Fighting (Tom Brown’s School Days, 1857)

Dear Readers,

If you've ever wondered where we get our notions of right and wrong, and why people think the way they do even today, think about what has influenced our thinking.

Tom Brown’s School Days was a popular 19th century novel that followed eleven-year-old Tom Brown, as he adjusted to life at a public boarding school for boys and learned how to become a young gentleman.

The following excerpt introduces an account of Tom’s only big fight at the school.

The headmaster had given him a student to look after, and when a large bully attacked the frail and sensitive boy, Tom stepped in to stop the beating and fight the bully himself.

Sounds American? It should, we have been doing that very thing our entire history in one respect or another.

Fighting

from Tom Brown’s School Days, 1857

Let those young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or who think a good set-to with the weapons which God has given to us all an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly affair, just skip this chapter at once, for it won’t be to their taste.

It was not at all usual in those days for two schoolhouse boys to have a fight.

Of course, there were exceptions, when some cross-grained, hard-headed fellow came up who would never be happy unless he was quarreling with his nearest neighbors, or when there was some class dispute between the fifth form and the fags, for instance, which required bloodletting; and a champion was picked out on each side tacitly, who settled the matter by a good, hearty mill. But for the most part the constant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the boxing-gloves, kept the schoolhouse boys from fighting one another.

Two or three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the hall or fifth-form room; and every boy who was ever likely to fight at all knew all his neighbors’ prowess perfectly well, and could tell to a nicety what chance he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy in the house.

But of course no such experience could be gotten as regarded boys in other houses; and as most of the other houses were more or less jealous of the schoolhouse, collisions were frequent.

After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man.

Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself or spiritual wickedness in high places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.

It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men, to uplift their voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for them, and they don’t follow their own precepts.

Every soul of them is doing his own piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere.

The world might be a better world without fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn’t be our world; and therefore I am dead against crying peace when there is no peace, and isn’t meant to be.

I’m as sorry as any man to see folk fighting the wrong people and the wrong things, but I’d a sooner see them doing that, than that they should have no fight in them.

by Thomas Hughes, 1857

RANDOM SHOTS - Religious Freedom Under Attack In Our Military, and More!

FIRST SHOT!

Religious Freedom Under Attack In Our Military

Members of Congress are concerned over how much influence the Military Religious Freedom Foundation may have in military policies that critics fear may curtail religious freedom within the Armed Forces.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is circulating a letter on Capitol Hill seeking assurances from the Department of Defense that the religious freedoms of service members are protected.

He also wants to know who the Pentagon has been consulting with on revisions to religious freedom regulations.

“Congress deliberately included religious freedom protections in the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) to address this growing pattern of hostility and to protect the constitutionality guaranteed right of religious freedom for our service members and chaplains,” Lamborn wrote in a letter obtained by Fox News.

President Obama took the unusual step of noting that the conscience protections were “unnecessary and ill-advised.”

Lamborn said the president’s statement – along with reports of Christianity under attack have raised “concerns that the military is developing a culture that is hostile to religion.”

Yes, Bullies against Christians in the military.

As we all know, for many years now, Hollywood and television has been on a pro-gay anti-Christian crusade. It has gotten old, but it keeps coming.

Tim Tebow was chastised for practicing his Christian belief, yet a homosexual basketball player is applauded by the left because he came out of the closet - no matter how much he lied to everyone including his fiancee.

Rep. Doug Lamborn noted recent incidents that included a 2011 memorandum that banned visitors from bringing Bibles and other religious materials into Walter Reed Hospital and a memorandum from Gen. Norton A. Schwartz that prohibited commanders from notifying Airmen about Chaplain Corps programs.

Last month, an Army briefing labeled Evangelical Christians and Catholics as examples of religious extremism.

Believe it or not, Christians were included on a terrorist list that included Al Qaeda and Hamas.

“It appalls me to hear the military of the freest nation in the world has labeled people of faith as religious extremists and continues this hostile attitude even after offering a half-hearted, public apology,” said Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA).

Collins, who is a minister and Air Force reservist, is demanding the military end all religious censorship.

