The Message Forum is an ongoing dialogue among classmates. The goal is to encourage friendly interaction, including interaction among classmates who really didn't know each other. Experience on the site has revealed that certain topics tend to cause friction and hard feelings, especially politics and religion. 

Although politics and religion are not completely off-limits, classmates are asked to be positive in their posts and not to be too repetitive or allow a dialog to degenerate into an argument. 

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David Cordell

Debbie, there is an edit button that you can use to to back to make changes in your posts. There is also a spellcheck button (bottom row, third from right) you can use before you click the submit button.

Steve,

Another set of name changes: every city that has a name based on religion.

Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obisbo, San Jose, San Carlos, San Mateo, Sacramento, San Antonio, Santa Fe, St. Paul, St. Louis, San Angelo, Saint Augustine, etc. And the Los Angeles Angels should change their name.Maybe they could just reverse the "e" and "l" and be the Angles. No, that wouldn't work. In script form on a jersey, Angles might look like Anglos, and that would be false advertising.

I am so tired of the way a small minority can leverage power over the majority. Rahm Emanuel got it right: Don't let a crisis go to waste. 

I am sick of all the caving by corporations and institutions to left-wing bullying. 

I heard a great term to describe the people who complain about various issues that cause them grief and take action against the majority: Offendanistas.

I doubt seriously that the anti-police offendanistas have the support of the average black person in a crime ridden area.

Meanwhile, I am starting to feel that the tide might start to turn soon. I hate to offer Nixon's name, but he rode the "Great Silent Majority" to an overwhelming win.

David Cordell

Urine Test for Senior Men

 
 Some very practical and cost-saving advice in this time of irrationality.  My urologist's office called the other day and explained that my scheduled appointment would now be done over the phone due to the coronavirus.  One hour before the scheduled teleconference, I was instructed (via email) to administer my own urine test.  This was to avoid those lab tests and costly co-pays that your doctors tell you to get at Quest Diagnostics and because it is shut down due to the pandemic.
 
Directions:
Go outside and pee in the front yard.

1.      If ants gather: DIABETES.
2.      If you pee on your feet: PROSTATE
3.      If it smells like a barbecue:  CHOLESTEROL
4.      If your wrist hurts when you shake it:  OSTEOARTHRITIS

5.      If you return to your house with your penis still outside your pants:  ALZHEIMER'S

6.       If the your urine produces steam when it hits the ground: ACID REFLUX. 

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Viewing TV tonight, I just heard a talking head say, "The only thing Hillary hasn't done yet, is "Dancing With the Stars!" and I experienced a hilarious sight in my mind's eye....It was SUCH a strange, comical flash!  I was caught up in a bit of chortling craziness, triggering my nearby cat to hiss at me............

Can you see it too?

David: 

I read your urine test example to Charles, and he laughed.  He said it seemed like sound logic, and that he would try it out on his next fishing trip, since the Covid hardship feasibilities necessitate such measures.

Steve Keene

David,

David Cordell

Steve,

I see that former White House physician Ronny Jackson won the Republican runoff for the 13th Congressional District (your Amarillo) with 55.6% of the vote. Total votes in the Republican runoff: 65,873. Total votes in the Democrat runoff: 7,379.

Marty Fulton

Howdy David - I don't get onto the forum very much, but I usually enjoy the posts.

'four elements needed to destroy a civilization' was the last time i visited.

Had to correct a spelling error you had from yesterday (sorry, it's a pet

peeve of mine).  It's San Luis Obispo, not Obisbo.  1974 Alumnus.  Cheers

Steve Keene

Marty,

I look forward to introducing you to someone that could be your new best friend, Wayne Gary.

His weimaraner can't spell, either.

David Cordell

Marty, 

Is that the best ya got?? Surely you can identify some more misspellings. (No, I'm not calling you Shirley!)

