News Of The World

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Is It 1765 Again? Yes.

/ Phil Strawn / 10 Comments

Some months back, I said, under duress, that I would write less about politics and world events, only to calm my family from disowning me, which a few did anyway, but I could care less. I do, and welcome the grief, the foul language, and the loss of followers from this post, but I am at the point where some things have to be said by an average older American who can’t smile and hold it in anymore. Yep, all of my filters left this body years ago. That’s why my picture is in every Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other stores in town. Don’t help this old man; it’s an honor.

Our mainstream media, or what’s left of it, won’t say it; our woke children and grandchildren have no interest in real American history, how this country evolved, and why it is now threatened. They live in a teachers’ union-manufactured, protected fairy land where everyone rides Unicorns around campus and sprinkles themselves with fairy dust every morning to avoid reality.

Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Italy, and now parts of the UK are done with illegal immigration and the hordes of invaders, and are fighting back. They want to preserve their heritage, lineage, history, their country, and their wives’ and daughters’ lives and futures. I somehow get the feeling that here, we don’t see it the same way: or do we, and are so inept we refuse to fight back?

We have a president whom everyone who is a non-Christian or a liberal hates with a vengeance, that is so deep it has destroyed families, friends, and marriages, and is willing to sacrifice anything, even their pitiful lives, to prevent him from handing over our country to a vast army of invaders.

The young, university-educated, hip, liberal women are psychotic; the young men are without balls, but their man bun looks good and their skinny jeans fit well. And everyone is so hopped up on doctor-prescribed drugs that they think the books, the Koran, Animal Farm, 1984, and the computer HAL 5000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey are reality.

The men, males, with the correct hormones God gave them, are fighting back. And now, the women, real women, the ones like our mothers and grandmothers, that know what God made, are joining in. The Irish and Scottish and some Britons are arming themselves in militias and kicking these worthless moochers and criminals out of their countries. The problem I have with the entire scenario is: where in the United States of America are our militias, our Minute Men with muskets, pitchforks, hoes, or any tree limb they could use as a weapon to drive out the invader? They are not British as they were in the 1700s; they are Islamic, and their ideology doesn’t meld with Western values or civilization. It’s not a religion; it’s a coup to make the world Islamic and impose sharia law on every person on this planet, and that is an entire book of hundreds of chapters on why they want to take our country from us. Where are we, and why are we not stopping this? There are pages of questions and accusations I could write, but this small blurb will infuriate enough people as it is.

We have one man and a few others who are in public office who can see what is coming. A respected historian, Victor Davis Hanson, Pastor Greg Laurie, Doctor David Jeremiah, and others see it, call it as it is, and warn us, yet our young people, or should I call them “sheeple,” have been indoctrinated to the point of impotence and paralysis, cowering in a corner, shaking like a trapped Rat with a Terrier snarling a few inches away.

Let me say it another way: we do have men and women joining our military in droves, and they are Christians, or, if not true believers, patriots that see the clear and present danger that has already taken hold of our land. They know the dangers; they are willing to put their lives at risk and step over that line drawn by a sword in the hallowed dirt floor of the Alamo by William Travis. They will board that ship that may get hit by a missile, be the soft target for that bullet, or lose a limb to a roadside bomb, come home disfigured, or in a casket, or take a knife in the chest while having supper with their family at their neighborhood Pizza Hut. This country is not safe; our citizens, our heritage, our way of life that my family members fought for are in jeopardy of dissolving before our eyes. Look around today as you go about your chores and errands; you will see it if you look close enough.

This entire “shit show” started with the Woodstock flock and the idealistic generation that supported it. I was one of them, until I grew up, worked, paid taxes, suffered through life, and am now about done with all of it. That decade gave us some historical music, unbelievable science, but not much else. Gloria Steinham, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Susan Brownmiller, Bella Abzug, and the organizations they formed that turned all-American teenage girls into crazed feminists. Thank God, not all of them bought into it, but enough did to turn the tide and divide this country. Oh, wait, I forgot Angela Davis, the radical Black Panther, and her minions: kill whitey, kill everyone, then bring Fidel Castro over to run the country for us. Burn the typewriters and copy machines. Kids? We don’t need children to hold us down; they are a chain around our neck, screw them.

