The Way I See It

One of the most enlightening books I’ve ever read is called “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” by Ruby Payne. In the book Payne talks extensively about the different world paradigms harbored by the poor, the middle class, and the rich. Most importantly, it talks about how the most pressing issues confronting us today are, for lack of a better term, middle class problems.

Consider two biggies: Taxes and health care. There are government services for the poor, such as Medicare and Medicade… most states have implemented supplemental healthcare programs for the poor as well. And the rich? If you had a couple million dollars in the bank, would you care that healthcare premiums just increased by 13% (average) across the nation due to Phase 1 of Obamacare? Or would you even bother paying $500 a month for health insurance if you were wealthy enough to dispatch a million-dollar illness with your checking account?

Taxes affect the middle class in much the same way as healthcare. The poor pay virtually nothing in taxes. And the rich? The Average Working Joe who uses TurboTax knows nothing about juggling offshore investment accounts in the Cayman Islands… the advantages of a Swiss bank account… or how to buy gold in Singapore and then sell it in Rome. You know you’ve arrived when your taxes are done by a law firm full of tax attorneys.

The way I see it, the pig on the bottom represents the middle class, and the pig on the top represents the government. I thought it might be helpful to put this relationship into terms that even a farmboy can understand. That’s just the way it is.

Oetzi the Iceman

The following is an excerpt from "When I was Kid, This Was a Free Country," by G. Gordon Liddy. This passage explains one quick and easy way mainstream scientists determine if the remains of ancient humans were those of a slave, or those of a free man:

“When they found the man they called ‘The Iceman’ in the Italian Alps on 19 September 1991, he had been dead an estimated five thousand years. Yet he was all there, preserved perfectly by the cold, complete with his possessions. The Iceman was not the first human found in a preserved state ages after death. In Scandinavia and England, peat bogs had yielded similar remains. Examination of the bog finds showed that the dead had been slain, some by garrote, some with a hole in their heads from a puncture wound. These men had only their clothing with them. They were captives, perhaps, or criminals who had been executed. What the bog men had in common was that they were not free.

The Iceman, by contrast, was found in possession of state-of-the-art weapons. He had a six-foot longbow, the same size used by English bowmen more than four thousand years later to defeat heavily armored French nights at the Battle of Agincourt. It was a remarkably powerful weapon when one considers that the Iceman was a mere five feet two inches tall. His ammunition was fourteen arrows held in a beautiful deerskin quiver. He had an ash-handled, flint-bladed dagger and something that astounded the experts – a nearly pure copper Remedello-style axe, something so advanced for five thousand years ago that National Geographic commented, ‘It was as if the tomb of a medieval warrior had yielded a modern rifle.’

All of which was evidence that the Iceman was a free man. Since the dawn of history, free men have been armed with the most up-to-date weapons capable of being carried by hand. Arms are the mark of a free man.”

Who You Gonna Call?

This post pertains to the latest wave of reality TV shows that feature desperate, sleazy, sex-starved housewives. Many of the housewives I've seen on TV lately dress (and act) like retired porn stars. Since I figure they probably pass the time between "Jerry Springer" and "Oprah" by reading my blog, I thought I would share a bit of information they might find interesting. On my way to work I saw a van from "Schwartz Plumbing Co." I'm sorry the photo is a little grainy. I took it with my blackberry while driving down the road, and I was laughing so hard my hand was shaking. But if any desperate housewives need someone to work on their plumbing, I suggest they call this man. He says he has a tool that can fix anything...

Retard of the Year

As you may have heard, 49-year-old Donna Sykes decided to visit her daughter Jesse at UNC-Chapel Hill and spend the night in her dorm room. Why the hell not? Jesse would be the coolest girl on campus with her mother sleeping in her dorm room. Who wouldn't want to date a girl like that?

In case you didn't see it coming, Mom rolled out of her bunk in the middle of the night -- and ended up dying of a head injury. Maybe college dorm rooms weren't designed for 49-year-olds? I have a feeling Darwin would love to comment on this issue.


UNC-CH was established in 1789, and this is the first time a retard died of a head injury while sleeping in a dorm room. Nevertheless, the university's reaction was swift and decisive: The administration is spending approximately $250,000 to outfit all 8,500 beds with safety rails... your tax dollars are hard at work.


I agree that college life has become more dangerous than it used to be. The modern "keg stand" doesn't look like a good idea to me. But I assume that sooner or later someone's mother will sustain a neck injury trying to do a keg stand at her son's fraternity party, and all kegs will be banned from campus.