More by Bein Stein: My Confession

A lot of truth in this

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary. Thougt I would pass this along. I have become a fan of Ben Stein. He speaks pretty plain. Tried to find a YouTube of this but could not find it!



My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards.

Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Cowboy Cooking - Bar E Ranch

Willy done ran into a friend that he would like ya'll to meet. it Is Tom Bob over at Cowboy Cooking. He is a great guy - has a great web site - and has some great products to look at.

Tom Bob is big into the Cowboy Way of Life. Check him out by clicking on the logo below!

10-4 Willy

Willy and the Clock - Can time go back?

Even Willy gets a little sentimental every now and then.

This morning as Willy was taking a small nap, after breakfast and before getting ready for work, the old clock on the mantle seemed to struggle dinging off the 6 o'clock hour. The six chimes were slow and somewhat unmethodical.

Willy's mind wandered back to only a few years ago when the clock set on another mantle, far away in the Texas Panhandle. Yes, at that time it was a weekly ritual of my father to wind the old clock. Yes, a ritual that was very important in the week. Dad thought it needed to always be done at a certain time, not just anytime. That time was when he thought it needed it and it was not subject to anyone elses thoughts.

Yes, he would slowly (age had crept in to the tired old body) move over to the clock take out the winding key and methodically give it a certain number of winds on the two keys - one kept the clock running and the other kept the clock chiming. This was not something that he liked to entrust to anyone else, but occassionally someone else would wind it. But not without his explecit instructions.

Well, the old clock is setting on a different mantle now and gets wound at least once a week. Sometimes it is early sometimes it is late. Sometimes Willy forgets and the chime becomes slow and dismal as it was this morning.

As Willy winds the clock this morning, thinking back to the other mantle where it once set - Willy wishes he could wind back the clock a few years and just take a few more instructions on clock winding.

Just my thought for the day!

10-4 Willy

Age Creeps up on You!

Willy is a little older now and a little slower. There are those that would say that Willy has always been a little slow. - Not sure if they mean that physically or mentally - just kidding.

Willy does realize that as another year creeps by that the body and the brain seem to slow down a little bit more. Wished I could get the job and life to slow down like the body and the brain do.

Well - life goes by whether we like it or not. The only thing that Willy can do is to try to make each day the best day of my life.

Is it time for bed yet! Oh! Sorry about asking that question - it is only about 1:00 in the afternoon on Sunday - just time for my nap.

Might blog some later if I have the energy!

Gene Autry - 100 Years

Today is a great occassion -the 100th Birthday of Public Cowboy #1 Gene Autry

He was not just a cowboy, and singing cowboy entertainer, but he was a model American. Owner of the Angels baseball team, and the only person to this day to have a star on the Hollywood walk of Fame in ALL 5 categories.

He is a man among men. He is a true hero,

Where are these type of heroes today? Thanks Gene! May your true story live on for generations!

Read more at Conservative Cowboy

Ben Stein's Last Column

Willy done found this column written by Ben Stein. Thought it was very appropriate along with a Political Statement cartoon today that said something like this"



"WE AS AMERICANS WITH HEAVY HEARTS, SADDENED BY THE STATE OF OUR NATION AND BY THE FACT THAT WE HAVE MANY YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN IN DANGERS WAY IN IRAQ, VERY SADLY DRAG OURSELVES OUT OF OUR EASY CHAIRS, FROM IN FRONT OF THE BALL GAME AND GO FOR ANOTHER DREADFUL ADVENTURE OF SHOPPING AT THE MALL!
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Ben Stein 's Last Column...


For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.

Ben Stein's Last Column...
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How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is "eonlineFINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end..

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It sti ll brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.


Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit , Iraq . He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad . He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad .

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York . I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.


Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein

THIS IS A BIG 10-4 ---Willy
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Weekend - 10-4

Willy says it is the weekend and is proud of it.

A local station plays this every Friday at 5:00 - George Jones - Its Finally Friday!

Just want to live it up - cause regardless what happens, Monday comes again and it starts allover.

Why cant we have more weekend and less week?

Hi-Ho-Hi-Ho - its off to work I go!

Willy done decided that if he has another day like today at the old office that he aint going no more. It was quiet but boring. Nothing happening. By 10:00 Willy was hungry and thinking it should be noon. Man the day was moving slow!

Then the afternoon came - and all of it broke loose. If they could call they did call. If there was a problem to be had they were calling me about it.

Why oh why didn't the Good Lord make me rich instead of so good looking?

Work is great work is fun?
I'd like away from it to run.

Why does it happen to me?
Everything goes bad you see.

