Borowitz Report

I think that Andy Borowitz is about the funniest political writer out there. He's a one man Onion, the Daily Show of the written word. Just take a look at some of his most recent columns:

Obama Quits While Ahead

In a move that stunned both political allies and foes alike, President Barack Obama resigned today after serving 100 days in office, telling the White House press corps, "It's all downhill from her...

Talented Ugly Person Baffles World

The success of singer Susan Boyle on the reality show "Britain's Got Talent" has caused both television networks and their viewers to reconsider the intrinsic value of ugly people, media experts sa...

Wall Street Salary Caps Drive Away Assholes

False Start

Right there in my arms
soft fields and fertile farms

The Spring earth in your eyes

But you can't let go to let me in

So here we'll end
where we didn't begin

ever love me
never love me
know that we have been

Tell Zombies Goodbye

I've met the living dead
we have spoken face to face
everyday we're adding to their race

Mourn for those who are cursed
to walk the earth dead, dragging others down with them,
unknowingly

Mourn not the dead who know they are dead,
for they will shun the living souls who try to follow them into the night

They blow away with the change of the season
let them go
they are no more a danger
even in life

Their only victims were themselves

Anyone else miss Happy Chef?

Last weekend I was in Lincoln for the Spring Game and he was gone. Remember how you'd press a button and a voice would come out of his crotch? What used to be the place to eat and study between the University and the airport has been replaced with a Doctor John's adult novelties store. Anyone got any memories to share?

Looking West

After an 11 hour day in the middle of a difficult week, instead of staying on the highway, when you live in rural Iowa, you can take the gravel roads home, maybe even some dirt roads too, if they aren't too muddy. Nothing like a sunset on the prairie to soothe the nerves and quiet your mind. Once again, eat your hearts out, prisoners of city and suburb!

Unrealistic Expectations

I don't do enough to be a doer
I don't think enough to be a thinker
I don't feel enough to be a feeler
I don't sing enough to be a singer
I sing too much to be a thinker
I feel too much to be a doer
I think too much to be a singer
I do too much to be a feeler

Beware of sharks

(click here to view)

Clay Bennett Chattanooga Times Free Press Apr 24, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

Here, I think this is a more cartoonist (& copyright) friendly way to post other people's cartoons on my blog.

I just love Clay Bennett's work. And this is an amazingly clear and potent statement about the abuses of credit card companies. Maybe all the religious--wingers who make such a big stink about gay marriage need to consider these Bible verses too-

Ezekiel 18:13
He lends at usury and takes excessive interest. Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he will surely be put to death and his blood will be on his own head.

Ezekiel 22:12
In you men accept bribes to shed blood; you take usury and excessive interest and make unjust gain from your neighbors by extortion. And you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign LORD.

Turns out that charging an unconscionable or exorbitant rate interest is a sin! Who would've thunk it? Kinda like torture and unprovoked, unjustified war. Hmmm. Just something to think about.

Run Aground

Dreams are like
rivers
ever changing
with life's course

Insecurity is what
makes rivers
run dry

Faith is taking charge
of the rudder
and setting sail
letting God conduct
the wind and
the current

Again, I REALLY wanted to stop posting other people's cartoons, but wow, this is something I feel really strongly about. Obama may want to play Ford to Bush/Cheney's Nixon and heal our polarized nation and all that, but come on. Right wingers are always going on about moral issues and absolute right and wrong. People need to be held accountable so that we don't fall so far from the ideas we claim to stand for again. Lower-level CIA or Administration officials, lawyers? Fine. I'm not looking for the former Vice President to be handed over to a tribunal in the Huague or anything, but we can't just let it slide and pretend that nother ever went wrong, either.

Grey Hair

No man "comes of age"
Age comes on man

Born in Spring
Summer is rank and hot
filled with hopes
of Autumn
But all of Spring
is just a false thaw
and Winter
too often
strikes at Halloween
Because
Adam rushed the Fall

Potter to the pot about the wheel

Be still

virtues are not instantaneous

some gifts
only come
through suffering

Nature's poetry; Peonies emerging

Spring,
resurrection,
breaking through,
renewal,
a fresh start,
death giving way to life...
sometimes a picture is worth
a thousand poems,
sometimes a simple seedling
humbles all the hubris
of human language.

