My dear friend and award winning columnist and author Bret Burquest is at it again.

See why the Chinese are so Happy about their New Year….f

CHINESE NEW YEAR 2011

The Chinese invented many things, including paper, metallurgy, the compass, fortune cookies, Kung Fu and dynamite. They also invented astrology. In fact, the Chinese Lunar New Year is the longest chronological record in history.

According to Chinese astrology, 2011 is the Year of the Metal Rabbit.

Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the zodiac in 2600 BC. As with other supreme rulers of his era, he had a lot of time on his hands and was eager to impress his subjects with his superior knowledge.

The first day of the Chinese New Year is celebrated at the second new moon after the winter solstice which can fall anywhere between late January and the middle of February, depending on cyclical lunar conditions.

The Chinese lunar year is divided into 12 months of 29 or 30 days. Each 12-year cycle is then positioned within a major cycle of 60 years (five 12-month cycles) representing the characteristics of each upcoming year.

Chinese astrology is basically composed of two cycles – 12 annual animal cycles and 5 two-year element cycles. The 12 annual animals are Dog, Boar, Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey and Rooster. The five element cycles, each lasting two years, are fire, earth, metal, water and wood.

In 2011, the Chinese New Year starts on February 3. The Year of the Metal Tiger will end and the Year of the Metal Rabbit will be ushered in. Celebrations will last for 15 days, until the full moon arrives and the Lantern Festival takes place.

The Rabbit is a symbol of sensitivity, compassion and creativity. Rabbit-born people thrive on business dealings. For them, the Year 2011 will yield much professional success and personal happiness.

A person born this year will be born in the Year of the Metal Rabbit. Rabbit-born people are charismatic, thoughtful, calm, gentle, sympathetic, fashionable, persistent and extremely shrewd in business dealings.

Other Rabbit-born people were born in 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987 and 1999. Included in this group are Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Angeline Jolie, Frank Sinatra and Albert Einstein

I was born during the Year of the Wood Monkey. According to the Chinese astrology, I am certain to be very intelligent, well liked by everyone and highly successful in whatever field of endeavor I choose.

Obviously, Chinese astrology isn’t an exact science.

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Quote for the Day – "When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead… and the White Knight is talking backwards and the Red Queen's 'off with her head'… remember what the dormouse said… feed your head… feed your head." (WHITE RABBIT lyrics by Grace Slick)

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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where falling down a rabbit hole is as easy as falling off a log. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111

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In the fourth century, the Romans and Persians celebrated the birthday of their sun god, Mithras, during the last week of December. The sun "dies" at the winter solstice, its lowest position in the sky in the northern hemisphere. Three days later, on December 25, the celebration of the "birth" of the sun takes place.

The Catholic Church felt this celebration by a rival pagan religion threatened the existence of Christianity so they decided to conduct a festival of their own during the last week of December which would force a competition with the pagan festivities.

Even though the Catholic Church believed the actual birth of Jesus Christ was in the spring, they chose December 25 as the official birthday and thereby began a tradition of holding Christ's Mass during a time frame where it would interrupt the pagan celebrations.

Over time, "Christ's Mass" eventually became "Christmas" and December 25 became known thereafter as the day Jesus Christ was born.

A man named Nicholas was born in Turkey in 280 AD. He was very pious from an early age and devoted his life to Christianity. He eventually became a Christian priest and later became a bishop.

Nicholas had a reputation as a kindly, wise soul who was generous toward the poor. He was a rich young man who didn’t like to be seen giving gifts. He traveled the country helping people, always at night after the children were asleep.

The most famous story about Nicholas is when he learned of a poor man who had no money to give to his three daughters on their wedding day. Nicholas dropped bags of gold into the stockings the girls had left to dry by the fire. Ever since, children have hung stocking by the fireplace in hopes that old St. Nick would drop by and fill the stockings with goodies.

Turkey was part of the Roman Empire at the time. In 303 AD, the Roman Emperor, named Diocletian, demanded that all of his subjects worship him as god.

Nicholas would not allow his conscience to betray his religious convictions so he refused to worship the Emperor, landing him in prison. Conditions were harsh, including torture, but the 23-year-old Nicholas held to his beliefs.

In 313 AD, when Constantine became the new Emperor of the Roman Empire, he released Nicholas and other Christians from prison. Nicholas returned to his post as Bishop of Myra, where he continued his good deeds.

Constantine later became a Christian and convened the Council on Nicaea in 325 AD. He appointed Nicholas as a delegate to the Council, the purpose of which was to create statements of beliefs and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy, thereby contriving a unity of beliefs for ecumenical (worldwide) Christendom.

Nicholas died on December 6, 343 AD.

In 394 AD, Roman Emperor, Flavius Theodosius, banned all pagan rites. This decree ended the practice of worshipping the sun god, Mithras.

In 800 AD, Nicholas was officially recognized as a saint by the Eastern Catholic Church. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, the patron saint of children, the patron saint of Sicily, Greece, Russia and other countries.

In the 1200s, France began to celebrate December 6 as Bishop Nicholas Day.

