WaaWhoo! It's Good Being OLD!

I received my annual "bill" for renewal of my Harris County (home burglar) Alarm permit yesterday and noticed a box to check for EXEMPTIONS if 65 or over. So I called 'em up for clarification and GUESS WHAT?! I don't have to pay the ten bucks 'cause I'm OLD! Life is good.

'Course I'm sure some other government agency will STILL suck that ten bucks out of my pocketbook, but that's THEN and this is NOW.... let me enjoy the thrill!

Schedule My Ass!

I know about schedules. When the clock says IT'S TIME, then it IS time. To go. To quit. To leave. To change programming before the end of the current program!

The latter would be what happened this a.m., right at 1:30 CST on the Oxygen Channel via my DirecTV. Hacked me royally. Here I'd sat for HOURS watching You've Got Mail and they cut the friggin' thing off before the meeting in the park! I was astounded and then I looked at my clock and saw that it was 1:30 a.m. and evidently time for Snapped to begin.

It occurs to me that if the Oxygen Channel didn't spend so much time on their lame ass, kept repeating commercials they might actually have time to complete a scheduled program! But, hey, that's just me.

Although how many times do I have to grit my teeth and hear "bitches" said concerning their I'd-rather-eat-glass-than-watch Bad Girls Club? I noticed on their website, which I will not link to, they never use "bitch" or "bitches" once in their advertising. Only on TV where Lord knows the kids aren't supposed to be up at that ungodly hour, but us old gals that HAVE to have our romance fix from time to time are insulted with the use of the word. Isn't the Oxygen Channel supposed to be one of those "women's" channels? Why on God's green Earth would a woman's channel use the term "bitches"? Isn't that still an insulting term? Did RapCrap make it stylish and now it's some kind of compliment?

Now, granted, I'm getting old and cranky, but GET REAL...is one ever too old for good taste?

(Along about now this joke pops in my head: something about stewing something old with basil, garlic and a bay leaf until it tastes good. I can't help it, that's the way my mind works!)


The truly bizarre part is that I own a perfectly good DVD entitled You've Got Mail, but I didn't feel like slamming it into my PS3 to finish the flick. I KNOW how it ends, I just wanted to SEE it...kind of like a nightcap but without the booze. I could of just watched the DVD from the beginning if I wanted to see it, but, again, I just didn't feel like going to the trouble when the TV set is just sitting there gazing at me saying "come on, you know you wanna watch me".

Tell you what, the Oxygen Channel can kiss my old, cranky bottom if they think I'm going to sit around trusting them to finish what they start!

Is America Next? Join the NRA today!

It will happen here if we don't stop it!

Join the NRA today!

My President Is Black

Or maybe he's not *my* President afterall....

Yeah Be The Realest Shit I Never Wrote
I Aint Write This Shit By The Way Nigga
Some Real Shit Right Here Nigga
This Will Be The Realest Shit You Ever Quote

{{Hook}}

My President Is Black, My Lambo’s Blue
And I Be God Damn If My Rims Aint Too
My Momma Aint At Home & Daddy Still In Jail
Tryna Make A Plate Anybody Seen The Scale

My President Is Black, My Lambo’s Blue
And I Be God Damn If My Rims Aint Too
My Money’s Light green And My jordans Light Grey
And They Love To See White Now How Much You Tryna Pay
Lets Go!

