Author Archives: bfrhodes99

Christian Music?

Posted in Christian values, gun control, law enforcement, Lawyers and Representation, Religion, responsibility & irresponsibility, School Shootings by

I had an idea I suggested to my wife. If I had a restaurant, I would not be able to be biased and hire only Christians. It wouldn’t be long before some atheist, Israeli or Arab would complain. Let me note at this time, I would have no problem hiring a Jew. I might even go out of my way to hire one or two. However, it does help me with explaining the concept.

You see, I would make sure that every third or forth piece of music played over the speakers would be Christian. It would have two effects. First, I would not get many atheist applicants. They would not enjoy the music. Second, most potential atheist customers would go somewhere else.

That is not so bad. My employees would mostly be Christian and my customers would be mostly Christian. Also, it would not be a bad thing to have a few customers saved in my place. I would not mind that.

Then my wife hit me with reality. I hate it when she does that. She suggested that I just might anger some atheist to the point that he would destroy the place and possibly hurt a few of the customers too. It is true, non-Christians can get violent, especially atheists who find themselves listening to Gospel music because they were dragged in there by their parents.

Well, none of that will happen anyway. I don’t have the money to start a place and I’m too old. Yet, another thought occurred to me, sort of the same but different. What if we had a constitutional amendment requiring Christian music be played in The House and Senate any time that no one is speaking, such as during votes. Just maybe it would encourage only Christians run for Congress.

Well a person can dream. Even if the amendment passed, the they’d just wear noise canceling ear phones. You just can’t force a person into Christianity. You can’t even make them listen to Christian music. What a shame. Just might improve things in this country… a lot more than anti gun laws, which the Godless will ignore.

Better for the nation to turn to Jesus. Also, better to put the criminals in prison. The guns don’t hurt people. The criminal will kill people if they have to make their own guns.

Learning From our Mistakes

Posted in Abuse of Power, Communism, Controllers, Education, experience, Politcal Opinion, Uncategorized by

Well, we’ve made the mistake. When are we going to start learning.

Oh. Maybe you are wondering to which mistake am I referring. Well, let’s look at it objectively. In the fifties and sixties, we had some of the best schools in the world. California had the best schools in the schools country.

Odd. Since then, we have increased spending on those schools, not just two fold but ten fold. One would think the quality of the teaching would have skyrocketed. It did… in the negative direction. The teaching has gotten so bad so fast that one would think it intentional. Well, maybe it was intentional. I have often wondered and I am sure I’m not alone.

Shall we take a short walk down memory lane, please. The current Department of Education was signed into law in 1979 by Jimmy Carter (You remember, he was the president who did very little other than give away the Panama Canal. Now that took some brains.) Since that time, the quality of our education has taken a nose dive. Do you suppose that forming the Department of Education just might have been the beginning of mistakes.

Let’s look at two very important objective considerations. The current budget of the department is 68 billion dollars. (seems as if we could build a lot of schools with that.) If distributed equally, that is over a billion dollars for each state. Also it has 4900 employees. I wonder just how many of them actually knows how to teach. I wonder how many ever did teach. It makes me wonder if they really know where to most effectively spend that 68 billion dollars.

When I started this post, I did feel I should Google the department. At that point, I only had a vague idea on what I would be writing. Right there on the computer screen was a photo of a big building. (I really mean it is big.) Do they have to have a big building? Does it serve any purpose. I am sure that building must require maintenance, utilities and upkeep. It makes me wonder if those going green folks realize the waste. Actually, when you come right down to it, the US government likely generates a lot of carbon dioxide in buildings like that. You ever take a tour of DC. There is a big building for this and a big building for that. There are many of them and I suspect there are more planned. Shut that city down for a month and we could run Southaven on the savings all year and then some. My electric car would likely go around the world… forget that. I don’t think I could make that calculation.

At any rate, my best guess, that big department likely takes it’s orders from the National Education Association, a union. I don’t think that the union has the interest of our kids at heart. Like most unions, their biggest interest is the union…gaining and maintaining money and power. If the kids get educated, it is totally by accident and the local education system.

