Can perry light off his burn pile?

    By Oxy Mora on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 10:50am |

    When I purchased country property in Texas a few years back I didn't realize one of its assets was the burn pile. A neighbor helped me clear some dead tree limbs and I asked him to take it all to the dump. He had a good laugh and said, "I was going to haul it over to your burn pile" I asked him where that was. "Over behind the old barn, been there for years."

    We rode four wheelers over to the other end of the pasture. And there it was--kind of a sacred site--a large mound of black rubble, with bits of twisted metal poking out to catch glints of sunlight. "That burn pile has been there for as long as I can remember". My neighbor said. "Even longer than that bodark wood post them surveyors found on the corner of your property. Dates back to the 1800's".

    Over the next couple of years I learned that the essential rhythm of the burn pile was as much a part of the culture in Texas as running the shredder over the pasture one last time in late September or taking down the swimming pool for the Winter. In 6,000 years aliens will be scratching through burn piles all over Texas, investigating the 12,000 year span of the human race. But right at the moment the severe heat and drought in Texas have brought about burn restrictions and the burn piles just keep getting bigger.

    Rick Perry has been touting his new energy plan but he might have a problem with the energy building up in piles around Texas.  I'm sure there are several spots down on Perry's old multicultural ranch which are collecting fuel. Wouldn't be surprised to find a pile or two in Paint Creek before this election is over with. But the biggest pile of dead wood waiting ignition is Perry's brain. I'm not sure what the burn restrictions are in Nevada but if Perry can't get his burn pile lit off in that Vegas debate tomorrow I think he's going to have to high tail it back to Texas and sit this election out in Austin.

    Aside from burn restrictions the only other regulation on a burn pile is that nothing you throw on there is supposed to be man made, and nothing of what caused the severe drought and extreme heat is man-made either, at least according to Governor Perry and some of my neighbors. Last year my neighbor helped me plant a blueberry patch. It was a lot of work and I had read where blueberries need a lot of water. "No problem, you got the pond, then the well. If the pond dries out, it does on occasion, we'll water them at night from the well."

    Yes and No. What a lot of folks around here have concluded is that this year was different. Take my case. Yes, no more pond. And thankfully the well didn't go dry. But the plants just couldn't take the extreme heat. Folks think that this heat was something they haven't seen in their lifetimes. Doesn't matter if you water at night. The heat killed the plants during the day, in nearly four months of relentless 105 degree heat. By the middle of July most of the gardens had been plowed under, there wasn't any hope. I couldn't bear looking at those dead blueberry bushes so we pulled them out and threw them onto the burn pile--which was the same time that Perry ventured out of fire-stricken Texas to lead the tea partiers' scorched earth war against Obama.

    My working theory is that Perry is getting a breather under the buzz surrounding Cain who is a kind of place-holder while Perry gets his act together. In any case I think if Perry can somehow re-ignite the passion and assumed tea party ordination which accompanied his initial entry into the race, Cain can be taken down quickly. But the extreme right wing will not settle for Romney. If Perry doesn't cut it and Cain wanders off the script too many times the tea partiers will come up with a different strategy.

    But I'll tell you what, Perry - son. The rest of America doesn't want to be texecuted the way Texas has been. In particular Westerners aren't all that fond of energy pollution. And your problem is that if you can't burn it out there on the national stage you might suddenly find you've burned your bridges in Texas. I'm waiting for a rainy spell so I can light off my own burn pile and say goodbye to my dead blueberry bushes. But I'm not holding my breath to see if you can get your dead wood lit.

    Comments

    To the management. If you can close up paragraph 3 I would be very much obliged. Can't backspace it.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 11:20am

    Thanks.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 11:37am

    Yes.


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 11:42am

    But even so, he's unelectable.


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 11:45am

    Of course! He's possibly even unnominatable, but with all that dead wood in his brain, surely he'll be able to burn it off, lickety-split! (And, from my informal sampling of my Republican friends and family, most of them aren't really paying attention right now.)


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 11:49am

    Texas just does not make good repub speakers!