“Our valiant servicemen and women are fighting every single day to protect our individual freedoms, how can we idly stand aside and let theirs be so easily taken?” he asked.

The latest concerns came after Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation met with military officials at the Pentagon about an instructional guide on religious tolerance.

Weinstein called for the military to enforce a regulation that he believes calls for the court martial of any service member who proselytizes.

“Someone needs to be punished for this,” Weinstein told Fox News. “Until the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marine Corps punishes a member of the military for unconstitutional religious proselytizing and oppression, we will never have the ability to stop this horrible, horrendous, dehumanizing behavior.”

Weinstein compared the act of proselytizing to rape, saying, “It is a version of being spiritually raped and you are being spiritually raped by fundamentalist Christian religious predators.”

The Pentagon initially issued a statement acknowledging that religious proselytizing is not permitted within the Department of Defense.

On May 2, they issued a new statement noting that “service members can share their faith (evangelize), but must not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others of any faith or no faith to one’s beliefs (proselytization).”

“The U.S. Department of Defense has never and will never single out a particular religious group for persecution or prosecution,” Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen said in a statement. “The Department makes reasonable accommodations for all religions and celebrates the religious diversity of our service members.”

However, last Thursday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral William Lee dropped a bombshell at a National Day of Prayer gathering in Washington, D.C. when he declared that religious freedom is under attack.

“As one general so aptly put it – they expect us to check our religion in at the door – don’t bring that here,” Lee told the audience. “Leaders like myself are feeling the constraints of rules and regulations and guidance issued by lawyers that put us in a tighter and tighter box regarding our constitutional rights to express our religious faith.”

And the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Freedom reported that an Air Force officer was told to remove a Bible from his desk because it might imply he condoned a certain religion.

Meanwhile, members of Congress and religious liberty groups want to know how much influence Weinstein may have at the Pentagon.

“The fact that the U.S. Air Force is consulting with Mr. Weinstein and possibly allowing him to shape policies relative to religious freedom is of great concern to Christians across the nation,” wrote Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin in a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Boykin, an executive vice president of the Family Research Council, said nearly 150,000 people have signed a petition supporting true religious freedom in the military.

So will Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recognize what is going on and support true religious freedom in the military or will he bow to the wishes of the atheists and curtail the religious freedoms of ours who fight to protect those very freedoms?

My bet is he goes against the troops!

SECOND SHOT!

Teacher Who Stomped On American Flag Gets $85,000 State Payout

The dumbass teacher who stomped on an American flag has been paid $85,000 by his school district not to pursue a federal court case.

Lexington-Richland 5 school district paid former Chapin High teacher Scott Compton the money, plus more than $31,500 in lawyer fees and his salary (between $43,340 and $59,647 a year) to not pursue further legal action, The State newspaper reported.

The paper discovered the payment through a South Carolina Freedom of Information Act request.

The payment was not disclosed when Compton resigned on March 27, reportedly for "family and personal reasons."

The agreement also will allow Compton to receive unemployment and receive a letter of recommendation for seeking employment.

Compton stomped on the flag during a classroom lesson that he said was intended to show that a country is more than its symbols.

That set off a furor, prompting Superintendent Stephen Hefner to seek to fire Compton. Hefner called the incident the latest in a pattern of poor judgment.

The State newspaper noted the school district has no standards for the flag's treatment, but that school officials say the act violated the expected conduct of teachers.

No word if anyone has stomped teacher Scott Compton to demonstrate that those who disrespect our country's most precious symbol, a symbol that many have fought and died for, can incur the wrath of those around him.

At least, not yet!

THIRD SHOT!

Military Sex Assault Reports Up

Sexual assaults in the military are a growing epidemic across the services and thousands of victims are still unwilling to come forward despite a slew of new oversight and assistance programs, according to Pentagon documents.

Troubling new numbers estimate that up to 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, according to survey results released against a backdrop of scandals including an ongoing investigation into more than 30 Air Force instructors for assaults on trainees at a Texas base.

