About 1974 my parents went to Hawaii, including touring the Arizona Memorial. My gifts from parents returning from an exotic vacation were awesome.
I was given a reproduced copy of the Honolulu paper's extra edition that said "WAR!" on it. It got folded and spindled into a small square, but somewhere I have that thing; it's yellowing and wrapped in cellophane.
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At that time, being 8 years old, I also was a member of a scale model club. It was like a record club except that when you forgot to send your "No Thanks" card back, you got a plastic model each month. I had built an Apollo Module, Snoopy on his doghouse, cars, boats, motorcycles. So my parents' second Hawaii gift for me was a large model of the USS Arizona from Revell. I wish I had that now. It would be fun to build. I actually found a picture of the Revell model, but since I was 8, mine didn't look like this.
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The third gift they brought me was the most treasured. I still have this. My son was even allowed to use it in school for a book report for History class even though it's a very short book. It's that well written and detailed.
It's "Pearl Harbor Story December 7, 1941" by William T. Rice. Published in 1971 this was a souvenir book from the gift store at the Arizona Memorial. I will always treasure this.
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I have no point this week. It's just that because of these 3 gifts, I have always made sure I remember Pearl Harbor every year. So, this is year, I'm remembering by sharing a childhood memory. Hope you like it and will follow me https://twitter.com/awj9009
Let's talk about those evil corporations that made people work on Thanksgiving, and why Walmart is a front for devil worship. Okay, I made that up, corporations aren't evil. They're just misunderstood.
Understand, I've been off work since Wednesday. I have been asked to come in sometime this weekend and put an office back together after it gets new carpeting, but that doesn't happen most years, and I'm good with it. Why? Because it's my job. I choose to do this line of work, so when I get asked to work, I do it. I also choose to work this job BECAUSE of time off it affords.
This might be due to the fact that I was Security Police LE in the Air Force, and did private security work for 20 more years after that. I've worked my way to a job that gives me holidays off. But here's how: I worked most holidays for 25 years. Period. End of story. If every single private business was forced to close, it would have been worse and maybe even dangerous. Have you ever had your flashlight die in the middle of a shift only to find out that the spares are dead too? Have you started to eat your lunch and find out the meat on your sandwich is spoiled? People have to eat, and not everyone CAN have the day off. We were always thankful for any store or restaurant that was open. But imagine if everything was closed. No flashlight and a 12 hour shift with no dinner could get someone killed. Also, a baby's fever doesn't go away just because you ran out of Tylenol and the stores are closed. You could take the baby to the hospital, but the staff is probably hungry because they can't get any food, so they might make mistakes.
Now, suddenly, as part of the left's campaign to destroy Walmart, cities and states are banning businesses from being open on Thanksgiving, Some are even banning only the chain stores from opening. That's not about families, that's about destroying capitalism. I spent a larger part of Tuesday afternoon debating with a CONSERVATIVE tweeter who supported this because it's a State's Rights issue. His side of the argument was that the community chose it.
Here's the problem: when a community "chooses" a rule of law, people who aren't affected by the law get a say. That's part of a representative government and I understand that, but it has it's problems. When the city of Lincoln, Nebraska put a smoking ban for restaurants up for vote, by the time it went to voters, it included bars. People who don't even drink got to vote on this, and it passed. The argument was that employees had to be exposed to the smoke, and that made it a public health issue. Most people I knew working in food service or bars did so in order to smoke while working. Those that didn't smoke tended to work at non-smoking restaurants. Then the argument from people who voted for it, when asked why they didn't just go to a non-smoking bar, tended to have the same argument "I'm the only non-smoker in my group and my friends won't go to those bars". Shorter answer: I'm in the minority, but I'm going to force my will on the majority and make them bend to my will.
So, the argument was out there that the community chose the business blue laws, but my side of the debate was that if the community REALLY chose it, the businesses would be closed without a law because the community wouldn't shop there on Thanksgiving or Black Friday and therefore there would be no profit in it. But there is profit in it, so obviously, the community on a whole would actually rather shop. The people who don't shop anyhow voted for this.
