Top Ten Reason We Don’t Want to Be Great Britain

(Or any other European, Asian, African or South American Country for that matter)

© 2013 by Tom King




British cop rushes to the rescue....

 

It matters not what topic a feeble-minded old conservative like me wants to bring up, it never fails but that some liberal jumps up to tell me how much better it’s done in England or France or anywhere not the United States.  I’m beginning to think these folk don’t like it here in America.  So in order to save myself time in looking up stuff for use in future arguments with leftists, I wish to respond categorically as to why I don’t even want to live in Great Britain, much less any of the less civilized countries of the world.  Here goes:

Reason # 10:  There’s too much bloody history in the place.  I’d never get any work done.  Something historical’s happened on just about every square foot of ground in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  I couldn’t drive ten feet in that place without there being some statue or memorial where Prince Humperdink fought the Saxon hordes or the Viking hordes or the French hordes or some horde or other and got his head chopped off for his troubles.  I’m one of those people that need a break in my historical sites so I can stop reading for a bit and rest my eyes.  In Texas you can drive for hundreds of miles over ground where nothing has ever happened of any significance.  It’s kind of peaceful.

Reason # 9:  You don’t have to carry a passport to get decent food.  In America, we’ve brought fine cuisine from all over the world here where we can eat it without having to drive to Europe .  It’s too far to fly across an ocean from here to get decent Italian food, so we have set up Italian restaurants just down the street.  We also have French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, Vietnamese and Tex-Mex lined up cheek by jowl along the boulevard.  Notice, if you will how hard it is to find an English, Scots or Irish restaurant in an American city.   There’s a good reason for that I suspect.  I’ve seen pictures of bangers and mash and I wasn’t impressed.

Reason # 8:  In England you have Magna Carta.  In the United States we have the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.  The difference between these documents is the difference between our countries.   Magna Carta is a list of rights that are granted by the King, mostly to the other nobles with a few scraps they threw to the peasants that were standing around pointing swords and pitchforks at his highness at the time.  In England, your rights devolve from the Crown.  In the United States we start out with the people having certain inalienable rights to start with and we dribble out a very limited amount of power to the town, then the county, state and national governments in smaller and smaller bits.  The direction from which power comes is the whole point of the thing.

Reason # 7:  We don’t want to hear about how Great Britain is “Great” because it had an empire and we didn’t.  How’s that empire thing working out for you by the way?  The reason America never got itself an empire is because we didn’t want one.  We didn’t colonize anything after we filled up the empty spaces in North America, though we picked up a couple of nice land deals along the way.  We got some islands and stuff as dependents when we liberated them in wars and stuff, we let them move into our basement and couldn’t get them to leave.  We were able to nudge Cuba and the Philippines out on their own, but some of the little ones wanted to join our gang for protection.  We decided NOT to grab everything in sight and make ourselves an empire.  Cuts way down on the number of insurrections we have to handle.

Reason # 6:  Spanish is easier to learn than Welsh and Gaelic and even a Cajun is easier to understand than a Yorkshire farmer.  Spanish will eventually become so intermeshed with American English that pretty soon we’ll all be speaking the same language anyway.  In Great Britain, you’re never going to get the Welsh to use some vowels for crying out loud and the Scots and Irish are just making up weird ways to spell stuff that bears no relationship to the sound of the words and nobody will tell you how to say “No comprende’, senor,” in Welsh.

Reason # 5:  British cops don’t carry guns.  If you’re being robbed, you might get a Bobby with a truncheon to wander by after he finishes his tea and today’s episode of Emmerdale on the telly.  If I’m being robbed, I want Chuck Norris with a bazooka coming to my rescue in a helicopter, not some stuffy prig in a Mini-Cooper who’s going to rap on the door and ask the bad guys, “What’s going on here, Sport?”

Reason # 4:  You cannot have a gun.  Since the 1996 school shooting at Dunblane, Scotland, Britain has pretty much eliminated personal gun ownership.  The Crown believes only the government should have guns, therefore only the government, terrorists, drug lords and hardened criminals carry guns.  The rate of gun deaths has dropped below that of the United States while the rate of violent assaults, robberies and murders by stabbing, strangulation, clubbing and explosions have soared far above the US rates for those sorts of arguably more painful deaths; this despite the fact that Britain has more cops per capita than the US. 

Reason # 3:  In Britain, criminals are protected from citizens.  In the United States, criminals do not know which homeowners own guns and which will shoot them which discourages robbery.  It is legal in many states to shoot anyone who tries to break into your house or attack you in any way.  In Britain, the police believe it isn’t cricket for a homeowner or crime victim to respond with greater force than that being used by the criminal to commit his crime against you.  In other words, you are expected to put down the butcher knife you picked up off the kitchen cabinet and ask the burglar if you might pop off to the garage to get your cricket bat so as not to have a more deadly weapon to defend yourself with than the tire iron he’s carrying. 

Reason # 2:  If you did have a gun, you could not use it to defend yourself in Britain.   The government believes that law enforcement is their job even though it takes them forever to get there when you call.  They expect you to ask the home invader to sit down for a spot of tea while you wait for the Bobbies.    Don’t believe me?  A Norfolk farmer is now serving a life sentence in England for shooting a knife-wielding youth who broke into his house intent on robbing him.  In Texas he’d have been given a medal by the sheriff’s department and a box of replacement ammo.

