Zulu Fertility Dance

Let me say this about that.

In 1992, a new movie was released called “White Guys Can’t Jump”.  It was a movie about two pick-up basketball players – one white and the other black – and had, as an underlying theme, an ascertion that white guys can’t slam-dunk a basketball.  Stars Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes did a great comedic job of pitting one race against the other without it degrading into a racist pissing contest.

I saw that movie on HBO the other night and it set me to wondering about other innate abilities that one particular race might enjoy, while totally lacking in another.  There is no question that the best basketball players in the world are black guys, but have you ever seen a black guy play the bagpipes?  I didn’t think so.

White guys seem to gravitate towards sports that involve two things – betting and beer.  Perhaps this explains the complete void of Afro-Americans earning a living as jockies or as professional bass fishermen - and possibly more telling, NASCAR drivers.  The one exception to this ‘beer & betting’ rule may the reason only white guys have shown an interest in dog-sled racing.  But this whole line of thought is beginning to make my head hurt.

But, as superior as black guys have proven to be in endeavors requiring…    (more…)

Big Bad Bug

Let me say this about that.

I was raised in a rural environment and have enjoyed the out-of-doors all my life.  But it hasn’t always been without it’s problems.  For some reason, I seem to bring out the worst in Mother Nature, especially when it comes to wildlife.  At the last accounting, I had been bitten by snakes, stung by bees, scratched by cats, mauled by dogs, kicked by horses, stabbed by stingrays, swarmed by ants, bitten by spiders, gored by bulls, stung by jellyfish, lacerated by barracudas, and any number of other wildlife altercations too numerous to mention – including an attempted “ear-rape” by a Indonesian Spider Monkey who had jumped up onto my shoulder, grabbed me by the head, and attempted “carnal entry”  of my right ear.  Removing a horny Spider Monkey from something he wants to screw is damn-near impossible, since the little bastard has four hands and a tail with which to capture the object of his affection.  The memory of the episode, even to this day, forces me to wear ear-muffs around monkeys — but I digress.

Bugs – if you can name a bug, I have been bitten by it.  In my opinion, all bugs are unpleasant, but that would be ‘bug-profiling’, which is now illegal in America.  As such, I will single-out only one species of bug for my daily diatribe…    (more…)

ooooh - lunch !

Let me say this about that.

What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?  Not many Americans, raised on ‘meat & potatoes’, care for strange food, especially if it had a squirmy or scaly profile before it hit the plate.  I have never been burdened by a delicate palate, probably owing to my impoverished childhood in the rural mountains of Appalachia.  In those days and in that part of America, “food”  was defined as anything slower than you were.

Appalachian mountain people survived in the ’40′s and ’50′s because they were not squeamish about the source of their protein.  I learned this lesson as a six year-old when I first experienced the castration of the yearling pig crop and the subsequent main course of “mountain oysters” for dinner.  Believe me, if you are hungry enough, you will eat the balls right off a pig.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but a childhood diet of squirrel, groundhog, ‘sweetbreads’, frogs, and muskrat prepared me well for the…    (more…)

Amsterdam window lady

Let me say this about that.

Quickly now!  Tell me three things you know about The Netherlands.  Can’t think of three?  OK, how about one thing?  Fact is, most Americans don’t know a helluva lot about The Netherlands.

 If you use the term ‘Holland’, we tend to revert back to our grammar school days to recall things like windmills and wooden shoes, even though ‘Holland’ makes up just a small part of the country of The Netherlands.  Then, there is the story of the little boy who stuck his finger in the dike, even though the mental image of that scene can be disturbing to the folks with an alternative lifestyle.

To add to the confusion, the people of The Netherlands are not called ‘Netherlanders’, they are called the ‘Dutch’.  So, to summarize our little geography lesson, we have people called the ‘Dutch’, who live in ‘Holland’, in the country of The Netherlands. 