Who I see in you

I can see our dad in you
When I look at you
I can see our mom

I look at you and see my past
Twenty years and five or ten I didn't know

When I look to you I sometimes see myself
like in a mirror that hasn't come to me just yet
Seeing your face I can't forget

there's Uncle Jim
and Grandpa Bill
and Grandma too
The other Grandpa's in you hair and on you lip

Our other Grandma speaks to me through your face and build

I'm sure there's plenty of Dows and Johns and James there too-
it's just that I've never seen them so I wouldn't know

So why can't Jeremiah and Isaiah and Moses and Aaron and Methuselah come through in the way we speak
and what we do?
In our gape or little ticks and mannerisms?

Shouldn't this be true? That Joseph and Enoch and Noah, Cain and Uncle Abel be in every wink and not and chew?

There's Rebecka's hair and Rehab's grin

Hey look at them
hey listen to him
that laugh of hers
that limp of his

I see you
every Dago, Harp, Chink, Spick, Nigger, and Jew

That stare of hers
that stride of his

We're all our own closest relatives

Sex, Politics, and Religion

Lately, this has been a kinder, gentler blog what with the poetry and pictures and feeble attempt at fiction and all. But just for a little bit, I'd like to return to it's original mandate and talk about sex, politics and religion for a little bit. I posted a quote from and a link to an article by Evangelical pastor and Liberal social activist Jim Wallis on my "Prophet, Priest, and Pirate" blog-

"The Religious Right was a Christian mistake. It was a movement that sought to implement a ' agenda' by tying the faithful to one political option -- the right wing of the Republican Party. The politicizing of faith in such a partisan way is always a theological mistake. But the rapid decline of the Religious Right now offers us a new opportunity to re-think the role of faith in American public life.

Personally, I am not offended or alarmed by the notion of a post-Christian America. Christianity was originally and, in my view, always meant to be a minority faith with a counter-cultural stance, as opposed to the dominant cultural and political force. Notions of a 'Christian America' quite frankly haven’t turned out very well." ~Jim Wallis

Read the entire article at Sojourners.com

THAT blog as an RSS feed into my Facebook profile page and I tagged several friends (both Red and Blue) to share it with them. What wound up happening is that a former student who's very much a religious conservative commented on it and kept the discussion thread going for several days. Rather than post a full transcript of everything everyone said, I'm just presenting what I wrote here, so it may read a little choppy . You may want to imagine what other people wrote to me.

Recently right-wingers were attacking Sen. Chuck Grassley, an opponent of gay marriage for not being outspoken enough or moving quickly enough in response to Iowa's recent Supreme Court decision calling a ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. They're accusing him of drifting away from socially conservative values. I guarantee that if Jesus was traveling 21st century America as He did first century Palestine, Christian Conservatives would criticize Him for cavorting with sinners and tax collectors and for not fasting and not ceremonially washing His hands and gleaning grain from the edge of fields on the Sabbath and healing on the Sabbath etc. etc.

One of my biggest beefs with my fellow Christians is that we too often lean too heavily on the Law at the expense of the Gospel. We cannot and will not turn people's hearts toward God by legislation or judicial decision or constitutional amendment or for that matter by ranting and raving and protest and boycott. We can never save someone from their sin by coercively preventing them from sinning. It's as ridiculous as thinking that we can extract reliable intelligence from an enemy by torture.

People who genuinely want to follow Jesus and can't give up on their precious "culture war," should consider that we are not battling against flesh and blood and therefore conventional (and by that I mean political, practical, and especially Machiavellian , Tzu-ian and Rovian) tactics. The way to win the hearts and minds of unbelievers (and first of all, we can never do this, only God, with Holy Spirit can do it- perhaps using us as His tools) is with love, compassion, example, and prayer. And by addressing their needs, not what we perceive as their faults and errors.

