Letter to my former editor, part one

In his take on the massacre in Aurora, CO, Roger Ford excoriates what he calls “the far Left” for “exploiting a tragic event to advance their political agenda”.

That said, Ford begins to advance the “far Right’s” political agenda by doing what the “far Right” does after every “tragic event” of this nature: They immediately reassure us that “more gun control” is not the answer.

And while he does not say what the answer to psychopaths with semiautomatic weapons is, Ford does offer this helpful suggestion: “…this time is better spent praying with the families, not pursuing an agenda to undermine the Second Amendment.”

This I will gladly amen! These “tragic events” have become a staple of the news and are not likely to abate any time soon, so the ability to pray afterwards would definitely be a plus for everyone in the U. S., as almost any locality could be the site of the next “tragic event”.

I would like to reassure Mr. Ford and those who have paranoid delusions about having their weapons taken from them:Relax.Your side has, for all practical intent and purposes, won this debate.The nation has accepted your interpretation of the Second Amendment, so much so that no one, not even the “far Left” thinks gun control has even a snowball’s chance.

To further bolster his argument against more gun laws, Ford cites some “22,000 gun control laws…on the book…”. What Ford implies is these laws are binding on every citizen of the U. S.They are not.

The great majority of these laws are undoubtedly local laws, and therefore binding only on the citizens of the more than 30,000 incorporated cities in the U. S. or individual states wherein they were enacted. Only those laws enacted by the federal government binding on all American citizens.

One gun control measure that might have prevented the Aurora massacre was the prohibition against owning assault weapons that was enacted in 1994.When this law came up for renewal in 2004, Congress, controlled by the conservatives, declined the opportunity.

The few calls from what I suspect Ford considers “the far Left” have been for a renewal of the assault weapons ban. And for a good reason; these weapons have only one purpose, to kill people and to kill them quickly.

The alleged perpetrator of the Aurora massacre reportedly bought over 6000 rounds without raising an eyebrow. He also had a 90-round drum magazine and was wearing body armor when he shot 71 people in that movie theater.

This “tragic event” could be a foretaste of a truly “tragic event”.What happens if, say, terrorists are able to buy weapons and ammo in the same quantity?If they could situate themselves in the right place at the right time, there is theoretically no limit to the number of people they could kill before being taken down by law enforcement.

But it’s our choice, and so far, no mass killing has moved us to conclude even an assault weapons ban, advocated by members of the "far Left, such as Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch, would stop the carnage.

Me and the hot habanero.

I’m not an unadventurous type; that is to say I don’t mind trying something new.  For some time now, I’ve been a fan of hot, spicy food.  Can’t explain why, maybe it’s those endorphins once you get the burn going good.

Hot and spicy is certainly nothing you take to right away; it helps if you’re willing to gradually build up your endurance to the more molten peppers, say.  You know you don’t want to pop a ghost chili into a mouth that has never known anything other than sweet peppers, although the reaction you’d get would be funny. Not if you’re the one who’s getting burned, but it you are watching someone else get burned, different story.

I had my own introduction to the hot stuff when I was in the Army way back in 1982.  We were in Fort Goodfellow, aka Fort Goodbuddy, in San Angelo, TX, and I got my first plate of nachos with those funny looking jalapeno peppers on them.

“Whut is them thangs?” I axed in my inimitable hillbilly accent. “Oh, them?” responds the waiter. “Don’t worry nuttin’ ‘bout them! They is good fer you!” 

Well, if good fer you means it's something that will get you to chug a fresh pitcher of beer, it certainly was good for me

But I got used to the heat and in time I even learned to enjoy it.  I have learned since that the jalapeno is a mere 2500-9000 scoville heat units and in the world of hot peppers that means it’s an ice cube. 

I know this because while I cannot eat a lot of good food, owing to my diabetes, I can still watch others scarf down all the fat and sugar and whatever else they want and that don’t hurt anything except my pride and my appetite.

One particular type of eating competitions I really like to watch is the one that involves eating food stuff that has the temperature of molten lava.  Adam Richman, one time host of Man Vs Food, could wolf down some fiery chow and in most instances, he never seemed to suffer.  Sure, he’d sweat profusely and hold his stomach and moan, but suffer?  Nah!

