Top Ten Reasons Why Wal-Mart Isn't the Bad Guy!

Wal-Mart gets a bad rap from the media and the liberal community. They are characterized as an evil greedy company, exploiting workers and ruining American small business. I don't think that's true at all. Here are ten reasons why:

1. Wal-Mart promotes American manufacturing.  If Wal-Mart can find an American supplier, it will use them.
 A friend of mine worked for Wally World and assures me that if Wal-Mart can find an American source for goods they will buy American first. The company has to be able to deliver enough goods at a decent price, of course, but if an American company can do the job, they get first preference. Most companies fall short because they can't deliver the volume Wal-Mart needs.  That's not Wal-Mart's fault.

2.  Wal-Mart creates jobs by making other companies successful.
There have been many energetic American companies that have been able to meet the production requirements for Wal-Mart that have been made very successful thanks to their relationship with Wal-Mart. In addition, those companies create jobs in their communities in manufacturing, an industry that has been steadily shipped overseas in recent decades.

3. Wal-Mart discourages corporate greed.  
It's when supplier companies get greedy and decide to pay executives those 50 million dollar salaries and bonuses and jack up their prices that they lose Wal-Mart as a customer. If you've ever been to Wal-Mart's Bentonville offices, you would see a lean business in action. Offices are modest by corporate standards. They are all about business. Wal-Mart customers aren't paying for plush executive offices.

4. Wal-Mart passes the savings they make in dealing with suppliers along to the customer first. 
The customer gets a good deal because Wal-Mart doesn't waste a lot of money on admin like some companies do. And they do pass the savings to customers like me who would be in tough shape without the downward pressure on prices that Wal-Mart brings when it comes to town. Giving people a lower cost for goods, helps Wal-Marts customers make ends meet. Wal-Mart's competitive prices are a huge benefit to folks on fixed incomes. Local companies who can't match Wal-Mart's prices have to provide better service to their customers in order to compete. Wal-Mart has helped eliminate the nasty tempered store owner who used to act like he didn't care whether you bought something from him or not. Those guys don't survive.

5. Wal-Mart makes money.
Making money is actually a good thing. By its sheer volume of sales, Wal-Mart makes steady dividends for its stockholders. The shareholders are the ones at Wal-Mart that make a profit. It's a steady and fair profit. If you own a lot of shares, like Sam Walton's kids do, it can be a huge profit because the company sells an awful lot of stuff. If you bought those shares a long time ago, you might even be very rich right now.  So why is that a bad thing? There are people who have worked for Wally World for 30 years that bought the company stock options that are offered to ALL employees, even the lowliest front door greeter. Some of these folk never made more than $9 an hour, but are millionaires today because their stock has risen so dramatically in value since they bought it.

6. Wal-Mart restores the corporate ladder.
People are always lamenting that in today's world you can't go to work for a company pushing a broom and work your way up to company president.  Well, Wal-Mart is one of the few American companies left where you can literally start out pushing a broom and wind up in the upper echelons of the company by dint of sheer hard work.  A friend of mine who has a disability, started out working at the changing room desk at our local Wal-Mart Superstore.  Despite having to work from a wheelchair, she wound up in just two years becoming head of their local community relations office doling out thousands of dollars to local charities and community groups. Being in a wheelchair, she could find few other companies that would even consider hiring her.  But Wal-Mart aggressively hires folks with disabilities and gives them a fair shot at advancement. Yes they hire and lay off a lot of seasonal folk and it may take several runs at it before you "stick", but once you're in, if you do your job, you can move up in the company.

7. Wal-Mart gives back to the community. 
The bulk of Wal-Mart's charity goes to small local groups like school bands, the Scouts, church groups and civic organizations. At a time when the Salvation Army is being banned from some storefronts for being too "religious", they are out in front of Wal-Mart every year and make a lot of money there. Wal-Mart's thousand dollar matching grants program may not seem like much to you, but these small donations do a tremendous amount of good to community groups - the kinds the big foundations won't even bother to consider funding because the impact of their project is too "limited". Somehow Wal-Mart has figured out that lots of little grants can have as big an impact as a few big ones.



