Stray Thoughts

By

William D. Dannenmaier

I always go to the grocery store with Sheila to make certain she doesn’t forget important things, such as Pepperidge Farm cookies and spice drops. Normally, I then go and sit and drink the free coffee until we are ready to go. This morning, at the last minute and while she was in line I remembered that I was low on pretzels. I rushed, picked up a bag and took it to her, commenting to her that she had forgotten another important item. The woman in front, who had even more groceries than Sheila, had turned around to watch and listen. Then she looked at She and said, “That’s why I never let my husband go grocery shopping with me.”

The free coffee is in the midst of the fruit section. I’m always amused by the signs reading “organic apples” or “organic oranges.” I’ve never seen for sale, never eaten and never wish to eat any INORGANIC fruit.

This morning at the Cardiac Club, Sheila was in a deep discussion about home accidents with two men sitting and waiting for their blood pressures to be taken. Sheila topped what they were saying with a comment that she had read that most accidents occurred in the bathroom. I couldn’t let that stand so I said, “I’ve always thought most accidents occurred in the bedroom.” That ended that topic.

My ELDER brother, Joe, a consummate critic (or perhaps I should say a thoughtful reviewer of my essays as he has been known to be violent to his loving younger brother) pointed out that to increase the number of medical doctors would result in a significant increase in trial lawyers, a need for more judges and higher insurance. This once he is right. Since medical schools show no interest in increasing their numbers in consideration of our greatly increased population, this is no problem. (I’ve now forgotten the important point I was about to make. Age 78 does have its drawbacks, or, in deference to Joe, its virtues.)

I was a bit shocked when my liberal son, Bill, seemed to agree with my latest blog that increasing the number of physicians might reduce the cost of going to the doctor, although he still liked the idea of the government, the Navy, training physician assistants. His experience in the small countries of Switzerland and Austria has led him to applaud the idea of socialized medicine. He ignores, of course, the disasters, for patients and doctors, of socialized medicine in Canada, England, Holland and Sweden.

Obama’s wife continues to condemn the United States for the poor treatment she received as a Black. It is really tough to go to expensive schools (I wonder who paid for her schooling) and have only a 250,000 dollar salary. Reminds me of how Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor, commiserated with the unemployed during the depression saying she was having to reduce the number of servants she hired.

Thinking of our three (and a half) dominant Presidential candidates – Hillary (Bill), McCain and Obama – it occurred to me that if they were college football players who had completed their eligibility, none of the three would have been drafted by the pros. However, some team might have hired McCain as a water boy.

Grandson August is almost a sixth son, having spent many vacations and summers here while growing up. Now, scheduled for Iraq (he is in the Marines), he wanted to visit before leaving and Eric paid his air fare from Galveston, Eric and Maria driving down from Indianapolis to join the farewell. Eric and Maria arrived Thursday night and, with Andrew, picked Augie up at the airport Friday. In preparation, Sheila began cooking Thursday. She baked an Apple Strudel, twelve baked apples encased in pastry, a Cherry Custard pie, two Apple Pies, two Cherry Pies and a Black Forest Cake complete with real whipped cream. Friday morning she cooked two dozen muffins, half cranberry orange and half banana nut so that Eric and Maria would have some breakfast. During her spare time she added two apple pies and six cakes for the Historical Society’s shindig. It is now early Sunday morning and Eric and Maria have left, taking August to the airport on their way home. One cherry pie remains. Oh yes, Eric, fearing a scarcity of desserts and other nutritious foods, brought an ice cream pie with chocolate, caramel and pecans and two quarts of whipping cream to add to the two quarts I had purchased earlier. Saturday I barbecued several pounds of country style ribs for Saturday evening. Most of the ribs and all of the cornbread Sheila cooked to go with them are gone. For some reason, all of the salad, baked potatoes, most of the string beans, turnip greens and one quart of whipping cream remain. 

I confessed to Sheila the other day that 78 is older than 68 and I can no longer do as much as I did ten years ago. I added that it was probably a good thing, as if I were to repeat the last ten years it would mean another series of heart attacks and I don’t believe the BaptistHospital, Dr. Austin or the nurses could take another session with me. (They tended to be slow learners, but they do learn.)

Another Waco?

By

William D. Dannenmaier

A curious silence has fallen in the media over the “incident” in which Texas Rangers, armed to the teeth and wearing bullet proof vests stormed the enclosure of a religious sect in Texas behind a tank and seized over 400 children. The incident was precipitated by an anonymous telephone call from an alleged sixteen year old girl claiming sexual abuse. 

The latest I have been able to discover on this Gestapo tactic was that a thirty-two or thirty-three year old woman, with a history of making false accusations, was being investigated as having originated the call. The lawyer of the man she accused said his client is living in California and had not been in Texas since 1977. Of course this investigation was not started until after the storming of the ranch of this politically incorrect sect. 

When I first read of this I thought of the Mennonites who have a community in our area and are using the CumberlandFurnaceCommunity Center for their Sunday meetings. They are also politically incorrect, even for Cumberland Furnace. They dress differently, they treat their children differently. Perhaps because we are the stupid hillbillies despised by the elite, as exemplified by Obama’s San Francisco speech, we like them. They are honest, hard working people who disturb no one. In fact, most of us are happy to have them living in the area. But would the Texas Rangers and the Judge hearing the case invade their homes and take their children away on the basis of an anonymous telephone call without first investigating to determine the truth of the call? 

The Amish are still more different.  They still travel in horse drawn buggies with the children sitting in the back.  This must be child abuse, at least endangerment, although the children laugh and wave at passing automobiles. Should their children be seized at gunpoint on no evidence other than some anonymous telephone call?

People who home school their children are now in trouble in California. They no longer have the right to educate their own children, this despite the fact that their home schooled children do better on state examinations and when attending university than those “taught” in the public schools. 

Still more different are the Boy Scouts, who teach such old-fashioned ideas as belief in God, honor, morality and love of country. That is why some of our public school systems forbid the use of their facilities to the Scouts. They are not politically correct.

There is also ample evidence that, over the years, dozens of Roman Catholic priests have sexually abused children. Why are Roman Catholic children not being seized throughout the nation?

