Tea Party Ahead of Obama

Posted on 12/05/2011 by Grumpa Joe

During his recent speech in El Paso, President Obama thought he was being funny when he stated the Republicans want him to “build a moat along the Mexico-USA border, and, they want to put alligators in it.”

Maybe the President reads chain e-mails because I received this suggestion many times from my Tea Party friends for two years. What he fails to realize is that building a moat would bring the economy back by putting millions of people to work. It would be a joint venture with Mexico and the U.S.A. Think about the number of Mexicans that would stay home to work on the moat. The economy of the world would improve. How?  I suggest the moat be expanded into a canal connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. What a bonanza to shipping that would become. Oil being shipped to the Gulf refineries and to the Eastern U.S. would save hundreds of miles and save thousands of gallons of diesel fuel, thus reducing the carbon footprint and guaranteeing the end of man-made global warming.

This supposedly intelligent man fails to see the wisdom of this idea. It is a win-win situation. Implementing this plan would guarantee his second term. He can then steer his excess campaign funds to a Swiss bank for later retrieval. During his retirement he can use the Swiss account to buy Saudi Arabia and rule the Mideast as the true muslim he is.

By the way, this is my second serious proposal for solving the illegal immigration problem. I posted a piece titled Shovel Ready in October of 2010. Follow the link.
Obama will get a bill for a trillion dollars for my consulting services. I will put the money into a trust for all the grandkids he stole it from.

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I Hate My Nu-Wave

Posted on 11/05/2011 by Grumpa Joe

It wasn’t long ago when I posted a short piece titled “I Love My Nu-Wave” about how great my Nu-Wave infrared cooker is. Oh how I gave it lauds. It is a great cooker, but on Easter Sunday, I learned its limit. We invited the family for dinner. Grandma Peggy and I decided to put a ham on the table. I decided to use the Nu-Wave. I have never cooked a ham this way before, but the cooker works so good on everything else I’ve tried why not use it on the ham?

The cooking chart instructed to give it fifteen minutes per pound. The ham we bought was ten pounds. That translates into one hundred and fifty minutes, or two and a half hours. Not bad for a chunk of meat that large. We asked our guests to arrive in time for a four o’clock dinner. I made a note to start the ham at one o’clock.

Everything was going on schedule and as planned. Then it happened. What? I’ve left out the part about this being a spiral  cut ham.  I placed the ham into the cooker with the bone horizontal. The traditional way. I placed the cooking dome over the ham and set the timer.

An hour later the aroma of fresh-baked ham filled the house. I love the smell of freshly baked ham. Something told me to check things out. I stopped the machine and lifted the dome. There was the ham with the spiral slices fanned out like a blooming onion. The outer one inch of the edges were dark red, no, they were black. When the ham fanned, the individual slices exposed themselves to the heater and cooked rapidly. Thank God, a section in the center was still pink, and edible.

I checked the internal temperature.  It was ready after one hour, and the guests don’t arrive for another hour and a half. I tore off a piece of the dark red outer edge and popped it into my mouth. Yep, it was crunchy, but still tasty. Grandma Peggy got on the phone and called our guests and explained. She asked them to come earlier if they could. Since the guests were all of our children, they did us the favor.

Instead of serving at four, we served at three. I explained my error in cooking and presented the ham on a platter. I suggested that they eat the pink parts only. To my surprise several of the kids loved the crunchy outer pork chips. The company politely said nothing and ate the burnt offering. Actually, many feasted on the sides.

After the party ended, it occurred to me that I should have stood the ham on end.  Oh well, next time.

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My Latest Prediction. Want to Bet?

Posted on 11/05/2011 by Grumpa Joe

A year ago I posted the above  cartoon about the Gulf oil spill. I predicted that BP would solve the problem sooner than the government would do anything to stop the spill of money they borrow. Well, I’m here to tell you, the government hasn’t stopped the borrowing, and the oil leak is fixed. When I drew the cartoon the debt was 13 trillion dollars, now it is 14 trillion. They can spend money faster than I can draw cartoons.

My latest prediction is that the 172 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf will break down into its natural organic components before the government balances its budget, eliminates the deficit, and begins to live within its means.

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In Pursuit of Reason

Posted on 08/05/2011 by Grumpa Joe

The signature of Thomas Jefferson, 3rd Preside...