---

I've always felt that Christianity should be leery of associating itself too closely with either party and that Christians need to keep Jesus and His cross central to our theology, and beware of letting our moralist agendas eclipse Him. Admittedly, I am often just as guilty of this as anyone who is passionate about conventional wedge issues or "values" issues (depending on whether you see them with red or blue glasses). Call me chief among sinners, but my point is, that the true kingdom will only advance AND American civil discourse will only thrive when we all stop using "religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon."

Don't we need to love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us? Even when our most treasured issues are at stake?

---

You'll all notice that I tried not to say anything about gay marriage or my opinion on it, I only meant to use Sen. Grassley's predicament to highlight how we go off the rails with our legalism sometimes. I'm not prepared to condone what God disapproves of- however, my don't see how my marriage needs defending from gay people and even if I'm uncomfortable with it, I don't think that the secular, Constitutional right to equal protection under the laws is not something that God, Scripture or the Church deny to non believers or any kind of sinners. These positions may confound many of my dearly loved brothers and sisters in Christ. It is interesting to consider that while the Catholic Church considers marriage a sacrament, the Lutheran Church does not. And, Moses and Paul both write about homosexuality but Jesus Himself didn't address it directly.

I've always been of the opinion that the state should license civil unions and the Church should offer marriages.

Be that as it may, my original intention with this post was never to get involved in a debate on gay marriage. It was to consider our balance on Law and Gospel. I was wondering if sometimes (and this may be as true for me and liberal issues as it is for anyone else with conservative issues) do our temporal, social, political, and moral concerns like meat offered to idols, all things are permitted, but not all things are helpful.

---

To look after orphans and widows in their distress, do not mistreat an alien or oppress, love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemy and pray for those that persecute you, judge not lest ye be judged, mercy triumphs over judgment... these are God's values as I read them. America, just like every single individual has always and daily failed to... Read More uphold these values- indeed may very well be incapable of upholding them. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Sure, I was knit together in my mother's womb, but I was also conceived in sin. Sure, the United States may have been founded by people who called themselves Christian and modeled our laws after Judeo-Christian traditions, but don't kid yourself, they were business men, politicians, even pirates and privateers, ambitious, sinful mercenaries who killed and enslaved for selfish gain.

Be careful not to fall prey to the Hegelian notion that says that God blesses us more than other countries because we're somehow more Christian than they are. Remember who the Puritans were seeking religious freedom from? King James, as in the King James Bible- a very Christian monarch.

Calvinists, Thomists, Augustinians, and Lutherans (and for that matter in a secular vein- Hobbsians and Lockeans) all have drastically different concepts of human nature and I suppose sin itself, for that matter. As a Lutheran, I believe that on this side of death we all live in a perpetual and inescapable state of sin. Only Jesus' death and resurrection saves me. But during this life the best we can do is make allowances because, like Moses found, people have hard hearts. I agree, as Jesus, we shouldn't shy away from calling wrong wrong, but Jesus still loved and died for people who got divorces, or committed adultery by lusting after someone with their eyes and commit murder by hating people.

---

John Adams once warned that "power always thinks it has great soul, vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God's service when it might be violating all His laws. Our passions the powerful are assured... posses so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience of the weak and convert both to their party."

---

One American thinks that permitting gay marriage or teaching evolution are a betrayal of God and the values which America was founded on. Another American may think that employing torture or violating 4th and 5th and 14th Amendment rights, or fabricating intelligence reports to support unprovoked military action is just as much an unconscionable betrayal of those same values.

Sen. Charles Grassley is deliberative and thoughtful, not reactionary. Whatever ways I may disagree with him, I don't think he deserved to be attacked by people whom he agrees with because he isn't speaking as loudly and angrily as they as quickly as they have. It just seems to me, that we often fault on the side of Law because we are motivated by anger and fear, whereas the Gospel is always motivated by love- not weakness or trying to please everyone, but genuine love and concern. The goal is that all would come to Christ and salvation, not for me to defend God FROM them.

