-Around the World in 80 Words- (12-29-09)

--Football player gets concussion. Coach questions said player's toughness. Coach locks player in dark closet. Coach suspended. Typical.

--Would-be Christmas terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to bring down a plane with an explosive 'bulge'. A Pakistani journalist warned us of 'Suicide Underwear' in 2008.

--An 86-year-old Indian governor resigned after a tape showed him getting busy with 3 young women. Headline of the week from The Times of India: 'After sex sting, AP governor Tiwari ejects prematurely.'

Merry Christmas from the Muffin!

I do not enjoy being serious. It's typically not my style. But when Christmas comes, it seems right to express how blessed I am on a fine public forum like Al Gore's internet. For this one time and one time only, I must put down my guard when it comes to the content of this website. It is the policy of this site to avoid comment on 1. Politics, 2. Religion, and 3. the inner workings of the female brain. Later on, policy #2 is going to be breached...big time. Disciples of Darwin and Dawkins, consider yourself notified.

Sometimes my tongue and cheek approach to the greatness that is America may seem a bit ambiguous, but I want to make it clear how glad I am to be living in the United States of America. Thank God we can worship who/what we want, when we want. Thank God we can wish friends and family a "Merry Christmas" without being persecuted. I know the ever-increasing political correctness of the nation may seem like a terrible thing to some, but let's get real: Generally speaking, if you want to wish someone a "Merry Christmas" instead of saying "Happy Holidays," you can do it. If you want to wish someone a "Happy Hanukkah" or "Happy Chinese New Year," you can do it. And, even though your religious greetings may occasionally start a heated discussion in this country, they will not land you in prison. Thank God.

This Christmas, many of us are still adjusting to this new American economy. My current apartment, which 2 years ago I wouldn't have considered fit to live in, has become a quaint blessing. I no longer have cable. I unplug every electrical device in my place when I leave for the day. The heat is hardly ever turned on. As it turns it out, I can be just as warm if I just wear sweat pants and a sweat shirt while lounging around as I could be running the heat 24/7 and lounging in my birthday suit. I can't eat out much any more, but I haven't gone hungry one day in my life. Thank God.

I hope all of you are fortunate enough to have a great family like mine. To say that my family loves me would be a gross understatement. My mother and father are blessed people that have done absolutely everything humanly imaginable to make sure that I am safe, healthy,and happy. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. are amazing people with terrific stories, ideas, and backgrounds that have shaped and influenced me. My brother is my best friend. My good friends, new and old, are people that I can trust my life to, and I hope they know I care for them just as deeply. Whether I am having a good day or a bad day, I know I am being loved at all times. Thank God.

Sometimes, I try to put everything in perspective and understand why things are the way they are...i.e. Why are things so good for me, but so bad for thousands across this country and even worse for millions around the world? I fall short of understanding these things every time I go down that mental road. As a Christian, I have complete and total faith in the Christmas story and every other story in the Bible. But, I still don't know or understand why things are the way the are. Non-Christians take issue with belief like mine in a world like ours, and believe it or not, I understand their point of view. It makes no sense. What pains me the most is seeing some Christians condemn others for their lifestyles, political affiliations, sexual orientations, race, class, and religious preferences. No wonder some people discount Christianity and other religions for that matter.

Again, I don't understand it all, but I will advance this passage from Luke in the New Testament which is similar to the dilemmas I just explained. It's from chapter 2. Jesus was a young boy:

42When he was 12 years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. 43 After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." 49 "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" 50 But THEY DID NOT UNDERSTAND what he was saying to them.

The parallel I saw was that these two parents: Mary, heavily favored by God, and Joseph, a descendant of David also heavily favored by God...didn't understand what Jesus was up too. Similarly, I believe in Him, but I don't understand. Some question that sort of belief; others think it's stupid. That's fine. They clearly have good reasons for doing so. Not to mention, Christians are often considered hypocrites due to way they live. This is especially common around Christmas when "Christians come out of the woodwork." There's a reason they come out of the woodwork. Christmas is pretty special; it gets to people. As for the argument non-Christians have that Christians are hypocrites: Good argument. Again, I don't know why things are the way they are. What I can tell you is that if Christmas never happened, and Jesus never came to Earth, there would be only three folks allowed in heaven: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit (and maybe Santa). Either way, thanks to Christmas and Easter, they got plenty of room for hypocrites up there. Thank God.

Merry Christmas everybody!

- Around the World in 80 Words - (12-17-09)

--The Brits may have “dodgy” hand gestures like this guy, but they did figure out the genetic code of cancer. "Delightful."