Image via Wikipedia

During a recent vacation trip, Grandma Peggy and I visited Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. The visit is on my list of things to do and see sometimes called a “bucket list.”

We enjoyed every moment of our time there. I love touring mansions, and this house is definitely a mansion. Jefferson spent a lot of his energy and time designing and building Monticello. His ideas for the layout are definitely unique. The level of detail within the rooms is amazing. Jefferson loved science and incorporated many slick little features to make his dream house work for him. For example, the twin doors separating the living area from the main entry hall  has a unique feature. One has only to open a single door, and the matching unit swings open automatically. The right hand door is independently actuated by the one on the left. The mechanism is completely hidden from view. The door opens as if by magic. As we walked up the stairs to the entry, I noticed a dial on the ceiling rotating to and fro. The letters N,S,E,W encircled the dial. Above the porch, on the roof  a weather vane danced with the wind. The dial on the porch ceiling danced in unison. All the man had to do is to look out at his porch ceiling to find which direction the wind came from. Useful? Perhaps, but certainly novel.

During the tour of the house, A peculiar device jumped out at me. We were in his office. There, placed on his writing desk sat a pantograph. The guide explained that Jefferson wrote many letters and made a copy of everything he wrote. The pantograph was his copy machine. SInce he saved copies of his writings, Historians have a trove of material to research.

While in the museum bookstore, search the racks for a biography. Another item on my bucket list is to read the biographies of the presidents. I had started with Jefferson years ago, but the book wasn’t readable. It was one of few I never completed. There were many biographies on the rack. Choosing the right one seemed impossible. Grandma Peggy pulled one down, looked at the price and said, “how about this one?” I took it from her without examining the jacket. The book titled “The pursuit of Reason, The Life of Thomas Jefferson,” by Noble E. Cunningham, Jr. turned into one of my best historical reads.

Cunningham’s style and my reading taste coincided completely. I found reading easy and entertaining. The one negative is that the print is small. Even though the book is three-hundred and fifty pages it took me as long to read as a five-hundred page novel. One of the biggest impressions Cunningham left on me was the parallel between Jefferson’s problems, during his two terms in office as President, with those of current affairs. He served as the third president. Only Washington and Adams served before him, yet one of his major concerns was the effort by the Federalist party to disregard the Constitution. In fact, Jefferson himself had problems adhering rigidly to the Constitution. During his negotiations to buy Louisiana from France, he realized the need for an amendment.  At the same time, he knew an amendment would need two or more years to realize. He feared losing the deal, and took it upon himself  to use the executive power of the office to buy the land extending to the Mississippi.

Jefferson wrestled the slavery issue from the time he authored the Declaration throughout his political career, but in his personal life he owned slaves and did not emancipate them. His daughter inherited the slaves upon his death. He spoke of emancipation often, but always pushed the problem to a younger generation. In other words, he kicked the can down the road. Where have we heard that before?

I am glad I read this book. My respect for Thomas Jefferson increased by one-hundred fold. He is a bigger man than I imagined.

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Tradition, Ah the Aroma to Die For

Posted on 07/05/2011 by Grumpa Joe

This year the urge to bake bread for Easter became overwhelming.  The aroma of fresh bread permeated my brain and olfactory senses. I dreamed of  big loaves of white bread. Childhood memories of slicing a huge slab from a fresh loaf and smearing it with thick gobs of yellow butter played in my mind. I had to do it. At one time I baked bread often. Many times the dough was flat. The number of times I killed yeast escapes me, but killing yeast became my trademark. Either the water was too hot, or not warm enough. Sometimes the water was just right, but the bowl too cold. A lot of dead dough went into the trash.

This year, my determination to make the yeast perfect  dominated the process. The persistence paid off, the dough rose to the occasion. Here is how I did it:

1. Place two tablespoons of tepid water in a clean soup bowl.

2. Mix in tow packets of dry yeast and stir

3. Place the bowl in the microwave and heat it for ten seconds. This heat the bowl as well as the mixture. Set is aside

4. Place a greased mixing bowl into the micro and heat it for thirty seconds. We don’t want to chill the yeast when we pour it into the bowl.

5. Continue with the remainder of the recipe.

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