I wrote to both of my United States Senators concerned about efforts of politicians who lack the integrity to face up-coming elections on the merits of their character and voting record. With deplorable voting records they have wrapped themselves in the flag to propose a constitutional amendment which would make it illegal to desecrate our Flag.  Nice try.  I see this as an attempt to divert our attention from the real work that they have not done.  From the response, shared below, I see that Senator Harkin gets it.  Hey, Senator Grassley, will I hear from you or have I not made sufficient donations to your re-election campaign fund?

 

June 16, 2006

 

Dear Christopher:

 

            Thank you for contacting me.  When I was a Navy jet pilot some years ago, I developed a special sense of pride in serving this great nation.  In the Navy we were sworn to protect the ideals of freedom, liberty and democracy that the flag represents.  That's a value I think that all but a handful of Americans share.  As an officer, I was proud to wear the uniform of the United States.  I come from a family with a long military tradition.  My brothers and my family before us served in the military.  For all of us, it was our duty, our obligation, and our honor to serve in the United States military.

            I am also a Legionnaire -- a proud member of American Legion Post 562 in Cumming, Iowa.  I know that many of my fellow Legionnaires and veterans organizations support the flag resolution.  I respect this position, and I understand it.

            There is no question that flag burning tests the limits of our tolerance. I make no case for anyone who is so mistaken and misguided as to burn, mutilate, or dishonor the American flag.  It is a reprehensible, outrageous, despicable act.  But this vote on the constitutional amendment was not about whether we are outraged by the burning of the flag.  This debate is not about protecting the flag; it is about preserving what the flag represents.  In short, the resolution forced us to choose between our flag and our Constitution.

            I remain opposed to a constitutional amendment because I do not believe we should tamper with the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.  During the 200 years that the Bill of Rights has brought to life and guarded these principles, it has never been changed or amended. The Bill of Rights has stood the test of time.

            The flag symbolizes principles we cherish most -- freedom, liberty and the rights of individualism.  The flag is not just a symbol of our Nation, but rather the embodiment of our aspirations, and our highest ideals as a Nation.  Respect for the flag is a sign of respect for the democratic ideals that countries the world over want to emulate.  Let us tell our children why we are so proud of the flag.  Let us tell them what the flag represents, what it means and why so many died to preserve and protect our freedom and our way of life.

            This amendment fails to do the very thing for which it was intended.  It will not promote respect for the flag because we cannot legislate patriotism.  Our flag is only as powerful as the Republic for which it stands.  The greatest protection we can give the flag is to uphold and defend the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States.  As a United States Senator, that is my oath and my obligation.

            Again, thanks for sharing your views with me.  Please don't hesitate to let me know how you feel on any issue that concerns you.

 

                                               Sincerely,

 

                                              Tom Harkin

                                              United States Senator

          I stood in my front yard at 6:30 Thursday morning sipping coffee, smoking a cigarette and staring at the sky.  The Weather Channel local radar showed rain in the area but none was apparent to my sleep-crud impacted eyes.  So I scratched my ass and headed back into the house and immediately wished I had dropped that damn cigarette before reaching for my backside.  Sometimes the best way to get a weather report is just going out to the front yard and takin' a look.  I needed to decide if I would be driving or riding to Ottumwa for work.

           I had need to go to Ottumwa to spend some time with Adam, the brilliantly hired technician, who provides IT support for our southern Branches.  I liked Adam from the moment I met him for his interview nearly a year ago but I like him even more now that he has proven so capable because that frees me up to play FreeCell, gossip and work on my blog all day at work.  HEY!  None of that last part is true, so far as you know.

