We stopped at a curb store in Crystal Springs so my buddy could take an order. While he typed I got up to get coffee. At the urn was an older black man stirring cream into his cup.
"You know that was the worses war of all."
"Sir?"
"They said that was more people killed than all them other wars put together."
"Which war?"
"Well," he held out his right hand and pointed to a finger with his left as he explained, "they had the Conferararcy...and the North. It was turrable...they shot mothers, brothers, sisters. They shot up e'erybody. It was right here...they shot up e'everybody here."
"Yes sir. My people fought in the War."
"I ain't sayin' they didn't had cururash...they had cururash but, if people woulda just had a thought...they coulda stopped that war...but, when you smoke that grass you don't curr 'bout nothin'."
Lincoln got his war because everybody was too stoned to stop him.
REP. RANGEL (D-NY): New York is different and more progressive than a lot of areas in other states, and some of the Southern areas have cultures that we have to overcome.
Hey Chuck...we shoot Ducks, Deer, Turkey and people we know. We are not shooting up your malls, your movie theaters and we sure as hell aren't shooting little kids.
You people are different alright.
One of the very first school shootings, back in the mid-90s, was here in Jackson. It was stopped by an assistant principal with a pistol...one that he may or my not have been authorized to carry. Around this time, there was another schooting in Arkansas. Since then, in Mississippi and the surounding states there have been zero.
We don't do random killings in The Deep South. There are too many people we know that need killin' to go on targetless shooting sprees.
We don't, as general rule, do serial killers either. We are violent. Our murder rates have always been as relatively high as our suicide rates have been relatively low. We have some horrific killings...a man kidnaps his family and kills them because his wife left him, a man kills his brother's family over property, a black man that has been in the employ of a notorious White Supremacist (transplanted Yankee by the way) burns the whitey's trailer down...with him in it.
We are not innocent people. There's a kind of code that governs most violence. It's been noted. Thomas Sowell's Black Rednecks and White Liberals is last piece that comes to my mind. He explained violence in the Black community as an inherited cultural trait picked up from white Southerners...who had brought it with them from Northern England. To this point, how many black serial killers and spree shooters can you think of.
Then there's just plain crime...we have a lot of that too. We are, generally speaking rowdy, ungovernable, violent people but, when it comes to gunning down little children, we aren't your problem.
I know this has the potential to get as rude as rude talk can be. I have always tried keep this place open for various ideas...if you want to go off on guns GO OFF. The only thing that will cause me to lose my manners is on issues of Southern Culture (sadly we've lost a reader over this...I let down my upbringing and forgot my duties as a host). Having said that, if you want to blame The South...go for it. It'll be a more rowdy conversation than usual but, please feel free to express yourself here.
"There is a class of people (in the South, among whom your author's kin were included), men women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order."Genral Sherman to Thomas Ewing (Order #11)
A curious pehnomenon occurs after and around every election in this country. Whether the Yankee Statist wins, loses or draws, he turns his attention to The South...to bitterly damn our existence or, rejoice in our immenent extiction.
"On a repeat viewing of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” over the New Year’s holiday, a scene I had barely noticed the first time jumped out at me. Confederate vice-president Alexander Stephens (played with reptilian gentility by Jackie Earle Haley), in a secret meeting aboard a steamboat with Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward, faces up to the reality that the era of slavery has come to an end. Ratification of the 13th Amendment, Stephens muses, will destroy the basis of the Southern economy and the South’s traditional way of life. “We won’t know ourselves anymore,” he says.
"If only it had been so." Andrew O'Hehir
Sorry about yer luck prick...but, we're still here and I'm raising one just like me. Of course, all I want, all he will want, all my fathers have wanted for generations is to be free of any and all connection with you....and your empire. We don't care how you live your life because we don't think about you...except to the extent that we are forced to continue in the political process of this ridiculous construct you call the United States. Sorry, Andy...as long as we have to be here we aren't just going to shut our mouths until you want to hear a story or a bit of song.
For Andy Southern culture isn't really a culture at all...it's just a corporate expression of racism and bigotry. What was actually done to the South was less than we deserved...
Look to the South and you who went with us through that land can best say if they have not been fearfully punished. Mourning is in every household, desolation written in broad characters across the whole face of their country, cities in ashes and fields laid waste, their commerce gone, their system of labor annihilated and destroyed. Ruin and poverty and distress everywhere, and now pestilence adding to the very cap sheaf of their stack of misery.
