What's Wrong With America in a Weekend

Multiply my weekend by 300 million and you will have in one incident a neat little package of the things that are really wrong in our country that make the Angry White Mom really angry. Let me give you the back story:

            I have lived in rural Texas for most of my life. For fifteen years I have lived at a state park in Texas where my husband David  has served with distinction as park manager. Over the years we have seen hundreds of stray animals, cats and dogs, goats and even the occassional emu (yes, emu) dumped by the public.  On many occasions, depending on age, health, and personality, we have taken in animals and found homes for them, feeding them and paying for any necessary emergency health care out of our own pockets. Every animal I personally have rescued has had it shots. Our dogs have always worn collars, and we are careful to keep them in our house’s yard -- a secure fenced area -- where they are not bothersome to the park staff or public.

            Among the animals that have been,  and still are as of this date,  a nuisance to those in the park are the collarless, tagless, free roaming dogs belonging to the Walther family.  For at least two years, we (as well as park staff and visitors) have had to deal with this family’s lack of ability or desire to responsibly care for their animals.

            On or about August 26 as I was preparing for bed about midnight, I saw a small dog in our backyard and I went to investigate. She was so skittish I could not get close enough to confirm her breed, but I could tell she was female and had had at least one litter.  A typical dumped dog, I thought, and went to bed.

            The next morning the dog was still in our yard. So, doing what I usually do, I fed her  -- I only had cat food because Harley, our dog of ten years, had passed away of old age in early August, and I had given away all our left over dog food and treats. She ate like she was starving.  We began asking around if anyone had lost a small white dog and I personally asked members of the park staff who live in Foard County if they recognized the dog. They did not. I emailed pictures of the dog to friends in Quanah to see if they recognized her.  They did not.

            After week or so, and some discussion with family members, we decided to keep her.  I took her to the Quanah Vet Clinic, where Dr. Conley did not recognize her either, got her shots and had her examined to see if she was spayed or carrying pups.

            On Friday, Sept. 17, at 10 in the morning, the two most obnoxious dogs belonging to the Walthers once again appeared IN MY BACKYARD WHERE THEY HAD PUSHED THROUGH THE FENCE TO GET IN.  I called the park secretary to get the Walther’s phone number and then called Mrs. Walther to tell her that her dogs were in my yard, again.  She acted rather nonchalantly and said they would come home eventually.  I explained to her that that was a problem because my dog was in heat and I wasn’t interested in having puppies.

            She finally appeared to get the dogs around 5 p.m. and by this time her dogs were

roaming around somewhere else.  Instead of coming to my door to speak to me, she helped herself to opening my backyard gate. I thought this was rather rude, but  I went out to speak to her anyway and when she saw my dog (as I thought at the time) she asked me if the dog had “just shown up” a few weeks ago.  I told her yes, she was a stray and we took her in and were very fond of her. She said at that point, that it was her dog, one of two dogs she lost in the same week.

I said that was too bad. She stated again that it was her dog, and I told her “not anymore,"she appeared as a stray in my backyard with no collar, no tags. And I went inside as it is not my habit to try to reason with unreasonable people.

            The next day, Saturday, September 18, she rings my doorbell about 5 p.m.  Out of my front window I could see it was her and her husband and kids (I suppose) and I chose to not answer the door. The phone rang and I let the answering machine get it.  It was her, and I did not pick up.  Instead I let her leave her hateful message and then I called David at the office and told the staff member who answered that she was here. Staff  said David was on his way to the house.  Mrs. Walther then called me again on the phone and as soon as I picked up she said without even identifying herself, “Mrs. Turner you stole my dog and I am here to get her. I have no problem staying out here until you talk to me.” I told her that I have no evidence that this dog is hers and in fact, I have no reason to believe that the dog would be better off with her than here.  I told her that if indeed the dog were hers and she could prove it, she could pay for the immunizations. Or she could sue me. She replied that she was “calling the cops right now.” And so at this threat, I hung up the phone. I noticed David coming home from the shop yard and that the Game Warden was pulling in the park road and turning on the shop road to the house.