The “alleged” crime was sexual, the girl was supposedly sixteen. In every city we hear of children as young as thirteen having children, but I hear of no great outcry against the parents who have permitted this. Perhaps this is because the parents are immersed in their communities and receiving welfare as unmarried while spending their food stamps on alcoholic beverages and drugs. They live as they are supposed to live according to the elite. We live in a politically correct world which celebrates diversity. Diversity for whom? Behaviors and free expression without any morals other than the whim of the moment are socially acceptable. But apparently diversity does not extend to conservative groups who isolate themselves from our “diverse” society. 

The State of Texas and the presiding Judge are placing 460 children from an isolated conservative community with different beliefs into the caring foster home system of Texas. Will they investigate the homes in which they place these children as carefully as they investigated the original complaint? If so, some of those children are destined for horrible treatment.

This is the work of the “law enforcement” officials of Texas. Waco, with its slaughter, was the brainchild of President Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno. How much more government oversight of our lives do we want? Do we face ever more of it in the future from our benign, caring government?

Could our loving government, caring for all as espoused by Hillary and Obama in their plans for universal control of health, education, welfare and employment evolve into a police state as did the communist nations under Castro, Stalin and Mao? The possibility is already demonstrated by the Texas Rangers (Perhaps Texas Gestapo would be a better name.) and their presiding Judge. What community is safe when storm troopers have the right to invade our homes and seize our children on no more evidence than a telephone call, an anonymous telephone call?

Health Care Plans

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Armstrong Williams has written an excellent article on the problem of health care “Washington Needs a New Theme in Health Care Debate,” (Townhall.com, April 28, 2008). It revived some of my concerns about health care.

All three of our Presidential aspirants are proclaiming a medical crisis and proposing the need for a new, Federal Government, controlled health plan. Each of them promises that their new, expensive for tax-payer, plan will solve all of the United States health problems, just as forty or so years of the Federal welfare bureaus and Education bureau have solved all of our problems of poverty, illegitimacy and education.

I have always wondered why people are willing to believe that clerks and petty bureaucrats living and working eight hour days and five day weeks (at least being paid to work those hours) in Washington D. C., will have a greater knowledge of and concern for the needs of those of us in the rest of the nation when they show so little ability to solve the problems in their own city, which has one of the worst records concerning education, poverty, crime and illegitimacy in the nation. But that is beside the point.

Has anyone noticed that when there is a shortage of something, the price is high? Conversely, when the product in demand is plentiful, the price is low. Gasoline is a good current example. I am also old enough to remember when television sets were new and extremely expensive. Working people had difficulty affording them.  Currently, they are plentiful – and cheap. (This will change if February of 2009 when the government, our thoughtful government, changes the rules.)

Several years ago, I suggested that the cure for the high cost of medical care was to provide more medical doctors. I suggested at the time that doubling the number of medical schools in the nation, which the government could do, would greatly increase the number of practicing doctors and simultaneously reduce the costs. Another suggestion at the time was to reduce the requirements to enter medical school. Engineers and scientists do not require an undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts to enter their professional schools, why do medical doctors? I fail to see how studying English literature, economics or geography helps a person to diagnose and cure measles. Of course this has not happened and no serious politician would even suggest such a thing, one reason being the medical lobby.

But despite the government’s failure to think of this obvious solution, capitalism has snuck in by the back door. Has anyone noticed the great increase in the number of physician assistants? Drug stores are experimenting with having physician assistants’ offices attached to their pharmacies. These professionals are perfectly qualified to handle the sinus infections, flu and tetanus shots and similar minor medical problems which currently crowd doctors’ offices. And they are much less expensive. 

Of course this will not completely reduce unnecessary, taxpayer supported, services as illegal immigrants and welfare recipients will continue to receive free – to them – full service in hospitals, but it does reduce the cost of routine medical care to working Americans. 

Good and Evil

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Backing from the driveway on our way to church one recent Sunday, Andrew warned me that I was about to back into the rose bush. My bride laughed and said the rose bush had survived worse. Then she told Andrew about Stephen and the rose bush.

When we first returned to Cumberland Furnace, I purchased a climbing rose from Starks Brothers’ and planted it by the cliff, in front of the small cave entrance. One day Stephen, then eight, came happily into the house and announced, “You know those thorn vines? Well, I found one by the cliff. I stomped it good! It won’t cause us any trouble any more.” Sheila took time to explain the difference between our rose and the “wait-a-minute” vines which grew wild in the woods. 

Enlarging on the theme, Sheila’ commented that young children didn’t really know the difference between good and bad, they had to be taught. Her experiences with children agreed with Dr. Bettleheim, although she didn’t know about him.

Dr. Bettelheim was an internationally famous psychologist in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. He worked with disturbed children in Chicago and had a school for children in the heart of the slums. He was famous for his success with both disturbed children and slum children. He also took the position that children did not know the difference between good and bad: they had to be taught. In one of his essays he pointed out that the characters in European fairy tales were either good or evil, never shades of gray. He argued that to try to teach children about “shades of gray” only confused them. Speaking of his arguments led me to wander on, perhaps because we were on our way to church.

People are not shades of gray either, they all have, we all have, good and bad in us. I don’t know, and have never known, many people whom I would describe as all good. I believe that my father was such a man. I knew him well and never knew him to do, through action or advice, any thing but good for others, even when that “good” harmed him. It didn’t matter to him if a person were black or white; rich or poor; Christian, Jew or atheist. Perhaps that is why he had so many friends, ranging from the man who swept the street car tracks – with a broom – for a living during the depression to a multi-millionaire. I think, perhaps, my bride, Sheila, is such a person also. Like Dad, she has many friends of all races and all statuses in life. 

We need to stop pretending that people are “shades of gray.” People are mixtures of good and bad. When we decide that a person is a good person, or a bad person, we are simply reflecting on which of their acts dominate their lives – or of which acts affect our own interests most. 

I am not such a person. I have done too many things that were wrong. I simply hope the good out weighs the bad. 

Note that I’m not equating good and bad with legal and illegal. Here in the hills of Tennessee people have a tendency to define laws as a social convenience and interpret them in terms of common sense. I know that the speed limit is 55 MPH, but when I am on a straight stretch of road, with no crossroads, houses or traffic, I see little wrong with 65. On the other hand, still with a 55 speed limit, when there are houses and families on either side I’m more likely to be doing 40 or 45 unless I see young children playing near the road - then it quickly becomes 30 or less. Similarly, back in 1952, I thought it was wrong for the government to draft eighteen year olds and send them into combat (my friend Bob Buckner was wounded in combat at the age of 18) but deny them the right to drink a can of beer if thirsty. The federal and state governments approve of eighteen year old people voting and selecting the leaders of the states and the nation, but don’t consider them responsible or intelligent enough to know the difference between an alcoholic drink and drunkenness. Does that make sense?