The report comes just days after the Air Force's head of sexual assault prevention was arrested last weekend on charges of groping a woman in a suburban Virginia parking lot.

And it follows a heated debate over whether commanders should be stripped of the authority to overturn military jury verdicts, such as one officer did in a recent sexual assault conviction.

The documents did show that the number of sexual assaults actually reported by members of the military rose 6 percent to 3,374 in 2012.

But a survey of personnel who were not required to reveal their identities showed the number of service members actually assaulted could be as many as 26,000, but they never reported the incidents, officials said Tuesday.

While the Associated Press obtained documents and memos related to a new Pentagon report slated for release Tuesday, it was not specific if the sexual assaults were predominately heterosexual or if they were a result of the military's new policy on homosexual behavior.

That number is an increase over the 19,000 estimated assaults in 2011.

The statistics highlight the dismal results that military leaders have achieved in their drive to change the culture within the ranks, even as the services redoubled efforts to launch new programs to assist the victims, encourage reporting, increase commanders' vigilance, and hold homosexual inductrination courses.

Members of Congress are putting together legislation to essentially strip military officers of the authority to overturn convictions for serious offenses such as sexual assault. The measure stem from congressional outrage over an Air Force officer's decision to reverse a jury verdict in a sexual assault case.

Legislation introduced in Congress on Tuesday provides victims with a special military lawyer who would assist them throughout the process, prohibit heterosexual or homosexual sexual contact between instructors and trainees during and within 30 days of completion of basic training or its equivalent and ensure that sexual assault response coordinators are available to help members of the National Guard and reserve.

"We have learned of an increase in the amount of service members experiencing unwanted sexual contact and a decrease in the rate that those incidents are reported," Turner said. "The exact opposite direction of what would indicate a cultural and statistical shift on a problem that affects mission readiness and overall morale of our forces," he said in a statement. "It's clear much more needs to be done both legislatively and structurally, to root out this problem."

According to Pentagon documents, the key conclusion of the report is that "sexual assault is a persistent problem in the military and remains vastly underreported."

The report says that of the 1.4 million active duty personnel, 6.1 percent of active duty women — or 12,100 — say they experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, a sharp increase over the 8,600 who said that in 2010.

For men, the number increased from 10,700 to 15,900. A majority of the offenders were military members or Defense Department civilians or contractors, the report said.

All of this is just more proof that our military is no place for social experiments. Whether it's repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against gays serving openly or putting women in roles traditionally only held by men like that of aboad ship, there are certain things that should be left alone.

If it ain't broke, it don't need fixing.

And though someone out there we surely write me saying that "change" is needed. Let me advise them before they put pen to paper that change in itself means nothing. Change can be good and bad.

And yes, some of the changes in the military over the last 20 years due to political pressure is hurting our military.

As an organization charged with our national defense, the armed forces’ role requires a unique esprit de corps. It must have a sense of pride, honor and integrity. The imposition of social experimentation is an anathema to maintenance of the good order and discipline required in defense of the United States.

Is it too much to ask of one who wishes to serve in the military to keep his/her sexual orientation a private matter? Is it too much to ask of one who wishes to serve in the military to keep his/her sexual desires to themselves?

If the military is OK with the loss of men and women for being overweight, then I'm sure that the loss of service members who practice unwanted homosexual or heterosexual conduct won't hurt the military as well.

Those who put their own deviant behaviors ahead of their oath and sense of professionalism deserve to be dishonorably discharged.

FOURTH SHOT!

Reports Show Gun Homicides Down Since 1990s

Gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their peak in 1993, a pair of reports released Tuesday showed, adding fuel to Congress' battle over whether to tighten restrictions on firearms.

A study released by the government's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. That's a 39 percent reduction.

Another report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides, which compares the number of killings to the size of the country's population.

It found that the number of gun homicides per 100,000 people fell from 7 percent in 1993 to 3.6 percent in 2010, a drop of 49 percent.

Both reports also found the rate of nonfatal crimes involving guns was also down by around 70 percent over that period.

The trend in firearm-related homicides is part of a broad nationwide decline in violent crime over the past two decades, including incidents not involving firearms.