By the end of the 1400s, St. Nicholas was the third most beloved religious figure, after Jesus and Mary. There were more than 2,000 chapels and monasteries named after him.

Holland kept the legend of St. Nicholas alive in the 1500s, as Dutch children would place wooden shoes near the fireplace to be filled with treats. The Dutch spelled St. Nicholas as Sint Nikolaas. The name later became corrupted to Sinterklaas. Eventually, the English version of the name became Santa Claus.

And that's how all of the Christmas nonsense evolved.

St Nicholas was a man of strong convictions, having spent many years in prison merely for holding to his religious beliefs. Such courageous moral fortitude, whether or not one agrees with such beliefs, is a divine example of an individual soul remaining steadfast in a world of petty tyrants who demand the right to enforce their version of heaven on Earth.

Ironically, the pagan worship of the sun god included such notions as Mithras being born of a virgin in a cave on December 25. His birth was attended by shepherds. He was considered to be a master and a teacher. He traveled with 12 companions, performed miracles and promised immortality to those who believed in him. Upon his death, he was buried in a tomb and rose again after three days on March 25 (Easter).

The religion of Mithraism preceded Christianity by approximately 600 years.

Religion is a curious thing.

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Quote for the Day – "Bah, humbug." Ebenezer Scrooge

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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where Wiccans frolic on the Winter Solstice. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111

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 Most modern religions are the result of claimed channeled material, which are thoughts believed to be outside a person's conscious mind, conveyed by a person who speaks for non-physical beings or spirits.

In the year 610 AD, the prophet Muhammad received a divine message from Allah to start a new religion. It would be called Islam.

A Muslim is an adherent to Islam. Sharia Law is the sacred law of Islam. Muslims believe Sharia is God's law. Sharia is derived from the divine revelations set forth in the Quran and by sayings of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad

Over the next 22 years, Muhammed spoke for the non-physical being called Allah and the Muslim empire overtook the Arabian Peninsula. After Muhammed's death, the Muslim empire continued to expand into Africa and Europe over the centuries.

The Taliban is an Islamic political movement in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere that believes in strict enforcement of Sharia Law. For example, women are forced to wear the burga in public, not allowed to be educated, not allowed to work and not allowed to be treated by male doctors, unless accompanied by a male chaperon. Women face public flogging or execution for violation of Taliban laws.

On April 13, 2009, two young lovers, ages 21 and 19, attempting to elope were shot to death by a firing squad during a public execution outside a mosque in southern Afghanistan. They had fled their village, planning to start a new life together. The Taliban put the young couple on trial for crimes against Islam and executed them shortly thereafter.

"It was a very bad thing for these people to escape from their homes without permission and it is right that they should be punished according to Sharia law," explained Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, spokesman for the Taliban.

On August 6, 2010, 10 members of a humanitarian medical team traveling in Badakhshan Province in northern Afghanistan were brutally murdered by the Taliban. The team included 6 Americans, 2 Afghans, a German and a Briton. Three of them were women.

Among the bullet-riddled bodies was team leader Tom Little, an optometrist from New York, who had been living in Afghanistan for 30 years, supervising a network of eye clinics around the country, funded by private donations, and providing humanitarian medical services to Afghans in remote villages.

They were killed because they "were spying for the Americans and preaching Christianity," according to Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban.

Welcome to Afghanistan — a disorganized, corrupt country of scattered, self-righteous rednecks with AK-47s.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is another Mecca of self-righteous fanatics. The Supreme Leader of Iran is Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamanenei. An Ayatollah is the same rank in the religion of Islam as a Bishop or Cardinal in Christianity. He is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, controls intelligence and security operations, and has the sole power to declare war or peace.

The President is the highest state authority. Presidential candidates must be approved by the Council of Guardians in order to ensure allegiance to the ideals of the Islam. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the current President of Iran.

In July of 2009, three American hikers from the University of California in Berkeley, all in their 20s, strayed into Iranian territory while on a hiking adventure in the mountains in the northern Kurdish region along the Iraq and Iran border. As of August 2010, they are still being held in jail, suspected by the Iranian Islamic government of being spies. After over a year of imprisonment, no charges have yet been filed and no trial date has been set.

Also in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a 43-year-old mother of two named Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is in jail, awaiting to be stoned to death for having an "illicit" relationship. She has already received 99 lashes for the crime of "adultery while being married." In addition, 12 other women await execution by stoning.

Of course, Islamic extremism isn't the only example of vile acts perpetrated upon humanity by a religion. Too often, organized religion is simply organized bigotry, sanctioned by an omnipotent non-physical spirit being.

The Roman Catholic Church, another religious organization that was created primarily based upon claimed channeled material of a non-physical being, went through an extended period called The Inquisition. This heinous practice spanned many centuries, including the Medieval Inquisition (1184-1230), the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), the Portuguese Inquisition (1536-1821) and the Roman Inquisition (1542-1860). Thousands and thousands of those found guilty of disobeying church edicts, called heretics, were systematically imprisoned, tortured or burned at the stake.