Neither do I equate good and bad with smart and stupid. Something can be both legal and good, but still stupid, like mowing grass in January. In years of working with college students, I had numerous “coffee table” conversations in which students would tell me of things they were doing or planning on doing that could create problems for them. I found it much more effective to tell them I thought their action, or plan, was “stupid” than to tell them it was wrong. Once a coed told me that all of her friends were trying marijuana, and she couldn’t see anything wrong with trying it. My answer was that it was against the law and if caught she would have an arrest record. “You have spent three years studying to become a teacher,” I said, “a jail record could throw away a chance to do something you want to do, have spent years preparing for and, from seeing you in student teaching, are good at. It strikes me it would be a stupid chance to take.” She agreed.

Please note that I am not equating “bad” with “evil.” Evil is a religious concept, good is a social concept.  While “bad” in social concepts corresponds closely with “evil” in Christian concepts, they are not the same. The fact that I happen to believe Jesus set down a plan of behavior which, if followed by all, would ensure maximum happiness for all is irrelevant to the social concept of “good” or ‘bad.”

The Poverty Peril

By

William D. Dannenmaier

A must read for anyone concerned, justifiably concerned from listening to national news media, about the growing problem of poverty in the United States is Walter E. Williams essay “The Poverty Hype” (Townhall.com, April 2, 2008). In his article Dr. Williams, a nationally famed economist, analyzes factual data concerning the differences in income between low-income and high-income families. He debunks much of what we hear on television, in newspapers and in speeches by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. But there is one group he neglects to mention. 

Nowhere in his article does Dr. Williams address the existence of undocumented, unreported, income. As a trivial example, I have a garden every year. Essentially, we quit purchasing vegetables in June and fruit in July, not returning to the market until late autumn. All of the spinach and tomatoes I eat from my garden, all of the apples, peaches and pears are, in fact, unrecorded and unreported income. Were I alone in this, the example would be a matter to be ridiculed, but there are tens of thousands like me. The next question, in what Dr. Williams calls “The Poverty Hype,” is who plants such gardens and eats as I do, those in the bottom third or the upper third of the economic scale? I suspect most such are in the bottom third, since I seriously doubt that multi-millionaires such as Pelosi, the Kennedys, Kerry, Reid and such ever pick up a shovel or lift a hoe. 

Then there is another, more expensive factor, affecting the official economy. When my mother needed her gutter repaired some forty years ago, the neighbor next door repaired it – for a price. I doubt that he ever reported that income. Similarly, in 1980, an acquaintance in North Dakota told me of a visit to a friend, an artist, in Seattle who was about his age, middle thirties. He laughingly told me of her nice apartment and that she told him that she had never turned in an income tax. (He was not a very thoughtful person. If he had considered the possibility that his taxes were helping support her, he might not have considered her avoidance of tax such an accomplishment.) In 1990 I knew an American employed as a civilian by our army in Germany who refused to attend a meeting in the United States on a subject that was his responsibility. He told me that the meeting would have given him too many days in the States. He would have had to pay income tax. 

Retiring to my Tennessee home in 1992, I needed some immediate construction repair. I was surprised at the end of the week when I saw the contractor reach in his pocket, pull out a wad of cash and pay his workers: no social security, no health insurance, no retirement, just cash. In the fifteen years since then, I have become accustomed to that. An astonishing number of people in our area are employed yet still receive food stamps and welfare benefits. Some of them are doing rather well in “poverty,” some better than I did as a teacher.

From my experience, tax evasion by persons at the lower income levels has been ongoing for years, and throughout the country, not just in the hills of Tennessee.

I sometimes wonder how many of them report their incomes – all of their incomes. I couldn’t remember their names, of course, but I have the impression that they don’t see any dishonesty involved, they did their work, it is their money and it is none of the government’s business. I am sympathetic; it is unfortunate that I have no such skills having always been employed by larger concerns that never failed to take out every penny the government thought I owed.

I confess, that in considering this, I remembered how I would put a single salmon egg on a tiny hook and cast it out, hoping some thoughtless trout would seize my gift. Is it possible that Congress, in promising $400 “gifts” to those who turn in income tax forms this year are hoping some of these ersatz “poor” will seize the bait and file returns that they haven’t filed in the past? Well, it is an interesting idea.

Anyway, I’ve filed my darned return and, no, I did not report the value of the tomatoes that my neighbors gave me when mine failed. Perhaps this year my garden will permit me to return that gift, legal or otherwise.

Stray Thoughts

By

William D. Dannenmaier

The San Diego News (February 12, 2008) reported the story of a retired teacher. He said he had been illiterate, unable to read or write, until he was 48 years old. During those first 48 years, he graduated from high school, earned an athletic scholarship to Texas Western College, where he graduated with a degree in education, and taught successfully for 17 years before learning to read. He was also a successful coach. Made me wonder about some of our teachers in Dickson. If I recall correctly, it was Megaera’s kindergarten teacher who never learned to spell her name.

Democratic politics has been entertaining recently. Friends at the Cardiac Club enjoyed my suggestion that, if Obama wins the Democratic nomination, he select David Duke as his running mate. While Duke’s few years in the KKK do not match Obama’s twenty years in Reverend Wright’s America-hating, White-hating, church, it would provide some balance to the ticket. 

There is also a rumor, started by me, that if Obama wins the presidency, he is going to appoint his close friend, Reverend Wright as pastor to the Congress.

To avoid appearing one sided, Hillary has made news lately with her claims, twice I believe, of coming under sniper fire when she landed at the airport in Bosnia. Unfortunately, some cameraman was present filming her arrival. The film showed her walking calmly off the plane with accompanying daughter and other persons. She was being greeted by a large delegation, none of whom were ducking from sniper fire. She claims poor memory, but as an experienced infantryman (six months up front, two on intermittent “visits” and four continuous as a scout with the 15^th Infantry Regiment) I can guarantee her she would not forget sniper fire if she encountered it. Reminds one of the picture Kerry had made of himself attacking a fighting enemy in Vietnam, with a cameraman filming him – brave cameraman. 