Like it or not however, for one person protecting and preserving how our society operates is damaging it and preventing it from operating how it how it ought to. Po-tate-o Po-tOt-o. One Christian says God instituted infant baptism, another says... Read More God wants young adults to decide to be baptized. One Christian says Christ is really present in the bread and wine, another says it's just symbolic. Likewise, one American loves the 1st and 4th and 8th Amendments, another loves the 2nd and 10th most. One American looks at the 2nd Amendment and focuses on the "well-regulated militia," another focuses on the individual's right to bear arms. One looks at the 1st Amendment and emphasizes that the right to practice one's religion should not be impeded, another emphasizes that the state should not establish, favor or promote any one religion above another one. Yet, E pluribus unum, from many, one.

---

If you really want to nit pick- sure, God created woman out of man when He saw that he should not be alone, and the Bible says, for this reason a man should leave his mother and father and the two shall become one, but there is no clear legal definition given for a marriage. Adam and Eve didn't get a license from the county clerk or have a ring or a ceremony. Abraham, Jacob, David, and most notoriously Solomon all practiced polygamy. Fundamentalist Mormons are convinced that that should be legalized. Less than fifty years ago many states prohibited Blacks and Whites from getting married. Most states now have a concept called "common-law" marriage in which it categorizes people who've been cohabiting without the blessing of the Church.

---

Pluralism sucks, and you may be scared that God will punish us for it, or that He'll withdraw His blessing for it, but would you prefer a theocracy? Who'd get to be the Mullah? Yours or mine? I'll take pluralism.

When is the culture that influences the church the worldly, unchurched culture that seems so relativistic and when is the seemingly pious and religious subculture of religiosity that is nevertheless human, but imagines itself from God?

Zwingly and Calvin and Wesley insisted on bending the world's culture into our Christian expectations, whereas Luther called us to influence and participate, but not get overly hung up on it because its more valuable to keep our eyes on the cross, and of course then there's Benedict who thought we should remove ourselves from the world. It's a little like Mary and Martha, the busy body (who, mind you, is working for God) or the open heart with eyes and ears focused on higher things. If you're focus is truly on Jesus, how can you have time to notice all the specks in other people's eyes?

---

Lutherans teach that we can never fulfill the Law, but thanks to Christ's work on the cross, we now live in the freedom and grace of the Gospel. Whereas Baptists believe that once one's saved, you are obligated to start following the Law, keep every thought captive etc. It seems to set up some unrealistic expectations on Christians to be perfect. Granted, we shouldn't abuse our freedom by thinking of grace as a license to sin. But my point is, one of the problems with the "Evangelical" or Conservative-Christian movement in America is that rather than having the Law precede and direct us toward the Gospel, we're starting to think that the Gospel precedes and directs us into Legalism.

THAT is the main point I hoped to communicate by posting the quote from and link to an article by Jim Wallis- not get into a heady debate about the so-called culture wars. One of my OTHER problems with extreme right wingers is that they seem to be constantly on the defensive, itching for conflict. I wanted civil, academic, abstract, discussion- not all out argument. I think that if the truth is truth it stands by itself, Share it, explain it, but why feel like you need to defend it? God is God and I am not. He can defend Himself.

I still think that right-wingers went to far when they came down on Senator Grassley -who is on their side!

---

One of my OTHER problems with extreme right wingers is that they seem to be constantly on the defensive, itching for conflict. I wanted civil, academic, abstract, discussion- not all out argument. I think that if the truth is truth it stands by itself, Share it, explain it, but why feel like you need to defend it? God is God and I am not. He can defend Himself.

I'm a compulsive teacher, I want people to think and discuss, even if it takes cognitive dissonance to start the process. Unfortunately it comes of as me being a muck-rucker because I upset the applecart by not simply marching in lock-step with everybody else on every single issue.

---

Writing, speaking, extrapolating, defending, try to cajole and convince and apply apologetics till we're blue in the face, someone will always disagree and worse, someone will always take offense. Obviously there were several times in there when Craig felt that I didn't hear him and a few when I did probably misread his points. There were also several times where I think he felt like I may have been attacking him when actually I was desperately trying to convince him.

