This is an antique Fire Engine, my second one. The photo is of an old pharmacy in New Roads, La. I make several of these shadow boxes. If you want to see more samples of my pictures and art you can click here.

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Les Miles is a witch! I don’t think he really needs a quarterback to win games.

Baylor’s Robert Griffith III is the most exciting player to watch in football right now. He has to be in the Heisman discussion. They call him RG3 which sounds like a Star Wars character.

God hates Notre Dame. Every year is supposed to be the year they move ahead, but they can’t even beat a strong, but unranked South Florida team in the season opener. Not sure if it gets any better for them either.

Houston Cougars are looking strong. I guess it helps to have a QB in his sixth year of college.

Ohio State won’t be missing Tyrrelle Pryor very much. Joe Bauserman looks awful good.

I heard several sports reporters picking Georgia to win the SEC. Not likely, unless they get a whole lot better. Boise State embarrassed them. Granted Boise State might have the most complete offense in College ball right now.

Did I mention that Les Miles is a freaking witch!

Speaking strictly, if all one uses is the metric of ability to meet obligations then the USA should not have had it’s credit rating downgraded. But if one uses the more subjective metric of direction, then we did deserve it.

What is meant by direction? Well, just as though we were a company drowning in debt, the creditors of that company would want to know what the company executives were doing about the debt. Did they have a plan to pay it off, or were they just borrowing more? What direction were they headed?

Anyone can see that we are headed in the wrong direction.

So now come the spin from the party in power and the administration, it is not a shock to see that they blame everyone but themselves. Most notably the villains of the day are the teaparty.

Sure, let’s blame the only people who have been trying to do something about this massive debt, lets not blame the people who added a trillion and a half of purely EXTRA spending in the last two years!

I don’t think a lot of people will fall for that.

Here is chicken fried bacon, and appetizer at a resturant called Sodulac’s in a town called (I kid you not) Snook Texas. That’s Snook, not Snooki.

Here is the judgement, It was good, not greasy at all. But, not really as good as the Chicken Fried steak. Which was not really up to East Texas standards anyway. (could have been more spicy). So, it was interesting to be abel to say that I tried it. but not really worth going out of your way for.

Here is my latest shadow box. I make trains, old automobiles, old farm equipment, maybe next I will try doing an antique army tank.

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Here are two pictures of a beautiful duck pond That I took here in Houston.  What makes this interesting? …

what makes it interesting is that this is the entrance to the Transoceanic Corporation. You know the same guys who built the BP oil well that destroyed the Gulf of Mexico!

Ingredients:  1 lb. of any cut Beef/pork/or lamb
2 large cloves of garlic or 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
2 or 3 hit chili peppers (cut up)

4 to 6 oz of sundried tomatoes

1 teaspoon of Turmeric

1 teaspoon of Garam Masala

½ teaspoon of black pepper
½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper
salt
olive oil
appx. 1 tablespoon of flour for a roux, or some instant roux
Either stone ground wheat crackers, melba toast, or similar small rice/lentil cakes

If a cheap cut of meat, then pound it to tenderize. Trim the fat from the meat then cut it into ½” cubes.

Brown meat in a generous amount of olive oil, remember you trimmed the fat so you need a certain amount of the oil  Brown on high heat about 15 minutes.

Add all the remaining spices and tomatoes, cook them at the high heat for a minute, then
Turn down the heat to a simmer and add 1 cup of water.

Simmer like this for a few minutes then add the roux (medium-dark) and salt to taste.

Simmer for at least one half an hour or more, use a lid so all water is not lost. When you are finished there should be a small amount of a thick dark gravy in bottom of pot.

Serve with the crackers. Sprinkle with Thyme on top. Even a poor cut of meat should be tender.  Tastes good and is really spicy.

Here are some of the photos I have taken, you can see more of them at THIS site.

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This will be my new Blog, and my old one will be deleted.

This is a blog based upon teaching people about Economics and History.  But also about my life as a teacher and my students!

remember my motto: “Nothing succeeds like Freedom, nothing works like Liberty”

reprinted from my old blog Dec. 2009

Years ago, I floated through high school and college without reading many of the classic novels of literature.  I did read Moby Dick, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Animal Farm, Anna Karenina(more about this one later), and Ivanhoe.  That is about it. For all the rest of my book reports I relied on Cliff Notes, or Comics Illustrated (an invaluable source).
Lately I decided to make up for the past and actually try for a little self improvement.  I would forgo my usual reading of History, Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels, and books about football, and instead try to catch up on some of the most important novels of all time.

