A Whole Lotta' Spinnin Going On

The following is an email I sent to the Bill O'Reilly radio show. Maybe I am wrong, I don't think so......

Subj: A whole lotta spinning going on........
Date: 09/23/2004
To: oreilly@foxnews.com
I am a new listener to your radio program. I was really excited when I first started listening because I HATE mindless radio. I was glad you were not a mindless Bush supporter who only dished out Republican party spin. (At this point I should have also added, mindless Democratic party supporters who ALWAYS think they are smarter than everyone else, dishing out Kerry propaganda) I am a Republican but not mindless and I did not originally agree with the decision to invade Iraq and I had a whole host of reasons. I did decide however, to support the effort in the end for the men serving overseas.....Remember Vietnam. However, I am becoming more and more disenchanted with your show. The NO SPIN is beginning to sound really empty. I feel you have been doing a WHOLE LOT OF SPINNING for CBS and Dan Rather. Of course he should be fired. He got caught. He lied and did not do enough damage control. I don't care if he thought the general story was true. He helped confabulate a story based on his supposition. (Kids of politicians and or wealth in general ALWAYS have it easier in life whether it be to go to the right schools or get promoted, etc.) He is an insider, he would have known the reputation of the people he was dealing with. He was not interested in the truth. He just wanted to bring Bush down. Maybe at the expense of his career. Maybe not. I don't know if this is an example of everyday journalism and he is just not getting away with it this time or not. Please don't respond with Dan Rather would never...........that is crap and spin. I think you are selling out to the "establishment". You will lose your base audience if you are not careful. It is very apparent you are a Kerry supporter and that is fine. You just need to be careful of the SPIN FACTOR>I also feel you are losing valuable viewer input by making your email bill subscriber only........

Note:
Bill O'Reilly has since redeemed himself in my eyes. He is once again sounding balanced and fair, pointing out both good and bad on both sides of the aisle. It could be (couldn't it) that my anger at his defense of Dan Rather at all costs
colored my opinion and skewed my perspective.

Southern Observations

I have lived in the South most of my life. I just recently returned after being away a number of years. As a child of the South, a youth growing up mortified by the media's portrayal of southerners in general, I have made certain observations about life here.

I grew up in Mississippi. I have also lived in Texas, North Carolina, and Arizona.

People from the South are in general very proud. We hold our heads high and wave our southern banners high. We are frequently embarrased by the portrayal of southern living in the media and on film. Therefore, we wear more make-up, jewelry, stay up on latest fashions, decorate our houses using "Southern Living" magazine as a Bible, and in general run, and run and run in a futile attempt to prove to ourselves and the world that we are GOOD, NICE, DECENT, INTELLIGENT, people WITH GOOD TASTE.

I have found that the states I have lived in tended to have unique characteristics. Each a little different in accent and in attitude. (Maybe a hang over from the Confederacy when each state was it's own sovereign nation) Anyway, I thought I would share my observations. If you read this post and disagree, please feel free to share your thoughts.


I thought I would begin with Texas. Texas, as I perceived it, is it's own country. While most Texans view themselves as Southerners, others distance themselves from that whole southern thing. Texans are very proud people and if able would teach their children to pledge allegiance to the Texan flag and to the Republic......every morning before the United States Pledge. Texas is a fun place to live, colorful and full of tradition. The color red is much in evidence and they are very proud of the cowboy image. Everything is "Big" and they strive to be the biggest and best of all at everything.
Texas is a very large state, so the accent of the locals varies from area to area. West Texas and East Texas vary widely. If you live in a rural area you might have a really country sounding slow drawl. If you live in an area like Dallas, you talk in a refined, bossy, rapid pace drawl. Drawl does not always mean slow in the south. (Some Texans may disown the South, but they are guilty of having the most distinctive southern drawl noises, some of them not pretty.)