8. Wal-Mart has created the word's biggest non-taxpayer funded working prescription drug program for the poor.
Wal-Mart's $4 generic drugs program provided the biggest help to the nation's uninsured I've ever seen. With it's extensive and growing list of generic drugs that they offer for $4, Wal-Mart has created a tool to get everything from pain pills, to thyroid medication to psychotropic drugs to patients who need them. I led a local group that was trying to find a way to get psychotropic drugs for mental patients. We couldn't find a single charitable medication program that was giving away or providing low cost prescription meds to the poor that would even consider helping with medications for mental patients. When Wal-Mart came out with their generic list and we found that it included anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds and other meds for people with mental disorders, we were able to quit looking.  We didn't have anything else to do. Wal-Mart actually sent their med list to local doctors. The doctors have now started prescribing from the Wal-Mart list for their uninsured patients instead of handing out prescriptions for the most expensive medicine available (from the company that gives doctors those trips to Jamaica as incentives for prescribing their product).  Critics do complain that none of the "latest" meds are on the list. Well in my own family's experience, the older meds that Wal-Mart offers for $4 are tried and tested and I don't see those meds being the target of lawsuits like so many of the newer ones.  And they work.  My wife has one expensive newer medication and she's been able to get that one through the "evil" drug company's patient assistance program because she is disabled.  The rest we get for $4 each of a three month supply for $10. Not only that, but other drug stores in the community have lowered prices on their own generic "lists" as well. One grocery store-based pharmacy now advertises $3.99 medicines, cutting Wally World's price by a penny.

9. Despite Internet rumors, Wal-Mart does offer health insurance to its employees.
An older lady I know, who went to work as a greeter at Wal-Mart, was able to have some work done on her bad knee after she went on their insurance program. Don't believe everything you read in some breathless anti-Wal-Mart e-mail your Aunt Matilda sends you.


10. Wal-Mart promotes World Peace!
One last thing that a lot of folks don't think about is Wal-Mart's contribution to the prevention of war. Because we do buy from China so much, it would be foolish of them to attack us. We're their biggest customer. They couldn't afford to damage their trade relations with us.  Wal-Mart isn't the reason China is such a threat to us. What's the biggest threat to our nation's security is the politicians in our government that have sold their votes to China in exchange for campaign contributions!  The truth is, if China were really smart, they'd donate to conservatives.  Capitalism props up their whole system. Without the vast economic engine that is capitalist America, China would collapse of its own weight. If the president and liberal congress succeed in making us a socialist nation, our economy will be destroyed, America will stop buying from China and China will lose the cash cow that makes their communist system viable. What then will prevent them from conquering us and plundering, especially with those same politician dismantling our military deterrent as fast as they can? It may be that Wal-Mart and other American companies like it are almost the only ones out there (besides what's left of our military) on the thin blue line between us and the "commie menace".

So "Viva la Wal-Mart!" is what I say.

I'm just telling you what I think.

Tom

The Best Canceled TV Shows That Should Be Finished

What I want is my own television network.  Actually, I could just buy the Sci-Fi network and cancel all the "reality" shows and horror movies and do just as well.  What I would replace them with are all the television series that people loved that were canceled without ending properly. I've updated my list (2018).

One of the reasons a television series gets canceled is because they don't find an audience quickly enough.  Oddly enough, this isn't so much a consequence of the quality of the show or how well-written or well-acted it is.  It's all about numbers.  What's aggravating for television viewers is that too often, the networks' dim-witted scheduling decisions, hide the good shows so that you can't find them and by the time you do, they've canceled it.   Is it any wonder so many shows don't collect a fan base quickly enough to save them.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm just about ready to stop watching network television of any kind. I'm sick of investing time in a new show only to see it canceled just as it is getting interesting.  I can name a whole string of shows that have gone by the board that shouldn't have.  I can also tell a couple of cautionary tales about dumping a show prematurely.

Way back in the 60's an unlikely new show came out called Star Trek. The network didn't quite know what to do with it and almost canceled it. It was their first experience with outraged fans and it frightened them a little so they left the show in place. They finally canceled the series well short of the end of Enterprise's famous "5 year mission".  The ensuing movies and cable series are proof as to how wrong the network was.

Then, an oddball comedy show called M*A*S*H appeared on CBS.  The network moved it around all over the schedule so no one could find it anymore and then almost canceled it the first year.  Fortunately, smarter folks at CBS prevailed and M*A*S*H went on to become one of the longest running series in history with the largest audience for a finale in TV history.

Give an audience time to find really well crafted writing and acting and you will have a loyal audience. The hardest part for audiences is finding something worth watching.  Networks should make it easy for them to do that.  That's why I propose creating the Cancelled Series Network (CSN).

Now not everything that is canceled deserves to be revived, of course.  My Mother the Car springs to mind. But finding a good canceled series is easy.  Just check what people are watching on Hulu or in the network archives and pluck from oblivion, any series with a loyal fan base.  In the past few years, here are some notable examples:

1. Firefly - I don't care how many people didn't "get" Firefly at first, it was great storytelling, wonderful characters.  The best SF series ever if you listen to the rabid fans.  That's the first one I'd bring back.

2. Jericho- Even if you only shot another 5 episodes and brought it to an end, at least you'd have a DVD set worth buying! I mean, the Republic of Texas was fixin' to kick some Western Alliance behind unless I missed my guess. My favorite post-cancellation stunt by the fans was filling up CBS's lobby with nuts in protest! That kind of imagination and loyalty should be rewarded.

