Dave of the Woods

A chicken coop is like a microcosm of life in other forms of life and I believe that it does apply to our human condition. A chicken coop is a relatively friendly place with a rooster being the beat cop. The rooster enforces his rules period! He accepts no excuses for non-compliance. The hens can go about their business of whatever hens do with very little interference, and little discord. The rooster assumes the responsibility of keeping them safe from intruders or other things he deems an unacceptable intrusion (If you ever go into a barnyard with a rooster on patrol you probably will learn that little bit of wisdom). If chickens are confined to a coop with no rooster present things change. The hens argue a bit on who should be in charge, who found the feed first, and normal things that hens deal with. If a predator shows up as a threat a real disruption ensues. Dust and feathers fly, and they all try to find whatever safety the coop may provide. With no rooster to defend them it descends into mass mayhem. How much damage the flock incurs is dependent on what the predator has in mind. Some will just steal eggs, some will grab a chicken and run, yet others will try to kill every chicken in the flock. The one thing certain is that with a predator to face there will be NO arguments between the chickens. Every one will be intent on dealing with the danger they face. No squawking over some grain now. They are focused on the action with only hope for a good outcome.

If the coop has no threat but it has an increase in population, discord will start to appear. There will be squabbles over increasingly minor things. The more crowded it gets the worse the squabbles get ending up with the chickens attacking each other pulling out feathers and when it gets crowded enough they will kill each other.

There is a parallel to this situation in human societies. Our “coop” be it our family, our neighborhood, our city, our state, or our country, it has an order to it with all citizens concerned about the normal course of their lives, and the well being of the coop overall. The differences any of our “coops” be it religion, employment, politics, or any of the things that make us individuals are of little consequence to anyone when we are facing a universal threat. The 9-11 Attack and Pearl Harbor Attack are the most unifying incidents that I can think of. Even false attacks, (Gulf of Tonkin), have a unifying effect. We suddenly all become brothers. Social status, race, religion and any other difference are not just overlooked, they DISSOLVE. Now if you want to induce religion to the non-believers put them in a fox-hole that is under attack. Let’s see who he prays to. As the threat recedes into the past the unifying recedes too, and the differences that we have start to become important again. The more crowded we get and the less the outside threats we have the more we start pulling out each others feathers. Where is most of our “crowding” occurring? In the big cities and warm climates. Most of our large cities have a VERY liberal bent to them. Why do you suppose that is? Give unearned benefits to people and they will show up en masse, and they have. Promise to take it from the rich guy and you will, and have, increased your hold on the popular appeal. Now you are overcrowding your coop with the influx. This influx is not an influx of productive responsible people. It is made up mostly of societal misfits and non-contributors. No matter why, they are non-contributors they are an economic and social drain on any coop, but they can be counted as voters.

So far what our coop is missing is the rooster. In our coops we have Dad, police, mayor, governors, federal reps, and of course the president. Overseeing all of them is the schoolmarm, or justice department. She is going to make sure all the roosters are behaving according to the rules. So far so good as long as everyone is playing by the same rules and all knuckles get whacked with the ruler fairly this works. BUT…… up jumps the devil, plaguing the order of everything with things like “fair” and “remorse” and achievement guilt. Remorse comes easy for one standing before a judge. Although that is nice it should be of very little consequences as far as punishment goes!! Each infraction has a cost. A range of punishments that fits the crime. If you earned it…..you get it!! St. Peter is in charge of remorse. This set-up is not intended to improve the coop. Did anyone think that the “productive people” would not tolerate the situation? Maybe they will leave to friendlier coops? So how do you handle the disparity between your chickens? We start beating the drum of “fairness”. “we have to make things fair for the less fortunate” which means that the less fortunate should be given things that they want, but that they did NOT work for……….. someone else worked for it (aka Obama phones). Who could object to this? How about the people that are forced to pay for them? My contention is that “fair” does not exist……… just like the unicorn. As though these things will suddenly make a difference in any rule of the offenders actions. It is IMPOSSIBLE, I REPEAT, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE, (is that clear enough?) to improve anyones behavior or situation by rewarding bad behavior! HELLLLO Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, are you listening. Of course they are not just look at their results. The saddest part of all is the damage being done to our largest coop, the U.S.A.

The use of the word Devil is not accidental. This chaos and attack on the good people is an evil plan that has been with us a long time and it isn’t going away. We, the United States of America, are the strongest nation for the good of the world that has ever existed. We have done more for anyone in need than any country ever has. We don’t conquer, or occupy our vanquished foes of any war we have ever fought. Instead we help rebuild them. We do stand up for the good in man. I believe that is our divine mission. Eliminate the use of “fair” and let St. Peter take care of those remorseful at the gate! (Cock-a-doodle-do)

Dave of the Woods

Well……. we happened to be in Pearl working on a schedule for the destroyers called the pineapple fleet. Their patrol area was the middle Pacific up to Alaska. I really don’t know haw far south they went. My job was in the light machine shop running all the various machines as the work order required. Most of the work was routine stuff. Make new shafts, rework pipe flanges, machine the large bearings that the foundry had re poured, do engraving, and that sort of thing. One day a ship came in with a large flexible coupling that was giving them fits. This coupling was a two ring piece with one ring fitting inside the other. Each ring had a series of slots around it. The outside ring had the slots on the inside and the inside ring had the slots on the outside. The slots on both pieces lined up. These slots held a series of pieces of spring steel all the way around the coupling. Each slot held about 10 pieces of spring material. The problem was that the torque when the coupling was engaged was such that it was destroying the spring material like a large pair of scissors. Not as quickly as that but never the less it was a serious operational problem for the destroyer. When the coupling was brought to our shop we were told that the shipyard had refused the job because the changes were too extensive for them to handle. Now this destroyer was in a big fix. It was due to deploy to the north Pacific and they were not able to put to sea without their main shaft. WE WERE THE LAST HOPE!!!!! Well now, we were known as the “can do” ship and this very large coupling was NOT going to mar our reputation. We went to work around the clock. Setting this thing up required a lot innovation in set-up and custom tool grinding. There were about 5 or 6 of us that worked on this, but MY part was the most important (I’m not sure the other guys agree). After a number of loooooong days we took the coupling off of the machine and assembled it. Everything fit perfectly! It was delivered to the ship and installed by the machinist mates right under the wire, just in time for putting to sea as an integral part of our defense system in the north pacific.