DJ Arkans at Forbiden City's blog: "My ramblings"

James "Pop" Frank Basinger, Jr.
March 6, 1923 - July 1, 2009

CONWAY – James Frank “Jimmy” Basinger, Jr., 86, formerly of Smackover, went home to the Lord on Wednesday July 1, 2009.
Born the middle child of Maggie Ola and James Frank Basinger, Sr., on March 6, 1923, Jimmy was raised outside Sarepta, LA, during the Great Depression, along with his 15 brothers and sisters. Jimmy was a veteran of the Pacific campaign in WWII. Upon returning home from war, Jimmy sought out a beautiful little red-headed lady named Dorothy Preston who worked at the post office in Smackover AR. Though she had never met him, Dorothy wrote letters of encouragement to Jimmy while he was fighting the war overseas. Jimmy married Dorothy and remained a devoted husband and provider to her for over 63 years.

Affectionately known as “Pop” to his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Jimmy found endless joy in spending time with all the children in his family. Pop could always be found taking the kids fishing, hunting and camping. He always found time to attend school sporting events and was quick to give encouragement and advice. Pop was admired by all the children for his amazing ability to fix darn near anything with next to nothing in no time flat. MacGyver couldn’t hold a candle to our Pop! All the children in his life are left with wonderful memories of time they spent with their Pop.
Jimmy devoted himself to a life of public service after an explosion at Cross Oil Refinery left his legs severely damaged, ending his 20 year career there. He proudly retired from the Camden office of the Arkansas Employment Security Division in 1989. Jimmy then went to work for the federal government in the Office of Personnel Management where he proudly served until his health forced him to retire a second time at the age of 81. Jimmy also worked for the DAV, where he served as Commander and was a Reserve Deputy for Ouachita and Union Counties. He was a member of the American Legion, DAV, I.U.O.E. and the Arkansas Employees Association.

Jimmy was preceded in death by three sisters, Florence Basinger-Morgan, Marjorie Basinger-Burkes, and Leola Basinger-Staggs, seven brothers, James Thomas Basinger, Murphy Basinger, Nolan Wilson Basinger, John Basinger, Leo Riley Staggs-Basinger, Oscar C. Basinger, and Norville Basinger, and one great-grandson, Tyler Haynes.

Jimmy is survived by his wife of 63 years, Dorothy Preston Basinger; daughter, Dorothy Sharon Lea of Conway; and a son, Del Basinger of Orange, TX; two sisters, Joyce Boyette of Shreveport, LA, and Carrie Ola Palmer of Sarepta, LA; three brothers, Carl Rudolph Basinger of Cullen, LA, William David Basinger of Trinity, TX, and Eugene Basinger of West Memphis, AR;

Services will be held Monday, July 6, at 10:00 am at Roller-McNutt Funeral Home in Conway with graveside service to follow at Crestlawn Memorial Park.
Visitation will be held on Sunday from 3:00-5:00 pm. at the funeral home.

Today we laid my Grandfather to rest, he recieved full military honors.  Surrounded by our family.  Two of his great grandchildren sang a song perfectly, and one of them played "amazing grace on the Violin in his honor.  I have not cried ore in my memory in a single day, more than I have today.  I owe my "Pop" a lot for all the things he has taught me.  Hunting, fishing, shooting, self defence, and not being afraid to take something apart to work on it are just a few of the things he taught me.  He told me on the phone once while I was working on a car I own.  He asked if it was working, and i told him no is was not, he then replied, well if it isnt working when your done with it, then you havent lost anything...  A few hours later, i had my car repaired and rolling. He taught me I could do anything I set my mind to do, and he was right.  I love my Pop, and never will forget him or the life lessons he taught me.

With all my Heart, Rest in Peace Pop, I love you,

Bobby 

My Pop is my grandfather.  HE has lived a long a fruitful life.  he grew up in hard times during the Great Depression.  He could always make me laugh at the things he did as a child of that era.  He would talk about how hard the times where, how he would help feed the family by hunting with his brothers.  He would talk about how if he missed his shot and wasted a bullet he would get a spanking cause the money for ammo wasnt there, and back then you had to make every shot count.  He fought i World War 2 in the Philipines, a Sergent in the Army Infantry. he fought on the front lines, and defended his country like most of the American men of that era.  Returning home and soon after meeting and marrying my grand mother.  He Worked his whole life.  Some of the Jobs i knew he held,  Sheriff deputy, Oil Refinery worker, Mechanic, Used car salesman, Verterains rep at the unemployment office, ASVAB administrator, Security guard.  He had a lot of hard times in his life.  He was on top of an oil tanker when it exploded, and survived.  Doctors told him he would never walk again, and when he did walk again, they told him he would never walk without leg braces, and he made liars of them again.  He work hard until he was over 80 years old. now at 89 his life is failing, and i am losing the one man who taught me more about being a man than any other in my life.  He was my hero in a lot of ways.  Tomoorow me and the rest of my family are meeting with Hospice, so he can be home when the time to pass on comes.  his kidneys have failed, and he is not talking right, his mind has finally slipped, and i am sad, for I am losing another grandfather whom i love dearly this year.. I only have two, and it seems that I will lose them both, months apart from each other. 