The department controls local schools in three ways. They collect statistics. The distribute money, but only to those who meet the standards of the department. It makes little difference of those standards are good or bad. Finally, they make sure that there is no segregation in the schools. Surely, all this can be done locally. Why do we need a big brother in DC to tell the local schools and teachers what to do.

Well, how is the centralized system working out for us? Well, they collect the stats. They, themselves ought to be able to tell us. I don’t have to guess. You don’t have to guess. Since their formation… by their own stats, they have failed miserably. If we are ever going to learn from our mistake, I’d say the best thing to do is do away with the Department of Education and let the homeless move into that big building. It would solve 2 problems. The schools would start improving and homeless would have somewhere to stay. Actually, a lot of homeless people could stay there.

Okay. It won’t solve everything and I know it. It will help. The big mistake is this, more money does not always equal better teaching. If you want better teaching, you need better teachers, better curriculum, and less overhead. As I said, those folks in the department hierarchy don’t teach. They are what I call, “Hangers on.” At the state level, there are thousands who work for the school system who don’t teach or for that matter directly support the teachers.

By the way, the state of California has its own education quagmire. They have 2740 employees and a budget of over 89 billion dollars. I wonder just how many of them know how to teach. Just how many of them know where the money will do the most good. My guess is they get many of their orders from the N.E.A. too.

I think the big part of the mistake is centralizing the education system. Those folks up there in those really big buildings have no idea of what is going on in the classrooms. I think most experienced good teachers will agree with me. On the other hand, the mediocre teachers will prefer the protection provided by the union.

Spoiled Kids. Spoiled Adults

Posted in Cheating, Christian values, Collusion, Elections, Going Green, Liberals, Socialists by

It is an old assumption by some. However, it is one of the most disproved one. I am not even going to try to disprove it. It has reached a point that it is a given. We have the spoiled rich kids of the millionaires repeated over and over. Even those who have less money will still try to buy the love of a child by giving him or her too much.

Then, one day they look around and wonder why their children don’t like them. Indeed, the parent frequently tells the child, haven’t I given you all you wanted?

The fact is, sometimes real love says no to the request, even when the child begs, pleads and threatens. I have seen that, with the outcome both ways.

Recently, however, I have come to the conclusion that kids are not the only ones who become spoiled. A full grown adult that should know better will beg plead and threaten. They will beg their government to take care of them. They will plead for the money, the healthcare, the homes, the phones and even housing. Then, when and if the government turns them down, they threaten to cast their vote for someone else.

It is of course, one of the greatest weaknesses of a government that must answer to the voters. It all started out well but over time, our nation has become continuously more socialist. You might find this strange, but at one time, the federal government did not provide aid for for disasters. It was handled totally by the state. I have no idea when that changed.

Eisenhower, when he wanted to build the great interstate system we have, had to figure a way to justify it. Up to that point, the federal government was not much into the highway building business. So, he justified it by saying it was for national defense. To do this, the interstates had to meet certain national defense standards that would allow them to be used for airfields should another war brake out. Also, something that made more sense, transportation for war supplies.

It was a horrible thing that happened to those trade towers, but some people really made out on it financially. Some people were given millions of dollars for their losses. I saw what was happening and I shook my head. If I got a million dollars, I’d be happy to let someone come and burn my house down. Well, to be sure, I would want to be well clear of it first.

However, some of those people in NY, NY became instant millionaires as a result of 9/11. Then, just a short time later, they had their hands out again because of hurricane. Me and people like me were working hard for our paychecks while those folks up there simply held their hands out and said gimme, gimme, gimme. And of course, if one dollar was withheld, the clamoring would start, “See if I vote for you next time!”

Nowadays, people build next to oceans, sometimes on cliffs. They spend millions on the property and millions on the house. Then, when a storm comes along, we hear, “Well, I couldn’t afford insurance you know. It was so expensive.” Do you suppose that the insurance is expensive for a reason. Maybe the lesson these folks need to learn is to build a little farther from the ocean or lake instead of counting on Uncle Sam to bail them out.