⁸ All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

⁹ What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Why be angry at the sun or chase after the wind? I still say, let the rain fall down on the just and the unjust. Jesus knows the weeds from the grain, let Him sort it all out in the end.

Loveland

I so long to glide along your landscapes
to partake of your bounty

to laze in your grass, being intoxicated by your floral perfumes
let me be your blanket- but be mine too, lay on me and let me bury myself in you

to kiss, to taste,
to gather up,
to enter in

you are where I want to be
and who I want to be with
and what I want to be doing

you are my destination
and my home

let me drink
and dine
and sup

and then let me sleep
when I've had enough

3,000 Feet over Prescott

I think about all the pretentious poetry I have contributed
to the rest of the pretentious noise
being made by my generation
that will never be heard
even if it could
above the din
and I wish
I could
fly

My Grandpa's Farm

Feels like Michigan again-
cool, damp, dewy, grassy

She'll miss her birds
She'll miss her garden
She'll miss the things the rest of us have all forgotten

She misses his touch in the middle of the night
his voice and his warmth

She's missed the children
Bright Sunday reunions

More than this,
I am afraid of missing her

Feels like Michigan
baby snow peas
baby sweet corn
dusty garages
black cherries

Feels like Michigan again

Your Escape

I can't seem to write you a letter
I'm not sure what you need to hear
Seems I always tend to squander our time together
I want you to know how much I love you
I want to be a channel for God's love for you
I want to hold you and give you something to hold onto
I know you're lonely and alone,
but you're good and kind and valuable
So don't begin to fall apart or continue to look down
You are in God's hands
He will never let you go
Let Him be your home and your escape

Media elitite, Boutique, Limousine, Country-Club Conservatives who play populists on TV and the radio

I really wanted to stop posting other people's cartoons on my site, but every once in a while I come across one that is too good at pointing out the truth. I could write a thousand word rant about the hypocrisy of right wing Republicans when it comes to deficit spending, the National debt, and especially the reversal of the progressive tax structure in the last 30 years after it had grown our middle class so robustly for 50 years before that. Or how they LOVE to make taxes such a red herring issue to promote fear and agitate working class voters to act against their own self interests... or just let Horsey's masterful cartoon make the point for me.

Where am I going?

Where am I going
where have I been?

How am I doing
What can I when?

Don't know the difference
don't know what's right
I'll know what I knew
when all comes to light.

What am I showing
what have they seen?

Sure haven't been glowing
and won't till the end

There's too much inference
that's our whole plight-
We'll reap what we sow
but till then we all fight.

Mornings in March

To celebrate National Poetry Month, and my design overhaul of the ol blog here, I am posting some of my old poems this week. Some of these are from this year, others from as far away and long ago as high school. I don't claim to be a very good poet, but sometimes words can do what even drawing, painting, and photography can't. Here is my humble offering. Maybe you can relate to some of them. I call this section "Max Nix," German for "nothin' much," or a "whole lot of nothing." Enjoy.

---

In the mornings
in March
as I walk from my truck to my classroom door
I hear geese calling
and sometimes cattle braying

if it's not too cold and the breeze is from the South
I catch a faint scent of the cattle auction yard across town

I close my eyes and reach for the school door
and I can feel the dew
and smell the earth
and the grass feebly trying to come back to life after months of death under inches of ice and snow

And I wonder how it would sound to hear Garrison Keillor reading these words on his Writers' Almanack

but these words aren't the poem
the moment is the poem,
the geese and the cows and the prairie air

I'm not the poet, God is
and I thank Him for letting me live in Iowa
and work at a small school
in a small town
and live in an even smaller one

and I thank Him for the poem of the morning

Poetry is Painting

"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."
— Leonardo da Vinci

Chapter 2: Lost in Paradise

After high school, I attended the University of Missouri and majored in Journalism. I wasn't exactly a stellar student.

