Thursday, December 25, 2008

Hope For White People In Alabama

Sometimes I think a huge chunk of our white population has lost its collective mind.

White people, after all, are responsible not only for electing--but somehow re-electing--the worst president in our nation's history, leaving us with a mess not seen since the days of Herbert Hoover.

More evidence of "whities gone wacko" comes with a charming Christmas Day story in The Birmingham News. It tells us that local gun enthusiasts are buying up every firearm in sight out of fear that a Barack Obama administration will somehow make it difficult to get that much needed semi-automatic weapon and ammo.

And get this: One gentleman visited a Birmingham sporting-goods store the day after the election and bought $40,000 worth of semi-automatic hunting guns. Said the store's proprietor: "He said that he wanted to guarantee that his children, his grandchildren and yet-to-be-born grandchildren would have a way to hunt."

Gee, I thought the economy was bad, but this bozo could blow $40,000 on guns. And given his enthusiasm for firearms, I think it's safe to say he already had a bunch of guns.

Now, this gentleman could have put that money into college funds for his grand kids. Heck, he could have even made donations in their names to a favorite charity--say, one designed to help fight cancer or heart disease or hunger or poverty.

But no, he wanted to make sure the fruit of his loins could shoot guns to their hearts content. Makes you feel good about the future of our country doesn't it?

In the same edition of the same newspaper, we find a story that actually does make you feel good about our country.

Joe Openshaw, a retired veterinarian from Bessemer, Alabama, has 11 Christmas trees in his 1895 home. The trees have different themes, and each year, one tree has a patriotic theme.

This year's patriotic tree includes a tribute to our president-elect. It features Barack Obama campaign buttons, plus pictures of Obama and his family. The "Tribute Tree to Our President-Elect" stands in the bedroom of Openshaw's 18-year-old son, Daniel, and won't come down until after the Jan. 20 inauguration.

Openshaw's 22-year-old daughter, Marlow, is particularly protective of the Obama tree. Her best friend said she was going to put a John McCain ornament on the tree, but Marlow said it wouldn't stay on long.

How often have you heard patriotism associated with the Republican Party, almost as if it has been permanently hijacked? But here you have a white family, living in a state with a tortured history on race, showing support for our first African-American president.

Maybe there's hope for our country, and our state, after all.

3 comments:

Joe said...

Thanks, Roger. Am I a symbol of hope? Just kidding, the symbol of hope is going to DC.

Yeah those gun buyers are a bit scary.

I posted a link on my blog to the pictures from the Birmingham News.

legalschnauzer said...

Joe:
Thanks for writing. Very much enjoyed the piece in the News, and hope they get the whole story, with the photos, up on their Web site.

Happy Holidays.

LS

Anonymous said...

LS: Obama is half white so you can hope for that half, at least. Meaning the black half, the part that was/is supposedly "Muslim" we do not have to worry about since this attack by Israel on Gaza has been sanctioned by him in his silence.

In other words, do not worry about our white gun toting folk, worry about Israel since this is who and what runs America, not Obama.

Be ready for serious disappointments, just as the 40 grand gun man is going to be since guns are nothing up against missiles, just as the Palestinians.

Sorry to be a hum bug, however, the white folk and black folk who voted for McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden are going to be shocked to find that they did not vote for any of those people, but indeed, put the same owners of the globalized world in charge.

Like we could change the way our country is run.

That would mean the average American (Mr. and Mrs. Schnauzer) would have come into enough money to buy prime time advertising on the World News Network owned by one and the same "handlers."

No, the internet is the only forum at this time for our salvation and it is just not the power house to make CHANGE happen since only a few humans (globally on that scale), own computers.