Scam Alert

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Doc Arnett

I wish this was fiction but it is not!

Apparently, a scammer hacked a FB friend’s account and posted several items they were selling for a sister-in-law who was being moved into a care facility. Items included vehicles, trailers, tractor, and household appliances. Vehicle prices were extremely low. (First Red Flag.)

Scammer stated they would be out of town helping with the move and deposits would be required to hold the items. (Second Red Flag.) Deposits would be refunded, though, if buyers opted not to follow through with the purchase.

Since I have two sons living in the town where my friend lives and both of them need a tractor for their properties, I decided to reserve the tractor pending inspection.

I contacted scammer and offered a deposit of $250. They doubled that amount. (Third Red Flag.) Then, after I foolishly paid that via PayPal, they said their SIL told them the deposit would be $1000. (Fourth Red Flag.)

Fortunately, PayPal blocked my stupidity because of fraud suspicion. (Fifth Red Flag.)

Then, the scammer requested Venmo. Fortunately, the account provided by the scammer wouldn’t work. (Sixth Red Flag.)

Then, they requested Bank Wire Transfer. (Seventh Red Flag.) When I noticed their bank info was in Oregon, I finally got suspicious enough to quit being stupid.

So… I lost $500 because of my eagerness to buy something with a price that was too good to be true. I filed an FBI complaint and complaints with Kansas and Oregon consumer protection agencies/state attorney general’s office.

All of this was because I knew the person I was dealing with at first. A Facebook friend that I’ve been acquainted with for a few years and whose mother I’ve known for over forty years. It didn’t occur to me until it was too late that someone might have hacked his account.

I know it’s an old, old adage—but, hey, I’m an old guy! “If it seems too good to be true…” Yep.

You can probably figure out the cautions you should take from this. If you can’t, me making them more plain won’t do you any good. Any time you fly by that many red flags, you’re either going to be in jail or at the bottom of a ravine underneath a collapsed bridge.

Lesson learned. Again. For now…

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Ancient Instruction

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Doc Arnett

For about as long as I can remember, I’ve thought of favoritism as something most likely to be shown to those who held some sort of advantage: wealth, familiarity, beauty. Being from the right side of the tracks. Having grown up in the same small town. Belonging to the same social club.

I think I remember at least one or two stories where some rich dude got away with one or more heinous acts. You know, cheated some poor farmer out of the land that had been in his family for three generations. Sexual imposition against some good-looking young woman whose family couldn’t afford a good lawyer or the local DA. Drunk driving and leaving the scene of an accident.

It always seemed likely to me that members of a jury might show preference to someone who had money, power, influence. The ability to return the favor in some way or another. Likely that a judge, even if a jury was so foolish as to follow the evidence and vote their conscience, might provide an inexcusably light sentence. In other words, pervert justice, or at least what I perceived as justice.

That line of reasoning led me to be rather surprised when I came across Leviticus 19:15 in some personal reading. “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.” (NIV)

“Do not show partiality to the poor.”

Do not excuse theft, violence, vandalism, looting, or any other wrongful thing just because the perpetrator is poor. Do not hold anyone to a lower standard of morality because of their poverty. Nor, hold the rich to a lower standard because of their wealth. But also, not to withhold justice because you resent that wealth.

Focusing on the facts, on morality, on truth, rather than on personal perceptions, preferences, and prejudices, is required in order to make fair decisions. Drawing conclusions and rendering judgment based on our personal inclinations and resentments does not lead to justice. Favoring those most like us is no less—or, more—unjust than replacing fairness with pity and thereby excusing wrong behavior.

I really like how The Message renders that last thought from Leviticus 19:15: “Judge on the basis of what is right.” Anything more—or less—than that is a perversion of justice.

And yet, let us never forget that the God of Justice also pronounced, “. . . judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

H. Arnett
3/20/25
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A Sunday Blessing

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Doc Arnett 
A Sunday Blessing

May this bright Lord's Day morning
Create a fresh forming in us all:

A renewed sense of grace 
To face this day, this week, this life; 

A rejuvenated determination
To treat others as we would be treated; 

A deeper appreciation 
For all that we have been given
And all from which we have been spared;

A more sincere caring
For the sick, the hungry, the naked, 
The stranger, the prisoner, the lonely; 

A greater faith
To move the mountains of our own indifferences, 
To return blessing for cursing, 
To endure evil without responding with evil, 
To pray for those who despitefully use us. 

To live a life
Worthy of our calling.

To show the world once again—
By our love for each and each other—
That we are yet disciples 
Of Him Who Loved Us.


H. Arnett
3/16/25
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Remembering West Kentucky, 1960

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Doc Arnett

In a time and place where “I love you” was only murmured in the dark in moments of passion or in the ache of parting pain, it reverberated in echoes of hammers pounding nails. It tinkled in the clinking of pans and dishes on wooden tables with thin-worn varnish. It rumbled in the sounds of four-cylinder tractor motors plowing at midnight. It clunked and cracked in the sounds of heavy iron and sharpened steel splitting fresh-cut sections of ash and oak firewood.

