Mood:  on fire

The Georgia Legislature passed an ordinance in the early 1980's noting that an increase in the State Sales Tax added to the burden upon the poor.  The very regressive nature of a Sales Tax means that even an increase of a mere penny adds up to something akin to $26 for an individual making less than $20,000 annually.  The ordinance afforded a tax cut of $26 to those Georgia residents whose annual income did not exceed $20,000.  The Georgia Legislature in 2010 has eliminated that provision.  The reasoning, apparently, is that the continuing economic slowdown has forced the State to cut wherever possible in order to meet its constitutional mandate to balance the budget.

The Georgia Legislature in 2010 increased the Capital Gains Exclusion, and increased tax breaks for wealthy retirees who are residents of the State of Georgia.  For sure, these changes encourage those with resources available to spend their "golden years" in Georgia, and to continue investing.  These tax breaks are costly however, and in order to afford them, the Georgia State Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, reasoned that adding to the burden of those at or below any definition of the poverty level is a worthwhile strategy.

The difference between these legislative decisions turns on the fact that it was  Democrats who served as Governor and as the majority in the Legislature at that time.  Today, it is Republicans in the majority.

Perhaps it is true that Democrats sometimes go too far in their generosity and do not exercise adequate control on the expenditure of hard-earned tax dollars.  There are beaucoup examples which generate the opposition to fight tooth-and-nail against frivolous programs, and those whose objectives they deem not to be clearly-defined.  However, the elimination of a clear and distinct benefit to the impoverished goes beyond the pale.  $26, it seems to Frodo, who is admittedly not an expert in this field, would probably constitute one bag of groceries during the course of a year.

Frodo is trying very hard to lower the level of the discourse, as President Obama urges us all to do.  Taking a bag of groceries away from somebody who can ill afford it is, however, much more than Frodo can accept.  To all of his Republican friends in the State of Georgia, and especially to those whom you have elected to serve our State, Frodo simply avers that you suck.   

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 11:14 AM EDT

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Mood:  don't ask

Frodo is not exactly sure when, and from whose lips, he first heard someone say that if one could simply remove everything that Man had done, then the World would again be perfect.  Frodo has spent a lifetime struggling against that assertion, and just when he thinks that he has documented evidence to the contrary, a group of clucks from Halliburton, or British Petroleum, or the State of Louisiana displace a hundred million gallons of fossilized carbon by-product upon the surface of our small blue planet, and that which is good, dies.

A dozen years ago, Frodo and Sam cruised from the Port of Orleans, down the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico in order to visit selected ports of call in the Western Caribbean.  As they returned to native waters, Frodo stood  the better part of the night-time hours staring, aghast, at the beauty of the oil rigs which lit the skies with multi-colored brightness.  Like the trees of Christmas, the blues and the greens reflected off the orange and pink of the sunset and the rise that followed.  Frodo recalled stories of the improved fishing around the oil rigs, and he marvelled at the capacity of his ship's captain to navigate through the channels marked by these surface portions of structures standing more than three miles above the bottom of the ocean floor.  Frodo convinced himself that Man had taken that which was Nature"s own and used it, properly, for the good of all.

Frodo began to question his assessment when he heard the unwise preaching to the unknowing, and phrases like "drill baby, drill" resonated amidst the clapping and the cheers.  Was it not true, in spite of the best of governmental engineering, that a whole city was destroyed by the inability of Man to combat Nature's kinetic energies?  Has it not happened, time after time, that greed has entered into the most formidable of circumstances resulting in disasterous results?

What lies before our shores would never have been there if Man had not, a mere century ago, developed the internal-combustion engine.  Had Man satisfied himself with the speed of the wind or the force of falling waters, then he would never have needed to remove that which Nature had spent millions of years hiding from him.

If only Man had left things as he found them.   The price he pays will grow each and every day, as the magnitude of the disaster attacks his home, his sustenance, and his future.  All it takes is a match, in the wrong place, at the right time, whose ignition answers the promise of that which follows the Great Flood.

Frodo wil, take each day as it comes, and will do his part to ease the suffering which he has helped to create.   