Lance,

I have permitted a handful of non-'69ers to register on this website. I think all are teachers or RHS graduates in earlier or later classes. I think you know that Hollis was in a class a couple of years after ours. Some of the others wanted to see the website to see if they wanted to do the same for their class.

It is hard for me to imagine that someone would stoop so low as to use someone else's password to post on this site. On the other hand, I never thought that someone would invent an alter ego to post on this site.

Wayne Gary

Lance, David

I am glad TU keeps the "Eyes Of Texas" .  A line in the "Aggie War Hymn" is “The eyes of Texas are upon you . . .”
That is the song they sing so well (sounds like hell)

"sounds like hell" is not official part of the lyrics but we always yell it.

The Aggie War Hymn

The rich history of The Aggie War Hymn, the official war hymn of Texas A&M (Texas A&M does not have a fight song), dates back to World War I. The lyrics to the iconic song were scrawled during 1918 on the back of a letter from home by J.V. “Pinky” Wilson, one of the hundreds of Aggies who fought during World War I, as Wilson sat in a trench during a battle in France. Wilson originally called his song “Goodbye to Texas University,” a nod to Texas A&M’s rivalry with the University of Texas, and created it by combining several Aggie yells used at the time to form the lyrics.

In 1928, Wilson penned another verse at the request of several Aggies that thought Wilson’s original version was too focused on the University of Texas — this verse is now the first verse of the War Hymn, but it never caught on. Today, the second verse is sang twice, and once that is completed, Aggies link arms and legs and sway left to right to “saw Varsity’s horns off.”

Wayne Gary

History of BEST Fight Song of All Time

Wayne Gary

Are you ready for the song

David Cordell

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Sen. Mazie Hirono stated on July 13th, that Republicans who support Trump are 'white supremacists,' during an interview with MSNBC.  She said, "Trump has a base of supporters who are very divisive, hateful to immigrants, and are 'white supremacists.' "  ( Obviously this lady believes all the foul lies and conspiracy theories her colleagues and the compliant mainstream media have spoonfed her.)

Republican spokeswoman, Elizabeth Herrington, called the remarks "disgusting."  She continued, "A Democrat senator just called '63 million and counting,'  'white supremacists!'

"Smearing us as 'irredeemable and deplorable,' apparently wasn't despicable enough."

When Sen. Hirono's office was called, her associates declared, "Ms. Herrington's outrage is misplaced."

In another instance, a letter to the editor of The Mercury News, written by Christopher Andrus, stated, "To view everyone who supports the President as 'white spremacists' is just as bad a form of prejudice as racial prejudice.  And it will only tend to enrage people on both sides, leading to even more discord among us all.  Is this really what "progressives" today want?

White supremacy bigotry and hatefulness is counter to all this country stands for.  Republicans wholeheartedly agree.  Let there be no doubt.

Mitch McConnell recently said, "White supremacy is repulsive to Republicans.  Period."

Wayne Gary

Boycott the NFL, NBA.  

This depiction is powerful but please read Ted Nugent's words which accompany the illustration.   As a singer/songwriter of our generation I can't imagine anyone capturing my sentiments any better than he has done.    I hope he makes this into a song.

 A powerful piece written by Ted Nugent

Take a little trip to Valley Forge in January. Hold a musket ball in your Fingers and imagine it piercing your flesh and breaking a bone or two.

There won't be a doctor or trainer to assist you until after the battle, so Just wait your turn. Take your cleats and socks off to get a real Experience.

Then, take a knee on the beach in Normandy where man after American man Stormed the beach, even as the one in front of him was shot to pieces, the Very sea stained with American blood.   The only blockers most had were the  Dead bodies in front of them, riddled with bullets from enemy fire. Take a knee in the sweat soaked jungles of Vietnam.  

From Khe Sanh to Saigon, anywhere will do. Americans died in all those jungles. There was no Playbook that told them what was next, but they knew what flag they Represented. When they came home, they were protested as well, and spit on   for reasons only cowards know.