 Reason # 1:  You cannot escape crime by moving away from it in Britain.  In the United States, you can move out of “bad” neighborhoods or crime-ridden cities, go to a nice place out in the country where everyone pretty much owns a gun and pretty much have a reasonable expectation that nothing really bad will happen to you in the way of a crime.  In Britain it doesn’t do any good to move.  Criminals know you are all unarmed and that you aren’t allowed to shoot them if you were.  Therefore, they can go anywhere to commit a crime.  Rural areas and small towns make perfect targets because the police tend to be far away, not terribly motivated to hurry and don’t like their sleep disturbed. It’s safer, the likelihood of being caught is far less (remember citizens are not allowed to hurt them) and neighbors aren’t allowed to interfere.  If you attack and rape a woman, and her neighbor comes to her rescue and beats the crap out of you, he’s the one who will go to jail.  The police rationale is that the criminal wasn’t attacking the neighbor so he doesn’t have a legitimate horse in the race.   He is therefore guilty of assault.

Not only that, but more violent burglaries happen when people are at home than when they are not.  In Britain, insurance companies require security systems.  The security system is most likely turned off when the homeowner is at home, so that’s the safest time for home invaders and burglars to strike. They aren’t afraid of the homeowners (remember – no guns allowed).

Summary:  Most houses in Britain are older than most of our most ancient historical landmarks here in the States and I am allergic to mildew.  Criminals are not afraid of me and if they come in MY house, I’m most likely going to jail for at least attempted murder not to mention having to pay for British Health to install their new kneecaps.  I also didn’t mention British universal healthcare which is really more like British Universal Health Neglect since most Britishers die waiting in a que. Mostly I like it that in America we have rights.  In England, they grant you rights at the whim of the Crown.  That's why we left England in the first place.  We didn't trust the government there and we don't much trust it here.  Excuse me now while I go clean my shotgun, in case we get very late company out here in the woods.  

My Top Ten Purveyors of Middle Class Haute Cuisine

My favorite food critic - Antone from Ratatouille

The hoity-toity make jokes about them. Food critics regularly look down their lengthy noses at them. Sitcoms occasionally remind us that they are not as good as "real" Italian or Mexican or Ethiopian or Thai restaurants where they drizzle some unidentifiable sauce over a bit of meat, two asparagus spears and a slice of some kind of squash.  But restaurants like these so-called "casual dining" restaurants  are essential to the mental health of the middle class.  They help us keep our tuxedos and evening gowns clean for weddings and funerals and deer hunting. There are several good reasons why these places are popular with the less snooty crowd:

1. We know where they are. They have big lighted signs and they put them in places we can find them like next to a mall or Wal-Mart. Middle class people don't have the time or energy left after a hard day of real work to run all over town looking for snobby restaurants.  We want something good, something nice and something we can find.
2. We can afford them.  Most of these cost a few bucks more, but the service and the tastiness of the food makes us feel special.  
3. We know what we're getting.  If you're going our to eat and going a little over budget to boot, you want to know what to expect.  The lack of nasty surprises is part of the charm in going out to a "nice" restaurant in the first place.
4. They give us a safe place to celebrate the special events of our lives. Middle class people like to go out to eat on birthdays, Mother's day, Father's day, anniversaries and the like. We'd rather go someplace nicer than McDonald's or the Sonic Drive-In to mark these occasion.  We'd rather not risk spending a lot of money and then not enjoying it, so we tend to stick to places we know and can trust.

This list is in no particular order and it's my list not yours so if you disagree, please post your own list in the comments section. I always like to know about good restaurants. Also note, I left off places like Hooter's, not only because I've never been there, but because it's not the sort of place you could take your hardshell Baptist grandmother. For most of these you could take her, even those with a bar, so long as you sat at the far end of the dining area and didn't order a beer.

The Olive Garden:  When both my wife and I were working in the same day care center, she as nurse and I as director, we went to the OG the same night every week after we shut down the center. They got to where they expected us, had our drinks ready for us and let us sit in the bar area while we waited. Sometimes, if the place was crowded, they'd bring our meal to the little table in the bar area so we wouldn't have to wait an hour for a regular table.  We had our favorite meals, but eventually settled on Ravioli de Portabello as our favorite. Great place for anniversaries, birthdays and such. Nice relaxing atmosphere. Nice people. Food you can count on even if it is a more expensive than McDonald's. 

Red Robin:  I hadn't tried out RR until a few years ago when I came up to Washington to visit my sister and brother-in-law. RR is a sort of cafe' on steroids - nice atmosphere with all sorts of interesting stuff on the walls like most of these places.  If you're looking for a fancy hamburger, this place has 'em.  They also do some nice dinner kinds of things too. 

IHop:  IHop is middle class breakfast haute cuisine. IHop is where you gather the grownup siblings when you want to talk about "what to do about Dad". They do have some nice dinners, but it's not the sort of place you go to celebrate birthdays and special occasions. They do maintain a booming business on Sundays before and after and during church (You find a lot of heathen Dads in there between 10 and 12 after they've dropped Mom and the kids off at Sunday School. 

Red Lobster:  Red Lobster holds title to probably the most popular semi-uppity seafood place. They rank about third in the nation for restaurant chains so they must be doing something right.  While, I've never been there, but my son loved the place and took his girl there whenever he wanted to part with some money in exchange for looking like one of the swells. If Micah liked the food, I could always trust his good rating. He was a manager at several restaurants while he was going to college and had his mother's eye for cleanliness. If they got past his inspection and he thought the food tasted good, you could count on his recommendation. Since I don't eat crab, shrimp, lobster or other shellfish, their reputation with me would depend on their fish dishes which I have promised myself I would try.

Cheddar's:  Cheddar's is basically a slightly higher priced cafe with atmosphere. The food is consistently good, but the menu can be limited if you don't eat bacon. They do put bacon in a lot of things, so if you're Jewish, Muslim or Seventh-day Adventist, you may have a limited, though tasty selection. The Cheddar's we used to go to tended to be a bit noisy, but they made a good steak and had a nice variety of homey American foods. 