            I looked out my window as David was coming in the backdoor. At the same time the Game Warden was walking across my driveway to the front door. I let him in and one of the first things he does is lie by telling us that “he just happened to be passing by the park and stopped to see what was going on.”  This is an outright lie because first, Thompson never comes to the house, he always has gone to the office, and second, because he clearly did not have time to receive a phone call from Walther, much less a county dispatch, before I saw he was on his way up the shop road to my house. It was also clear that this had been prearranged and that he was there at the Walthers’ beck and call because they met him when he arrived, pointing at the house and gesturing, all of which I watched from my front window. He had to have known the situation before he got there, because he did not pause long enough with the Walthers to find out before he came to my door.

           This  Game Warden then proceeded to tell me he can identify that the dog belongs to the Walthers and further implied that he will side with them. He further stated that the Walthers are perfectly within their rights to let their animals roam, without a collar or rabies tags, because this is rural Texas. I tried to tell him I thought the dog was a stray, since it had no collar, and being an unspayed female which was typical of dumped dogs.  He merely shrugged at my explanation and then proceeded to lecture me on my responsibilities of “being a good neighbor.” 

            It was clear at that point that the Walthers and their white trash behavior was about to be officially rewarded, and so I told the Game Warden to “take the fucking dog and get out of my house.” In fact, I had to tell him a couple of times.  Finally I picked up the dog and tried to give her to him , but he pushed her away and that startled me, because I thought that he was getting what he wanted, and  I dropped her.  I picked her up again, and more forcefully shoved her into his arms, but I really could not see him because of the tears in my eyes. At this point the clumsy jerk stumbled backwards into the wall and broke my floor lamp, and then he mumbled something like “you don’t have to assault me.” I told him to take the dog and get the hell out.

           He took the dog, took off her collar and tags and left them with David. He gave the dog to Mrs. Walther, and he left following the Walthers family toward their home, I assume to help celebrate their tremendous victory over over our evil deeds.

            On Monday, the Walthers' two most obnoxious dogs were once again camped on my front door.

            On Monday, I hear from my 15-year old son that he is accosted and harassed by a young friend of the Walthers on the bus coming home from school.  This is typical of the behavior we regularly have come to expect from our  “neighbors.”

            Furthermore, I find out Monday that this Game Warden  has threatened to file some kind of trumped-up charges against me but so far has only resorted to the cowardly tactic of initiated some kind of nonsense complaint against David. This is clearly retaliation against my husband and it should be stopped.  If the Game Warden wants to press charges against me, I wholeheartedly believe he should do so. I will be absolutely thrilled to go to jail, and eventually get the chance tell the judge, and maybe CNN, my side of the story. I think maybe even Texas Monthly might be interested in how hard our parks and wildlife department law enforcement officals work to catch dangerous criminals like me.

         Parks and Wildlife regularly caves in to this type of attack on its parks people disciplining its own people over the most ridiculous accusations.  Eight years ago David's  boss and the legal department sided with a rich white man -- Dr. Fred Koch -- who, with the complicity of the Foard County Judge and the Crowell Chamber of Commerce, tried to hijack the StarWalk, an volunteer astronomy program I developed at the park to increase visitation -and I spent more than $7000 in legal fees to protect the program and myself. Another park manager in Albany had a similar situation and was pressured to quit by the department.  As I told my dear husband then - A Job with Texas Parks and Wildlife -- it 's not just a job, it's an indenture.

So there you have it. What is wrong with our country? It is full of examples of irresponsible behavior on the part of ignorant, selfish and spoiled rich people who seem to believe the rest of us are just out here to

pick up after them.  And we have a law enforcement official in the pockets of these white,  landowning, ignorant, selfish, and spoiled rich people and who uses the position of his office to bully the people his friends have screwed and are trying to screw as well. And of course, here we have a dysfunctional  underlying community with no collective spine to stand up and say, it may be legal but it is wrong.

Okay, the Angry White Mom is pissed off again. Another one of those emails landed in my inbox today and it has set me off. This one, purportedly originally from a retired Admiral, is titled “Disturbing Information On Our Wonderful President” and reads as follows. I have changed nothing except printed it in red for clarity.


Sent by Retired Vice Admiral Bob Scarborough, of Arlington , Va.


"I wanted to give you all some disturbing information on our wonderful president. I work with the Catch-A-Dream Foundation which provides hunting and fishing trips to children with life-threatening illnesses. This past weekend we had our annual banquet / fundraiser event in Starkville . "As a part of our program, we had scheduled Sgt. 1st Class Greg Stube, a highly decorated U.S. Army Green Beret and inspirational speaker who was severely injured while deployed overseas and didn't have much of a chance for survival to come. Greg is stationed at Ft. Bragg , NC and received permission from his commanding officer to come speak at our function. Everything was on go until Obama made a policy that NO U.S. SERVICEMAN CAN SPEAK AT ANY FAITH-BASED PUBLIC EVENTS ANYMORE. Needless to say, Greg had to cancel his speaking event with us.. Didn't know if anyone else was aware of this new policy. Wonder what kind of news we all will receive next.