Don’t consider this an enthusiastic endorsement of McCain. Our presidential race reminds me of the first heat of a race among nine and ten year old swimmers. The winner of the heat is typically the best of a poor lot.

Come to think of it, Ralph Nader is still running for president. This might be his best election.

In the meantime, the mayor of Detroit has been indicted on several charges, lying under oath, obstructing justice and corruption in general. He claims innocence, but has yet to blame it on a vast right-wing conspiracy, or White-wing conspiracy. Perhaps it is just a conspiracy of honest people with integrity: apparently a foreign group to him.

I have also guessed that the reason the 9/11 terrorists did not include Congress in its attacks on the trade center, the Pentagon and the White House is because they had too many friends there.

Approximately a year ago, Tennessee police received the power to check criminals’ immigration status. Since that time, numerous illegal invaders who had broken the law have been deported. One television report said 2500, another said 3000. Of those, one report, if I recall correctly, said 500 had criminal records and past convictions. The result? The Nashville Hispanic community is complaining that the police are indulging in ethnic discrimination. I can only suppose they don’t wish criminals who are illegal aliens deported if they are Hispanic, they might not be welcomed home.  

This is an unfortunate complaint. The majority of Hispanic immigrants are honest, hard-working people with strong family ties, but we don’t need Hispanic criminals who are illegal aliens.

On the home front, I have received lectures in the past week from my bride, Mary Ann – the benevolent (sometimes) dictator of the Cardiac Club and, most recently from the Blue Cross Life Masters nurse who telephones monthly. They don’t like my attitude about visiting doctors, my activities (Mary Ann was tough on using a chain saw) and my diet (Life Masters). Sometimes I feel as if I have three disapproving mothers watching me, only they know more about me and my activities than my real mother did – thank goodness she didn’t know as much.

It’s the Worry Season

By

William D. Dannenmaier

It is March 15^th, the beginning of the worry season. Every morning, every night, I must watch the news, not the ersatz news on national television about the sorry sluts parading as Hollywood stars, the real news, the important news, “what will the temperature be in the morning?” 

Here in middle Tennessee my peach trees are budding, eager as teenaged boys on their first dates, lusting to burst into bloom. The pear buds are not far behind. But it is too early, the likelihood of a killing frost is too high, although each day, as I watch the liars who parade as weather forecasters and contrast their mistakes with the thermometer on the porch, I worry about the possibility of warm days which will encourage those stupid peaches and pears to blossom. Then, as the idiots blossom, I worry that a late frost will kill my fruit for the year. Will I again have to cover growing vegetables with my bride’s sheets in the hope of helping them survive?

To date, things aren’t bad. My worrying and watching have paid a dividend. We have arrived at the middle of March with nothing of importance, nothing I care to eat, in bloom. Things appear to be on schedule. My peach trees, in years in which I get peaches, bloom about the third week of March and the pears burst into full bloom during the annual writers’ conference I formerly attended in Knoxville – when I should have been home spraying those blossoms for fire blight. In those years, there has always been danger of that late frost, but I’ve usually gotten fruit. Now, if only coldish, not cold, coldish, weather will stay for a week or two those blooms might be delayed. Every day counts. Each day before they bloom, beginning now, is one less day until the last expected date of a killing frost. Weather forecasters, lie; nature doesn’t obey my wants; I can only wait, watch and worry.

Last year was horrible. Had we been living in rural Tennessee a hundred years ago with such weather, we would have starved through the winter, as too many of our wildlife creatures did. There were unseasonably warm weeks in February and early March, followed by unseasonable freezes in late March and early April. Those late freezes were nicely spaced. The early ones killed all the fruit, the late one killed all the nuts. Not only were there no hazelnuts and pecans, there were no acorns.

Anyway, it’s the worry season. Who cares if the next President is an elderly man whose chief claim to fame is having survived a prisoner of war camp or a woman famed for manipulation and corruption or a black man whose idea of change is to increase the benefits of illegal aliens and welfare plantation slaves? I’m worried about real things. Will I be able to pick fresh fruit from my trees and enjoy fresh vegetables or will I have to buy the stuff in grocery stores imported from the Mexican state of California?

Stray Thoughts

By

William D. Dannenmaier

I may have been blaming House Speaker Pelosi, perhaps erroneously, for her manipulation of House rules preventing the continuation of the anti-terrorist act. I confess I wondered how many factories she and her husband owned in Muslim nations which might be bombed if she didn’t kill the ability of the government to eavesdrop on enemy terrorists telephoning their superiors in other countries. But Robert Novak (“Torts and Terrorism, February 18, Townhall.com) reports that, in a closed caucus, House Democrats voted with a four to one margin to have her proceed as she did. Persons who support their Democratic Representatives should take heed that their Representative helped make the next terrorist attack in the United States possible. The “Blue Dog Democrats,” of whom my representative is one, did not support her action.

On the positive side, reading the tabloid news while standing in line at Murphy’s Cee Bee grocery store, I found a reason to vote for Hillary if she obtains the Democratic nomination. The article said that she and Smiling Bill have an agreement that they will divorce if she loses the nomination, but remain married for appearances sake (which we all know is all it has been for years) if she becomes President. Think of it. Making her President could keep those two corrupt hellions tied to each other for four more years. Defeating her gives them freedom.

Smiling Bill has a public history of treating all women as disposable objects. That must reassure women who have voted for him in the past.

My bride is seriously unhappy with the House for another reason. She points out that they don’t have time to consider such issues as the invasion of the United States by twelve or fifteen million illegal Mexicans, protection of Islamic terrorists, the bankruptcy of Social Security, the defiance of Federal laws by various cities and churches and other issues, but they do have time to worry about baseball and then they take a week’s vacation. She says we have truant officers to pick up children who are truant from school to attend baseball games and we need truant officers for congress representatives more.

Finally, the last of the wood from the sugar maple that fell in the yard is gone. I have pecked at it for two months, supplying firewood to several families (none of whom, I sorrow to say, helped cut it). This past Friday, a friend from the cardiac club, Tommy Patrick, came and helped cut the final part of the trunk. He is a wood carver and, keeping both of our chain saws busy, we cut pieces to his desire. I let him load most of them into his truck although I helped with some of the larger ones. Then he returned on Saturday with his wife, Belinda, who had unloaded the truck when he got home. Fortunately, Stephen and Andrew were home and after Tommy and I sawed half way through the log from the one side, the four of us were able to roll it over and, sawing from the other side, cut it into two, reasonably manageable, lengths. We spent the remainder of the day cutting it up and Stephen semi-volunteered to load them in the truck as we cut. 