Chili's, Applebee's and TGI Friday's:  Applebees has some really good food and their prices are reasonable.  It is a bar and grill, so expect some noise from the bar area on Friday and Saturday nights. Our favorites are the steak (my wife is a closet carnivore) and the oriental chicken bowl. Very nice. I combined Chili's and Applebee's in one entry because they are a lot alike in atmosphere and menu. One thing Chili's does that I appreciate is offer a vegetarian version of any of their burgers. Just ask for the Swiss Mushroom Burger with the black bean burger.  It's what I always have at Chili's. TGI Fridays has pretty good food of about the same bar/grill style cuisine as the others.  Any one of them are good for after the ball game on the weekend and for miscellaneous celebratory gatherings.

Chuys:  Chuy's only has about 4 or 5 locations in Texas, but if you're ever there it's well worth a visit. There are other great Mexican places like On the Border, El Chico and such, but Chuy's is special. First, it's distinctly Tex-Mex. It's an odd place, usually in some weird part of town and you often have to park six blocks away because their parking is always very limited. I think they do that to keep the traffic down. There's almost always a line to get in, though it moves pretty quickly. The prices are very very reasonable. The food is amazing and the decor is weird. They have this Elvis/50s thing going that gets a little crazy with hubcaps on the ceiling and such.  They started out in Austin. Lance Armstrong and other Austin celebrities are regulars there, but the management never got snobbish about it or jacked up their prices, just carefully added new locations around Texas. The Dallas restaurant has a statue of Elvis standing in a fountain in the semi-outdoors part of the restaurant.  The food at the new one in Tyler was beyond incredible and the service for the big group I went with was unbelievable.  We were swarmed by staff determined to make sure we were happy with everything. They have their own private pepper supply some place in New Mexico and their chefs personally inspect the crop each year I'm told.  I don't know what secret ingredients are in their recipes, but their chefs are geniuses. And you will be pleasantly surprised by the bill and the quality of the guacamole.  

Golden Corral - As family buffet steakhouses go, GC is one of the best. They even do breakfast.  Golden Corral is where you go after church on Sunday or whenever you're really hungry and want to stuff yourself to the eyes. The food is consistently good and the service is quick and efficient.Their salad bar is fantastic and the chocolate waterfall that you can dip fruit into has earned them the undying love of overweight Americans everywhere.

Texas Roadhouse - There are probably a lot of different restaurants with some variant of this name. The one in Tyler where my granddaughter worked is a really good steakhouse with a Texas flavor to it. They have those big barrels of unshelled peanuts sitting around where you sit to wait for a table and bowls of them on the table when you get there. It's fun because everybody throws the shells on the floor, so the place is crunchy when you walk around.  The baked potatoes are lovely and steak is their specialty.  The prices are higher than Golden Corral, but less than The Outback.

Outback Steakhouse - If you know somebody who loves steak and want to make them feel special, The Outback is place.  It will cost you more than most of the places here, but still manages not to break the bank.  My wife loves the place. I don't really see that it's any better than the less expensive places, but she assures me it is.  Being raised almost vegetarian, I don't have a lot of opinion on the value of meat.  Now if we were talking salads.....

I do have to mention a couple of places that didn't make the list because they either aren't chains or aren't semi-uppity enough to qualify for this list.  You'll notice I didn't put any pizza places up there.  Pizza tends to fall into the fast food category. If I were to choose my favorite pizza chain with a dining room it would probably be Pizza Hut or Pizza Inn depending on the quality of the local outlet's salad bar. I lean toward Pizza Hut because my boys worked there while they were in school.

Very honorable mention goes to my favorite Mom and Pop Pizza/Italian place, a place in Tyler, Texas called "Little Italy".  It's in an old KFC location (still has the steeple on top). They make a dish called Chicken Murphy that I've never seen anyone duplicate anywhere. I always say I'm going to try something else, but I seldom do. It's just too hard to resist.  It's spaghetti with chicken breast and this amazing sauce with peppers and onions and mushrooms and a scattering of jalapenos to give it some flair.  Sometimes the chef gives it a little extra flair so if you are sensitive to jalapenos, you can just remove the jalapenos with a fork and enjoy the lingering spicy flavor without burning your tongue if, like me, you like your peppers milder than most East Texans.

If one of your favorite casual dining restaurants is missing from this list, feel free to add it in the comments section. I probably just haven't been there yet or this would be a top 20 or top 50.  Hmmm. I may have to expand my list someday soon. 

Tom King

The Best Television Series Ever - There's Only One in This List

Someone over on Hubpages asked: 
If you could revive (or extend) any TV series of the past 50 years, which would it be, and why?

It took me about 1 second to come up with an answer.

"Firefly". 

No question about it. If I were asked to name the best TV series ever, my choice would be the same.

Retired after just 13 episodes, this Joss Whedon sci-fi gem, was badly handled by Fox, largely because Fox didn't understand its audience. Firefly only ran 13 episodes and Fox bounced it around the schedule so much nobody was really able to find it. Those that did were hooked on it. After Fox managed to mishandle the movie version, they pretty much buried it so it could never be revived.

Too bad. Firefly had the potential to draw a lot of sci-fi viewers that had long ago been turned off by Star Trek's inexplicable pie-in-the-stars smooshy liberalism after Captain James Tiberius Kirk retired.