Look at it this way. Imagine owning a bar that nets $2000 each night every Friday and Saturday night, and only $2000 a week from the other days combined, but because there are Seventh Day Adventists living in the community (let's say 20%), the city passes a law that says you can't be open on Friday night, and you can't open until 9pm on Saturdays. Would you still believe in doing "what's right for these families"? Even if you lose over $2000 a week off your $6000 a week income (1/3 of your income)? What if a major employer told employees they were cutting their pay from $12 an hour to $8 an hour (1/3 of your income). Do you think the "community" would tolerate that? There would be minimum wage increase laws introduced THE NEXT DAY.
I have seen memes this weekend saying how many people have been killed or injured in "Black Friday" related incidents. Nothing else in the meme, but given that it's my friends and family that are super left posting it, it's a good guess where they stand. There's also a meme of a woman with two carts, a flat screen t.v. in each, and the caption says "bought 2 t.v.s, can't pay rent". My wife has never gone shopping on Black Friday. Most people I know don't. Do you know why? Because of those 2 memes. Most people I hang out with have an IQ over 80, and know that it's crazy and sometimes violent, and that you don't buy 2 t.v.s if you have to spend your rent to do it. CHOICE CHOICE CHOICE. Not only making personal choices, but accepting the consequences of those choices. That's true choice. Living with the consequences of those choices. If you can choose to reverse course at the slightest inconvenience, it's not choice, it's failure to have courage in your convictions.
That's what we've come down to. You can't tell me what to do. Oh, crap it went south, why wasn't there a law protecting me from that choice. You can choose to have premarital sex but if you accidentally get pregnant, there are no consequences to that choice because you can terminate the pregnancy on demand. You can choose to get married to someone who is mean, angry, ditzy, a drinker, whatever. But when you decide (3 kids later) that you don't like those qualities anymore, you can get a no-fault divorce. There's no longer a requirement to prove that staying in the marriage is unsafe or that it's irrevocably broken due to infidelity. I made a bad choice, so I have the right to choose to uproot my kid's life just because "I'm not in love anymore". Here's some bad news, whiny boy. You never were. Would you have gotten married that fast if divorce was illegal? Probably not. We make it too easy to flip flop. And then we wonder why we have politicians that do so.
What have we learned? Probably nothing, since I'm not a professional writer, but if you take anything from this post, take this- Capitalism works because of personal choice. If enough people choose to avoid shopping on Black Friday, businesses will stop doing it. So if you really want to make a change, don't force your will, lead by example. Don't camp all night for an Xbox or an Iphone (regardless of the time of year). And more important, don't rail against capitalism in a Starbucks, on Twitter, using said Iphone. It's called hypocrisy, just say NO to it.
For those that missed it, THIS happened:
Yes, it's a bittersweet week for Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld fans. Bill Schulz has left the show. I listened to him discussing it with Sherrod Small on Sherrod's podcast called Race Wars. Sherrod's partner Kurt Metzger is vulgar and a general dick, but the podcast overall is informative on this issue at least. I've put it below. Bill's not very forthcoming, but it's what you don't say that says volumes, and I'm pretty sure leaving wasn't his choice.
Of course, the #RedEye Twitterverse weighed in (plus I promised Gwen she would get mentioned)
Not everybody is crying though
In the last year, we've seen the end of the Half-Time Report (which still boils blood in my circles), the end of the Pre-Game and Post-Game Reports came next in order to put Andy on the panel. The studio changed, as did the legs chair position. I don't mind seeing Jedidiah Bila's other leg, so that's okay. Now with Bill gone, I can't help thinking that this has been in the works, and that there won't be a 3rd permanent co-host coming in. This is now the Greg and Andy show, I would guess.
There is a function that Bill provided though that Andy would suck at. There's only one person in my mind that can replace Bill for the Man In The Street interviews, and that's Joe Machi in character as The Frightened Correspondent. If you didn't see this, it may be one of the funniest bits ever:
To this end, I am the self appointed leader of the committee to make this happen, and I appear to have support:
It's a brave new world out there now folks. We'll miss Bill Schulz, but I'm sure our aim will get better.
I thought I'd just have some fun this time with some pictures videos and tweets from the last week that caught my eye.
I DID IT ALL BY MYSELF
I made this meme on my own. Idea, design everything was all me. Came up with this while having a family dinner.