Upon graduation, I went to work for the Mailbu Canyon News for several years. Despite what most Americans imagine, Malibu is not the exactly a glamorous and glorious utopia. The Canyon News was not the most glamorous and glorious publication. It ranked third of four newspapers that served the city. It was published weekly and made most of it's revenue from advertisements for horse and automobile trades. I spent most of my time working on those ads and transcribing local police reports.

I've never been much of a beach person. At about five foot eight and two hundred and twenty pounds, I'll never be a surfer. Be that as is may, I didn't mind Malibu too much except for the fact that I shared a double-wide mobile home with two room mates in a neighborhood called Paradise Cove. This was the only way I could afford to live in Malibu. Otherwise I'd probably have had to rent an apartment somewhere like Van Nuys and then I'd never been able to afford to drive an hour to the Canon News office every day. Most people think that Paradise Cove would be a wonderful place to live, sheltered from the freeway and only a block from the beach. But most people weren't named James Garner. Paradise Cove was the location for the 1970's TV show, the Rockford Files. Detective Jim Rockford was played by actor James Garner. I didn't know this when I moves in, otherwise I would've used my first name when I signed the lease. I've gone by James ever since kindergarten because I was thought William was too embarrassing and my mother refused to let anyone call me Billy.

I was barely eking out a living. I Hated having neighbors give me grief about being James Garner living in Rockford's trailer court. And I hated living so close to Los Angeles. Plastic, caustic, crime-ridden, smog laden, Los Angeles. So, when I found an opportunity to become the editor of a small weekly in the Midwest, I decided to try something new. I was looking through an office copy of the California Newspaper Publisher Association's monthly paper and saw an ad for an editor of a small town newspaper, the Cedar Ridge Times.

While, I as I said, I wasn't exactly top of my class at MIZZOU, I was feeling pretty bad about being just a staff member at a third place weekly, especially having graduated from such a prestigious journalism school. I was excited about the opportunity to step up to a leadership role, even if it meant having to deal with snow and cold for part of the year. How hard could it be? Like I mentioned, Malibu isn't exactly Beverly Hills. I figured rural Iowa couldn't be too much different from the ranchers and strawberry farmers of North West L.A. County. I figured the West Coast was a culture shock coming from the nurturing arms of Columbia Missouri. Really, I had no idea of what culture was, let alone culture shock.

Hurry tree, hurry

The snow has finally melted,
the grass is starting to green,
Robins are hopping and mourning doves coo
I hear the laughter of children outside again
and the honks of geese are fading
I stop and notice that the trees are budding,
hurry tree, hurry
bring your blooms for Spring
and your leaves
for Summer
I notice a neighbor's daffodils
waking from their winter slumber
and look forward to the tulips
hurry Earth, hurry
bring your blooms for Spring
and your leaves
for Summer

Send me your News tips!

It's that time of year again. I'm talking with Brad Swenson, the Publisher of the Mapleton PRESS about how I can help as a community correspondent for the Charter Oak and Ricketts areas. You can help. Have you got any ideas for feature stories or personality interviews? Have you got an even on your calendar that you'd like me to cover or at least get some pictures of? Please send me an email and let me know ted.mallory-at-gmail.com

Remember that Charter Oak Achievement Days are coming up July 12-15. The PRESS is planning on runing their annual special edition July 23. Why not show your support by advertising in the Achievement Days Edition? Give me a call, or call the PRESS office and reserve your space today!

Brad tells me that they've got Joleen Schultz signed on to help cover our area too- especially once I go back to school next Fall. When in doubt, call Michelle Kane at the office in Mapleton :

Phone 712-881-1101
Fax 712 881 1330
mpress@longlines.com

Iowa Corn

During a lull at the track concession stand at the Boyer Valley Girl's Invitational, I experimented with the macro setting on my camera. Pretty fun, huh? Warm and buttery. You can see some pictures of my cheerleaders on my Cheer Coach's Blog. Watch the Mapleton PRESS , the Missouri Valley Times and the Dunlap Reporter in the next couple of weeks to see if they run any of my pictures of girls' track events.