Complaints and calls
from everyone.

Oh for the day to be done.

Well so much for the feeble attempt at rhyme or poetry. Willy keeps thinking that if he keeps trying that it might come to him as smooth as it does to that Panhandle Poet. Cause you know he is a smooth writing feller.

10-4 Willy

The Good Life - Retirement?

Willy just had the opportunity to walk over an 80 acre tract of land for sale. Mostly woods. Has a major creek running through it with the evidence of an old swimming hole. Deer abundant. Saw many turkey tracts. - Man Willy wishes he had this piece of ground.

Believe this is what Willy would want when he retires. Makes Willy want to retire.

But then I get in my email and find something like this talking about retirement:

I worked forty-five years for someone else, so that I could retire. I dreamed of sleeping late and sitting by the fire.

I dreamed of long vacations enjoying stage and song, but let me set you straight on that concept, it is simply wrong.

I did junk my safety glasses and the work boots that cramped my toes, but the rest of it had a mind of it's own and this is how it goes.
My wife had been thinking of retirement and had plans of her own. She had spent much time with the kids but now they are gone and grown.

We sold our cattle and horses so we wouldn't have that chore. I poured concrete over my alarm clock, but I still wake up at four.

I get my eyes checked on Monday. Ann gets hers checked the next day. I go for a colon check on Wednesday and pass my wife going the other way.

I have a dental appointment on Thursday. Ann goes for a test on her heart. Friday we go get prescriptions filled and browse a while at Wal-Mart.

Saturday we just stay home and try to get the paper work right. We can't take any overnight trips 'cause we can't see to drive at night.

Restroom confusion keeps us out of church on Sunday and we really do hate that. There's nothing wrong with the restrooms we just can't remember where they're at.

We don't need to plan next week. Just make sure we can drive and not forget where the hospitals and clinics are. We'll need them to survive.

Once a week we visit the cemetery and it seems more like home each time we go. I look around at the headstones and see everyone I know.

So, don't build your castles too high, my friend, while strolling through the clover. This is a typical week in retirement and on Monday we start all over !

Company Meetings

I go to company meetings. They take me away from home. Out of my bed. Away from my wife. They try to give me the opportunity to mingle with people in my organization that I don't know - most of them much younger - and with whom I have nothing in common.

I used to enjoy such things. But the older I grow, (closer to retirement age) they seem to be much more just a necessary evil. It would be different if the meetings were for real training or knowledge involvement. However, we golfed and socialized for about 5 hours. We met for about 5 hours and went over very basic information - designed for the very beginning younger people. None of the information was new or informing.

I really believe the meetings are more for management to get a feeling that they are trying to bring comradre to a company. I guess it is ok.

Just make it close to home so I can be in my bed at night.

I believe I had rather be fishing.

10-4 Willy

Chuck Wagon Races - Want to be Cowboys!

Talk about a true Cowboy and the cowboy way of life -- Check out the founder and story about the National Championship Chuckwagon Races in Clinton Arkansas. Founder Dan Eoff is an interesting guy.

Also check out the Race Site and song about Eoff on their official site.


The Great Wagon Race

Hillbilly Beach Bum

Wished I were still in Mexico being a Beach Bum. Stumbled on to this song. Kind of like this one.

Apreciation for Mexicans!

I was raised in the Panhandle of Texas in the 1950's - 1960's. Our farm was very much a cotton farm that in those days was labor intensive. This was much before the great cotton harvesters of today and the cotton harvesters of that day were initially Mexican labor - here legally- called braceros.

At the age of three or four years old an Old Mexican named Romaldo would allow me to sit on his cotton sack and he would pull me down the road. I was not a small child and this was not an easy fete. If you don't understand about this labor intensive job read this essay about "picking cotton"

Well, today I write, rant and rave about the illegal aliens in this country and how they are causing many problems with healthcare, jobs and many other aspects of American life. Many times when I discuss illegal aliens the Mexican population is mostly what I am discussing. The reason is that I have lived in Texas and now in Arkansas and the Spanish speaking people are very prevalent.

Well, in all of this I make a mistake as do many people of classifying all of these the same. The truth is that there are many Spanish speaking people in the United states that are just as legal to be here as I am. For this broad classification I apologize.

However, for all of those that are here illegally, I have no apologies. I simply say to them - get it right or get out. Illegal is illegal. If I steal, that is illegal and I pay the consequences. If you are here without the proper documentation or papers, that is illegal--pay the consequences.

Now to the other matter. I recently vacationed in Old Mexico. Because of American affluence we are sometimes able to have opportunities to go to things such as tourist resorts that are built in countries such as Mexico because of two things. Beautiful areas and cheap labor.