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 9:50 PM EDT

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Mood:  surprised

Frodo is not usually in the habit of accepting something as an absolute absent proof or anecdotal observation.  He doubted, for example, that the commode did indeed swirl backwards once one crosses the Equator.  Frodo learned the other day that he shared a minority opinion with a Justice of the Supreme Court, when the vote totaled 8-1.  What truly astounded him was that anyone could even allege that Frodo would agree with this character on anything.

The High Court struck down a Bush Era ban on the production of videos in which dog-fighting was exhibited as entertainment.  The appeal, which is defined as a "sexual fetish," results in graphic if not horrifying presentations of unimaginable cruelty.  Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority (why does that not surprise Frodo?), argued that the law went too far in restricting free speech. 

Frodo was surprised to learn that it was not Justice Sotomajor, nor Justice Ginsberg, nor even the retiring John Paul Stevens, who stated in dissent that the harm that animals suffer in dogfights was enough to sustain the law that the Court had decided to overturn.  It was Alito.

Frodo has long believed that Samuel Alito probably wears a brown shirt in his chambers, and that the music piped into the adjacent hallways is that of Wagner.  Frodo does not even like the way this Visigoth even combs his hair.  It has been Frodo's opinion that Samuel Alito, himself, fulfills the definition of obscenity, in that he has no redeeming social value.

Until now, that is.

Alito is a dog owner.  Frodo does not know anything about Alito's dog(s), but he recognizes that he/she/they are pretty lucky to have someone who cares about them so much, and is so very wise.  It is obviously a rare gift.

Frodo and Sam will be quiet for a few days, as they restrict Fiona and Mick, the Wonder Dog, to Camp Kennel.  Sydney and Mr. Beau Neau McKitty will receive daily care-visits from Ms. Ellyn.  Frodo and Sam will walk some southern sand, and visit with people they have never met.  Frodo, for one, looks forward to transit through the town that spawned she who wrote "A Good Man is Hard to Find."  He hopes to sit at a table and listen to the crooning of Johnny Mercer creations by the one known as the Lady Chablis.  Together the Hobbits may even shuffle together, as they did, forty years ago.

If you see some barefooted Hobbits on the stoop of a country store, munching on a Moon Pie, stop and visit a spell.

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 11:03 PM EDT

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Mood:  sharp

Frodo has, for a number of reasons, purposefully avoided predictions herein.  Even when he was completely confident that Barack Obama would be elected President of the Newnited States, he did not put that into words.  His academic training included an appreciation for the public moods that alter with the tide, the coming of Spring, fictitious assaults on naval vessels, and political leaders sleeping in at the local Motel 6.   Supporting himself in graduate school, Frodo saw first-hand that asking direct questions, under pressure, were deeper in feeling than theoretical castings.  It is, for example, better "science" to say, the day before an election, that one is going to vote for Candidate A than it is for a tax-paying voter to say, in February, that "taxes are too high."  

The Sleaze Bag Partyers have been an uninteresting phenomena in the political off-season.  The scientific measurement of just who these adherents happen to be is just becoming evident, as their numbers and influence begin to wane.  Although the actual nadir is speculative at this point, it is clear to Frodo that the oblivion they so richly deserve is in sight.  The puny attendance at sponsored demonstrations on the date of the filing deadline for income taxes is the objective demonstration of the demise of the latest wing of the "American Independent Party" (remember them?)

George Wallace, John Anderson, Ross Perot, and even Teddy Roosevelt (the Bull Moose Party) are all among the names we can associate, dear reader, with the "silent majority" or any of the other terms that have been amalgamated with the statistical offal which has been a presence among the American electorate.  Given that the almost 20% of the present electorate that identifies themselves with the Sleaze Bags, it is not surprising that more than 90% are opposed to Barack Obama.  Two-thirds watch Faux News, 40% are retirees, almost 70% normally identify themselves as Republican, and almost half are Southerners.  As Frodo has said before, we're talking about fat white guys who are facing life's end with little or no accomplishments.  That, in Frodo's opinion, is why you see so many in military-type-garb, because they never did anything else.