{Verse 1}

Today Was A Good Day Hope I Have Me A Great Nite
I Dunno Wat U Fishin For Hope U Catch You A Great White
Need I Say Great White Heavy As Killer Wales
I Cannot Believe This Who Knew It Came In Bails
Who Knew It Came Wit Jail Who Knew It Came With Prison
Jus Cuz You Got An Opinion Does That Make You A Politician
Bush Robbed All Of Us Would That Make Him A Criminal
& Den He Cheated In Florida Would Dat Make Him a Seminal
I Say And I Quote We Need A Miracle
And I Say A Miracle Cuz This Shit Is Histerical
By My Nephews And Nieces I Will Email Jesus
Tell Him Forward To Moses And CC: Allah
Mr Soul Survivor Does That Make Me A Konvict
Be All U Can Be Now Dont Dat Sound Like Some Dumb Shit
When You Dogged Of Crew Orders Black As My Nigga Boo
It’s Really A Desert Storm Thats Word To My Nigga Clue
Catch Me In Las Vegas, A.R. Arizona
Rep For Them Real Niggaz Im Winnin In California
Winnin In Tennessee Hands Down Atlanta
Landslide Alabama On My Way To Sevana

{{Hook}}

{Verse 2}

Woke Up This Morning Headache THIS BIG!
Pay All These Damn Bills Feed All These Damn Kids
Buy All These School Shoes Buy All These School Clothes
For Some Strange Reason My Son Addicted To Polos
Love Me Some Spinach Dip Im Addicted To Use This
And If The Numbers Is Right I Take A Trip Out To Houston
A Earthquake Out In China A Hurricane In New Orleans
Street Dreams Tour I Showed My Ass In New Orleans
Did It For Soulja Slim Brought Out B.G.
Its All Love From The Beginnin You Pimp C
You Know How The Pimp Be
That Nigga Go’n Speak His Mind
If He Could Speak Down From Heaven
He Tell Me Straight All My Crimes
Tell Him Im Doin Fine Obama For Mankind
We Ready For Damn Change So Ya’ll Let The Man Shine
Stuntin On Martin Luther Cuz Im Feelin Just Like A King
Guess Dis Is Wat He Meant Wen He Said Dat He Had A Dream

{{Hook}}

{Nas}

History, Black History
No President Ever Did Shit For Me
Had To Hit The Streets Try To Flip Some Keys
So A Nigga Wont Go Broke
Then They Put Us In Jail Now A Nigga Cant Go Vote
So I Spend Dough All These Hoes Is Trippin
She Aint A Politician Honeys A Polotician
My President Is Black Rolls Golden Charms
22 Inch Rims Like Hulk Hogans Arms
When Thousands Of People Is Riled Up To See You
That Can Arouse Ya Ego You Got Mouths To Feed So
Gotta Stay Tru To Who You Are And Where You Came From
Cuz At The Top Will Be The Same Place You Hang From
No Matter How Big You Can Ever Be
For Whatever Fee Or Publicity Never Lose Your Integrity
For Years Theres Been Surprise Horses In This Stable
Just Two Albums In I’m The Realest Nigga On This Label
Mr Black President Yeah Obama Fa Reel
They Gotta Put Ya Face On The $5000 Dollar Bill

{{Hook}}

{Outro}

So Im Sittin Here Right Now Man
Its June 3rd Haha 2:08 Am
Nigga I Wont Say Win, Lose Or Draw
Man We Congratulate You Already Homie
See I Motivate The Thugs Right
You Motivate Us Homie
Thats What It Is, This A Hands On Policy
Ya’ll Touchin Me Right
Yeah 1st Black President
Win, Lose Or Draw Nigga Haha
Matta Fact You Know What It Is Man
Shouts Out Jackie Robinson
Booker T Washington Homie
Oh Y’all Aint Think I Knew That Shit!
My President Is Black
I’m Important Too Though!

Jay-Z adapted the spiteful, race-obsessed lyrics to commemorate his man Barack Obama’s ascension to the throne. And they say we're racist.


GMAFB. (givemeafuckingbreak)

Confederate Memorial Day in Texas

One of life's little ironies is that today in Texas is Confederate Memorial Day .....

Confederate Memorial Day

and MLK day too.

Now anyone who's got a brain and lives in Texas or the deep South KNOWS that the Confederate flag is not a symbol of hate like far too many believe. And this day is not a celebration as much as a rememberance of the soldiers who died fighting for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War (1861-1865). It is a state holiday in some parts of the United States. That date varies from state to state, but it tickles my funny bone that today is also MLK day.