In ancient Mesoamerican civilizations (Aztec, Toltec, etc.), human sacrifice was part of their religious culture. By sacrificing the life of a human being to one of their non-physical spirit beings, it allowed life to continue. The more important the request of the non-physical spirit being, the more thorough or plentiful the human sacrifice.

It is astonishing how far some people will go to please or "obey" their non-physical spirit masters. I know a couple who believe that if you are not a member of their specific denomination of their specific religion, you will for certain spend the remainder of eternity in hell. But if you are one of their narrow flock, you will spend eternity in a heavenly place.

Unfortunately, too many people worship the messenger and disregard the message. Perhaps instead of swearing obedience to non-physical spirit beings, it would be wiser to simply treat others as you wish to be treated — with respect, kindness, tolerance, forgiveness and love.

While burning heretics at the stake and sacrificing virgins have disappeared from the scene, certain Islamic extremists continue to pursue their personal religious obligation to kill any human being who does not follow the commandments of their non-physical spirit being.

Over the years, many Muslims gradually adapted to Western ways, but others yearned for the rigid laws of the Quran. Hassan Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1920s, predecessor to modern day Hamas and Al Qaeda, which reverted back to the strict teachings of Muhammad. The radicals felt Allah was angry with Muslims for straying from their true religious path. They perceived the Western influence to be a prison of the true believers, a punishment by Allah for betraying their religion.

The Muslim Brotherhood soon formed armed cells that attacked the "secular" government and its supporters. Today, this organization has hundreds of branches in over 70 countries worldwide. In the 1950s and 1960s, Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood invoked Jihad, a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty. Their goal is to create a worldwide Islamic paradise, eliminating every "non-believer" as their means to an end.

However, slaughtering people in order to create a paradise is like humping for virginity.

Today, innocent people are in a life or death struggle not of their choosing. Islamic extremists are attempting to exterminate anyone who does not adhere to their perverted interpretation of ancient channeled material.

But sometimes, solutions create problems. Afghanistan is primarily a "backward" rural country. The people tend to be united against outsiders and divided among themselves. It is not a wise place to conduct a military incursion. Stirring up a nest of vipers invariably leads to an increase in the veracity of the vipers.

There can be no positive outcome to the conflict in Afghanistan. The only winners will be the military-industrial complex and their New World Order financial backers who seek a one-world government controlled by a one-world police force. Everyone else on this planet is fodder for their ambitions and pawns in their game.

On the positive side, the Galactic Federation has quarantined Planet Earth from the rest of the universe. They already have enough problems with those nasty Reptilians and Grays. They don't want to deal with trigger-happy, non-physical-spirit-being-fearing earthlings too.

Beam me up, Scottie — too much insanity on this spinning orb.

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Quote for the Day – "The very purpose of this movement is to set human beings free from the yoke of human enslavement and make them serve the One and Only God." Sayyid Quth (Muslim Brotherhood)

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Bret Burquest is a former award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and occasionally chats with non-physical beings or elm trees. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111

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DARWIN AWARDS

In 1993, a student at Stanford University named Wendy Northcutt began collecting unusual stories about the foolish actions of her fellow human beings and sent them to her friends. Thus the annual Darwin Awards, given to individuals who "remove themselves from the gene pool in the most spectacular manner," came into being.

To be honored with the Darwin Award one must behave in an extraordinarily idiotic manner. Death is not required. The honoree must merely be removed from the gene pool (unable to procreate). 

Past honorees include a man in North Carolina who jumped out of an airplane without a parachute to film skydivers, a man in Croatia who juggled live hand grenades and a person who used a cigarette lighter to examine a fuel tank to see if it contained any flammable vapors. 

The 1996 Darwin Award winner, Garry Hoy, 39, was a lawyer demonstrating the safety of the windows of the Dominion Bank Tower in Toronto. Explaining the window strength to visiting law students, he took a run at the window and crashed through a pane with his shoulder, landing in the courtyard 24 floors below.

A man named Phil in New Zealand was a Darwin Award finalist in 2003. He needed to make repairs under his car but when he jacked it up there wasn't enough room to work so he removed the car's battery and mounted the jack on top of it. The battery collapsed trapping Phil underneath, rendering him unable to breathe. As often happens with Darwin Awards, there was plenty of irony involved. Phil was the Accident Prevention Officer at a large factory. Several years earlier he had been working under a car when the jack collapsed, breaking his leg.

Another 2003 finalist was a man from Kansas whose car broke down on Interstate 35. He stepped away from the busy freeway to call for help on his cell phone. Unfortunately, he was now standing on railroad tracks. The railroad engineer later explained that the man was holding the cell phone to one ear and had his other hand cupping his other ear to block the noise of the oncoming train. The train was not damaged in the collision.

At approximately 3:00 a.m. one winter night/morning, David Hubal, 22, and some of his buddies hiked up a ski run called Stump Alley on Mammoth Mountain in northern California. On the way up the slope, they removed some foam pads from one of the lift towers. Using the pads to slide down the ski slope, Hubel crashed into one of the ski towers and died. Naturally and ironically, it was the very tower where the foam pads had been removed.

