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     We open today's show with the story of Napoleon Hill. Hill’s book 'Think and Grow Rich' is the all time bestseller in the success motivation field, with over 100 million copies sold around the world.  The world famous author and speaker got off to a lousy start. By the age of 12, Hill tells us, he was a pistol toting ne’er do well in Pound, VA. But his new stepmother, Martha Ramey Banner, saw the boy’s potential and bought him a typewriter. “It was a turning point in my young life; it opened a new world for me,” says Hill.

     We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

     "It looked like the arch of some grand old cathedral,” wrote Henry E. Colton in 1859 of his discovery of North Carolina’s Linville Caverns, “yet it was too sublime, too perfect in all its beautiful proportions, to be anything of human, but a model which man might attempt to imitate." The caverns lie deep inside Humpback Mountain below the Blue Ridge Escarpment, not far from the towns of Boone, Blowing Rock, and Asheville. For 30 million years, as the nearby Catawba River ate away at the valley between the Humpback and Linville mountains, North Carolina’s only publicly accessible caverns have slowly drained.

     Next, Leora Rhodes Brooks Franklin (b. 1920), long time resident of Richmond, KY, describes the effects of school desegregation at Richmond city schools in the 1950s. “One of the teachers told us that they have other students grading their papers and all of that. And if the student don’t seem like they want to get anything, you just leave them alone, just pass them on. They don’t have to get it.”

     The Meaders family of potters is probably the most influential family in the history of Southern Appalachian folk pottery. The White County, GA family was featured in Allen Eaton’s 1937 book, “Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands,” and was honored with a special event at the Library of Congress in 1978, when the Smithsonian Institution’s documentary film on the Meaders pottery was released. In this segment you’ll hear how the family business got its start in the 1890s.

     Christopher Stahley was a foot grenadier in Napoleon Bonaparte’s old guard.  He fought bravely in Napoleon’s ranks in over 50 major engagements. From the Egyptian campaign to the 1812 push towards Moscow, he narrowly escaped death a thousand times over. “There were 480,000 of us who went forth to glory [in 1812],” he relates. “Less than half that number returned. In 1822, in company with my wife, I emigrated to America.  I bought a farm and settled down near Somerset, OH. Then began my disasters.”

     We’ll wrap things up with a nod to the Magyars of West Virginia. Great numbers of Hungarian immigrants came to the United States around the turn of the century. Hugarians called the wave of immigration from 1880 to about 1915 the 'Great Economic Immigration.'  It drew about 1.7 million Hungarian citizens, among them 650,000-700,000 real Hungarians (Magyars), to American shores. These immigrants came almost solely for economic reasons, and they represented the lowest and poorest of the population. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 halted mass migration, but by 1922 7,300 Hungarian-born Magyars had found their way to West Virginia.

     And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia, we’ll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music from Doc & Merle Watson in a 1965 recording of “Gambler’s Yodel.”

     So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

     Proverbs 17:22 “A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones” (AB).

     Laugh: “To make the involuntary noise which sudden merriment excites; to treat with some  contempt; to appear gay, bright, or brilliant, to express by laughing; to affect, or effect by laughing” (Webster’s Expanded Dictionary).

     As  Christians, we tell non-Christians of the benefits of becoming a Christian. One of  those benefits happens to be, how much happier they will be if they allow Christ to come into their heart. We tell of the peace and serenity found in accepting Christ, and how their lives will be changed for the good if they make the decision to follow Him.