People are required to have insurance to drive cars. Maybe they should be required to have insurance to build houses on cliffs overlooking the ocean. The alternative is simple. You built there. You took the risk. You live with the results, no matter. We will come to the rescue for personal safety, but not to help you rebuild. I suspect there would be one big advantage to it. Many of the miles of coast that are now private would be turned back over to the public.

That which happened recently in Hawaii is a different matter entirely. They do need some help rebuilding, though we need to avoid overdoing it. The people there were hit by something that was completely unpredictable. One might even say that the government aggravated it. Certainly, if the government did have a part in the disaster, they should have a real part in the recovery.

However, people who live next to big bodies of water where flood damage can be reasonably expected, we should not pass out any more than what is needed to survive. There is no reason why the paycheck of some truck driver should have to be used to rebuild some millionaire’s beach home.

The particular bad part is that the federal government is very bad at dealing with disasters. Invariably, they pay 3 dollars to provide 1 dollar of relief. The rest. Some of it goes to the operation of the federal agencies. Mostly, a lot of it gets wasted. The trailers are brought in where tents would work. Tents aren’t that bad short term. I have lived in tents. It’s better than sleeping in the rain. Moreover, they can be moved in more quickly and they are reusable. The trailers will likely be scrapped. At the very least, reusable buildings should be used that can be quickly assembled and disassembled. I have no idea why this we don’t already do this. Just ask the builders of the steel buildings what it would take. Bet they would have good solutions. Oh! Wait a minute! I just figured it out why they keep doing it this way. We are the ones paying for it, not them.

And so it is, that we keep spoiling those hit by disasters. And so it is, that they are more and more dissatisfied. It is the one problem where governments answer to the voters.

As an aside, the interstate system was and is one of the best projects of the federal government. However, I still wonder how much money is never getting into the concrete and bridges. Nowadays, the engineers who plan the highways have a problem they didn’t even think about when the highways were started, the people going green. Getting rights of way are far more difficult today than in President Eisenhower’s day.

It’s Only Natural

Posted in Advertising, Christian values, Lawyers and Representation, Uncategorized by

Those that have read my posts will know that I like poking at advertisements, especially the ones on TV. I feel they mostly are directed at those who have difficulty resoning, Moreover, they are frequently very repetitious… to the point I have been known to change channels. Then of course, I find something better on the other channel and I don’t switch back. It’s only natural. Why should I have to put up with bad advertising if the need doesn’t exist.

I do have another aspect of advertising to which I object. (You notice how I avoided ending the sentence with a preposition for those grammar fanatics. I used, “to which I object” instead of as most would use the, “object to.”)

Regardless, it would seem the new craze is, “contains only natural ingredients,” “Contains no drugs,” and so forth. I see right through the ruse and I hope others do as well. I mean, where did drugs come from in the first place but things found in nature. Penicillin started when a doctor discovered bread mold killed bacteria. By the way, I think everyone knows that mold on bread is very natural. I don’t suggest a person with an infection should use it on that cut though.

Lead is natural. It is an element found in nature. Many years ago we outlawed it in gas and paint. Though natural, it can cause bad problems. Mercury is natural. We used to use it a lot in thermometers and mining for gold. They even put the stuff in children’s toys. Not so much anymore. If it is used in mining gold, it is only with extreme caution. Mostly we use the electronic thermometers, far from occurring natually.

Many modern things in today’s society allow us to avoid the old natural stuff and that is a good thing. In the past, it was quite common for kids to suffer lead poisoning. Nowadays, we are replacing the lights containing led with the not natural L.E.D.s (Smaller, safer and much lasts much longer) We have better paint, longer lasting paint that is lead free. Even the autos are having to run on lead-free diets. Better for all. Even the cars are lasting longer.

I understand the concept of natural meds. Really I do. Still we must be careful. Just because something is completely natural, it does not mean necessarily that it is better or even safer.

My advice is to face all ads with speculation. Just because something is advertised on TV, it does not naturally follow that it is good, better or best. At 73, I have learned that lesson more than once.

Just trying to save y’ll the pain of finding stuff out on your own. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to straighten out those advertisers a little. I really don’t like deceit anywhere I see it.

