Whilst I was on pass in Gulfport with the family I got to catch up a little bit on the news. Certainly our economy faces many serious challenges but I have little faith in the Republicans and even much less faith in the Democrats to remedy these problems. The latter have been saying the same thing for the past 100 years and it has gotten very tiresome. They claim the big guy is out to screw the little guy every which way he can and big government needs to protect the little guy - only problem is, they've never fulfilled that promise.

Instead they continue to hurt the little guy while claiming it is really the big guy they are after. They don't teach basic government and economics in school any more, they may have classes called that, but they aren't teaching anything. I have many commercially available lesson plans for high school teachers and they are awful, but some lazy teacher will use them anyway. I digress, one lesson of economics is your not going to pay for something if you don't have too, namely costs. Big companies and small companies pass along the costs of taxes to the little guy every time, I was a small business guy and I did the same thing. So in a very real sense big guy doesn't pay for much at all, little guy does. Since their are tens of millions of little guys, the burden is distributed very widely and it is not so tiresome, but there are only thousands of big guys in comparison and this is why this can be done. I know, over simplification but I'm not writing a dissertation here.

Take Peyton Manning and Bill Gates for just a minute. Both are gazillionaires but both arrived after huge amounts of hard work. Peyton will leave almost no mark on society or culture. There are many gazillionaire athletes, and he won't certainly be the last and he is more than amply awarded for entertaining us with his aerial artistry on the grid-iron. He is a hero to many, or villain to opposing fans, but still he ranks high in public opinion. Bill Gates, however, does not. Not that he seen as a villain by most in society, he is not esteemed as much as Peyton. Yet, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs, and other brainiacs with mega-loads of brain talent have changed our culture and society in ways that social engineers on the Left can only dream of. But we begrudge their salaries, while we use the iPods, and Blackberries, and PC's to make life easier for ourselves. We believe the lie that he is out to stick us, the little guy, for more greedy profits.

Obama and his ilk want to limit big bonuses for big executive guys, bad idea. Very bad idea, because big executive guy is smart, because he has large amounts of money; he has much more options available to him than little guy does. He will take his extensive talents and go play somewhere else. Somewhere, someone (likely another big executive group of guys) will pay him well for his services. This would cause a brain-drain in our country, just like we've run off manufacturing to foreign countries because of taxes so we will run off the big guy executive and what will we have left then? Big executive guy takes his money, and his talent, and goes somewhere else to play. Then little guy has no job, and only taxes or he becomes a ward of the state. Maybe that is the real goal of our present government.

As much as I talk about disliking Camp Shelby I don't want folks to get the impression that all of deep Mississippi is bad. Hattiesburg has grown up since I was there in 2004 during our last mobilization. There are much more amenities and restaurant choices. Gulfport looked like a war-zone after Katrina. It was as messed up and dirty as anything I saw in Iraq. Today, the scars can still be seen but I would argue it has made a full recovery and is growing very nicely. 

This stands in contrast to New Orleans. Certainly, New Orleans has come a long way but much more needs to be done. There are still deep scars left on the landscape. There are still many damaged buildings and and a sense of abandonment. In Biloxi and Gulfport there are almost no wrecked building left, there are many vacant lots where commerce once stood but there are many more new constructions being erected. The roads and traffic flow is much better, they seemed to have taken disaster and made improvements to there community.

The most amazing thing we saw in Mississippi was Beauvoir. This the last home of Confederate States President Jefferson Davis. It was walloped, devastated, crushed, beaten hard by Katrina (finding the right adjective is difficult). The home has many of the damaged housewares and artifacts on display beside the pictures of a nearly destroyed house. They visitor's center is a trailer and much of the place is ad hoc, new construction work covers much of the grounds.

Anyway, the house stands on sixty brick pillars, Katrina took half of them, but restoration workers were able to replace them. FEMA has poured money into preserving the place. The old visitors center was pancaked along with the chapel. Only the original three residences were left standing, barely. The FEMA money was able to hire the best specialists in the world to fully restore the home. It looks marvelous, probably the best it has looked since it was built in the 1850s. They are now restoring the grounds, and erecting a new visitors center. I recommend if your ever in the area, you must visit Beauvoir.

We also visited the WWII Museum in New Orleans. Very nice, not as nice as the one at Camp Shelby, but still well worth the admission price. Across the street stands Memorial Hall. It is a forlorn looking building surrounded on three sides by the Southern Art Museum. I was amazed when I went inside. There in its hallowed walls is one of the largest collections of Confederate memorabilia, displayed in the original cases when the hall opened over one hundred years ago. It's not as sexy as the WWII Museum, it is quiet, small, and a living time machine. The WWII museum takes up an entire city block in size, has three theaters, vehicles, planes, and visceral displays, but does not even have half the artifacts that the 3500 square foot Memorial Hall has. I sincerely hope, as much love and attention the WWII Museum has received that Memorial Hall gets to profit from its gigantic neighbor across the street.

Lastly, a special thanks to Michael DelGiorno and the wonders of Facebook and the internet. His restaurant recommendations were excellent. I'm a little lighter in the wallet and a little broader in the waist, but our vacation was much richer.

Standing here on the eve of another deployment has caused me to reflect on this event and America in general. I remember on my first deployment back in 2005 wherever you drove, there were yellow ribbon magnets on at least four out of five vehicles; today you might say the ratio is about one in ten. I think one of the reasons there was so much support was the element of danger to America was still fresh, and not to carry water for George W. Bush, he at least spoke in a determined tone that rallied the public behind the military. Also, the stain of how shabbily the Left treated our military during Viet Nam was a shame that Americans did not want to repeat.