My own personal family irony is that we had kinfolk on both sides of the Civil War. My Great Grandfather Lucius Herbert Burdick's role in the Union army is detailed below:

Lucius Herbert Burdick served in the Civil War. He enrolled August 25, 1862, at Emporia, Kansas and was mustered into service at Fort Leavenworth, September 12, 1862, as a private, Company E, 11th. Kansas Volunteers. He was promoted to 2nd. Lieutenant at Benton Barracks, Missouri, Company H, 65th U. S. Colored Infantry, January 19, 1864. He transferred to Company B, November 4, 1864, then to Company F, same regiment, August 15, 1865, and became 1st. Lieutenant August 25, 1865, at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was mustered out of service January 8, 1867, at Baton Rogue as 1st. Lieutenant, Co. F, 65th. U. S. Colored Infantry.


SIXTY-FIFTH REGIMENT
The Sixty-Fifth Regiment was organized at Benton barracks, Missouri, from December 18, 1863, to January 16, 1864, as the 2nd regiment Missouri volunteers to serve three years. Its designation was changed to 65th regiment U. S. colored troops March 11, 1864. The 67th regiment U. S. colored troops was consolidated with it July 12, 1865. It was mustered out of service January 8, 1867. The Colonel was Alonzo J. Edgerton; Lieutenant Colonel, George Baldey, a. w. m.; Major, Francis Moore; Captains: Alexander D. Bailie, Jesse W. Palmer, John L. Frost, Thomas Montgomery, Judson W. Read, William N. Darnell, Albert F. Hunt, William P. Deming; First Lieutenants: Abnew Doane, Henry S. Wadsworth, William P. Wiley, Felix Sprochule, Oscar H. Violet, Lucius H. Burdick, Lysander S. Butler, Duran F. Kelley, William P. Aben, Charles B. Hutchins, James G. Vincent, Lewis Merriam; Second Lieutenants: none; Surgeon, John Fish; and Assistant Surgeon, David Stevens.

THE EXPERIMENT
The use of colored troops was an experiment to which the Administration had been driven partly by the demands of the abolitionists and partly by sheer desperation, the supply of white manpower having slackened. The implications of this experiment were faced by few people, and there probably would be time enough to worry about them after the war had been won. At the moment the great riddle was whether it was possible to turn colored men into good soldiers.

Most of the ex-slaves were illiterate, used to servile obedience, and living (presumably) in deep awe of Southern white men. They were husky enough, and yet they somehow lacked physical sturdiness and endurance, and they had been held at the bottom of the heap for so long that they seemed to be excessively long-suffering by nature. Somewhere, far back in dim tribal memories, there may have been traditions of war parties and fighting and desperate combat, but these had been overlaid by generation of slavery, and most colored folks saw themselves as pilgrims toiling up the endless slopes of heartbreak hill - - pilgrims whose survival depended on the patient, uncomplaining acceptance of evil rather than on a bold struggle to overthrow evil.

That was the sticking point. The average Northern white man of that era might refuse to associate with the Negro and hold himself to be immeasurably the Negro's superior - - the superiority, of course, grew out of the natural order of things, and need not actually be proved - - but there was a war on and the country needed soldiers, and if Federal corpses were the price of victory, it hardly paid to be finicky about the original color of the corpses' skins. The real trouble lay in the assumption that while it was all right to let the Negro get shot it was foolish to expect him to do any serious fighting first.

A young officer who left his place in a white regiment to become colonel of a colored regiment was frankly told by a staff officer that “we do not want any nigger soldiers in the Army of the Potomac,” and his general took him aside to say: “I am sorry that you are going to serve with Negroes. I think it is a disgrace to the army to make soldiers of them.” The general added that he felt this way because he was sure that colored soldiers just would not fight.