You may think I dislike women, but I don’t in any way. I only dislike women like the ones mentioned above, and the millions like them that move among us now, and will get in your face about anything. They know us men, us older men, raised correctly, won’t punch them out, but that is also changing. Without women, we wouldn’t have great doctors, scientists, nurses, mothers, teachers, warriors, and a long list of other contributions. Women bring empathy to a world where men are far less empathetic about most things. Knuckle-dragging Neanderthals chewing on a raw leg bone of a saber-toothed tiger. Yeah, I can be that way sometimes, but then Momo, my dear sweet wife, who was a nurse and understands far more than most, keeps me in check as best she can.

I am an old man and will be 77 in a few weeks, but I would join that militia, pick up that rifle, put on that fifty-pound backpack, and drive the evil invaders from our country. God knows our ballless politicians will never do it. They are there for the gravy train, the yellow brick road, and a never-ending land of Oz. Not Dr. Oz; I dig him.

Christians, men and women, had better put your Bible to your forehead, pray, and ask the good Lord forgiveness for what you are about to do, and give us the strength and fortitude to pull it off. Sally-Forth, pick your weapon, whether it be fierce religion or a gun, but for Christ’s sake, do something.

Our Pastors, Priests, Preachers, Men of the cloth, and Elders in churches need to get on board and stop with this “love everybody” BS they preach on YouTube and from the pulpit every Sunday. You read the Bible, and it is full of evil people and the evil deeds they committed, and how Christians stopped what they could, and thousands of years later, are still waging that war. We have been invaded, and the enemy is entrenched in political offices around our country, pushing for their Sharia law and to hell with Christianity, and let’s not forget Gods chosen people, the Jews; they want every one of them dead, and if a Christian is in the way, well then, we are dead also. Hitler and his cronies would be a perfect fit today. Dress them in a nice Brooks Brothers suit, give them a microphone or a podcast, and we have the 1930s repeated. Tribalism is alive and thriving in this country. I wince at using the term “us against them,” but it’s too much of a perfect fit to not say it.

To all my 1,000-plus followers, if you don’t care for my opinion or my options, tell me. I have skin as hard as Teflon-coated steel, and shit rolls off of me like it does the Clintons. That’s what blogging and writing is about, Dear Hearts; it’s not all poetry, pretty stories with happy endings; it’s sometimes the harshest of truths. But let me tell you, I am one pissed-off Texan and am a good shot. God Bless Texas and The Alamo.

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Negative PET Scan, Positive Outlook: Facing The Future With Humor

/ Phil Strawn / 21 Comments

Momo and I met with my neurologist yesterday to find out the results of my PET scan from a few weeks ago. My regular doc thought that, since I failed my cognitive test so badly, I may have Alzheimer’s disease. Well, Dear Hearts, my neurologist was so pleased that he gave me a high-five. I was in the negative range, -195. My scan was better than his, and he admitted he has never seen anyone my age (almost 77) without any markers indicating future oldtimers. so he says, I will never get oldtimers, but, and that’s the key word. I could still be developing Dementia, and I do have excessive fluid buildup on the left side of my brain and will have that removed in about six months. That explains the falls, the goofy walk, forgetfulness, and a number of other things. He says he uses all Craftsman tools, and the surgery is guaranteed for life; that’s a relief. He said I could keep the fluid, and it looks really cool mixed in with the oil in those 1960s bubble lamps: we still have a few around here somewhere, just not sure where. He said to keep playing music every day; it stimulates the brain and helps you learn new things that old dogs shouldn’t be able to. My wife was so excited; she now wants her on a PET scan, but can it come with a little French Bulldog?

Momo and I joke around about our daily moments of forgetfulness, sometimes funny, often not. She forgets things; I forget more. I haven’t found my car key FOB in the fridge yet, but I did find it in the freezer. I told her the freezing temps preserve the battery life and help keep my leg cool.