     With all of the hurt we see in society today, it would appear making a life transforming decision, such as following Christ, would be the wise thing to do. With all of the perks that come with  this decision like, happiness, serenity, peace etc. how could one go wrong in choosing this life transforming experience, and why would anyone not be anxious to experience salvation? Could it be,  the non Christian sees the life of some Christians as dull, boring, and even sad. There are many Christians who think you have to be serious all the time, go around with a sad face, and acting  as if they  the burden of the world is on them. Some Christians think because they cannot find it in scripture where Christ laughed, or ever told a joke, or ever expressed any outward happiness, that theses things never happened. In Cal Samara’s book, The Joyful Christ, I read there hangs a picture in a Franciscan renewal center in Arizona that shows Christ with his head thrown back laughing. A woman who saw this picture was offended by it, and  stated, It is not in scripture that Christ ever laughed“. The priest responded by asking the woman was Christ at one time not a baby? She of course said yes, then if he was a baby he wet his pants, but where in scripture does it say he wet his pants asked the priest? I thought that was a good example of the way some people look at Christianity. There is no wonder it is difficult to win people over to Christ if we as Christians do not live what we talk. Some of the happiest people I have known were Christians, and as I later discovered from other sources, these same happy people had undergone circumstances that challenged their peace, joy, and salvation. In the 5th Chapter of Matthew verses 13-16 it compares a Christian to salt, and to a light that is set on a hill. Salt is used to give flavor to what we eat, a light is used to show the way, but it is the 16th verse that got my attention. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (NKJ).

     What is this verse saying? It is saying do good that others may see it; that is only part of it. How can God the Father be glorified if Christians walk around looking like they are defeated? The life of a Christian is Joy, happiness, and peace. God wants us to be happy people, he wants us to enjoy life, to laugh, and  to be filled with merriment.

     Do we really think that the disciples would have followed someone who had no sense of humor? Christ spent time with little children, can you imagine how difficult it would been to get the attention of a child if Christ did not have a sense of humor?

     When it comes to religion, anything that attempts to be even mildly amusing threatens closed minds; just remember, humor is a gift to the church, but there are people in all churches who would discourage and suppress it.

     You will have times when you feel like you are on top of the world, you feel as if nothing can bring you off of your perch then, suddenly without  warning you run into someone who enjoys misery and wants everyone around them to partake in it also.

     It is not easy to deal with people like this. You are doing all you can to present the life of a Christian as a life of happiness in hopes others will see the happiness which you have and want to get in on it. If you are living a truly happy life that others can see and want, you can  be sure the devil is not going to be a happy camper. Someone will come your way who has a horrible outlook on life, who is going to be upset if the sun rises, or if it does not rise, if it rains, or if it doesn’t rain.  You get the picture. These people, you have to tolerate. You will have to let them wear themselves out with their pessimistic view on life. They are determined they are going to me miserable, and if possible they are going to make everyone around them miserable. Just because we as Christians have the right to laugh, it doesn’t mean it is going to be easy all of the time. It is our choice of how we choose to view life, we can look at life as the cup is half full, or we can look at it as being half empty, regardless of how you interpret life.  Just remember, You Have the Right to Laugh!

     Ron

     As a man who is not native to yet still considers Minnesota his home, there are many things about this state that I like.

     Obviously, there are the lakes.  A body of water's rarely that far away when you live in the Land of 10,000 of 'em. My introvert's dream-come-true would be to buy a nice little hidden-away cabin by a secluded beautiful lake where I could read or write to my soul's content.  Just thinking about it relaxes me.  And, for a while, I can even believe I could live the rest of my life in such a cabin...that is, until I remember I'm married to an extrovert.  So the cabin would probably end up being a summer thing.  But that's alright, too.

     Then there are the seasons.  I like to see variation in mine and Minnesota delivers in this regard.  Summers can get hot and winters definitely get cold.  Plus, I usually see a lot of snow, although not nearly as much as I did when I lived in Syracuse.

     And the list goes on.  However, there are some thing I don't like so much about this state.  The bugs.  Well, one bug specifically.  I can tolerate most bugs just fine; I grew up in the South and saw bugs there I haven't seen anywhere else.  Fuzzy red and black ants I learned not to get too close to, for example.  Then, of course, there were the cockroaches.  I've seen teeny, tiny ones, great big ones, black ones, brown ones, flying ones.  The common sentiment is that in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, roaches would be the sole survivors as the fittest of all species.