Sherman
Take heart Andy, according to George Parker we are once again on the verge of extinction...but, beware
Northern liberals should not be too quick to cheer, though. At the end of “The Mind of the South,” Cash has this description of “the South at its best”: “proud, brave, honorable by its lights, courteous, personally generous, loyal.” These remain qualities that the rest of the country needs and often calls on. The South’s vices—“violence, intolerance, aversion and suspicion toward new ideas”—grow particularly acute during periods when it is marginalized and left behind. An estrangement between the South and the rest of the country would bring out the worst in both—dangerous insularity in the first, smug self-deception in the second.*
Again...as long as they smile and dance for you they're fine but, they are still under the delusion that they have some say in the affairs of the country.
Let me put this as clearly and as literally as I can (the only way to be understood among these, rootless, block headed, bell ends). We have tried to separate ourselves from you before and you responded by trying to exterminate Us. You failed. You have failed repeatedly. Why do you persist in this failed endevour when all we want is to be shed of you...and your absurd, greedy, warmonger, self-rightous, culturless, loud, obnoxious country?
*Interesting that the auther relies so heavily on Cash. If he had written "The Mind of India" rather than the "Southern Mind," Cash would already and rightly have been thrown on the trash heap of Orientilists but, because he wrote it for the U.S. Empire...he's still lauded.
If you doubt me read the contemporary critique of his work by Donald Davidson...where he rips Cash a brand new, two story, brick, two-car garage, asshole....decades before Edward Said picked up his first rock for the cameras.
Being the selfless employee that I am...I was out late last night. I didn't get home from the Coast 'til around 8 o'clock. Always thinking of the company. Rarely thinking of myself. I did that knowing that I would probably end up having to eat a meal from Mack Donald's...and so I did. That's dedication.
It did afford me the opportunity to drive in the dark. For all the time I spend in the car, most of it is done in sunshine. During the day, Magee is two miles of irritating stop lights and dingy strip malls...at night it's like driving up the trunk of a Christmas tree.
The Radio's different too. It's second string, non-league radio. Among other things, this means they'll take any caller they can get. It can be highly entertaining...or, it can be extremely irritating. Callers that are nervous all the really get out is a lot of heavy breathing. Some don't call for a conversation but to state, and stick to, their point no matter what. The worst of all is when the host misreads what the caller has said. I get so frustrated listening to failed communication...it causes a kind of physical irritation in me.
Of course, sometimes it would be better if I didn't understand what was being said. Last night it was the Schnit show...Schhhyt. Some school up north has decided that along with the U.S. National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance, to start the day, the children will also stand for the Black (or African-American) National Anthem. That's dumb...I think the U.S. National Anthem's dumb and they can take that fascists-one-nation-indivisible-my-ass Pledge of Allegiance and shove it where the sun don't shine but, adding the BNA to the mix is just begging for trouble.
For one thing, it sets the "colour-blind" into a tizzy. First it was the host...Schhhnyt, "I worrrk with alat of Ayficayn-Amyricayns...and they are Amyricayns just like me." Then the caller...distraught caller, will call her Bayrb, "I'm ah teaycher and thowse kids I teaych are mostly Ayyfican-Amyricayns but, I don't see a color. Thyyre just Amyricayns to me. Weyyre awwwlll Amyricayns."
No! Schhhhnyt and Bayrb...we are not all Amyyyyyricans. Certainly not in the all consuming glazed over sense that you two mean it. Black folks have had their own history and challenges that have shaped them, as a group, into something distinct. It's called an identity. A concept that is extremely confusing and frustrating for the Amyrricayn.
"Why wouldn't sambody wanna by an Amyricayn Walley?"
"Gosh Beave, I duh know. It's the best darn country that's ever been."
"Gee Walley...do haveta swear? Now I gatta tell Mom."
Then, there seemed to be some hope. An older Black lady called and tried to explain the significance of the Song...Lift Every Voice and Sing...and why it matters so much to Black Folks.
"Well that's fyyne...if people want to be entertaaayyyned by the sang but..." At that point I turned the radio down so I could rant uninterrupted.
"Entertainment??? You stupid...it has nothing to do with entertainment you dumb...it is a part of who they are. It says something profound about their own history...about who they are as Black folks. It's not up to you, and your dumb as... to decide...blahaha bblaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah."
