have finally caught up with you.
You have ignited a righteous firestorm, and this coming Tuesday, Election Day, that storm is coming back atcha, as Americans of all colors, religions, and regions wake up and realize that you are doing everything possible to destroy America. You and your allies have used democracy to achieve non-democratic ends.
Well, democracy is not a suicide pact. There are limits, and you have crossed them all.
Here is a song dedicated to you this Tuesday: You Can Kiss My Country Ass
Am I off the radar screen? Pardon me while I follow the migrations
Across the Atlantic seaboard and throughout the eastern US interior, fish and animals are migrating, or following mating instincts as they prepare to mate or compete for mating rights.
Those of us who are hunter-gatherer-naturalists are following these natural pulses of animal life, as this is the best time of year to intersect with our prey. These movements and motions of our prey naturally lead us out into the ocean, onto river banks, hunkered down on field edges, along the beaches, or into the woods with a bow and arrow.
Striped bass, blue fish, deer, doves, and geese are all moving. Their calls may often be distant, or mostly silent, but they pull me nonetheless. If given the choice between writing about politics and culture, or hunting and fishing (and running a business and family), the blog always comes in last.
So please forgive me if I am off the Internet radar screen right now, as I follow these magical migrations happening all around us. Our ancestors did the same thing for tens of thousands of years, too. I will return…
Life’s natural rhythms
Hunting and gathering have provided 95% of the sustenance for humans on Planet Earth, for most of our time as modern humans. These activities are a natural, seasonal rhythm outside of the equatorial region.
Usually more gathering is done during the summer months in temperate climates, when fruits, vegetables, and nuts would be ripening. Hunting typically occurs all year ’round, but picks up in the Fall and Winter.
Our garden produced a constant supply of non-sprayed, healthy, fresh, naturally ripened food this summer. As usual, some plants did really well, while others eventually failed long before their time. Nevertheless, the garden produced more than we could keep up with, and is now coming to a close. It was a pleasurable way to eat – walk into the back yard, pick some fresh vegetables, make a salad or sandwich inside, and then taste the sunlight.
Now, hunting and trapping seasons are upon us, and it’s as if a hidden switch was flicked ON in my body. I suppose a hundred thousand years of hunting and gathering cannot be easily scrubbed from our DNA and body’s natural inclinations, although some people pretend they can (and should).
In a country awash in cheap, easily accessible food, growing a successful garden and harvesting wild meat for the table may seem silly, but the truth is these are skills being honed. Anyone who thinks the food, electricity, water, and heat which define American life will always be easily available is fooling themselves. Anything could happen to disrupt those supplies. Could be something small, or something big, or something cataclysmic. Either way, oscillating with nature’s natural rhythms is both, well, natural, and also healthy. Ignoring those natural rhythms is like double-dog-daring something bad to happen to you, and it will, because in human history, change is the constant.
Enjoy the colorful Central Pennsylvania Fall, and Go Lions!
And yet another Muslim beheads yet another innocent victim
Oklahoma may be our heartland, full of normal, hard working Americans, but it is also home to a mosque. And home to a Muslim guy named Alton Nolen from that mosque.
Shouting Muslim battle cries and Islamic supremacy slogans, Nolen cut the head off a nice, innocent lady named Colleen Hufford, who worked with him. Maybe she was one of his co-workers who resisted his efforts to convert them to Islam.
Nolen was stopped in his attempt to behead a second woman only because an employee there had a concealed gun, and shot Nolen. Yet another lesson here, for those wishing to learn from it.
Finding photos of Nolen is easy. Finding photos of Hufford has been impossible. There may be a race issue here, which the mainstream media would naturally suppress if it runs counter to their false narrative a la Ferguson, MO.
Fascinating to see Oklahoma churches issue a statement that this act was not representative of Islam, on the same day an official press event was held at which dozens of local Muslims reportedly read from the Koran, shouted out Islamic supremacist slogans, and laughed. A photo of that event shows a throng of people, many wearing Muslim pajamas, circling the event participants. A couple of tweets reportedly from the event are the basis of this description.
Fascinating to see some law enforcement officials say this beheading has nothing to do with Muslim terrorism. As if it could be associated with anything else, right?
Plenty of news out there on this, no need to re-hash it all here, but definitely a need to be a voice for sanity and honesty on this subject.
Islam, you’ve got a problem. Please fix it.
I brought my guns to school
Back in the 1970s, I brought my deer rifle to school on the bus.
It was locked in my school locker when I arrived at school on the bus. In its case.
No one made a big deal about it.
No one was hurt by my gun.
My biology teacher reloaded my 7mm Mauser shells for me.
I hunted after school with friends, and no one was hurt. We were all safe handlers of our firearms. We all took it seriously.
It now might be a time for Americans to recall a different time, a safer time, a time when Americans could not imagine using basic firearms to hurt one another. A time when deer rifles were as normal as new sneakers, as significant as new clothes. A high powered deer rifle meant that much, and that little.
So many Americans today wonder what happened to our nation. Well, quit treating traditional American values as inferior to the chaos, anarchy, and violence that have replaced them. Let us traditionalists come back. Let your kids demonstrate how responsible they are. Take comfort in the inherent strength of our nation and its traditions. Relax.
We gun owners are safe, responsible, and experienced. We have our own children who we cherish. We will do nothing to hurt our own children.
Guns, used safely, are safe.
Gun swap on the kitchen table
Today, a friend called me. A friend of his was bringing over some rifles, shotguns, and old knives to trade. Was I interested in participating?
I’m reporting here that we traded guns like pennies in a penny-ante poker game.
It’s an American tradition, this private gun ownership thing. No paperwork. No records. No criminals. No bad intent.
For another buddy of mine I got a lightly used pump deer rifle. He will pay my actual cost; I don’t make money off of friends.
Background checks have been proposed on this harmless activity; they would merely document who got what, for future attempts at gun confiscation. None of us are or will be criminals. Guns in our hands are the highest deterrent to crime, however.