My favorite Darwin Award winners are (the late) John Pernicky and (the late) Sal Hawkins from the state of Washington. After consuming 18 beers, they decided to attend a Metallica concert. Since they had no tickets, they figured they could sneak into the show and backed their truck up to the nine-foot fence. Pernicky weighed 100 pounds more than Hawkins so he went first, failing to notice the 30-foot drop on the other side.

Pernicky heaved himself over the fence, crashed into a tree, breaking his arm, and was abruptly halted when his shorts became snagged by a large branch. Dangling from the tree with a broken arm, he spotted a clump of bushes below. Using his pocket knife, he cut away his shorts to free himself and promptly landed in the prickly holly bushes where he became thoroughly scratched by sharp leaves and impaled by holly branches. Plus his pocket knife had somehow penetrated three inches into his thigh.

Hawkins, seeing his buddy in distress, quickly tied a rope to the back of the pickup truck and tossed the line down to Pernicky. But in his drunken haste, Hawkins threw the truck into reverse, crashed through the fence and landed squarely on his buddy, putting him out of his misery. Hawkins was thrown 100 feet from the truck and died of massive internal injuries. When the police removed the truck from atop Pernicky, they discovered a half naked body with multiple contusions, a knife in his thigh and his shorts dangling from a tree branch 25 feet in the air.

When it comes to idiotic behavior, it only takes a couple of stooges and 18 beers to get the ball rolling.

The 2009 Darwin winner was an amateur rocket scientist in Arizona who attached a JATO unit (a solid rocket engine) to his 1967 Chevy Impala and went out into the desert on a long, straight stretch of road for a demonstration. The JATO reached its maximum thrust in 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to immediately attain a speed in excess of 350 miles per hour and continued at full throttle for another 20-25 seconds, reaching a speed of 420 mph. The car remained on the road for about 2.5 miles. The driver melted the brakes, blowing the tires, then went airborne for an additional 1.4 miles whereupon it smashed into the face of a cliff at a height of 125 feet. A fingernail and bone shards were removed from a chunk of debris believed to be the steering wheel.

Some Darwin winners expire in acts of stupidity, others go out in a blaze of glory.

I once owned a 1967 Chevy Camaro — canary yellow with a black vinyl roof. I never got it up beyond 120 MPH though. But then again, my mama didn’t raise any rocket scientists.

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Quote for the Day — “A child of five would understand this — send someone to fetch a child of five.” Groucho Marx

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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where idiots roam free. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111

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When you're young you know everything. As you become middle-aged you tend to question everything. And when you get old you realize everything is so bizarre and ridiculous that it makes no sense at all.

 t seems like every year, about this time, I have another birthday. If my new age doesn’t end in a zero, I try not to dwell on it too much. The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune.

 I usually spend much of the day listening to music, taking a retrospective trip down memory lane. Nostalgia isn't what is used to be, except on birthdays. It’s interesting how certain songs will trigger memories of specific segments of my life.

"We skipped the light fandango and turned cartwheels cross the floor

I was feeling kind of seasick, the crowd called out for more

The room was humming harder and the ceiling flew away

When we called out for another drink, the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later, as the miller told his tale

That her face at first so ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale"

(A WHITER SHADE OF PALE by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid)

Music is the language of the angels. When the right song hits you, you feel no pain. It brings splendor to loneliness and the heartbreak of love.

"If I were a carpenter and you were a lady

Would you marry me anyway, would you have my baby

If a tinker were my trade, would you still find me

Carrying the pots I'd made, following behind me

Save my love through loneliness, save my love for sorrow

I've given you my only-ness, come give me your tomorrow" 

(IF I WERE A CARPENTER by Tim Hardin)

I was born at precisely the right time to suit my musical taste buds. When I became a teen-ager, a new musical style called rock-and-roll had just been invented, thrusting the whole country into a generation-gap frenzy. Teen-agers loved the beat, but everyone over thirty basically thought the world was about to come to an end. While many of my classmates in the late 50s and early 60s swooned over Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson, the Everly Brothers and Elvis, I tended to like the heavy hitters like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley.

"I walk 47 miles of barbed wire

I use a cobra snake for a necktie

I got a brand new house on the roadside

Made from rattlesnake hide

I got a brand new chimney made on top

Made out of a human skull

Now come on take a little walk with me, Arlene

And tell me, who do you love?"

(WHO DO YOU LOVE by Bo Diddley)

As years went by, my music taste expanded into the blues, including John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed and many of the old-timers.

"Got me working, boss man, working 'round the clock

I want me a drink of water but you won't let me stop

Big boss man, can't you hear me when I call

Well, you ain't so big, you just tall, that's all"

(BIG BOSS MAN by Jimmy Reed)

When I was in college, I discovered folk music. Bob Dylan, Tom Rush, David Bromberg, Paul Simon — profound hidden messages in the lyrics.

"Get born, keep warm, short pants, romance, learn to dance

Get dressed, get blessed, try to be a success

Please her, please him, buy gifts, don't steal, don't lift

Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift"

(SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES by Bob Dylan)

Years passed and I became a working stiff in my 30s, into the Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, Credence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, George Thorogood, Taj Mahal, Canned Heat and Joy of Cooking.