3. Kyle XY - It took me a while to find this little ABC Family gem as it did many others.  When it went to Hulu, viewers worldwide discovered it and made the series immensely popular in places like Canada, France, Brazil, Iraq and Turkey of all places.  It needs another season or two to bring the story cycle to its end. Besides it's a really good story with admirable characters actually doing honorable things.We should be exporting shows like this one with a really decent main character set.

4.  Journeyman - This involuntary time traveler tale was just beginning to get interesting when ABC pulled the plug. I think there should be a rule of a minimum one year and a requirement that the series be ended properly or you can't start the series at all.  A one-season mini-series would have been about right for Journeyman.

5.  New Amsterdam - This one, a Highlander-like, tale of a 400 year old police detective was, again, just starting to get interesting when they killed it.  This is another one that begs to finish the season and have an ending.


6.  Life on Mars - This one they did right.  I'd like to have seen one more season for this series, but at least they ended the series.  I loved the ending. I think the American ending was better than the British one, but then I like my stories to have closure.  I hate open-ended ambiguity.  Bravo to whoever let "Mars" write an ending before they killed it.

7. Crusoe - I was really getting into this retelling of the Robinson Crusoe story and I don't care how politically correct it was compared to the original or how few people watched it.  At least end the series for crying out loud.  For people that liked the series, you could at least buy the series or watch it on Hulu or something where it could generate some ad revenue.  Get the man home to his wife at least.

8. Defying Gravity - This intriguing bit of science fiction got pulled halfway through the first season and left me hanging big time. I'm beginning to despise ABC for doing that to me. They will be the first network I boycott.  Let them do dancing idol worm-eating survivor desperate ghost wife shows without me.  At least finish the couple of seasons it will take to complete the series.  That or turn it into a mini-series and end it.

9. The Unit - Finally the network does a military series that isn't anti-military. But, of course, CBS can't figure out where to put it and manages to hide it from any hope of an audience.  This one just needed to go on for about 5 more years till everybody on the team's hitch is up.

10.  Early Edition - The engaging saga of Gary Hobbs, the pub owner who gets tomorrow's newspaper today lasted only 3 seasons.  It could have gone on much longer.  I don't know whether they ended it or not, because I can't watch it on-line anywhere yet (at least not without risking an FBI raid).  I hope it ended well for Gary. At any rate, EE was one of those good-hearted shows that you watch every week to make you feel like there's some hope for the world.  I miss it. 

11. Chuck - I didn't commit an act of terrorism, but they did cancel it after fans won an extra season. Trouble is they left us hanging. They need a movie to finish it up or someone should pick up the series for a while. I like Chuck and it deserved far better than it got.

12. Alphas - Alphas on the Syfy network had a fascinating storyline and after an engaging season they ended it without wrapping it up. I think that it should be illegal to start telling a story without ending it.

13. Defiance - The story of a post-alien invasion St. Louis, lasted three seasons before Syfy dropped it. Syfy is one of the worst about dropping series, next to ABC....

14. Forever - This ABC series was fascinated and starred one of my favorite actors, Ioan Gruffud. It was about a 200 year old immortal man who becomes a New York county coroner. Bad people kill him a lot and he always disappears and winds up in the river naked. I really loved the series and it was just getting started when ABC ended it.

15. Defying Gravity - Again ABC produces a brilliant sci-fi show with a serious plotline and then does what Fox did to Firefly and canceled it mid-season. I liked the series because it didn't have a bunch of magic and implausible plot devices. It looked like it was going to be good and the ABC killed it. Stupid ABC

The Rest - Eli Stone (another series killed by ABC) should been brought to some kind of an end.  It was quirky and interesting. Same with My Own Worst Enemy.  Dead Like Me was a very strange little show, but killing it, then following up with a movie that doesn't end it either is just goofy.  Showtime needs to go ahead and run a few more seasons or finish with a closer movie WITH Mandy Patinkin this time.  Threshold (CBS) and Invasion (stupid ABC) were two SF shows that deserved at least an ending for crying out loud.  And I don't think I'd have ever got enough of Monk, but at least they did wrap the series up. Same with Syfy's Eureka and Warehouse 13.

Shows in Jeopardy: (Later canceled)


Chuck - If NBC kills Chuck, I may commit an act of terrorism. (They did and I didn't, but I'm still hacked off at them.)
Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles - My Sweet Baboo likes the Terminator movies and this spinoff TV series. I don't know why, but I put this in for her. (This one also got canceled. Sheila was highly unsatisfied with them for that won.)
Flash Forward - I just got into this one.  Please don't cancel this one.  I'm just catching up on the back episodes.(This one got killed before it finished the first season - boy can I pick 'em)
Numb3rs - They always cancel the geek shows.  Remember Dweebs.  I loved that show and it didn't last but a few paltry episodes.  Numb3rs is brilliant and must be a bear to write with all that math in it.  I hope they at least bring it to an end.  I think they are, at least based on the last few episodes I've seen. (Numbers hung around for quite a while, but I wasn't done with it when they canceled it.)