The Sleaze Bag Party is a production of Dick Armey, a fat white guy with no accomplishments himself, building on the Jim DeMint (also white, but dumber than he is fat) assertion that Barack Obama would face "Waterloo", assuming there was an Army to confront him.  The drafting of the "American Independent Party" into the Republican ranks was merely a media-applied effort to aver that the latest national election was uncharacteristic of the national mood.  In the verbiage of the Incomparable Moron, it was the "stragedy" of the Republicants to counter the populism of an enlightened leader.

Frodo counsels good friends to expect setbacks in the off-year elections.  It is the prevailing pattern, and it will happen, although Frodo feels strongly that Charlie Crawford and others are far from accurate in their prognostications. 

All of what Frodo has to say in this diatribe is based on the assumption that the Iranians do not have any ships in the Gulf of Tonkin.  Do not expect Frodo to offer additional instances of prediction within the next 940 postings.  He did so in this instance simply because Sam has been driving him crazy moaning about how bad things might become. 

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 12:38 PM EDT

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Mood:  spacey

When Frodo was among the smallest of Hobbits, his father built him a go-kart.  It had a 5 HP engine, oversized tires, and the only thing that kept it from flying was an absence of wings.  That realization caused Frodo's father to surreptitiously add a "governor" which resulted in a severe drop in the necessary speed of 7 miles per second in order to achieve earth orbit  Frodo finally figured out what had taken place without his knowledge, and has been resentful of anything reminding him of the mechanical device which ended his fun (albeit probably allowing him to achieve his twelfth birthday).

The Governor of the State of Georgia is a politician who would sell his wife into slavery in order to get votes on election day.  The complete absence of competence in his Administration defiles the ideals of self-government.  What bothers Frodo is that this nincompoop is merely the tip of the iceberg.  Let's take a seccond to survey the landscape of those who wear the mantel of "Governor" in our great land.

Rick Perry talks about secession.  Although Frodo would support the disappearance of the plague that is Texas, he finds it hard to believe that those who have served our nation in battle would feel that their sacrifices had been justified when their home state suddenly announces that it is no longer part of the US of A.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has compiled a budget deficit so enormous that Californians actually look, longingly, back at Gray Davis (that was his name, wasn't it?).

Whoever happens to be Governor of New York, and pardon Frodo for being a tad confused, is in bed with somebody else's wife as we speak (anybody want to bet against that statement given Spitzer and Patterson?).

South Carolina.  Enough said.

Virginia, however, "the Mother of Presidents" and "Virginia is for Lovers" notwithstanding, has reached the apogee of gubernatorial stupidity in rocket record time.  After assaulting the employment rights of those who happen to be gay or homosexual and suffer as employees of the Old Dominion, Bob McDonnell of the wind-dried tonsorial perfection, has entered the land of those who were against it before they were for it.  After declaring that "Confederate History" required a level of support equivalent to "Black History," but that neither required reference to the other, the "Governor" also decided, or seemed to be deciding, that those released from prison should submit an "essay" before winning back the right to vote.

Somehow, that struck some as somewhat similar to a "literacy test."  When this oversight was noted by the press, McDonnell announced that the "policy" had not yet been implemented, and was still deep in the incubation process.  Then the letters started arriving at the last-known-addresses of the thousands of former felons.

Frodo has pre-drafted his own essay.  Let's just say that "where the Sun don't shine" is a descriptive phrase that merits specific inclusion. 

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 10:33 PM EDT

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Mood:  caffeinated

Frodo has a pretty severe number of backlogs on his agenda.  Work, from work carries over into the amount of time available for something just a tad more creative, like words assembled and catalogued into phrases and clauses.  Work, from the simultaneous bloom of everything from dogwood to azalea, and back again, carries over into the starting time for the gallant Braves and their sojourn to the earthquake prone regions of the Pacific coastline.  Work, from the needs and wants of Bilbo, who turns 92 this Saturday, just two days after the anniversary of the death of Frodo's father, presents an emotional challenge which oft finds Frodo displeased with his own self.  Work, from apparently cavalier assignments assisting the able Samwise, keeps Frodo from his favorite analyses of the day's events, in print or via satellite.