"I'm going where the water tastes like wine

We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time"

(GOING UP THE COUNTRY by Canned Heat)

I moved into the Hollywood Hills for a couple of years. Two of my closest neighbors were aspiring actor Harrison Ford and singer-songwriter Danny O'Keefe.

"Everybody's gone away

Said they're movin' to L.A.

There's not a soul I know around

Everybody's leaving town

Some caught a freight, some caught a plane

Find the sunshine, leave the rain

They said this town will waste their time

Guess they're right – it's wasting mine

Some gotta win, some gotta lose

Good Time Charlie's got the blues"

(GOOD TIME CHARLIE'S GOT THE BLUES by Danny O'Keefe)

In my moody forties, I couldn’t get enough JJ Cale.

"I go down there every chance I get
It`s where my baby she met her death
And the river runs deep and the water is cold as ice
Ain`t no woman gonna make a fool out of me"
(RIVER RUNS DEEP by JJ Cale)

On occasion, I even found myself liking Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, The Doors, soft jazz and new age sounds.

"When I was just a baby, my mama told me, 'Son,

Always be a good boy; don't ever play with guns.'

But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die

When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry"

(FOLSOM PRISON BLUES by Johnny Cash)

In my fifties, I became more conscious of the world around me.

"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows that the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed, the poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That's how it goes, everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking, everybody knows that the captain lied

Everybody got this broken feeling, like their father or their dog just died"

(EVERYBODY KNOWS by Leonard Cohen)

Sometimes it doesn't matter if the lyrics make sense. If it sounds right, it is right.

"Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come

Corporation tee-shirts, stupid bloody Tuesday

Man, you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long

I am the eggman.

They are the eggmen.

I am the walrus.

Koo Koo Kachoo."

(I AM THE WALRUS by John Lennon and Paul McCartney)

Basically, I can listen to music and reflect upon a time in my life when I first heard it. Every time I hear Sonny and Cher singing “I got you Babe,” I think about the woman I was seeing back then. The Rolling Stones remind me of my Army stint, while Simon and Garfunkel bring back my college days. And whenever JJ Cale does “Cajun Moon” or “The Fate of a Fool,” I remember my years living alone on a mountaintop, seeking answers to questions I hadn’t even thought of yet.

The purpose in life is to grow and I've been able to accomplish that in all directions, except vertically.

"I have my books and my poetry to protect me

I am shielded in my armor, hiding in my room, safe within my womb

I touch no one and no one touches me

I am a rock

I am an island

And a rock feels no pain

And an island never cries"

(I AM A ROCK by Paul Simon)

Tuesday, August 10, is my birthday.  Excuse me while I kiss the sky, and break on through to the other side.

Whiskey River don't run dry.

Koo Koo Kachoo.

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Quote for the Day — "Music in the soul can be heard by the universe." Lao Tzu

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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where writing about music is like dancing about accounting. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111

THE SUMMER OF LOVE

In January of 1967, a "Be-In" took place in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. A counterculture of long-haired rebellious youth, called hippies, was emerging in the Haight-Ashbury district and the news media loved it.

During spring break, college students began pouring into the San Francisco Bay Area. Soon, an estimated 100,000 young people from around the world had flocked to the scene to frolic in a spontaneous free-for-all.

"If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair."

"If you're going to San Francisco, summertime will be a love-in there."

Song lyrics by The Mamas and The Papas in May of 1967.

On June 1, 1967, four lads from Liverpool, England, who called themselves The Beatles, released their latest album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." It became a certified Gold album on the first day of its release.

It was also the unofficial start of what was about to become the Summer of Love.

On June 16, a three-day International Pop Music Festival opened in Monterey, south of San Francisco. It was the world's first major rock festival. Over 200,000 people attended the event.

Some of the 32 performers groups included Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Mamas and the Papas, Canned Heat, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, Lou Rawls, Simon and Garfunkel, Johnny Rivers, Buffalo Springfield, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape, Booker T and the MGs, The Byrds, The Who, The Association, Eric Burton and the Animals, etc.

And if you don't know who most of those folks are, I pity you. There's some great music in this crowd.

Elsewhere in the world, it was anything but a summer of love 40 years ago.

During the summer of 1967, the Vietnam Conflict was going strong. I was in a U.S. Army uniform in Atlanta at the time, doing my best to maintain my sanity as a draftee until I could become a civilian once again.

On June 5, The Six-Day War erupted. Israel, fearing an imminent attack, struck Egyptian military targets. Jordan, Syria and Iraq entered the conflict. Israel annexed Arab East Jerusalem, captured the Golan Heights (from Syria), the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (from Jordan) and the Sinai (from Egypt). It ended in six days.

In the middle of the Six Day War, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a U.S. Navy ship stationed in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 34 and wounding 171 crewmen. Apparently, Israel mistook it for an Egyptian vessel. Commander William L. McGonagle was awarded the Medal of Honor for remaining on the bridge and keeping the ship afloat for 17 hours despite multiple wounds. Israel apologized and paid $12 million in compensation.