Most men felt the same way. In support of the belief it was pointed out that in many years of American bondage there had never been a really serious slave revolt. Even John Brown himself, carrying fire and sword below the Potomac, had been able to recruit no more than a dazed corporal's guard of colored followers. Surely this proved that even though slaves might not be happy with their lot they had no real combativeness in them?

FLAWS IN THE ARGUMENT
There might be flaws in the argument. It quite overlooked the fact that for many years the fabulous underground railroad had been relieving the explosive deterrent to slave revolt, for it took out of slavery precisely the daring, energetic, intelligent slaves who might have planned and let an uprising if they had been unable to escape. The argument also overlooked the fact that if American slaves rarely made any trouble the people who owned them were always mortally afraid that they would do so some day. The gloomy island of Haiti was not far enough away to let anyone forget that black men there had risen in one of the most bloody, desperate revolts in human history, winning their own freedom and practically annihilating the master race in the process. Oddly enough the general belief that colored men would not fight ran parallel with a conviction that they would fight with primitive viciousness if they ever got a chance.

Yet whatever prejudice might say, the hard fact now was that colored men were being enlisted as soldiers in large numbers and that there were times when it was impossible to avoid using them in combat. (The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War, pp. 418-419.)

To this move the soldiers made a good deal of objection - - at first. Then they began to change their minds. They did not like Negroes, for race prejudice of a malignity rarely seen today was very prevalent in the North at that time, and they did not want to associate with them on anything remotely like terms of equality, but they came to see that much might be said for Negro regiments. For one thing, a great many enlisted men in the Northern armies could win officers' commissions in these regiments, and a high private who saw a chance to become a lieutenant or a captain was likely to lose a great deal of his antagonism to the notion of Negro soldiers. More importantly than this was the dawning realization that the colored soldiers could stop a Rebel bullet just as well as a white soldier could, and when he did so, some white soldiers who would otherwise have died would go on living. . . And so by the middle of 1863 the North was raising numbers of Negro regiments, and the white soldiers who had been so bitter about the idea adjusted themselves rapidly.

It seemed logical, after a time, to raise guard detachments from among the Negroes themselves, outfitting them with castoff army uniforms. Then it appeared that the immense reserve might be put to more direct use, and at last the government authorized, and even encouraged, the organization of Negro regiments, to be officered by whites but to be regarded as troops of the line, available for combat duty if needed. (Bruce Catton's Civil War, pp. 592-598.)

OFFICERED BY WHITE MEN
All of the colored troops were officered by white men, and these white officers listened, fascinated, to the campfire singing, and when they wrote about it they tried to tell why it moved them so deeply.

From the beginning it was realized that the effectiveness of colored troops would depend largely on the way the regiments were officered, and what would now be called officer-candidate school was set up in Philadelphia. Non-commissioned officers and privates in the Army of the Potomac could apply for admission to this school, and if recommended by their own officers and approved by an examining board they would get thirty days of training and then would be commissioned to command colored soldiers. The rank and file seems to have been of two minds about this arrangement. Some felt that it was a good idea, that the standards were high and the training thorough - - one man said he knew colonels in white regiments who could not get an examining board recommendation for a second lieutenancy - - but others believed that the examinations and instructions “were not practical, but scholastic and theoretical,” and that most of the men who commissioned were not up to their jobs.

Certain it was that these strange new regiments needed good leadership. They were reluctant to take orders from non-coms of their own color -- it was common to hear the complaint, “I don't want him to play de white man over me” -- and a company commander had to be careful to treat his sergeants with formal military courtesy, always addressing them by their titles and in general following precise Regular Army routine. The colored enlisted man who had a complaint or a problem was quite likely to try to by-pass his company officers and go direct to his colonel; and one of the colonels meditated on the reason for this: “The Negroes have acquired such a constitutional distrust of white people that it is perhaps as much as they can do to trust more than one person at a time.” He added that in training and disciplining the men it was vital “to make them feel as remote as possible from the plantation,” and that the habit of obedience was worthless unless the officer managed to instill a stout feeling of self-respect along with it. An officer of polished manners could do better with colored troops than with white volunteers, who preferred a certain roughness of manner in their officers.