     Now that might be true, but I have my doubts. I've never seen a cockroach in Minnesota, so I question whether they could even survive a winter here, let alone a nuclear holocaust.

     But there is one bug I've became well-acquainted with over the years and I think it might just give the cockroach a run for its money.  It loves trees and is, in fact named for one, but also likes to branch out and go places it hasn't been invited.

     The Box Elder Bug is small, winged, reproduces like a rabbit in heat, and they're everywhere I don't want them to be.  They like heat, the sun, clinging to surfaces that are exposed to heat and/or sun and fellowshipping with one another in great, massive, orgiastic clumps.

     Box Elder Bugs are relatively harmless as bugs go; they don't bite, sting, eat anything indoors, and only reproduce outside.  They're also easy to kill.  Yet they are a nuisance because if they can find a way into a house- my house- they will take it.  And for every one I successfully subtract from my the world, there's another and another and another itching to fill the void. Every year around this time, I can count on two things: my allergies will vigorously renew my dislike of early Spring and the Box Elder Bugs will renew my dislike of winged, flying bugs.

     I used to try to eradicate them both outdoors and in, but it has become exceedingly difficult with two indoor dogs and two indoor cats.  Also, no matter how much I might wish it, I simply can't eliminate the world's trees.  In recent seasons, though, we've reached a kind of detente:  I only take up arms against them when I finally get tired of seeing them in the house and they do their best to keep their home invasion numbers in the single digits for as long as they can so I get to the point where I feel compelled to do something about them later rather than sooner.

     It's a futile fight in many respects because we both know that they'll- like the Governator himself- be back, more determined than ever.

     But I think it might finally be time to let slip the dogs of...

     Sorry.  I had to squash one just now.

     Yes, I definitely foresee a trip to my friendly neighborhood Target in the very near future.

     I noticed the sign the day before, but we were on the wrong side of the road and I wasn’t about to force my mother to turn around, so Joe and I went yesterday to investigate the sale, which belonged to the south side Hollywood Video: Store Closing, DVDs 3 for $10. We didn’t find anything. Apparently, they’ve been closing for two weeks, so the selection was bare. But we did find out that by the end of this month, all three movie rental stores—Hollywood Video, Blockbuster, and Movie Magic—on the south side of Cleveland will be closed.

     I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. With internet sites like Amazon offering cheap new and used DVDs and Blue Rays, why rent a movie for $3, when you can buy one for a couple dollars more? Plus movie rental giants face increasing competition with the emergence of Netflix and the $1 Red Box rentals. In the cutthroat industry of commerce, the most attractive deal survives, and the lesser become extinct. It’s evolution at work in the business world.

     Unfortunately, evolution doesn’t look out for our best interest, so while the most sought after survives, it doesn’t mean that the less liked wasn’t important or that people didn’t rely on it. There is that small group of people who still like to rent movies the old fashion way, but I’m not among them, so their cause isn’t mine. No, what were important were the jobs, particularly those for young people. This loss of jobs may not spike the unemployment rate, but it does increase the competition for positions I might be eligible for, and with the job market as it is, I can’t afford for my odds to fall any lower.

     But amidst the gloom, there is the opportunity for happiness. Blockbusters’ movie sale starts today. Hopefully, there will still be a decent selection by the time Joe gets off work.

     Ashely 

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     We open today's show with the story of the White Caps of Sevier County, TN. This vigilante group formed in approximately 1892 by citizens who wished to rid Sevier County of individuals (mostly women) whom they deemed lewd or adulterous.  Their modus operandi was to leave the offending party a note signed "White Caps," occasionally accompanied by hickory switches, warning them to leave town. If this tactic proved ineffective, the group escalated to whippings. In 1896 a cold blooded murder by two White Cappers finally brought the law down upon them.

     We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

     The Glades are Maryland's largest and most open mountain peatland. They are of great scientific interest because they are fed solely by rainwater (an ombrotrophic system), and contain peat up to a 9 foot depth. This area is one of the oldest examples of mountain peatland in the Appalachians.

