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Every Week without Fail, Since July 1, 1921 2009 Dixie County Advocate Dead fish deserve respect? According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the practice of "fish-flinging" is disrespectful and should be outlawed, or at least relegated to the subject of crude jokes on the Dave Letterman show. Fish-flinging is the practice of...are you ready for this? Flinging fish! That wasn't too difficult now, was it? It seems that fish are being flung indiscriminately at the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Washington. The fish are decapitated and eviscerated (sounds more gruesome than "cleaned"; . PETA ought to like that). And the people who engage in, this cruel sport are known as "fishmongers." Specifically, the fishmongers toss the headless fish to one an- other while crowds of voyeuristic spectators enjoy the bar- baric spectacle. (I apologize for this graphic description, but the public needs to be aware that this outrage is going on!) A PETA representative explained that, "Killing animals so you can toss their bodies around for amusement is just twisted!" Not only is this gruesome practice going on at a fish market, plans are reportedly underway to stage a "flying'fish" exhi- bition at an upcoming veterinarians conference in Seattle. PETA is considering staging a protest at this event, though it appears that no celebrities have volunteered to show up / naked for the occasion, as some have done in support of past PETA protests. . Since the focus of PETA's objection to fish-flinging lies in -the fact that it is disrespectful.to the deceased fish, some have questioned whether dead fish are deserving of the sort of respect we give dead people, or even deceased pets. It has even been suggested that, once the fish has been caught, the game is pretty well over for it anyway, so what's the differ- ence if its carcass,gets tossed around before it goes in the, frying pan? How insensitive! A compromise of sorts would be to toss live fish around be- fore returning them to the pond, river, ocean or whatever. Sort of like catching a fish for the sport of it, maybe taking a quick picture, then returning the creature:to the wild. However, defenders of these.aquatic creatures object to the practice because heartless fishermen actually use hooks to secure their prey, and they sometimes impale Worms, insects or smaller fish on these hooks in order to lure their prey into their fiendish clutches! What is perhaps even more troubling is a PISATeport that the President of the United States--Barack Hussein Obama-- not only killed a fly during a televised interview, he actually used his foot to shove the corpse out of his immediate pres- ence: When our president sets this sort of example, we can hardly expect more civilized behavior from the populace! No doubt, this disrespect for departed fish, insects and other creatures is due to tlhe coarsening of our culture. After all, we raise chickens, hogs and cattle for no reason whatsoever but to turn them into food. And this food is actually not good for us! Any vegan (that's a vegetarian who has achieved a higher degree of purity) will tell you that soybean flour makes a very acceptable substitute for animal flesh, Just think how happy and healthy you would be if you never pol- luted your body with fat and cholesterol-laden meats! Now, if you simply cannot stand to go on a vegetarian diet, even though you support PETA's objectives, I would recom- mend that you consider road-kill for your main course. That way, you will in no re- spect be responsi- ble for the ani- U mal's demise. R On the other hand. you would be de- priving the buz- zards of their sus- tenance, so I ex- pect PETA would object to eating road kill, too. $Vieg~wpoints g- - ~ in~u d --- . ulpolmorlcu~~rsI~o l~~~nr~rPau ~ra~s~ 9~~q~r~.~VFW-.- . mmm -p- Wdtolal p~68~no~p uff-I&P,'~w l ~ r Kathy, live from Tehran, and (gasp!) unplugged Remember that thunderstorm we had Thurs- Sday afternoon? I was at the library for our fiber group when it hit and we noticed the hail bouncing off of the library windows. I grabbed my camera and went outside (being an idiot, don't you know) and started taking pictures of it. Fortunately, Cindy Bellot has more sense than I do, and one big thunderclap went ka- blam! and she ushered me inside for safety Little did I know that while I was playing Weather Channel Reporter, that self-same storm was at my house, frying my Hughesnet modem. It took me a while to figure out what it was, and about six hours on the phone with "Bob" from India, plugging and un- plugging, booting and rebooting, before he'd admit that it was fried. So, in just 5-7 "short" business days, I should have a new one, at no charge. Cool. Then it hit me: seven days with no internet? OMG, what will I do? I'll tell you what I'm doing. I AM. FREAKING. OUT. Not having instant, 24-hpur a day access to the information superhighway makes me feel like I am walk- ing around with one arm tied behind my brain. I, feel like I have a box over my head; I Mean n feel like I've lost one of my vital senses. Fifty naturally dilv times a day I think of something that I need (1) Those who more information on, ard reach for the com- people,, puter to Godgle it, and then smack myself. No pors from internet. Aigh. My Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter friends must think I've