The Justice study also said that in 2011, about 70 percent of all homicides were committed with a firearm, mainly a handgun.

Gun rights advocates have argued that people are safer when they are allowed to own and carry guns.

And no, you will hear very little of this in the liberal mainstream media! The bias bastards don't have the class to tell the truth about gun violence in America - even when the news is good.

LAST SHOT!

A Sign of the Times!

This sign was found in the window of a gun shop recently.

Too True!

Story by Tom Correa

Pig Facts & Trivia - Part One

Since I have 4H and FFA youngsters reading my blog, some have asked if I could do more posts on  livestock.  Well, this is for you.

Police called Pigs?

If you've ever heard an old hippie or some other jerk call a Police Officer a "pig," there is a reason for that.

In the United States, calling a police officer the term "pig" came out of the 1960s when the hippies and the drug culture really started making a blemish on American History.

But, believe it or not, the term "pig" in reference to a law enforcement officer started long ago.

The Oxford English Dictionary cites an 1811 reference to a "pig" as a Bow Street Runner - the early police force, named after the location of their headquarters, before Sir Robert Peel and the Metropolitan Police Force in London were start.

Before that, the term "pig" had been used as early as the mid-1500s to refer to a person who is heartily disliked.

The usage was probably confined to the criminal classes until the 1960s when it was taken up by protesters, hippies, druggies, jerks and the like.

Some try to say that  the term involve the gas masks worn by the riot police in that era, or the pigs in charge of writer George Orwell's Animal Farm.

In the book Animal Farm, the pigs enforced unfair rules.

While police officers usually don't mind being called "Cops," they aren't usually fond of the term "pig."

But than again, there are those officers who turned it around. You see, while it may have come from  gas masks worn by the riot police in that era, or the pigs in charge of writer George Orwell's Animal Farm. references, law enforcement organizations around the country responded by referring to "PIG" as an acronym for "Pride, Integrity, Guts."

"Pride, Integrity, Guts,"- all traits every police officer personifies!

Great Pig Quotes

“I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals” - Sir Winston Churchill

President Harry Truman once said, "No man should be allowed to be President who does not understand hogs."

“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” ― George Bernard Shaw

Politicians

Politicians understand pigs, or at least the importance of "pork."  The phrase "pork barrel" politics" is derived from the pre-Civil War practice of distributing salt pork to the slaves from huge barrels.

By the 1870s, Congressmen were referring to regularly dipping into the "pork barrel" for obtaining funds for popular projects in their home districts.

What is it with pigs always being the go-to animal to use as figures of speech in politics? Maybe there is some primal connection between pigs and politicians

• During the War of 1812, a New York pork packer named Uncle Sam Wilson shipped a boatload of several hundred barrels of pork to U.S. troops.

Each barrel was stamped "U.S." on the docks. The "U.S." stood for "Uncle Sam" whose shipment seemed large enough to feed the entire army.

This is how "Uncle Sam" came to represent the U.S. Government.

Pig facts you may already know:

• Domesticated pigs, called swine, are raised commercially for meat - generally called pork, hams, or bacon, as well as for leather.

• Due to their common use as livestock, adult swine have gender specific names: the males are hogs (or sometimes boars) and the females are sows. Young swine are called piglets or pigs.

• A typical pig has a large head with a long snout which is strengthened by a special prenasal bone and by a disk of cartilage at the tip called the snout.

• The snout is used to dig into the soil to find food and is a very acute sense organ.

• There are four hoofed toes on each trotter (foot), with the two larger central toes bearing most of the weight, but the outer two also being used in soft ground.

• Adult pigs have a total of 44 teeth. The rear teeth are adapted for crushing. In the male the canine teeth form tusks, which grow continuously and are sharpened by constantly being ground against each other.

• In the United States, the term "pig" refers to a younger domesticated swine weighing less than 120 pounds (50 kilograms), and the term "hog" refers to older swine weighing more than 120 lbs.

• Pork is one of the most popular forms of meat for human consumption, accounting for 38% of worldwide meat production.