Belinda, who had been concerned about all of the lifting and had come to load the truck, spent a mutually happy visit with Sheila, their efforts being limited to supplying Tommy with glasses of water, me with coffee, and frowning as we lit our pipes during rests. Tommy mentioned, and I agreed, that we were fortunate that Mary Ann, who runs the cardiac club with a smile and a bull whip – I think she calls it the Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit, wasn’t around to see our pipes. During a recent workout, I suggested she throw out the stupid rowing machine and replace it with a hot tub and called for a vote. All working members present voted in favor, but Mary Ann said it wasn’t a democracy, to forget it.    

I will plant a shagbark hickory, which promises an easily cracked shell (unlike the pignut hickories of which I have plenty) and a tasty nut meat as a replacement tree. Not counting the oak trees which surround my yard, whose acorns are tasty only to squirrels, the yard currently contains four pecans (three young trees and one hundred foot giant in the backyard), three chestnut trees, two English walnuts, one black walnut and five hazelnut bushes. I told my bride that instead of the Dannenmaier house it will be the nut house. I won’t include Sheila’s reply. 

Cell Telephones

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Talking politics, as usual, at the “Cardiac Club,” the conversation somehow wandered off on to cell telephones. Roland said that the ubiquitous use of these telephones is both frightening, in traffic, and puzzling. He argued, I think correctly, that the only valuable commodity people have which is their own, to sell or use as they wish, is their time. 

There was a time when, if I saw erratic, dangerous, driving I assumed the driver was drunk: now I look for, and usually see, a person on a cell telephone. Twice in the past six months I have avoided accidents that would have been caused by other drivers. On both occasions that other driver was on her cell telephone. Roland’s other comment, that the only thing we humans have to dispose of as we wish is ou time, was forcibly brought home to me when Sheila and I did our grocery shopping following our hospital time. 

As usual, I went to get a cup of the free coffee Kroger’s grocery provides with the intention to sit, rest and sip it while Sheila shopped. Kroger’s also had some free snacks of angel food cake, so I took a piece of that and meandered a bit before going to sit down. 

Coffee and cake in hand I noticed a lady with a small girl, I would have guessed eight or nine years of age who, from their dress, appeared to be Mennonites. I said, “Good morning,” to the little girl and received a shy nod in reply. Then I asked if she had had a treat. When she said, “No,” I said, “Come with me.” As her grandmother watched I led her to the angel food bits and took out two pieces for her. As I handed them to her, she dropped one and stooped to pick it up. The father in me came out and I said, “Don’t pick it up. I’ll do that.”  I got a second piece for her, picked up the other for the trash and then wandered on, noticing a young woman pushing a shopping cart while talking on her cell phone with a small boy wandering behind her.  

Later, sitting at the old men’s table drinking coffee the young girl and her grandmother walked past. I receive the same shy smile and wave from her. 

Also while sitting there a girl – I thought – came up and began using the instant photograph machines. I asked her if they worked the same as the way my wife made pictures on the computer. I received a cool “yes,” to which I replied that I’d like to see how she did it. Slowly, she became friendlier, explaining the procedure to me. When she finished and started to leave, I said, “Wait a second, you’re not going to leave without showing me those pictures,” (a little boy had been in one). Not only did she come to the table with the pictures, but the nearby cashier came to look also. They were photos of two small boys – that girl was older than I had guessed. I commented that the little one looked like he had a bit of deviltry in him. She laughed and said he was full of mischief. By the time she left; she, the cashier and I were all on friendly terms and I knew a bit about her sons’ antics. 

Later, I saw the other young woman, still pushing her cart, still busy talking on her cell telephone the bored young boy still trailing behind her. I could only remember Roland’s comment about how much these cell phone users lost by giving up their time to idle conversation. I know I had a better time in that store than did that woman on her cell phone and I’d be willing to bet that the people I talked with – or to – enjoyed their time in the store more than she did also.   

Still later, leaving another store, I saw a young woman with a bassinet in a carrier which was loaded with other things. Being a sucker, as everyone knows, for babies, I asked “How old is the baby?” “Seven weeks.” We left the store together and her truck was parked a few spaces from my car. I asked if I could help and, following a moment’s hesitation she said, “If you could keep the cart from rolling it would help,” so, in a cold wind, I stood and held the cart while she loaded the infant into the truck. Then she came back and retrieved her groceries, leaving two large boxes in the cart. I said, “Let me get those for you, after a baby seven weeks ago you shouldn’t be lifting heavy objects.” She agreed and, with some difficulty, I got those two boxes in the back of her truck. As I walked away, I received a soft, “God bless you.”

I wondered as we drove home who enjoyed their shopping most, the young woman on the cell phone or me and the people with whom I spoke. Roland is right, using those cell telephones people are throwing away the only thing they truly own, their time. All of those people: in cars, hallways, stores, seemingly everywhere spending their precious time on cell phones while losing out on the beauty, the warmth and the pleasures of the world in which they are living.

Thank You

By

William D. Dannenmaier

In 1952 my mother wrote to me that my father was extremely depressed. At the time I was a 22 year old private drawing combat pay as a radioman and scout with the 15^th Infantry in Korea. She quoted him as saying that he was a complete failure in life, he wasn’t even a salesman: he was just a salesclerk at Sears. I wrote him the following letter, which my sister saved and my nephew found and mailed to me just recently. I’m proud of it, meant it and still mean it, every word. 

“Dear Pop:

In about four days one of those things known as birthdays will arrive for you. Though many have no reason to be happy on this day I think that you are one of the few who can be completely self-satisfied.

In sixty-one years of living you have been privileged to watch the transformation of the horse and buggy to the high powered automobile. You managed to survive not only the depths of a great depression but the equally dangerous periods of high prosperity with good health, honor and a wonderful spirit of giving, and that is something that few men can say.

Among your blessings – which are many – you certainly have one that stands out above all else – your wife. As a secondary factor you also have three children – all of whom you managed to put through college – a rare achievement! Now you certainly have their love and respect – that I know.

And, finally on this day, your birthday, you can look forward to many happy years with your grandchildren – Johnny, Ruth Ann and others that may join them in the years to come.