Horace Cooper Has My Favorite Line for the Week, Maybe Month

Posted in Biden by

As usual, I can’t get the exact quote and it angers me. He said it so well and I will not do as well. A lot of it was the lead-in. He quoted someone else as saying that those who care about the people usually do well in politics. Mr. Cooper went on to say that even those who can fake it do well. Finally, he added that Biden has reached the point where he can’t even fake it.

Personally, I think he has, as they say, hit the proverbial nail dead on the head. If you prefer the version with fewer words, he nailed it.

Some Will Remain

Posted in Christian values by

Some, right now claim they are true pastors, teachers of the word of God. If the rapture occurs tomorrow, some will be taken up with the Lord. Those who were not saved before the rapture, will remain. This puts them in one of 3 categories. 1. They earnestly thought they were right. They might even have thought they were saved. 2. They were teaching a false religion and likely knew it. 3. Those that were playing pastor for financial gain or personal ego.

They will all be known as pastor, father, sister, or even brother. Some will have been called preacher. Hopefully, you will be one of those taken during the rapture, in which case it will not concern you. On the other hand, if you are one of those left behind, I would suggest you be very suspect of those who claim to be a teacher of the Word. To be sure, some will remain, but they won’t be Christian. If they are left behind, they never had a second birth. This is all true and they will have two things in common with you. First, unless you admit your sin, unless you repent, unless you accept Jesus as your savior, you will never go to heaven. Second, brace yourself. The most horrible 7 years will come upon this earth. It will be so bad that billions of people will die in those years.

They will die of disease and starvation. You don’t want to be one of those left behind. Better to admit your sin now. Repent, that is to say, turn from sin and toward Jesus. Finally, accept Jesus and have faith in Him and Him only as your savior.

Don’t take my word. Read it yourself in the Bible. The book of Revelation is not about a big picnic. The book of John will tell you about Jesus and what you must do to be saved. Pay particular attention to the 3rd chapter of John. When you get done with that, read the book of Romans.

Don’t be one of those who die without being saved. Don’t be one of those left behind after the rapture. Don’t be one of those who finds out which one of those TV pastors are fake. Don’t be around when it becomes obvious which religions are false. By then it will be a little late. Being just a little late will make all the difference in the world.

Please seek after Jesus and He will find you.

Calculatus Eliminatus

Posted in Mistakes, Truth by

I love the above term. When my sons were young, I guess in the late seventies, we watched a Cat in the Hat show in which someone lost something. Then the Cat in the Hat came up with a solution.

When you mislaid a certain something

Keep your cool and don’t get hot

Calculatus Eliminatus is the best friend you’ve got

Calculatus Eliminatus always helps an awful lot

You can google the term yourself. I suppose to some degree I am already a little in danger of stealing the Dr. Seuss out take, but I hope I will be forgiven. If you have not heard it or seen it, it would be very good to look it up. Also, as with much of Dr. Seuss, there is some good humor there too.

However, if you like I will try to give you a short version. The concept is that you look someplace. Once you have, that place has been eliminated as a place that something might be. If you look enough places and eliminate them, you will find what you are looking for.

I was recently reminded of the little song being as I lost my checkbook. For three days I looked for it. I was reasonably certain it was in the house. However, there was a time element. Though there was no evidence anyone was misusing it, I decided to stop payment on the checks.

Then, about a month later, I walked in and set my keys on the place next to the head of my bed when something caught my eye. That’s right, there it was, my checkbook right in plain sight. I had put my keys right on top of it apparently a month earlier.

Sometimes, I find things like that the best evidence of space aliens. I mean, otherwise, how could I have overlooked it for a month. One of those gray things must have snuck in and took it. Then later, after examining it, he returned it where I would be sure to see it.

Well, then I thought of the old Cat in the Hat thing, Calculatus Eliminatus. Obviously, that was one place I should have eliminated. It also goes to prove the adage that the best place to hide something is in plain sight. I don’t know. If I hadn’t put my keys there, I might not have ever found it. I almost didn’t see it then. Also, my own observance, there is no one better at hiding something from me than I am.

