Happenings At The Capitol

Tomorrow is June 1. The 2009 Regular Session of the Mississippi Legislature is still in session. They have recessed until Wednesday which is the new date for adjournment. The normal adjournment should have been in early April, but they are still hanging around trying to construct a state budget.

While I can appreciate the numerous external factors which affect the budgeting process, I think they could have come to an agreement and ended the session by mid-April. Instead, lawmakers have become mired in partisan politics. Each side is accusing the other of not cooperating in the budgeting process. I think those accusations are true for both sides.

So what is going to happen on Wednesday? They will come back to Jackson. The House will attempt to get a suspension resolution passed to suspend the rules and set another date for adjournment to allow more time for appropriation bills to be considered.

A suspension resolution requires a two-thirds vote of members present and voting. The House attempted to do that last Friday and failed. If the House is successful in passing a resolution, the Senate must take it up and pass it by a two-thirds affirmative vote. The likelihood of that happening is extremely slim.

If the resolution fails to pass, the Legislature will be forced to adjourn the 2009 Regular Legislative Session without passing a budget. It will be the first time in the State’s history that the Legislature failed to pass a budget.

Then Governor Barbour will have to call them back into special session. At that juncture, the Governor will have complete control of which subjects they can consider and he can set specific limits of how narrow the focus will be. My guess is he will feed them the appropriation bills one or two at a time to force them to pass a bill before he gives them another to consider.

Legislators and the Governor will be under immense pressure to act quickly. If a budget is not in place by June 30, the State will effectively be shut down. That will create a lot of problems. State employees will be furloughed or laid off. State departments will have to start shutting down. Federal matching funds and grants will eventually have to be returned to the Federal government. Highways will not be built or repaired.

People on Medicaid in nursing homes will be put out, health care for over 250,000 Mississippians will come to a screeching halt and school systems will go bankrupt. The judicial system will cease functioning, the highway patrol will have to park their cars, restaurants will not be inspected, state hospitals including University Medical Center and those for the mentally ill will shut down, and state run colleges and universities will cease to function. It’s not a pretty picture.

Just think…you and I are going to have the opportunity to witness history being made. Oh joy!

Memorial Day 2009

Since before the founding of this great nation, people who enlist in our Armed Forces have been administered an oath of office.

Today the oath reads:

"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

The oath requires the enlistee to obey the orders of the President of the United States and the officers in charge.

Of those who stepped forward and took that oath of office, 657,344 have died in combat. On Memorial Day we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice while carrying out the orders of the President of the United States.

Each and every one is worthy of honor and remembrance.

There are millions of others who served of which 1,492,516 were wounded in combat. And millions and millions who just simply participated and/or witnessed the horrors of combat and have passed on.

Each one did what he was sworn and ordered to do.

The overwhelming majority of veterans put down their arms, and picked up where they left off in life. They married, raised families, obeyed the law, participated in elections, and became good citizens. And yet, beneath that normalcy, lie memories that can never be erased; memories that often haunt them for the remainder of their lives.

And so today, I offer this prayer:

Dear Lord,

I pray for people in our armed forces who are placed in harm’s way. I pray you will be with them and they with you as they go about their appointed duties.

Please sharpen their senses, quicken their reflexes, and give them the courage they need in this time of turmoil. Keep them ever alert and watchful. Give them extra strength and stamina to withstand the rigors they face on a daily basis.

Be with their families and friends who are concerned about their safety.

And when our dedicated service members return, please grant them peace of mind and the ability to cope with the horrors they faced. Help them to return to normal lives as quickly as possible.

These things I ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Amen

Just Rambling

A few quick takes:

The best investment I have made recently was the purchase of a couple of hundred “forever” stamps. They were worth 40 cents apiece when I bought them and now they are worth 44 cents. That’s a 10% return on my investment. Oh, how I wish my brokers had the same results.

A house down the street from us recently went on the market for $350,000. Now we live in a nice neighborhood, but not many houses out here would bring that kind of money. I can think of four or five that might. My home is not one of them.

Yesterday the real estate agent held an open house so I went to see what that kind of money would buy. They have a nice in ground pool and a beautiful view of the lake. But the house is really chopped up. Two bedrooms and two baths on the second floor (no showers), and one bedroom and two baths on the first floor. One does have a shower. A sunken living/great room with a stone fireplace. A kitchen with formica counter tops and rather inexpensive appliances. They took in the original garage to make a family room and added on a deck with a room above the carport for a game room. And the interior colors…..lime green and purple. A purple dining room and one bedroom and two lime green bedrooms. I sure hope it sells for that price or something close to it. Yes sir, I do hope.

I don’t know what can be done about people texting and driving or even talking on their cell phone and driving. It’s obvious that 99.999% of the population isn’t talented enough to handle the combination of those tasks. Just this week I have had an 18 wheeler almost run off the road. One driver was weaving from one side of the lane to the other. Another was going 29 miles per hour on the interstate. I wish the law enforcement officers would ticket them for reckless driving. We need to get this in line with drinking and driving….with big fines, jail time and felony charges if they cause a wreck with serious injury or death.

Finally, I went to a local car dealer yesterday just to look at a couple of cars. I’m not planning to buy for a couple of years, so I was just looking. I noticed the dealership had added all sorts of silly extras and enhanced the price by several thousand dollars. I ran across that one time before. The solution??? Make them order a car to your specifications with nothing additional added. They’ll gripe and moan and even try to make you a real good deal on one in stock. But wait the six weeks that it usually takes and you will be a satisfied customer without any pressure from the sales people.

Of course in this day of instant gratification, six weeks is a lifetime. But, hey, you get a car that was made just for you. How personal can you get?

I Must Go To The Sea Again

I must go down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.

From the poem, “ Sea Fever”, by John Masefield


A few years ago my wife and I chartered a 36 foot sailboat and went out for a week. We made it a point to eat one meal a day ashore and the rest on the boat. The only time we listened to the radio was to get the weather forecast first thing in the morning and the last thing during the evening. There was no television, and no newspapers.

It was a most enjoyable adventure. She learned how to navigate by shooting an azimuth and following a compass setting based on the sea charts. She also learned the thrill of handling the wheel in strong winds with waves breaking over the bow.

You should have seen the delight in her eyes and the grin on her face as the boat surged through the waves and the ocean spray sprinkled us with it’s salty mist.

Then, there was the time when we were coming into the long pier at Ship Island under sail. No one was around us and I had carefully planned our approach and eventual docking. Then, out of no where, a 19’ motor boat zoomed past us, cut perpendicular in front of us and tied up to the pier exactly where we were headed.

I yelled to them to move because I was under sail and didn’t have time to start the engine to slow down. They tried but couldn’t get their boat to start and I was beaming down on them like an ocean liner running across a life raft.

I quickly grabbed the forward line and made a big bowline in it. I handed it to my wife and told her I was about to nudge the side of the boat against the pier and she was to take the line, jump off and throw it around one of the pilings as we went by it.

She did and we stopped about two feet from a bunch of terrified drunks in a powerless powerboat. It scared the crap out of all of us. I tied off the stern and we decided to catch our breath and have a drink before going ashore.

Later that day, we anchored off of an island just at sunset. We had already eaten supper and decided to sit in the cockpit with a Bloody Mary and enjoy the sights and sounds. The sun was beautiful, the waves were peaceful and the world was at ease. We looked at each other and decided we didn’t care what else was going on in the world. For the moment, ours was perfect. We could learn about the worrisome things later, much later.

As darkness crept upon us and the moon came out, we decided to go below and let the gentle motion of the sea rock us to sleep. It was the end of a wonderful day. There were no terrible fears, no sad events, and no world issues to bother us. We looked forward to a beautiful sunrise in the morning beckoning the beginning of another idyllic day at sea.