--“Back in my day, it snowed all the time here in the hills of North Carolina.” Those days are back.

--Any proponents of acupuncture out there? I considered it until I stumbled upon this.

--Chinese man, Lo Wung taught his monkeys how to practice martial arts. The monkeys taught him how to beg for mercy.

-- ...Go Heels. Roll Tide.

The Dog that Ought to be Dead

“That dog couldn’t make water for weeks. He ought to be dead.”

Most often, America is personified by…well, persons. Sometimes, though, an animal can chisel its legacy into the ever-expanding tablet of Americana that we honor here on Muffin Matters.

Today we honor a dog that has beaten all odds in order to simply still be standing. His name is Jake. Jake is a powerful American name. Consider ‘Jake the Snake’ for instance: A spectacular professional wrestler of old who enjoyed large pythons and trashy mustaches. How about ‘Big Jake’? One of John Wayne’s finest films shot in the twilight of his career. A career for Wayne, by the way, that ended far too soon. There’s Jake Owen who sings of the South’s best time-honored traditions in his country songs, and there’s Jake Delhomme who is known for his many, many interceptions on the NFL’s biggest stages.

The Jake we honor today though, is no ‘roided combatant of the steel cage nor is he a cue card-aided creation of the silver screen. He isn’t a legend beneath the neon moon of the Honky Tonk nor an inept handler of the pigskin on Carolina’s gridiron. No, this Jake is something else. He is a real American like us. He grew up in the fields of a sleepy North Carolina town called Kings Mountain. He was one of 5-20 children (the records are unclear). He never knew his father. He was taken from his mother soon after birth. One by one he watched his brothers and sisters as they were snatched in the night…and sometimes during the day. People called him a bastard. The same people told him that his long lost mother was a bitch. The odds were against Jake from the start, but he never got down and he kept plugging along. Family after family passed Jake by leaving him to fend for himself until one fateful day. That’s the day a kind man named Jimmy on Goforth Road agreed to take Jake in.

Jake’s life started to turn around. Jimmy had a barn and lots of new animal friends for Jake. Jake met Maggie the yellow lab, Cody the sheep dog, Ben the large angry billy goat, several nice horses, and countless bovines that were pleased to meet him. Jake was happier than he had ever been. He had a dogloo roof over his head and food on the ground every night. Things could only go downhill for Jake at that point, and that’s just what they did.

First, Jake’s new family noticed that his eyes were becoming cloudy, and his vision was leaving him quickly. Most likely a victim of cataracts, Jake soon became blind and was forced to travel by sense of smell, sound, and sudden impact.

It was perhaps Jake’s lack of sight that led him into a near fatal accident. To this day the details are unclear, and Jake refuses to talk of the incident. Family members believe one of two things happened to the brave dog. His owner Jimmy speculated:

“He was either sniffing around those horses out there and got kicked or he found that road out there and got hit by a car. Either way, it was bad…”

Jake’s private area (man land) and one of his legs became terribly swollen. An essential function could not be performed. “That dog couldn’t make water for weeks. He ought to be dead. We thought for sure he’d die,” said Jimmy.

To Jimmy and everyone else's surprise and delight, Jake did not die. No, Jake did what he has done his whole life: he took a lick and kept on ticking. The pain he had to be in isn’t even fathomable. The adversity he faced just to be standing and walking today is incredible. Now, the only sign of Jake’s accident is the slightest of hitches in his gitty-up. And, since he’s blind, he really doesn’t gitty-up too fast these days anyway for risk of certain head trauma.

The fact that Jake is alive is amazing in itself. But what’s most impressive is that he has got to be one of the most content dogs I’ve ever been around. He’ll sniff his way over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house just to wag his tail and say hello to the rest of Jimmy’s family when they visit for holidays. That’s how I know Jake. Jimmy is my uncle and my grandmother and grandfather live right through the woods where Jake slowly makes his way every time we visit. He can’t see; he’s probably still in pain from his near-deadly accident; and he constantly bumps into animate and inanimate objects whenever he dares to commute. And yet, here he is, happy and proud as can be. When he’s sitting there with his nose in the air towards the wind (because he sure as hell can’t see what’s coming), he truly looks stoic and all-knowing. He should be an inspiration to us all. Maybe you are fortunate to know someone or some animal like Jake who has faced and knocked the heck out of adversity. That’s truly emblematic of the American spirit.

Long live Jake, and when he doesn’t live anymore, they’ll all say, “he shouldn’t have made it this long to being with.” Quite a compliment if you ask me.

-Special thanks to Tony T-Bone Sturgill for the pictures.