     Annie Taylor could get away with anything she pleased at school. Her father Champ was feared in Catawba Falls, NC by every teacher who had ever tried to rein her in; he'd threatened to kill several, and had literally run one out of town. Then Annie crossed swords with Miss Daintry Graham one day in class, and got the whipping of her life. It wasn't long before Champ came in search of Miss Graham. Here’s Daintry Graham’s telling of the story.

     Next, we’ll hear an old Kentucky folktale titled 'Old Farmer Was A Miser Of The Worst Kind! His Love Of Gold Led To Great Misery,' as told by McCreary Roberts in 'Kentucky Explorer' magazine. The title pretty much gives away the end of the story, but Roberts spins a colorful yarn in the course of making the moral point.

     We’ll wrap things up with a nod towards St. Patrick’s Day. Kentuckians have long shared, among other things, their love for horses, whiskey making and music with the Irish. Listen carefully to Eastern Kentucky’s fiddlers and you‘ll hear the refrains of Irish jigs and reels. And Kentucky’s buck dancing, or clogging, is a particularly vigorous and often undisciplined cousin to the Irish jig. And so March 17 is not just any ordinary day in Kentucky. It’s time for Eastern Kentucky vs. State, corned beef and cabbage, and of course parades.

     And, thanks to the good folks at the Internet Archive, we’ll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music from an anonymous Scottish band in a 1920s recording simply labeled: “Scottish music played at an informal house session on fiddles, guitar, dulcimer.”

     So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

     On Sunday, Joe and I celebrated our half-anniversary, six months of post-wedding adjustments. To treat ourselves, we went to Cleveland’s first French restaurant, LaPlace, and it quickly became a favorite. The prices are equivocal to Outback or Chili’s, so it isn’t a place I can often afford to go, but everything I ate was, in the spirit of things, magnifique, including the best rib eye I’ve ever placed in my mouth. But the woman sitting across the room didn’t agree with me. While I was enjoying my little slice of French heaven, she sent her rib eye back twice and on a third examination, she found it still pink, but edible.

     I don’t think she was intentionally difficult. The south sears its meat on the grill, and well done often means crunchy and black. It certainly doesn’t bake its steak until the meat is a tender, juicy light brown like Parisians apparently do. So when the woman cut into her steak and found it was not seared and instead dripping savory juices, she found it inedible. I could be wrong, of course. Her rib eye may have been undercooked, or she may make a hobby out of sending otherwise perfectly tasty food back to the kitchen so she can get a free dessert. But I have a feeling that a clash of the cultures has a lot to do with her rudeness.

     I waited tables at a Japanese restaurant for a short while—something I hope to never do again, by the way—and we got numerous complaints from customers who said their fried rice was cold about five minutes into their meal. I tried to explain that rice doesn’t hold heat like meat or vegetables, and that it’s supposed to cool rapidly because that’s what rice does. But you can’t reason with uncultured or ethnocentric people any more than you can convince a street lamp to sing in the rain, so I gave up and nuked their rice and accepted the lousy tips.

     Back to the French restaurant, Europeans typically don’t eat well-done meats, at least not by the southern standard. There is a certain temperature at which the meat is perfectly juicy and yet non-lethal. That is how chefs like to serve it, and it is not, even with steak, the point at which the outside is crispy and the inside tough and black. So a southerner who eats nothing but burnt steak would naturally find a European’s definition of done inadequate. Again, however, I could be wrong. The chef at the French restaurant could be some other nationality. At the Japanese restaurant, the chefs were Mexican, the owner Korean, and there was a Chinese server, so the nationality of the restaurant isn’t a good indicator of who works in it. But in this case, I know the owner is French, so chances are, if the chef isn’t French, the owner told/showed him how to cook the food.

     Thus, if LaPlace has any trouble in Cleveland—and it shouldn’t because, again, the food is superb—it will arise from the ethnocentric expectations of its customers.