HEY RIOT COPS- NEENER NEENER
Do you have your ACLU Card yet? I never heard of Macklemore before this, but after watching this, suddenly I've heard more about him. He comes across like one of those little smart asses that thinks he got over on somebody until they're suddenly punching him in the head.
Do you think an ACLU Card would prevent this from happening?
Nah, me either.
THEY DON'T FEED US IN HERE
Somehow, every Red Eye w. Greg Gutfeld story that we live tweet about with the #RedEye hashtag seems to turn to food (or drink):
During a story about Green Juice (this episode ran twice this week) Andy Levy mentions that he likes split pea soup. Greg mentions that Rick Leventhal likes Creme Soda. Did we talk about the Green Juice? Nope.
This conversation just kept going. Personally, I had never heard of Faygo, but many others had.
Somehow, we got on the topic of raisins. For 2 days.
So remember. If you eat these
Then the only winners are these guys
EDIT- FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO
Don't let the robots win, eat Craisins, not Raisins, and follow me on Twitter @awj9009
I'd like to start by saying that I'm actually a little funny sometimes, and one day soon, some of these will start making people chuckle. But first, if I'm actually going to blog more than once, I've got to get some stuff out of my system. This one is meant to be a cathartic exploration into how I've gotten to the point where I'm actually trying to write a blog. The answer of course is Twitter, Red Eye w. Greg Gutfeld, and Andrew Breitbart, but that's a simplification.
I was in private security for a long time. You listen to a lot of radio in private security, and if you're politically savvy you listen to a lot of political talk radio. I detested Bill Clinton. I had been an Air Force Security Police Law Enforcement Specialist while Ronald Reagan was President and Commander-In-Chief, and Bill Clinton was no Reagan.
I have participated occasionally in City Council meetings, I have gone to meeting at the Nebraska Republican Party Headquarters, and I've talked to many political figures in Nebraska politics including the one guy that humiliates me more every day for ever voting for him- Chuck Hagel.
When the internet became common and I had regular access, I had a MySpace page, followed by a Facebook page. Facebook was a great way to connect with family, and later find people from High School and even the Air Force. After my father went into a coma, my half-sister (yes, the Progressive) came to NE and we all finally became family like we never had before.
My dad got better and had another year and a half with us, but my sister was finally family, and Facebook played a part of that since she lives in Kansas. But she's very political in what I believe to be the wrong direction and she uses Facebook for it, so I don't see her posts but we message each other and I look at her page when I want. She knows I do this. It keeps my blood pressure at good levels. The point of this is that I don't want to do that to other family members, so I seriously limit political posts and memes. When I haven't, it sometimes has gone bad, like the time I said some out of line and nasty things to my brother in law.
Enter Twitter. No one I knew had Twitter, but lots of public figures I liked did. So I tried it. I was mostly an observer, but would occasionally do a bad joke to a professional comedian. Then, from watching Red Eye, I discovered Andrew Breitbart and was immediately inspired. He kind of has that effect on people. I started following him, and all he would do all evening long is Retweet his haters. It was awesome.
I followed just about everyone connected to Red Eye and one night I saw Tweets where Andy Levy hadn't shown up at the bar yet where he was meeting Greg Gutfeld, Bill Schulz, and Andrew Breitbart. Greg then sent out a Tweet that while they were waiting for Andy, Ann Coulter had walked by the bar and now they had her in there with them drinking. Suddenly, I realized that if I were in New York and a little more involved, this would be my kind of circle of friends. Now I was inspired. More than anyone else I wanted to meet Breitbart. If the opportunity ever arose, I would do just that, even if I had to drive to another town nearby to hear him speak. His CPAC speech REALLY inspired me.
Crappy Birthday To Me. My 46th birthday. I was surfing the web and saw the horrific news. Andrew Breitbart had died. I posted it on FB and asked the haters to please hold their nastiness because this guy was my hero. I had felt like an old friend died. The haters behaved, but I started embracing Twitter more. I started following people less for celebrity and more for thought. Entertainers were out, politicians, bloggers, and conservative thinkers were in. On a side note, my dad passed away 26 days later so March 2012 really really sucked.
