Appalachian Patria

Appalachian Intellectual. To me that means plain thinking. I am A Non Commissioned Officer in the Army Reserves. Let me say...My views expressed here are mine and not those of The U.S. Army, Army Reserve or my fellow brethren in The National Guard. This is entirely Sua Sponte. This is My Thinking. I'm single and in my mid 30's. Politicaly, I'm a Libertarian. (Again, Sua Sponte.I do not represent the Libertarian Party.)I love my native Appalachia, Rock n Roll and...I love God.

Name:
Location: Brevard, North Caroilina

I started blogging for two reasons. I was concerned about the changes to the area I live in, Southern Appalachia and I was about to go to the war. I was in Iraq in 06 and 07 and now Kuwait in 11 and 12. Blogging was a means of documenting my experiences and hoping it would help gain clarity. I don't feel that way about it any more. It's said people write blogs because they are frustrated, that's why people read them too. That makes us sound apocalyptic. Are we? Let it be said, what I say here is of my own thinking. This is entirely Sua Sponte and not an official representation of the U.S. Military or the U.S. Government as a whole.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Protest Songs

I just heard this song on WNCW on my way to work this morning. I'd not heard of this fellar, Joe Ely, until then. "Me and Billy the Kid".


Now this here is a protest song, with some fowl language. Twister turned me on to it.Time Wilson, "I could be wrong".


Which, this reminds me of one of the same nature from Tom Petty, "Jammin' Me".


Feed back time...
The, yes THE Appalachianist

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Drama Zombies

It's been a while since I sat to write on a Sunday Night. We had snow twice this week. It slowed everything down, but was pretty to look at. It was just cold this morning, 5.

I'm too numb to be disgusted, disappointed would be a better word. Hillary Clinton and John McCain? Are people naive or are they glutton for punishment? Punishment? What have we done, but to be gullible enough to listen to spin? John McCain's "Campaign Reform" is an attack on free speech. To the point of regulating what people say about candidates on blogs like this. Hillary? Remember her with the FBI Files? Can you imagine her with the nonPatriot Act? They tell us hope, but only offer us the same thing that digs us into a hole, a broken police state where Freedom is lip service...Blathering. "It's all designed to keep us behind...We're trading freedoms for the mark of the beast".

I don't like politics, but when they threaten your beliefs, your way of life, you have to do something. It's not as if we have allot of choice here. Personally, since the Libertarian Party is being suppressed in the state of North Carolina (Another growing police state)I'm supporting a Republican Candidate, Ron Paul.

We throw off on politicians like someone complains about a person they can disassociate with but won't. People keep voting for the same wolves in sheep's clothing.
America, Drama Zombies...
The Appalachianist

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Sad But True

I did not write the following, it was an e-mail sent to me by my local Militant Mulungeon, Twister.

Currently we have Politicians...Why did I capitalize that?...telling us they have all the answers. A Government that creates your problem and then tells you it's the answer, isn't that a form of mental abuse? I won't get into the back ground of why this is so, I'm no expert, but it's not hard to figure out. You want more affordable health care? Sorry, Hillary, but socialism is not the answer.

Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas is a fairly famous institution and for a variety of reasons:

1. John F. Kennedy died there in 1963;
2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after; and,
3. Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died there a few years later, by coincidence.

On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second busiest maternity ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies arriving each year. (That's almost 44 per day --- every day.)

A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of the women who gave birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006 were illegal immigrants.

That's 11,200 anchor babies born every year just in Dallas.

According to a Dallas Morning News article, the hospital spent $70.7 million delivering 15,938 babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8 million dollars in surplus funding. Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million, Dallas County taxpayers kicked in $31.3 million and the feds tossed in another $9.5 million.

The ! average patient in Parkland maternity wards is 25 years old, married and giving birth to her second child.

She is also an illegal immigrant.

By law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care based on their immigration status or ability to pay.

OK, fine. That doesn't mean they should receive better care than everyday, middle-class American citizens. But at Parkland Hospital, they do. Parkland Memorial Hospital has nine prenatal clinics.

NINE!

The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic woman who was a patient at one of the clinics and pregnant with her third child --- her previous two was also born at Parkland. Her first two deliveries were free and the Mexican native was grateful because it would have cost ...

$200 to have them in Mexico.

This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10 per visit and $100 for the delivery but she was unsure if she could come up with the money. Not that it matters, the hospital won't turn her away. (I wonder why they even bother asking at this point.)

How long has this been going on? What are the long-term affects?

Well, another subject of the article was born at Parkland in 1986 shortly after her mother entered the US illegally. Now she is having her own child there as well. (That's right, she's technically a U.S. citizen.)

These women receive free prenatal care including medication, nutrition, birthing classes and child care classes. They also get freebies such as car seats, bottles, d! iapers and formula.

Most of these things are available to American citizens as well but only for low-income applicants and even then, the red tape involved is almost insurmountable.

Because these women are illegal immigrants, they do not have to provide any sort of legitimate identification or any proof of income. An American citizen would have to provide a social security number which would reveal their annual income. An illegal immigrant needs only to claim to be poor and the hospital must take them at their word.