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Throwing Shade, Texas-Style: ‘Bless Their Hearts’ and Beyond

/ Phil Strawn / 12 Comments

Texans Have Been Doing It For A Century Or More, And I Was One Of Them

I will admit to being ignorant about some things, and the term ” throwing shade” at someone or something meant nothing to me. Us’n Texans have been doing it for years. I recently discovered what it meant by accident, using AI.

All of my relatives were professionals at this so-called newest trend. My grandmother’s ” Well, bless her little heart,” was the favorite one. The side-eye glance, the eye rolls, the fart, and shaking your leg — all of them —were used around me since childhood. I had no idea it was a form of insult or mockery, just an old farm saying. I’ve done it myself, and to this day, I still say ” Bless their little heart,” which means they are plumb stupid as a dead rock.

Momo, my wife, is not a Texan: she was hauled down here from Pennsylvania for her father’s job at Texas Instruments. She has a few of her own. When you’re uptight about something, you’re ” wound up like a nickel rat.” That’s those cheap 1950s Japanese mice you wound up and let them scurry around the floor; the spring usually broke after a few times, so they became something of a novelty.

My good friend, Jarry Boy Davis, in our teenage rock band years, heard plenty of them from his mother, an in-your-face Southern lady from Memphis. ” He’s as crazy as a peach orchard squirrel; that guy is a stupid tool. Can’t pour piss out of his own boots.” If a girl was downright ugly, she would be called ” an unfortunate-looking little thing.” Same for the boys.

Now that I am old and have nothing to lose, I will participate in more “shading” events, especially when it comes to those “panty waist” men in Washington. Why do we senior citizens dislike our government so intensely? I’ll write about that another time.

The Ozempic crowd in Hollywood seem to be the worst, and the best at it. All of those poor folks, skin and bones, bulging eyes, failing organs, having to be helped to walk onto the movie set, they shade everyone, even themselves, without knowing it. ” Bless their little hearts.”

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Take Away The Roll, All You Have Left Is Sour Jelly

/ Phil Strawn / 9 Comments

How the social network makes stars and then destroys them: it’s not new. Old-school Hollywood, the payolas, the folks that tracked the gossip and used a typewriter, had Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Walter Winchell, devious slayers of careers long before the internet.

Jelly Roll, the once-marginal, talented criminal with the facial tattoos and the sordid background, became the “let’s accept the weirdo into country music” darling of the year because he claims to have accepted Jesus and become a Christian, also losing over 300 pounds in the process. The influencers and social media slobbered all over him and his reality-show-looking wife, Bunny Foo-Foo; despite her looks, she is a very nice woman and deserved non of what the scumbag did to her. They were the new royalty of Nashville, in a weird new-age, screwed-up Nashville sort of way. Hank didn’t do it this way: Chet Atkins and Roy Acuff are begging Jesus to send them back down to Nashville for one more day to fix this mess.

I’ve nothing against overweight folks; some just can’t help it. Genetic, symbolic, antagonistic, impulsive — who knows: some of the best Christian folks I know are overweight and have hearts to match their faith. The Roll ain’t one of them, no more.

I think face tats are over the top unless you’re a gang member in Mexico and want to be a badd-ass. A very talented country singer from Texas, Post Malone has face tats, can sing his butt off, is a good musician, and is a follower of Jesus. Jelly is all pompous-assed blubbering and bought into the Hollywood woke scene to further his career, something our angel Dolly Parton refused to do, and she did better than any of them as far as fortunes and philanthropic goals go. Maybe Ella Langley will come close to her. Hide and watch.

There is a song out there on Spotify and Amazon Music titled ” We Need A Little Mercy Now,” by another Texan from Houston, Mary Gaither, an avowed lesbian and a Christian, a recovering addict, and you name it, that says, ” Some people will do anything to keep their crown.” Well, dear hearts, Jelly Roll just made her song another hit. God help this world we live in. God Bless Texas and the Alamo.

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Getting The Skinny…

/ Phil Strawn / 14 Comments

Gravy The Clone Dog

I dropped by Whataburger a few mornings back for a Taquito and O.J. I’m still not comfortable calling frozen orange juice OJ, considering what Simpson did, but sometimes I still do.