Watching Greg Gutfeld's Twitter (@greggutfeld) as well as Andy Levy's (@andylevy), I discovered the art of Live Tweeting. Watching Andy Tweet about Chris Brown during the Grammy Awards was hilarious. I dabbled during awards shows, and finally started watching my Twitter feed during Red Eye itself. I was once again inspired. Once I discovered how to use the connect button and learned proper Twitter protocol, it was on.
For the last couple of months I have been racing to log onto my laptop the second I get home around 2am in order to Tweet right from the first story. I have a new circle of friends, my social media standings have gone up, and I'm loving every minute of it. But we NEVER stay on topic. In the last 2 weeks, there was a conversation that started with me talking about eating candy corn during the show, and that conversation was still going on 48 hours later. Also during that time frame, in the last few days in fact, Andy briefly mentioned the hard rock band Triumph. Their only relationship to the story was that they're a Canadian Band. I Tweeted that I had seen them in concert with Molly Hatchet in 1985, and the conversation about rock and roll and our favorite concerts went on for the duration of the show.
That brings us to the last few days. I had something I wanted to say about Obamacare, and I found a hosting site and just started writing. Response has been good and I thank everyone who's been looking. I'll try to be funny next time. It's what Breitbart would have wanted. I have to believe that.
-I
am Adam Johnson. I'm a Nebraskan, a conservative, and my biggest hobby
these days is to live tweet Red Eye W. Greg Gutfeld. My Facebook is
generally for friends family and games, but if you like this, follow my
political based Twitter @awj9009.
Warning: Episodes of Delusion portrayed below. If you yourself are delusional, this could shatter your little Utopia.
Let's take over healthcare. We'll create exchanges so that individuals can pool together. We'll help pay for older people by getting younger people to enroll. Oh, and you'll be able to stay on your parent's insurance until you're 26.
Wait, what?
Yeah, and to make sure people enroll we'll mandate participation. Oh, we can do that under the commerce clause, as it will be considered a tax. If you make under $250,000 a year, we won't be raising your taxes.
Wait, what?
And this thing is so good, that we'll pass it now in 2009, and as soon as the re-election campaign is over in 2012, we can start having everything kick in.
Wait, what?
You get the idea here. This plan never made sense to start with. It depends on enrollment by 20 somethings, most of whom can be placed on parent's insurance, eliminating the need for 20 somethings to enroll. They argued that it was a tax and got it through the SCOTUS on the grounds that it was a tax, then immediately came out denying it was a tax.
It got through without a single Republican voting yes in the House and it came down to Ben Nelson in the Senate. He claimed he wasn't selling out because he got a promise that Federal funding for abortions would be out. That lasted until 5 minutes after the ink dried, and now Nelson lost all favor with Ne. Right To Life and Hobby Lobby has spent tons of money to fight for the right to keep things out of it's employer insurance that violates their religious principles. Say it with me- Wait, what?
The last count I heard was 29 times: the number of times that the President said "If you like your plan, you can keep it. Period". Now they already have a hard time understanding the phrase "the right of all citizens to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" so it shouldn't surprise me that they don't understand what PERIOD meant in that context. The President has now said that he has said ALL ALONG that if you like your plan, *and it hasn't changed since the law was enacted*, then you can keep it. So all I can think is Wait, What?
Each idea in this law, and each action since the disastrous roll-out has defeated other ideas and actions. And yet super lefty progressive libs like my half-sister are still defending this thing. By the way, the day it passed, she posted on Facebook "Praise the Lord". A month ago she tried telling my other sister's son via Facebook that there was no forced mandate. It's just delusional. She still defends this turd.
And I can't get people to see how this thing is at a minimum incompetence, at a maximum an intentional attempt to tank 1/6 of the economy and force people who wouldn't otherwise depend on the Government into single payer Government controlled health plans. Anybody who has been treated at a V.A. Hospital knows that single payer is sub-par. You get health care, but it can take months to be seen and if you can't prove certain things such as service connection to the illness/injury, it can take years for treatment, if approved at all. I think this thing will eventually get enough push-back from the people that they won't have any choice but to start over, but I wish I knew how to bring that about faster.
-I am Adam Johnson. I'm a Nebraskan, a conservative, and my biggest hobby these days is to live tweet Red Eye W. Greg Gutfeld. My Facebook is generally for friends family and games, but if you like this, follow my political based Twitter @awj9009.