So Dad, I salute you with a happy birthday and the sure knowledge that there will be many more to come. 

Love, Bill”

My father was a man of honesty, integrity and conviction. An anti-Roosevelt, conservative, Protestant; I listened as he sat and argued politics and religion with men of different beliefs and status in life. His friends included Democrats; Roman Catholics, Jews and an atheist who believed in communism (small c) and Blacks and Whites. Included among them were a millionaire, several small businessmen, a street sweeper and an unemployed workman. All were equal at his table and all were his friends throughout his life. There are millions of men (and women) in our nation like my father, working at the humdrum jobs that life and fate have bequeathed to them who probably, as they approach the ends of their lives, think of themselves as Dad did. 

They are wrong. They are more important to our nation than any Hollywood notable, politician or philanthropist. Such men provide the strength and future of democracies. Were it not for them, there would be no United States.

The letter was wrong in only one place. My father died three months after I returned home. His best friend, Walter Bibbs, the Black unofficial “boss” of the Sears warehouse, told me at Dad’s funeral that Dad came to the warehouse every day at lunch and prayed that I return, uninjured and alive. Walter said his prayer was simple, “Dear God, let him come back and take me in his place.”

So, thank you Dad, have a happy birthday, and thank you God for giving me such a father. 

Stray Thoughts

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Congress and President Bush are united in providing “rebates” of five hundred or so dollars to the population.  This dole should arrive in mailboxes shortly before the elections.  It reminds me of how Roman emperors, following the fall of the Republic would throw coins to the peasants, a practice followed in medieval times by the nobility of various European nations on special occasions.  So our “nobility” are planning on throwing pennies to the people, pennies that serious economists, based on historical evidence, claim will only hinder economic progress, not help it.  Still, people will enjoy the pennies, and the thoughtless will praise the givers.  Who will pay for the pennies?

Driving to the Cardiac Club, the atmosphere changed suddenly.  I commented to Sheila that a black and white kitty had either been run over or had gotten angry at some passing car.  Ruminating on, I said that we were fortunate in this country that skunks were not better organized.  If they were to all get together along the sides of major highways and then spray simultaneously, they could stop traffic and seriously upset the economy.  The only solution would be if we could get members of Congress, Representatives and Senators alike, to line the opposite sides of the highways.  The skunks would leave.  There are some things even they cannot stand.  They are too intelligent, unlike too many voters.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who likes the limelight, must be feeling neglected.  Not an expert on climate and having never lived in “tornado alley” he has proclaimed that “global warming” is the reason for the recent tornados.  Probably he is right, but consider the alternative.  If there were no “global warming” earth would be like Pluto – frozen.  There would be no life.  Thank you God, for global warming.

I read where a member of the “Jena 6” has been arrested for beating up another student at the high school to which he was transferred.  At six foot six inches and nineteen years of age, I assume the other student was smaller and younger.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will probably lead a parade to protest the arrest of this “innocent,” youth and he will be featured on the “Black Awards” night, unless, of course, the other student was black.

Black on white crime appears acceptable, even worth praise, never is it a “hate” crime under Federal law.  Living in the Boston area, the news one day was that a gang of young black men ran through the one subway train beating up all whites.  But the government immediately insisted it was not a racist hate crime.  When a group of young black men in Knoxville kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed a young white couple walking home from the library, it was not a race crime.  When a group of athletes at Duke were falsely accused of rape, students at a nearby black college argued they deserved to be punished anyway because of slavery.  When is the liberal media going to recognize that the worst racism, the most widespread racism, in this country is black racism, that the prevalent black racism actually does more harm to the black population than it does to all others, as blacks such as Bill Cosby, Star Parker, Dr. Williams and Dr. Sowell insist.

I continue to chip away at the tree that came down in the front yard, narrowly missing the house.  I’m now down to the last log.  Out of curiosity, I measured it the other day.  At the stump, it is 25 inches in diameter, at the other end, where it branched out; it is 36 inches in diameter.  It takes some planning, with a sixteen inch chain saw, to cut off pieces.  Fortunately a friend, Tommy, at the “Cardiac Club” told me how to do it. 

Working on it the other day, I thought of all the people who have “volunteered” to help in exchange for the firewood.  I have offered it to six people, five of whom said they wanted some.  Only three have shown up, and all three took the pieces I had already cut into firewood, none returned to help cut and split or even for more wood.  I don’t really mind the one lady.  She lives alone and is dependent on firewood for heat.  I am now taking her the split firewood. 

All of those I offered it to are considerably younger than I and healthier.  Five of the six would be described, at best, as poor, perhaps poverty stricken.  It occurred to me that the difference between poverty and comfortably poor is often one of planning.  The ones who did not return for more firewood will need more for next year, but why plan ahead?  They took enough for their needs – for now.  Instead of thinking ahead, they only took for the immediate.  They will be desperate again next winter. 

Liars

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Probably the funniest thing I have read in recent days was an article on the Drudge Report (January 26, 2008) that Senator Kerry accused Clinton (the ex-President not the aspiring one) for “abusing the truth.”  Has anyone “abused the truth” more than Kerry with his three Purple Hearts – without a night in the hospital – and his throwing of “his medals” over the fence in an anti-Vietnam demonstration not to mention the speeches by “veterans” he assembled in Detroit?

I can “get along” with most people. I mean most people, not all.  Persons with whom I’ve worked and socialized and whom I have enjoyed knowing have ranged from two star generals and an assistant to the Secretary of Defense to casual laborers who work only enough to pay for their alcohol and drugs.  Most people have virtues and most have some flaws.  That’s all right.  So do I.  But the one person that I cannot stand is the liar.  I don’t wish to have anything to do with liars if I can avoid it.  The simple truth is that liars lie.  There is no way of knowing if they are lying to you or telling the truth on any specific occasion.  Why don’t people understand that?

Listening to a liar is similar to walking on the muskeg in northern Alberta in the fall.  Not quite frozen, not safely frozen, you are never certain when you are going to sink up to your knees into a foot or more of mud and water. 

Similarly, one never knows when a liar is lying.  No red light shows on his forehead to warn the listener. 