Recession is when your neibor losses his job. Depression is when you lose yours, and recovery will be when Obama Losses his..... just a truthful thought....

For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called 'Monday Night At Morton's.' (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.)
Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life.

Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.

Ben Stein's Last Column....
============================================
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I 'slug' it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it.  This heading is 'eonlineFINAL,' and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it.  On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars.  I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie.  But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened.
I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated.   But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to..

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a 'star' we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model?   Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer.   A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit , Iraq .   He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad .   He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordinance on a street near where he was guarding a station.   He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded.   He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad .

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines.   The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer co mfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse.   Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters.   This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way.   Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin..or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald.  

Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me.   This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help).   I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years.   I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York .  I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path.   This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can.
It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein

Makes ya think..............

 

Famous Quotes Great Orators of the Democrat Party from the past:    'One man with courage makes a majority.'   -  Andrew Jackson    'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'   -   Franklin D.  Roosevelt    'The buck stops here.'  -  Harry S. Truman  'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.' -          John F. Kennedy And  from today's Genius Democrats/socialists/perverts   'It depends what your definition of 'Sex' is?''  -  Bill Clinton  'That Obama - I would like to cut his NUTS off.'  -  Jesse Jackson    'Those rumors are false .... I believe in the sanctity of marriage.'   -  John Edwards  'I invented the Internet'  - Al Gore  'The next Person that tells me I'm not religious,  I'm going to shove my  rosary  beads up their ASS.'  -  Joe Biden  'America is--is no longer, uh, what it--it, uh, could be, uh, what it was once was....uh, and I say to myself, 'uh, I don't want that future, uh, uh for my children.'  -  Barack Obama  'I have campaigned in all 57 states.  -  Barack Obama   (Quoted 2008)  'You don't need God anymore, you have us Democrats.'  -  Nancy Pelosi     (Quoted 2006)  'Paying taxes is voluntary.'  -  Sen. Harry Reid  'Bill is the greatest husband and father I know.  No one is more faithful,   true, and honest than he.'  -  Hillary Clinton     (Quoted 1998)  HOW LUCKY CAN WE BE TO HAVE SUCH BRILLIANT MINDS IN CHARGE OF OUR ONCE GREAT COUNTRY?    ''Life's tough ....... it's even tougher if you're stupid.'' -- John Wayne

 

In nature there exists a balance of all God’s creation; each level of the food chain is regulated by the next level.  The sick and weak are removed from the herds by the predators that stalk them.  This regulates the populations and keeps disease from infecting the entire herd.  This is so with all things.  Many say that vampires do not exist, but they are wrong, there are those who claim vampires are creations of the devil, but again, they are wrong.  Satan does not hold the power of creation, only the power to corrupt, and destroy.  Vampires are the ultimate predators, they exist within the balance.  Their purpose is simple; they prey on the sick, and those who would prey upon Society.  This is their purpose within the balance.  As with all things, there exists the Travita, to ensure they do not, tip the balance in the wrong direction.  The Travita is the ruling class of vampire, the royal family that enforces the laws of the vampire race………..

It  is the month of August, a resort town sits next to the shores of a lake. It is raining, and the little town
 looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

 Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the
 reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

 The hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.
 The  Butcher takes the 100 dollar bill, and runs to pay his debt to the pig raiser.

 The pig raiser takes the 100 dollar bill, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

 The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute that
 in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit..

 The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 dollar bill to the hotel proprietor to pay for
 the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

 The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 dollar bill back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect
 anything.

 At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 dollar bill,
 after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

 No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of
 optimism.

 And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is doing business today.

This is from the 10NEWS.com

A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold Bible studies in their home, 10News reported.

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"

The county employee notified the couple that the small Bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of County regulations, according to Broyles.

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

"For churches and religious assemblies there's big parking concerns, there's environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this Bible study is certainly misplaced," said Broyles.

News of the case has rapidly spread across Internet blogs and has spurred various reactions.

Broyles said his clients have asked to stay anonymous until they give the county a demand letter that states by enforcing this regulation the county is violating their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.

Broyles also said this case has broader implications.

"If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?" Broyles asked.

Broyles and his clients plan to give the County their demand letter this week.

If the County refuses to release the pastor and his wife from obtaining the permit, they will consider a lawsuit in federal court.

This Undermines the fibric on which this Country was founded, what are e comeing too here, this not a Socialist Country, we have rights to assemble, we have rights to freedom of religion. What are they trying to do here?