Sitting in his usual booth was Mooch, with Gravy, the clone Chiuauia of Giblet, strapped to his chest in the child carrier. There was an order of biscuits and gravy sitting in front of him with one bite missing. Gravy the dog had a bit of gravy on his little chin, and Mooch looked like he had lost his prized hog. He also appeared to have lost weight. I sat down with my aromatic Taquito and asked why he wasn’t eating. The smell of fresh eggs, sausage and a lucious tortilla wafting around us as if we were in a five star resturant. Gravy stared intently at the tatar tots.

” He says, Mrs. Mooch put me on those GPL-1 drugs, and I don’t have an appetite anymore, for nuthin. They’re gummies and taste real good, so Gravy likes them too, and now he’s not eating, and we’re both looking like Oprah, all skinny and bony.” I will admit, the dog looked worse, bulging eyes, that Ozempic face, and Mooch looked like he had been vacationing at Dachau.

” That clone cat, Here Kitty Kitty, is so skinny she crawled into a Dr Pepper bottle, and I had to call the fire department to get her out. I’ll tell you, we are wasting away here. My wife says she is going to audition for Taylor Sheridan’s new show, and has to have that Hollywood Ozempic look to get a part: the only part she could get now would be a corpse.”

He’s right, everyone in Hollywood looks about to die at any moment, and they are shooting themselves up and gobbling those pills as fast as they can get them from CVS or their favorite pharmady in Tijuana.

I wanted to be sympathetic with him, but my Taquito tasted too darn good, so I gobbled away as he drooled and tears ran down his cheeks. The dog passed out.

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God’s Wisdom Works In Quiet Ways: A Young Man’s Journey Begins

/ Phil Strawn / 8 Comments

Bad relationships were always the same: they started starry-eyed, then grew wary, then became shaky, and ended in a flurry of fleeing.  This had been the young man’s life for years. His siblings were as trapped as he was. Bondage has many forms. There was no way out except through the back door, and on to somewhere, anywhere. But once that door closed behind him, he was homeless, and the dark of the night enveloped him like an evil blanket.

A new town, a new state, a new boyfriend. How many had there been in his mother’s life? His father had been purposefully absent for a long while now.  He and the boy still spoke a few times a year, but he had moved on, and his mother was still fighting her inner demons, hoping to find the right man to be a provider, or perhaps a father for her children, but the same wrong choices produced the same results. Now, another move from a failed relationship was in process, back to their home state.  He couldn’t stomach leaving his high school, his friends, or his church.

His Church Youth Pastor, a man of Christian principle and a solid father to his children, all high school age themselves, offered the young man a place to stay in their home until he graduated: a temporary solution to a frantic problem. The offer was genuine, and the Christianity and camaraderie in the home were what the boy needed, craved, and sought. His journey to God began in desperation, as he needed to distance himself from peers who were leading him into dark places.  He needed to be loved and helped in his lowest times.  He accepted the offer from the pastor; his mother, once again, moved, leaving him with nothing but a few clothes and deep feelings of abandonment. It was a multi-act play that kept repeating itself.  He could have collapsed and withdrawn into himself, but the other teens in the family, the pastor, and his wife refused to let that happen.  They were not wealthy in money, but the wealth they held and offered was spiritual guidance, and that mattered more than dollars.

The boy’s parents were not citizens; neither of them was legal to live in this country.  They made poor decisions that adversely affected him and his siblings. He had no driver’s license, no car, no money, no job- just existence, the loving family that gave him refuge, and his church, which strengthened his soul. Dreams of someday were always there. He was an artist, blessed with a talent. One day, he might discover a way to put this blessing to use.

Many of the older congregants worried about the young man.  Some knew only snippets of his story; a few knew more, but the worry and the need to help him were always there. Odd jobs were offered that put cash in his pocket. It was while he worked with plants and the earth that he discovered his love for living things. His time with the Pastor and his family was nearing its end.  School was over, a new year was beginning, and it was time to move on and make a life for himself. He had often thought of the military as a way to kick-start his life; now it was a real option sitting flat on the table: pen in hand, papers to sign, many tests to take, and then on to serve his country. He made his decision and will soon be a United States Marine. His life will change forever, for the better, and he will never forget the people who gave him that encouragement and chance.