Firefly was a gritty look at humans once again on the frontier; the space western motif was perfect and made sense to hard sci-fi fans. The lack of encounters with big-headed rubber aliens cleared out most of the horror movie sci-fi fans. Firefly was thinking man's science fiction and had more people had time to find it and watch a few episodes, they'd have been hooked. Many who have watched the series on the Syfy Channel or one of the Science Channel marathons or borrowed some Firefly groupie's DVD set have become hard core fans.

Firefly fans are more fanatic than Ron Paul supporters. The cast was perfect and every one of them has said they'd do the series again in a heartbeat. Nathan Fillion, Firefly's Captain Malcolm Reynolds, still manages to scatter a few Firefly references into his new series, Castle. He and the rest of the crew do appearances at conventions and to a person call the Firefly series one of the best, if not THE best acting work they've ever done.

If you have not seen it, jump onto a Sci channel marathon some weekend when they run the whole series and the movie back to back in one day.

You will not regret the day wasted unless you're an ignorant boob and then, don't worry. Fox still has plenty of reality TV shows where they eat worms and stuff. You'll be alright.

Tom

Five Steps to Happy Feet

by Tom King © 2011

A lot of people hate their feet. They hate other people's feet. They hate the very idea of feet. These are not people with happy feet. I, on the other hand, am a person with happy feet. They have served me well. My 10 ½ triple E's have a few scars and a flaw or two thanks to inuries over the years, but all in all they have held me up well. My right little toe is permanently numb, but then, when you kick a chair that hard, you can expect a little nerve damage.

So how do you get to the advanced age of 57 and still have healthy happy feet?

Step 1: Go barefoot as a child.

Nothing is better for your feet than exposing them to the varieties of surfaces and textures you'll encounter in the average backyard. The bones in growing feet need to flex and move freely if they are going to develop properly in order to hold us up when we reach our full height. Mom's overprotect kids feet, I believe. I have a nice wide stable foot thanks to running barefoot most of my childhood (and Mom saved a fortune in tennis shoes).

Step 2: Accep minimal support.

Sandals are wonderfully unsupportive. I used to wear thin-soled canvas running shoes as a kid. They had virtually no padding or arch support in them and my Mom didn't like them because she thought they'd ruin my feet. But since I had my own paper route, I could buy the shoes I wanted and track shoes were as close to barefoot as you could get and still be allowed to go to school. So that's what I wore and they did not ruin my feet despite Mom's dire warnings. Science backs me up. There are Indians in the mountains of Mexico who run marathons wearing only Huarache sandals. Curious researchers found that these thin, almost non-existant shoes allow the bones in the foot to absorb impact more effectively than expensive running shoes. Turns out there is evidence that all that support in so-called "scientifically" designed sports footwear may actually cause more injuries than they prevent. Giving the foot too much support can, apparently, weaken the foot's ability to absorb shocks.  A foot that can flex is a foot that will hold up under long usage.

Step 3: Ventilate your feet.

If you must wear shoes, go for ones that ventilate well. Fungal infections of the foot require a warm moist environment to grow – environments like the inside of a poorly ventilated shoe and thick socks. If you do, for whatever reason, need to don Nikes and sports socks, for goodness sake get out of them and air out your feet for several hours afterward. Wash and dry thoroughly, then run around unshod for a while. If you're out in hiking boots, get wool socks, even in summer. They wick off the moisture and keep your skin fairly dry. Around the campfire, though, kick off the boots and lounge about in flip flops or a pair of Huarache's you keep dangling from your backpack.

Step 4: Go bare-footin'.

No need to spend a fortune on a foot massage or a reflexologist. Find a safe place to walk unshod and take a hike once in a while. The textures of the ground, rock, grass and earth, not only thoroughly and naturally massage your feet, but the sensations give you an all over sense of well-being. Mother Earth was meant to be felt through our soles. In the process, you'll also build a nice thick protective layer on the bottom of your feet – something that may come in handy some day if you ever have to cover some ground sans Gucci loafers.

Step 5: Let your toenails grow out a little.

When they advise you to cut your toenails straight across, there is a good reason. If you let the edges of your toenails grow a bt beyond the skin and don't cut them low in the channels along the sides of the nail, you'll save yourself a lot of pain from ingrown toenails. Buy yourself some proper nail clippers for toes and keep up with your toes. An ingrown toenail is very painful and can even require surgery to remedy. If you go barefoot a lot, you'll be more likely to notice a developing problem.

People don't appreciate how important their feet are to their happiness. Show me a man with unhappy feet, I'll show you a miserable human being capable of talking on his cell phone in the theater, committing genocide or starting a nuclear war.

May the road rise up to meet you and may your feet be happy upon the road you have chosen!

Tom

Who's Your Favorite Conservative Science Fiction Author?

As a conservative, I find it almost impossible to stomach some of the leftist nonsense that comes out of the science fiction genre.  I grew up on sci-fi as a kid, but was lucky to have found a wide range of political ideology in what I read.  Some rang true to what I had learned in history and sociology (often in spite of my history and sociology teachers).  Some did not.  I remember being drawn to elements in science fiction that seem to be a recurring theme - even in the works of writers who probably see themselves as ardent progressives. Liberty and freedom of the individual is one of these themes and the only way to pit liberty and freedom against an adversary is to pit it against a believable one.

What you get are sorely confused people writing about the heroic, rugged individualist fighting against the evil corporate dominated governments, insect hive minded aliens, brutal tyrants and evil forces bent on world domination. And yet, how many of them go out and vote for political parties that would increase the size power and intrusiveness of government? Sci-fi writers flirt constantly with the idea of a government by the wise (and let's face it most sci-fi writers consider themselves among the "wise"). Such a government, if managed by the proper folk, the pure nobles, the great wizards or wise men or sorceresses, would manage everything so all the regular people would be fat and happy and satisfied with their lot in life.

