Cliffs Riffs - Stuph n Nonsense

Let's give thanks for Socialist America - especially on Thanksgiving - a holiday that showers us with socialism. "Socialism: An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods   are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise , and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity." Many of us will fill our vehicles with food and family and drive over hill and dale on freeways and roads that are paid for by socialism (our collective taxes going for the common good of said roads). If you are driving a GM product today, you should really be thankful for socialism - GM would be gone if not for socialism. We travel in vehicles protected by socialism i.e car INSURANCE. We live in houses protected by socialism. (homeowners insurance) Why do I say this? Well, ALL forms of insurance are socialism - even if they are controlled by private companies they are regulated by the sta...

L to R: Pete Odland, Michael Chambers, and Drew Born.  With all of the political rhetoric, creepy behavior, mudslinging, and outright lies we are bombarded with on the national stage every day it is very possible to miss the glint of gemstone in our own back yard. Pete Odland, the president of White’s Bridge Tooling on Bowes Road in Lowell, is such a gem. He and his good friend Bob Schafer have used their combined skill set to create something that enables physically challenged men and women to do things they could only dream of. To say that Pete enjoys hunting is to put it very, very mildly. He has shared that love with many people on the 337 acres he owns in Belding. Some of the hunters he has invited there have had various physical challenges and Pete has tried to accommodate them by modifying a golf cart so they could hunt from it. In the last couple of years his efforts to enable handicapped hunters has catapulted from simple wooden blocks to state of the art sophistica...

There is a lot of fear out there in 'Merica about letting gay people have positions of authority with our children. Apparently the big fear is that all gay people MUST be pedofiles  This is presumably based on some incidents which PROVE that all gay people (and especially gay males) are pedophiles. So I put the tapes of my life on rewind - trying to recall if any of the guys who were teachers or leaders/teachers/mentors in my schools or other areas of my life as a kid ever tried to mess with me in a sexual way. Couple things came to mind. First, the only male who ever did anything that I considered inappropriate was a guy named Eric who was my Big Brother briefly when I was in the 4th or 5th grade. Eric was all macho for sure - he was a star athlete at his high school and drove a cool hot rod old Ford (I think). Eric never put his hands in my pants or exposed himself, but he did like to wrestle with me ..... a lot. And I can remember one incident when he stayed on top of me ...