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July 17, 2011 Rants

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1. Did you read about the woman who pointed a pistol at her adult son and told him to get out? A reader very astutely pointed out, “As a precaution, a few firearms were taken from her home" .....what about the kitchen and hunting knives, or the pitch fork in the garage and other household objects that can be used as weapons?” --- Yes. Down here in Midcoast Maine when there isn’t a clam fork close by, we have read of people being bitten. It is my understanding that when you get down Machias way this is not an option.

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2. I just got an email that says, “Find Asian singles meant for you.” Is this ad meant to capitalize on a young person’s insatiable desires? Although there might be a few Rasputins out there, most any mature person would be amply satisfied with the company of one pleasant companion for the evening. But notice that the ad specifies the eyebrow-raising more-than-one --- “singles.” You would need to know French to come up with suitable words to describe this complicated kind of --- household-of-three --- social arrangement, just as it takes an Italian word like imbroglio to adequately describe unimaginable disasters. My only reason for mentioning this ad for Asian singles is a question I have about the simple logistics of supply and demand. Think about this. How many people are there in Asia, anyway? If it is four billion, that is 60 percent of the planet’s population. So wouldn’t you think that with two billion people of the opposite sex to choose from --- without going to the expense or bother of travel --- something must be fishy when Asian entrepreneurs are offering us a package deal on their home grown singles?

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3. We read that they are putting security into the State House in Augusta. I was surprised the other day when I couldn't get into the Knox County court house without being scanned. You know as well as I do that there is money to be made when security people are employed to run special machines in doorways. More money will be made when even more security people are employed to check your papers on the street. A threat can be created by constantly reminding people that there are evil people out there who want to get them. --- Many of the threat mongers have nationally syndicated shows. You can be sure that all laws of this nature are Laws to Remedy the Distress of People and Country. The security at the State House is just one more manifestation of the direction in which this country is rapidly moving. They easily met their earlier goal of getting crazies to shoot people --- which generated an environment in which this kind of paranoia and need for more security would be tolerated. Their next goal will be to "educate" people that they may survive in our Brave New World.

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4. Does anything worry you? Or are you one of those lucky carefree people who are not bothered by anything? I worry. Nothing bothers me more than to be sitting inside, writing at my computer, knowing that my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, is outside painting windows in the heat.

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5. We understand that because elderly people cannot drive as well as younger people, they are involved in more accidents than people who are in their 40s. We understand that because they are prone to texting, young people cannot even drive as well as a tottering, retired welder who burned out his eyes. Thank goodness there will be no gasoline left on the planet in 50 years. Would you want to venture out onto the highway in 2060 when every senile old fool behind the wheel would be looking at the keys on his cell phone?

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6. We read in the paper that "he and two other men lifted the vehicle off one man who was trapped underneath it" An inordinate number of people wrote in to offer prayers. Roll overs are seldom pleasant. Over 50 years ago, back before the days of seatbelts, I lost two friends who went partially out the side window and were snuffed when the car rolled over on them. The vehicle mentioned in this article must have been a convertible, because anyone wearing a seatbelt who stays inside can walk away from flipping end for end --- even after being struck broadside by a fire engine. I've done it. It’s nice to know you are remembered and missed by your friends, but given a choice, wouldn’t you rather buckle up your seatbelt than have people pray for your family?