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Ask A Texan: Did Cylasporia Get Put Into Our Food Chain by A Pissed Off Dr. Fauci or Did The Terrorist Do it?

/ Phil Strawn / 6 Comments

Did Fauci Put This Crap On Our Lettuce For Revenge?

A Mister Tom T. Soreass, from Wormdance, Michigan, wrote to me on a Walmart receipt that he and his whole family have come down with explosive diarrhea and the Cyclospoia bug from eating sprouts and iceberg lettuce from the local Walmart. We have it here in Texas too, but we drink whiskey and beer, and it helps kill the buggers.

Tom T. Mr. Texan, you have got to help me here. The family ate our salads the other night from Walmart, the kind they put in cute little clear plastic cartons that cut you to pieces when you try to open them, with a pouch of surprise dressing, and now we are crapping all over our once-nice-smelling home. Lucy, my wife, has about three hundred candles and incense burning, and the plumber has been called twice to unclog the toilets, but I never knew kids had so much crap in them. My kids could fertilize a farm in Somalia with the amount of human waste exiting from their sore little behinds. Lucy and I are suffering as well, as are the hounds, the chickens, the hamsters, and both cats. Our doctor gave us some pills but they don’t do a darn thing, were dying here, third house in the cul-de-sac, with what was once a nice yard. Our neighbors are no help; they don’t want to catch it from us. I think that little rich-assed turnd, Doctor Fauci, or the Rag Head Terrorist in Iran put all this stuff in our food chain. Help!

The Texan: Mr. Tom, I feel your pain. I had a touch of it a few weeks back from a Taco at Taco Bell. I lost ten pounds in two days, but at least my clothes fit better. Mexico uses human waste as fertilizer, and it’s possible that Fauci could have organized a clandestine attack via the hundreds of little secret squirrel labs he has all over the place, and yes, a Rag Head Terrorist could have also put it there, but it’s likely the unhygienic growing practices of the farms in Mexico that are the root problem. I’m sending you a case of that pink stuff and some cherry bombs to keep you occupied while you’re in the bathroom. Did you know a cherry bomb can blow up a bathtub? Fill it with water, light the bomb, and toss it in. It cleans the whole bathroom in a few milliseconds. Add Listerine to the bath water for smell and disinfectant. Dig some holes in the backyard for the kids and show them how we used to do it. They have their phones, so they’ll be ok. Keep in touch, The Texan.

Childhood Memories of Texas Drought and Farm Life

/ Phil Strawn / 30 Comments

I’m old enough to remember the drought in Texas during the 1950s; it cost my grandfather and every farmer in his township their crops until a small shower dumped almost 8 inches of rain one night. The town of Santa Anna, Texas, had prayed for a miracle, and it came. Just enough to save some of the crops, but many had already lost their farms to the banks, sold their cattle, and given up, moving to Fort Worth to work menial jobs.

My Grandfather was too much of an old hard-ass to do that. He figured Johnson grass was good for something, so he cut it and sold it for hay, at a discount to his friends. Cotton, grain, corn, maize, nothing would grow. No rain, no plants. It wasn’t the 1930s, but it was too close, and they survived those years as well.

Days of playing on the farm, 100-degree-plus temperatures, it was so hot the Rattlesnakes wouldn’t come out, or for us to shoot them with our BB Guns. The chickens weren’t laying, Granny wasn’t making money on eggs, and my grandfather, Papa, had crops that shriveled away like a neglected plant on a hot windowsill. The cows were constantly thirsty, which kept the windmill pumping the well full-time whenever there was a breeze. The stock tanks were dry and cracked; there wasn’t even enough mud for a crawdad to survive.

The farmhouse had no air conditioning; no one had that in those times. It was windows open, pray for a breeze to dampen the sheets at night, and hope to wake up the next morning without the Mountain Boomers stealing you from your sweat-soaked bed. It was a slice of hell on earth, but my cousins and I were young kids, and it didn’t affect us the same as it did our families. I didn’t notice the worry and desperation in my grandparents’ eyes as they went about their chores. I happily shot chickens and snakes with my BB Gun. Children are often clueless about adult misery.