I don’t think it is a coincidence either that you don’t here any more news out of Iraq. You’d think we’d be trumpeting our successes but curiously the media is silent, and I think most Americans have bought into that faulty line of thinking that it was the wrong war. When I was attending a school at Ft Sill, Oklahoma I met soldiers from around the country and was somewhat surprised at the reaction of two soldiers from California. They almost gushed about how well they were treated in public by the citizens of Lawton, OK. They were pleased when folks shook their hands and told them ‘Thank you, for your service.’ They did not experience that gratitude in California. Now I know California is a big state and it may depend on where your stationed, so this may not be representative of the mood of the entire state. It only says that some parts of California are cool and maybe even hostile to the folks in the military.

However, it made me proud to be from Tennessee. I cannot go anywhere in public, in my uniform, and not have some one express their gratitude. Even greater, is the support the citizens of Dickson showed for their returning soldiers and the support Cookeville has shown for their departing soldiers. The citizens of Cookeville cooked us breakfast and dinners, adults and children serenaded us with songs of patriotism and love, they gave us free haircuts but most importantly they just expressed a heartfelt gratitude for the service and sacrifice their fellow Tennesseans are making to help keep America safe.

What I take away from all this is this: in spite of all the troubles our country faces, I know that as long as we can gather together to sing God Bless America, pray in open Christian unity, and rally around our troops, America is going to be all right.

Often times I listen to NPR (know thine enemy...). I can’t help notice that most of the bumper music they play is usually some form of free style jazz, soft rock or worse. In contrast, most conservatives play metal and hard rock. I can’t help wonder why, but I’ll give it my best shot. Heavy metal music is larger than life, and for the most part has a can do, ‘I’m gonna kick your arse’ attitude, and I think attitude is the key word here. The attitude is not an ‘I’m gonna lay down and take this’, instead it is ‘I’m gonna get up and fight.’ This is capitalism at its best. Metal bands get little or no airtime, work hard, play harder and have mastered the free market and capitalism. Their fans reward these efforts with unswerving loyalty when they work hard and drop them when their faking it. I’ll elucidate on this more later. 

The NFL, commissioner Roger Goodell specifically, owes Rush Limbaugh an apology. If they are afraid Rush will make the league look bad, I think they needn’t worry. They do a good enough job without Rush. Need I say Bud Adams? We shouldn’t be too hard on Mr. Adams, after all he did loose his wife of 61 years this year and that is to applauded in our divorce happy society, but it exposes the assinine owners and their hypocrisy, at least it exposes those who objected to Rush’s attempt to be a co-owner of the St. Louis Rams. Goodell should have welcomed Rush with open arms but instead caved to political correctness.

The NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL is a millionaires club. Some bemoan this fact, that we are paying folks, who like actors/actresses, don’t manufacture anything but still earn a seven figure or higher income. They argue that we should pay teachers that much instead and because we don’t, our priorities are misplaced. Did anyone stop to think about the sacrifice and hard work these talented people made to get that kind of income, and then were rewarded for those efforts? 

This is not to say that teachers don’t sacrifice or work hard. This is not so much an indictment that we care more about athletes than educators. Actors, actresses and athletes are just reaping the rewards for a true capitalist system, a true free market. A system that rewards hard work, talent and sacrifice on merit. Teachers are not allowed to participate in the free market, instead we have tenure. They are held back from maximizing hard work and talent which retards their income. Can you imagine a running back whose skills have dropped off being kept on a team because of tenure?

I think this disparity says great things about our society. The free market works, and where else can a person from a low income background go on to earn millions with their talent and results based on merit? Teachers should be given the same opportunity. Reward those who sacrifice, work hard, and give students their best. Let them shop these skills around on the free market to get the most money. This would be difficult in the public school system but what is holding back the private schools? The true indictment is government involvement. Wherever the government is involved, pay is low, and results are lower. Good enough for government the saying goes.

Comedians and Hollywood movies in general have had made many a joke about British dentition. Has it ever occurred to anyone that the reason British teeth appear so dilapidated is that they have government healthcare? This may not be the case at all, but I don’t want to find out.

Much has been said about the poor quality of refereeing in both college and professional football these days. The referees are under much more scrutiny with instant replay, a technology that wasn’t available when the sport began but now often dictates the pace and outcome of games. One thing that is still true, and should be remembered, you need to play better than your opponent AND the referees. Just make more plays than the other team and no amount of poor refereeing can change the outcome of the game without completely throwing the game.

Football has fewer problems than basketball. In an interview, Will Perdue the seven foot center of the Chicago Bulls in the 90‘s stated that often he was called for fouls that Michael Jordan had committed. Apparently this is common in the NBA, the stars get passes and the supporting cast get the fall. This is harder to do in the other major sports, but in the NFL it would seem that great wide receivers get the same benefit. Just play hard enough to beat the refs.

The American media seems to behave in a manner that the refs in professional sports do, they give their favorites a pass and scrutinize those who oppose their favorites. Sarah Palin is just one example. Another are the authors of the book Superfreakonomics. In their 2005 book Freakonomics they stated that the Roe v. Wade decision had reduced crime because so many potential criminals had been aborted. They were the darling of the media and no one on the Left questioned this questionable claim. However, in their latest book they dare to question global warming and are called irresponsible and naive. 

Could our economy be worse than the government is letting on? With Obama going around the world bowing to foreign leaders, could it be that the borrow is servant to the lender? Could it be that we can no longer meet as equals and shake hands and now we have to scrape and bow? If Congress keeps spending more than it takes from the American people who will foreclose on them? Will it be the people of the United States or China?