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Bobby Cox; Writer, photographer, and general layabout.

Archive for the ‘beingacritic’ Category

No Free lunch

with 2 comments

Got this forward from a friend. It’s interesting to note the themes in it and how they resonate with our frustration with America now. It also seems a throwback to what we view as our sentimental past. Perhaps this is a bad thing, that these kinds of ideas seem outdated, but they are far from being so.

No Free lunch
There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some Exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back And stretching as if his back hurt.
The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, ‘Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke.’You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.
Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP),welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms - just a little at a time.

One should always remember ‘There is no such thing as a free Lunch!’ Also, “You can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

Also, if you see that all of this wonderful government ‘help’ is a problem confronting the future of America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the subsidized “free” ride is essential to your way of life then you will probably delete this email, but God help you when the gate slams shut!

Written by Bobby

December 12th, 2007 at 10:54 am

Posted in beingacritic

Things I Hate About My Girlfriend

with 2 comments

Brilliant writing, I laughed at a lot of these entries.  Just brilliant.  Warning:  British humor, if you know you don’t Get British Humor, do not dare venture here.

Things I Hate About My Girlfriend (Mil Millington)

Written by Bobby

August 9th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

Posted in beingacritic

Environmental Website Done Right ™

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Check out “We Are What We Do,” a clever take on environmentalism.  Just click and say that you’ve done it.  I can see this being somewhat addictive.  What have YOU done lately?  =)

Written by Bobby

August 8th, 2007 at 12:01 am

Posted in beingacritic

El Espinazo del diablo

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Or, otherwise known as “The Devil’s Backbone.”

devil’s backbone

Or yet otherwise known as a rousing good tale from writer-director Guillermo del Toro (of Pan’s Labryinth fame). I watched it in one gasp, while coughing from a nasty chest cold. It is a refreshing ghost story, one well suited to a hot summer’s day. It is thankfully free from cliches — the screaming babe, the hand from behind, the joke scares, the ominous camera pans, and the pointy teeth.

Instead you are treated to a clean ghost story, in an isolated school for boys in World War I-era Spain. Rent it, and treat yourself to it if you haven’t seen it!

Written by Bobby

August 5th, 2007 at 8:33 pm

Posted in beingacritic