On July 6, the Biafran War erupted in eastern Nigeria in Africa. It stemmed from rebellion against ethnic cleansing by government forces and would last more than two years, claiming some 600,000 lives.

Race riots were a popular sport that summer. They occurred on June 2 in Boston, Mass., June 11 in Tampa, Fla., June 27 in Buffalo, NY (14 shot, 200 arrested), July 12 in Newark, NJ (27 killed, 1,500 injured, over 1,000 arrested), July 17 in Cairo, Ill., July 19 in Durham, NC, July 20 in Memphis, Tenn., July 23-30 in Detroit, Mich (40 dead, 2,000 injured, 5,000 homeless), July 24 in Cambridge, Md., and July 30 in Milwaukee, Wis. (4 killed).

On July 29, 134 servicemen were killed on the USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam.

On July 30, Gen. William Westmoreland declared we were winning in Vietnam but needed more troops.

On August 3, President Lyndon Johnson authorized 45,000 more troops to be sent to Vietnam.

The hippies in San Francisco weren't too concerned with problems elsewhere. It was their summer of love.

But the fun soon ended. Overcrowding, crime, homelessness and drug problems overwhelmed the quickly deteriorating Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Most of the students returned home to resume college studies.

On October 7, those remaining held a mock "Death to the Hippie" funeral. The Summer of Love was over.

For me, the Summer of Love was in 1968. I became a civilian again and kissed the ground when I got home.

Several years later, I spent 3 weeks roaming around San Francisco. I even caught Janis Joplin playing a gig in a church basement during some sort of fund raising event. She sent enough electricity through the place to light the Fisherman's Warf and the Golden Gate Bridge. Fabulous city. But my inclination for a reclusive lifestyle sent me back on the road.

Love is the only sane answer to human existence — it's not so much gazing into each other's eyes, but looking together in the same direction. It's the art of persistence and endless forgiveness. To find someone who will love you for no reason is the ultimate bliss. It's when the happiness of another becomes essential to your own happiness.

I have plenty of love these days — I have a dog.

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Quote for the Day — "All you need is love." John Lennon (killed by assassin)

Quote for the Day — "A coward is incapable of exhibiting love — it is the prerogative of the brave." Mohandas Gandhi (killed by assassin)

Quote for the Day — "Things do not happen — things are made to happen." John F. Kennedy (killed by assassin)

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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where things do not happen. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111

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In the spring of 1966, I was drafted into the U.S. Army during what was referred to as the Vietnam Conflict. They never did call it a war – apparently, they didn’t want to alarm the civilians.

I did my Basic Training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, then was permanently stationed at Third Army Headquarters at Ft. McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ft. McPherson was a small post, primarily a golf course and an Officer’s Club. The office complex was occupied by throngs of senior officers, including an assortment of generals, no doubt making key decisions like deciding what color to paint the new wing of the Officer’s Club and how many soldiers it should take to screw in a light bulb.

I had four years of college and had been a computer programmer when I was drafted, thus I was assigned to the Third Army Data Processing Company where I was issued two blue pencils, assigned to a desk and given the title of Data Processing Analyst. I also received a Top Secret security clearance because I would have access to sensitive information and spent the remainder of my two-year commitment working night shift, along with a few other analysts, for a civilian employee. My duties consisted of coding certain items on classified documents that were subsequently forwarded to another department for computer processing.

Basically, events in Vietnam had little effect on me or my fellow analysts. We just did our jobs and counted the days until we could go back into the civilian world. But every now and then, we were required to perform extra duties. One such duty was funeral detail. The family of every deceased soldier is entitled to a military funeral and requests were frequent in those days.

It takes 17 soldiers to perform a military funeral. Six soldiers carry the casket, two of whom fold the flag draped over the coffin and hand it to an officer who then passes it on to a family member. Seven soldiers stand at attention off in the distance, waiting to give a 21-gun salute, along with a sergeant to give the orders. Finally, a bugler lingers nearby to play Taps, often out of sight, while the driver usually waits at the bus. I participated in many funeral details, each one a supremely sad ordeal.

One was in a tiny family graveyard, in the middle of the woods outside of Sevierville, Tennessee, near the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. By the time the proceedings started, there must have been a thousand people crammed in the small clearing, all mourning the loss of one of their own. Whoever we were burying would certainly be missed.

Another Army funeral was performed in central Alabama. It was a rowdy white-redneck crowd where a few of the attendees took exception to that fact that the diseased was one of them (white) and there were a couple of black soldiers in the funeral ceremony. The 1960s in the Deep South were still highly racially divided. It became very tense and confrontational, to the point of attaching bayonets to our rifles. There are four stages of grief — denial, anger, depression, acceptance. If you attend a few military funerals, you’ll get to see all four stages.

The most gut-wrenching experience took place on top of Lookout Mountain, outside of Chattanooga, in an old Civil War Cemetery. Several hundred people attended. It was an incredibly quiet day, not a breath of wind. The whole place seemed haunted.