Another show-can’t recall its title or its host-had two guys who would go after stuff that would make molten lava seem cool.  It was funny because they knew they wouldn’t be able to eat what they had in front of them but they’d give it a try anyway and how those poor souls would carry on.

Now I’m nowhere near that much of a masochist.  Shoot, all I ever wanted to do was try a habanero.  Take a look at this link and it’ll let you know what’s hot and what’s not and where the habanero fits in: http://ushotstuff.com/Heat.Scale.htm. 

A couple of days ago, I went through the Food City at Vanzant, VA, and picked up some nice looking jalapenos.  Close by were some habaneros; orange habaneros.  Here they were, and I so wanted to eat one to show how macho I was.  Well, why not pick up one and see?  I’m no wimp and I could eat a jalapeno or cayenne with relative ease, so let’s see.

Anyway, I had a plan.  I felt like you’d feel the heat more if you had the idea that the habanero was simply too hot to bother with.  With an attitude like that, it’s like you’re beat before you start.

So I got around to fixing some dinner today-turkey sandwich with pepper jack and some jalapenos on for some extra heat, and I decided I’d dice up a little of that habanero and spread it around on the sandwich, too.

After I was finished, I took a look at the habanero, now minus around 1/3 of its original size and I thought I’d take a small bite and I did.  Within a few seconds, I could feel the heat and while it was warmer than a jalapeno, it was what I reckoned as tolerable. 

I started to put the thing away and something inside me said “Go for it!”  I debated the idea for a couple of minutes, then decided to take another somewhat larger bite, but for whatever reason, the whole of what I had left came off the stem and nestled itself inside my mouth and I figured must be a sign so I started to chew.

After about the second or third chew, I got the idea that mebbe the only reason that first bite of the habanero had seemed tolerable was there wasn’t much of it.  And now, by comparison, I had a much larger amount of orange habanero in my mouth. 

Look it up on the scoville scale, and remember a jalapeno is anywhere from 2500-9000 scoville heat units.  By comparison, an orange habanero is rated at anywhere from 150,000-325,000 scoville heat units.

Mind you, I didn’t know those numbers at the time, but the fire building up in my mouth that actually melted the spoon I popped in my mouth to cool it some already let me know I wuz in way over my head.

It was about this time I decided I wasn’t as hungry as I thought I was and that I couldn’t possibly hold that much orange habanero, so I spit out what I had in my mouth directly into my hand. For whatever reason, I didn’t want to take the time to find a napkin.

I disposed of the habanero, but the heat in and around my mouth was increasing in intensity.  Luckily I did remember Adam Richman drinking milk after one of his hot lunches, so I got out an open gallon jug of milk and drank a small bit directly from the jug.  Again, I didn’t feel like looking for a glass. 

I reacted to the habanero's side effects much the same way I did to a face full of tear gas in the Army.  Yes, I was mighty uncomfortable, but I didn’t panic. 

I held my breath, then I noticed the sandwich I had made.  Maybe some food would cool down the fire in my mouth, I thought. And I took a big bite.  It was then I remembered putting the habanero on this sandwich.

Okay really, there was tomato and mayo and mustard and bread and turkey and pepper jack cheese there, too, so the heat from that bit of habanero wasn’t so bad.

But I could have starred in a remake of M*A*S*H.  I mean I had me some Hot Lips.  Oh, if I could have just kissed a pretty girl right then, I know she’d never forget me.  Might not ever talk to me again, but she’d always remember me.

The pain really didn’t last all that long.  I got another small drink from the milk jug and in a bit, I had some more of my sandwich and within a reasonable amount of time, the fire around my mouth went out and in about another 10-15 minutes, the one in my stomach was also doused.

And the endorphins, man, when they kicked in, almost worth it.  In fact, I’m thinkin’ with a little time, I could become immune to third degree burns on my tongue.

Pikeville in the good old days

I’m at that age now where it’s fun to sit around and think about my life. I now live out in the county where everything is a bit slower and the pace more comfortable for an old-timer such as me, but when I was young, being the daring fellow I was, I made the move to the Big City of Pikeville.

