Month: January 2005

As most of the blues songs say, “I woke up this morning” to a really cold Memphis: 21 degrees. That makes us Southrons worry, as we are never really prepared for anything below 30. I began to lament my fate until I got on the web and read about the blizzard up in Yankeeland, as is depicted here:

When I walked out to get my newspaper, I was greeted with the Memphis version of January:

So here I sit with a hot cup o’ joe, fireplace consuming wood like a hornworm on a tomato plant, looking out at such a scene.

Y’all be careful up there.

See an animation of the aforementioned coffee.

I am indebted to my friend David Gish for this link.

There’s a coffee available for $300/lb called Kopi Luwak. It’s made from the excrement of an animal called a paradoxorus, who climbs around in coffee trees and eats the berries.

“Bottoms up!”

I came across this photo, which I like very much:

Well, I guess that I don’t like the photo all that much, but I certainly like the captions.

Two facts should stand out when considering the Second Amendment. First: it is not a grant of a right. The government does not create rights. Instead, it is a prohibition against the federal government infringing on a right that already exists. Second: the purpose of an armed citizenry was to make government tyranny impossible. Our right to guns is not based on the need to protect ourselves from local punks, it is based on our right to be free from government tyranny.

Jefferson said “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time. The hand of force [he meant government] may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” Rights come from God and they are intact even when government uses force to deny the free exercise of those rights. The right to keep and bear arms is one of those rights.

I grew up in Houston, Texas. It only snowed once every six years or so, and that snow would melt within a day. This makes me sensitive to people who’ve never seen snow and how it can paralyze a city. Therefore I submit this photo, shot from my front yard.

We lived through the snow and ice.

Eight degrees is nothing to sneeze at; but I successfully avoided all frozen pipe calls, kept my old truck running, escaped the ditches and oncoming cars that awaited me on every side of the slick streets, and kept the fireplace at home stoked and radiating. And the crisis passed.

Now, one week later, it’s 70 degrees in Memphis and the forecast says it will continue for several days.

Eat your heart out, Indiana.