    But many Americans appear to not give a damn about good speakers.


    by Richard Day on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 2:26pm

    Maybe


    by Donal on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 11:45am

    I was just thinking this ain't over til it's over, after I picked up the freebie dead-tree version of Politico today at Reagan National Airport, with the following "formerly secret pals of Herman go public" story on the front page. Probably a couple more burn cycles to go:

    Former Fed colleagues praise Herman Cain

    Interviews with Cain's peers at the Fed reveal a man who impressed his fellow power brokers

    By Emily Schultheis & Ben Smith, Politico, Oct. 16, 2011

    Bill McQuillan, the CEO of a community bank in Greeley, Neb., first met Herman Cain two decades ago on a flight from Omaha to Kansas City for a meeting of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

    Not long after that, he was impressed enough with Cain, then the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, to make a modest suggestion: That he “take a look” at running for president.

    “He looked at me and said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” McQuillan recalled. “And 15 or 20 years later, here he is.”

    Cain, the current, improbable frontrunner in national polls of Republican primary voters, is best known for his full-time job in the food industry when he established Godfather’s as a reliable, medium-sized pizza chain – not typically a qualification for the White House. But Cain also held a series of more conventional, political posts in the federal reserve system, culminating with the chairmanship of the Kansas City Fed from 1995 to 1996....

    [.....]

    Cain left the Federal Reserve in August 1996 to pursue involvement in politics. And the position was largely honorary – and mostly unpaid. Board members were reimbursed for travel expenses and paid a “very modest” stipend for their service, Kansas City Fed spokesman Bill Medley said.

    But Cain left an impression, and many of his former colleagues now support him for the presidency.

    “I would say he’s probably well-qualified, even overqualified for this job because he’s an outsider who really brings no baggage to the White House,” McQuillan said.

    Adams called him a “top-notch individual” and said he planned to support Cain in the GOP primary.

    And Samuel Baird, board member with Cain from 1995 to 1996, also said he’s supporting Cain this year.

    “I have some questions about his ‘9, 9 and 9’ plan, but his leadership I think would be brilliant,” said Baird, who was president of Farmers State Bank & Trust Co. in Superior, Neb. “I think he’d be tremendous.”

     

    by artappraiser on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 2:08pm

    Thanks. He's more than the flavor of the month. Rasmussen just released a poll showing Cain up by 2 points over Obama in a general election.

    It will be interesting to watch tomorrow,egad, more alka seltzer and giant bottles of Diet Coke. In the last debate it was Santorum who landed the only punch on Cain. So how does Romney/Santorum grab you?


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 2:16pm

    So how does Romney/Santorum grab you?

    If I had a crystal ball, I would most definitely charge for access and not give out the answers free on the net.cheeky

    I will say this: Santorum is a dork. I believe dorks are a drag on any political ticket. Sometimes they get lucky and slip in somewhere when no one is really paying attention. But eventually everyone realizes their dorkiness and doesn't like them anymore.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 9:19pm

    Dork is the perfect description. But then I can't imagine anyone filling the tea party V.P. slot for Romney who wouldn't give me the creeps.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 9:47pm

    P.S. I missed this Saturday fun but luckily just found out about it on Google News:

    Santorum calls SNL sketch 'bullying'
    By Justin Sink, The Hill, 10/17/11 01:51 PM ET

    Rick Santorum criticized a Saturday Night Live skit that poked fun at his anti-gay marriage views and trailing poll numbers as "bullying" in an interview this weekend.

    SNL, in a send-up of last week's Bloomberg/Washington Post debate that set candidate's seating order based on poll numbers, said seating for the skit was based "on the likelihood of the candidate winning the nomination."

    Actors playing contenders Herman Cain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney were seated at the table, while Texas Gov. Rick Perry was placed in the corner of the set, Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) was banished to a parking garage, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) were put a broom closet, and Santorum in "a crowded gay bar in the Castro district of San Francisco."

    Although Santorum, played by Andy Samberg, had only a limited roll in the sketch, he was portrayed as upset and uncomfortable....


    by artappraiser on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 10:09pm

    I think the obvious running mate for Romney is Herman Cain and that would be a very strong ticket, very hard to run against for the Democrats

    by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 12:37am

    Let Romney/Cain ease your pain ...


    by Donal on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 8:25am

    Just remember that "999" upside down is "666"... The Democrats can accuse Cain of being the Antichrist... it works for some Republicans.

    by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 10:03am

    No, it'll be Cain/Bachmann - Pizza with Crazy Bread.


    by Donal on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 9:20pm

    Now I am getting depressed. Nightmarish visions, without even getting to thinking on actual policy. If the current state of political discourse in this country is at Dante's third circle or so, then what it would be with those two in charge is just off his charts.