• Pigs were one of the first animals to be domesticated and raised for food by the Chinese around 6,000 years ago. They originated from Eurasian wild boars.

• Hernando de Soto, the famous Spanish explorer, brought the first pig to North America in 1539. (Cows didn’t get here until 1611 with the Pilgrims).

• There are 15 different species of pigs (Sus domestica). The Duroc is reddish brown in color and the most popular breed in the U.S.. White colored farm breeds include the Yorkshire and Chester White, both with erect ears, and the Landrace, with ears that fall over its eyes. The Spotted Poland China is a white pig with black spots. Many commercial pig farmers cross several breeds together so there is great variation in color.

• There are around 1 billion domestic pigs on the planet. With around 1 billion alive at any time, the domesticated pig is one of the most numerous large mammals on the planet.

• Soldier pigs have gone to war. On battlefields, they have used their sensitive snouts as mine sniffers.

• Pigs are curious and like to keep busy. Some farmers entertain their pigs with beach balls and old tires.

• Pigs also enjoy listening to music.

• Why call a glutton, a pig? Fact is that pigs only eat until they are full. That's right. Despite a reputation for gluttony, they do not overeat. They eat only until they are full.

• Pigs are omnivores which means that they consume both plants and animals. In the wild, they are foraging animals, primarily eating leaves, grasses, roots, fruits and flowers.

• On farms, pigs are fed mostly corn and soybean meal with a mixture of vitamins and minerals added to the diet.

• The ancestor of the domesticated pig is the wild boar, which is one of the most numerous and widespread large mammals.

• Domestic pigs are rarely aggressive. The only exceptions are sows with a young litter and boars if provoked.

• A full grown pig can drink up to 14 gallons of water a day.

• A pig has a snout for a nose, small eyes, and a small tail, which may be curly, kinked or straight. It has a thick, stout body, short legs, and coarse, bristly hair.

Their bristly hairs are also used for brushes.

• Pigs use grunts to communicate with each other and will often bark and squeal when agitated.

• Pigs are gregarious and very social animals. They form close bonds with each other and other species. They enjoy close contact and will lie close together when resting.

• A sow can give birth to a litter containing 7 to 12 piglets about twice a year. Giving birth to baby pigs is called farrowing. The gestation period of a sow is 114 days – a little less than 4 months.

• A baby pig, or piglet, weighs about 2 ½ pounds at birth and will double its weight in just seven days.

• Weaning occurs at three months of age, but young pigs continue to live with their mothers. Two or more sows usually join together in an extended family.

• Raising pigs became an important commercial enterprise during the 1800s when Midwest farm regions were settled.

The new Erie Canal gave farmers a way to get their pigs to the cities back east. Farmers started calling their pigs, “Mortgage Lifters,” because the profits from their sales paid for the new homesteads.

• The highest known price ever paid for a hog was $56,000 paid for a cross-bred hog named Bud on March 5, 1985.

• The largest pig to date was a Poland-China hog, named "Big Bill". It weighed 2,552 pounds. It was 5 feet tall and 9 feet long.

• The largest litter of piglets ever born included 37 piglets, out of which 36 were born alive and 33 survived.

• Pigs can live from 9 to 15 years. If we let them.

• Swine have been maligned. We think of them as dirty, but pigs are very clean animals.

They keep their “toilets” far from their living or eating area. Even piglets only a few hours old will leave the nest to go to the bathroom.

• Pigs probably got the reputation as dirty animals because they like to wallow in mud.

There’s a reason for a  pig's affection for mud. Pigs do not have functional sweat glands, so they can't perspire to cool themselves. They roll around in the mud to cool their skin.

• They also use a layer of mud as sunscreen to protect their skin from sunburn. Mud also provides protection against flies, parasites and insect bites.

• Pigs are very good swimmers and prefer water, if it’s available, to mud.

• People around the world eat more pork than any other meat, but n the U.S. pork ranks behind beef and poultry.

• Pigs can run a 7-minute mile. Yes they can!

