{"id":508,"date":"2008-05-16T18:48:38","date_gmt":"2008-05-16T22:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=508"},"modified":"2008-05-18T21:54:47","modified_gmt":"2008-05-19T01:54:47","slug":"home-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=508","title":{"rendered":"Home Again…"},"content":{"rendered":"

photo-2-small.JPG<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cHome is where you can say anything you please,
\nbecause nobody pays any attention to you anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

—Joe Moore
\n_________________________________________<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m back home after my eventful, memorable trip. And back in the old routine. Things at home were as I left them. An overflowing desk at work. Building schedules completely messed up by the rain. My yard needed mowing. And the intransigent tenant remains ensconced upstairs, obstinately refusing to move until the last possible day. Which should be late this month sometime. About which I\u2019ll have plenty to say, all in due time.<\/p>\n

The wet, cold rainy spring continues. It\u2019s awful cold for late May. During my trip through the Midwest a few weeks ago, I drove past thousands upon thousands of acres of soggy, unplanted farmland. I heard murmurings of how the farmers are worried they may not get to plant at all. Corn prices will skyrocket. Especially if we keep burning it for fuel.<\/p>\n

I left Cabool, MO early on Saturday morning, May 3, and started the long trek back to good old PA. Out of the five day trip, I spent a good part of four days on the road, driving hard. It was OK. But I was glad to be home.<\/p>\n

A brief correction from last week\u2019s post. I am very embarrassed. My rental car was not a Ford Focus, but a Ford Fusion. The next step up from the Focus. This fact was pointed out to me by alert reader Rosa Miller, my nephew Ira Lee\u2019s girlfriend. She was also at the wedding. And happens to own a Fusion.<\/p>\n

I guess the Fusion is a lot more sporty and substantially more powerful than the Focus, which is essentially just a little tin can on wheels. I probably wouldn\u2019t even have fit in a Focus.<\/p>\n

The Kentucky Derby was run the Saturday I left MO. I had been afraid that I\u2019d miss it, what with traveling and all, but around 5:30 I stopped at a Holiday Inn an hour west of Columbus, OH. I checked in and found the Derby channel. Then I went to the lounge to eat some dinner and watch the race. <\/p>\n

I watch three horse races each year. The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. The Big Three. Other than that, I pretty much wouldn\u2019t care if horses didn\u2019t exist. Or horse races.<\/p>\n

The big screen TV on the lounge wall clamored with all the talking heads extolling Big Brown to win. I knew little about this year\u2019s crop of horses, but felt that Big Brown was as good a pick as any. I liked his name. Kind of like Big Blue, my truck. I noticed that Hillary Clinton had picked the only filly in the lineup to win.<\/p>\n

At about 6:20 the gate was loaded. And they were off. Big Brown lurked on the far outside for about three quarters of the distance. Then he turned it on and passed everything in front of him. Won easily. <\/p>\n

The poor filly, a beautiful horse, ran her heart out and came in second. At the very end, she stumbled. I saw a flash on the screen as she lay flat on the ground. She\u2019d broken both front ankles. She was dispatched on the spot, a huge loss for her owner. And just a tragedy overall. <\/p>\n

I thought to myself that her unfortunate end did not bode well for Hillary, the politician. <\/p>\n

The Preakness, the second of the Big Three races, is scheduled for this Saturday after-noon. I\u2019ll be watching keenly to see if Big Blue, oops, I mean Big Brown, can take the second leg on his way to the Triple Crown. I\u2019m betting he will.<\/p>\n

There must have been a virulent cold bug floating around at the wedding, because after arriving home I came down with a savage head cold. I rarely catch a cold at all, what with taking Superfood every day, but this one really got to me. In the head. Clogged sinuses. I could hardly breathe. <\/p>\n

Around the second day, still stuffed up, I remembered that Dr. Schultze, the inventor of Superfood, has always claimed his Echinacea drops kill a cold. I happened to have a bottle in my desk at work and began taking it that morning, mixed with water. So help me, by that evening, my cold was all but gone. I could feel it burning away inside me. Unbelievable. I still had a few sniffles, but kept taking the Echinacea for a few days until the cold was completely knocked out. The stuff works. (See link to site on my Links page.)<\/p>\n