    Now that I think on it, though, I disagree that there's a chance. I think she really meant the 6-6-6 joke about his 9-9-9 plan; she might even suspect he is the anti-Christ.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 9:29pm

    I suppose it's not relevant, but I have never encountered an African-American named "Herman" before in my entire life and everyone I have ever known named Cain or Kane was Jewish. This makes him even more surreal for me. My problem, I guess.

    by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 3:28pm

    The word "surreal" is very relevant to our political discourse in this country.


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 4:15pm

    I think this article frightens me more than anything recently because if both major party candidates are black then my hope that Obama's presidency would finally neutralize the Republican Southern Strategy is ash.  I don't believe our predominantly white country is that post-racial yet.  It could have been.

    I believed that a successful Obama would really destroy that strategy but even a mediocre one would neutralize it.  It would only survive if the Obama presidency was a disaster.  That seemed to be the only rational explanation of why the Republicans were resorting to such extreme Calvinball in Congress, even willing to wreck the economy to make Obama and the Democrats look bad.

    I fear that if both major party candidates are black that there will definitely be a third party white challenger.  How can that not reopen old racial divides?

    I am going to lie down for a while now.


    by EmmaZahn on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 3:08pm

    C'mon, don't despair. Why, think about how many of "them" just adore Clarence Thomas and Michael Steele! devil

    Actually, I found the article slightly "scary" in the "fear of the unknown" kind of way. Seems like everyone, including me, is getting into the conventional wisdom thinking mode as they always do this far in advance of an election, once again forgetting how radically things have changed over time in presidential election narratives of the past few decades. Things like when Tsongas was a favorite or Bill Clinton was doomed and could never  overcome the latest disaster, and no way could a black guy named Barack Obama win. Then there were the days when someone like Bobby Jindahl could never join the country club much less be the governor of a southern state.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 9:11pm

    'Fear of unknown' definitely.  I got a flashback to how Republican strategy accidentally elected Democrat Lester Maddox as Georgia's governor in 1966.

    When Maddox sought the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Georgia in 1966, his principal opponent for the nomination was former governor Ellis Arnall. That election was still in the era of Democratic Party dominance in Georgia, when winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to election. Since there was no Republican primary at the time, and there were a great many voters who identified with the Republicans, the Republicans voted in the Democratic primary and chose the candidate who they thought would lose against their candidate, Howard Callaway. In the primary election, Arnall won a plurality of the popular vote, but was denied the required majority. Lester Maddox, the candidate in second place, then ran in a run-off against Ellis Arnall. State Senator Jimmy Carter came in third. Again, the Republicans voted in the Democratic primary runoff. Arnall barely campaigned in the run-off election, and the result was a victory for Maddox.

    Stunned, Arnall announced a write-in candidacy for the general election, insisting that Georgians must have the option of a moderate Democrat besides party-nominee Maddox and the Republican candidate. In that contest, Republican nominee Howard "Bo" Callaway, the first Republican member of the United States House of Representatives elected from Georgia since the close of Reconstruction, won a plurality, and Maddox finished second. (Some people unhappy with both major nominees took the "Go Bo" of Callaway's campaign and expanded it to "Go Bo, and take Lester with you".) Under the election rules then in effect, the state legislature was required to select a governor from the two candidates with the highest number of votes. With the legislature overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats, all of whom had been required to sign a Democratic loyalty oath which required them to support Democrats only, Maddox became Governor, serving from 1967 to 1971.

