plumbing in Memphis
I’ve added a page on my web site listing the books I read this past year. I got this idea from reading the Grub Street Plumber’s web site, although he doesn’t seem to have his lists on his site presently.
I like to read other people’s lists. An old greeting used to be “Read any good books lately?” You don’t hear that one much any more, which explains a lot of what’s on television.
Thirty five years ago tonight I was playing bass in a country band at a party being held at Sonny Look’s Steakhouse in the Sky in Houston. I don’t remember much about it, except that the leader of the band drank too much and was feeding a load of blarney to another band who had played in a party on the same floor that night. Our leader told these other guys that he liked their music and wanted to take them on tour with us through the southwest states: lots of gigs and money and contacts for future gigs and opportunities to record, etc. There wasn’t a word of truth in it, but the guy wasn’t actually lying. He was just so drunk, his mind was running just like someone who was asleep and having a dream. The other band, however, was clueless and swallowed the whole thing. Eventually, of course, they realized they’d been had when they never heard from our leader again.
I was fairly clueless myself back then. I was seventeen years old and making more money in one night than I’d make in a week as a pastor ten or fifteen years later. I had to check with our guitarist to make sure that what we were overhearing was, indeed, empty talk. I didn’t realize that drunks could be so eloquent.
It has occurred to me since then that everybody around me back then knew more about the ways of the world than I did. Whether it was selling a car, socializing in a beer joint, bribing someone, or noticing that someone was stoned on drugs, I never really knew what was going on. Analyzing it, I’d say that my peers knew more about doing wrong, but I knew more about doing right. I didn’t necessarily live up to what I knew, but I did know some things.
In the long run, I see that doing good is beneficial, but doing bad is destructive. There was probably some of that in mind when St. Paul wrote “I would have you to be wise concerning good and simple concerning evil.” Some people will die accidentally tonight because they tried to have a good time by doing something wrong. Me, I’ll watch a Red Skelton video with Wonder Wife and retire early.
CHRISTMAS FOR PLUMBERS
Tall in the truck seat we spend Christmas Day
Driving to houses with slow-running drains
Many good gifts will be opened today
Ours is a flush and some wide-open drains
Ordinary people are off work today
Hugging their children and fixing souffles
I’ll hug the toilets, I’ll fix the mains
It’s Christmas; I’m plumbing for wide-open drains
The drive-thru has my Christmas dinner tonight
Truck’s instrument panel is my Christmas tree lights
Jingle Bell Rock’s all my radio plays
It’s Christmas; I’m on call for wide-open drains
* * * * *
Tall in the truck seat I’ve spent Christmas Day
Driving my cables through slow-running drains
So many gifts have been given today
I gave my all for a wide-open drain
It’s Christmas for plumbers and wide-open drains
— Kevan C. Barley
I encounter this kind of thing regularly, but I guess that today I’m just in a bad mood–so I’ll blog it. I got an ad in the mail recently, offering a 10% discount at a store if I spent $50 or more. The big letters on the front of the ad announced “An exclusive offer just for you.” It was addressed to “Kevan P. Barley or Current Resident.”
Larry Craig maintains his innocence and now his kids are joining the chorus:
All three of Craig’s adopted children said Tuesday they believe their father’s assertions he is not gay and did nothing to warrant his arrest.
Jay Craig, 33, told The Associated Press that he, his brother, Michael Craig, 38, and his sister, Shae Howell, 36, spoke candidly with their father about the June 11 arrest.
“Our conclusion was there was no wrongdoing there,” Jay Craig said. “We understood the direction he was taking (by pleading guilty) and there was nothing illegal that happened there that would even convince somebody what he was doing was illegal. He was a victim of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time when this sting operation was going on.”
There are several facts that fly into the face of this defense.
Certainly he could beat the rap if it goes to court. Plenty of guilty people beat raps every day in our court system. The standard of proof there is much higher than in the world of common sense. But in the court of common sense, it is quite obvious to any informed observer that Craig was soliciting sex in a public washroom, and such behavior is rightly proscribed by law.