Well, you have to understand that this was back in what now passes as the good old days. That would have been around 1975 or so and Pikeville wasn’t quite the impressive metropolis it has since become.

I lived in an apartment then overlooking Deskin’s Motors. This was when railroad tracks ran through that part of town that is now Hambley Blvd. In fact, the railroad that went through town was still called the C&O. I had a two bedroom apartment, utilities paid, including a $5.00 per month cable TV fee, fully furnished, for $125.00 a month.

I worked at South Central Bell’s Second Street offices. I was temporary, part time. This meant that I’d come into repair where I helped get info for anyone who had a complaint. I worked three weeks and was off a week.

There were still a lot of 8 party lines then. The 633 exchange didn’t exist. This meant that whenever one subscriber took their phone off the hook, the other seven called repair. How much fun was that?

I’d walk the railroad to get to work. There were still coal cars on that track. They actually served to let me know that I’d had too much to drink at the Christmas party the phone company threw in 1975. On my way back, I couldn’t quite make out the letters C&O unless I closed one eye.

You wouldn’t believe how many people worked there then, even operators. Remember the people you could get by dialing “0”? This wasn’t an option, either; you couldn’t make a long-distance call without them.

There were still real service stations all around town in those days, too. You’d drive up; they’d pump your gas and check under your hood, just like Goober.

Groceries I got from the only Velocity Market opened in those days. I think there’s a pizza place there, now. In town, you could go to G C Murphy’s and buy, well, pretty near anything.

I didn’t drive in those days, so having a lot of time on my hands, I used to walk around the berg to see what I could find. You’d had to have seen the scenery to have believed it.

If you went towards Goff Furniture, you’d get to the Upper Bridge, but if you stayed in town, you ran across a real, honest-to-God dirt road. I used to love to walk out that way.

There was an actual illegal garbage dump before you ran across what passed for housing. There were real tar paper shacks out that way. You could find the same thing on the other end of Pikeville near Poor Farm Hollow.

From the top of Peach Orchard Mountain, you could see the work being done on the cut through. If we’d only known what was coming.

Yes, Pikeville has so much more now, but it seems like there’s a lot less, too.

Hemphatic Support Needed

It’s not been too terrible a year to be a supporter of industrial hemp in the Bluegrass State. We did, for example, see a new Commissioner of Agriculture, James Comer, sworn in who just stood up and endorsed this marvelous plant.

There’s also been one state official who’s been trying relentlessly to reintroduce industrial hemp in Kentucky, mostly without a lot of help, and that would be Senator Joey Pendleton (D) Senate District 3. Well, anyway, that’s where he was prior to redistricting.

The truth is that while the bill introduced by him this last legislative session didn’t get out for a vote in the Senate, Kentucky has already passed a bill that would allow its farmers to grow industrial hemp.

The big roadblock is the Drug Enforcement Administration, and while they may not be convinced of the fact that hemp and its cousin, marijuana, really belong on the list of schedule one narcotics, this doesn’t mean they won’t stop enforcing this idiotic inclusion.

This list, by the way, includes opiates, opiate derivatives, depressants and stimulants and psychedelic substances. If you look, you’ll find one little substance in that last grouping, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and it’s this that industrial hemp has in such small quantities that it couldn’t even get a fly high.

What can industrial hemp do? C’mon, get real. This plant has over 22,000 uses (maybe considerably over) so it’d take a lot more than 550 words to list them all. But more than that, better than that, even, is the possibilities of the jobs it would mean, not just in Kentucky, but all across the U S, if we could just get the feds to drop hemp prohibition.

For the record, by the way, we aren’t the only state that has passed laws concerning industrial hemp. Here’s some info included in an e-mail I got from an organization I am a member of-Vote Hemp: “To date, thirty-one states have introduced hemp legislation and seventeen have passed legislation; nine (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research.”

Sadly, no state law will ever trump federal law on hemp. And it is from this unenviable position anyone whose aim it is to see renewed hemp production in the U S must start.