The local newspapers have been atwitter lately with the story of a local ex-Amishman, Levi Stoltzfoos, who was charged and put on trial for money laundering. Seems like he deposited over half a million dollars in ten banks. All in amounts under $10,000, and all in cash. The government claimed he was laundering drug money and that he accumu-lated the cash through other illicit means.<\/p>\n

The prosecution publicized all kinds of accusations to turn public opinion against Levi. He was a sordid sneaky man of low repute.<\/p>\n

But strangely, at the trial, all charges were dropped except the ones associated only with the cash deposits. Strictly on those alone, he was convicted by a jury and will serve jail time. For fifty-eight felonies.<\/p>\n

Turns out he got the cash from selling a house. Legitimately. Slightly paranoid by nature, he didn\u2019t want anyone to know he had it. Because he was afraid it would be taken from him. That\u2019s why he deposited it in small amounts in various banks. <\/p>\n

Now he doesn\u2019t have any of it. The government confiscated every penny. And brought charges. An idiotic jury convicted him. For the crime of depositing his own money in cash in various banks. Deprived of his money and now destitute, he faces up to one thousand years in prison.<\/p>\n

Now that, folks, is tyranny. <\/p>\n

Pure, simple, raw and savage. And staggeringly, breathtakingly unjust. It happened in this \u201cfree\u201d country. It happened in this \u201cconservative\u201d county. The case should never have been pursued, but it was. The stain of shame for this cruel injustice will never be wiped away.<\/p>\n

The law is necessary for a just and peaceable society. When enforced by a just gov-ernment. But when wielded as a club by unscrupulous prosecuting hooligans, the law works exactly the opposite. It destroys lives and innocent people. Indiscriminately. As Levi Stoltzfoos is learning. As the rest of us watch in disbelief and fear and horror.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know Levi Stoltzfoos. He may not be the brightest bulb in the house. He is unquestionably paranoid. For good reason, it seems. But that is neither here nor there. And should have no bearing on the matter. He has a right to privacy, to conduct his affairs as he sees fit. The right to be left alone.<\/p>\n

He is now representing himself, suing the state of PA for $10 billion dollars. I hope he gets a few millions, at least. But his chances for that are exactly zero.<\/p>\n

A recent \u201cNew York Review of Books\u201d had an interesting article about the history of plague and its role in human affairs in the distant past. A pandemic swept through the Roman empire, beginning around 541 AD, decimating the West for two centuries. Beginning in the 1400s, bubonic plague wiped out great swathes of the population in Europe. Again, over several centuries.<\/p>\n

Modern historians encounter great difficulty interpreting what actually happened during those pandemics, even to the point of being unable to identify the specific type of plague. So little evidence remains. Even bones interred in the earth from those times provide few hard clues. The passing of years and decades and centuries simply wipes away the details of what occurred so long ago. <\/p>\n

As I reflected on the article, I thought, how true. We know little or nothing of our own ancestors even two generations ago. No one remembers, few details are passed on. The living are busy living, going about their daily lives, and seeing to their own affairs. And rightly so. The sands of time will cover them too, in due time.<\/p>\n

And yet, modern scientists confidently proclaim that the earth is billions of years old. They firmly date dinosaur bones right down to the nearest millennium. And speak authoritatively of this age and that age, when these dinosaurs phased in and those phased out. Seems a bit strange that they can pinpoint so precisely what happened millions of years ago, but know so little about the plagues that decimated human populations in relatively recent recorded history.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just me. What do I know? The two issues are likely not even related or com-parable. I\u2019m only a layman, and not trained in these things. I\u2019m just saying, is all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHome is where you can say anything you please, because nobody pays any attention to you anyway.\u201d —Joe Moore _________________________________________ Well, I\u2019m back home after my eventful, memorable trip. And back in the old routine. Things at home were as I left them. An overflowing desk at work. Building schedules completely messed up by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}