How many times have we heard the expression, “Go to hell“?  You might be surprised to learn that the words can be used to mean different things, depending on the tense and the voice inflection. In anger it can mean a destination one person would like to send the other at the time it was said. In responding to a comment, or an action that catches one off guard, it can mean an expression of disbelief. If a person is trying to accomplish a task and  failing at it, it can mean an expression of disgust. The subject can be used to express how mad a person is, i.e.he is mad as hell; however, it is difficult to imagine how we can know if a place feels anger.

     There are people who do not believe in hell, but they believe in heaven. My question is, if the good people go to heaven when they die, where do the bad people go when they die, to Walmart? Let’s look to the final authority on the question, the  Bible. Psa 9:17: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all nations that forget God.” (KJV).

     The above verse establishes two things, that there is a place called hell, and who will go there. According to Mark Twain: “ You go to heaven for the climate, and to hell for the company.” I personally do not know of anyone who has gone to hell, and it’s not likely you are going to have a conversation with anyone who is going to say they just got back from hell. If the  bible is difficult for you to believe on the subject of hell, then I suggest you live as haphazardly as you can, throw all caution to the wind, roll the dice of life and in the end you will have your answer. Please allow me to express it another way. Let’s just say there are two people of opposite beliefs. One believes there is a hereafter which consists of heaven and hell. The other believes neither in heaven, hell or a hereafter. The two live their lives in opposite life styles: one lives a life of revelry, one lives a life of righteousness. They both die. If in the end it turns out the one who lived a righteous life is wrong because there is no heaven or hell, or hereafter, then they have nothing to worry about.

     The problem is if the one who did believe is right, then the one who did not believe is in a world of trouble, and they do not have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever changing their mind. It is not a matter of saying, “I like door number 3.” You choose the door while you are living, and once your eyes are closed in death, guess what? It’s too late.

     We have established there is a hell, and people do go there. The question may arise of where is hell. Psa 15:24: “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.” (KJV). We have established the direction of hell. Have you ever heard the old song “When the roll is called up yonder“?  In the completeness of the title to the song, it says when the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there. All songs I have ever heard concerning heaven speak of above, and, all mention I have ever heard of hell speak of a region below.

     In the 16th chapter of Luke we are told of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man lifted up his eyes in hell and torment. In the original language of the New Testament it indicates the he was and is lifting up his eyes, meaning he will be doing so throughout eternity.

     As you read this chapter you will notice the rich man could see, could hear, and could feel, which indicates in hell a person has all of their faculties.

     So we have established hell is a place that does exist, so how do you know? As for me I believe it because the Bible says it. If you fall into the category of those who do not believe,  I would be interested in knowing why you do not believe. We have established the direction of hell is down. We have established a person is conscious of his surroundings in hell and feels pain. In closing I would like to give some advice that was given to me a long time ago. If you are a preacher or a teacher and you decide to preach or teach on the subject of hell, be sure you pray and fast before you present your message or lesson. Choose your words carefully while standing before your congregation, or class.

     Why?

     You don’t know who may be present who  may have had a tragedy which  affected them by claiming the life of someone close to them. There may still be doubt if the person who died was a Christian when they died.  Sadly, I have heard preachers  use expressions from the pulpit such as, “if they did so and so they deserve to be in hell“, or “if a person kills himself he is in hell“. I can speak of the latter through experience. As a young man who had allowed his mouth to get ahead of his mind while in the pulpit I said, “If a person kills themselves they are in hell because they are not here to seek forgiveness.” I was wrong in my theology because I don’t know where the person’s soul is; however, what troubles me most in what I said at that time, and still troubles me is what I later found out. In the congregation was a couple whose son  had, the previous year, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. His mother saw it. I was told it happened so fast she could not stop him. I will always regret what I said.  I feel if people really knew the horror that exists they would never  tell another to “go to hell“.

     Ron

     In a few months, I will face the unrelenting prospect of becoming 40.  The Big 4-0.  I know it’s supposed to be an important milestone, but I find myself feeling oddly double-minded about it.  Like it’s a distant, though essential task on a to-do list I know I’ll eventually get around to taking care of though it really isn’t much of a priority to me in the meantime.

     On the one hand, I don’t feel much of anything about the age of forty.  It's just another number, one that sequentially follows 39 and precedes 41.  No big deal.  I already know from experience that I won't- or at least shouldn't- feel significantly older on that day of my life than I did the year prior.  40 is nothing more than a mental construct, a socially agreed-upon date that had far more meaning 20 or 30 years ago.

     I think we can safely attribute that accomplishment to the Baby Boomers.  As they've aged, their group has attempted to redefine everything they touch and experience, including the concept of what it means to be young or old.  I think one indication of that attempt to redefine is a statement I think I hear every year: “X (insert first arbitrary age here) is the new X (insert second arbitrary age here)”.  The optimistic part of me would say that turning 40 doesn't seem to carry the same burdensome weight it might have 20 or 30 years ago.

     Yet another part of me, a part of me with its own sense of free will and manages to suspiciously sounds like an 18-year old version of me or even a version of me from my twenties, has a different opinion.  To that part of me, 40 is a big deal.  To that part, 40 symbolizes the Age of Old. 

     I can live with that.  I think.  I’ve always known I was never cut out to be a child or teenager.  I wasn’t all that comfortable with myself in those days.  But then again, who really is?  For me, I’ve always known I was more suited to be an adult- a husband, father, and all the other roles that come with the title.