I just got back from Texas where I preached a funeral and visited with my sister for a few days. My brother-in law, Joel Butts, died two weeks ago. They only recently discovered that he had heart problems. After surgery and horrible complications, he’d finally made a complete recovery and was feeling fine, going to his construction job every day. Then he woke up one night with chest pain, collapsed in the driveway, and died quickly at the hospital. We don’t know what went wrong.
As 
you can see from the recent picture, he was a big ol’ guy and only fifty five years old. He was good to me. He was good to everybody. It hurts to see him go. I wish I knew more people like him.
I heard a story once about a man who came into a country store and asked “Where’s Earl?” and the worker behind the counter answered “Earl don’t work here no more.” So the man then asked “Well, who’s filling his vacancy?” and the answer came back “Earl didn’t leave no vacancy.”
Joel left a big ol’ vacancy. He had no enemies and his friends loved him dearly — but none so much as my sister. She’ll recover one day, but for now she’s overwhelmed by grief.
Bloggers are currently covering the Internet with writings about Senator Larry Craig (R-ID). The charges against him and his denials are well known, so I’ll skip all that and just proceed.
Back when I was just a little right-wing extremist, Larry Craig was one of my heroes. We’re talking 1983-86 here. I knew nothing about him personally. I only knew that he voted the way I wished all legislators would vote. To my knowledge, he has continued to vote that way.
But a public servant has a position of leadership and responsibility that goes beyond the way he votes. As a representative, he stands in the place of his constituents. That’s why we have ethics committees in the House and Senate. Soliciting sex in a washroom is not consistent with public office.
I never knew Craig as a moral example, nor did I know him to go around telling others how immoral they are. He voted in ways that are good for America, even if he lived in a way that wasn’t. He is a liar (for denying it), but I don’t see him as a hypocrite. Still, he needs to be out of office, along with a slew of others who are just like him or worse.
Ron Paul is the most consistent conservative running. He articulates his principles here. There are other good men in the race, such as Duncan Hunter, but none understands constitutionalism so well as Paul, nor does any have the will to be as consistent. And none is so slandered and misquoted.
Zimbabwe has become something of a weekly sitcom with Mugabe as the leading clown. According to Telegraph.co.uk, Mugabe’s government has printed so much worthless money, the inflation rate is 4,500%. This means, of course, that someone holding a loaf of bread on his store shelf has to charge forty-five times more than he used to in order to keep pace. But since a worker’s salary hasn’t yet been raised to forty-five times what it used to be, the rising prices are a hardship.
This governmental method of stealing (counterfeiting money) is as old as money itself. First Mugabe drove off or murdered the white farmers and put their land into the hands of nonwhite incompetents, then the resulting mismanagement caused widespread poverty which Mugabe addressed by printing up truckloads of money. Having inflated the economy with the counterfeit money, Mugabe has now blamed the storekeepers for the resultant rising prices and has mandated price controls.
Price controls always, without fail, produce shortages of goods and services, which in turn produces hoarding and black markets, which then evoke police repression and violence. Any ninth-grader can follow the logic in this economic chain of cause and effect.
But that doesn’t stop folks like Mugabe from waddling around and blaming it on shopkeepers who are working to foment civil unrest as part of a British plot to topple him.
So I wake up on my birthday and what do I see in the weather forecast? “Thunderstorms possible.” What a revolting development!
We’ve had a drought in Memphis this year. There was almost no rain in May, and not much to speak of before that. But the last couple of weeks in June saw it rain “right smart” now and then, so things are looking up. (“Right smart” is an expression I learned in the woods of northeast Mississippi.)
Who likes thunderstorms? Well, farmers do. You know, the guys who make it possible for us to eat and not starve to death.
Therefore, on the day when we customarily look back and ask “How did my life turn out this way and will it ever change?” I have to acknowledge that the forecast is, indeed, possible thunderstorms. They’re ugly, they’re sometimes dangerous, but they’re the only way to stay alive. So bring ’em on.