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7. We read that many restrictions on freedom still exist in China. Criticism of political leadership is repressed and censorship is common. Would most any patriotic American think that was terrible? Because --- what freedom-loving person could live in a country where you couldn’t tell the truth without worrying about retribution? Here in Maine you could even read a definition of fascism on the radio and nobody would bat an eye. You know, there are many people who have heard of fascism who have no idea of what it looks like or how to smell it when it moves into town. Let me prove to you that we have freedom of speech here in Maine. Here’s a definition of fascism I copied out of the Encyclopedia Britannica in August of 2006 in an effort to educate myself and my radio friends. It is in the Encyclopedia Britannica so if you want to follow up to refresh your memory, break out the book and read it for yourself. I now quote myself from August of 2006: While reading in my Encyclopedia Britannica about Salvatore Quasimodo, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959, I also learned that Fascism is a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combines elements of corporatism, extreme nationalism, anti-liberalism, militarism and authoritarianism. Unfortunately, Fascism is much like streptococcus bacilli: most of us don’t even know it when we see it and even specialists in the field might quibble over a comprehensive definition. Because I have recently not only been forced to take off my shoes before boarding a plane but have been patted down to strip me of my toothpaste and bag balm --- arguably meaningless symbolic gestures implemented to acclimate a population to mindless obedience --- I read further, hoping to learn to identify Fascism and thereby determine if it could be gaining a foothold in this land of the free and the home of the brave. This is what I read. Around 1921 an Italian Prime Minister named Giolitti permitted the usual government influence on elections by corruption. This gave Mussolini and his fledgling fascists a slight edge and they immediately attacked Giolitti for his support of the League of Nations (a world government organization) and for his belief in the methods of parliamentary democracy. Gradually building up a nationwide party organization containing extreme undesirables, the Fascists nearly always had more money than their opponents and moved with greater ruthlessness, although, at every step, Mussolini claimed to be the defender of law and order. The industrialists were naturally in sympathy with a movement that stood for lower wages and fat, padded contracts. Although the economy had improved it was to their advantage to create the impression that without Fascism, economic breakdown was right around the corner, caused by Socialist incompetence. The uneducated were naturally receptive to Fascist propaganda and disorderly elements on every level of society welcomed the violence and its attendant opportunity to plunder. Even then, it was not the strength of the Fascists that assured their success but the disorganization and silence of their opponents in the intellectual community. Owners of small Italian businesses discovered only much later that handing over power to people who claimed to be protecting their country with murder and openly proclaimed their contempt of parliamentary institutions would cost them and their country dear. For years there was no overt establishment of dictatorship. Only gradually were old ways and old institutions changed and nothing was done abruptly that might alarm people or make them realize that a revolution had taken place. The wealthy were courted by cutting their taxes. For permission to become rich and corrupt the gerarchi supported their leader’s irresponsible decisions. The inefficiency and graft of his department heads were accepted as inevitable. When an Italian was killed by bandits in the Balkans, Mussolini and other indignant, patriotic profit-seeking Italians had their long-hoped-for excuse to go to war. To his credit, until they strung him up by the heels, Mussolini’s self confidence never waned and he continued to have a pathetic trust in his own powers of intuition, even after plunging his country into that disastrous war for which he was obviously so unprepared. As you know, the Encyclopedia Britannica is a fat volume, there is much more in there about the rise of Fascism in Italy, but a continuation and refining of my studies would be no more than an unproductive, academic exercise. Because --- if you listened closely to what I just said, you can see that my premise was shaky: Nothing that I have said could suggest a parallel between the rise of Fascism in Italy in the 1920s and what is happening in our country today. You may sleep well tonight. It simply couldn’t happen here. Written August 25, 2006 and recycled for your edification.

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8. We recently saw a documentary about a Canadian biking through Holland. She saw cheese, tulips and a small wind turbine that we were told will generate power for 700 homes. Back in the real world, we read about many of our Maine neighbors who are wringing their hands over the prospect of seeing electricity generated by the wind. --- Even though there are hundreds of communities in the world that have been destroyed by oil pollution or radiation that would gladly change places with our good neighbors who rend their garments over the prospect of a few dead birds or a visual “blight” on the landscape. Could we avoid this by calling wind turbines national landmarks? Is a wind turbine really any uglier than the Eiffel Tower or the Washington Monument or the faces carved into the granite of Mount Rushmore or the quaint 400-year-old windmill you photographed in Holland? Blights on the landscape, all. Although the corporate oil’s PR machine continues to wear a yellow smiley face, the wells will run dry and the exorbitant rates you’ve been paying for gasoline will finance corporate oil’s inevitable move into their control of the solar, wind and geo-thermal energy markets. Unless you have your own solar hot water heater and solar panels to generate your own electricity, there will soon come a day when you’ll be paying the middle man exorbitant rates for passing along to you the wind and solar energy that he captures for free. So if you want a real excuse to wring your hands, hang in there.

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9. Just in case you’re listening to this program on the Internet someone in Iowa, I’ll mention that Matinicus is a small island about 15 miles from my home in St. George, Maine. A woman who gives her address as Matinicus recently wrote a very witty article on how the Matinicus school board recruits teachers. Google The Free Press and you’ll find it. As you know, my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, taught grade school for 25 or so years. I told her that I’d just read an article on how Matinicus gets teachers, and she said, “They bind and gag them?”

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10. Would you like to hear my secret for keeping weight off a dog? It's called a neighbor's back yard. My neighbor has a small dog who visits my old granite doorstep here in my back yard every morning, eyes bulging right out of their sockets, and every time he cheerfully trots back home with a big doggy smile on his face there is no question in my mind but what he is two pounds lighter.

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11. Someone reminded us the other day that "Most of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia." When those folks from Saudi Arabia rammed a plane into a building in New York, Bush bombed Iraq. For quite a few years the people in Ecuador were thanking their lucky stars that the hijackers weren’t from Peru. +

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