Take another knee in the blood drenched sands of Fallujah in 110 degree Heat. Wear your Kevlar helmet and battle dress. Your number won't be Printed on it unless your number is up! You'll need to stay hydrated but There won't be anyone to squirt Gatorade into your mouth. You're on your Own.

There are a lot of places to take a knee where Americans have given their Lives all over the world.   When you use the banner under which they fought As a source for your displeasure, you dishonor the memories of those who   Bled for the very freedoms you have. That's what the red stripes mean.   It Represents the blood of those who spilled a sea of it defending your Liberty.

While you're on your knee, pray for those that came before you, not on a Manicured lawn striped and printed with numbers to announce every inch of Ground taken, but on nameless hills and bloodied beaches and sweltering   Forests and bitter cold mountains, every inch marked by an American life Lost serving that flag you protest.

No cheerleaders, no announcers, no coaches, no fans, just American men and Women, delivering the real fight against those who chose to harm us, Blazing a path so you would have the right to "take a knee." You haven't Any inkling of what it took to get you where you are, but your "protest" is   Duly noted.   Not only is it disgraceful to a nation of real heroes, it Serves the purpose of pointing to your possible ingratitude for those who chose to Defend you under that banner that will still wave long after your jersey is Retired.

If you really feel the need to take a knee, come with me to church on Sunday and we'll both kneel before Almighty God.   We'll thank Him for Preserving this country for as long as He has.   We'll beg forgiveness for our Ingratitude for all He has provided us.   We'll appeal to Him for Understanding and wisdom.

We'll pray for liberty and justice for all, because He is the one who provides those things. But there will be no Protest. There will only be gratitude for His provision and a plea for His Continued grace and mercy on the land of the free and the home of the Brave. It goes like this, GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Lowell Tuttle

Wayne, I don't want to offend.

I have been to a lot of "games."

They play the National Anthem at most events. 

I have searched for when this process started.   As near as I can determine, it was sometime around 1919 when the World Series had light attendance due to a variety of circumstances.  Anyway, someone played, sang this "new" song and a lot of persons liked it.   This tune to that poem was new in early 20th Century.

The next game they did it again and thousands turned up, so a tradition began. 

I think perhaps we would be better off withoust playing it at a lot of these events...To me it seems like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL are "capitalizing" on the jingoistic patriotism without being warranted to do so.

At least make them pay to play it.   End the controversy.

Keep it for special occasions like July 4th, Memorial Day...

I like the idea of a prayer (a universal one) and a moment of silence.   Fight songs are great. 

The National Anthem is not such a great song in my mind, anyway. 

The only time I really like it is when I'm at a Houston Rockets game and they sing Rockets red glare...That's sort of cool

David, I like those masks...Wish I still beer'd

Wayne Gary

Lowell

No offence.  I do not watch very much pro sports.

Here is a great peice on the history and meaning of  "Star Spangled Banner"

Bob Fleming

Yesterday - July 16, 2020 - will go down as the days the 2020 election was deciided. The Big Dog Walmart - followed in short order by Target, CVS, and others - just mandated that masks be worn in all their stores.

Our classmate Randy Curtis, who before his untimely death was national marketing director for WalMart, once told me that the decison makers at WalMart are "data-driven, cold-hearted, steel-eyed heat seeking missiles." 

They've made their bet.  Data from their stores tells them that "there is a tide in the affairs of men" and that it has turned against Donald Trump.  With this decison they have repudiated Trump and made their bet on the futures market and declared Biden the winner of the November election.

Wal-Mart and a few others like them serve in our culture like the old Greek Gods who decide the fates of men.

)For those who like their prophecies in my more poetic form I suggest the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy's The Gods Forsake Mark Anthony.)

You heard it here first.  

And of course in the event  I'm wrong you can save this post and use it to humble me the rest of my natural life.

In truth, I would feel better if Waffle House weighed in somehow.