But it never really works that way does it? 

We never can quite get away from the obvious defects of such a system. You'd have had to be blind not to have seen the horrors of unfettered communism once the Iron Curtain collapsed in the late 80s.  Turns out communism was far worse than we ever knew.  Even the Chinese have realized the problems with communism and are moving away from it, retaining the authoritarian bits, of course. The Chinese always preferred their governments authoritarian for some reason.  I suspect preserving an authoritarian government machinery has always been the point of progressivism, socialism and communism anyway. Many SF authors point out this problem that authority has in co-existing with freedom in their novels, movies and stories - sometimes unwittingly. That's why you get leftist writers writing the most damning things about big governments.

My top nine favorite SF authors whose works ring true for me include:

1. Poul Anderson:  Anderson is not only a scientist, but a student of history as well. His future cultures recognize the problems with bureaucracies, corporate or government and his stories deal with the impact of such repressive societies on men and women with brains, creativity and a love of freedom. The man almost preaches sometimes. He produced a steady stream of characters like notorious trader to the stars, Nicholas Van Rinjh, Dominic Flandry, David Falkyn and a host of others provide an almost endless stream of reading - the man was a voracious writer. If you're a conservative/libertarian like me, you'll find yourself nodding in agreement as you read his finely crafted stories that weave history, anthropology, sociology and science into a seamless whole. 
2. Orson Scott Card: Orson sits on the outside of mainstream science fiction. A Mormon like Glenn Beck, Card is not shy about his political opinions. His masterpiece, "Ender's Game" is on the commandant of the Marine Corps' recommended reading list for Marine officers. While, I'm not particularly a fan of his fantasy work, his hard science fiction is a delight and I hope he never runs out of Ender sequels.
3. Dr. Jerry Pournelle:  You probably know this very intelligent man from his work with Larry Niven, but he has quite a few novels of his own. He, like Poul Anderson, believes that space exploration is the royal road to freedom for man and has long promoted the idea that if we focus on the stars, it will reduce the problems we have here. He opposed the Gulf Wars saying that if we spent the money developing nuclear and other energy technologies we could tell the Arabs to go drink their own oil and not have to meddle with them.  His SF work will not make you cringe.

4. C.S. Lewis:  A surprising number of people don't know that Lewis wrote a science fantasy trilogy. The books are "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra" and "That Hideous Strength". His fantasy series "The Chronicles of Narnia" have been made into a series of movies. Lewis was a firm opponent of socialism and wrote several fiery condemnations of the creeping "nanny state" in Britain. His SF work, while implausible scientifically given what we now know about Mars and Venus, is a wonderful philosophical treatise on the consequences of the lust for power.  His very funny "Screwtape Letters" is a brilliant take on demons and the devil. 
5. Michael Flynn:  I got into Flynn after stumbling on his first book, "Firestar". Firestar depicts an independent woman, a corporate magnate, who has a childhood fear of an asteroid striking the Earth and wants to see a system put in place to protect the planet. Tired of waiting for a foot-dragging government to do things, she starts her own school system that trains up kids to be astronauts and scientists in her own privately funded space program.  The series definitely leans conservative in its disdain for bureaucracies.  Whatever political views Flynn may espouse privately, he gets me as a reader for that.
6. J.R.R. Tolkien:  While more strictly a fantasy than a science fiction writer, I include him on the principle that if the Syfy Channel can show horror movies, I can include Tolkien in this list. I like that, while his novels are full of kings and nobles, its the small fry that count. Big powerful forces in his novel, when they are doing as they should be doing, serve to support the meek who are the ones who really make the difference in the end.
7. Michael Crichton:  If you're looking for a smart writer, pick one that finished med school and chose to become a science fiction author. His brilliant "State of Fear" is a scathing indictment of the global warming scam that has upset more than a few of his Hollywood colleagues. We will miss his intelligent observations about science medicine and technology. I bet he had some doozies left to write.

8. Daniel da Cruz:  Daniel didn't write a whole lot of books. He spent most of his career as a journalist and general man about the world. In the 80s, however, he wrote one of my favorite sci-fi series of all time.  The first entitled, "The Ayes of Texas" takes place during the Carter years when the US is being sold piecemeal to the Soviets. A charismatic Texas governor and billionaire inventor join forces to lead Texas out of the union and re-establish the Republic of Texas, prompting a war with Russia. In a classic shootout, the upgraded Battleship Texas dukes it out with a Russian Fleet that attacks Houston and finishes it off in convincing Texas Navy fashion. In the second book, "Texas on the Rocks" the inventor's son brings an iceberg to Corpus Christi and supplies water to a drought-stricken US Midwest and fights off assorted villains that want to bring down the fledgling Republic of Texas. In the last book, Texas Triumphant", our hero drills a tunnel from Texas to Moscow and sets off an unusual and non-lethal bomb that destroys the Soviet Union once and for all. The solution that wins the war is one of the most original weapons of war I've ever heard of. If da Cruz had written nothing else, these books set him as one of my favorites in the SF genre.  Every Texan should own the set.
9. Robert A. Heinlein:   It's fascinating to me that one of the most hard-shell conservative sci-fi writers of all time is also responsible for the science fiction book that was embraced most warmly by the hippie counter-culture of the 60's - "Stranger in a Strange Land".  One of the "Big Three" of science fiction along with Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, Heinlein was one of the first to push the genre into the mainstream.  Heinlein's work addressed the themes of individual liberty, self reliance and the obligation individuals owe their societies.  He also wrote controversial works that examined the influence of organized religion on culture and government and the repression of nonconformist thought by governments and societies.  Because he touched on so many themes, it was difficult to pin down exactly what his views were politically sometimes.  His very conservative 1959 book "Starship Troopers" examines an interstellar military at war. Troopers infuriated the left when it was written. The leftists finally took a little revenge in 1997's movie version of the book.  The movie converted Heinlein's more likeable and humane Earth government into a white-people-only cartoonish Facist state; something it never was in the books.

