Heroes' Song

The latest from the wonderful children at Tussing Elementary School, by Michael and Angela Souders. For Memorial Day / Veteran's Day 2015

Toilet Paper, Apples and Hot Dogs

About all I can say is, hang on, here we go again. Another effort underway to create a frenzy over something people occasionally enjoy is out as we read eating a hot dog is equivalent to smoking cigarettes now.

Nobody with an ounce of brains will argue that cigarettes aren’t bad for a person, although second and third hand smoke is still debated. But the all American hot dog now too?

Actually, to make it even more cynical, bacon is listed right alongside of hot dogs now as WHO (World Health Organization) has jumped onboard with some group that back in 2011 erected a billboard saying “Hot Dogs As Bad as Cigarettes.”

Between you and me, I have little doubt if hot dogs were the mainstay of your diet they wouldn’t be conducive to good health. But who really eats hot dogs that much?

Most of us have maybe a few over a years’ time, at ball games, a quick lunch, backyard BBQ or just a quick dinner.

So why whip another frenzy over what is little more than another comfort food?

USA Today reports Hot dogs, bacon, processed meats linked to cancer.

Yes, cancer, the big C as some call it, a debilitating disease in many varieties that too many have died from too soon.

Linking something to cancer, regardless of how remote has long been claimed in many foods we enjoy and mostly still do, closer research revealing the cries were more alarmist or politically motivated that health related.

Remember the scare over ALAR just a couple decades ago that resulted in tons of nutritious fruit being left to rot on docks worldwide or in the fields, people scared to death to enjoy an apple?

And what of the eggs we often eat for breakfast? Remember how they too were linked to all sorts of health concerns not too long ago?

Not surprising, turns out those concerns were overblown.

Coffee seems to be another so-called ‘experts’ keep changing their minds on. Good for us one day, bad the next only to return to good a gain a few days later.

And what of good old butter? Weren’t we told margarine was better due to less fats, only to subsequently be told margarine had even more fat and was more detrimental to our health?

Being diabetic myself, I try to watch my diet and I am told to avoid potatoes, rice and “anything white.” While I eat less of them, I find moderation is the rule as my blood sugar is maintained at levels it needs to be.

Salt was another big concern, linked to high blood pressure and people avoided is. Turns out, it is a necessary element our bodies need, some people more than others. But again, moderation is the rule.

As expected, numerous other scientists dispute the claim as we read in the UK Telegraph; Experts attack claims that bacon is ‘as big a cancer threat as smoking.’

When I was a young boy, we were taught to eat a balanced diet and being raised a dirt poor Southern boy, that wasn’t always possible. We ate what my parents could afford, after my Dad got his booze and my Mom her cigarettes.

A lot of times it was beans and rice, collard greens and some slab of meat, beef or pork, whatever was on sale or close to expiration date. Chicken was a real luxury. Fired Baloney and hot dogs were fun and cheap.

But we ate and were active, having relatively few health problems growing up.

And I feel that is more the problem than what we occasionally eat, we are a lot more inactive than we used to be.

Yes, we are cautioned there by other ‘experts’ too.

Maybe that is also part of our problem, too many ‘experts’ deciding what is good or bad for others and a gullible population, eager to follow the latest trend or go off in a panic over claims made, even if just a late night Television joke.

That’s right, you young people likely don’t know about it, but in 1973 the country went into a panic over a Johnny Carson joke on the Tonight show about a toilet paper shortage that manufactured a frenzied panic in people rushing out and buying all of the toilet paper they found, resulting in a very real toilet paper shortage.

The Great Toilet Paper Scare of 1973

So from where I sit, I’d take these ‘experts’ with a grain of salt. Enjoy yourselves, eat a balanced diet. Enjoy that occasional hot dog if you desire and go outside a play more.

You might as well enjoy yourselves as much a humanely possible because let’s face it, life is short and none of us are going to get out of this life alive.

Las Vegas, "A Timeless Veteran's Memorial"

Received from the American Legion. I hope to travel to Las Vegas to view this once completed.

In my opinion, a very respectful concept.

Anti-Gun Nuts Going,, Well,, Nuts!

Once again tragedy has struck in yet another ‘Gun-Free Zone,’ this time in the small community of Roseburg, Oregon. Another unhinged person shot and killed people on the campus of Umpqua Community College.