Marty Fulton

Hey Lance.  Class of '74 referred to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA.  The school kicked my ass

and it took me 2 extra quarters to finish.  I actually tried out for the baseball team in the fall of

1969 - because I had heard of this great coach we had.  Maybe you heard of him: Augie Garrido.

Although I did well in the 'situational' batting cage, all of 10 pitches, I had trouble with his 400-ft

mile-high fungo bat fly balls.  Shoulda tried out for second-baseman....

My daddy got transferred to Los Angeles in the late summer of 1968, so I had to finish my high

schooling in Fountain Valley, CA.  What a bummer.  I most likely would have attended UT Austin,

but that's not the way it worked out.  I graduated 16th in a class of 500 with a GPA of 3.92.  Those

two B's at RHS kept me from being among the valedictorians, which I believe there were 12.

Compare schools?  How about:  the only classes I HAD to take were English (Social Studies) and

P.E.  RHS had prepared me that well.  Which is why I prefer to consider myself an Eagle, rather 

than a (________).  Hmm, I forgot their mascot.......   

David Cordell

Lowell,

Your suggestion about not playing the national anthem before sporting events is just what we conservatives expect from a liberal.

Bob,

I don't buy your inference from Walmart's decision.  Corporations are making decisions that minimize legal risk (Walmart has attractively deep pockets) and the risk of backlash and boycott. Support of Black Lives Matter is an example. An organization founded by self-acknowledged "trained Marxists" is prying money from capitalist corporations in what amounts to extortion. The corporations don't have to worry about backlash and organized boycott from the right. It's not our style.

 I think there is a quiet groundswell of backlash against what is going on in this country. Liberals and the media (redundancy) blame Trump for everything and give him credit for nothing. But there are millions of Americans who think Trump is fighting for them and their well-being, notwithstanding the COVID-19 situation. The polls were wrong in 2016 and they are wrong now.

That said, I am considering some changes in my portfolio. It is clear that Biden would be the most left wing president in our lifetimes because he is weak and has been pulled so far in that direction by the Sanders-Warren-Ocasio-Cortez clan. When the business haters are in charge, the outlook for business isn't very good.

Wayne Gary

David

What is the date of the 69 birthday party?  There was both an August and September date mentioned.

Bob Fleming

They made their bet, David.  The last announcement WalMart made of this import was ghe announcement NOT to oppose the Affordable Care Act - it was through Congress in days.

They're signalling.

Bob Davidson

Legendary Houston lawyer Steve Sussman died this week from the injuries he received in his bicycle accident.  I posted a little about him the other day.  We were distant aquaintences:  I went to a couple of fundraisers for judicial candidates at his mega-mansion and he would nod at me when we passed at the courthouse.

I lost the first person I actually know personally to coronavirus this week.  He was a criminal defense and family law lawyer slightly younger than us whose wife was my brother’s wife’s best friend.  His wife had died of cancer in April, isolated in the hospital with no visitors allowed.  He got sick from a client he met in his office who later tested positive, while social distancing and wearing masks.  He wasn’t very sick when they put him in the hospital – he felt like he had a mild flu, but the doctor was worried because he was diabetic and overweight.  After two weeks in the hospital, he got really sick and died. I think losing his wife killed his spirit.

On another note: I realized something last night talking to my brother who is four years younger than us: our age group is about the youngest people in the U.S. who can have an actual memory of legal segregation in the Deep South.  When we moved from New Jersey to Mississippi in 1962, my family was shocked to see that there were still “white” and “colored” water fountains, waiting rooms at the doctor’s office, bus station, and other places, a sign “white/colored” in the middle of the city buses, restaurants with each side labeled, and restrooms “white men” “colored men,” etc.  Two years later those signs were all gone.  In the 1970s, a girlfriend who grew up in the Panhandle and I took a vacation to Mississippi and she noticed that most older restaurants had two distinct sides where the blacks sat on one side and everyone else on the other and that lots of places had four restrooms when you’d expect two.  I told her about what it was like when we moved there; she found it amazing and foreign.