Chapter 1: Call me 'Chief'

I've never really tried writing fiction before. But since I haven't been writing a weekly opinion/humor column anymore, I have been considering things to write. Most writers are always musing about writing the great American novel. I don't know that I'm up for that. But I do think it would be fun to experiment with short stories, sort of vignettes and character sketches.

You can read everything I have done all in one place at GoodReads, or by searching for just the Hometown NEWS posts on this blog.

Here's the obligatory disclaimer- all the characters here aren't strictly based on anyone or meant to libel or defame anyone, although, let's face it- several of them may be composites of people I've encountered. Since it's just for fun, don't expect there do be updates daily or even with any regularity- but I hope to add to it at least each week. We'll see.

And here are my impressions of a small Midwestern town from a transplant from the coast; What's bewildering, bewitching and unbelievable about being in a town under 600.


My name is William James Garner. I guess my mother wanted me to someday become a psychologist or a philosopher. Most people around here call me "Chief."

I grew up in Cave Creek, Arizona. Most of my life it had a population under 4,000. It was the ugly twin brother of a town called Carefree, of the Gordon Lightfoot song, "Carefree Highway."

But they don't call me "Chief" because I'm a Native American. My father was a large animal veterinarian who served clients in Carefree. My mother was a hostess at a highway diner right on the border between the towns.

Carefree was the posh, trendy tourist town full of boutiques and art galleries frequented by snow birds. Snow birds were affluent retirees from cold, flat places like Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Cave Creek was less friendly to outsiders and highly protected by it's natives. Cave Creek had hot air balloon festivals. Cave Creek had wet tee-shirt contests. Carefree had get-away ranches owned by Hollywood honchos like Lucille Ball and Dick Van Dyke. Cave Creek had ramshackle ranch style homes build by actual ranch hand who took care of the horses that the TV and movie stars rode once or twice a year. Carefree boasted a five star restaurant with seven course meals. Cave Creek had 'the Horny Toad and the satisfied frog,' a bar and grill that fed and watered weary cowboys and thirsty bikers.

When I was growing up, our towns were way out in the boonies, somewhere North of the Phoenix area and South of Dead Horse Gulch and Skunk Creek. For the last decade or so, Phoenix and it's more high brow suburb, Scottsdale have been in a race to see who could connect to the New Age mecca of Sedona first. Scottsdale has pretty much absorbed Care Free and Phoenix has all but swallowed Cave Creek. The Care Free Highway is little more than an expressway connecting State Highway 89 and I-17.

But this story isn't about where I'm from, originally. It's about where I am now.

Trying something new

I'm trying to make all of my blogs share a more consistent graphic style, so that they'll look more like they belong together and hopefully will eventually navigate more like they're all pages on the same website. Please be patient with me, but do please send me your feedback and tell me what you think.

I'm not sure I like the background color yet- or the entire color scheme for that matter. I may go with plain white or pale gray. I was hoping for sort of a desert thing. The previous work blue and international orange were derived from 1950's/early 60's American Airlines logos. This new look is based on more of a contemporary Southwestern taste. Partly from my home state of Arizona, with a little South Dakota prairie thrown in. I like the turquoise accent, but I'm still partial to that orange.

The tan background isn't quite as pleasant as I had hoped for. I'd really love to figure out some kind of graduated/variegated background, but I think that requires loading an image which will take more code writing than I'm up for and slow down page loading.

I'm hoping that the slightly more shallow masthead/banner will draw more attention to the content on each blog.

Let me know if you have an opinion or any suggestions. Hopefully I'll manage to standardize the layouts a little more and redesign the navigation buttons soon. Meanwhile, thank you for your patience.

My morning commute

This was the scene between Charter Oak and Dunlap, along HWY L59 this week. Eat your hearts out, big city dwellers

Something new

Blogger has added a feature which allows you to import and export blogs.
SO... As of today, I am merging my main writing blog (this one) and my art/photography blog (formerly known as "wild art"). For now, I'll still keep the cartooning and strictly religious stuff on two separate blogs. Hopefully this will mean that there will be more content on this one, since I had been posting a lot less on both of them for a while now.