    The best laid plans have a way of really screwing things up. smiley


    by EmmaZahn on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 10:21pm

    Thanks for that history. I do get the feeling that something about that crazy could happen this time around.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 11:30pm

    No Emma, no third party. You can imagine how much fun this could be for white conservatives. Here they have a rich African-American, who is telling poor African-Americans what white conservatives would love to tell them, basically, “fuck off and die”…. and their African-American is not the exotic offspring of an absentee, Kenyan exchange student and a well off, white bread Kansan, raised in Hawaii, but a genuine descendent of slaves, from the red earth and piney woods of Georgia, son of a chauffeur who drove for the man. They are going to be able to taunt Democrats with “yah, yah, our enword is more enward than your enword”. If this wasn't tragic, it would be hilarious.

    by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 4:10pm

    Enjoyed reading about your burning pile.  I have a burning barrel myself.  Sorry about your blueberry bushes.  Were they the dwarf variety that double as foundation shrubs?  

    What I meant to ask before I got distracted by another comment was if you knew whether or not your burning pile was ever a charcoal pit?  Also, would you be allowed to burn your brush in such a pit as the burning would take place underground?  More about that here:

     

    The Case for Burying Charcoal


    by EmmaZahn on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 8:21pm

    Thanks, Emma. That's a very interesting article. Have to research it further, whether anyone has plowed carbon back into the soil. Sounds like a far reaching technology but have to be careful not to deforest the land. If my memory serves me right that actually happened early on in New England when the ash was obtained by burning wood, very wasteful, and then sold to soap manufacturers.

    The blue berries were of the fruit bearing kind, not for shrubs. But I honestly can't remember the variety.

    Speaking of burning underground some neighbors whose central heat is wood are concerned if they'll be able to use their fireplaces.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 9:40pm

    As someone from rural Michigan who lives on a farm and has a burn pile, I can relate to this story quite well. We also have slop buckets part of the year (when we’re fattening up the piggies pre: pork chop stage) and I’d love to see what kind of metaphorical masterpiece you could come up using that correlation with Perry!

     

    I tend to think whatever breathing room Cain has given Perry won’t be enough for him to recover from the horrible misstep he made (within his own party) to actually have some logical legislation as far as immigrations (re: school for kids of immigrants). His “audience” didn’t take to kindly to that, as we all saw in that other debate debacle. He can fry as many of his citizens as he wants to please the masses, but schooling illegals is a NO-NO as far as the GOP is concerned.

     

    I will be kind of interested to see if he comes off as less than… shall we say… confused, in this debate. There’s nothing more pity-inducing than someone who looks like they’re ready to melt into the low-pile carpet every time he’s asked a challenging question.  devil

     


    by Jeni Decker on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 10:53am

    Ha!. I live in rural Michigan, too!

    And, I haz burn pile!

    No piggies though. crying

    Chickens and ducks, yes!yes


    by wabby on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 11:45am

    Chickens, huh? I'm gettin a hankerin for some good farm eggs over easy.


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 2:53pm

    Hey, Jeni. Glad to see some others from rural Americuh can relate to burn piles. As far as the pig metaphors, Perry might come off lookin like a wild hog runnin for his life. (They just can't get enough of huntin wild hogs around Texas).

    Ole Perry looks pretty confused and hapless right now but he has some cash and will no doubt start hammering Romney with some advertising.

    I think the worst part of this upcoming debate will be Anderson Cooper, the conflator-narcissist.  


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 2:51pm

    You know, I'm one of those odd ducks that can't stand to watch someone make a fool of themselves(no matter what kind of ass-hat they are) particularly for a huge viewing audience. That's why I can't watch reality shows, and that's why I spend most of the GOP debates watching from behind my hands.

     

    It's just cringe-worthy stuff. Call me crazy but I long for the day when the only thing of import I was being lied to about was a BJ. Or maybe I wasn't paying enough attention back then, who knows.

     

    But between Karl Rove laundering money between his PACs and pulling the strings behind the scenes like some malevolent Pillsbury Dough Boy, and all of this really abhorrent voter suppression stuff... well the whole thing just puts me off.

     

    I just hope all of the #OccupyEverywhere's show up to vote. I hope all of the recent craziness like, "I am not a witch;" Santorum's gay marriage napkin/paper towel pathet-a-metaphor; Sarah Palin's self-promo-ho tour; n-words on rocks; "this vaccination will make you retarded" stuff... I hope it all goes away at some point.  America's beginning to look like the crazy, trailer-trash step-child with ADD...