     Ashely

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     We open today's show with the story of the hellbender. North Carolina is home to at least 48 species of salamanders, and the mountain counties are the most productive with at least 35 species. And among those 35 species is the hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), one of only three giant salamanders found in the world.

     We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

     “In early days for some strange reason, the little town of Keystone, WV sported one of the biggest red light districts [Cinder Bottom] in existence,” P. Ahmed Williams tells us in his 1977 essay "Black Culture," from the West Virginia book of essays Mountain Heritage.”On payday Saturday nights, men, young and old, came from far and near to pay their respect to the "ladies," and for other sports such as drinking and gambling.”

     Before the days of T.V.A. and large power companies, electricity was supplied to rural areas by such imaginative and pioneering men as Arthur Abernathy Miller. In 1925, Miller, a brilliant self-educated electrical engineer, built the first hydroelectric dam in north Alabama --- the DeSoto dam in Ft Payne, AL.

     Next, we’ll hear a selection from the 1939 “WPA Guide to Kentucky, Compiled by the Federal Writers’ Project of the WPA for the State of Kentucky. “His ancestors were sturdy men and women, steeped in traditional ways, independent and as little humble as possible,” says the guide.  “The mountaineer is that way too. He cares neither for ease nor for soft living. He is hospitable. "Welcome, stranger, light and hitch," is the salutation, and the stranger is bidden to take "damn near all" of whatever the table offers.”

     There is no more sacred spot in upper South Carolina than the Old Stone Church and its adjoining cemetery, where many of South Carolina's most distinguished dead lie sleeping. The old church stands as a silent tribute to the piety and heroism of our first settlers, many of whom came over the mountains from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina to make their homes in this beautiful but savage wilderness.

     We’ll wrap things up with a quick look at SW Virginia’s Melungeon community, as seen through the eyes of Bonnie Sage Ball in her 1969 book “The Melungeons, Their Origin and Kin.” “Church picnics were always attended by Melungeon boys, but my mother once had a difficult time persuading young Willie that he must have a bath and wear a suit in order to participate in a children's day program. So he appeared, grinning broadly, in my brother's hand-me-down.”

     And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia, we’ll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music from Carl Jones, Don Pedi, and James Bryan in a 2002 recording of the old fiddle tune “Stump-Tail Dolly.”

     So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

     Matt 10:16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” (NKV).

     Beginning with the  10th Chapter of Matthew, Jesus has called the Apostles together and is informing them of a mission he has for them. He tells them of the power they have to cast out unclean spirits and to heal all kinds of sickness, and disease. He tells them how they may expect to be treated and how to respond to their treatment. He tells them He is sending them out as sheep going out into the midst of hungry wolves. I could understand they were going into a perilous situation, they were to go to the lost sheep of Israel (the Jews) and proclaim the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. They were assured they would be brought before the courts to be tried, they were also assured the spirit would instruct them as to what to say (no we are not talking about auditory command hallucinations) when that time came. As I read verse 16 it got my attention. The verse, at first reading seems to be an oxymoron. According to Mr. Webster a dove represents a symbol of peace or the Holy Ghost, on the other hand, the word serpent is linked to being treacherous and malicious. The question then is, how can the two be congruent?
Think of it this way. If you send a herd of sheep into a pack of wolves with no protection, what will happen? There will be lamb chops for all. So it was for the Apostles. It was assured if they went to deliver the message and performed the feats they  were instructed to perform, there would be trouble in river city. So how were they to negotiate among the masses?  Take a sharp sword and spear to protect themselves? I don’t think so, in fact they were instructed in verses 9-10, “ Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.” (NKV). The question is still, how are they suppose to protect themselves? The answer is contained in the meaning of serpent and dove.