Nothing New Here

Posted in Uncategorized by
Daily writing prompt
Why do you blog?
View all responses

Actually, I’ve answered this one years ago. Maybe it won’t hurt to revisit it. Who knows. It might even help.

I guess it all started when I asked my son for suggestions on how I might increase the sales of my books. a month or so later, he pointed me to this site. Sounded like a good idea so I logged on and got set up. Of course the purpose was originally to bring people to my books and occasionally I still use it for this purpose. If your are interested in looking at my selection of more than 35, check my home page. There is a complete list there as well as instructions on how to order them.

However, I don’t think I would attract many readers if all I wrote about was – what I wrote. Not knowing anything else, I just started writing about that which is important to me, which includes many things in many subjects.

It was sort of one of those contradictory things. I knew I wouldn’t get a huge following but I hoped I did. In the world politics, I hoped to point out errors that people make, Democrat or Republican. I have written a few things bad about Republicans and I have written many things bad about Democrats. The problem, of course is that I need to stand on a mountain with a 5000 watt sound system but all I have is a valley with a megaphone. That is better than I had before.

I like to write about dumb commercials, regardless of where I find them. If you have read my posts for a while, you will be well of aware of them, like the almost nude woman in a magazine…advertising shoes. I suspect, if they could have, they would have had the woman pose nude… that is, if they thought it would sell shoes. Of course, if they paid enough, they would have a line of women waiting for the chance to get their face before the public.

I think, by far, the most important thing I write about is Christianity. When all is said and done, it is the most important thing — period. I guess many get tired of hearing me on this subject but if I get through to 1 or 2 a year, I consider it well worth the effort. This is especially true if somehow one of those people I get though to becines another Billy Graham. I hope I have not set my hopes too high. It is the nature of Christianity. We spread the great news and God does the rest.

I like to write about what I call the CEO affect. (Chief Executive Officer) I mean, there are a lot of products where it is obvious the CEOs don’t use the product. They certainly don’t open the packaging. This covers it all from plastic blister wraps, to instructions, to reliability, to customer support. Well, I guess it wouldn’t include customer support. If he doesn’t like something he would not have to deal with people whose 2nd language is English and of course, they know nothing about the product. If the CEO has a problem, he just goes to the dumb engineer and fires him.

I like to talk about restaurants. When I like them, I write about that. When they are not so good, I write about that. I have a list of about 3 or 4 restaurants that I simply no longer go to. I have a list of dozens that I go back to frequently. On of the biggest mistakes many restaurant managements make is that more and better ads will make up for low quality food and service. Oddly, I have gone into big restaurants where the service was much faster than McDonald’s and I have gone to places where it is less expensive and better.

Naturally, my posts don’t always help the good places. I wrote a very good word for Abbay’s and the only people who read it were in India. Sorry to say, I don’t think Abbay’s employees noted much of a gain in their evening crowd.

I do have hopes that one day the owners of some of these places will read my posts and start fixing things. I mean I do like do like Big Mac’s. I just don’t like waiting 15 minutes to get them…and then waiting another 10 minutes for the drinks. Neither do I like doing battle with a fancy ketchup dispenser when other methods would work so much better. (I wonder if the CEO of McDonald’s has to deal with those things. While I’m at it, let’s ask if if the current CEO of Wendy’s has to wait for three employees to finish their conversation before taking his order. I don’t like kiosks, but I neither have to wait for them to take my order nor do I have to wait behind ten cars.

I guess the drive throughs go hand and hand with the world of fast food. First, drive throughs take priority over counter service. McDonald’s will keep it’s drive through open if it means shutting everything else down. I suspect many other fast food places will as well. The one place that noted is not that way, they have big drive-though lines but I never have had to wait much at the counter. Also, the food is brought out promptly and accurately.

The really bad thing about drive throughs I don’t understand, while people like me go into a place and place our orders, a line of cars with idling engines belch green house gases into the atmosphere and those going green outfits never say a word. And me… me…. I just sit here and shake my head.