I haven’t had to put gas in the Yukon for a month and if I was going to be afraid of a little rain I would have to do so before I completed the 212 mile round trip to Ottumwa.  My stinging backside and smoldering Sponge Bob pajama bottoms gave me a moment of clarity and I decided that, after my shower, I would throw the rain gear in the saddle bags, install my windshield and hope for the best with concern for riding the Harley on a day with scattered thunderstorms in the forecast.  That moment of clarity proved to be positively profound as nary a drop of the promised precipitation proceeded to impede my path.  (Cool how I strung together another P-word sentence, huh?  See "PINK Begins With P" Parts I and II  http://redhogdiary.com/2006.04.02_arch.html#1144062762437)

The further south I rode the more opportunities I had to see the sun burn a hole through the cloud cover and I watched little pockets of morning sun splash across the rolling hills of South Central Iowa.  I have driven down HWY 149 from Williamsburg to Ottumwa over a hundred times but it all seemed different Thursday.  By the time I got on the road the temperature had already risen above 70 degrees so I was able to make the ride in short sleeves and with the wind in my hair.  The Harley was just purring as I ambled through the countryside.  It was if my machine were glad to be out doing what it was made to do and that was kind of the thought that was going through my mind with regards to myself.  There has to be a way to get paid to ride a Harley and then write about it, there just has to!

The fresh morning air was spirit lifting as I cruised down the road while taking in the scents of fresh cut hay, morning dew and the sweet but underappreciated aromas which emanate from beef operations.  You city folk may scoff at that notion and were we talking Hog Confinements I'm here to tell ya, I'd be a-scoffin myself.  I’m just saying that the fragrance generated from a bovine herd can be somewhat pleasant.  For fear of losing some of you as readers I best move on.

Iowa in spring time is the home of an infinite assortment of green.  The young corn is nearly waist high already.  The old Iowa crop assessment: “knee high by the fourth of July.” has become irrelevant.   The rich jet black Iowa soil is barely visible between the recently planted rows and the fields shimmer and sparkle when the breeze blows and the sun reflects on the blades of shiny emerald corn.  Bands of wooded creek banks in forest green splendor border the fields and act as outlines in the picturesque quilted patchwork that make up much of the Iowa landscape.  Bean and hay fields offer their own contrasting shades of green and those points along HWY 149 that follow a ridge line can offer some spectacular views from the seat of a Harley.  Gentle sweeping curves and mild hills and valleys made the ride even more enjoyable but that isn’t the best part.  In addition to my wages I got forty-four and one half cents per mile to make that trip which used up four of the twelve hours of my workday.  Is this a great country or what?

          Hey you know that supervisor I referred to yesterday?  The one who opted for the less-better solution to a frustrating problem?  He became a first time Grandpa today.  Congratulations!  This should be a good thing for him.  Everybody knows that all Grandpas are mellow plodding and gracious beings who are deep in understanding patient and unflappable.  After all, by the time you get to the advanced age where you are eligible for Grand fatherhood you have pretty much had an opportunity to see everything so nothing I do at work should be capable of surprising him.  Bohahaha!

          Hearing that news from my supervisor got me thinking about my Grandpa Caballero and family and all kinds of warm fuzzies washed over me.  I thought back to the recent visits I have had with my cousins and a conversation I had last night with my sister blogger. http://www.hahnathome.com  With all three of these individuals it came up what a remarkable job my maternal grandparents had done in establishing a lasting impression for compassionate and virtuous living.  Well, okay, maybe the virtuous part should have an asterisk in my case but my point is that not a one of us has ever been convicted of a felony and we all seem to be doing okay as contributing members of society. 

          It seems nearly every family has the one or two members who seem to cause angst amongst the clan but that is absent in our family and for that I am thankful.  Furthermore I find it remarkable the affection we have for each other to this day.  The tradition seems to hold true because as I look at my cousins kids I can honestly say that they all seem to have it together as well.  I wish my grandparents were still alive so they could witness their legacy as their grandchildren have become adults and parents themselves.  Somehow I have to think that they knew what they had done.  As they neared the end of their lives the values they lived by and shared had to be a great comfort to them.  I hope I don’t mess that up.

         

          You know for all the refreshment I got out of my East Coast Tour vacation I have found it extremely difficult to get back into a routine at work.  I’m getting the work done but I have to force myself every bit of the way.  I’m not sure that anything has changed in that regard since before I went on my trip but now I am aware of it and that is cause for some concern.  It doesn’t help much that in a little over two weeks I am back off to DC for the Independence Day holiday and then I return for seven days of work before leaving for my West Coast Tour which will see me gone for the entire remainder of July.  It is a rough life indeed.