Now it's your turn. Leave a comment below telling us a sci-fi author that warmed the cockles of your conservative heart. I'm looking for new reading material.

Tom King

If You Love Series Fiction - 12 Great Reads

My Dozen Favorite Book Series

(c) 2011 by Tom King

If you've come to the end of the Harry Potter books and you need another book to read, but you want one that will be with you for the long haul, what you want is a book series.  Have I got some winners for you. These books take you deep into the lives of some characters you will love. If you're a voracious reader, you've probably read most of these. If you're new to series fiction, however, then you are in for a treat.  To wit - my top ten book series............es. Oh, to heck with the grammar.  On with the story......

1. "The Chronicles of Narnia" by CS Lewis.  I discovered this gem in college in a children's literature class I took for my teaching certificate.  We were supposed to read "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by Friday.  I read all seven in chronological order (not the order of writing which I recommend by the way) and was finished to my regret by Thursday night. Lewis' highly readable and engaging Christian allegory chronicles the dealings between eight English schoolchildren, Digory, Polly, Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace and Jill and a powerful lion king called Aslan in the land of Narnia from the Lamp Post to Cair Paravel. Narnia keeps summoning the kids to itself via magic items like horns,wardrobes, rings and pictures from train stations, back bedrooms and holes in walls. The books carry you on to the end of the world itself where Narnia and Earth become one. It is a lovely trip The books in logical order are:

• The Magician's Nephew
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
• The Horse and His Boy
• Prince Caspian
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• The Silver Chair
• The Last Battle

2.  "Horatio Hornblower" by CS Forester.  It is a complete and total accident that my two favorite series are by authors with the initials CS. The C and S both stand for different names altogether, but that doesn't matter. I stumbled on these after watching a Gregory Peck movie on the late show one night. I didn't know that Captain Horatio Hornblower was the subject of a series of books. The novels trace the career of an awkward young commoner midshipman, without advantage or patron who rises in the British Navy on brains, nerve and an innate understanding of just what it takes to be a captain. I'm told Gene Rodenberry studied Capt. Hornblower in designing all the captains in the Star Trek series. He could not have picked a better character study in leadership.  The books, again in chronological order, not the order in which they were written are:

• Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
• Lieutenant Hornblower
• Hornblower and the Hotspur
• Hornblower and the Atropos
• Hornblower During the Crisis
• Beat to Quarters
• Flying Colors
• A Ship of the Line
• Commodore Hornblower
• Lord Hornblower
• Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies

3. "The Polesotechnic League" by Poul Anderson.  I discovered Poul Anderson early in my science fiction reading. Nicholas Van Rinjh, a recurrent character in the series is a fat Dutch trader who is wildly wealthy, a thorn in the side to the authoritarians in the League and a genius at horse-trading with alien cultures. His purpose in life seems to be to figure out how to get everyone to play nice so he (and they) can make a little money. Van Rinjh is the ultimate capitalist.  These are most of the books and story collections in the Polesotechnic Universe:

• War of the Wing-Men
• Trader to the Stars
• The Trouble Twisters
• Satan's World
• The Earth Book of Stormgate
• Mirkheim
• The People of the Wind 

 4. "The Time Patrol" by Poul Anderson.  I keep coming back to Anderson. His Time Patrol series is more of a psychological, sociological and historical study as it is impacted by future science. Manson Everard, an out of work ex-soldier/engineer answers a cryptic want ad and finds himself taking a job that sends him to the Cretaceous Era for basic training and up and down the time-line as an unattached agent and Time Patrolman, guarding the timeline against interference by future time travelers. The historical detail is breath-taking and the situations are mind-bending. I recommend buying the collections so you get all the stories in the series:

• Time Patrol
• Brave to be a King
• Gibralter Falls
• The Only Game in Town
• Delenda Est
• Ivory and Apes and Peacocks
• The Sorrow of Odin the Goth
• Star of the Sea
• The Year of the Ransom
• The Shield of Time
• Death and the Knight

The shorter novels above have been collected in "The Time Patrol" or "Annals of the Time Patrol". If you love history and science fiction, this series gives you both with a taciturn hero and great back stories.

5. Robots, Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov.  Asimov built these three series over decades of his science fiction career, then came back after a lengthy hiatus and wrote the ending in which he connected the three series into one long chain. Asimov explores the idea that robots and/or smart people can "take care" of the human race over long periods of time and keep the galaxy from going to hell in a handbasket. It's a progressive fantasy, but I have to give it to Asimov, he does point out the flaws in the concept quite nicely. Asimov is himself a scientist with four or five Ph.D.s and an exhaustive collection of dirty limericks. He takes a long look at the human race and how our creations may one day wind up our masters. While not as much fun as Anderson's rough and tumble capitalist universe, it's a fascinating look at the possibilities and dangers of scientistific meddling.  Hint - Asimov comes down on the side of science.  Here they are in roughly the order I'd read them:

• Robot Visions (Includes the original "I, Robot") with inventor Susan Calvin and introducing Elijah Bailey and his partner, R. Daneel Olivaw
• The Caves of Steel (Bailey and Olivaw)
• The Naked Sun (Bailey and Olivaw)
• The Robots of Dawn (Bailey and Olivaw)
• Robots and Empire (Last with Bailey and Olivaw)
• The Current of Space (first of the Empire Series)
• The Stars, Like Dust (Empire)
• Pebble in the Sky (Empire)
• Prelude to Foundation (Empire and Foundation - Hari Seldon)
• Forward the Foundation (Foundation - Hari Seldon)
• Foundations Fear (by Gregory Benford - Foundation, and Hari Seldon)
• Foundation and Chaos (by Greg Bear - Foundation, Hari Seldon, R. Olivaw)
• Foundation's Triumph (by David Brin - Foundation, Hari Seldon, R. Daneel Olivaw)
• Foundation (Foundation - Hari Seldon)
• Foundation and Empire (Foundation)
• Second Foundation (Foundation)
• Foundations Edge (Foundation)
• Foundation and Earth (Foundation and R. Daneel Olivaw)

The ending is a stunner. Save for the three editions not by Asimov himself, the series is tight, a smooth read and masterfully plotted. I've not read all the new stuff yet, but most of it and am collecting original editions to complete my set.  Isaac will be missed.

6.  The Ender Saga by Orson Scott Card is sixth because I'm more or less writing in order of discovery. Ender's Game is a stunning novel about the misuse of brilliant children. It leaves us with no clear answers about the morality of it, because, after all, the Earth is saved and the pupils soon become the masters in this brilliant series and it's take on how to effectively respond to bullying is disturbing, if effective. The book was so ahead of itself that it's taken 30 years for the movie industry to figure out the technology to make it into a film. Here's the more or less chronological list as it now stands:

• Ender's Game
• Ender's Shadow
• A War of Gifts
• Ender in Exile
• Shadow of the Hegemon
• Shadow Puppets
• Shadow of the Giant
• Shadows in Flight (soon to be published)
• Speaker for the Dead
• Xenocide
• Children of the Mind

7. "The Dragon Riders of Pern" by Anne McCaffrey.   McCaffrey is a relentless serial writer. It's like science fiction meets romance novel in some ways. Her female characters are strong and well drawn. She can be a little corny. The novels of Pern are an easy read, big fat books and a fun alternative to television and you're not likely to run out of reading material any time soon. Once every four years, the colony world of Pern is visited by a space born rain of fire called "thread". Genetically bread fire-breathing dragons and their riders burn the thread up in the sky to prevent wholesale destruction of the colonists below. Each 150 some odd year visitation is called a "pass". Here they are chronologically:

First Pass

• Dragonsdawn
• The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall

Second Pass

• Dragonseye

Third Pass

• Dragons Kin
• Dragonsblood

Sixth Pass

• Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
• Nerilka's Story

Ninth Pass

• Dragonflight
• Dragonsong
• Dragonquest
• Dragonsinger
• The White Dragon
• Dragondrums
• Masterharper of Pern
• Renegades of Pern
• The Girl Who Heard Dragons
• All the Weyrs of Pern
• The Dolphins of Pern
• The Skies of Pern
• A Gift of Dragons (collected short stories)

8. The Aubrey/Maturin Series by Pat O'Brian.  This series brings me back to my love of swashbuckling sea captains. Also set during the Napoleonic Wars, Captain Jack Aubrey and his ship's physician, spy and naturalist Stephen Maturin would have been Horatio Hornblower's contemporaries. Truth be told, I don't like Captain Jack as well as I do Hornblower. Aubrey is a deeply flawed man and there are times I'd like to thrash him. His sins, for some reason, are, though common to sailors, less forgivable than are Hornblowers. That said, the series is a deeply detailed look at the lives of sailors and their captains and officers and O'Brien brings us another worthy study in the art of leadership. In chronoligical order, the books are:

• Master and Commander
• Post Captain
• HMS Surprise
• The Mauritius Command
• Desolatin Island
• The Fortune of War
• The Surgeon's Mate
• The Ionian Mission
• Treason's Harbour
• The Far Side of the World
• Reverse of the Medal
• The Letter of Marque
• The Thirteen Gun Salute
• The Nutmeg of Consolation
• Clarissa Oakes
• The Wine-Dark Sea
• The Commodore
• The Yellow Admiral
• The Hundred Days
• Blue at the Mizzen
• The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

9.  "Rumpole of the Bailey" by John Mortimer. I am not a big fan of the mystery genre, but then Rumpole is not a detective. Rumpole is a pudgy, opinionated, small-cigar-smoking Old Bailey Hack - a lawyer of all things. I am not fond of lawyers, except for perhaps, this one. Rumpole lives his live between the Old Bailey, London Sessions and his Froxbury flat with his wife Hilda (SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED). They made a series out of the books that's as funny as the originals. It's more leisurely reading the books and wll worth your time. You'll feel you've made a friend of old Rumpole. I find him one of the most sympathetic barristers in all of literature, right down to the spattering of ash on his waistcoat.  The series, originally written for television, later became a book series and I prefer them that way. The books include novelizations and short stories from the series.:

• Rumpole of the Bailey
• The Trials of Rumpole
• Rumpoles Return
• Rumpole for the Defense
• Rumpole and the Golden Thread
• Rumpole's Last Case
• Rumpole and the Age of Miracles
• Rumpole a la Carte
• Rumpole on Trial
• Rumpole and the Angel of Death
• Rumpole Rests His Case
• Rumpole and the Primrose Path
• Rumpole and teh Penge Bungalow Murders
• Rumpole and the Reign of Terror
• The Anti-Social Behavior of Horace Rumpole
• Rumpole at Christmas