died. Doug of he high left six messages on my answering machine who Idently because I didn't answer an e-mail he sent,, people, have Thursday asking if I wanted a box or two of cherish and peaches from Barney, Georgia. (I did, but now most honest an I can't google for peach recipes. What am I go- ing to do with all of them?) Oh, halp! mst S public Intere It's time for me to admit it: my name is Kathy these two and I have an internet addiction. (Hi, Kathy!) every one w I'm cut off from the world. Literally. One of the things I've been doing over the last week mey will is hanging out on Twitter, watching the Iran- ian Revolution ufifold. When I joined Twitter, even my daughter Casey played with it a while and said, "I don't get it, what are you supposed to do with it?" She dropped it. But I found watching thousands of strangers talking to each other fascinating. Without Twitter, the Iran- ian Revolution would most likely never have happened. It started in bits and bytes. A few messages here,.and there, about gatherings in Iran and the police crackdown. Nobody in the mainstream media was paying attention. Twitterfolk kept telling each other, "Re-tweet this! We'll make them pay atte ntion!'#cnnfaiL CNNfail was a pretty popular hashtag in those early days. (Ahashtag is just a way of categorizing messages so that they're easy to find.) People started tinting their pictures green to show support for the protesters. We all changed our locations to Tehran to make it harder for the Iranian government to track the bloggers who were keeping the stories alive. American college students and geeks stayed up all night, setting up I.P addresses that the Iranian students could use to access the internet as the Iranian gov- ernment shut them down, one by one. It became sort of a community; as people just tried to help each other. Republicans, democrats, people from all over, Germany, Mexico, everybody, just trying to find one more way to get the message out and to keep the Iranian bloggers online for one more hour. Finally, even CNN picked up the story after enough people got killed and hurt to make it "newsworthy," I suppose. The news coverage couldn't give you the immediate feel that Twitter does. It's one thing to. hear a news anchor saying something like "Violence escalat- Bondage is the normal human condition History confirms that bondage or enslavement is the normal human condi-, tion. Our American "experi- ment" is an exception. Our founders proclaimed the rights of the individual to be derived from "Nature's Cre- ator" rather than granted by any ruler. They limited our government so that it served the people and was responsi- ble to them. They derived the rights of the government from the consent of the governed. Each individual was set free to seek his for- tune and, should he fail, to try again or throw himself upon the charity of his neighbors. Our founders, in their let- ters, expressed concern that corrupt politicians aided by apathetic citizens would lead the nation back to human bondage. Were they to rise up from their hallowed graves and view America to- day, they would be shocked and greatly saddened. Free- dom and individual liberties, as.they knew them, have giv- en way to dependency, igno- rance and apathy Individual responsibility, discipline and ambition have given way to a sense of entitlement for a large segment of voters who feel victimized by com- petition and freedom it- self. The founders might ruefully ask: Do Americans of 2009 deserve to be citizens of this exceptional nation we found- ed? Do they no longer ap- preciate its greatness, their freedoms and opportunities denied citizens elsewhere? Why have they not defended their rights against serfdom to the federal government? What became of their courage and self-sufficiency? What became of accepting responsibility for one's choices and actions? Has America become A nation of self- indulgent, whining cow- ards? Maybe President Obama and his cult-like supporters have it right after all. Perhaps we have become a nation of 4ow - * * A AM Copyrighted Material -, SOP f Syndicated Content -. 4 j Available from Commercial News Providers 513M-^ /^i^; ed today in Tehran as the government cracked down on pro- testers," and it's a totally different experience to read a "tweet" from @Persiangirl that says "OMG, they're throw- ing the students out of the upper dorm windows. My broth- er is there. Plz pray for us." The Iranian government tried to stop it. They set up fake Twitter accounts, and had moles in the #iranrevolution feeds posting fake information and propaganda. They were almost instantly rooted out, and placed on posted lists of people to shun. Iran tried cutting off the telephones, the in- ternet, cell phones...but the tech-savvy kids, weaned on Facebook and Flickr, worked around them and sent their photos and videos out into the ether in the hopes that some- body would watch. The world is watching now, and the mul- lahs can't stop it. The oppressive Iranian regime is being re- strained by the freedom that technology gives its people. For the most part,.Iran is using water cannons and tear gas instead of bullets. Without Twitter and the worldwide atten- tion it achieved, I suspect Iran would have committed a mas- sacre that would have made Tiananmen Square look like a Chinese square dance. elr consltutions amr led Into two parUtes tearand disgust the and wish to draw all them