Yes, there is presidential aspirant, Ron Paul, R., TX, who reintroduced his bill that would exclude hemp from the list of schedule one narcotics. It’s in the same position the bill that was passed over in Kentucky was; it was assigned to a cold and unfeeling committee (House Judiciary Committee) where it was left to languish.

And until very recently, no one would co-sponsor that bill in the U S Senate, not even Rep. Paul’s son, the transplanted Texan we elected to that august body, one Rand Paul.

But we did get word a while back that Senator Ron Wyden, D. OR, has introduced Senate Amendment 2220 to the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012, S.3240.

This amendment is Rep. Ron Paul’s bill, H. R. 1831. Now hemp supporters must contact Members of Congress to urge them to vote aye. So I urge you all to call or write (snail or e-mail) them.

This may be our best chance ever.

Kentucky Fried Extinction

Firstly, this title was borrowed from an e-mail I got from Greenpeace, an environmental group whose goal is to “ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity".

This e-mail brought up two very important issues. One would be the deliberate destruction of rainforests, and two could be the extinction of the Sumatran tiger as a result of lost habitat.

Yes, I know it’s just such stuff as this that brands people as tree huggers, but what do I care? Trees and humans have had a symbiotic relationship for so long. We each survive on parts of the atmosphere the other cannot use. So as long as trees are helping to make the atmosphere conducive to life, I won’t apologize for wanting to live in a world where they are included.

Oh, and in our part of the world, trees also help disperse water from a heavy rain so it doesn’t cause a flash flood and needlessly destroy houses and upset people’s lives. It’s when forests are clear cut that these natural disasters occur. But those who live on Harless Creek know that.

But back to the title of this piece: Kentucky Fried Chicken is doing business with a major contributor to rain forest destruction; it gets the paper for its packaging from Asia Pulp & Paper (AP&P).

This destruction takes place throughout Asia, but AP&P is hitting Indonesia particularly hard. Not only are they destroying this nation’s invaluable rain forests, they are destroying the habitat of the last remaining subspecies of tiger found here.

It was as recently as 80 years ago that Indonesia was the home of three such subspecies. Two are now extinct, and the one remaining subspecies, the Sumatran tiger has been classified as on the brink of extinction. One reason for this is that 93% of the tigers’ habitat has already been destroyed. And without their natural habitat, those few that are left cannot survive for long.

Why does Kentucky Fried do business with AP&P? Possibly because it’s a cheap source of paper for their packaging. It’s just too bad their need for packaging material for body parts of a dead chicken that have been coated with 11 secret herbs and spices and deep-fried is allowed to endanger Sumatran tigers and their habitat.

Of course, a much better source for that packaging paper would be available to Kentucky Fried if the U S hadn’t outlawed a superior source of paper and categorized it as a schedule one drug.

It has been pointed out in this column many times that one acre of industrial hemp will provide as much paper as 4.1 acres of trees, without the chemical pollution produced by the process that turns wood pulp into paper. And hemp can be ready for more production in a much shorter time. In fact, in Kentucky, when it was legal to do so, a good farmer could get several crops of hemp in, in a single planting season.

Trees by comparison take around 20-30 years to recover.

Well, this was done before we were made aware of the fact that hemp is a dangerous drug that needs to be listed with narcotics such as heroin and cocaine. Of course, when that was made known, we all happily abandoned the idea of ever using industrial hemp again.

Coal vs Obama

President Obama did one thing in the 2012 Kentucky presidential primary he didn’t do in 2008-he won it. This time, he won 58% of the vote, although 42% went to uncommitted delegates. Not that that means anything; Obama is the only Democratic candidate for President this year.

That, by the way, was the good news for the Obama camp. The bad news is he lost to uncommitted in about half of Kentucky, and one of the counties that saw him get flayed alive again was our own Pike County.

Yes, here the uncommitted vote took 65% of the vote. But considering how few votes Obama got in the 2008 primary in Pike County, you could say he did pretty well by comparison. Hey, you take your victories where you can.

At least it’s not like West Virginia, where a federal prisoner, Keith Judd, who is serving out a 17-year term in the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institute in Beaumont, Texas got over 42% of the vote against Obama.

Yeah, Obama took a drubbing in the 2008 primary in that state, but to have a federal prisoner run so close this time has to hurt the pride a little.