     What I can’t seem to live with is the stealthiness of the aging process.  There are times when I honestly think of aging as a depredator, calmly and slowly pursuing me, laying waste to concepts of youth I thought I would have or experience forever.  I started going gray in my late twenties and for a time, I waged war.  A man under the age of 30 shouldn’t have gray hair, right?  That’s what those awful commercials with Clyde Drexler tell us.  So I tried all the conventional products men use when they wish to camouflage gray and it was a relative success with a minimum of effort.  But I abruptly stopped because at that point in my life, I thought it was cool to have gray hair.  I saw it as a badge of honor and would often joke that my wife was the source of my gray.  If you know the two of us, I’m sure you would probably appreciate the humor (and perhaps veracity?) in that.  Now that I’m a Dad, I have no doubt that my daughter is and will always be a big source of gray.  Not because she isn’t capable or won’t find her path in life, but because where my daughter is concerned, I worry.  Worry is a father’s prerogative and obligation, as much as guilt could be said to be the prerogative and obligation of mothers.  For me, worry is a subcategory and expression of love.  But if what my parents have always told me is true, the price for my expression is gray hair.

     Although I still refuse to revisit the effort and maintenance the process of camouflaging gray demands, the gray isn’t nearly as cool as it was in my twenties and early thirties.  Back then it wasn’t really real.  Now it is.  I guess I fear becoming gray far more than I fear becoming forty.  Probably because I know that while forty will come and go, the gray is here to stay.  It is a creation that seems to be taking God’s command to Noah quite literally.

     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

     Click here to listen to the podcast.

     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.

     The war began about two months ago with two scouting ants scurrying across my kitchen counter. They died quickly—it was either me or them—but apparently their scent didn’t. More came, materializing from nowhere, in search of food, or perhaps their fallen comrades. They died also, but more took their place. I tried spray, bait, and brute force, but still they came. And worse yet, they’ve spread, first to the second story to carry off Spartacus’ food—pieces of wet lettuce, lima beans, and the occasional fig. For some reason, the ants are desperate for food, especially now that they’ve invaded the dressing room, which has no food. I guess we’re not the only ones with a bad economy.

     They must be hiding somewhere under the house or in the framework. It’s also possible they’re living in the attic with the squirrels. But wherever they are, I wish they’d go away. I’m tired of killing them and washing their broken bodies down the sink. It’s not as if I enjoyed killing them to begin with. I only did so out of necessity. Their sting makes my skin swollen and red. But there comes a time in every war that the participants reevaluate its necessity.

     Killing ants so far hasn’t stopped the onslaught, only spread it. And I haven’t suffered too many bites by the ones that remain. So this morning, when I entered the kitchen to make Spartacus’ breakfast and noticed the black dots bustling about again on the counter, I just left them. They were near enough to the ant bait that they should take it back to the colony and die there. There wasn’t anything else for them to eat. Joe surprisingly left the counter clean this morning.

     But as I sit and reflect, I have to wonder if this passivity is healthy. When a person stops fighting what could kill her, or at least make her puffy and miserable, what else has she given up on?

     I guess I have a counter to clean. I’m not ready to admit defeat yet.

     Ashely

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     We open today's show with a story from the boyhood of Ulysses S. Grant.  Grant, the 18th U.S. President and Union general-in-chief during the Civil War, grew up in Georgetown, OH, the son of an Ohio tanner. In this segment from Grant’s memoirs he describes trading a horse with a Kentucky farmer when he was fifteen.  Trouble was, the horse had never pulled a carriage before. Grant bought it anyway, much to his regret when halfway home the horse starting bucking the carriage wildly.  It says quite a bit about the future soldier how he solved the problem, as you’ll hear.

     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.

     On Oct. 14, 1980, Stella Fuller Day was proclaimed by the mayor of Huntington, WV to acknowledge her lifelong efforts in helping the poor and disadvantaged of that community. And in 2008 she was posthumously inducted into the Greater Huntington Wall of Fame for her 60 years of service. But she wasn’t always so well honored. After 25 years of exceptional service with the Huntington chapter of the Salvation Army she was expecting to be nominated for the top job in the post.  But she left under a cloud, bitter at the back room politics of it all.  The story has a silver lining, however, and one that she herself did not anticipate.

     Even in the 1930s he thought of himself as both a journalist and a hiker in equal measure. “I’ve learned,” said Louisville, KY native Howard Hardaway in a late life interview, “that the most interesting places are not right on the road. On the back roads, at the little country stores where the road crews gather for a quart of milk and a moon pie, that’s where you find some real historians.” In this excerpt from a Louisville Courier-Journal article he introduces us to some backwoods characters from Clinton County, KY.

     "You want to know when l really entered public life. I did not enter; I was shot into it, as by a catapult, and I learned politics in front of Gatling guns and Mauser rifles,” says Rebecca Latimer Felton. Until late in her life, Felton saw her career as tied completely to her husband's.  William Felton served three terms (1875-81) in the U.S. Congress. From 1884 to 1890 he served another three terms in Georgia’s state legislature. In this selection from Mrs. Felton’s  book “Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth” she furiously attacks North Georgia politicians who made millions off the convict lease system of the late nineteenth century.

     We’ll wrap things up with a quick look at the song ‘Liza Jane,’ an old mountain ballad. Two influential recordings were made of the tune in the 1920's which helped spread its popularity among early country musicians.

     And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive, we’ll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music from Gerry Dempsey, Ian Jacks and Tom Joad in a 2004 recording of the traditional tune “St. Anne’s Reel.”

     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.