     The  Apostles had to be wise in their dealings with the  masses, they had to know when to speak and when to remain silent. A serpent knows when to strike and when to lay in wait, it knows when to be visible and when to be invisible. The vast difference between the serpent and the dove is that the dove always comes in peace. How does this apply to today’s society as a spiritual application? As Christians, it is still our mission to tell the world about a Jewish baby born of obscure means to a virgin and a carpenter in a manger in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago, and that He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and He and He alone has the answer to every problem known to man. It is the mandate of every Christian to tell of how this innocent child grew to be a man, realized His mission, carried it out even unto death, refused to stay dead, and offers mankind eternal life through the plan of salvation. You may be thinking that would be a lot to explain to someone who knew little or nothing of the person, or the subject. Yes it would. I worded it as I did in hopes that you (the reader) would see the importance of  being as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove.

     Ron





     I find it a little funny how older generations (my own included) tend to look down on the younger ones.  I suppose it comes from an inherent feeling that we are somehow…better.  We believe that we were better students who learned more, were more responsible, better leaders, more patriotic, focused, ambitious, willing to make sacrifices, and…well, just generally possessing “more” of any and every desirable attribute.

     But is that really true?  There are times when I have my doubts.

     Last week, I read two stories that captured my attention.  Locally, a youth basketball commissioner was assaulted by a parent and bystander following the conclusion of heated OT game.  As a result of the assault, the commissioner suffered a dislocated jaw, dental damage, and a concussion.  The age of the arrested parent?  48.

     The parent was supposedly upset over timekeeping.  He called the coaches and referees ‘cheaters’ several times.  A witness to the incident said the parent was upset because a ref resumed the game while his son’s team was still attempting to make a substitution.

     The commissioner said something that I found telling: “The program does background checks on coaches, officials, and others.  The only people we can’t do background checks on are the parents.”   Truer words have never been spoken.

     Then there was the story of the Harvard-educated biology professor at the University of Alabama-Huntsville who was charged with shooting six faculty members and killing three.  It broke as a national story Friday afternoon and I found myself wryly reflecting on the possibility that I, as a college administrator, was equally vulnerable to getting shot by a faculty or staff member as I was by a student.

     In this day and age, road rage, shopping and game day tramplings, and office shootings, occur quite frequently, so frequently that we’ve become desensitized to them.  So frequently that a season without at least one is regarded as an anomaly.

     When I was growing up, the mainstream media was continually telling me and those my age that we were members of the so-called Generation X. According to the media, this was not a good thing.  Generation X was lazy, irresponsible, unfocused, ungrateful, and generally lousy compared to the Baby Boomers.

     Ah, the Baby Boomers. Seems like my generation has always lived in the shadow of the Boomers.  They were the big brother or sister you knew you could never take in a fight because they were so much bigger, stronger, and older than you.  In school, you were always compared to the older sibling because they earned better grades than you, had more friends, were more athletic, more musical, whatever.  After a while, you simply decided to take your lumps and patiently wait for the day when they went off to college and finally left you alone.

     But what’s the equivalent to college for the Boomers?  Retirement.  Unfortunately, though, not even retirement will allow my generation to escape the Boomers because we'll have to financially support them, something everyone knows is impossible.   There are so many of them and so few of everyone else.  But no politician will cop to that fact because they won’t get all that many votes from Baby Boomers.

     Not that the Boomers were that much better off growing up.  After all, the generation that spawned them considers itself the “Greatest Generation”.  Or at least according to Tom Brokaw, it is.  I guess when you grow up under a depression, fight a World War, lead the United States to the greatest period of prosperity its ever known, it just goes to one's head.  No wonder the Boomers are such bullies.

     These days, higher education is making a big deal over the Millenials.  You might know them as Generation Y, Generation Next, the Net Generation or even the Echo Boomers.  Whatever the moniker, all you really need to know is that they are the demographic cohort that followed my own.  They're supposedly a tech savvy bunch with short attention spans and a persistent desire to be entertained no matter the task.  Or so I hear.  Not that I'm gloating.  My generation, now that we're a little older, is perceived as overly pragmatic, amoral, and more concerned with money than meaning.  Ouch.