North Carolina is also a very proud state. It is beautiful country with areas of wild beaches and green lush landscapes. There are many families with generation upon generation embedded in one location. These people feel they made a good choice when they stumbled upon this state. They settled down, put down roots and never left. Congratulating themselves upon the good fortune they feel God bestowed upon them when they were "chosen" to abide in this state, they feel they are blessed with an abundance of wisdom as well. They are RIGHT. They are RIGHT about everything. Be it food, clothes, politics, religion, color of the sky, they are RIGHT. Gifted with "wisdom" they are not above expressing their views loudly and with conviction if you dare express an opinion that differs. North Carolina's accents differ as well by location. You might sound like evangelist Billy Graham with a distinctive New Englandy sound. You could have a really different pronounced accent where you pronounce the word house as "hoose". (rhymes with noose) There are also more traditional sounding accents in North Carolina usually fairly soft and refined.

Mississippians on the other hand, are fairly humble people. Our backs bowed by public opinion and regret about the past, we do not lay claim to great wisdom brought about by geographic location. Southerners in general are very cognizant of public opinion, and people of Mississippi are especially SENSITIVE about our reputation as a state. That does not mean that the people of the south are not proud to be southerners. Not at all. We have the same fierce loyalty to our geographic locale as the rest of the south. If anything, we try even harder to change the nation's mind about our state. We dress up, decorate, and work really hard at our image. Our drawl varies and the sound usually depends on whether you live in an urban or rural area. Urban area accents have a prettier softer sound.

Arizona, of course, is not part of the South. (they laugh at the South and feel we are inferior) They view the south as being largely racist. However, in their minds, racism only occurs in "places like the south" and they tend to ignore their own blatant racism against the large Hispanic population living in their midst. I lived in Phoenix and did not experience much of the outer areas of Arizona. I did however see rednecks, bigots, and white trash during my time there.
I don't mean to dis Arizona. I loved it. The first time I visited, it was in August and I thought it was the hottest and most beautiful place I had ever seen. Native Phoenicians are outnumbered two to one and most people are transplants from Northern states. People running from the ice and snow of the colder climates. The heat is incredible and when temperatures are at there worst and the wind blows, it feels like you are standing in front of a blow dryer turned on high heat. If the wind is not blowing, it feels like an oven or furnace. Older people there reminisce about sleeping on the porch and on top of cars before air condition was available. (Some of the houses were designed with "sleeper porches" on the top floor) People in Arizona don't let the heat slow them down and mountain hiking is extremely popular there.

I have been to all the Southern and Southwestern states. People appear to me to be pretty much the same all over. Just a little more interesting in some spots.

Miracle Pee Drink

Miracle Pee Drink?

2 Urine related articles.......

Drink This Daily. Turn Gray Hair Black? Drink one cup of urine a day and it will turn gray hair black, eliminate sinus trouble, and even cure cancer, according to a Thai academic from the Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine Development Department. AFP News Service reports that Ratree Cheepudomwit, who really believes this is something we should all do, conducted a scientific study of Buddhist monks living in Bangkok who engage in this rather unorthodox practice. Cheepudomwit told AFP that hundreds of urine drinkers have attested that consuming a daily cup worked wonders for their overall health and helped slow the aging process. (If this is the cure, turning gray isn't all that bad!) For the study, she interviewed 250 members of Santi Asoke, a strict indigenous Buddhist movement that is believed to have thousands of followers. Fully 204 of the respondents said they had learned from ancient Buddhist manuscripts that drinking one's urine improved health, reports AFP. "Of the respondents, 87 percent confirmed that it had head-to-toe benefits for them, including for example reduction of dandruff, gray hair, sinus problems, and cancer," she explained to AFP. Not surprisingly, drinking this elixir doesn't agree with everyone's system. About 10 percent of the urine drinkers suffered diarrhea afterwards. Still, Cheepudomwit insists the practice should not be viewed with disgust. "Other groups of people who drank urine were Buddhist monks who practiced in accordance to scriptures which are more than 2,500 years old," she said. Don't try this at home, kids.

THe second article is also Urine related. BUt does it have all the same miraculous qualities as the original?