My network would mine from these series that have a dedicated fan base and set them up with a secure home for a minimum of one complete season.  No series would be canceled without at least a two hour series finale or more.  The first series I would sign would be FIREFLY, then The Unit, Jericho, Early Edition, Forever, Defying Gravity and Kyle XY and on down the list.  I think you could make a fortune buying and rebroadcasting these series with the promise of new episodes and an ending.  I'd rerun Life on Mars and add a half dozen or so new episodes sandwiched in between the last two episodes.  Forget the 26 show season minimum. We could just broadcast however many episodes the series works out to be.

I'd love to borrow Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf and Good Neighbors from the BBC and revisit them too.  I think you could build a successful TV network using that model.  Only two rules.

1. NO CELEBRITY ANYTHING.
2. NO REALITY ANYTHING.

Only good storytelling, great acting and well-crafted concepts. I'd work for 5 figures and hire gifted amateurs to run the network and shoot the first marketing guy that shows up to tell me my demographic is skewed.

I would.  I'd get a conceal and carry permit just for that purpose.

Tom

Things to Do With a Tennis Ball

Tennis Balls are useful objects.  Here are a few things you can do with them.

1.  Courtship facilitator.  Tennis is good for your lungs and heart, but probably a bit hard on your knees.  I recommend it to young skinny people as a useful tool in the courting ritual.  Tennis will show you not only what your intended looks like in white shorts, but also whether your future spouse will play fair in a fight.  If you're dating and your boyfriend (or girlfriend for that matter) slams the ball hard across your knees and then grins as he or she reminds you how badly you are losing, then you might want to find a new tennis partner, if you know what I mean.

2.  Sliders for old people's walkers.  If you cut a short gash in a tennis ball, you can slip it over the legs of a walker or cane and provide that just right level of traction that no plastic knob or vinyl slider will ever be able to reproduce.  It's the hairy surface that allows for that perfect resistance as it slides.  Laugh, but this tip could save you a broken hip some day.

3.  Doggie play toy.  Nothing works better for teaching a dog to fetch than a tennis ball.  Some dogs retain a tennis ball in their play area for just this purpose.  Not mine, of course. Daisy, our toothy Borador, can reduce a tennis ball to shreds in less than 4 minutes. She poops hairy yellow turds for days afterwards.  But for most dogs, a tennis ball is endless retrieving joy.  Just get yourself a rubber glove for handling the slobbery thing.

4.  Automobile radio aerial bumper.  I've seen mobile amateur radio and CB radio owners stick a tennis ball on the top of their whip antennas to reduce the force of impact of the aerial on any light fixtures or thin metal structures they pass under if they forget to check the clearance first.  It's one of those idiot-proofing deals for which a tennis ball is uniquely suited.

5.  Frisbee (TM) retrieval device.  A tennis ball, because it is usually found in the yard where you are playing Frisbee with your dog, makes a handy thing for throwing at a flying disk that you've managed to stick in a tree. It can also be used for kite retrieval, underwear retrieval (don't ask) and for loosening a dangling broken limb. Because it is small it can be delivered with unusual force on target and if you miss, will probably not kill anyone as would an anvil or a rock should you throw one of them up into a tree.  Remember: "What goes up must come down."  How much better that it should be a nice bouncy tennis ball that whacks you in the head than a small boulder, 2x4 or lug wrench.

6.  Garage warning device.  First you park your car where it should go in the garage so that you can close the door, but don't run into the back wall. Then nail a string to the ceiling and tie a tennis ball on the end so that the ball just touches the front window of the car. Then, when you drive into the garage, just pull forward till the dangling tennis ball touches the front windshield of the car AND THEN STOP!!!.  Then you don't crash through the wall into the kitchen like my sister did.

(c) 2010 by Tom King

Five Greatest Movie Villains

Okay, I admit going into this that I don’t watch any horror flicks, so Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers didn’t make the list.  My villains tend to be from family films.  A good villain to my way of thinking has to give children nightmares and have some nuance. By nuance, I mean, cause me to have no sympathy at all when they burst into flame, melt into a puddle or fall into a nuclear reactor. Here’s the list of the evil villains who disturbed my calm as a child.