     The older generations just can't seem to understand how those younger folks could have gone so far off course, but the truth of the matter is that the apple really doesn’t fall that far from the tree.  My generation grew up watching MTV, but we didn’t create it.  The crop of college students I work with today might watch shows like The Hills, My SuperSweet 16 or Jersey Shore, but they’re only watching shows that the people of my generation conceptualized and created, so who’s really at fault?  The consumer or the manufacturer?

     Can we point the finger of blame at children and teens and say they’re impatient, unwilling to delay gratification, unable to follow through on their responsibilities and obligations when we’re not that much better ourselves?  What is the current mortgage and economic crisis if not the personification of those very same faults?

     Perhaps, as Whitney Houston famously sang, the children really are our future.  Let’s hope they learn the lessons their parents still struggle with today.

     It's no secret that I have a wonky memory.  Some things- usually nerdy, school or trivia stuff- I remember quite clearly.  But there are also whole swaths of childhood (up to and including portions of my teens) that have been ripped from recollection.  My sister likens my brain functions to a Windows OS.  She is not giving me a compliment.  She believes I have either taken those memories and password protected them, placed them in the Recycle Bin or allowed them to become corrupted.  Unfortunately, I either don’t remember the password, have chosen to 'Empty Trash', or do not know how to defrag my mental hard drive.

     There are a few things I do remember, though, some things that are able to rise above the haze of time to become visible again.  Here's one such memory:

     When I was 15, I said the 'N' word.  Out loud.  Here's the backstory.  I'd recently seen the movie, "Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon" for the umpteenth time.  For those of you not in the know, imdb.com describes the plot of the movie in this way: A young man searches for the "master" to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as The Glow. Along the way he must fight an evil martial arts expert and rescue a beautiful singer from an obsessed music promoter.

     Yes, it was a cheesy movie.  Yes, it suffered from poor writing and laughable special effects.  But it was about a kid learning the martial arts, so it automatically received cool points with me.  And it had Vanity in it.  Prince's Vanity from Vanity 6 and she was indeed beautiful.  I watched that movie again and again and loved it in a way that makes me cringe today.

     The nemesis, of course, had a catchphrase:  "N-, please".  The "N-" being the "N" word, spoken in a manner consistent with how rappers use it today.  I suppose I should point out- though it really shouldn’t matter- that the nemesis was Black, as was the young man in search of The Glow.  I thought "The Last Dragon" was the coolest movie ever.  One afternoon, while sitting in the backseat with my 11-year old sister during an extremely long and excruciating road trip to visit my grandparents in Texas, I grew frustrated with her.  So frustrated, that I uttered that catchphrase.  I thought I was being funny.

     Epic fail.  My Mom heard me, turned around in her seat and smacked the crap outta me.  My parents are old-school Southerners (yes, with a capital "S"), born and raised in Texas.  They were and remain hearty proponents of the 'Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child' philosophy of childrearing.

     "I don't ever want to hear you say that word again!  Do you hear me?"

     "Yes, Mom."  My compulsory response was appropriately meek.  I knew I was only getting a fraction of what I would have gotten had we not been cooped up in a car traveling 1100 miles to visit relatives.  I'm sure there were other things my mother said during the exchange, like how what I had said was denigrating to myself, my heritage and ancestry and such, but I no longer remember them; the rest of that particular memory file is irretrievable.

     But the experience reminded me that there are some words that should never be spoken by anyone.  And it is an experience that even my swiss cheese memory has retained.

     Sarah Palin and I don't agree on much, but there have been a few instances when we’ve been simpatico.  Last year, back when she was still a Governor and his scandal was still largely unknown, Palin took David Letterman to task for making a joke about one of her children.  Though the joke had been meant for her oldest child, 18-year old Bristol, Letterman flubbed and said a younger child's name, 14-year old Willow, instead.  The cultural milieu was still so charged and heated that some people went from 0 to pissed in less than a millisecond.  Palin said, "It was a degrading comment about a young woman. I would hope that people really start rising up and deciding it's not acceptable. No wonder young girls especially have such low self-esteem in America when we think it's funny for a so-called comedian to get away with being able to make such a remark as he did and to think that that's acceptable."