During my years as a required participant/observer at faculty meetings and, later, at meetings held by the military for one reason or another, usually – considering my presence – to discuss research plans and results, I have seen numerous well-intentioned, competent and honest men and women.  I’ve also seen incompetents and liars.  Incompetents are not a problem, not really.  People are quick to recognize a person who is not competent at some task or other and learn not to expect much from them.  Liars are a different matter.  Many liars are amazingly competent at lying.  That is why, once you know a person is a liar, you must tread carefully in your acceptance of anything else they say. 

The amazing thing to me, one at all levels and over all my years of attending such shows, beginning as a twenty-one year old, is the fact that people will listen to, accept and consider seriously statements by people whom they know to lie. 

I am not a liar.  I never have been.  I used to say it was because I turn red and stammer when I try to lie.  There may be some truth in that, but there is also truth in the fact that I don’t believe in lying.  My reason is very simple, I understood it the first time I heard it.  Every time a person tells a lie to someone, he builds a wall between the himself and the person or persons to whom he is lying.  That lie must not be discovered, so that little wall is in place.  Worse yet, the liar must remember the lie and keep the story straight on future occasions.  Every new lie he tells to that person increases that wall and increases the problem of remembering.  Telling the truth does not build such walls.

O. Hobart Mowrer, a professor, practicing clinical psychologist and twice president of the American Psychological Association once told me that he considered lying the most destructive force in human relationships.    

This is the problem I have with the Clintons – both of them.  There have been too many “abuses of the truth.”  I can’t trust anything they say.  Neither can anyone else.

There is one thing that I should point out.  Lies about the number and size of fish a fisherman catches are not lies, mere mild muddles of memory. 

Stray Thoughts

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Jim, a friend from the Cardiac Club, and I occasionally discuss politics.  The other day he said that he hoped God would forgive him, two of his children have become Republicans (Jim is a member of the county Democratic committee).  I told him that evil evens out, two of mine have become Democrats.   In a recent discussion, we agreed that our personal horrors of the coming Presidential campaign would be to have Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee and Rudy Guiliani the Republican candidate.  His favorite ticket, if I recall correctly, would be Hucklebee for President and Obama for Vice-President – an impossible combination, but not a bad ticket.

It is the end of 2007 and everyone is giving awards.  The award for discrimination should go to Southwest Airlines.  My friend Luke’s grandfather died unexpectedly and Luke needed to get from Nashville to Wichita as quickly as possible.  Also, as is true of many in this area, money was in short supply.  Luke called Southwest Airlines, explained his situation and asked if there were any reduced cost options available to him.  The Southwest Airlines representative asked, “Are you a white male between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five?”  When Luke replied, “Yes.” She said, “I’m sorry, we have nothing for you.”  How many businesses can exhibit racial, sexual and age discrimination in two sentences?  Southwest wins my award for discrimination. 

This morning in the sermon, Pastor Roddy mentioned the joy of children at Christmas.  My experience – eight children – is that young children frequently have more fun playing with the wrappings and the boxes than with the encased toys.  It reminds me of the news media and their fascination with the glitter and wrappings of actors and politicians:  they report the wrappings, little of the substance.  Does that mean they consider listeners and readers to have the intelligence and interests of three and four year old children or do they have the intelligence and interests of three and four year olds?

Some people, mostly news people, are concerned about the writers’ strike in Hollywood.  I don’t understand why, the shows are no worse now than they are when the writers are producing their scripts.  Discussing it in the car, I suggested that if producers are really desperate they should go to a high school and hire students who have passed English.  My son Stephen argued that junior high students could do as well, but I don’t believe that.  Junior high students don’t know as many obscene words or have sufficiently vulgar thoughts to write for “family” movies or television.

A doctor, Samuel Wood, claims to have cloned himself to the point of developing an embryo.  On television he said it was fascinating to see himself at that stage of development.  The claim is that if these clones are implanted in a woman’s womb, they would develop into living children.  Consider the horror of this.  Can you imagine fifteen or twenty Hillary Clintons running for President?  Of course only the ego-centric would do this, but there are plenty of these in California and Washington D. C.  Of course there is a downside.  Consider a sixty-five year old who had cloned himself ten years earlier.  Would he be eligible for benefits?  After all he is only ten years old in another chassis.   

Recently, I read a fascinating article by Camille Paglia, (Hillary Without Tears, salon.com., January 10, 2008).  The following are quotes. 

“Hillary’s willingness to tolerate Bill’s compulsive philandering is a function of her general contempt for men.  She distrusts them and feels morally superior to them…which she identifies with her near-messianic personal ambition.  It’s no coincidence that Hillary’s staff consists mostly of adoring women, with nerdy or geeky guys…I remain concerned about her future conduct of high-level diplomacy.  Contemptuous condescension seems to be Hillary’s default mode with any male who criticizes her or stands in her way…She is a brittle, relentless manipulator with few stable core values who shuffles through useful personalities like a card shark…Forget all her little gold crosses:  Hillary’s real god is political expediency… I will vote for Hillary is she is the nominee of my party because I want Democrats appointed to the Cabinet and the Supreme Court.” 

Consider this.  Ms Paglia, a well known and influential Democrat, will vote for a person who she believes despises men, will be unable to work at an international level and whose only dependable interest is herself against ANY other candidate for the Presidency.  She would vote for and “trust” a person of whom she has such opinions to lead our nation for four years.  It makes me wonder if Ms Paglia, and the other leading Democrats of whom she is a member, are more interested in the welfare of the United States and its citizens or of the strong, elitist, group leading the Democratic Party. 

    This morning, I proudly announced to by bride that I was successfully buttoned and zippered.  In response to her muted applause, I told her, “Growing older is a day by day achievement.”

              Occasionally, Sheila and I have disagreements.  At present, we are on a campaign to lose weight.  She does well with less food in her stomach, but I get hungry, so I fill a side plate with vegetables.  She calls them relishes.  Today, I pointed out to her that beets are not relish, even if pickled they are still vegetables, similarly cabbage is not a relish, even if cured with red pepper, cucumbers are not relishes ...  At that point she interrupted me and proclaimed, “When cucumbers become pickles, they are relishes.  So are the others.”  I replied, “They are still vegetables, relishes are like ‘I relish you.”  “You are supposed to.”  “Or maybe the word was ‘ravish.’”  “That too,” she replied.