Historical portraits

Henry A. Wallace, Iowan, scientist, farmer, publisher, US Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Vice President, Progressive Presidential Candidate. Monochromatic watercolor.

My time at the Sun

Every year our English teacher solicits our favorite poems for National Poetry Month and requests that we give her a picture of ourselves so that her class can make posters of our poems to hang in the hallway. Last year I made myself look like Iowa artist Grant Wood. This year I decided to make myself into H.L. Mencken, political columnist, humorist, social commentator, reporter, and editor of the Baltimore Sun, back at the time of Theodore Roosevelt.

I may never be as famous or influential a writer, I may not even have a weekly column in our tiny local paper anymore but I still love writing. Maybe someday God will even let me make a living at it.

Please note that the beer mug tattoo was drawn on the original photo by Mencken himself- that's not something I added on my own.

Ted's Famous Enchilada-Lasanga Dish

Beef 'Gringolada' Bake '

Disclaimer: REAL enchiladas are generally made with corn tortillas. AUTHENTIC enchiladas are made with shredded or "pulled" meat, rather than ground beef- if they contain meat at all. (Technically, this recipe would make burros in enchilada sauce) Whatever- while it may be a Midwestern "gringo" recipe, this is a sure-to-please family favorite.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. hamburger
10 oz can enchilada sauce
8 oz can tomato sauce (tomato soup can work too)
1 3/4 cup shredded cheddar or jack cheese
1 cup of ripe black olives
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup diced green chilies
1/2 tsp dry oregano leaves, crushed
1/2 tsp of cilantro (this is the secret to making things taste like authentic Mexican cuisine)
Sour cream
8 flour tortillas

Directions:

Brown hamburger.
Combine enchilada and tomato sauces in a small sauce pan and simmer over medium heat.
Set aside 1/2 cup shredded cheese and 1/2 cup of sliced olives for garnish.
Chop the other 1/2 cup of olives and mix with 1 1/4 cup of cheese, onion, chilies, oregano, and cilantro. Mix with hamburger and 1/2 of the sauce in a large bowl.
Spread approximately 1 tsp of sour cream on a tortilla, then spoon in 1-2 tablespoons of meat mixture. roll the tortilla up and place it in a 9X13 baking pan that's been sprayed with Pam. Spread, stuff and roll the rest of the 8 tortillas until they fill the pan. Drizzle on the remaining sauce.
Sprinkle with remaining cheese and garnish with olive slices.
Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes or until heated through.

Note: you can prepare the ingredients ahead of time and bake later if you need to and it makes awesome leftovers because the flavors intensify when they've had a chance to "steep."

Chicken 'Gringoladas'

Ingredients:

2 (10 ounce) cans chunk chicken, drained and flaked
10 oz can enchilada sauce
8 oz can cream of chicken soup
½ cup sour cream
1 ¾ cup shredded cheddar or jack cheese
½ cup cottage cheese
2 tbsp flour
1 cup of ripe black olives
½ medium onion, finely chopped
½ cup diced green chilies
½ tsp dry oregano leaves, crushed
½ tsp of cilantro (this is the secret to making things taste like authentic Mexican cuisine)
Sour cream
8 flour tortillas

Directions:

Combine enchilada, chix soup, and ½ cup sour cream in a small sauce pan and simmer over medium heat.

Set aside ½ cup shredded cheese and ½ cup of sliced olives for garnish.

Chop the other ½ cup of olives and mix with 1 ¼ cup of cheese, ½ cup cottage cheese, 2 tbsp four, onion, chilies, oregano, and cilantro. Mix with chicken and barely 1/3 of the sauce in a large bowl.

Spread approximately 1 tsp of sour cream on a tortilla, then spoon in 1-2 tablespoons of chx/cheese mixture. Roll the tortilla up and place it in a 9x13 baking pan that's been sprayed with Pam. Spread, stuff and roll the rest of the 8 tortillas until they fill the pan. Drizzle on the remaining sauce.

Sprinkle with remaining cheese and garnish with olive slices.
Bake at 300° for 15-20 minutes or until heated through.