But there is one piece of pretty neat news which has caught the eye of the Hobbits.  The BRISTOL HERALD-COURIER, printed in Bristol Virginia/Tennessee (pick one, since the damn town sits right on the line between the states), has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize.  That represents one-half of the Pulitzers won this year by the NEW YORK TIMES, and one-fourth of those garnered by the WASHINGTON POST.  This little newspaper has a staff of seven people.  One of those seven, a Mr. Daniel Gilbert, performed a computer analysis that tracked the scandalous flow of tens of millions of dollars in gas royalties away from the people who populate one of the poorest regions in Virginia (this is, after all, coal country).

Put that in your FACEBOOK and TWEETER.  Frodo, much to his chagrin, will have to go on-line to track the full story, when he would prefer to thumb through the pages and contemplate the presence of ink on his fingers.

That's where ink belongs, doesn't it friend Merry? (For those unaware, friend Merry shared in a similar award when employed by the JACKSON CLARION-LEDGER).

These tidbits of information were made available this evening by the presence of an "off-day" in the Major League Schedule.  Frodo returns his attention to San Diego on the morrow.

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 10:03 PM EDT

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Mood:  cheeky

"Next in line, please."

"Yes, I'd like to purchase a ticket, if you please."

"Welcome to the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans and Red Neck Airlines.  I am your ticket agent Frodo Baggins, and I'll be glad to help you.  What is your destination?"

"Moscow."

"Idaho?"

"No, Russia."

"Will you be traveling alone?"

"No, the ticket is for my daughter."

"I see, and what are the desired departure and return dates?"

"Actually, it is just a one-way ticket, no return, and to leave on the first available flight."

"Okay, and will your daughter require any special services either here or in Moscow?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, is she a minor, and will anyone be meeting her in Moscow?"

"She is a minor, and she does have special needs?"

"Madam, are you suggesting that this is a special needs child, traveling alone from New Orleans to Moscow?  I'm afraid we can't assume that level of responsibility absent the presence of an adult?"

"Well. what about Torrey Hanson?"

"Who?"

"The mother who returned her adopted child to an orphanage in Russia."

"M'am, common sense would dictate that a special needs child requires constant parental care.  Just because some other airline allowed the transport of an unattended child does not infer that your request is even worthy of consideration."

"Well, I can arrange for her father to meet her at the airport in Moscow."

"I still don't think it is something we could do."

"Her father is Vladimir Putin."

"THE Vladimir Putin?"

"Yes, we met while I was looking at Russia from my house in Alaska."

"I say, you do look familiar."

"Well, let me ask, would you sell me a ticket for an adult traveling alone, who had special needs?"

"Yes M'am, I think we could arrange that with proper instructions and preparation."

"Great.  Book me a one-way ticket for one, on the earliest flight."

"Okay, and what is the traveler's name?"

"Todd."

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 10:05 AM EDT

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Mood:  celebratory

The Major League Baseball Season opens (in Atlanta) on Monday; the College Basketball Season ends (everywhere) that evening.  Beside the fact that this convenient overlap means that Frodo can continue his string of never having watched a single reality TV show episode (which he fully intends to continue ad infinitum), the glorious weather nationwide (except in the State of Washington where it is presently snowing) signals a boundless hope for the future in the mind of the Hobbit. 

The Hobbit has been in a state of euphoria ever since he caught sight of a poster held aloft in front of a TV camera just before the beginning of last night's semi-final NCAA match-up between Duke and West Virginia.  It should be noted that a Duke player named Scheyer scored 23 points to lead perennial powerhouse Duke into the final game on Monday, against Butler University (see "Hoosiers" starring Gene Hackman).  The poster read:  "HOBBITS LOVE THEIR SCHEYER."

Indeed they do.

There is hope for all of those with a sense of humor, and heads large enough to hold their dreams.

Duke by 15.

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 11:28 AM EDT

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Mood:  irritated

"Oyez, order in the Court, the Honorable Frodo Baggins presiding."

"May we have the first case please?"

"Yes, your Honor, the Court calls those involved in 'Flowers v. Department of Education'."