As you might imagine, Americans have trouble figuring out anything that happens in The Netherlands.  The Dutch play by their own rules, have an extremely liberal point of view, and have little regard for…    (more…)

Let me say this about that.

Americans are a sports-loving bunch.  Show the average American guy a game that involves a ball and you can be sure of one thing … he’s gonna bet on it.  Seriously, we love our sports and our interests vary widely from baseball to dog racing to figure skating to horse jumping to beach volleyball to ….. a hundred other sports.  From Little League to the World Series and every level in between, the American sports scene is as diverse as it’s population.

A lot of our sports can be pretty lame, though.  Take throwing Frisbees, for example.  I mean, how long do you think this sport would have lasted if dogs never entered the picture?  Truth be told, even our most beloved sports have elements of…    (more…)

Largest Black Marlin ever caught

Let me say this about that.

I was exhausted.  I had been sent to Melbourne, Australia to turnaround a struggling electronics factory owned by my employer.  In those days the Australian labor laws allowed each employee one month’s vacation, one month’s sick leave, and nearly a month’s worth of holidays.  In addition, once per month an employee could just wake up in the morning and call-in that he wasn’t coming to work - for no particular reason.  The place had the productivity of the U.S. Postal Service on a holiday.

If that wasn’t enough, an off-track betting establishment, a hundred yards down the street, had the ingenious idea of of incorporating a restaurant on their premises .  At lunch time, the factory employees would walk down to the restaurant, eat their ‘bangers and mash’ for lunch and bet the horses for two hours.

After a couple of months, I had seen enough and shut the place down.  Four hundred and fifty-two people out of work – but they made their bed and had no interest in improving.

After it was all over, I called my wife and told her I was taking a week off and asked her to join me for a short vacation in…    (more…)

Self Explanatory

Let me say this about that.

Question:  What was the cause of the ‘Iran – Iraq War’?  The ‘Six-Day War’?  The ’1st Gulf War’?  The ’2nd Gulf War’?  The ‘Afghan War’?  The ‘Yom Kipper War’?

 Can you  – honestly, now – recite the reason for any of the dozens of wars that have been fought in the Middle East since Pope Urban II sponsored the Crusades in the year 1095?  A string of wars sponsored by the head of the Catholic church and thought to have the blessing of God because of a meteor shower and a lunar eclipse (author’s note: before you re-read, perhaps in disbelief, the previous sentence, please remember the ‘mantra’ of the ‘Let Me Say This About That’ blog:  “You can’t make this stuff up.”)

Truth be known, 99% of Americans REALLY…    (more…)

Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech

Let me say this about that.

A friend of mine happened upon an old copy of an entrance exam for the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) the other day.  He and I graduated together with bachelor’s degrees from this prestigious engineering institution, sometime shortly after the Civil War.  Just for fun, he took the exam again to see if he still ‘had-the-right-stuff’ and reported that he had passed with flying colors.  And, because this guy is a lifelong friend, he is constantly trying to find ways to make me suffer (sorry ladies –  it’s a guy thing, you wouldn’t understand), so he challenged me to do the same.

Now, as students, my friend (Mitch) was always the smart one.  If you could characterize college students by comparing them to a breed of dog, Mitch was a Border Collie – smart, intuitive, astute, bright, and intellectual.  On the other hand, my academic career could be compared to the attributes of a…    (more…)

Assume the position!!

Let me say this about that.

The very fact that you are reading this blog indicates you have, at least, a modicum of skills regarding personal computers and the internet.  You may not, however, be so knowledgeable about the technical requirements of publishing a blog, creating content, editing and managing “HIT” statistics.  It’s not so difficult and after a few months of publications, it all goes pretty smoothly.

If your blog is to survive, you obviously want people to read it.  In order for that to happen, readers need to find the blog easily .  This happens in two ways.  First, a person has been made aware of a blog through conversation, referral, a friends recommendation or what have you.  This person then keys in the name of the blog and it is…    (more…)