Into the hands er classes. (2) Those Themselves wlth the 'confidence In them, conslderthem as the Fd safe, although not Ise depository of the sts. In every country parties eoxst and In here they are free to Inkl cnaMnk And WIft Big Government doesn't like freedom. They don't like it when the "rabble" are able to communicate, to share informa- tion and to coordinate. That's why they're so hot to control the internet, cell phones, and the airwaves. That's why they like the Fairness Doctrine. That's why Obama is always whining that FOX news exists and why Bush so hated the New York Times. ABC, NBC and the oth- ers are BHO's lackeys; they jump at his command. They produce his infomer- cials and propaganda. FOX mocks their boot-licking and calls it what it is: media corruption. Governments HATE to be mocked. Freedom of speech and of thought disrupts their sense of control. "'m4 U ., f -u"a I suspect that's the reason Obama was so Declare themseles, slow to put out any statement of support -Thomas Jeff eson for the protesters: given a choice, he'd rather deal with the existing dictatorship than the hordes of everyday Iranian folk, standing up for some measure of freedom. Obama and the mullahs speak the same language that all government does. The language of control, of suppression, and of pacification of the "sheeple." Big Government says, "Life is too hard for you. We'll give you everything you need; we'll take care of you. We'll provide your health care, your pension, your job...we'll take care of your babies with 'free' day care, we'll educate your children to be the kind of citizens we want, we'll even feed them 'free' lunch, you just-be good little sheelp, send us your tax money, watch television and don't think to- much." Above all, don't rock the boat or ask questions: We think we're free because we get to vote which pack of wolves is in charge this election cycle. Some of us will be at Tea Parties on July 4th, standing up for OUR freedom here in the U.S.. Most of us will be home, sitting on the couch, or grilling ribs, enjoying the liberty we're too lazy to keep.. The majori- ty of us are sheeple, indeed. I may be cut off from the Twitterverse and from real cover- age of what's going on in Iran this week, but I support the people there who are willing to stand and possibly die for freedom. I support the 20-something guy I saw in the green * GAP tee shirt with only his Nokia cell phone as a weapon, standing up against the dark forces of religious oppression and demanding that his country join the 21st century The American Government is willing to stand safely on the side- lines and wait for it to be over so they can cut deals with the victors. Luckily, the "common folk" online are ready and willing to help the cause of freedom, wherever it is found. losers, and incompetents. Poorly educated by our pub- lic schools, lacking in confi- dence, discipline and courage, many no longer be- lieve they can work hard, compete and be successful. To them it makes sense, as Obama suggests, to have the government take money from productive citizens (the ones who are derided as greedy, uncaring and im- moral) and use it to help out the rest. One wonders what will hap- pen when Congress raises taxes on the producers.of wealth to the level where they no longer have an in- centive to work and support the country Many will re- tire. Some will relocate busi- nesses to wherever there is more economic freedom. Those who must remain in America and have not accu- mulated the wealth to retire will find ways to spend less and work less.The American standard of living will fall. As always, those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder (clamoring for "hope" and "change") will suffer the most. Unless the laws govern- ing economics un- changed over the past two thousand years - are wrong, this admin- istration's move to man- S age the economy will fail. Miserably The na- tion and the people will bethe worse for it. There will be more poverty, more pain and renewed calls for "change." Historically, the "change" is ultimately to dictatorship of some sort with loss of indi- vidual freedoms. Germany, for example, was an intellec- tually vibrant nation with representative government before socialism and eco- nomic collapse gave rise to national socialism (Nazism). We delude ourselves who think this cannot happen in America. Can seizure of the economy and most other aspects of so- ciety by the "governing class" be reversed? Is there a Ronald Reagan out there who can speak the truth about government in a fash- ion understood by all as he did in the dismal Carter years? Probably not. The task falls on lesser tal- ents, yours and mine. We must speak out and fight against the taking of our freedoms. Those who will not defend the country do not deserve its citizenship. Dr. William Dixon William Dixon graduatedfrom Columbia College in New York City, from New York Medical College and from the College of Business Administration at the University of South Florida. He was an assistant professor at the University of Georgia and he hps worked in the veterans adminis- tration system. He served 11 years in the Army as a surgeon and as specialforces officer, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel. Dr Dixon can be reached at Wdixonl6@yahoo.com. Reprinted with Dr Dixon's kind permission. Page 2 ^^^wrAw.^'v^-..,Pwa n'^.ilfumairainlrnomhtarlolunErDUMA p ''