Frontiersman, January 2007

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Frontiersman, January 2007

The Dirty Trickster and
Flour Power
Fiction by Sam Aurelius Milam III
You might remember some time ago when I rigged up a vacuum cleaner and some PVC pipe in tha front o' my Hummer an' blew Marijuana seeds all over town. Well, I just did somethin' sorta like that with ordinary ol' white flour, like fer biscuits you know.
I didn't use the Hummer for this prank. I used an old station wagon with a hatch that opened with hinges at the top. I put a motor in tha back that'd open an' close tha hatch from a switch up front. Then, I put a big plastic canister back there with hinges so's it could tip out tha back when tha hatch was open. I put a motor on that, too.
Meanwhile, I was drivin' all around tha county buyin' flour. I got it in tha biggest sacks that I could find but always from a different place each time an' I always paid cash. I took a while so's not to attract no attention.
When I was all ready, I dumped all o' tha flour inta the canister. Then, early one Monday mornin', figered I might as well mess up a Monday as any other day, I went out onta tha freeway during tha wee hours when they wasn't no traffic and found a nice stretch o' freeway. I slowed way down, ran up the hatch, an' dumped the canister. That whole canister o' flour emptied right onta tha freeway, all in a pile.
I drove home an' unhooked alla tha stuff then went acrost town ta where they's a guy lives that I don't like much. I waited down tha block 'til he went ta work, then I backed inta his driveway and pushed alla the stuff outa tha back o' the station wagon an' inta his side yard, includin' tha empty flour sacks. Maybe somebody'll report tha stuff an' he'll git nailed for the prank.
After that, I drove by tha Quick Stop, bought a whole buncha beer and a lot o' giant bags o' Ruffles chips an' went home ta sit an' watch tha TV. It was great. It was on alla tha news. Them hazmat clowns was all over that place like ticks on a dog. They was runnin' around in their little space suits with more equipment than you ever saw, sucking up flour an' sweepin' up flour and passin' out alerts ta tha cops like they was no tomorrow. They done a fine job. When they was done, they wasn't a speck o' flour left nowhere ta be seen.
All in all, it was a fine prank. Tha freeway was closed all mornin'. Tha side roads was so jammed that nobody could git nowhere. Everbody was late. Everbody was mad. It musta cost them hazmat clowns thousands o' dollars. Tha cops ordered everybody what'd drove past there before to drive over to a place that they set up in a big parkin' lot at a mall so's they could all git their cars cleaned. Hunderds o' people showed up an' tha place was packed. They was cleanin' cars fer 'bout tha next week. Nobody could even git ta tha mall to buy nothin'. You never heard such whinin' from tha people what run tha stores. I sat an' watched tha news an' ate beer an' chips 'til it was over. I shoulda bought stock in tha Ruffles company first. Here's tha best part. Yeah, them hazmat clowns finally said it was just flour but I think they was worried about losin' face 'bout so much commotion over just flour 'cause they also said that it was "heavily laced with anthrax". I went out later an' bought a paper just so's I could write it down an' be sure ta git it right here. Anthrax! I laughed until my belly hurt! Yaaaahooooo! Tha Dirty Trickster Riiiiids Again!!!

Good subjects must feel guilty. The guilt begins as a feeling of failure. The good autocrat provides many opportunities for failure in the populace.

— Duncan Idaho
in the Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert

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January 2007

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Moms Don't Let Your Kids Grow Up to be Educated
Jim Sullivan

In this country, teens in ever growing numbers are graduating from the 12th grade. Consequently, the United States of America has a multitude of citizens with high school diplomas. However, there are not enough jobs in this country that require so much schooling. The traditional vast middle ground of U.S. employment that required a high school diploma and sometimes even a college degree has, of late, experienced huge losses in available jobs. Those jobs have been and continue to be outsourced to India, China, and elsewhere around the globe. What this nation really needs is more citizens with less education. Those citizens would be able to compete head to head with the illegal immigrants who have, by and large, fewer years of formal learning and who are currently seeking and filling jobs within the U.S.