My brother has no memory of the officially segregated era, but he was about seven or eight when the signs came down. He also doesn’t remember the Freedom Riders, sit-ins, riots, and the other major Civil Rights Era events going on at that time in Jackson.

As to the Waltons: there is usually a huge difference between people who create fortunes and those who inherit them. I see the first as members of the productive class and the second as part of the parasite class.  I think of a story about the first British Baron Rothschild:  once when he rode in a cab, he gave the driver a one pound tip.  The guy told him, "Your daughter always gives me ten pounds."  Rothschild supposedly replied, "My daughter has a rich father; I don't."

Bob Fleming

Lance,  I guess a purple Walton family is interesting but the point is apart from the one I am trying to make.

So much of the political commentary on this forum is "play by play" and "who hit John" kind of stuff that just debates ghe political headlines in the usual categories and with the usual arguments.  The WalMart story is much more significant.

It is well known that WalMart is a Republican and conservative business institution and that its customer base is perceived as conservative as well.  Normally, WalMart's business interests and its political intersts are aligned.

The decison they made two days ago around masks is a significant signal.  When push comes to shove, WalMart (like all corporations) will choose its buisness interests over its political interests.  Every time.  IN OTHER WORDS, THEIR BUSINESS INTERESTS AND POLITICAL INTERESTS HAVE DIVERGED.

The WalMart decison "signalled" these things -

1.  WalMart calculates that the decison to require masks will not harm their profits nor offend their custoner base.

2.  The WalMart decision protects the bottom line because it insulates itself from any potential lawsuits for failure to protect its customers from COVID-19.  (David, is right that they must insulate themselves from lawsuits.  But he has it backwards when he says they have to worry about Black Lives Matter and cusomer boycotts.  Those "costs" were already factored in by the Company; they know who their enemies are.  And in any event, they haven't materialized.  And won't)

3.  WalMart signals that they are not afraid of their allies;  it will deal with any "fracases" in the stores from those who don't wish to wear masks - bu ushering them out of the store.  Moreover, they signal that they do not fear bone-heead militias carrying guns protesting in front of their store.  Nor od they fear right-wing nuisance lawsuits.  Or boycotts.

4.  WalMart signals that they do not fear Trump.  The most important signal of all.  And indeed, The Man is silent.  He knows better than to take them on and if he does, he loses. 

The Signs are everywhere.  First WalMart (followed by Target, CVS, etc.)  Now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has significantly cut back on its donation to Republican causes.  Then FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dares to personally inerview Anthony Fauci and broadcast it to the nation.

I tell you you The Poet (C.P. Cavafy) has it right.  "The God abandons Mark Anthony."

Or even better yet, his very short poem "Wise Men Perceive Approaching Things."

Jim Baker (Baker)

Bobby Fleming, you ignorant slut...

Regarding your post #19475    ...

This matter appears to me as a matter of PUBLIC SAFETY - and perhaps as an attempt for Wal-Mart to avoid future litigtion (in this, our litigious society) - and Lord knows what other business considerations the company might have.

Based on my understanding of the facts, it is through the lacksidasical (sp?) treatment of societal quarantine efforts of the U.S. that, as a nation, we appear to have one of the highest infection rates among MOST other countries in the world.  (Embarrassing at a minimum.)

This, TO ME, is NOT a poliitical issue.  It occurs to me that it's only political to Darwinists and those who wish to hide their heads up their waz...or obfuscate the truth from Americans and the world.

I personally believe the reporting and concerns of the scientists much more than I do those in branches of government who play fast and loose with the pandemic facts for political purposes.

Be safe.  Stay well.  Do good. 

Steve Keene

Jim and Bob (not to be confused with Jimbob),

I think it is because what the GenX and Millenials have found: