News, thieves, sausage and ham

Prior to getting started with this latest offering, please indulge me for a moment or two.

I try to keep up with the news. Really. Maybe not as much as I once did. Age, I’ve found, brings a bit more cynicism than wisdom.

Watching the television news in 2014 is often more comical than all of those mind-numbing TV sit-coms put together.

And I’ve about had it with Fox News.

I’ve long admired Fox News for speaking truth to power, unlike the Clinton News Network (CNN) et. al. However, in the past month, with coverage of ISIS or ISIL or whatever the latest term du jour is for the extremist terrorists who like to behead the non-believers might be, I’ve come to this conclusion: Fox News producers don’t have a clue.

Granted, CNN is still looking for its first clue. The same goes for MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, or all the other networks that place talking heads in front of a “news” camera solely because, while somewhat attractive, they weren’t sufficiently so for a film career.

For more than a month, the Fox News coverage of ISIS has included some stock video of these poor-man’s terrorists doing desert calisthenics and trotting across some half-assed obstacle course. The entire ISIS workout regimen – as shown by Fox News – ends with a group of robed men hanging from monkey bars. I am not making this up.

Fox News embarrasses itself and insults its viewers each time it airs this “B Roll” footage. Stop it, already. If the United States Armed Forces cannot defeat such a ragtag group of terrorists, we are in serious trouble.

* * *

For a more honest representation in government, maybe we need to go back several centuries to the days of Vlad the Impaler.

My brother-in-law and longtime friend, local historian and educator Chris Fuller, tells a better version of the story about a merchant and his money, but here is its essence.

A merchant was traveling through the kingdom of Vlad the Impaler, when he remembered about the honesty in it. He had nowhere to stay, so he decided to leave his cart full of coins in a public plaza and go to sleep. In the morning, the merchant found 160 coins missing from his cart. Very depressed about this, he informed Vlad and was told by him to stay in his palace. The palace guards were ordered to find the thief.

Vlad secretly sent the 160 coins to the merchant's cart plus one more coin.

When the merchant returned to his cart, he was very pleased to find the 160 coins. When he went to thank Vlad the Impaler, the merchant mentioned the extra coin.

Vlad told the merchant that the thief had been caught and was being impaled, and that if the merchant hadn't disclosed the extra coin, he, too, would have been impaled.

There are big thieves and little thieves. But a thief is still a thief.

* * *

The late country music entertainer and sausage baron Jimmy Dean passed away a few years ago at the age of 80-something.

His autobiography, “30 Years of Sausage, 50 Years of Ham,” is on my “to read” list.

With our local farming community nearing the end of the 2014 harvest season, I thought it would be worthwhile to look back at Jimmy Dean’s classic recitation of “The Farmer And The Lord.” (Plus, I just listened to it again the other night on “Country Family Reunion.”)

Here it is:

While resting the other evening by the side of the road,
I saw an old farmer in the field that he just sowed,
His face was all brown and wrinkled from the sun and the wind;
And he was talking to the Lord just like he'd be talking to a friend.

Well sir, he said with his voice calm and quiet,
Them corn tassels need stackin' I got no strength to tie it.
Had no rain in so long that the fields are mighty dusty,
And it's been so unbearable hot that the kids were even gettin' fussy.

Now that grass down and the pasture it should be knee high.
If we could just have a little shower Lord,
It might keep the calf from going dry.
Oh, but listen to me talking, you'd think I wasn't grateful.
Why if you didn't know me so well Lord,
You'd think I was down right hateful.

You'd think I forgot about that new calf that you sent,
And the money in the mail that took care of the rent.
Mama's cough's better and Johnny's home from the navy,
And that good Sunday dinner of chicken and dumplings and gravy.

And that new preacher you sent us Lord he's sure a fine young man,
Why, he's just convertin' them sinners to beat the band.
Well, guess I'll mosey on home now, Lord.
I won't take no more of your time.

Guess there's plenty folks here about waitin' to ring your line.
Evening to you Lord and watch us over tonight.
And don't you worry about us now Lord,
'Cause everything is gonna be all right...

Rory Rory is publisher and owner of The Highland County Press.