Since going on my enforced diet, my breakfast three mornings a week consists of one soft-boiled egg (unless I sneak in a piece of buttered, jellied toast or two.)  I like soft-boiled eggs.  The white should be hard, there should be a minuscule hard layer of yellow around the yoke and the remainder of the yoke should be runny – to add flavor to the white.  This morning the egg was perfect.  Normally it isn’t: sometimes the white runs out when the egg is cut, more often the yellow resembles a new form of concrete.  My bride watched me open the egg and noticed its perfection.  “You are really enjoying that, aren’t you?” she asked and continued, “You may think the usual variety I provide you is an accident.  It isn’t.  If I provided perfect eggs every time, you would soon be bored.  You would never get pleasure in breakfast. This way, I keep your morning one of anticipation and provide real pleasure every so often.  This is part of being a thoughtful and loving wife.  You are a very lucky man.”

    I pointed out to my bride that when morning came she fed the dogs first, the cats second, the fish third and the stray cat that has taken up residence on our front porch fourth, then me.  When I asked if there were any significance to this she replied, “They complain, you don’t, but if it makes you feel any better, I feed you before I water the plants.”

    An article in Fox news reported that scientists have noted an increase in allergies among children raised in current pristine environments, noting that farm children have fewer allergies than children from less germ and bacteria laden environments.  When I asked Sheila if she had read the article, she hadn’t, and when I briefed it to her, her immediate response was, “What a good mother I’ve been!”  (In a recent dream, dust bunnies were multiplying and surrounding her.)

    Do you know why so many men are hard of hearing?  It is God’s gift to husbands.

    Well, it’s income tax time again.  As usual, I fear I shall be going to prison after I submit it.  After all, it is much simpler for the IRS to catch and convict an old man making out his own return of a five dollar mistake than it is to catch or convict a billionaire of a million dollar “oversight” by this team of professional accountants.

 
Anyway, despite my predictament as an abused husband, a member of the multitude of abused husbands, I wish a Happy New Year to all, even wives.

Tyranny or Democracy?

By

William D. Dannenmaier

On Fox Sunday morning (November 24), one of the two Democrats on the panel, Juan Williams, argued that the United States had failed in Iraq and should leave: quit, retreat, surrender – what ever you wish to call it.  His point was that the national leadership of Iraq was in shambles.  He quoted Senator Reid (Nevada) on the matter. 

Senator Reid proclaims “democracy” a failure in Iraq because of the weakness of the central leadership.  He wants the United States to leave. 

It is natural for Senator Reid to approve of strong central “leadership.”  He enjoys such a position.  So does his family.  If I recall correctly, his two sons and his son-in-law have highly lucrative jobs with or related to the Federal government.  I don’t know how many others of his relatives, including, perhaps, his wife, enjoy the backwash of his power at the public expense.  House Speaker Pelosi thought her family should similarly profit from her position, at least she wanted taxpayer supplied free transportation for her family, even though as a multi-millionaire she can afford airline tickets much more easily than most of the people she is supposed to represent. 

If self glorification and enrichment, coupled with a reckless disregard of the rights and wishes of working citizens demonstrates the failure of democracy in Iraq, Mr. Williams should consider the behavior and leadership of our Democratic congress, beginning with Senator Reid and House Speaker Pelosi.

Democracies do not arise from the power of central leadership.  Autocracies do.  Powerful leaders established kingdoms by subduing or killing all who opposed them.  Dictators arise similarly.  There are recent reports that the revolutionary guard of Iran killed and threw out of college windows the bodies of students who questioned the rule of the Mullahs.  Control of a nation by a powerful leader and his sycophants has always led to disaster for the people.  That was true of the emperors, kings and queens of history just as in modern times Hitler, Stalin and Mao were able to overthrow fledgling democracies by killing millions and subduing the survivors.  Currently, Putin in Russia and the Mullahs of Iran are moving in the same direction.  The Saudi family is already there.

Democracies arise from the people.  While tribal groups, particularly in ancient Greece and the Scandinavian nations, had a form of democracy, true democracy, the power of the people to govern themselves for their common good, arose with the Protestant Reformation, which probably started with the invention of the printing press and the publication of the Bible into languages common to the peoples of different nations.  The belief in Christianity and the ability to read the Bible gave the working people the belief that all were equal before God and that all should have political equality, a belief kings and their anointed nobility despised and fought.

Democracy did not come easily.  Bloody wars were fought to achieve it.  Kings surrendered their powers only reluctantly.  In England, there were numerous uprisings following the emergence of Protestantism before rise of Cromwell.  A devout Puritan and fervent believer in the rights of the people, Cromwell had unparalleled military success.   Unlike aristocratic leaders who gathered serfs and unemployed in their armies, he did not accept everyone into his army.  Initially leading troops composed of Puritans, he came to accept any “Godly” people, even including Presbyterians, Baptists and Roman Catholics.   Installed as leader by parliament, he defeated all he met with these “Godly” farmers and working men.  When kings were returned to the throne following his death, they never again enjoyed the power of previous kings. 

I sometimes wonder what the history of England would have been had Charles I, whom parliament eventually beheaded, had had Cromwell’s genius and faith in people who believed in God.

The United States is the only nation that began as a democracy.  Geography provided this opportunity.  England permitted dissidents to migrate to the new land and sent convicts there expecting them to die on the frontier.  Living in a new, dangerous and difficult, land; these settlers governed themselves in their isolated settlements for almost two hundred years.  By the time their prosperity received the attention of the then King of England, it was too late for him to enforce his “right to rule.”  Still, it took eight years of warfare for the colonists to establish their independence.  When that occurred the true greatness of George Washington appeared.  Offered the opportunity to assume a crown and become king, he rejected it, solidifying the government we still enjoy.

Do the citizens of the United States still have to fear the possible rise of tyranny?  I believe the answer is yes.  Seventy percent of the people despise abortion, but the federal government – their(?) congress – ignores their wishes.  A majority want our borders secured and our common language maintained, but both the Democratic congress and the President ignore those priorities, preferring to attempt to secure the borders of Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the Iraqi people secure control of their own leadership, they will control their own borders just as, if we, the citizens of the United States, are able to establish a federal leadership which faithfully represents us, Congress and the President will secure our borders.

A relatively small group of extremely wealthy individuals, supported by a mass of welfare recipients, social workers (who are the overlords of the welfare fiefdoms) and the powerful union bosses, who include teachers and government workers unions, use their wealth to control our politics.  The leaders they help elect promise much, but deliver mostly to themselves.  If this growing power of federalism continues to increase, we have good reason to fear the rise of totalitarianism in the United States.