"Yes your Honor, I am Gloria Alldreadlocks representing Mr. Pussycat Flowers who is charging the Department of Education with failure to identify prurient behavior in purported educational materials which had an extreme negative impact on my client's development into adulthood, and resulted in the subsequent deviant behavior which threatens his livelihood to the tune of $15 Billion annually."

"Excuse me?"

"Your Honor?"

"Did I just hear you say something like the school books that your client used during his pre-adolescence contained pornographic materials which turned him into a sex addict?"

"Simply put, that is true your Honor."

"And what are the materials in question, if I may be so bold?"

"We are specifically addressing the reading materials now known as 'The Adventures of Dick and Jane'."

"Dick and Jane?  You mean the boy and the girl who had a dog named Spot, I believe?"

"The same, your Honor."

"Mr. Holder, are you prepared to defend the Department of Education?"

"As much as I can be, your Honor?"

"Proceed Ms. Alldreadlocks."

"Thank you, your Honor.  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client, Mr. Pussycat Flowers is a celebrity who has been unduly harmed by the basically obscene materials used to first teach him to read.  His sexual tastes and appetite were shaped by the disgusting aspects of these schoolbooks. . ."

"Excuse me, Ms. Alldreadlocks."

"Yes, your Honor?"

"Could you, in the interests of time, clarify for me to what exactly do you refer?  Could you, for example, read a few lines of that which you speak?"

"Yes, your Honor.  What follows is exact language taken from various of the materials selected at random:"

"See Dick come."

"Watch Spot watch Dick and Jane come"

"Come Jane."

"Dick and Jane like to play with Spot."

"See Spot jump."

"Would you like me to continue, your Honor?"

"I think that will be enough for now, Ms. Alldreadlocks.  May I ask, did Mr. Flowers receive his elementary education in Texas?"

"Are you asking whether or not the Texas State Textbook Review Board had involvement in the selection of these materials, your Honor?"

"Ms. Alldreadlocks, I truly thought I had seen everything, so I'm just trying to determine if there are even greater instances of lunacy out there then that which you purport to represent."

"Your Honor, I object. . ."

"I'm sure you do.  Ms. Alldreadlocks, as I dismiss these proceedings let me suggest that you never again come (pardon the expression) before this Court with that hair-do.  Short of that mophead Leslie Stahl, you have the ugliest head of hair I have ever seen."

"Mr. Flowers, get a life, and a job!"

"Case dismissed."

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 10:27 AM EDT

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Mood:  smelly

Tom Bombadil is a very good neighbor, despite his attractive front lawn.  Several years ago, he noted that Frodo had invested heavily in something called zoysia (a form of grass that one can walk upon, but not smoke).  Thanks to the generosity of Frodo, the small plugs and pieces transplanted into Tom's yard have become the envy of the Shire.  Frodo, erroneously it seems, planted several trees and bushes amongst his new lawn, failing thereby to realize that these additions would grow and add shade to a lawn that thrives on full sun.  Tom, the freeloader, took note and made no additions to his lawn.

For several years, Frodo has silently resented Tom's beautiful lawn and found instances to add stray locusts and grasshoppers into the bounteous shade of aquamarine that shimmers all summer.  Despite the chicanery, the situation has worsened year-by-year as Frodo's lawn thins and Tom's makes every edition of "Gardens of the Shire."

Ah, but the end of a gruesome winter bodes well for the Hobbit.  While Tom locked himself in his igloo, Frodo prowled the aisles of Home Depot in search of a solution to his contining embarrassment.  With little free time on his hands, Frodo took advantage of the one day of the entire winter in which it neither rained, snowed, or allowed the wind to begale itself.  Spreading an overly generous amount of "Weed n' Feed," Frodo now sports a lawn which is greening up nicely, and which is weed-free (so far).  Tom, unfortunately (so says Frodo in public, anyway) seems to have borne the brunt of the weeds that no longer appear in Frodo's front lawn.

There is a God.  The temperature today was 82, and the forsythias struggle against the blooming cherries.  The dogwoods will follow the redbuds, and then the azaleas take over, and Frodo's Gardens become a sea of white.  The weeds gather near Bombadil's front door.

Tra La.  

Posted by loveysdaddyga at 8:34 PM EDT

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