Company Making Fake Urine for ResearchersBy DAVID TWIDDY LENEXA, Kan. (AP) - In Kevin Dyches' mind, the future is yellow. Dyna-Tek Industries, a company Kevin and his wife, Sandra, bought five years ago, has developed synthetic urine for the research industry. One of their first customers is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which made a big purchase this summer and has hinted it could be a major buyer long into the future. Other research institutions and laboratories are also looking into Dyna-Tek's product, called Surine. ``We have been very blessed with this,'' said Dyches, who handles finances and marketing for the three-person company discreetly tucked away in a suburban Kansas City office park. ``It was pretty discouraging until about a year ago.'' While the business plan might induce stifled giggles, synthetic urine is a serious matter in the laboratory industry. Researchers, drug-testing labs and other institutions buy thousands of gallons of the real stuff, mostly to calibrate the equipment used to test regular urine samples for drugs or other substances. Researchers periodically check the accuracy of their equipment by introducing samples that have been intentionally spiked with chemicals. But human urine has its limitations. It's unstable, decaying rapidly if not kept refrigerated and must be frozen when shipped. It can smell, it foams and donors must be screened carefully for drug use or disease. Also, different body chemistry guarantees that no two people's urine is exactly alike, an irritation for researchers who rely on consistency. In the end, a fully synthetic urine has remained a laudable goal in scientific circles. ``I think in the next few years, synthetic urine will replace human urine'' in laboratories, said Fred Klaus, purchasing manager for Redwood Toxicology, a Santa Rosa, Calif., drug testing company that tests about 30,000 urine samples a day and is thinking about testing Surine. ``If you end up with something like Surine that's very stable and easy to maintain, you're going to go to that because that's one of your savers.'' David Ashley, the CDC's emergency response and air toxicants branch chief, said his agency has a long history of handling human urine, but a new joint program with state health departments for monitoring harmful substances in the environment would require large amounts of urine quickly. ``We're faced with the very large challenge of producing material for all of those labs that will be consistent across the board,'' Ashley said, adding that his agency bought 33 liters of Surine. If the CDC's experience with Surine is favorable, he said, it could increase that amount to up to 400 liters.

Pitbull Rebels, Reshapes Master

Both these articles were in the news on the same day. I think the stories could somehow be connected. This first is about a pit bull. It reads:ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A man whose genitals were bitten off by a pit bull remained in serious condition Tuesday, and the dog remained on the loose. The man, who has not been identified, was attacked Monday while walking the dog. When police arrived to help, the man appeared disoriented and fled on foot but police tracked him to a nearby park, said Detective Jeff Arbogast of the Albuquerque Police Department.The man was naked when found at the park, but it was unclear at what point he had taken off his clothes. Neighbors had seen him playing with the dog earlier in the day.Arbogast said investigators do not know why the man was naked, and remain uncertain about some circumstances surrounding the attack.The brown pit bull remained missing Tuesday, and police warned people who see it to stay away and call animal control.A nearby elementary school was locked down following the incident and parents were called to pick up students who usually walk home.Shortly after the attack Monday, Gov. Bill Richardson released a statement saying he would proposed legislation next year aimed at holding owners of dangerous dogs accountable for their pets.

THe second one is about a statue with questionable physical attributes ALBANY, N.Y. - Government cutbacks are hitting a continental soldier below the belt.The statue of Copper John, a continental soldier that sits atop the state's Auburn Correctional Facility, was removed earlier this summer for renovation.The beloved figure is set to return to his perch this fall, albeit a lesser man.Workers sprucing up the 156-year-old statue were told to reduce the size of Copper John's crotch.Neither the prison's superintendent nor the state Department of Correctional Services would discuss the reason for the order. Department spokeswoman Linda Foglia confirmed the alteration took place.Some correction officers aren't pleased with the reduction, and are donning shirts in protest. Ok, why was the pit bulls owner naked in the park? And how DID the pit bull get to his most private areas? And as far as the renovation of the statue in the park? I think they could have used the pitbull's help.