1. The Wicked Witch of the West – When I was a kid, this hateful little woman scared the bejeebers out of me every year at Thanksgiving when they ran The Wizard of Oz on TV.  I mean, “…and your little dog too!” How much meaner can a person with warts on her nose be?
2. Darth Vader – Who doesn’t have a horror that your dad is really an interstellar black knight that can strangle people with his mind?  For my dad to strangle someone, he had to eat pinto beans first.
3. Cruella DeVille – The name says it all. Here was a nasty tempered woman, she was skinny and she smoked one of those cigarettes on a stick.  She was one bad dudette. I used to hide my dog Pudgie’s pups lest she drive by and spot them.
4. Cinderella’s Stepmother – Stepmom’s have to at least be represented on this list and who’s stepmom better than Cinderella’s? She had that old evil stepmother voice thing going for her and then she deliberately sabotaged Cindy’s chances for love and happiness with the prince by locking her up in the tower.  That’s low, I don’t care how many cooties a girl might have!
5. The Invisible Atomic Brain Monster – Okay, I did watch a scary movie when I was a kid. The Invisible Atomic Brain Monster was about this scientist who was doing experiments with human brains by exposing them to atomic radiation (nobody really knows why) and they come to life, become invisible and start crawling around using their spinal cords like some big-headed inchworm and they’d jump at you and wrap their spinal cords around your neck and bite your neck (I don’t know where the teeth came from) and suck out your brains and spinal cord and make more of them with it (I don’t know how), but they’d go on multiplying till someone cranked up the local atomic power plant, make them visible again and got a machine gun and shot them all, but not before they ripped the skirts off a couple of blondes for some reason not really clear to me at the time.  I slept for weeks with a pillow wrapped securely around my neck lest they should attack in the night while I was sleeping.  The pillow was to prevent them from sucking out my brains if they got past my barricaded door to my room!  I think that was when my mom crashed into my barricaded door with a hamper full of laundry that she made me stop watching horror movies on the Sunday afternoon movie.

This list undoubtedly says something about my character, but I can’t really figure out what.  It was going to be 10 Greatest Movie Villains, but it’s late and all I can come up with for the last five are Snidely Whiplash, Boris Badenoff, Witchie Poo, the rabid wolf in “Old Yeller” and the First Terminator and since three of them are TV villains, Arnold is governor of California and has had all the PR he'll ever need and since I’m too tired to go on, we’ll leave it at 5. 

Did you know that that’s why there weren’t the 10 Wonders of the Ancient World instead of 7?  They were making up the list, it was late and everybody was drinking and fell asleep. That’s how come they left out the Aztec Pyramids, The Easter Island Moa’s and Cleopatra’s bath scene in the Elizabeth Taylor film.

I’m just sayin’

Tom

Top Ten Things to Drink When You are Really Thirsty

Admittedly, this list is not scientific by any means and is the result of a poll of limited scope - me and the missus were really thirsty and we were trying to think of what would really hit the spot.  What follows is THE definitive list of thirst quenchers.....

1.  Water very cold or on ice:   Plain old hydration.  No sugar, no caffeine, no electrolytes.  Useful as a chaser for some other drinks that provide immediate, but not long term relief.

2.  Coca-Cola in the original glass bottle:  There is nothing like it for cutting a dry mouth and getting moisture to your tongue and throat.  It loses it's effect if it's from a plastic bottle. It's not the same over ice, even in a glass tumbler.  It only works in that wonderful curvaceous glass bottle.  Tall or small, it matters not.  Coke does contain caffeine which actually kicks up the kidneys and makes the fluid run on through your body, so you should always follow up Coke with a water chaser to offset the evil effects.  Even with it's drawbacks, Coke is what you want first when you step out of the desert to clear your palate.  It's the real thing!

3.  Iced Tea in a tall glass with lemon, sweetened or unsweetened, no straw: Ice Tea was invented in the South because it is so danged hot down here. You can't drink hot tea when it's 105 degrees with 100% humidity.  It's just not civilized.  You'll sweat right through your white seersucker suit and you don't want to see a bunch of dowdy old white guys and their wives running around with those white outfits plastered to their skin. It's just not decent.  Sit down in the shade and pour up a big old glass of tea and sip it slowly to let the effects of the cooling liquid restore your spirits. It's civilized!

4. Beer, very cold:  I am told that a cold beer on a hot day is restorative.  As a confirmed teetotaler, I do not know this for a fact and having actually tasted beer cannot imagine how this could be so, but I take the word of others more experienced than I.  Beer does contain a lot of nutrients, sugars and carbohydrates in it. Originally, beer was invented by the Egyptians as a cheap way to keep the pyramid builders happy and hydrated.  It's like liquid bread! 

5. Gator-Aid: The original scientific thirst quencher, Gator-Aid and it's innumerable immitators do a really good job of replacing lost electrolytes, allowing athletes and 15 year old boys to keep going long after they should have fallen down in a heap panting for iced tea. 

6. Lemonade on ice with a little umbrella:  Developed by the British Navy and assorted pirates and merchant sea captains to prevent scurvy and disguise the taste of unflitered, unchlorinated water left too long in the cask, lemonade became fashionable in the South for when we weren't drinking iced tea or mint juleps.  Good stuff if it's not too sweet and you're really thirsty. 

7.  Orange Soda: Nehi or Mission Orange or Orange Crush in a glass bottle that's been buried in a cooler full of ice.  Must be drunk quickly while every ounce is freezing cold. 

8. Orange Juice on ice:  For sheer restorative power, a huge glass of orange juice on ice cannot be beat. I've been told that drinking that much orange juice can be harmful, but I do not see how and refuse to believe it.  A big glass of iced OJ with a pimento cheese sandwich, potato chips and a pickle can bring a man back from the dead. I've seen it. 

9. Diet Dr. Pepper on ice:  I love Diet Dr. Pepper.  It's what older East Texans use instead of Coke.  Pour it over a big glass of ice and it quenches the thirst admirably, without the carbonated creosote taste of Coca-Cola. I actually choose theaters by whether or not they serve Diet Dr. Pepper.  Diet Coke and Pepsi are absolutely uncivilized. 

10.  Dr Pepper in the small bottle:  Bottled in Dublin Texas using Imperial Pure Cane sugar instead of that horrible old corn syrup, Dr. Pepper in the small bottle is the last vestige of the age of enlightenment. Dr. Pepper any other way is just wrong.  This is the way my grandmother served Dr. Pepper when I was a boy. We Texans make pilgrimages to Dublin to buy case lots of Dr. Pepper made properly.

That's the lot.  If you disagree, you may comment.  You'll be wrong, but go ahead.....

(Okay, this one got left out and should be included )

11. Diet A&W Root Beer in a big frosty mug. I bought a big glass mug just for my restorative rootbeers. I go with diet because (a) I'm diabetic and (b) it's not as sweet as original A&W and I like my soft drinks a bit less sugary anyway.

I'm going to leave room here at the bottom if anyone thinks of another restorative fluid which should go here.

© 2017 by Tom King

Five Strange Little Movies I Like, but You Probably Never Heard Of

There are a bunch of funny little movies out there that are little jewels. When you see them, they make you smile every time and you're glad you watched them and wonder why no one else seems to know this movie exists. 


1. The Captain Is a Lady - Charles Coburn and Beulah Bondi star in this sweet film about a retired sea captain who is swindled by the local mayor and evicted from his home. His wife moves into a home for single elderly ladies, but sadly, no men allowed.  The residents including Marjorie Main (Ma Kettle) smuggle Captain Abe into the old ladies home where he is listed as Old Lady 31 to his utter embarrassment.  The Captain performs an act of heroism and with the help of a bunch of very determined widow women, wins back his nest egg and his wife's little home.  The thing is an absolute delight from start to finish and the scene where the old ladies confront the swindling mayor is priceless.

2.  Dark Star - John Carpenter's quirky sci-fi picture screws with your head. A bunch of grungy space travelers fly about the universe searching for unstable planets to destroy with a frozen captain, a batch of talking bombs and the odd inflatable alien lurking about the hold waiting to pounce. Just to give you an idea, there is an ongoing philosophical argument between the acting captain and a defective bomb that insists it is time to blow itself and the ship to bits. The theme song is a country ballad about the theory of relativity as it relates to a girl in Benson, Arizona. 

3. Hobson's Choice - Charles Laughton is a widowed boozy London shoemaker with three troublesome daughters. His eldest daughter, Maggie (Brenda DeBanzie), decides to get all the sisters a husband including herself.  She picks the best shoemaker in her father's shop, marries him and sets up in competition with the old Man.  John Mills as Willie Mossop is wonderful as the shy cobbler she takes in hand and makes into a man every bit as formidable as her father. Hobson never has a chance...........or a choice. I love this movie.

4. Haunted Honeymoon - This little gem stars Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner and Dom DeLuise and takes place in the golden age of radio. Wilder is the neurotic nephew of Dom DeLuise as his Aunt, the matriarch of an odd collection of screwy relations who come to a spooky old mansion on a stormy weekend, apparently to scare Larry Abbott, Wilder's character, to death.  At one point DeLuise as the portly Aunt Kate does a hysterical dance version of "Ballin' the Jack" with Radner's Vickie Pearl character.  Complete with a surprise ending, this lovely film is perfect for some delightful Halloween fun!

5. Serenity - Arguably the best science fiction TV series ever, Firefly was canceled in its first season.  For some reason people don't "get" this show.  The premise is that the Earth collapses and two civilizations escape - Americans and Chinese.  Most people speak English and curse in Chinese. Everyone has settled in a large star system that has a whole flock of habitable planets and moons that have been terraformed for human habitation.  Some planets are less terraformed than others and became a sort of frontier with the characteristics of the American West complete with cowboys, outlaws and smugglers.  Set after a failed war for independence, a bunch of ex-rebels under the command of a laconic former sergeant cum smuggler ramble from planet to planet in an old Firefly class space freighter looking for work of dubious legality. Serenity, the movie, closes the series and solves the mysteries introduced in the series. Nathan Fillian is terrific as Captain Malcolm Reynolds, coping with vengeful corporate operatives who are in pursuit of one of his crew and the secrets locked in her head.  This movie is just plain good if you give it a chance to get under your skin.  Watch the series first for a complete "Firefly" experience.

My Top Ten All Time Favorite Politicians

by Tom King (c) 2009 - All Rights Reserved

The words favorite and politician are not words I often use in the same sentence, but I do have some. To get a full ten, I have to go back a ways in history. Some are obscure. All are personal choices. They all have one thing in common.  They all are courageous and have taken risks that could have cost them their careers. Their actions often earned them the wrath of their contemporaries. In every case, reading their stories made me smile. Having been.in the position of standing up to "the man" in defense of the little guy, I appreciate the type of sand it takes to plant your feet in the breech and stand for something you believe in. What follows is my personal roster of politicians in the breech!

1. George Washington:  Okay, George is a no-brainer, but these days most people don't realize what a gutsy guy the general was. First there was the whole crossing-the-Deleware/Battle of Trenton deal which nobody thought would work and if it had failed, that might have been the end of the revolution. Certainly Washington, himself, would have been killed or captured and hung. Then he refused a kingship.  He refused to let them call him "your excellency" or give him the trappings of royalty as first president. He refused to serve more than two terms and set a precedent so powerful that when FDR broke it, the Congress waited till he died and then passed an amendment to prevent it from every happening again. These are only a fraction of the stories I could tell of Washington's courage and faithfulness to his principles.

2. Abraham Lincoln:  Lincoln is another no-brainer. The man had the courage to do what he had to in order to hold the country together in the face of the greatest crisis in the nation's history. His second inaugural address sounded the call for the liberation of those in slavery and defense of the union. The Emancipation Proclamation was opposed even by members of his own cabinet. He risked his life by what he did as president and he knew it. He did not shrink from doing the right thing even though he understood what price him might have to pay and he did pay that price at the end. He was a wise, compassionate and gentle soul whom I think was chosen by God to be where he was at that moment in time and to stand in the breach. The more I learn about Lincoln, the better I like him.

3. Arlene Wohlgemuth: Arlene is someone you likely do not know. She served as Texas state representative from District 58 back in the 90's. During her first term, Texas Monthly called her one of the top ten new Texas legislators. The notoriously liberal leaning magazine changed its tune next go round and demoted her to the ten worst legislator's list. What happened.  It's called the Memorial Day Massacre by Texas political junkies. The back story is this. Ms. Wohlgemuth proposed a bill that if a teenage girl wanted an abortion, her parents had to be notified. The Democrats killed her bill by delaying it with a procedural motion that prevented the bill from being voted on. Furious, Arlene didn't get mad. She got even.  She invoked the exact same procedural motion and killed 52 Democrat proposed bills that the Dems were bringing in under the wire in the last days of the session (a common way to sneak stuff by the public without a lot of uproar).  The wailing in Austin was a thing to behold. Arlene got death threats. Texas managed to remain standing for another 2 years without an expansion of government till the Democrats lost their majority hold on the Texas legislature. Gotta love the woman!  I hope she runs for congress again. We could use someone like her.

4. Sam Houston:  Sam Houston was an alcoholic and by all reports a venal, self-serving vindictive bastard. His men had to drag him to the Battle of San Jacinto to confront Santa Anna. Then, he bungled negotiations with Santa Anna and let him go to harass Texas again just a few years later. He persecuted the members of the Texas Navy at a time when the Navy was single-handedly keeping the Mexican Army off the coasts of Texas. Despite Houston's efforts to torpedo them, the Texas Navy probably preserved the state's independence. Sam didn't like sailors for some reason and tried to prosecute the secretary of the Navy for treason.  Old Sam had a lot of faults. But when the state of Texas decided to blindly follow the southeastern states into rebellion, Houston, in a rare display of honorable behavior, opposed secession despite its popularity.  He resigned his office in protest. His example inspired an underground resistance movement in Texas that interfered with military supply and support operations throughout the war. For that alone he deserves the big ugly statue on the road between Houston and Dallas.