COLORED MADE EXCELLENT SOLDIERS
In camp, the colored men made excellent soldiers. They picked up the drill quickly, learning it more easily than white recruits did. Some of the ordinary problems of army discipline seemed to be non-existent. Desertion was utterly unknown, and there was very little drunkenness. The men especially enjoyed practice on the target range.

As a general thing the Negro soldiers seemed to hold very little personal animus against their former masters. A white officer discovered, rather to his surprise, that they had neither hatred nor affection for the men who used to own them. They never mentioned their masters except as natural enemies, yet it was the class they hated, not the individuals in the class. They saw slavery, said this man, as “a wrong which no special kindness could right.”

All told, the Federals put more than 150,000 Negroes into uniform. Many of these regiments were used only for garrison duty, and in many other cases the army saw to it that the colored regiments became little more than permanent fatigue details to relieve white soldiers of hard work, but some units saw actual combat service and in a number of instances acquitted themselves well.
---------------------
Other links of interest:

U. S. Colored Troops
Facts About U. S. Colored Troops


So all I can say is, whoever you honor today, I hope you go out and make this day a good one!

Date Nut Cake - My Christmas Tradition

One of the good things about having your own blog is that you can decide what goes into it. I like to use it as sort of a giant notepad sometimes.

This time I'm going to part with a closely guarded secret recipe for my momma's Date Nut Cake. She always made one or more at Christmas time and it's my favorite holiday cake. It brings back only good memories for me.

I learned how to make the cake like my momma used to by trial and error and this is the delicious result:

1 package dates, I like them already chopped
1 cup raisins, you probably don't have to add this if you don't like them, but then don't complain to me if the cake doesn't taste like mine!
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c Crisco (I'm Southern so it's GOT to be Crisco shortening)
2 c flour
2 eggs
1 c pecans (Again don't add them if you don't want to, but it's not going to be like mine!)
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon (For some reason you HAVE TO have this ingredient)

I think it's better to use a stand mixer, but if you don't have one, I guess you can beat the livin' poop out of it by hand.

First you put the dates and the raisins in a bowl and sprinkle the tsp of soda over them and then add 2 cups of boiling water. Let this mixture cool before continuing.

Preheat over to 350 degrees
Grease and flour a 13x9 pan or if you want it to be like my momma's, use a large Pyrex oblong

In a small bowl, mix together flour, salt and cinnamon
In a large bowl beat sugar and shortening until well blended, adding eggs one at a time. Start adding flour mixture by large spoonfuls and equal amounts of the date mixture until both are combined and mixed well. Add the nuts and blend in. I like to use coarsely chopped pecans, as one of the comfort part of this recipe is the way pecans taste when they are cooked! I reckon you could use walnuts too, but, again, being Southern it's pecans for me always.

Pour into the pan and bake until done. If you need a hint, it's approximately 45-50 minutes in the metal pan or 40-45 in the Pyrex. It's important that you cook it until it's really, really well done or it's kinda strange in the middle....not bad, just not normal. The one I made before Christmas was not done quite enough even though I'd poked a toothpick in the middle and it came out clean. I should of let it cook a few more minutes. You're the best judge of how long though because you know your own oven and such.

If you want to get fancy you could cool that puppy down and put some powdered sugar on it or do something with whipped cream, etc. Me, I like to cut it into nice size pieces and store it in an air tight container. After a day or so you'll most likely want to keep it in the refrigerator just in case as it's not loaded with preservatives like store bought stuff!

I've got one cooking in the oven even as I type and I'm so looking forward to enjoying it one more time before my Christmas kitchen is officially closed for the season!

This Is So Sexy! It Gets Me Where I Want To Be!

And I'm not just whistlin' Dixie!


I don't know who created it,


but they get my vote for


Man Of The Year!


Check this out!