PICAYUNE —
SOMEWHERE IN THE FREE STATE OF TEXAS — It was Cormac McCarthy cold, the wind rushing through deserted and dark buildings, whipping at loose trash that increasingly piled up on the rutted streets.
So the man threw another book on his fire. A big, fat book that should last a while. He let out a big Rebel yell that echoed through the urban canyons. The sound pleased him.
In the days following the riots, he had camped just across from the city’s former library, so there was plenty of fuel. The library windows had been broken the first day after secession succeeded. What a glorious and confusing day of celebration with others who had had enough.
A citizens’ group objecting to Mark Twain and other vile writers — John Steinbeck and Shakespeare and other strange idea bed-wetters — had swept the shelves of offensive literature. They had missed a few books, thank goodness. The better now to keep warm.
Other rebels had claimed the nearby park, and he knew it now was dangerous to walk there. People were justifiably skittish these days, and everyone was packing. There wasn’t a gun left on Texas shelves. They were in the hands of citizens, the way God intended.
The park had been a federal one, so now no pesky rangers told people what they could and could not do. Nobody could figure whose responsibility it was to empty the trash or clean the toilets, so the buildings were padlocked. You could pick off a squirrel or two if you were hungry.
But, even so, he preferred this spot. Nobody much came to the library, he figured, even when there had been lights and librarians. This was Texas, after all. Books were sissy stuff.
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. A Texan wrote that.
The man longed for news of the fight. Had Kansas broken loose? Was Alabama part of the confederacy? You could depend on some states always to be on the right side of history. Now the debate was whether the states that had seceded should band together or remain on their own.
The man didn’t know what his leaders were thinking. The government-controlled airwaves now were blocked in the Free State of Texas, even if one had a television or radio. He did not. Those had been lost to enthusiastic looters the state police couldn’t stop.
Texas was smart to go first, he reasoned. No more federal taxes. No more federal intervention into state affairs. No more regulatory agencies. No more Social Security and Medicare. Who needed those things, anyhow?
He still was surprised at how quickly the feds had agreed to the secession idea. Washington mainly insisted on keeping Willie Nelson, but pretty much said, “Hey, take the rest of it. Maybe leave us Austin.”
And so, quite suddenly, things were upside down and inside out. That would teach ’em to mess with Texas. That would teach ’em to impose radical ideas like health insurance for the masses.
The man reached into his pile of books, picked out one called “Atlas Shrugged” and threw it on the fire. Freedom, he thought to himself. Freedom.
(To find out more about Rheta Grimsley Johnson and her books, visit www.rhetagrimsleyjohnsonbooks.com)
Columns
Becoming a ‘Confederacy of Dunces’
- Columns
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.” -
Health care market needs oversight
By Gene Lyons/Syndicated columnist
Sometimes the best journalism explains what’s right under our noses. In Steven Brill’s exhaustive Time magazine cover article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” it’s the staggeringly expensive, grotesquely inefficient and inhumane way Americans pay for medical care.
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VA’s appalling failures not recent
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While recent national press attention to ongoing problems at Mississippi’s G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center in Jackson is welcome and needed, the failures of the overall VA service apparatus in Mississippi are not recent problems.
In short, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery — Mississippi’s “Mr. Veteran” and author of the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name — must be spinning in his grave. There have been significant failures and poor service to veterans documented by state and local media since 2008. -
Dolley Madison politically savvy
By Cokie and Steven V. Roberts/Syndicated columnists
When Dolley Payne Madison became first lady in 1809, she instituted Wednesday evening gatherings at the White House where political rivals could meet and talk. They were called “squeezes” because so many people showed up and crowded the room. As Cokie wrote in her book “Ladies of Liberty": “All were welcome as long as they were appropriately dressed. And all went — skipping a Wednesday night might mean missing a vital piece of political information or being left out of a crucial deal.”
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Mississippi isn’t immune from national college tuition trends
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
Higher education in Mississippi has not been immune from national trends cited in a recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report which concludes that over the last five years, the global economic downturn and a “no new taxes” political climate have increasingly shifted the burden of higher education finance to students and parents at a time when enrollment is increasing and the percentage of state support is decreasing. -
Right to vote not ‘racial entitlement
By Donna Brazile/Syndicated columnist
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Shelby County v. Holder — a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, specifically Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voting discrimination against racial and language minorities to get “pre-approved” by the federal government before changing how elections are conducted or voters are registered. -
1st day of spring brings memories
By Wyatt Emmerich/Southside Sun
The first day of spring! My favorite month, April, is just around the corner. Now we just need one big gullywasher to get rid of the pine pollen.
Normally, spring gives me a strong sense of rebirth and renewal, but this spring I seem surrounded by moments crystallizing the passage of time.
It was a year ago, I walked up the porch to my mother’s home to box up her possessions following her funeral. -
Soaking up in tiger paw-shaped hot tub
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
No springtime ritual was better at Auburn than sitting on hard rocks at a nearby state park to let cold water rush over your feet. You wore cut-off blue jeans and Dr. Scholl’s sandals, the unofficial uniform for coeds in the 1970s, and when you left, you felt ready to tackle tests, term papers and blind dates.
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Medicaid or not, costs will be paid
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While the battle continues between state Republicans and other fiscal conservatives intent on focusing on the long-terms costs of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and Democrats, health care advocates and state hospitals intent on focusing on the short-term benefits, the fact remains that one way or another, the costs of providing health care for the poor, the blind, the aged and the disabled will be paid by the taxpayers one way or another.
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Multiculturalism is not rational
By Thomas Sowell/Syndicated columnist
Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world, few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of multiculturalism.
Intellectuals who imagine that they are helping racial or ethnic groups that lag behind by redefining their lags out of existence with multicultural rhetoric are in fact leading them into a blind alley. - More Columns Headlines
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