There was a well thought out analysis of the primary published in the Friday, May 25^th edition of the Appalachian News-Express that covered pretty much every factor that might have had some influence on these outcomes.

Of course, we all know that Obama’s war on coal, as defined by the various coal producers and associations that have been running negative ads against Obama for the better of his first term, had a large impact on how the vote turned out.

Obama’s war as waged by the Environmental Protection Agency has cost this area jobs, according to these ads. Well, no, not according the latest jobs numbers. In both Kentucky and West Virginia, coal jobs are at the highest levels since around 1997.

But we do have a lot to be thankful for in Pike County, or more specifically, in Pikeville. There is the Eastern Kentucky Exposition Center, for instance. We wouldn’t have that if it weren’t for coal, huh?

Not really. It seems that the Exposition Center was on the verge of closing when a deal was struck by the various governmental agencies that ran it to turn it over to the city of Pikeville.

Coal could have contributed enough money to keep the Center afloat by buying the right to name it, but they’d already contributed some $7 million to the University of Kentucky to name the new men’s basketball dorm the Wildcat Coal Lodge. Maybe next time, though.

Well, the city of Pikeville was able to take on the Exposition Center because it has such a progressive government. Their tax base, helped by the coal industry, is what made the difference, huh?

But those jobs in town because of the many construction jobs, on the new Judicial Center, the new building that will house the medical school at the University of Pikeville, and the new additions to the Pikeville Medical Center, have all been aided considerably by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the first major act of the Obama administration.

So maybe the reality is, even if Obama has helped this area, we don’t care. We just don’t like him.

Let the punishment fit the crime

The news media has the unenviable job of not only reporting the news but of dealing with any fallout it might produce.  Fallout, by the way, usually comes in the form of criticism from those who may think the news media has made them look bad.

No government official ever likes to see bad press, and no government official has ever hesitated to launch a preemptive strike against any news source that might shine a light on any of their more nefarious activities. 

Of course, you don’t have to be a national politician to distrust the press.  We’ve had plenty of those in our area who are just as unhappy with the Appalachian News-Express and who’ve been all too willing to let the paper know all about it.

The most recent unhappy office holder to take action, literally this time, was Elkhorn City’s Mayor Mike Taylor, who filed a criminal complaint against News-Express staff writer Ross Coleman because Coleman won’t stop asking him questions.

Of course Coleman won’t stop asking him questions.  It’s his job.  It’s what motivates him as an individual.  In certain circumstances it could even get him recognition by his peers.  And let’s face it, if reporters were jailed for being inquisitive, our prison population, already the world’s largest, would swell to far greater numbers.

In its response to Taylor’s actions, the News-Express published an editorial in which it called on Taylor to resign as Mayor.  With all due respect to those people who publish my drivel, I think this is going a bit too far. 

Yes, Taylor may be trying to intimidate Coleman and his colleagues, but it’s not the most intimidating action ever taken against an employee of the News-Express.

It’s not been too long ago, if you remember, when another Mayor took exception to a story published in the News-Express.  Only this Mayor was a bit more direct in his try at intimidation. 

Instead of bringing criminal charges against any measly newspaper reporters or staff writers, this Mayor took a swing at the editor; popped him right in the nose.

Cooler heads prevailed because the thing was smoothed over rather quickly; the mayor apologized and the editor forgave him.  No calls for any resignation were heard.

In a story published only this past week, the Fiscal Court tried their hands at intimidating a citizen.  And this wasn’t your ordinary citizen, either.  This was Monk Sanders, the one man who makes it his life’s work to bring help to the poor and needy.  And God only knows how much of that there is to do.

Seems Monk had the temerity to question members of the Fiscal Court in some letters to the Editor.  And that made those members of the Fiscal Court mad, mad enough to tell Monk not to be seen around the county with stationary or postage stamps ever again if he wanted the Fiscal Court to help him.

Of course, Monk agreed, because he does need to get the Court to help him in his mission.  It’s too bad he had to give up his right to express his opinion in exchange for this help.  It’s also too bad that our paper didn’t come to his defense as quickly as it did with its own reporter.