To me, my grandparents were old. They were in their early sixties at that time, so that was ancient. They both looked twenty years older than their actual age: wrinkled, sun-baked, and worked to the bone. A hard life produces a hard exterior

I was six, on the forefront of my life’s journey. A city boy raised by a country mother and city father, playing country kid in the summer. It wasn’t Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, but it came close. They both worked from daylight to dark hoeing weeds, trying to keep what they could alive, suffered monetary problems that would drive a man to drink, and would count change to buy food at the small local grocery store that was less than any convenience store we have today. Whatever food they could grow was immediately canned for the winter or eaten that day. Those good old days, the 1950s, weren’t all that good, looking back now. At the edge of Seventy-Seven years old, I’ve outlived my grandfather by more than a decade. But he thought he was healthy until he wasn’t. Years of cooking everything in lard and saved Bacon grease took its toll on his system, and he died young from a long list of medical issues. Clogged this, hardened that, bad heart, diabetes, you name it, he had it. I personally thought it was all the chicken. All of their children were on their own with families, so no one wanted the farm. Granny sold it for a pittance, moved into a small public housing unit in town, and finished out her life there. The days of the farm and the misery of the drought years of the 1950s are all behind us now.

This relentless heat and drought in Texas give me pause to remember my childhood summers. I’m old now and remember the good times, but this heat and drought bring it all home. The good old days.

Now I Know I’m Getting Old

/ Phil Strawn / 13 Comments

WordPress sent me a note today informing me that Notes From The Cactus Patch has been on their platform for 14 years. I have shirts older than that, and maybe some socks and a few pairs of underwear, but I was taken aback; it only seems like a few years. I did lose some posts, around fifty or so, early on because I was technically ignorant—and still am, but better. Not that this means anything, but just to let my readers know. I’m sure some of you have been here as long.

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Just So You Know…

/ Phil Strawn / 5 Comments

A Few Things I Did This Week That Make Sense To Me

The Texan before I gave up smoking

I deleted my Substack account. I found out that being contacted by people I don’t know with idiotic, maniacal rants from people on a keyboard that I would ever care to know outside of social media is not for me. It was supposed to be a site for serious writers to submit their short stories or articles, but it is really X, Bluesky, and Facebook hidden in a different format. Political hate, pure hate, impure hate, giddy hate, ignorant hate, and liberal white woman hate against us white guys who write are the worst kinds that I have found in my research. Socialism, communism, LGBTQ+ism, Muslimism, you name it, they are all there. So adios MF. Get a damn job and stop posting filtered or fake selfies of yourselves in fake places made with AI. No one under thirty years old has any real friends anymore; everyone they know is an AI-generated figure on their phone.

For now, I will keep my Notes From The Cactus Patch on Facebook because it publishes there automatically, and many of my old high school friends and the few family members who still speak to me follow it. I may or may not keep X; it does the same, but damn, people are flat-out Street Rat-crazy and evil on that platform. WordPress is where I will stay, even with all of its faults and liberal happiness engineers, who are a bunch of folks in India sitting at a keyboard figuring out a way to steal your identity and sell it to the Dark Web. I know, it happened to both Momo and me. We now have a service that watches and catches everything, and it is not Lifelock, but much better: meaner, with actual humans named Guido and Luiggi who will go to their home basement and break bones, or worse. The owner of the service is related to the lateTony Saprano.

Did anyone pay attention to the defeat of most of the Democratic Socialist Party candidates? Most of them got their pansy ignorant commie butts handed to them in a Red Mao grocery bag. And now, that smiling-Commie Rat Bastard Mayor in New York City wants his favorite goat, excuse me, I mean his wife, to have a security team the size of President Trumps when she visits her homeland of whatever the hell it is over there in Muslim land. They had better pack extra hay and oats for her meals. Within a few months, that demon has turned one of our great cities into a third-world shit-hole equal to Mexico or Somalia, and the entire state of Michigan is lost: might as well nuke the state and be done with it. There, now I feel better. Have a good day, and God Bless Texas and the Alamo. I wish Paul Harvey were still around.

The Texan