For those that claim the campus was not ‘Gun-Free’ due to Oregon law, please recheck your sources as the laws on guns on campuses in Oregon is much more complicated than believed.

Be that as it may, tragedy struck and 10 people are dead, 9 innocents and the shooter with more wounded, hopefully to survive and regain their lives.

And as we see all too often, gun-haters come out of the woodwork before any corpses are cold to blame guns, the NRA, the Second Amendment, Conservatives, everybody except the actual shooter.

Cries go out to disarm the public with comparisons to Australia and the UK as banning guns and not having any gun violence now, a claim as naïve as any ever heard as both countries still have gun violence in spite of such claims. Also ignored by gun-grabbers citing that claim is the incidence of ‘knife violence’ that has had the country of Great Britain actually considering more bans on knives and certain sharp objects and campaign launched, ‘Save a Life, Surrender Your Knife,’ even trotting out the Doctors calling for knife bans years ago.

While gun-grabbers might technically be correct in their “less gun violence” claims, to me there is no consolation in someone murdered with a knife instead of a gun. The violence did not ebb is the point.

And of course, Liberal gun-grabbers with their knee jerk reactions and emotions over logic state the most inane things, as seen under another of Lazy C’s Greg Jayne editorial.

If he weren’t serious it would be comical. But he is serious, sad to say.

Let’s deconstruct this ridiculous comment.

A “so-called right” that is clearly expressed in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights? If that right so clearly stated is but “so-called,” what of the rest of rights enumerated in our Bill Rights? Say, like his freedom of speech and assembly?

And what of the 13th Amendment freeing slaves and banning future enslavement of one human being owning another? Does he see that as just “so-called” as well?

How can they argue just one is “so-called” and not include all?

And of course, the ever present hate spewed against those with a differing view of matters as Liberals so often do. Blame everything on conservatives.

But what this commenter fails to recognize in his rant, the Second Amendment was not written in order to put down any slave rebellion. What was being passed after the Civil War was gun control measure designed to disarm freed slaves.

Yes, true history reveals just the opposite of what is claimed, early gun control was meant to disarm a minority race and oppress them, much like happened in the 1930’s when Germany disarmed the Jews prior to the Holocaust.

Knee jerk hyperbole and emotional outbursts is what they have to rely on, far from Jayne’s call of “acknowledging the problem.”

One cannot acknowledge something when they have no clue what it is.

Another fallacy being spouted elsewhere is “294 mass shootings (four or more people killed or wounded) in the United States” so far in 2015.

Even politically Liberal Politifact states of that number, “The statistic came from Mass Shooting Tracker, a crowdsourced site, which defines mass shooting as any in which four or more people are shot at, regardless of whether they die or are injured.”

In other words, as I read it, redefine what a “mass shooting” is to suit the agenda and whip up anti-gun hysteria.

Politifact then quotes a more reliable source as “approximately 18 mass killings by firearms so far in 2015.”

And let’s face it, that is 18 too many.

But, is the gun really to blame? We hear there are far more guns in American society than citizens, so if true that the gun is at fault, shouldn’t we hear of millions of shootings? I would think so.

We don’t, so apparently the gun isn’t the real problem anymore than Ford, Chevrolet or Chrysler are fault for DUI’s or traffic accidents.

No, the driver is at fault and it is the same with a gun, the person pulling the trigger is at fault.

So what good will banning guns do?

Liberals seem to think a simple ban will take guns away from shooters and that is a fallacy as well. Murderers already ignore written laws, so why would they follow a new one?

And what of murder rates where guns were banned and murderers just substitute a knife, hammer or even baseball bat?

Do we ban those as well?

To wrap this up, let’s look at another common claim from Liberals after a school shooting, banning guns on school grounds and heavy opposition when we call for trained, licensed and qualified staff and teachers to be allowed to carry concealed.

As we know, the most deaths in these tragedies occur where the shooter knows he will face the least opposition, a “gun-free zone.”

Never acknowledged by the left gun-grabbers is the times such a shooting was stopped early on before much more carnage was allowed to happen by someone armed with a gun, that I covered back in 2006, The School Shooting They Never Mention.

In closing I will say to Mr. John M. Kowalski, the Second Amendment was not written in order to put down any slave rebellion, acknowledged by honest gun restriction advocates, but to keep us from becoming enslaved to a tyrannical regime.

MOLON LABE