It spoke from the silence of worn denim overalls and cracked leather brogans. It draped over cotton rope clotheslines and smiled from glass jars lined on pantry shelves. It drifted in thin layers of gray smoke sifted through the cracks of smokehouses and dark-fired tobacco barns. It aged and cured in old wooden salt boxes. It roused itself from sleep on dark dairy mornings and walked across frost-crusted grass. It banked fires in the late hours after children were sleeping and made fires blaze again before the first light of dawn rippled beyond the low ridge.

In a hundred ways on thousands of days, love moved in the toil and duty of callused hands that worked the land, fed families, mended clothes, spread open King James Bibles, and kept a roof over all their heads.

In a time when words are spoken cheaply and work too often disdained, we must take great care in translating our own histories, lest we lose the meanings so painfully printed in the lives of those who surely loved us but never knew to put it into words.

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Reverend Jethro & the Home Boys

Posted on March 10, 2025 by Doc Arnett

Rev Jethro and the Home Boys*

So… long ‘bout thirty hundred years ago, Moses, with a colossal amount of help, led the Israelites out of Egypt. After the big pool party they hosted for their dear buddy, Ole Pharaoh, they decided to bivouac out in the desert for a while.

Big Mo’s wife and kids had been visiting her daddy for a while, Reverend Jethro. They’d been there for as long as he could stand ‘em, so he comes traipsin’ cross the desert and catches up to Big Mo. “I believe these is yore’s,”  he sez, turning Zippy and the young’uns back over to his favorite son-in-law.

He and Mose do some catching up and Big Mo fills him in on all the cool stuff Jehovah has been doing on behalf of his Chosen. You know, had them Gypshuns swattin’ flies and dodgin’ frogs back in Brick Town, and of course, the grand finale at the big pool party. Jethro was mighty impressed and right well he should have been. Jehovah had done some mighty impressive stuff back in Egypt and all along the way since then.

But it wasn’t all hallelujahs and praise the Lord’s out there in the Desert of Sin and the Den of Iniquity. They’d had to kick some serious Amalekite butt at Rephilim.

Poor, dumb Amelekites… they saw Big Mo standing on top of the hill with his hands lifted up and they thought he was surrendering! Then, when they saw Aaron and Hur holding Moses’ hands up in the air, they thought there’d been a coup and they wuz taking Big Mo into custody. Man oh man, wuz they wrong about dat!! Got themselves slaughtered is what happened.

So, the next day after his favorite father-in-law showed up, Mose just sat around the whole livelong day, listening to folk’s complaints and quarrels and settling them for ‘em. From dawn to dusk, nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble. Moanin’ and groanin’ about everything from goats eating somebody’s robe to donkeys peeing on the neighbor’s chrysanthemums. And Big Mo having to straighten it all out.

Now, Jethro, being a preacher, couldn’t just sit there, see all them carryin’s on and not say something. No siree, couldn’t keep his mouth shut fer nuthin’!

So, later that night, while they’re sitting in the tent puffing on a hookah and reminiscing about that bush that was on fire but wouldn’t burn up and such, Rev. Jethro tried to speak some wisdom into Big Mo’s thick head.

“Lookit!” he sez, (most folks didn’t know Jethro spent some time in Connecticut), “What in the name of tarnation are you doing?! Sitting there all day, listening to nothin’ but quarrels and arguments?! Boy, you got yourself busier than a one-armed man with his pants on fire!

“You keep this up and you gonna be more frazzled than a bush-whacked whipsee-doodle!”

So, Big Mo sez, “Well… what you reckon I ought to do? “ (Ole Mose weren’t from Connecticut. Or New Jersey, neither.)

“Glad you asked,” sez the Rev. “You needs to delegate.”

“Do what to the gate?” answers Mose.

“Get yoself some help!”  comes the answer. “Quit wearing yoself thinner than a cheap pillowcase on a mountain goat’s noggin and git you some good help!”

And then the Rev says, “Find you some good homies from out there amongst the folks. You know, the kind of dudes you’d trust with yore huntin’ hound, yore best geetar… or your daughter. Dudes that would rather crawl through broken glass than lie to somebody or about somebody. Ones that hate cheaters worse than skeeters! Ones that would rather die broke than pull a toke from under the table. You know what I mean, right?”

Mose, sez, “Yeah, I know some guys like that. Guys that can’t be brought, sold, hooked or crooked. Those the kind of fellas you tawkin’ ‘bout?”

“Yessir, that’s exactly what I’m talking about! You take those guys, dudes that know right off when somebody’s lying to them and trying to run some kind of a game.

“And you put them in charge of all them little arguments and stuff. They can handle that stuff ez well as you can. Spread ‘em out amongst the people and let everyone know that these dudes is gonna hear all them everyday sort of cases. You know, the goat-chewin’ and the donkey peein’ and stuff like that.

“You save yoself for them Sunday Specials, those important cases. That way, ain’t none of you fellers overwhelmed and worn out… ‘Cause listen, Mose, when you gets good peoples in charge of makin’ decisions, you gets good decisions…

“And that right there is what God’s peoples needs.”

* See Exodus 18 for an alternate version.