          You know where I wrote here that my West Coast trip was going to be a blog tour and the trip was going to be all about the writing?  Scratch that.  I do still intend to write from the road and will do my best to live up to the expectations I have set forth but that solo trip now has two confirmed co-travelers and three others who are working out the details to see if they can join us.  I really was looking forward to and prepared for a solo journey but you can only tell so many people about a trip like that before it starts sounding like a good deal to them as well.  I am happy that Rick and Steve, my travel mates from the East Coast Tour, have decided that they didn’t find me so annoying that they would swear off any future trips in my company.  They are the confirmed of our potential gang of six. 

          Steve and Rick came up with the brilliant idea of leaving a day early and adding a whitewater rafting stop onto our journey to the gold coast.  I’m up for it as long as I can be assured there is little chance of a drowning especially where my delicate body is concerned.  You know, one good thing about being a man of my dimensions is that I float really well.  Remarkably well.  Not as well as I used to though.  A couple of years ago I tipped the scales at a few ounces under 500 pounds.  Hey, don’t ask.  I don’t know how it happened.  I just woke up that way one day.  Okay?  Anyway, I remember swimming with the kids back in those days and were the reality of the physics behind it all not so frightening I would have found it comical that I avoided the 5 foot deep sections of the pool.  You see, buoyancy made it difficult to keep my feet on the pool floor and when the water got much over five feet deep I tended to bob up out of the water.  That was 160 pounds ago though and with any luck by the time I hit the whitewaters it will have been 175 pounds ago.  Regardless, in the event of a water tragedy I would recommend to any skinny fellow rafters that they stay close. 

          Have a great Thursday!

          So much for Buddha.  I had a marginally heated exchange with a supervisor at work today but wasn’t able to let him keep his frustrations to himself.  I wasn’t actually getting a butt chewing but we were discussing a  "situation" and I found his some of his queries into possible solutions annoying which caused me to escalate the frustration a bit.  In the end we got things resolved in a manner that was nearly as good as the solution I suggested so I guess I have no complaints.  Of course being the omnipotent blogger that I am and understanding that it would fall within his supervisory responsibilities to keep track of the content on my site I must say, unequivocally, that my idea was better. 

          Hey, just when you thought you heard everything: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060613/ap_on_sc/nuclear_bomb_competition The United States is developing a new generation of nuclear bomb.  You have to think that this is comforting news for the whacko’s in Iran and North Korea as they fumble around trying to develop a crude nuclear weapon.  I just don’t get it.  I mean, I understand that our existing weaponry may be deteriorating and need to be replaced but do we really need a better way of destroying the world than currently exists?  This seems totally irresponsible to me when we have millionaires in this country who are subject to an estate tax.  According to the AP news story reported on Google our current nuclear (or nucular as George W would say) arsenal stands at 6,000 warheads and we are currently in a treaty with Russia to cut our nuclear inventory to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by 2012.  One final thought; do we have permission from the Chinese to be doing this?

          Has justice been served?  Top presidential aide Karl Rove will not be indicted for lying to a grand jury about talking to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Valerie Plame being an undercover CIA agent.  If I were Karl Rove I would be afraid.  Very afraid.  People have a knack for meeting mysterious deaths when they get on the wrong side of the CIA.  Back in 1986 former CIA Director Bill Colby died in a mysterious canoeing accident.  Colby had been a key figure the Watergate burglary when he refused to allow the CIA to block an FBI probe into incident.  People inside the CIA who were loyal to the president were not happy about that.  Beverly Kaye, 42, died of a "massive stroke" in December, 1973, while riding in the White House elevator. She was Secret Service agent John Bull's secretary and her job included the actual storing and preservation of the White House tapes. Murray Chotiner, a long-time friend of Nixon's was killed when a government truck ran into his car on January 23, 1974. At first it was reported that Chotiner suffered only a broken leg, but he died a week later. Sam Giancana, the Mafia chief, was murdered on June 22, 1975, as he was about to testify before Sen. Frank Church's Senate Committee, investigating the use of underworld figures by the CIA, for the purpose of assassinating foreign leaders. Giancana had ties to E. Howard Hunt and the CIA. Merle D. Baumgart, an aide to Rep. Peter Rodino of the House Judiciary Committee on Impeachment, was killed in a traffic accident on May 20, 1975. Washington police described his death as "a routine traffic accident" — until they received an anonymous call to "look into it."  Who knows how those in the CIA feel about one of their own being outed for the purpose of political shenanigans.  Watch your back Karl.  You are playing with the big boys.