It would appear that the future bodes well for the poorly educated. The employment situation in America today is such that the fewer years you went to school the more likely you are to get hired. Sure, it'll be at, near, or possibly below the minimum wage and without benefits. But, hey, one shouldn't complain because, after all, it's paid work. If you don't want to fill the slot then some illegal immigrant does.

The same advice is valid, though for different reasons, in going to or staying in college. In the past, parents and other adults would point out that college grads, over their lifetime, make more money. According to that information, 12th grade graduates should definitely get a higher education. But that's no longer true. Today, foreign students are taking college-level jobs in this country. And why not? Those people are accepting lower wages. Moreover, most other jobs, even including those in the professions such as law, medicine, accounting, computer specialties, and engineering, are being outsourced beyond U.S. shores. Professionals in those foreign lands are only too glad to have the work at much lower earnings.

So, why don't you give yourself a good shot at a job? Drop out of school immediately. It's the only logical conclusion. Formal schooling today is the sure way to starvation. Put another way, Moms, don't let your kids grow up to be educated.

Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Students
Sam Aurelius Milam III
With thanks to Willie Nelson

Mamma don't let your babies grow up to be students.
Don't let 'em take classes an' read them ol' books.
Make 'em be coppers or bouncers or crooks.
Mamma don't let your babies grow up to be students.
They'll never stay home and they're poverty prone. Study is all that they love.

Students ain't easy to love and they're harder to scold.
An' they'd rather give you a lesson than diamonds or gold.
Long staring thinking and old faded term themes and each night begins a new day.
An' if you don't understand him and he don't die young
He'll probably just hide away.

Students like stuffy old lectures and clear-headed thinkin',
Logical discourse and research and girls that are bright.
An' them that don't know him won't like 'im and them that do sometimes won't know how to take 'im.
He ain't wrong he's just different and his pride will let him do things to make you think he's right.

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Frontiersman, 1510 North 22nd Drive, Show Low, Arizona 85901
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January 2007

Letters to the Editor
Dear Sam

I'm afraid that if you spread out your articles on fractional reserve banking, that some people will forget what they've read in previous issues, and get confused about what you're saying.

As you may remember from our long discussions in your kitchen fifteen years ago, I don't accept that ANYTHING really has intrinsic value in the sense required by your definition of the "rules" of money. I look forward to renewing our debate in the letters column of the "Frontiersman".

— Sir Donald the Elusive

You're correctly concerned about the risk of spreading the material out into a series of articles. I'll just have to take my chances with the memory span of my readers and with my fond but probably vain hope that they save old issues of the newsletter for future reference. I'm spreading the material into several short articles because it's too long to present in one issue.

There's one additional consequence of presenting the articles. Before I decided to present them, I'd just about decided to discontinue the Frontiersman after the December 2006 issue. When it occurred to me that I hadn't yet presented any articles about fractional reserve banking, I decided to continue the newsletter for another year.

Regarding the intrinsic value of a thing, it simply means that the thing is inherently useful for something and that people want to have the thing. Since you suggested that nothing has intrinsic value as money, I've been trying to think of something that doesn't, at least potentially, have such intrinsic value. I suspect that, no matter what substance you consider, there's somebody, somewhere who'll want to have it for something. So, depending upon the situation, it might be true that all possible substances can potentially have intrinsic value as money. That's why barter works. Most things are wanted by somebody. The substances that will work the best as money are those that have intrinsic value as money for the largest number of people.

— editor

Sam,

Enjoy your Sabatical!

— Millie; Baltimore, Maryland

It seems that I owe you, and maybe some of the other readers, an apology. I didn't intend to provide misinformation but, apparently, that's what I did. It's Buck Hunter, not me, who's going on sabbatical. That announcement appeared in the Buck Hunter section and it didn't occur to me that anybody would think that it was from me and not from Buck Hunter. The fact is that, after 13 years of the Buck Hunter column, he's run out of ideas. That's why I sent him on sabbatical. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I'm still here and I'll most likely stay here for a while.

— editor

C-Nile Virus Warning
Original Source Unknown. Forwarded by Don G.