     

     

    (NOTE: We also have chickens, and in a few months, will have a freezer full of venison! Nothin' says Momma lovin' like dinner that's NOT laced with hormones and steroids!)


    by Jeni Decker on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 4:26pm

    Good stuff, Jeni. By the way I am waiting to read your blog, "My lunch with Donald Trump" or "I had pizza with Hermann Cain".

     

     


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 11:32pm

    Funny you should mention that....  Hmm... I'm now wondering if you've got my house tapped! (Get out of my head, man!)

     

    Was just making notes yesterday for a scene in "Waiting for Karl Rove" Book 2 that included something along those lines.  crying  Hint: A revolving door (in Vegas) to The Don and a scene from the Godfather.

     

    That's all you're getting, OxyMora!  Ha!


    by Jeni Decker on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 7:10am

    I forced myself to watch the dreadful display of ignorance, prejudice and in-fighting which was billed as a Republican debate.

    Ole Perry got his burn pile going and what's more he lit into Mitt, specifically on Mitt's hiring of illegals. I think Perry kept himself in the race.

    The facts of the heated exchanges between Romney and Perry are really not as important, Imo, as the personalities and attitudes which were exhibited. I think Tea Partiers are looking for a personality type, someone who they think can go man to man with Obama and take him down. So the body language and demeanor of the interchange between the two men were important. And I thought Romney came close to being rattled. He began lecturing Perry on the rules of the debate. (Now who does that sound like?)

    Santorum also did a good job of punching Romney on healthcare.

    What I like about all of this is that Romney and Perry are now positioned to spend a lot of money showing the voting populace how little each of them has to offer. If Romney does get the nomination he's going to have been roughed up pretty well in the process.

    Cain's dumb plan took up the better part of 10 or 15 minutes of the debate and was attacked by everyone else on the stage.

    The next debate isn't for four weeks or so and Perry has some money to spend and some time studyin on the issues.

    Having said all of this, doesn't change the fact that Perry is, unelectable.   

     


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 11:53pm

    At one point when Romney could have wrapped it up he said, in a condescending manner,

    "Rick, is you want to be President you'll have to learn that both people get to speak". This is the exact opposite of what tea partiers want. They don't want participation. It's a one way street with them.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 12:02am

    In terms of body language per se, and discounting what he said, Cain was more statesman like than either Perry or Romney. So in that sense, he kept himself in the race as well.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 12:15am

    Even though he's the 'crazy old granddaddy' I have to say, personality wise, I much prefer Ron Paul to anyone on that stage. Cain is a bit to "slick" businessman for me. I don't tend to trust him. Perry is just Perry - did you SEE him standing in the 'line-up' at the beginning as CNN did that rolling dolly shot down the GOP line?  Perry's shoulders were back, fists clenched, one leg bent slightly - both legs bowed out - he totally looked like a cowboy just about ready to pull out his gun. It was the best caricature moment of the thing.

    And at least Mitt got his cajones back somewhere along the line. It was painful to continually watch them walk all over him. Still, he can't shake his own flip-floppery and if there's one thing I hate is a flip-flopper.  Man up, stick to your guns and stay in position - whatever that position is.

     

    That's the one thing I RESPECT about Ron Paul.  I don't agree with most of what he says (though I agree with him bringing troops home and getting the hell out of other countries) most of the rest of his 'ideas' sound too much like 'survival of the fittest' with regard to health and welfare. IF he had his way, we'd all be hiking down to the local church when we got a cancer diagnosis to get hands laid on us.

    But say one thing for him, at least he's consistent. He believes what he believes and as far as I can see, they're the same beliefs he's always had. Good for him - even if I personally think he's a bit loony-bird on the issues, I can still respect him for being a steadfast loony-bird. And I do like his personality. He's calm and seems even-keeled- more than I can say for the rest of the GOP 'ers.

     

    Anyone have any guesses for who on this line-up might take who else as a VP. I kind of think Cain might take Mitt and Michelle might take Newt...(if they ever go that far and Michelle won't.)

     


    by Jeni Decker on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 7:19am

    Perry definitely had his alfa male stance working for him. That's red meat body language for tea partiers.

    Cain is definitely campaigning to be Mitt's V.P. Cain vs. Biden? Biden who seems to be a simular (as they say in Texas) personality actually knows something.

     

     


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 10:06am

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