The View from Highland Ranch
By John McCormick
Advice from a Real Jackass
"It ain't what you know that hurts you, it's what you think you know but have wrong."
I don't know what wise person said that, other than myself, that is, but it makes sense.
We used to think the FBI and the INS were protecting us. It turns out that they have great difficulty finding their bottoms with both hands behind their backs.
The INS recently lost track of 250,000 new visitors and their computer system is so messed up they don't even know if aliens are filing addresses changes as required. For all the INS knows, they did.
If Mexicans can just walk over the border, why can't terrorists? In the southwestern U.S., armed ranchers are patrolling our border trying to stem the flood, a job the Border Patrol is supposed to handle.
The most damaging spy in U.S. history was a top FBI agent. Mulder and Scully, where are you when we need you?
You probably thought the government inspected food. They do check a small amount, but they don't get around to reporting tainted chicken or beef for months, long after we've eaten all of it.
A lot of grandparents are about to learn on Xmas morning that PS2 games don't run on an X-box and that "some assembly required" is a BAD thing.
You see, what you think you know really can hurt you!
At 17 I didn't think I knew everything; it took a few years of college to achieve that lofty status and, having so much more to unlearn than the average teenager who knows everything by age 15, I've had to do a lot of unlearning in the past 30 years.
Some friends suspect that I write in order to empty my head of all that wrong information. Today's teenagers have a big advantage; most stop listening at 13 or 14 and therefore have less to unlearn as adults.
It took me years to start learning from others. These days Jack is a big source of enlightenment for me. A few hours spent with him can really straighten out my thinking.
Jack insists that there are only three important things in life - family, food, and shelter.
He doesn't care about money, reality TV, or DVD players. As long as he and his family eat well and have a comfortable, safe home, he's in heaven.
Sometimes I think Jack is a real jerk for ignoring what many people feel are the finer things in life, but he isn't a jerk. Jack's just an ass.
No, I mean it, he's a real Ass, long ears, tail, four hooves, loud voice, the whole bit.
I know some readers will be upset with my use of the term "ass," just as someone once took me to task once for referring to my dog as a bitch. Obviously a little learning can be a dangerous thing and that citizen thought bitch was an insult when actually it's no different from calling a calf's mother a cow. Likewise, it's proper to say that Jack is a real jackass, as was his father before him.
But you can learn something from Jack if you hear what he is saying about the importance of family and the unimportance of many things we spend money on this time of year. The trick is to know which jackass to ignore and which one you should listen too.
Mark Twain supposedly said, "Man is the only animal who laughs; or needs to."
He must have been misquoted. I can't believe that a newspaper reporter and a riverboat pilot, someone who rubbed elbows with everyone from Mississippi gamblers to politicians, never ran across a jackass.
Jack laughs loud and often. I sometimes suspect he is mostly laughing at me.
Copyright 2002, John A. McCormick, Inc.