Symptoms:

1.		Causes you to send the same e-mail twice.
2.		Causes you to send a blank e-mail.
3.		Causes you to send e-mail to the wrong person.
4.		Causes you to send email back to the person who sent it to you.
5.		Causes you to forget to attach the attachment.
6.		Causes you to hit "SEND" before you've finished.
7.		Causes you to hit "DELETE" instead of "SEND."

The most advanced programs from Norton or McAfee can't remove this virus. It mostly affects people who were born prior to 1960.

Lottery Winner
Original Source Unknown. Forwarded by Don G.
A blonde bought a ticket and won the lottery. She went to claim her winnings and the man verified her ticket number. She said, "I want my $20 million."
The man replied, "It doesn't work that way. We give you a million today and then you'll get the rest spread out for the next 19 years."
The blonde said, "Oh, no. I want all my money right now! I won it and I want it."
Again, the man explained that she would get only a million that day and the rest during the next 19 years.
The blonde, furious with the man, screamed out, "Look, I want my money! If you're not going to give me my $20 million right now, then here's my ticket! I want my dollar back!"

Please use the enclosed envelope to send a contribution. I prefer cash. For checks or money orders, please inquire.
For PayPal payments, use frontiersman@pharos.pricelesshost.net.

January 2007

Frontiersman, 1510 North 22nd Drive, Show Low, Arizona 85901
frontiersman@pharos.pricelesshost.net
Also see Pharos at http://pharos.pricelesshost.net.

Page 3

Frontiersman
1510 North 22nd Drive
Show Low, Arizona 85901

The authority to permit
is the authority to
forbid.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to the following: Sir James the Bold; SantaClara Bob; Lady Jan the Voluptuous; Lord Jeffrey the Studious; Millie, of Baltimore, Maryland; and Steve, of Fremont, California.

— editor

Definitions
Attributed to the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational.
Forwarded by Lady Nancy the Enchanting.

• Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

• Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. Unfortunately, the bozone layer doesn't show any signs of breaking down in the near future.

Changing Times
Original Source Unknown. Forwarded by Steve, of Fremont, California.
Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight at school.
1956: A crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and become friends. Nobody goes to jail, is arrested, or is expelled.
2006: The police are called and send a SWAT team. Johnny and Mark are arrested and charged with assault. Both of them are expelled from school, even though Johnny started it.

Precedent is no substitute for logic.

— Don Carow, General Electric Company
San Jose, California, April 12, 1979

Frontiersman

Cancellations — If you don't want to keep receiving this newsletter, print REFUSED, RETURN TO SENDER above your name and address, cross out your name and address, and return the newsletter. When I receive it, I'll terminate your subscription. You can also cancel by letter, e-mail, carrier pigeon, or any other method that gets the message to me.

Back Issues — Back issues or extra copies of this newsletter are available upon request.

Reprint Policy — Permission is hereby granted to reproduce this newsletter in its entirety or to reproduce material from it, provided that the reproduction is accurate and that proper credit is given. Please note that I do not have the authority to give permission to reprint material that I have reprinted from other sources. For that permission, you must go to the original source. I would appreciate receiving a courtesy copy of any document or publication in which you reprint my material.

Submissions — I solicit letters, articles, and cartoons for the newsletter, but I don't pay for them. Short items are more likely to be printed. I suggest that letters and articles be shorter than 500 words, but that's flexible depending on space available and the content of the piece. I give credit for all items printed unless the author specifies otherwise.

Payment — This newsletter isn't for sale. If you care to make a voluntary contribution, you may do so. The continued existence of the newsletter will depend, in part, on such contributions. I prefer cash or U.S. postage stamps. For checks or money orders, please inquire. For PayPal payments, use frontiersman@pharos.pricelesshost.net. I don't accept anything that requires me to provide ID to receive it. In case anybody is curious, I also accept gold, silver, platinum, etc.

— Sam Aurelius Milam III, editor

Please use the enclosed envelope to send a contribution. I prefer cash. For checks or money orders, please inquire.
For PayPal payments, use frontiersman@pharos.pricelesshost.net.

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Frontiersman, 1510 North 22nd Drive, Show Low, Arizona 85901
frontiersman@pharos.pricelesshost.net
Also see Pharos at http://pharos.pricelesshost.net.

January 2007

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