 

Comments:

Name:	Brenda
Email Address:
Web site URL:
Comments:	You rule Mr. Wonderful!
How did you hear about this site?	You, silly
What are you wearing?	Proper office attire of course.

On Saturday the old  (but younger than me) sister blogger http://www.hahnathome.com did an interesting piece about The Four Agreements, a philosophy which she claimed is based on ancient Toltec teachings. I wouldn’t know.  What is a Toltec anyway?  Don Miguel Ruiz wrote a book in 1997 which elaborated on four precepts which when applied to your daily life will most assuredly keep you free from getting caught up in the crap that causes nearly 20% of Americans to be on anti-depressants. 

Agreement 1:  Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Agreement 2:  Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Agreement 3:  Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Agreement 4:  Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Call me crazy but I really like those agreements and I think they can work in my life.  I ran into something else on the web that I would like to share with you:

A tale is told about the Buddha, Gautama (563-483BC), the Indian prince and spiritual leader whose teachings founded Buddhism. This short story illustrates that every one of us has the choice whether or not to take personal offence from another person's behavior.

It is said that on an occasion when the Buddha was teaching a group of people, he found himself on the receiving end of a fierce outburst of abuse from a bystander, who was for some reason very angry.

The Buddha listened patiently while the stranger vented his rage, and then the Buddha said to the group and to the stranger, "If someone gives a gift to another person, who then chooses to decline it, tell me, who would then own the gift? The giver or the person who refuses to accept the gift?"

"The giver," said the group after a little thought. "Any fool can see that," added the angry stranger.

"Then it follows, does it not," said the Buddha, "Whenever a person tries to abuse us, or to unload their anger on us, we can each choose to decline or to accept the abuse; whether to make it ours or not. By our personal response to the abuse from another, we can choose who owns and keeps the bad feelings." http://www.businessballs.com (lots of fun stuff here)

            Okay, I know the ol’ Buddha didn’t mean for this to be used the way I plan to use it but I just can’t help it.  The next time someone goes off on me I won’t be able to help but smile.  When my smile infuriates them even further to the point where they ask me what the heck I am so glib about I will relate the story and add, “So, I have just decided to let you keep your anger.  I don’t want it. Why don’t you just hang on to that all by yourself for a while?”  That should make the abuser even angrier and for some reason I am finding that kind of funny.  The only problem with this is that I can’t really recall the last time somebody was angry with me.  Annoyed?  Oh if it worked for mere annoyances I could have a hay day!  I am pretty sure I am annoying to most people who share space with me on a daily basis.  

          So loyal readers, go forth and annoy someone today but do it with a smile.  You know you want to. 

          I’m not sure how this happened but today I was searching the net trying to figure out ways to increase traffic to my website when I came across some information that explained Google would pay me to let advertisers sit on my page.  They made all kinds of promises that the advertisers would be relevant to my site and that I could expect to make at least pennies per day.  The only bummer that I can see with this arrangement so far is that I had to lose the song of the day feature.  The song of the day was actually one of the features of the Red Hog Diary that I enjoyed the most.  So it goes.  I’m just a whore.  I sold out for the greenbacks.