You're just starting to see the Obamanation. Your religion is on the list next.? I don't know about you, but this makes me furious.

This is just how the Nazis did it in the 30's, slowly, one step at a time. If you don't see the similarities you are truly blind

After I challenged this crap in an reply email, I received a mush-mouthed apology full of the usual “I hit the wrong button” and “Oh, I just thought it was an interesting email, that’s all” and the classic “Oh! I didn’t mean for you to get this one” (oh, so basically it is okay to pass on these lies to folks who agree with you) with a link to Snopes.com. But it was clear that once his “truth” was challenged as bogus, this fine, upstanding church-going “veteran” simply could not support the email’s contention that we are all becoming slaves to the “Obamanation.”

Now, to be fair, it did take this original writer three whole paragraphs to mention the Nazi thing. I mean, for these right-wing nutjob liars that is probably a personal best. Well, needless to say, as the daughter of a career Air Force physician, the niece of a WWII Marine hero, and the mother of a West Point Cadet, the Angry White Mom was outraged.by the LYING TRASH contained in this email, which supposedly came to me from a veteran. But if you ask me, no veteran worth his salt would pass on this type of outright lie about military policy, or incite this kind of hatred toward our Commander-in-Chief.

THE TRUTH is that this policy is an old old old concept that has NOTHING TO DO WITH OBAMA. There is nothing “new” about it. Let me explain.

Throughout time, and certainly in the modern era, warriors who are serving their country SUSPEND THEIR OWN RIGHTS TO PROTECT OURS.

Get it? They willingly, consciously, and with complete understanding, realize that while in uniform they represent our whole country, as diverse as it is, not just the white, anglo-teutonic protestant majority. When a service man or woman puts on our nation’s uniform – as a marine, soldier, sailor or airman, they shed their own public expression of opinion, of politics, of policy. This doesn’t mean that they are not allowed to have their own opinions, it means that until they are no longer on active duty, they are expected to maintain the dignity of the armed services and refrain from making their comments public.

Why? Okay, here it is again. Because they represent our whole country. But their opinions are their own. It is their duty to not besmirch the honor of our nation. And if it is one thing warriors understand it is duty. And honor. Something apparently these “veterans” who make up this kind of email have forgotten.

I doubt if General McChrystal will be forgetting this concept, since the reason his Boss had to fire him is because of this same sad mistake. When your opinion is more important than the truth, than duty, than honor, then you are really on thin ice.

And the Angry White Mom is watching.

WHY DOES LABOR DAY CELEBRATE RICH GUYS?