Those that know me, and careful readers of the blog, will know that I am not merely jumping to the defense of Black identity. That this issue is a sensitive one because, I too, have an identity that separates me from the Amyyyricayns. One that I expect to be respected.
Right on cue....I cut the radio back up and there's an older Black gentlemen complaining that he had to sing Dixie as a kid in the South. It must have been Mississippi because he was making thinly veiled complaints about what's left of Confederate symbology at a major state university.
"Oh gayd...OH GAYD...No I can't believe that...OH GAYD...you had to sing Dixie..OH GAYD. That's wrang...that wrang. I wouldn't staynd for that eitha. OH GAYD Dixie? OH GAYD."
Then even worse..."The Sowthh has chaynged alat since those dayys."
Stop right there moron....listen carefully, write it down, take a picture and hide it in a hole, our reverence for our ancestors and the sacrifices they made defending our home from the likes of you and Bayrb has not ceased or diminished one iota. Don't think for one second that because people like you and Bayrb have managed to stop the Ole Miss band playing From Dixie With Love or, that because some other Amyyricayn has gotten Confederate Battle flags removed from the stadium, that we have budged an inch on the issue of our identity. You and Bayrb can go pound sand then ride of on a tandem bike.
As for the caller....I don't think you or anybody else should have to sing or stand for anything...not Dixie, not God Bless Amyyrica, or Happy Birthday but, NOT everything is about your skin colour! Ole Miss, for instance, has a profound connection to the Confederacy...100%, that's everybody, casualty rate for the Mississippi GrEys from Ole Miss during the war. The town of Oxford was burnt to the ground by Yankees. The importance of the Confederacy at Ole Miss, and throughout The South, is not something that was invented just to spite you.
RRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH Calgon take me away for the love of kittens...TAKE ME AWAY!!!!
Besides, the most serious, and yet stupid, differences that separate black and white Southerners have their roots in the Occupation...euphemistically called Reconstruction by the Amyricayns.
Everybody was pissin' me off last night :)...and it was with great relief that I pulled into the drive.
Listen to the Song...it's gorgeous. If you're gonna stand for something it might as well be Ray Charles.
Elections always bring out the best in our "friends" up north.
_______________________________________________________________
Dear Red States:
We're ticked off at your Neanderthal attitudes and politics and we've decided we're leaving.
"Legitimate rape."
We in New York intend to form our own country and we're taking the other Blue States with us.
In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the rest of the Northeast.
We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation and especially to the people of the new country, The Enlightened States of America (E.S.A).
To sum up briefly:
You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren. You get Bobby Jindal and Todd Akin.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.
You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
We're taking the good weed too. You can have that crap they grow in Mexico.
Sincerely,
Citizen of the Enlightened States of America
Because of your avaristic obsession with the United States of America...you don't need me to tell you that President Obama told you yesterday what you already knew...America is Number ONE!
"No matter what the naysayers tell us, no matter how dark the other side tries to make things look, the fact is there is not another country on earth that would not gladly trade places with the United States of America.” Precious Leader.
"...[W]e’ve still got the best workers in the world. We’ve got the best entrepreneurs in the world. We’ve got the best scientists and researchers in the world, the best colleges,"...the best cheese, the best dirty bookstores and the cleanist interstate restrooms! Precious Leader.
SCOREBOARD CHUMPS!!!!
Sorry World to put your various histories, cultures and achievments into such a deep, dark, abysmal shadow but,...not that sorry.
Among those that know me...I am known for self control and restraint. Master of my appetites, I am a paragon of sobriety...typical Southroner.
Having said that, there are two things I am powerless to resist...and I gorged myself on them this weekend.
One is boiled peanuts...
I will eat cold boiled peanuts until they run out or I pass out.
*
Then there's banana pudding...
and the less we say about that the better...people from my church read this blog.
Besides...what more could be said after this.
We've talked this bunch before...the trashier little sister of the B-52's who was given a bottle half full of corn liquor and a copy of Cracker Culture for a pillow but, otherwise neglected and left to her own devices.
A reader set me off on this jag by mentioning something that had nothing to do with Southern Culture on the Skids on her own blog. You know who you are...Kibber.
Perfectly Southron weekend.
