I am having a hard time with school this semester.

I’ve got this class - history seminar on War in Europe from the middle ages until the modern era. That probably sounds boring to you. You would be correct. There are seven textbooks assigned for this class, and none of them are readable. Now I am a reading guy. I read tens of thousands of words a day. These books are somebody’s dissertation and they meant to be read by other nerdy history jerks working on their dissertation. It is wordy, circular crap that is indecipherable. We have, no exaggeration, 250-300 pages of this nonsense to read every week for class discussion.

The instructor is the worst I have ever had. I went to Bismarck High School in Bismarck, Arkansas. We had considerably less than 250 students. The football coach was also the history teacher. The art/ health teacher once told our class that if you used a condom it was one hundred percent guaranteed that you would not get pregnant or catch any diseases. These people had the teaching ability of Socrates compared to the stumbling, rambling, ranting, unintelligible sack of professor that teaches the History Seminar on War in Europe.

She is the kind of teacher that will ramble with no point for twenty minutes while ignoring people with their hands up and then throw a fit because there has not been enough discussion. To try and incite discussion, she will ask questions like, “Mr. Greer, what did you think about the readings for this week.”

Now if that does not stimulate you to conversation, then nothing will.

She asked that exact question of a lady one night. She stuttered through a response for a minute when the instructor said, “That’s pretty vague. Can you be more specific?”

The question was vague.

Tonight she spent twenty minutes with her back turned to the class, franticly flipping through a book and muttering about knights and cavalrymen and feudal armies. The guy next to me leaned over and said, “If you want to make a comment, you are going to need a flair gun.”

Because it is a seminar class, the biggest part of our grade is going to be a research paper. Tonight we had a short prospectus due. She accepted not a single one. Apparently none of us understood what this paper was supposed to be about. Whose fault do you suppose that was? Ours of course. I didn’t even turn mine in. I heard her mention to this guy that wanted to write about airplanes and their effect on warfare that WWI was the most recent war we were allowed to cover. I wanted to write about WWII. I went back and looked through everything that she has given us this semester. There was nothing about a time frame.

I want to drop this class so bad. I am not sure that I can last. If I did last, I am not sure that I could pass. The problem is, if I drop it that will put me at only six hours this semester. If I only take six hours a semester, then I will graduate in the spring of 2007.

I am having a hard time with school right now.

Smoove B knows love.

When we arrive at the expensive European restaurant, the owner will greet me warmly and comment positively on your attire. He will then personally lead us to a private table I have specially selected for our evening together. As we browse the menu, I will inform you that if multiple appetizers are your wish, I can make that wish come true.

When the appetizers arrive, I will feed them to you with my hands, which I will have hand-washed with special anti-bacterial soap to ensure their cleanliness. You will then eat an entree of your choice and a dessert. While we eat these various foods, we will discuss your fineness and also your hopes and dreams for the future. This will make you feel closer to me and, as a result, make you want to sex me wild.

More information concerning that last post. I went to the Dr. yesterday and they measured and weighed me. 6'0", 264 lbs.

When I walk, it goes boom-bada-boom-bada just like Fat Ass in the movie Stand By Me.

I was just searching my referral logs and now I am mad. Somebody did this search on google, and I was number three. How could I be number three? Who is named Nathan and is fatter than me?

Q: What's brown and often found in diapers?
A: Click here, scroll down.

Poor Mark has a teenage daughter as of today. Give him some love.

If I am too busy to write blog specific content, then at least I can share my school assignments with you when they are interesting. One of the classes that I am taking this semester is Persuasive Writing. The instructor is typical college professor hard-core leftist. The first night of class she touched on sexist language, revisionist history, affirmative action, the illegitimacy of the Bush presidency . . . it has been downhill from there. Since I am a smelly, simple, boneheaded neo-conservative, and the class is persuasive writing, this gives me a chance to be belligerent. The following is an essay I am handing in tomorrow. The topic: Define the term, "Palestinian homeland."