10. "The Lord of the Rings" by JRR Tolkien. Tolkien, also a member of the "Inklings", the famous group of English authors that also included CS Lewis, writes my very favorite fantasy series. It is my favorite sword and sorcery novel because of it is also a powerful and unashamed Christian allegory about the misuse of power and the power of ordinary people.  A huge body of work and one of the most remarkable pieces of world-building ever done by a novelist.  The series in order:

• The Silmarillion (a prequel consisting of Tolkien's massive collection of background notes for his Lord of the Rings series. He invents most of two or three languages and a complete mythology of Middle Earth).
• The Hobbit (the lightest of the three follows Bilbo Baggins on a quest for treasure)
• The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Two Towers
• The Return of the King

11. "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'Engle.  A Newberry Award winner when it first came out, L'Engle tells the story of the highly intelligent children of two scientists. It begins by violating the first rule of novel writing (Never, ever begin a story with the sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night." L'Engle doesn't pay much attention to such rules, spending time describing home-cooking over a Bunsen Burner in Mom's home laboratory and sending children across the universe via tesseracts with extra-dimensional old ladies. The books are brilliantly written and do not talk down to kids, challenging them at every turn to think hard about what they believe. Before the series is over, every member of the family is tossed about in time and space and become, not only a visitor to the past, but a part of the future. The series in order is:

• A Wrinkle in Time
• A Wind in the Door
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet
• Many Waters
• An Acceptable Time

12. "Harry Potter" by JK Rowlings.  I came to Harry Potter late and with some reluctance. I was put off by the sorcery quite frankly. Though some of my favorite novels (Lewis and Tolkien, for instance), contain quite a bit of it, they manage to use it to good purpose and not to dabble in evil. I wasn't so sure about Rowlings. Then, on the recommendation of a Christian reviewer, I gave the series a go and to my surprise, found that Rowlings was more of a child of God than she gives herself credit for. The point of the whole book is that you should always do the right thing. When you choose yourself first, the consequences can be worse than if you chose to do the hard and unselfish thing. She also emphasizes that no person can take everything on their own shoulders - that we must depend on one another and hold each other up. Her magic is incantational and not invocational which makes me feel better. The protagonists do not summon up evil spirits (unless, of course, they are evil. In Lewis' and Tolkien's work it was the same. Evil people inevitably summon evil spirits and that is more true to life than most of us want to admit.  Here's the series in order:

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

 In conclusion...

My birthday is coming up in April and I am very partial to boxed hardcover sets and first editions, so.......now you never have to wonder what to get me. You have the list. 

15 Foot-Stompin' Country Music Songs

There are a few country songs that, whenever you hear them, you can't resist stomping your foot and clapping your hands, singing at the top of your lungs while throwing in an occasional, "Yeehaw!"  Here's 15 that make me do that. You may not agree with me, but if you did this bunch as a set, you'd have everybody hoarse by the time the set was over..

1.  Thank God, I'm a Country Boy - John Denver's anthem to fiddling and country living is one I defy you to listen to without your foot starting to tap involuntarily.  Don't be ashamed of it. Go ahead and "Yeehaw" if you want.  

2. Mama Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys - Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings do this one. I just love jumpin' in on the chorus.

3. Take This Job and Shove It -  The David Allen Coe version is the best one. He was the won that wrote it. Johnny Paycheck just did the first version. If you've ever had a crappy job, this one makes you weep.

4. Hey Good Lookin' - Hank Williams Sr. wrote some of the best foot stompers. It's little wonder given the dance halls where he built his career. My favorite version was by Buckwheat Zydeco. I love the way that accordion warbles.

5. Jambalaya - Hank Williams Sr. gets on my list again for this Cajun anthem. My favorite version is the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band rendition

6. Kaw-Lijah - Once again Hank Williams Sr. tosses out a rowdy party anthem about a cigar store Indian's fateful romance.  My favorite version is by an East Texas Celtic Band, Beyond the Pale. They do a medley version with bagpipes and fiddles.   

7. Okee from Muskogee - When Merle Haggard sings this song, it makes us all wish we wer Okees.

8. Luckenbach, Texas - Then Waylon Jennings sings this one and makes you glad you're from Texas.

9. Waltz Across Texas - Ernest Tubbs wonderfully twangy country anthem makes you want to snatch up your woman and twirl her around the dance floor.

10. Blue Suede Shoes - Elvis. I would have liked to see this one when he was playing at the Louisiana Hayride.

11. Elvira - The Oak Ridge Boys lit a big fire with this one. Oompapa, oompapa, mow, mow!

12. Achy Breaky Heart - To be honest, I included this one by Billy Ray Cyrus because next to "Boot Scootin' Boogie" (which narrowly missed this list) it was the country song that most irritated my teenage boys during their punk/garage band years.  I used to do this little dance.......

13.  Lucille - Kenny Rogers asks, "Why did you leave me Lucille?" It was downright heartbreaking.  Made you want to help him harvest his crops.

14. All the Gold in California - The Gatlin Brothers told where all that gold was in this rowdy song. My favorite version was one they did at the CMA awards once.  They sang "All the gold in California. Is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in Kenny Rogers name!" I about fell off my chair.

15. Drinkenstein - Here's one you probably forgot by someone you would in no way consider a country singer.  Written by Dolly Parton and performed by a very Italian Sylvester Stallone in the very funny "Rhinestone".  The movie really hacked off country music fans, Stallone fans, Dolly Parton fans, critics and almost everybody except me.  I loved the film and Stallone's performance doing "Drinkenstein" was priceless.  "Budweiser you've created a monster....and they call him Drinkenstein." I just howled.

You probably hate some of my choices on the list, but I don't care. I like 'em all!

Tom