I turned to several online lists.  There was the NY Times list, and the Modern Library list.  There were several others, so I started reading about some of the novels which all of the lists seemed to agree on.  WOW! Was that ever a slap in the face.
Now, understand, the world is a pretty tough place. If you are not a trust fund baby, or have a tenured Ivory Tower University position then there is a lot of struggle, a lot of fear, and a lot of disappointment in the average human life.  It is not necessary, I suppose, for every work of literature to be uplifting, positive, or have a positive moral at the end.  But why is it that nearly every so called Classic work of literature is such a damn utterly depressing, nihilistic piece of Glop!

Let’s begin with a book rated very high on all lists; “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  In the first place, I never trust anyone who goes by three names. Especially when one of them is just an initial.  F. Scott Fitzgerald sounds like it could be the name of a serial killer, or assassin.
Now this book is set in the time of the roaring twenties and concerns the wealthier class of Americans. The beautiful people, the smart set.  If you have never read it, let me save you some time. A young guy named Nick hangs around Long Island and meets some rich people who throw cool parties.  Among them is a mysterious and handsome go getter named Gatsby.  Everyone screws everyone else’s wives and they all get drunk a lot.

Nick gets conflicting evidence that Gatsby is both a war hero and a bootlegger. Gatsby introduces Nick to mobsters. Things are not very upbeat but the writing is good, and the dialog is witty. Then things go downhill from there.  One of the wives who was screwing around gets run over, Gatsby’s car is identified. Gatsby is killed in his pool by the woman’s husband who also commits suicide. Nick attends the funeral.
WHAT THE HELL?  Considering the high level of teen suicides, I would not recommend this to an angst ridden youth.  But believe me, Gatsby is a study in positive thinking compared to some of the others. Now it is said that good writing covers a multitude of sins, and that the object of literature is to provoke.  Even if I agreed with those assumptions, it does not follow that the reader must be subjected to all that is most foul in society. And especially not all at once!

Also High on the list is “Anna Karenina”  By Leo Tolstoy.  Let’s see, this one seems to have it all.  Anna is unfaithful to her Husband, her brother is unfaithful to his wife.  Both women want divorces, but can’t get them. Anna makes a spectacle of herself in public and embarrasses the family.  Her sister in law’s sister falls for her lover and messes up a possible marriage to a wealthy man.  She eventually does marry this man but then his brother dies. Lot’s of people get sick. Anna’s lover rejects her, then she throws herself in front of a train.
OMG! By now I am reaching for the razor blades!  Hey, guess what? If I had wanted to learn about how people who cannot control themselves screw up their lives I would just watch Doctor Phil.

But it gets better. There is “The Grapes of Wrath” By John Steinbeck. Now this one will fill you up with the warm and fuzzies boys and girls.  This is the story of the Joad family, farmers who lose everything in the Dust bowl of the 1930’s.  The son Tom Joad is a muderer out of prison. The family leaves Oklahoma for California with Tom’s pregnant sister Rose and  Casy a former preacher who has lost his way.
They meet lot’s of destitute people. They almost starve, there are no jobs in California and they have to work as scabs in an orchard.  They get in a fight with union thugs and Casy is killed while Tom murders again and has to flee, and Rose’s child is still born.  By now the reader is wondering;  What the hell did I do that was so bad, I have to suffer through this?  Kill me now!

Then there is Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” about an angst ridden Young man who gets VD.  And let’s not forget Nabokov’s “Lolita” the story of a man who ruins his life, and his family’s lives by having impure thoughts about a teenage girl (If only he had the internet).  And wait! There is more. “Madame Bovary” by Gustav Flaubert, the Heroine of the story begins as an upper crust darling debutante, but is so demanding she ruins every relationship she has, she eventually ends up insane and kills herself.  Now why in the hell would anyone want to subject themselves to that?
The list goes on and on, story after story, adultery, penury, murder, rape, war, insanity, suicide, and generally boorish behavior.  Crime and Punishment, Les Miserables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Slaughterhouse Five, East of Eden, Heart of Darkness, Vanity Fair, all guaranteed to make you want to eat a bullet. This does not even cover Joyce and Proust which are both incomprehensible and somewhat depressing at the same time.

Not all of the classics are like this, of course some are mostly horribly depressing but have a positive ending like Jane Eyre, or the protagonist does end up dying in the end, but for a good cause like in Lord Jim, or Gone With the Wind (well the cause was communism, but at least the hero thought it was a good cause).
No, think I will just stick with my fantasy and sports books, at least there is always someone in those books I can identify with.