Palestinian Homeland: A Modern Invention?

The struggles between Arabs and Jews in the Middle Eastern state of Israel is a daily topic for both print and television news. A common term found in these discussions is “Palestinian homeland.” In order to determine ones stand on this controversial subject, it is important to understand exactly what is meant by this phrase. Who are the Palestinians? What do they seek in a homeland? Where would this homeland be?

A search for the phrase “Palestinian homeland” on google.com returns 4,560 hits. Links on the first few pages range from news sites and history sites to polls and even jokes. This certainly proves that the phrase has entered the common vernacular.

Next, lets see if we can get an official dictionary definition of our phrase. Merriam-Webster online gives two definitions for the word homeland. “1) Native land. 2) A state or area set aside to be a state for a people of a particular national, cultural, or racial origin.” It would seem that the second definition would be more suitable when referring to the Palestinian homeland.

For Palestine, Merriam-Webster gives the following definitions: “(1) Ancient region SW Asia bordering on E coast of the Mediterranean & extending E of Jordan River (2) Region bordering on the Mediterranean on W & Dead Sea on E; a part of the Ottoman Empire 1516-1917, a British mandate 1923-48; now approximately coextensive with Israel with Arab Palestinians in the West Bank having limited self-rule since 1993” As you can see, defining this word is a little more troublesome.

There never has been a country named Palestine. The area now known as Israel was first called Canaan. According to Middle East Political Historian Joe Katz, Canaan was overrun by the Philistines around 1194 BCE. The area was later conquered by Jews and renamed Israel. After the Romans had taken control of the region in the first century CE and then put down a rebellion in the second century CE, they decided to wipe out the identity of Israel as a Jewish state. Rome renamed the area Palastinia after the Philistines who had lived there before the Jews. Philistines were neither Arab, nor even Semites, but were more closely related to the Greeks. From this point until World War II, Palastinia was part of the Roman empire, then the Byzantine Empire, next the Ottoman Empire, and finally the British Empire. Palestine has never existed as an independent country. Until at least 1948, anyone of any ethnicity who lived in Palestine was known as a Palestinian.

Curretly the term Palestinian seems to refer to Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip areas of Israel. From the inception of Israel in 1948 until Israel won this land in the Six-Day War in 1967, The West Bank was part of Jordan and the people who lived there were known as Jordanians, not Palestinians. The Gaza Strip was part of Egypt and its inhabitants called themselves Egyptians and not Palestinians. The people in these areas never sought an independent state, and the governments of Egypt and Jordan never wanted to give them one. Now it seems that the destiny of these people is to have their own country rather than rejoin Jordan and Egypt or remain part of Israel.

Thus we reach a working definition of the term. A Palestinian homeland is an independent state or area set-aside for the Arabs living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank areas of Israel. This is a definition that a vast majority of the non-Arab world, and many Arabs can agree on.

There are both positive and negative things about this proposed homeland. Most everyone involved wants the Palestinians to have their own country. Egypt and Jordan have shown no signs of wanting to reannex the areas and openly support a Palestinian homeland. Israel would certainly be happy to offer these troublesome lands in exchange for peace. There are two things keeping this from happening. First of all, the experiments with Palestinian self-rule since 1993 have been a huge failure. Palestinian elections were questionable, and their leaders have not shown any signs of setting up the sort of civil and social services common in modern society. Most of their time and energy was focused on terrorizing Israeli citizens – which brings us to the second problem. Many Arabs, and most importantly the Palestinian leaders, want the nation of Israel done away with and all of its lands to become the Palestinian homeland. They will not settle for any less.

The issue of a Palestinian homeland will remain unsettled until all parties can reach an agreement on the definition of this phrase. This is the reason that Israeli soldiers occupy most of the Gaza Strip and West Bank right now.

Well, I am sitting here in my living room composing my first blog post on my new Dell Inspiron 2650. How does it make me feel? Inpironed!

This is my first notebook. It is a refurb. I am looking forward to breaking it in. I started it up and configured it for dial up. Connected to the Internet and it immediately frooze up. I restarted, connected again, some thing. So I let it rest and tried again. It seems to be working like a champ this time.

Look for more posts from the captain's chair in the future.

I miss you people too! I am going to school full time, working full time, and trying to alienate my friends and family full time this semester. So far I am succeeding only at the last one. I just ordered a new laptop, so hopefully I will have time to write to you in the next week or so. Thanks for not forgetting me.

Hello Betsy. It sure is nice to see you again. You look even prettier than I remember.
My name is Jimmy Lee Herringbone sir. It’s awful nice to meet you, seeing as how we are going to be in-laws and all.

I’m Willard McCord son, and my first impression of you is that you are not very bright.

Now why would you say that, Mr. Willard?

Because you could have gotten that thing out of there, but you had to let it soak.

Well sir, the truck got kicked out of gear, we rolled down and hit a tree and then there was also keg beer involved, I apologize Mr. Willard. I’m sure sorry about us meeting like this but I think we can make the best of it. I am a good, honest, hard working man and you strike me as the same. Anyone who raised up a daughter as fine as little Betsy here would have to be. Also I know for a fact that the Daleville McCords are good people and I know them to be your kin.

I ain’t the one on trial here son. You watch football?

Yessir.

Who is your team?

College or pro?

College first.

Arkansas.

What do you think of Frank Broyles?

He needs to retire and quit meddlin’, but he wont stop till he dies.

Pro?

Cowboys.

What do you think of Jerry Jones?

He needs to retire and quit meddlin’, but he wont stop till he dies.

What kind of music you like?

Country.

Who is you favorite singer?

Randy Travis.

What do you do for a livin'

I help my old man run his saw mill.

Did my daughter prep you on these questions?

No sir.

You wouldn’t lie to me would you boy?

No sir.

You gonna take good care of my daughter and teach my grandson to call them Hogs?

Yes sir.

Then welcome to the family, Jimmy Lee Herringbone. Where can we find this Pastor Ronnie?

When you get to the corner of Arkansas highways 186 and 183 you are in Daleville. There are no signs that tell you that. There is not evidence of a town right there at the intersection. Just two gas stations situated on opposite corners and a light hanging from wire that blinks yellow one direction and red the other. On Arkansas 186, the street where you don’t have to stop, the speed limit slows down to 45. You would have to be from Daleville to know that there is a school just down from the intersection where 1500 kids attend k-12. It seems like there is a dirt road every quarter of a mile on those main highways and those roads weave in and out of each other in those wooded Ouachita Mountains with thousands of houses spaced generously apart.

Jimmie Lee Herringbone had lived down one of those dirt roads, the Hickory Holler Road, for his entire life. His folks had an old three bedroom farm house on ten acres and the saw mill. When Jimmy Lee was in Jr. High and trying to make the Daleville Fighting Beavers football team he would run to the highway and back every afternoon after school. He had his mom check the distance on the odometer of her car and it was 3.2 miles one way. When his dad made him assistant manager of the saw mill (he was in charge of the three other employees besides himself and his old man) he brought in an old trailer house he bought out of the Sunday classifieds and set it up about half a football field from his folk’s house.

Betsy and her dad stopped at the Citgo down at the Daleville intersection and called for directions to Jimmy Lee’s trailer. After he got off the phone he walked out in the front yard in those Sunday best clothes of his and leaned up against his truck with his thumbs in his belt loops and a twig of sage grass sticking out of his mouth. It was not long before Betsy and her father pulled into the front yard. They were in an old pickup, not much different than Jimmy Lee’s. Betsy had on a pretty little sunflower dress and her dad had a chartreuse cowboy shirt, black leather vest, bolo tie, and a big black Stetson with silver Mexican conchos around the band. A brown Swisher Sweets Little Cigar hung from his lips and his hands were locked onto the steering wheel in the ten and two position. He did not smile, he did not say hello, and he did not even look over. Jimmy Lee climbed through the passenger side door and Betsy scooted to the middle of the truck.

“I done called Brother Ronnie. He’s the one what baptized me when I’s 12 down at the 3rd Missionary Baptist Church of Daleville. My folks still go there most Sundays and I reckon I would if’n I could get up that early.”

Jimmy Lee’s new father in-law just grunted.

Jimmy Lee noticed for the first time that Betsy’s eyes were red and puffy from crying.

Jimmy Lee Herringbone lived in a small town in the Ouachita National Forest. He cut lumber for a living. To entertain others he cut the cheese. Jimmy Lee was thirty years old and never did finish high school. He didn’t drop out; he just kind of stopped going his senior year around March. When graduation rolled around he figured there was no sense in going. He found out later at the after party that they had called out his name and even had a diploma for him. At this point he was too embarrassed to go up to the High School Principal’s office and collect that diploma. He couldn’t imagine that they would graduate someone that had not been to class in eight weeks. But they did.

Jimmy Lee took a job at the sawmill that his old man ran. They made wood shavings that were used in the chicken houses that were springing up all over those hills. On good days his old man would let him drive the big delivery truck through the woods to some chicken house that needed them. This meant that Jimmy Lee got to get out of the mill and listen to his Randy Travis tape and daydream about moving away to a far away exotic town like Mena or Russellville.

At a party one night he met a girl from LA . . . Lower Arkansas that is. Her name was Betsy McCord and she was from down around Camden She was visiting her cousin Betty. Jimmy Lee liked Betsy. She wasn’t that pretty, but she was nice. She was so nice in fact that Jimmy Lee kept her plastic cup full of keg beer all night. About 11:30 they consummated their relationship on the bench seat in the cab of his 1987 full-size Chevy pick-up. While they were going at it, Jimmy Lee accidentally kicked the gear shift and it slipped into neutral. They had no idea that the old truck was moving until it hit a tree. They were parked out in the woods and it only rolled about twenty yards, but that was enough to put a nice dent in the front bumper. Right in the center, no less.

As it turned out, that dent was not the only souvenir that Jimmy Lee would have from that night. About a month later Betsy called him up and informed that she and her Daddy were headed north and they intended to pick up Jimmy Lee and go find a nice Missionary Baptist preacher that would marry the two of them because her daddy said he weren’t going to have no bastard grandchildren. Jimmy Lee just played it cool. When they got there he had on his cleanest black jeans, a short sleeve while button down shirt, and a paisley tie. Hell, he even shined up his boots. He liked Betsy, after all. He couldn’t think of any reason why the two of them and a little rug rat could not live happily ever after.

Hiku for Lunch

Saffron rice in my gut
Thank you Dan for taking me
Star of India


Sitting here at work
Drinking an afternoon coke
With each belch I ‘m back

Laney Elisabeth Barber was born at 4:44 PM today! She was 7 lbs, 8 oz and 18 inches long. Mother and baby are both very healthy. Everything went extremely well!
You can find Laney's old man Here
And her sweet momma Here
Special thanks to Ms. J for hosting

Suddenly, in the spot where comments go it will sometimes say, "Poseurs" rather than "Comments." I just wanted to say that I don't know how that happened, I don't know how to fix it, I did not do it, and I don't feel that way about you all at all!

State employees be smokin’. No kidding. Every time I enter or leave the building, the same ten or so people are standing by the doorway, toking up like Keith Richards in the morning. Today I had to leave mid-morning to go pick up the boy and take him to his new Mother’s Day Out. When I left, state employees be smokin’. When I returned, state employees be smokin’. That makes me wonder, is that their job description? They could not possibly be accomplishing much else. How do you get such a job? Where do I sign up? I can see the ad in the paper:

Wanted: A highly motivated person with experience in local, federal, or state government to stand in front of a government building a smoke. Must be able to complete at least three packs a day, Basic or Price Saver preferred but Camel or Marlboro also acceptable. Benefits include Health Insurance and 63 paid vacation and holidays a year.

So I got back from taking the boy to class and I am now sitting at my desk enjoying a Del Monte Fruit Cup. Because I took an early lunch to deliver the boy, my sweet Ms. J made a sack lunch for me to bring back to work and eat at my desk. Since I am Fatnathan, I am eating it immediately. I realize that it is only 9:30 and I will be hungry by the end of the day, but I am hungry now too. Also they have a snack bar upstairs. Don’t tell Ms. J.

Wylie was very excited about his new school. He has been talking all week about making new friends. When we got there he ran to his new teacher and jumped in her arms and gave her a big hug. All of the kids gathered around him to say hello to the new boy. Then they had dry Cheerios and red cool aid. I went out to the truck to get his stuff and when I got back I heard Wylie tell his teacher, “I’ll be right back real soon. I have to go play with some of these toys.”

I said, “See you later Wylie, I have to go back to work.”

Without looking up he said, “Otay Dadoe. See you soon.” Then he looked up at his new teacher and said, “Dadoe has to go to work.”

I hope it goes this smooth all semester. Last fall mother’s day out was a disaster. His teacher was a real b-with-an-itch and he hated going. We can not afford the one he is going to now, and it is thirty minutes from our house, but the program and teacher are so much better. It really is no comparison.

The Circle of Life According to Wylie Allman Greer (2 1/2 Years Old)

1) Lions Eat grass
2) Tigers Eat crackers
3) Horses like water
4) Cows like milk
5) Hippo and Rhino eat nuts and juice
6) Giraffes eat reefs
7) Chicken eat popcorn
8) Fish eat catfish
9) Snakes eat snake food
10) Lizards eat bugs
11) Frogs eat bugs
12) Bugs eat smaller bugs
13) We eat chicken

I do believe that I have a case of what the medical community refers to as Influenza. Down here in the hood, we call it Dem Flewbugz, Y’all.

The symptoms: Snotty head; coughing up lung biscuits; sore neck and back; stomach cramps; headache; blurry vision; fever chills; bad hair; bad breath; zitty chin; bad BO; decreased will to live; increased sense of whininess; no ambition; no friends; no happiness; no tenderness; nobody loves me but my momma, and she could be jiving too.

Don’t tell me to go home from work, because I have frittered away all of my sick leave for the year on lesser illnesses. I do have 16 hours of vacation time, but I am saving it so I can take off work the 26th and 27th to be with family for the holidays.

How sick am I? All the Fatboy has had to eat this morning is a can of sprite, which I drank very, very slowly. That is extraordinary! As I am sure that you are aware, sprite does not contain caffeine, alcohol, or pork. Those are the three criteria for something to be ingested by me.

The War on Drugs is a Failure

Federal drug laws should be repealed and currently illegal drugs should be regulated by the states

Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It left a trail of graft and slime,
It don’t prohibit worth a dime,
It’s filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we’re for it.
Franklin P. Adams (1931)

“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.” P.J. O’Rourke (1993)


The federal government’s war on drugs is a misguided failure. Currently there are 400,000 non-violent drug offenders in jails and prisons. More than sixty percent of the federal prison population consists of drug offenders. An estimated 1.2 million suspected drug offenders are arrested each year, most for simple possession or petty sale. The government spends 19 Billion dollars every year to enforce its drug laws, more than the Commerce, Interior, and State Departments put together. In spite of all of this, according to the US department of Health and Human Services, 26.7 million Americans used an illicit drug last month. Every year from 1975-1995, at least 82 percent of high school seniors said that they found marijuana “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain.

Not only are drugs still widely available, evidence shows that we could be making the problem worse. In 1985, 5.5 percent of American high school seniors used marijuana daily, but in the Netherlands (where marijuana is legal) the rate was only 0.5 percent. Indeed, a national survey found that only 1.7 percent of people who currently do not use drugs said that they would try drugs if they were made legal.