My best guess, you just might find those going green people right in the drive through lines with the rest of them. By the way, did you know you can get a pizza at a drive through. That’s right. One night we were going to order a pizza to take home. They had the counter closed and the drive through open. How do they even do that?

Well, it is nice for those who do not like traipsing through the rain or putting up with the noon day sun. All they need do is SHOUT their order into a… whatever, and in a while, they will have your order ready, that is, unless they gave you a Dr. Pepper instead of a Diet Coke.

This is not restricted to restaurants. It’s banks, prescriptions, in a round about way, groceries. The country has gone drive through crazy. I guess pedestrians must just go hungry.

Certainly, I love to pick on our neighbors to the north. I love to say that every time they mess up, the value of my home goes up and it is true. I live 12 miles from the Memphis airport but I can’t remember the last time I’ve been in Memphis. They no longer have anything I need or want.

However, the facetious remarks are made to encourage them to straighten out the mess they have created for themselves. It would not only help them but me as well. The stupidity seems to be spilling over to the south, to the north, and to west, and to the east. May I remind one and all that Shelby County schools had very close to the worst reading scores in Tennessee. With scores that bad, it’s not the kids. It’s the schools. It is why people are moving south. It is why people in Memphis are sneaking people into Desoto County schools, which is illegal.

Of course, I can’t prove it, but I suspect that there are more U-Hauls going south across that state line than north. I also suspect that it is costing some of those folks a lot of money to give up their Memphis homes.

Well, I do write on other things, but I suspect that is most of the reason I blog. I wonder if those guys north of the state line ever pay any attention to me. It just might do them a little good.

I don’t think they do. I don’t think they will. I’ll let you figure out why.

The Right Thing

Posted in Abortions, Christian values by

I heard this from a preacher one day on the radio. I don’t know who it was. I wish I could remember but I only heard him the one time while I was driving. He said something so profound that I almost pulled into a parking lot to write it all down.

This basics of it is this. We think and think things over many times trying to figure out what the right thing is to do. Many of us go to God and ask him, what do you want me to do? Sometimes we consider a question for days, weeks or even months.

However, the truth is that we know the right thing to do from the beginning. Figuring it out is not that difficult. It’s doing it that’s the hard part.

Well, to be truthful, sometimes we do have to make decisions where we really don’t know what is better. We may not truly know what we want. We might not even be able to determine what God wants.

On the other hand, frequently, we know exactly what the right thing is. We simply don’t want to do it.

I think that this is never more true than in the subject of abortion. I mean, it is plain, “Though shalt not murder.” It sort of removes all doubt, doesn’t it. We can start speculating about this and that, but it all boils down to one thing, doesn’t it? Is abortion murder? And again, likely you already know what is right and what is wrong concerning it. It just is that sometimes that little baby is just not convenient. Sometimes, we can’t afford it. And, by the way, “I’m going to college. How can I take care of a kid and study for that big test?”

Naturally, it is brought up that I am a man and I can’t understand. Mind you, I am not telling you what is right. I am only reminding you of what every woman knows. Abortion is murder. It cannot be denied. How does one call murder the right thing?

In this county, for a very long time, the decision was the mother’s without exception. It was her right to chose. However, how are you going to answer the question properly. Will you one day stand before God and try to explain your actions. For that matter, will you be able to. You think you have that really neat way of justifying the killing of a child placed in your care by God.

You see, the right thing isn’t always the easy thing. It is not always the convenient thing.

As the man said, it’s not really determining the right thing. It’s doing it that is so downright difficult. Taking care of a child while studying for a test is not the easy way. Having a kid really messes up the social life. Then too, what man will want a woman who already has a child?

None of it is easy. There are things that help, but it is never easy.

And, by the way, I made many decisions that I didn’t want to make. I really preferred the easy way. I must admit, I didn’t always do the right thing. Then, after, I very frequently regretted doing the wrong thing to this day. It is something of a problem with getting old. Every day, every woken moment, something might come to mind that I messed up because I figured I’d take the way of convenience.

One day, if you should live long enough, you too will regret as you remember those times when you chose convenience over the right thing.