Well, as I observed Mexican men and women graciously waiting on me hand in foot for meager wages in a Mexico resort, it brought me to realize why they might possibly want to come to the United States. Where else could they have the opportunity to succeed and gain the wealth to be able to afford the type of luxury that they are giving to me.

The United States. They see this seemingly affluent life style and gain a desire to have a small part of it. They sacrifice even to the extent of being illegal to get what I appear to have.

As I proceeded out of the walls of the resort area on an excursion, I viewed the Mexican men and women at the end of the day, walking and bicycling across the road and into the Mayan woods to a small meager house with few amenities to spend the night so that they can gain some rest and come back and serve me another day.

This makes me have a greater appreciation for those here and there.

However, it does not change my mind about what is legal and what is illegal.

They need to get it right if they are going to stay.

Just a little seriousness on Willy's Part!

10-4 Willy

Answers to Some Comments

I am not sure how but every day or so I am ending up with some foreign language on my blog. I think I have it stopped.

Second - Ignore the dates on the vacation pictures. They were taken in the same week. The problem is that I had not used the camera for a while and did not realize that the date had gone back to default.

I wish I had taken a five year vacation, but no such thing.
10-4 Willy

Vacation Was Great - Back to Work!

Ok- Vacation was a great time but it is back to
the real world. Tomorrow is back to work and
soon back to blogging.

VACATIONS ARE GREAT

EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE ONE!

Spring Cleaning - In the Summer

Willy Before the Cleaning Started!

Willy done let the little wife talk him into the fact that the old house needed a little touch up, paint up, cleanup, mopup.... woa now.. Willy started to backup on that and the little wife done said to shutup and gave me a paint brush.

Well after two weeks of going to the paying job and coming home every night and working until Willy can't work no more, the job is done. Well, it aint done but it is all Willy and the wife are going to do. Boy is Willy tired.

Willy when the cleaning was done!

And for any of you that dont live in Arkansas in the summer time, you may not understand the outside part of the job. The weather is 95 degrees and about 90% humidity. It takes Willy's breath away just to step outside. And Willy had to work out in this.

Think I'll get back on the couch and see if the remote still works.

10-4 Willy

Flying Things

Willy done thought he was seeing an old M.A.S.H. episode the other day as he was driving down the road in the edge of the Ozarks. Cause you see Willy looks up in the air as he hears a helicopter fly over. What suprises Willy is that there is about a 100 ft rope hanging below the helicopter and it is carrying an orange bag through the air.

That is where it reminded Willy of the episode of MASH where they trade Colonel Potter's desk for something and the only way they can get it out is to pick it up with the Helicopter and fly it out. The last Colonel Potter sees of his Mahogany desk is as it flys off into the sunset hanging from the helicopter.

Well this site really intrigues Willy and he goes back to the Possum Grit Roadkill Cafe and Cantina and asks Juanita if she knew what was going on. You see Juanita is smart and she knows everything! Just ask her!

Well, the story is that this area is very strong in natural gas exploration, called the Fayetteville Shale Gas area and this has lead to a great deal of seismograph work. The helicopters belong to Global Geophysical and in the rough terrain they haul out cable to be hooked to a central reader. They drop these cable bags out and "cheap labor", probably with no green cards, trek out into the area and unfold these into a grid across a full section. These are all hooked up and holes are drilled to allow for small blasts to go off and be read by the seismograph.

After the reading are complete, the "cheap labor" rolls the cables back into their bags and they are again picked up by the helicopter.

An interesting site - for Hillbilly Willy!

Fallen Firefighters - Charleston

Great Tribute to Fallen Firefighters

Brought to us by Southern Sass on Crime

Simple Pleasures!

Driving down the road is a new experience now. I recently acquired a used vehicle with satellite radio. This is a luxury item that that I would not buy myself except that it was already there. My first inclination was that this was something that I would use seldom. However, since I am a “talk radio” junkie, I thought I would find some news program to listen to.

In scanning the “too many” channels I stumbled on to a classic radio station. Old radio dramas along with shows like Bob Hope, Red Skelton and others are the mainstay of the channel. Just after discovery of the channel, an old western came on with the clip clop of the horse as it moved across the prairie. It proceeded to tell a gunfighter’s story. Found it very interesting.

I now find that I look forward to the jokes of Red Skelton, the Hi – Oh – Silver and the distinct voice of Joe Friday.

It is amazing how the simple things of days gone by can now seem so entertaining.

Life is good!

10-4 Willy