A look back at my 38 years of experiencing the joy and wonder of toiling endlessly for my daily bread (when I have been lucky enough employed),  I can count on one hand the number of actual Labor Day holidays that I have not had to work.  It strikes me as odd that corporate management, banks, federal buildings and most state and municipal offices are closed, except perhaps for the janitorial staff -- the folks who probably really could use a day off to put their feet up. Even in small businesses, the boss takes off to go to his lake house and the secretary who earns eght bucks an hour opens up early on Monday morning.
The Angry White Mom thinks something is wrong here.  I thought Labor Day was supposed to celebrate
labor and laborers and laboring. But the upshot of it all is that the real laborers, the ones that really "git it done" would be docked in pay if they took the day off. Restaurant servers and cooks, any fast food worker, hotel clerks, grocery store workers, gas station attendants, retail clerks  -- anyone who earns an hourly wage risks losing a whole day's pay if they don't report for work  -- on Labor Day.
I was talking to my uncle the other day.  By most standards, he is a Rich White Guy. He too is an American Dream Come True, A Small-Town Boy Makes Good -- a classic example of the conservative icon. A pretty decent guy, for all that, although I am admittedly biased -- he is my mother's brother.  Anyway, he asked me if i had noticed that all of President Obama's economic advisors were from academia or bureaucrats --not one, he said, had actually run a business. He seemed disturbed by the notion, and that really started me thinking.  I puzzled over it all day, reviewing my own disasterous attempts at trying to run a business (well, a few businesses) during the last decade, all of which tanked for a wide range of unforseeable reasons, despite my hard work and college degree. 
I have come to the conclusion that no, it does not bother me one bit.
Afterall, we were led by the nose into Iraq by four losers who never served a day in the military, never
went to war, never saw combat or lost a friend to enemy fire. I am of course talking about the infamous
Gang of Four -- Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, who in my mind are war criminals for their lies and endorsement of torture.   They had absolutely no clue about intelligence or military matters.  At all.  And the whole country (well except for a few of us, Barack Obama included) followed these arrogant chickenhawks down the garden path to the graves of more than 4,500 American men and women.
In terms of the economy, it was the leadership named above that led us into the worst recession since the 1930s Great Depression -- which a lot of these elderly misinformed Tea Partiers survived and you would think they ought to know the signs by now -- and yet Obama is blamed because it is taking a bit longer than expected to yank our butts out of the economic toilet left us by Wall Street and years of conservative-backed deregulation.
And yet these morons had plenty of business experience, Uncle.  George Bush had run several businesses into the ground, and was only the "Managing Partner" for the Rangers for his name/face value --- the real controlling partners were smart enough to not give him anything important to do...Cheney served on the boards of lots of oil and gas companies just like George, but not for his management skills, but for the contacts he had over the years he had spent in Washington snarking out a bureaucratic career.  Wolfowitz was tapped from the World Bank, where he consistently supported corporations dedicated to raping the Earth's natural resources in Brazil and in third world countries.  Rumsfeld -- what can I say.  I read "All the President's Men" years ago and remember clearly that Nixon's staff referred to him as "Rummy the Dummy."
"Nuf said.
On the other hand, I have seen that problems arise that elude even the most successful, the most experienced. And it is always the smart guy that figures out how to solve them.  Look at that Dyson guy.  This guy is on to something more than just better vacuum cleaners. He is revolutionizing the way we think of air and air currents and the implications for future travel is mind-boggling.  So for me, I put my trust in the smart guy.
Sometimes smart guys are hard to find.They are not necessarily white, or affluent, formally educated,or even employed. Sometimes the smart guy is the quiet one at the back. Sometimes the rowdy class clown. Usually the smart guy is not the one in charge, but sometimes, you can get lucky.
Like Don, the manager of the Kwik Kar lube where i take my car to get its regular maintenance.  Don is almost always there, except when he suffered a heart attack back a while ago. When all the bays are full
and his team is busy, Don has no trouble climbing down into the pit to service the next one in line. And he is smart, well-read, thoughtful and practices to be a good Christian man. Even though he is technically  in charge,  he has to straddle that line between labor and management.  I can almost guarantee he doesn't get Labor Day off either.
And Barack Obama is the smartest guy in the White House in quite a while, no doubt about it.  And he has really surrounded himself with other smart people.  Some may be jerks but no one is perfect, after all.  And
it has been this circle of smart people, even the unlikeable ones, that have reclaimed our country from
an economic cesspool. And they have done it without any help at all from the Republicans, the so-called
experienced businesspeople. -- the ones who claim to be experts on the economy, on small business, on taxes, etc. 
It's not just the same ol' blind partisan stonewalling of any economic proposal offered by the White House.  It's that they have nothing to offer except the same old tired tax breaks for the Rich and Near Rich and whining about the deficit. The truth about the work the Obama Administration --on its own -- has accomplished came out just in time for Labor Day. THE TRUTH IS: fewer jobs were lost in July than previously reported, and fewer jobs were lost than expected in August (just watch the Stock Markets jump on that news alone).  THE TRUTH IS: that more outlets are reporting in, so small business establishments are on the increase again.  THE TRUTH IS:  that the recovery is slower than expected because the BANKS which were bailed out under Bushie and Republican legislation, are not lending to anyone's business, large or small, and so it is the BANKS, NOT OBAMA's policies, responsible for stifling our economic growth.THE TRUTH IS: that the administration proposed a small business tax credit bill before the Labor Day recess that bypasses this tight-fisted crap, but it wasn't passed and it remains before the Senate.  THE TRUTH IS: this bill is paid for, none of it will add to the deficit.  The bill is designed to stimulate job growth by increasing
proposes tax credits for small businesses for hiring more people and for capital gains free physical expansion.
Hey Capital Gains reduction.  Isn't that another one of those conservative rally cries?  Sounds good to me.  Now if we could just get those Republicans off their butts and back to work on Monday.  Uh, oh yeah. Tuesday.

