Saturday, June 12, 2021

Whatever happened to that old Sunbelt?

By LOU ANTONELLI

Managing Editor

It’s rained almost daily for the past four months. The ground is saturated; walking across grass is like stepping onto a wet scrub pad. When I moved to Texas in 1985, I was part of what was called at the time the Sunbelt migration.

Sunbelt? What happened?

Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here – and don’t bite my head off – but I think the problem is really related to global warming. I assert it’s possible to believe in global warming but not blame it wholly on human activities.

Climate varies over time but the changes are so slow that people seldom notice in one or two generations. It’s obvious climate change happens naturally. Ten thousand years ago there was an Ice Age with a polar ice cap that extended in North America as far south as Missouri. No one was burning coal or driving polluting cars back then.

There are historical signs we entered a minor Ice Age about the 13th Century, and what we are seeing now may be the climate returning back to before.

A good example involves Greenland. If you have ever seen photos of the large island between North America and Europe, you’ll recall it doesn’t look very green. But the Vikings settled in it in the 9th century and that’s what they named it; apparently there were forests around the coast line.

It was because of the Viking settlements in Greenland that some early explorers were able to make the jump to North America. But a few hundred years later the climate cooled to the point where the Greenland settlements died off, and that connection to Europe was lost. Columbus had to pick up later using a more southerly, and warm, route in the 1400s.

The English like wine, which is strange because it is too cold in the British Isles for grape vines to grow. But it was warm enough before 1300, and then the weather cooled and the vines died. It is interesting to note two of the traditionally most popular English wines, sherry and port, are Portuguese in origin.

If you head straight south from the British Isles, the first place you hit land is the Atlantic Coast of Portugal. You can imagine the medieval merchants ordering wine from the nearest ports when the grape harvest failed.

Rising sea levels have also been going on for hundreds of years. We all know the Netherlands are known for having canals and dikes to hold the sea back. That’s because the inhabitants noticed the slow rise and have taken steps over the years to keep the sea out.

There’s a place in England called St. Michael’s Mount; it’s a small rocky island just off the coast of Cornwall. At low tide, you can see still tree stumps from a long-drowned forest in the sand. It’s name in the native Cornish language translates as “Gray rock in the woods”, obviously going back to before the sea came in.

I say it may be possible that human actions aggravate climate change, but to say humans are the cause of it is just propaganda. The best argument I’ve heard that these variations are a natural thing is that astronomers have seen a decrease in the size of the polar icecaps on Mars.

There are no cars or factories on Mars.

Over 20 years ago I heard that Texas was one place that would be affected by global warming because it is big and flat and next to a large body of relatively shallow water – the Gulf of Mexico – that has a lot of evaporation.

Perhaps that is what we are seeing now. If so, it’s just a natural process, and Texans – being a resourceful and self-reliant people – will deal with it.

Author's page

 A friend and fan of mine says she is appalled I don't have an author's page on the web. She's offered to create one and load up some of my short fiction, which leads me to ask: Anyone have a favorite Lou Antonelli short story or want to recommend one?

Sunday, November 29, 2020

How understand the mainstream media today

Liberals went into journalism after World War II because they wanted to tilt the country to the left, after seeing the horrors of the war. 

At the same time the Soviet Union was infiltrating American society with Communist agents. Joe McCarthy was excoriated at the time, but with a decade it was obvious he had been telling the truth - the government and seats of power were riddled with Communists, and we got our ass kicked by a pissant Southeast Asian nation. 

Richard Nixon was the the process of extricating the nation with honor from Vietnam but then the establishment took him down with Watergate, which was an obvious bullshit set-up. 

Nixon's political demise proved the subversives in the U.S. could manipulate internal politics, and especially after that the numbers of left-winger who went into journalism skyrocketed. I was a freshman at and Ivy League school in 1975, I saw that process first-hand. 

People like me, who believe in God and our country, go into community journalism, but mainstream journalism is so far gone it is hopeless. There's no way for it to be fixed - it's all leftists and heathen.

It's like when you joke that you would remove the rust from your jalopy, but the rust is the only thing holding it together. If you purged the godless and the damned that run the mainstream media today, there would be nothing left.

Thursday, November 26, 2020

'Tis the reason

 Thanksgiving is always problematic for small town weekly papers, which - in the U.S. - traditionally come out on Thursdays (I understand in Canada they come out on Tuesdays).

As one would suspect, my newspaper is not printed on Thursday, it's printed on Wednesday and goes out to subscribers in the mail Thursday. Because of the holiday, the paper this week goes in the mail Friday.

Still, it was an abbreviated week. My printer had to print all its other papers - both for Wednesday and Thursday - on Wednesday, so we had no leeway to be late. But we met the deadline.

The bigger problem was out bi-weekly Mount Pleasant paper, which is dated on Saturdays. Normally it would be printed on Thursday. I would have assumed this week it would be printed on Friday, but the printer said its employees also wanted the day after Thanksgiving off.

It took some rushing, but we also got the Mount Pleasant Mirror done and printed on Wednesday. So I have a certain sense of accomplishment.

The Mirror is a new paper, started this year, so it does not have a periodical postal permit and only a handful of mail subscribers. Therefore it is distributed free in Mount Pleasant. It will be delivered on Friday, so we can be back at our Clarksville office for Small Business Saturday.

Sunday, November 15, 2020

No plans as yet

Little did I know, when I was a panelist at AnachroCon in Atlanta in February, that it would be the only convention I would attend this year. But by March COVID was really kicking in and the quarantines started. The rest of my conventions were cancelled.

Right now, I have no conventions lined up for 2021 (this year was the last for AnachroCon). If anyone needs a panelist in 2021, let me know.

Saturday, November 07, 2020

"Great White Ship" featured in podcast


Planet Raconteur featured my short story "Great White Ship" in a recent podcast. They have broken the story out as a stand alone. Listen and enjoy! Click HERE.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Antonelli releases ten-point platform

CLARKSVILLE, Tx. - With only 18 days left until the November 3 general election, congressional candidate Lou Antonelli has released a ten-point platform of legislative issues he’d like to see enacted if elected.

The Libertarian Party nominee in the Texas 4th district, Antonelli said “I sat down and wrote up a set of specific actions I’d take if elected in response to feedback I’ve heard on the campaign trail. I believe it addresses the serious concerns I’ve heard from people.”

The platform in brief states:

1. Term limits – No local, state or federal official can serve more than three cumulative terms in office.

2. Eliminate Gerrymandering – Legislative districts must be drawn by a bi-partisan commission and be compact and contiguous.

3. Campaign Spending Limits – Candidates cannot spend more in running for an office than the office pays in annual salary.

4. Electoral College Reform – Electoral votes will be cast on the basis of the candidate that carried each congressional district, and not the whole state.

5. Abolish the Federal Reserve Bank.

6. Legalize Marijuana – Tax it at the same level at alcohol and tobacco, use the revenue to reduce debt.

7. Cut the federal payroll by one percent every year for 50 years until it is halved.

8. Adopt a 0th Amendment to the Constitution stating all federal laws and regulations must be applied and enforced regardless of race, religion, sex, national origin or color.

9. Investigate the Democratic Party under the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) for ongoing and systemic electoral fraud.

10. Abolish Obamacare.

Antonelli faces off in the general election against Republican Pat Fallon of Sherman, Democrat Russell Foster of Sherman and write-in Tracy Jones of Texarkana.

Whatever happened to that old Sunbelt?

By LOU ANTONELLI Managing Editor It’s rained almost daily for the past four months. The ground is saturated; walking across grass is lik...