          The way the links work is if you use the Google browse bar or click on my link I get credit for referring you.  I’m not sure how much credit I will get but I can’t expect that it would be a lot.  Another thing I was thinking of, not for a revenue stream but for advertising was offering Red Hog Diary T-shirts.  I’m going to look into that and if I can offer them at a reasonable price I will let you know.  My counts have been fairly steady for the last couple of months and I need to find a way to keep the site growing.  If you enjoy the site please tell your friends about it and ask them to tell others too.  I keep thinking that there is some magical critical mass number where once I get a certain number of visits per day growth will begin to rise exponentially until I control the entire World Wide Web!  Bohahaha

          I have also been shopping for a new web host.  The company that hosts my website does not have a feedback option.  I enjoy going to blogs where I can tell the writer when I think they are making sense and when they are full of crap.  I think you might enjoy that too.  There are a lot of options out there but I have been having trouble finding one that will allow me to keep my original format in tact.  I tried playing with the look of the page one time but didn’t care much for the result.  My buddy Jay was kind enough to send me an email telling me he thought it sucked so that motivated me to promptly return it to the standard Red format you are viewing today.

          I had added a password protected page for family only where my eighteen cousins and my Aunts and Uncles could have a place to share family news and events.  Traffic there is starting to pick up.  If you aren’t family, sorry, you can’t see our secrets.  I do have a few remaining cousins who are unbound by matrimonial contract and if you are rich enough or beautiful enough I will make an introduction for you so that you can see behind the scenes of what it is to be a Caballero!  For that introduction please send cash if you are a male; a photo if you are female.  I maybe shouldn’t have just said that.  My mom, my wife and my daughter have possibly now confirmed that I am a pig.  Nah, they already knew.  Hey, it is the Red Hog Diary after all!

          I hope you all have a great week.  The weather here in Iowa sucked this weekend.  The temperature was in the 50’s and we didn’t see much sun.  Saturday provided rain that I suppose some will claim was welcome.  I only like rain between the hours of 10 PM and 4 AM.  I like those streets to be dry so I can ride my fuel efficient Harley to work. 

          I have some streaks going.  I haven’t had need to purchase fuel for my gas guzzling Yukon since May 19^th!  The weather and vacation have made it so I spend a lot of time on the scoot!  At $85 a fill it is great relief to not have a need to put gas in the beast.  I haven’t mowed my lawn since May 25^th.  It is nearly knee deep but it actually doesn’t look to bad.  When I returned from vacation I saw that some of it was going to seed.  I am trying to wait that out but I am running out of patience.  I bet the neighbors are wondering what is going on as well.  Normally I am kind of a yard freak and like to get that baseball infield look of a striped manicured lawn when I mow.  I haven’t seen my wife since May 27^th but I don’t think I better talk about the streak that results from not seeing your mate for 15 days.  Oh man, I just did it again.  Have a great week!

          I have really enjoyed reconnecting with some family lately.  Visiting with my Cousin Mary Ann while I was on my East Coast Tour was fantastic.  Mary Ann is about six months older than I so we were very close growing up.  It is amazing to me how you can pick up seemingly right where you left off with family even though a period of a decade or so has passed since your last encounter.  I was very fortunate growing up that our extended family was very close.  There were 18 cousins on the Caballero side of my family and we got to see all of our cousins several times a year and most of our cousins on an almost monthly basis.  Our Grandparents lived in Oelwein, Iowa and for the most part all of us lived within an hour of that epicenter of the Caballero Clan. 

          Family gatherings were all about catching up over wonderful meals cooked by Grandma and admiring Grandpa’s workshop and garden.  Wonderful stories and a loving atmosphere is what going to Oelwein was all about in my youth.  One of the most wonderful things about visits at the Grandparents, for all of us, was that I truly believe that each of us felt as if we were the favorite.  I am not sure how they managed to pull that off but they did.  Since my maternal Grandparents have passed away something happened that I never envisioned.  We seem to have been scattered by the wind.  Careers and loves have taken the 18 cousins to all corners of the country and one as far away as Japan.  So we don’t get together so much anymore but when we do it makes for a wonderful time.