• Pigs have a powerful sense of smell. Their snout is a highly developed sense organ and very sensitive to touch. Some farmers put rings in pigs' noses to keep them from rooting, or digging up the earth with their snouts. In the wild, pigs feed themselves by digging for roots to eat. This causes a lot of damage on a farm.

• When fully grown, boars may weigh more than 500 pounds, and sows may weigh from 300 to 500 pounds.

• Most pigs are sold when they are 6 or 7 months old and weigh about 210 to 250 pounds. If pigs are kept longer they are usually used for breeding.

• A pig's squeal can range from 110 to 115 decibels. Compare that to the take-off sound of a jet engine - about 112 decibels.

• Baby pigs appear very greedy when they are competing for food from their mothers. For this reason the words “pig” and “hog” have become associated with greedy behavior.

• Pig farmers are very careful about what they feed their animals - corn, wheat and soybean meal. Vitamins and minerals are added to increase growth and improve health.

• Pork provides protein, B-vitamins and thiamin to our diets. Pork has three times as much thiamin as any other food. Thiamin changes carbohydrates into energy.

• Pigs have such a well developed sense of smell that they can easily find things underground.

• The ancient Chinese were so reluctant to be separated from fresh pork that the departed were often buried with their entire herd of hogs.

• Because of their keen sense of smell, some pigs are trained to root for truffles, a delicacy that grows underground in temperate forests in Europe and North America.

• Wild hogs are strong and fierce and live in forests and jungles in many parts of the world.

Razorbacks (wild hogs with sharp, narrow backs) live in the Southeastern U.S. and the West Indies.

• In some areas hogs would roam freely, eating what they could find – acorns from the ground or roots which they dug from the ground with their snouts.

• In Manhattan, New York City, hogs ravaged grain fields until farmers were forced to build a wall to keep them out.

There are varying accounts about how the Dutch-named "de Waal Straat" got its name. But the generally accepted version is that the name of the street was derived from an earthen wall on the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement, perhaps to protect against English colonial encroachment or incursions by native Americans, or simply to keep hogs from ravaging grain fields..

The street running along this wall became Wall Street. Yes, that Wall Street!

Pig Superstition

Germans see pigs as good luck symbols and it's not uncommon to receive a marzipan pig as a gift, especially during the New Year's Eve holidays.

Interestingly, after Christmas dinner, some families living in New York during the 1880s would share a hard candy peppermint flavored pig with one another with the hope that good health and wealth would follow them into the next year.

But, not everyone saw the pig as good luck.

Fisherman from North East England saw swine as bad luck and under no circumstances would they allow a pig onto their boat.

This belief was so strong that if a fisherman spotted a pig on his way to work, he would turn back and go back home. People weren't even allowed to utter the word 'pig' while on a vessel. If someone had to mention the animals, they were called 'gissies.'


That superstition carried on into the New World as Pirates in the West Indies had a bizarre superstition related to swine. Pigs themselves were held at great respect because they possessed cloven hooves just like the devil and the pig was the signature animal for the Great Earth Goddess who controlled the winds.
As a result, these fishermen never spoke the word "pig" out loud, instead referring to the animal by such safe nicknames as Curly-Tail and Turf-Rooter. It was believed that mentioning the word "pig" would result in strong winds.

Actually killing a pig on board the ship would result in a full scale storm.

Pig Sayings?

• The saying "You can put lipstick on a pig" has been used for decades in rural America.

The saying is a rhetorical expression used to convey the message that making superficial or cosmetic changes is a futile attempt to disguise the true nature of a product is just bullshit.

• The saying "When pigs fly" is used to describe any situation where something looks unlikely to happen.

• The saying "Living high on the hog" started among enlisted men in the U.S. Army who received shoulder and leg cuts of pork while officers received the top loin cuts.

“Living high on the hog" came to mean living well.

• Have you ever heard the saying, "Don’t buy a pig in a poke?"

In 17th century England, it was a common trick to try to give away a cat to an unsuspecting shopper who was supposedly buying a suckling (young) pig. The story goes that when shopper opened the poke (sack), he "let the cat out of the bag," and found he had been cheated.