     Letterman apologized publicly to the Palin family saying, “These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter.  I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl.... Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No."

     Letterman's joke did cross a line of taste.  Taking aim at the progeny of politicians can be a hazardous venture; even the most thick-skinned politician will go Mama or Papa Bear when one of their children is made the butt of a joke.  As they should; most children don't ask to be made pawns in their parents' plea for votes, no more than the children in a reality tv show or preacher's kids ask to be subjected to the constant scrutiny of the public eye.  It is done because the public expects it and will slight the candidate or clergy leader who isn't able to offer up a photogenic family.

     Last week, there was a big flap over Rahm Emanuel's use of the word, 'retard'.  Apparently, the infamously short-tempered Chief of Staff called a liberal group 'f--ing retarded' during a private White House meeting.  When Palin learned of the statement, she fired off a quick retort in the form of…a Facebook status update:

     "Rahm's slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities - and the people who love them - is unacceptable, and it's heartbreaking."  I agreed, though I couldn’t help but notice another example of how technology has- once again- forced us to lodge protests in the form of neat little statements that fit within a prescribed number of characters and words.

     She was right.  There are terms that have become a part of the American lexicon, words kids, teenagers, and adults have used for decades.  This is one of them.  That doesn't make it right.  That doesn't make it ok and Emanuel deserved to be taken to task for his words.  Palin also called for Rahm's termination, something the administration ignored.

     But Rush Limbaugh did not.  He came forward and took an issue that was already a contentious one and made it a thousand times more so.  How?   "Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult's taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards...There's going to be a retard summit at the White House."  That was Rush Limbaugh on his radio show referring to Emanuel's comments and a planned White House meeting with- of all people- disability advocates.

     When I heard of Limbaugh's statements, I became curious.  The issues of special needs children are quite important to Sarah Palin.  But Limbaugh's voice holds sway with millions of conservatives, Sarah's core supporters.  Bigger men and women than Palin have ended their careers by taking on the man behind the golden microphone.  What would Sarah do?  Surely she wouldn't chide Emanuel and call for his resignation with one breath and excuse Rush Limbaugh for using the same words (if not identical, then certainly identical in intent) with the next.  Or could she?

     Yes, she could.  "They are kooks," she said on Fox News this past Sunday, "so I agree with Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh was using satire ... I didn't hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with 'f-ing retards,' and we did know that Rahm Emanuel, as has been reported, did say that. There is a big difference there."

     From where I sit, there wasn’t that much- if any- difference at all.  I found myself feeling oddly disappointed. Yes, Sarah Palin might have gone down taking a swing at Rush, but she would have gone down honorably and for a just cause.  Or she might have given Goliath pause, maybe even drawn a rare clarification or statement of apology.  We'll never know.  Sarah Palin did the politically expedient thing: give the person you know, like, or need a pass for behavior you would have condemned the other guy (or woman) for engaging in.  That’s why I was disappointed.

     Excusing Limbaugh on the grounds that he was exercising satire is absolutely-to employ a word of the age- redonkulous.  There isn’t a big difference in the use of the word, whether we like or dislike the person or population that uses the word or not.  Can a word be acceptable for some to use and not acceptable for all?  It's a question that's asked often enough.  It's the same question I hear when people- white, black, brown, etc. - debate who can use the 'N" word.  And why.  It's the same question I hear when people debate how the word, 'gay' can and cannot be used.  And why.  The same question I hear when people debate whether the cast of 'Jersey Shore' should refer to one another as-

     But I don't have answers to these questions, only perspectives.  What I do know is that just because we can say a word, doesn't always mean that we should say that word.  And that's not political correctness.  That's not sugar coating some perceived belief or truth.  It's called acting according to how you were raised.  As my Mom tried to teach me when I was 15.