          Today my cousin Rusty, his mother, my Aunt Angie, and Rusty’s son, Anthony drove in from Chicago to visit.  I got word they would be in the area early Saturday morning so my son and I jumped in the truck and made way for a rendezvous at my Mom’s house in Cedar Falls.  I hadn’t seen Rusty in maybe ten years and we had a great time laughing about our youth.  We talked about Zululand, the wooded area of youthful exploration near our Grandparents home, about the fantastic Christmas Tamales and some anecdotes about the shenanigans of our youth. 

          Rusty is an imposing figure as I would guess him to be about 6’3” and 250 lbs.  He is a plain clothes police officer with 21 years experience on the Chicago Police Force.  I reminded him of the time when I was a bouncer in a Waterloo night club when all hell broke loose by the front door while he was visiting.  One of the club owners was a Black Hawk County Deputy Sheriff who was maybe a little bigger than Rusty.  I’m not sure how things got started but one of our better customers and the owner got into a fight right by the door where I checked id’s and collected cover charge.  The customer was a large man as well, a general contractor by trade and very capable of defending himself. 

          When the fight broke out I immediately dove in the middle to spread the guys apart and turned my back to the owner while I tried to calm the riled up regular.  I had the attention of our customer but quickly became concerned when I heard the owner behind me whimpering in a choked out voice, “Let me go, let me go!  I can’t breath!”  Rusty had no idea who the two brawlers were and had used some of his Chicago PD submission skills to render the brawny owner into an extremely passive state.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or panic.  A part of me loved seeing the icon of authority in the club gasping for air as his arms flailed about but another part of me was concerned about losing my job because the owner knew that Rusty was there visiting me.  I assured Rusty that it was okay to release his victim and he calmly did as if nothing had happened.  The owner was a little sheepish at that point, the regular had calmed and they each bought us a beer for our trouble.  I miss that job.

          Another story he told I had forgotten about.  We were at the big barn like country bar in my hometown; it was that awful time in the early 80’s when everybody in the country wanted to be a cowboy.  The movie Urban Cowboy had taken over Middle American culture like a prairie fire.  One of the arcade games that were getting a lot of attention at the place, besides the mechanical bull, was an electronic punching bag.  You would pay your buck and get three hits at a speed bag and depending on how hard you could punch; trumpets on top of the machine would blare a fanfare.  We sat and watched all the little urban cowboys taking their turns and watching the resultant weak spit-outs of the trumpet array until I couldn’t take it anymore.  I told Rusty to “sit tight and watch this.”  I pushed my way to the front of the line and told the waiting patrons that I would show them how to do it.  At that point I stepped up to the bag put in my buck and with a decisive head butt to the target set all trumpets into a triumphant tribute to my macho man powers.  After my exhibition, those who had thought they were offended by my cutting in line really didn’t have a lot to say about it, I’m not sure why.

          We had a great visit tonight, Rusty, Antonio, my son Clayton and I.  It really had been too long since we had hooked up.  We made some talk about heading their way in the next couple weeks to catch a Cubs game and maybe get Clayton an opportunity for a ride-along for a shift in Rusty’s unmarked police car.  Clayton has designs on entering law enforcement after college and I think a tour of the second shift in Chicago might be a good thing for him to see before he commits to a course of study.  Clayton’s eyes did get a little wide when Rusty informed him that he would, of course, need to wear a Kevlar vest to be allowed to take that ride.  I’m sure he is hoping beyond all hope that such a precaution has no historical basis for being a requirement of the Chicago PD. 

          Cousin Janet, who lives in Minneapolis, is getting married in the near future.  There was some talk of a wedding shower picnic in the coming weeks.  Hopefully that will be scheduled near Independence Day and lots of the cousins will be able to attend.  Janet’s sister, Debbie, is the cousin I referred to in a post a couple of months ago who beat the tar out of me at the playground in Oelwein when we were kids.  I had to laugh because at dinner Saturday evening I found out that Rusty’s brother Michael had met a similar fate one summer afternoon himself.  Ah, those were the days!

Song Credit: Sister Sledge, We Are Family