• What is the meaning of "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear"?

A "sow", as you probably know, is a female pig. The word rhymes with "how", "now" and "cow".

The old adage "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear" had been used for years to discourage inventiveness and enterprise. Today, that hasn't changed.

The expression "make a silk purse out of sow's ear" is normally used to mean that it is impossible to make something fine out of inferior or substandard material. The idiom is normally used in the negative.

So what is the origin of the old adage "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear"?

In the 16th century, Alexander Barclay in "Certayne Eglogues" wrote: "None can make goodly silke of a gotes fleece." Then in 1579, Stephen Gosson wrote in his Ephemerides of  "seekinge too make a silke purse of a Sowes eare."

So what have we gained from this?  It means that people have known for a long long time that 1) we should have the right starting material to make something or generate a useful idea; 2) that you can't make something good from inferior or inappropriate raw material; or 3) that it would be tough to do the impossible and make something look good when you first start out with things all screwed up.

And yet, though we know this, we keep trying?

Products:

While people may be aware of "the other white meat" being pork chops, pork roast, spare ribs, bacon, ham, sausage or hot dogs, they may not know of some other earth shaking pig products.

Insulin and more than 40 other pharmaceuticals and medicines are derived from pig products.

Pig fat and other pig products are used in cosmetics, floor wax, crayons, chalk, weed killers, anti-freeze, glass, fine china, adhesives, plastics, paint, chewing gum, shoes, and hundreds of other items.

Pig heart valves have been used to replace damaged human heart valves for years.

And yes, I've been told that our troops overseas are using pig blood and pig fat to coat the bullets they are using against Muslims. Imagine that!

Horses - Cooling Down

Let me first say that my wife is a City Girl at heart. She's getting better, but there are some things that she just doesn't understand they're done. Cooling down your horse slowly is one.

I really hate stating the obvious, but as we all know - during the summer, the heat can be tough on both horse and rider.

In some cases, after a ride, you may find that your horse is covered with sweat even though you thought you took it easy. In that case, what do you do for your horse?
Well, believe it or not, whether its the heat of the summer or after a hard workout in the winter and steam is pouring off your horse, it still necessary to cool down your horse.

The cool down period is essential a time to prevent exhaustion and injury. It gives the horse a time to relax and recoup.

Cooling down means lowering the temperature for the horse’s muscles slowly without allowing the horse to catch a chill. It is especially important after the horse has been worked up.

Here's how to make sure he gets comfortable.

Common Sense & Time

Yes, common sense and time is required to cool off a horse.

After a workout, your horse should always be walked for about 10 to 20 minutes. Walking your horse around for a while until its not as warm is important. This may take a while depending on how overheated it is.

Make sure the horse is moving at a good working walk since a sluggish horse will cool too quickly.

Do not let them just stand tied somewhere to stand still. This will tense their muscles and isn't healthy for them. A horse left to stand after strenuous exercise may experience swelling around the lower leg joints caused by a decrease in circulation.

After they are cooled down, you may dismount.

At that time loosen the saddle cinch without removing the saddle right away. This will allow the air to cool his back slower, which helps to prevent cramps.

Your horse should then be offered a few swallows of water. Give your horse the minimal amount of water to drink, wait a few minutes, and then you can give him some more. Limit his intake of cool water as too much too fast can bring on cramping.

Remove the saddle, but you should leave the pad in place until your horse cools down slightly so they don't get a chill. A blanket is highly recommended over anything else when the weather is cold and windy and your horse has been working hard.
If it is a real hot day, a hose should be used to apply cool water to the horse and then rub them down with a towel.

Vigorously rub the entire horse and pay special attention to the area where the saddle was as well as the areas on their neck and flanks, then you should start walking them a bit.

There are many factors that go into the equation for cooling a horse including their condition, the weather, the wind chill, and how hard the horse has worked.

To decide the best way to cool a horse you should use your best judgment. A horse’s comfort should always come before your own.

Common sense will tell you if your horse is ready to be put back in its pen.