The service was performed flawlessly, the flag folded and presented to the family. As usual, I was one of the seven soldiers standing in line, waiting to give the 21-gun salute. Even though we were at least fifty yards away, we could hear a tremendous sorrow overtaking the audience. Several women began to wail uncontrollably.

We went through our paces and fired off three volleys, a 21-gun salute, then stood at attention. After a couple of seconds of silence, the bugler started playing Taps. It was the most beautiful version I had ever heard, as if it came directly from heaven.

In the background, the sound of mass anguish became overwhelming. It seemed like the entire audience had burst out crying. When Taps ended, there wasn’t a dry eye on that mountaintop, including those of us putting on the show. To this day, I can’t listen to Taps without dwelling on that moment of grief and wondering how many others like it mankind must endure before we learn to live in harmony.

The following list reflects the number of Americans who gave their lives for their country.

American Revolution (1775-1783) – 4,435 dead
War of 1812 (1812-1815) – 2,260 dead
Mexican War (1846-1848) – 13,283 dead
American Civil War (1861-1865) – 558,052 dead
Spanish American War (1898) – 2,446 dead
World War I (1914-1918) – 116,708 dead
World War II (1939-1945) – 407,316 dead
Korean Police Action (1950-1953) – 33,651 dead
Vietnam Conflict (1957-1975) – 58,168 dead
Gulf War (1991) – 293 dead
War on Terrorism (2001-????) – in progress

May 31 is Memorial Day, when the USA pays tribute to those who sacrificed their lives for the ideals of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We are deeply indebted for their valiant service.

Freedom is never free.
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Quote for the Day — “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” Edward R. Murrow
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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where freedom is still worth dying for. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111
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As of March 2010, the Social Security system of the United States of America now has a negative cash flow — spending more money on benefits that it takes in via payments into the fund.

In fact, there is no fund — it all goes straight into other federal government expenses, which currently far exceeds revenues and will continue to get progressively worse for the foreseeable future.

President Franklin Roosevelt (Democrat) introduced the Social Security system in 1935. Republicans in Congress wanted it to be voluntary but Democrats were in control and yearning for socialistic reforms so the system became mandatory.

The program required employees to pay 1.5 cents for each dollar they earned, beginning in 1940, up to $3,000. The employer was required to match the contributions. In 1943, the contribution was to increase to 2 cents per dollar, and in 1949 scheduled to increase to 3 cents per dollar.

"That is the most you will ever pay." promised Congress in their 1936 Social Security pamphlet. Had congress lived up to its promise, the maximum annual Social Security tax would be $90 instead of over $6,000.

When the Social Security program was first set up, its funds were put into a secure trust account. To cope with huge expenditures during the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson (Democrat) and the Democratically-controlled congress eliminated the trust fund whereupon Social Security taxes were diverted directly into the general fund.

The Social Security Trust Fund no longer exists. It's now a "pay as you go" system.

Today, the Social Security system is a sheer disaster. People are living longer and the birth rates have been leveling off. In 1950, there were 16 workers for every person receiving benefits. Presently, there are only 3 workers for every beneficiary. By 2018, there will be only two workers per beneficiary. 

In March of 2010, the system started running a deficit, paying out more money than it takes in. In the near future, as Baby Boomers enter the system, it will be unable to pay promised benefits.

Simply raising Social Security taxes is not the solution. To maintain promised entitlements, Social Security taxes will have to eventually be raised to an astonishing 45 percent of wages.

The national debt (money borrowed against the future to be paid by future generations) currently exceeds $12 trillion. Our nation's annual deficit is at the highest levels in history with no end in sight. We spend more than we take in and defer this irresponsibility onto our children and grandchildren. Every child born in America today is automatically $52,000 in debt.

To add further damage to this obscene debt burden, the Obama Administration bullied a national health care system into law, which adds further to the national debt and requires 16,000 new IRS employees to administer the collection of mandatory insurance fees.

When Medicare was first created in 1965, the politicians projected the cost in 1992 would be $3 billion. The actual cost in 1992 was $110 billion. These same inept politicians have driven this country into a $12 trillion national debt. Instead of reforming a broken health system, the Obama Administration expanded the broken system into a colossal, expansive, expensive, bureaucratic, ineffective broken system.

The collective insanity of those running this country can only be measured in cubits of donkey and elephant dung.

Or perhaps there is another explanation.

Power doesn’t corrupt — it attracts the corruptible.

There is a growing belief among thoughtful citizens with a brain larger than a walnut that this disaster was orchestrated by powerful global elites, particularly international bankers (Rothschild, Rockefeller, etc.), in order to gain control of the entire planet (a New World Order). Their ultimate goal is a one-world government, with a one-world single currency, maintained and controlled by these international bankers. Thus, they would become even richer and more powerful.

And in order to achieve this goal of global dominance, they must first bring down the current financial systems, particularly the USA.

Global disasters require global solutions. However, upon close scrutiny, those who create the disasters become those with the solutions, thereby manipulating events in their favor.

Democracy is the illusion that someone is listening. In reality, you’re either the property of others or you’re on your own.

Freedom is living your life as you choose, as long as you are not infringing on someone else’s freedom.

More government means less freedom.