MAKING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE

Yesterday The Angry White Mom never got around to this blogging stuff -- I had bills to pay, it being the first of the month, plus real work to do, about which I will share soon enough. But yesterday's highlight was finding out from my fifteen-year-old that the School District has blocked my blog! What a RUSH! I cannot tell you how great that makes me feel. The support and validation from many of you aside, it is just amazing to me that anyone is reading any progressive stuff at all. In my experience, if they shut you down you have managed to upset the apple cart.  Upsetting the apple cart may be messy, but it brings to light all the mold and rot down below. I can't wait to see if they block all political blogs, or just the "angry liberal" ones. I honestly will support the decision to blog all political and or religious blogs (sorry if you disagree) because I certainly don't want want sewage like Hubbell's Awakened Nation hatesite being read in our public schools.   We'll see.....
On the bright side I heard from the guy in Louisiana --Johnnie-- who first alerted me to Mr. Hubbell's attempted cyberambush. This Patriot has been inspired to publish his own blog, too, The Conservative
Democrat, and you will find a link to his site here. 
I like to keep in mind what Will Rogers once said, "I don't belong to an organized political party.  I'm a
Democrat."  So with that in mind, I want to say that I may not agree with Johnnie all the time but his
posts are always thoughtful and well said and as a writer also totally new to this medium, I wish him the best.
Now today The Angry White Mom has had all she can stand from conservative crackheads who try to hijack my patriotism.  Since when did the Right Wing corner the market on being Patriotic?  It is totally absurd.  I am so tired of the tiresome rhetoric from that horrible congresswoman Bachman in Michigan and others of her ilk about "anti-American" activities.  Good Lordamighty, sounds like she is celebrating the resurrection of  McCarthy instead of Jesus.
I have a pedigree to match the Kennedys. I always sing the National Anthem, and i cry at the "land of the free and the home of the brave" part.  I love our history -- even the naughty bits --  and treasure our national heritage. I could join the Daughters of the American Revolution, except that their annual dues are a little steep. I pay my taxes thankfully, because the small amount that i pay is like a covenant between me and the government -- that they will do their best to improve the quality of my life as an American.  So don't anyone even dare to question my love of country, or the commitment to its growth and prosperity. I remember back in the when that "America -- Love It or Leave It" --slogan was so popular.  I guess I still feel that way except that the Loving America part to me also means loving even the parts you don't like.  Kind of like with our parents. Or a difficult child.
Right now our country is facing so many challenges with so many pitfalls -- natural ones as well as nasty ones
designed by those who have theirs and really could care less if anyone else does. Here is one of the basic reasons why I support President Obama. In the first place I  voted for him to lead our country.  In the second place, the majority of Americans voted for him, too.  It's not as if he came to the presidency via a judicial coup, like Bushie did in 2000.
On the other hand, I did NOT vote for Mitch McConnell, or John (I'd Rather Be Golfing) Boehner, or especially Dick Armey, Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich.  These last three (I could name so many others) have absolutely no relevance to the national debate. They are HASBEENS. It's as ridiculous as having Mike Brown featured on the Five-Year Katrina retrospective on cable news.  What? He was?  Oh. Ooops.
I certainly did not vote for Glenn Beck, a Mormon-turned Christian Fundamentalist with a messianic complex that rivals a character from Ayn Rand.  I did not vote for fat, oxycontin-addicted Rush Limbaugh (when my children were little and misbehaved, i would ask them if they had seen that bad boy Rush anywhere around...) I certainly did not vote for Rupert Murdoch, a foreign national (he is an Australian citizen) who controls NewsCorp, which runs Fox News and most Fox Network subsidiaries which adds up to about one quarter of the country's broadcast news outlets.
I did help elect our President. And although I voted for my Republican congressman, I was glad that Democrats won a majority in Congress. And while I realize our elected leaders are not perfect, the system is the best there is. Considering the mess that was left them, i am fully okay with them taking a little extra time to get things in order and get the job done.
And that brings us full circle to the School District thing. I certainly would not want to be the one choosing which blogs are okay and which ones are not.  If blocking blogspots is being  handled fairly and in a nonpartisan way, I am happy to let it go. After all,  i do believe the school administrators are fundamentally looking out for the students, and I have to give them the time and space to get the job done.