5. Thomas Jefferson: Jefferson gets my vote for two big things - writing the Declaration of Independence and forcing the issue with the Bill of Rights. T.J. also had problems with the navy and his stingy support of the fledgling U.S. Navy emboldened the British and may have played a part in encouraging the War of 1812. Despite his failings, old Tom was capable of taking risks.  The Louisiana Purchase was a risk well worth taking. He also slipped language into the Constitution and Declaration that mollified southern slave-holders, but managed to implant principles into the founding documents that flowered in the fires of the Civil War and led to the end of slavery.

6. Ronald Reagan: Reagan makes the list because I absolutely love this guy.  Reagan was a genuinely decent man. If this list were in order of importance, Ronnie would be tied with General George for #1. Reagan articulated a positive vision for America that actually worked. He genuinely believed all the stuff he said about American excellence. If we are indeed a city on the hill, then it was Reagan who turned the lights back on so people could see us again. His first defining moment was at Reykjavik when he walked away from the negotiating table against the advice of his advisors, his cabinet and every political pundit that could be dragged in front of a microphone. His guts and stubbornness vastly reduced the number of nuclear weapons pointed at us when the Russians caved a year later and signed a ground-breaking nuclear disarmament treaty. His second defining moment was in front of the Berlin Wall when he had the cheek to challenge Premier Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!". Again, everybody screamed "Take that line out of the speech!".  Reagan's response?  "We better leave it in.  It's the right thing to do!" God bless him for that.

7. George W. Bush: For all GW's shortcomings, his overspending, his economic compromises with liberal Democrats, I am glad he was the occupant of the Oval Office when the terrorists hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11. He declared war on terrorism, calling it a war and not a police investigation. Because he stood straight, stuck by his guns and prosecuted a war against terrorist strongholds, during the balance of his time in office the United States was not attacked by terrorists - period!  Within a year of his leaving the presidency, a terrorist attacked a U.S. military base. Whatever you may say otherwise about President Bush, he did keep us safe here at home. I suspect we'll never know what it cost him to do that.

8. Sarah Palin: You've got to admire the courage of this woman. She starts out as mayor of a tiny town in Alaska. She cleans up things there and runs for governor. As soon as she hits office, she turns on her own party and cleans house. She negotiates a pipeline deal that increases the flow of oil to the lower 48. She disrupts Alaska politics as usual by shining the light on a host of nasty little political deals. She accepts a spot on the presidential ticket and endures brutal attacks by folks on the left. They go after her, her family and file a flood of lawsuits designed to cripple her ability to govern. She resigns the governor's office for the sake of the state, despite the universal opinion of political pundits that this will be the end of her political career.

Anybody wanna bet?

9.  Louis Gohmert:  Louis is the U.S. Congressman from the 1st District - my district here in East Texas. I wasn't sure about Judge Gohmert when he first hit the Congress.  My opinion of him soon changed. He stood up on the House floor and pointed out that after just two months of the new Democrat majority talking about raising taxes and expanding government, the stock market took a dive. Then he proposed a tax holiday instead of a cash stimulus. The idea was genius. It placed money in the hands of people who could use it to stimulate economic activity and at the same time reduce the ability of the government to meddle. Instead of passing the money through the government where it could be misdirected, misappropriated and wasted before going to the people, the people would simply keep what they already had and it would happen fast. Then when Obama did a speech on health care to a joint session of Congress, Louis sat there big as life with a sign on his lap that said, "What bill?"  and "What plan?".  Ya gotta love this guy!

10. Theodore Roosevelt:  Teddy was a progressive. He was caught up in the whole progressive movement and as we have learned since there are some really bad things about progressivism. But there was more to Teddy than that. He did a lot of things that were downright un-progressive as president.  The "Big Stick" policy alone wins my admiration. He went after the big trusts that had long enjoyed government protection of their monopolies. He reduced the power and influence of the robber barons and restored opportunities for smaller companies to get back into the game. Teddy was wrong on a lot of things, but then progressivism had yet to reveal itself as the pernicious doctrine that led directly to the rise of socialism, facism and nazisim in Europe. I suspect that as that became clear to Teddy, he'd have slapped that idea down as enthusiastically as he went after the corporate crooks that had been squashing competition and exploiting their employees with the willing complicity of government for decades.  While giving a speech once, someone tried to assassinate him. With a bullet in him, President Roosevelt gave the speech in full before going to a doctor for treatment. That's my kind of guts.

Admire who you like, but these guys are some of my favorites. They all have one thing in common. Each of them have taken stands that earned them the disdain of the elitist snobs of their eras. Having received hate mail from bureaucrats myself, I tend to like that quality in my politicians. We need more of these people if our country is to survive. How many of our elected officials would stand up in the legislature and say as another of my favorite obnoxious politicians once said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Patrick Henry had his flaws, but like King Arthur in the legend, he had his one brief shining moment!