Those currently in power in the USA are systematically enslaving their subjects and thrusting the country into financial ruin.

The first course of action when you are being enslaved by others is to recognize you are being enslaved by others.

The second course of action is to do something about it. Plenty of options — ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist, play golf, get drunk, bang your head against the wall, go fishing, watch TV, eat lots of food, go shopping, make more kids, play tennis, paint a picture, clean out the garage, go dancing, seek divine intervention, snap some photos, new hairstyle, take a nap, bitch and moan, meditate, wish upon a star, etc., etc.

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Quote for the Day — “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” Norman Mattoon Thomas (1884-1968 — six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America)

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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where the price of freedom is higher than a cubit of dung. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111

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QUESTION: What do the following three lists have in common?

LIST #1 – England, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Jerusalem, Damascus, London, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Dallas, Houston, Hollywood, Delaware, Kentucky, Kansas, Washington, Northern Ohio

LIST #2 – Ain, Alf, Aly, Amy, Apt, Ard, Bay, Ben, Coy, Day, Fox, Gid, Hon, Ida, Imo, Ink, Ivy, Joy, Kay, Keo, Meg, Rex, Roe, Rye, Tag, Tip, Ulm, Uno, Van, Wye

LIST #3 – Toad Suck, Oil Trough, Marked Tree, Booger Hollow, Greasy Corner, Turkey Scratch, Three Way, Lick Branch, Old Joe, Old Jenny Lind, Point Peter, Hog Jaw, Gum Log, Half Moon, One Horse Store, Number Nine, Twenty-three, Fifty-six, Morning Sun, Evening Shade, Possum Grape, Monkey Run

ANSWER: They are all towns in Arkansas.

Arkansas is known as the natural state. It's also the state where naming towns ranks very high on the Weird-O-Meter.

Many years ago, a Polk County schoolteacher sent out notices to suggest names for the new post office, requesting that they “write in ink” – thus the town of Ink came into being.

In 1811, a group of hunters camped along the White River near Batesville. They killed over 100 bears for their oil, a valuable commodity at the time. When they ran out of buckets to accumulate the oil they fashioned troughs to store it until shipment downstream could be arranged. Thus the community of Oil Trough was born.

On the bank of the St. Francis River in Poinsett County a large tree once contained slashes marking the best place for early settlers to cross the river. In 1890, the tree was washed away in a flood, but the town of Marked Tree still exists. Nowadays, most folks usually cross on the bridge.

In early America, “Boogie-man” was a term used by people who had the parenting skills of a head of lettuce and wanted to scare their kids. In the mountainous region of northwest Arkansas, the term was eventually changed to “Boogie-bear” and later dropped to “Booger.” Whoever named Booger Hollow obviously didn’t want any kids snooping around. They probably didn’t want any revenuers poking around either.

There was once a steamboat landing on the Arkansas River where a popular tavern attracted many river boatmen to suck whiskey until they swelled up like toads. The eventual name of the town, Toad Suck, was derived from a French term meaning “a narrow channel in the river.”  Since no one full of whiskey could understand French anyway, the name "Toad Suck" stuck.

Arkansas is a land of rocks. You will discover this if you ever try to dig a posthole for your mailbox. Thus many towns are named after rocks, such as Black Rock, Calico Rock, Flat Rock, Galla Rock, Gray Rock, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sulphur Rock, White Rock, Rock Hill, Rock Springs and Rocky Mound. Madison County has a town named Rock – the guy who had the list of adjectives was probably missing during the meeting to name the town.

Like most other states in the USA, many town names carried over from the language used by the original Native American inhabitants to refer to the area. In Arkansas, these include Okolona, Ogenaw, Osceola, Pawheen, Wabbaseka, Washita, Watalula and Wampoo. If I'm not mistaken, Watalula means "white man move in and spoil the neighborhood."

Three Way is an interesting name for a town. I remember a long weekend I had many moons ago with a couple of twins from Lick Branch named Bertha and Beulah, the Butt sisters. Every time one of us had the urge to do something different (such as change channels on TV or whatever), we would yell “Tag Hon” — turns out that Tag and Hon are Arkansas town names too. Go figure.

It’s a strange world full of coincidences and synchronicities. I even know a woman from Scotland and Hollywood. Both are Arkansas towns but she is from the real deal, in different lifetimes. In Scotland, you’re born with a sense of honor. In Hollywood, you’re born with a sense of make-believe. In Arkansas, you’re born with a sense of raising chickens.

I've lived in Arkansas for nearly 20 years now, a few miles outside of Salem in Fulton County. There is also Salem in Lee County, Salem in Pike County, Salem in Saline County and Salem in Ouachita County. Apparently, there's a rule in Arkansas that you can't use the same name for towns more times than you have fingers on your left hand.

In Arkansas, the value of your pickup truck goes up and down depending on how much gas you have in the tank. If you think that’s weird, wait until you meet some of the folks who live there. And be sure to drive carefully through Greasy Corner.

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Quote for the Day — “It depends on what the word is is.” Bill Clinton (famous Arkansan)

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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and is midway between Scotland and Hollywood, as the crow flies. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111