*While looking for a picture of a peanut stand I came across an article in a new york paper encouraging people to eat boiled peanuts. The author called it strange...then said it was strange again to boil peanuts..."unlike the traditional roasting." It would be like me saying it IS strange but people in Japan use soy beans to make a sauce. Not that it may sound strange to us where peanuts have little to no impact on our culture...it IS strange. Morons.
Yesterday on my way home from Meridian* I stopped at the Doolittle Cemetery in Newton, Mississippi.
There are over one hundred Confederate soldiers buried there. Most were sent to a hospital in the area from from the Siege at Vicksburg. About sixty of 'em are unknown. Like so many, they gave not only their lives but their existence to assert the independence of The South...to live free from what they rightly saw as an imperialistic United States increasingly dominated by rapacious industrialists.
Yet what do I find at Doolittle Cemetery yesterday?
This demented gesture again...the stripped rag!
I'm willing to concede that who ever You are...You at Doolittle, You at Okolona,...meant no harm. I'm sure, standin in line at Walmart with these tacky plastic flowers, you felt it was a magnanimous gesture you were making. We're all Americans now...these boys should be recognized as the great Americans they were, etc. Of course logically this could only mean that they were being forgiven...can you not see that?
They are in need of no forgiveness. What they deserve is respect for the sacrifice they made. Not only is this gesture highly disrespectful...it's disgusting. That flag has been slapped on every Southern thing that its representatives have deemed worthy of taking...from our towns to our music, our books, our food and our booze. These men were not Americans...like the blues, William Faulkner and Cokecola....they were of The South, they were Southroners, and they deserve to rest in peace as such.
It may come as a shock to You...but there are those, many of us direct heirs of these men, who don't give a fig about the U.S.A...U.S.A. Who don't see it as anything other than an imperial construct...a phony "nation." Without malice, we see no genuine ancestoral, cultural, or historical ties that give any meaning to the idea of a Nation that stretches from Main to Arizona...Michigan to Mississippi.
Whoever You are, if it's possible, think before You decide to do something like this again. In fact it's best you do think about it...twice.
*“Meridian with its depots, store-houses, arsenal, hospitals, offices, hotels, and cantonments no longer exists.”
Sometimes I get a hankerin' for Mackdonald's Big Breakfast...pancakes, sausage, biscuit. It's good but, I'm always partial to the vacuous smell of clean when I'm putting things in my stomach.
That limits my options 'cause I wouldn't feel comfortable chewin' bubblegum in half of 'em that I walk into...and right back out of. Sadly, I've run up and down these roads so much that I know which ones are clean enough to eat in.
In Ocean Springs that'd be the one on 90...next to the Sonic...in front of the Walmart. It's new...the manager brings potted plants from home...and it has no unexpected, inexplicable odors.
Unfortunately, what it does have is five or six geriatric yankees that meet every morning to drink coffee and berate one another.
No statement goes unchallenged...
"If I was ganna travel...I'd fly into Ackapukuh*...
"NO...not Ackapukuh."
No? If he, with a desire to fly into Acapulco, sat down to make his own travel arrangements...he would not decide to fly into Acapulco? Really?
Their favorite subject is old age benefits...
"Ya ahtamaticaly quaalify fa that..."
"I didn't. They said I hada sign up fa it."
"Sambady lied to ya."
"'m nat ganna ahgu wit ya abat it.**"
Ha.
All I can say is they must love it...just a peculiar form of amusement for 'em I reckon. I've never been in here when they weren't at it.
Maybe I shouldn't be so hung up on stink.
* pronounced Ahhhhhhh-caaah-po-cooo in Mississippi.
**I have spared the reader here by not giving a more accurate description of the sound by making every sentence one word.
Reckon there's one for the Carolina's and Mississippi too? Surely there are similar souvenirs from their Great Plains Tour.
Gotta be more memorabilia...copies of Love Letters taken out of Southern homes and printed in northern newspapers for amusement, wood from Southern homes in mini charcoal bags, blood stained undergarments?
Look to the South and you who went with us through that land can best say if they have not been fearfully punished. Mourning is in every household, desolation written in broad characters across the whole face of their country, cities in ashes and fields laid waste, their commerce gone, their system of labor annihilated and destroyed. Ruin and poverty and distress everywhere, and now pestilence adding to the very cap sheaf of their stack of misery.