Even police officers agree that we are mismanaging the problem. In 2001 David Klinger, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri and a former officer in the Los Angeles Police Department, stated that as he worked as an officer he, “started to view most people involved with drugs either as broken souls who made self-destructive choices or as harmless people who indulged their appetites in moderation—not as crooks who needed to be punished.” Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh says that while he was working on the movie Traffic, he made a point of interviewing police officers about their work. Soderbergh posed one question to each cop: "If your daughter had a drug problem, would you involve the police department?" Without exception, the answer was "no."

Prohibition of drugs has created the exact same problems that prohibition of alcohol created in the early twentieth century. Before alcohol prohibition, safe and regulated alcohol was readily available from reputable sources. After Prohibition, alcohol was still readily available, but in unregulated condition and from disreputable sources only. This spawned violence and crime. The murder rate rose with the start of Prohibition, remained high throughout Prohibition, and declined for eleven consecutive years after the repeal of Prohibition.

Likewise, before drug prohibition opium, morphine, and cocaine were legally and cheaply available without a prescription at drugstores and grocery stores and through the mail. (Marijuana, of course, is an opportunistic native weed and will grow up through the cracks in a concrete parking lot if left unattended.) Cutting off these safe and reputable sources has forced these substances to be controlled by criminals, but made them only marginally less available. Most, if not all, “drug-related murders” are the result of drugs being forced into the black market and would likely never have happened without prohibition.

Also it is important to note that the federal drug laws are constitutionally dubious. The Tenth Amendment states that any powers not given to the federal government in the constitution are reserved for the states. Alcohol was only prohibited federally by an amendment to the constitution. However, Congress never asked the American people for additional constitutional powers to declare a war on drug users. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 is considered by many to be the most far-reaching federal statute ever passed. It asserts federal jurisdiction over every drug offense in the United States, no matter how small or local its scope.

Further evidence of the federal government’s slapdash attitude about the constitution can be found in their retort to statewide medical marijuana initiatives. A recent survey found that more than 70 percent of U.S. cancer specialists said they would prescribe marijuana if it were legal; nearly half said they had urged patients to break the law to acquire the drug. The British Medical Association reported that nearly 70 percent of its members believe marijuana should be available for therapeutic use. In 1996 voters in California and Arizona responded to this by authorizing physicians to recommend the use of marijuana to seriously ill patients residing in those states. The Clinton administration quickly announced that any physician recommending or prescribing medical marijuana and patients who use marijuana under state law would be prosecuted in federal courts.

The bureaucracy that enforces drug laws is a perfect example of self-perpetuating big government. When drug use goes up, taxpayers are told that the government needs more money to fight against the rising tide of abuse. When drug use goes down, taxpayers are told that it would be a big mistake to cut spending just when progress is being made. Whatever the news, spending levels must be increased. The history of the drug war plainly shows us that spending levels have little to do with drug use, and likely has an adverse effect.

The best solution for the liberty-thieving problem that is the U.S. war on drugs was spelled out by the libertarian think-tank, the Cato Institute, in their Handbook for the 107th Congress. I would lessen its impact if I tried to restate it, so I will close with the same paragraphs that they did:

Congress should repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration, and let the states set their own policies with regard to currently illegal drugs. They would do well to treat marijuana, cocaine, and heroin the way most states now treat alcohol: It should be legal for licensed stores to sell such drugs to adults. Drug sales to children, like alcohol sales to children, should remain illegal. Driving under the influence of drugs should be illegal.

With such a policy, Congress would acknowledge that our current drug policies have failed. It would restore authority to the states, as the Founders envisioned. It would save taxpayers’ money. And it would give the states the power to experiment with drug policies and perhaps devise more successful rules.

The war on drugs has lasted longer than Prohibition, longer than the Vietnam War. But there is no light at the end of this tunnel. Prohibition has failed, again, and should be repealed, again.