Parkland Hospital offers indigent care to Dallas County residents who earn less than $40,000 per year. (They also have to prove that they did not refuse health coverage at their current job. Yeah, the 'free' care is not so easy for Americans.)

There are about 140 patients who received roughly $4 million dollars for un-reimbursed medical care. As it turns out, they did not qualify for free treatment because they resided outside of! Dallas County so the hospital is going to sue them!

Illegals get it all free! But U.S. citizens who live outside of Dallas County get sued! How stupid is this?

As if that isn't annoying enough ...











Illegal immigrant patients are actually complaining about hospital staff not speaking Spanish.











In this AP story, the author speaks with a woman who is upset that she had to translate comments from the hospital staff into Spanish for her husband. The doctor was trying to explain the situation to the family and the mother was forced to translate for her husband who only spoke Spanish. This was apparently a great injustice to her.

In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff, Parkland Hospital is now providing incentives in the form of extra pay for applicants who speak Spanish. Additionally, medical students at the University of Texas Southwestern, for which Parkland Hospital is the training facility, will now have a Spanish language requirement added to their already jammed-packed curriculum.! No oth er school in the country boasts such a ridiculous multi-semester (multicultural) requirement.

(Sorry for the length, but I think this needs wide circulation, particularly to our 'employees' in Congress.)

Remember that this is only ONE hospital in Dallas , Texas. There must be many more hospitals across our country that also have to deal with this.













PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY U.S. CITIZEN YOU KNOW.


If you want to verify accuracy:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/parkland! .asp




That was HTML Hell...

I'm listening to The Cult. "I ain't no dirty suicide"
The Appalachianist

Monday, January 14, 2008

Hounds


Bell (Blue Tick, Walker, Cur) in the box, photo taken on a Hunt in Coweeta Creek Biological Labratory, Nanatahla Game Lands, Nantahala National Forest, Macon County NC.


Rambo, AKA "Squeaky"(Plott), on the box,photo taken on a Hunt in Coweeta Creek Biological Labratory, Nanatahla Game Lands, Nantahala National Forest, Macon County NC.


Sally(Red Bone) Photo taken in Farlow Gap, Pisgah Game Lands, Pisgah National Forest, Transylvania County NC.


At the kill, Walker Hounds, two dogs not pictured were injured by the Bear. Photo taken in Pisgah Game Lands, Pisgah National Forest,Haywood County NC.

The Appalachianist

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Weezer in the Dust

I was looking for a shots fired incident YouTube that occurred on Taji during my time there and found this video of a dust storm. I saw several of these storms and may have been in this one. When this happens all you smell and taste is dirt. The Iraqis would walk around in it because it cooled things off a degree or two. This video is just over a minute and a half, so it's fairly dial up friendly.

Good 'ol Taji Iraq. Both are four letter words.

I've not resumed looking for the shots fired incident.

I dig Weezer. I think Weezer is so nerdishly cool. Now some of you heathens, and gentiles alike...Remember gentile is a kinder, more gentler word for barbarian...Want to be entertained. I'm not in the mood. I've been writing on something else, I don't feel like writing on the blog. Now I realise you need a break from this election crap. I heard this on the radio the other night so I thought I'd throw it up here.
A couple of years after this song came out on what had been an impromptu date to Bele Chere I quoted this song to the girl...OK, I sung the chorus...It went over her head like a tent. So nerdishly cool.

Every body give it up for Weezer and their hit, Buddy Holly!


Don't be dissing my blog.
The Appalachianist

Friday, January 04, 2008

Rocking Appalachia

Al Gore provides solutions to our environmental dilemma.


Hayseed Dixie conquers the Nashville.


Hayseed Dixie...Not Motorhead...Ace of Spades.


All Humility...



You Are 12% Sociopath



You're empathetic, loyal, and introspective.

In other words, there's no way you're a sociopath... but you can spot one pretty easily!



It's a Hill Billy Rave.
The Appalachianist

Thursday, January 03, 2008

The Dawn Of A New Day


The first day of the year, the new day, it was beginning of the new...A new leaf. And then it was the ending. The first day was the last day. The last chance on the first, the last chance for the hounds to race the bruin, the last of Bear Season. The sky was clear, dark and calm. Squeaky, the Plott Bear Dog, lead to the truck, hopped up and into the box without hesitation. He seemed to know it was the last day, yet seemed as energetic as the first. Hounds loyal only to the hunt. Man and dog alike felt good and hopeful as it was the dawn of a new day, full of change, full of possibilities. Good songs were on the radio, the morning itself radiated a something in itself...Confidence could be soaked through the rays of sunlight shining over the ridges. In the gaps up on the high lonesome, high above the sleepy valleys, high above the suicide kings and drama queens and the unhappiness they feel intrinsic to their lives, the first winds were felt. The wind blew changes in itself. North winds blowing in bitter cold, blowing away the scents. We, the confident die hards, stood huddled around our trucks exchanging possibilities in places and strategies for the last race. The sun grew higher, the wind grew colder, the tracks older. We ran the hounds, ut not getting the race either of us wanted. With the ground freezing under our feet and the winds of change stinging our cheeks we knew it had ended. Yet, we had begun the year right in the dawn of a new day.

Let the Hill Billy Rave Begin!
The Appalachianist