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The Storm Sparrow

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Doc Arnett

The Storm Sparrow

Kind of a vicious forecast we have today, folks. I lived in this area for seven years the first stint and am now in the twenty-second year this go round. This winter was the first time we’d had a blizzard predicted and sure enough, we had one. Almost two months ago. And, by the way, it did come, pretty much as NOAA predicted with frigid temps, a noticeable wind, and maybe ten inches of snow.

And now we have another one heading our way if the folks who say such things are saying correctly.

Temps predicted to drop from near sixty this morning into the mid-twenties tonight. Rain changing to snow at some point. The thing bothering me the most is the third element of that blizzard concept: the wind.

If they’re right, and I sure hope they aren’t, we could have gusts up to seventy miles an hour! Man, that kind of wind will strip the stink of a pole cat! Knock the mail out of your box. Might be a Shel Silverstein kind of a wind that leaves your hat where it is but blows your head away.

I’m hoping—and praying—that either the forecasters miss the call or the call misses us.

Right chere in Doniphan County, I have a bit of hope. We are at the extreme southern tip of the blizzard warning map. All we need is just an itty bitty tilt in the other direction. Something a bit stronger than the beat of a butterfly’s wing that will drive the storm one hour’s drive north…

Is it wrong for me to pray that it misses us if I don’t pray for North Dakota? Wrong for me to ask to be spared any harm or damage if I’m not praying the same for Nebraska? Wrong to just be hoping it slides up and over instead of coming right through? What if the butterfly flies the wrong way?

Should I just be praying for grace and strength and wisdom and peace for all of us? And remember that God keeps his eye on the sparrow?

And if some Kansas sparrow ends up in Baton Rouge, well, I reckon the Lord can feed him there as well as here. The same wind that blows the nest away can leave fresh stems and strings for the new one.

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Towards Greater Awareness

Posted on March 3, 2025 by Doc Arnett

Moving Toward Greater Awareness

I’ve been working rather determinedly on a book about growing up in West Kentucky. And using Microsoft Word’s “Editor” function for proofreading.

It examines all sorts of stuff: spelling, grammar, punctuation conventions, clarity, and so on. Two of the more intriguing to this old farm kid are “Sensitive Geopolitical References” and “Inclusiveness.” It was disappointing that the SGR function did not flag “hillbillies.” That sort of hurt my feelings, to be honest with you.

But, it’s been good for me with my leftover patriarchal Southern fundamentalist preacher tendencies to have Word monitoring my insensitivities. I’m catching on that not all do-it-yourselfers are handymen. Not everyone who leads a committee is a chairman. Not all plumbers wear short tee shirts and no belt. Wait a minute—what’s that doing in here? Never mind, forget that…

So, with some careful tutelage from the automated surveillance of a word processing program, I’m making some gains. It appears that I still have some way to go, though.

In recounting one of my youthful experiences, I described a rather clumsy moment from long ago. In that brief anecdote, I’d used a simile referencing a “crippled sow.” Uh-oh…

Yep, that’s right, Word Editor caught me!

Instead of such meanness, callused indifference, and insensitivity, I should substitute “disabled sow” or “sow with disabilities.”

Well, now, even swine need to have their feelings protected in those intervening pounds between weaned and turned into weinies? Between born and bacon? On the one hand, I found it dryly amusing and ironically entertaining. I used to think that how we treated humans and other animals was more important than how we talked about them.

But then I realized that how we talk about them is how we treat them.

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Dressing in the Dark

Posted on February 28, 2025 by Doc Arnett

Dressing in the Dark

Old age and old aches sometimes wake me up before it’s time to get up. I’ll lie there, trying to have really boring thoughts and get back to sleep. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

So, I’ll get up and dress as quietly as I can, hoping I don’t disturb Randa’s restful slumber. I’ll pull on my shirt and socks, then pants, hoping I don’t knock anything over or trip myself while trying to get my feet through the appropriate legs of my britches. After I buckle my belt, I’ll slip each foot into an untied tenny shoe, hoping once more, I don’t trip up and make some unintentional noise. You know, like bashing my head against the wall. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

If it does work, I’ll ease out the door, come downstairs and work at the computer.

This morning, it worked. A little mix-up with trying to put my left foot into my right shoe, but nothing that disturbed Randa or injured me.

After working at the computer for about an hour and watching the first hints of dawn morph into the cresting red of sunrise, I decided to go feed the horses. First, I needed to stop by the bathroom. Don’t worry, you’re got going to get TMI from this account. First, a tiny bit of backstory.

Apparently, I’ve hit my second adolescence; my feet are growing again.

I’ve worn a size nine since high school but last year had to move up to a nine-and-a-half for my new hiking boots. Not wanting to buy an entire new sole-ful wardrobe, I kept wearing the old work shoes, muck boots, and insulated boots. My inherited frugality was not without consequence.

Six weeks ago, I developed some friction sores on a couple of my toes on each foot. I started wearing toeless house shoes for about ten to twelve hours a day. I was inside anyway and didn’t figure watching TV required much in the way of protective footwear. The sores did not get any better.

Two weeks ago, I bought a new pair of muck boots and a new pair of athletic shoes at Wally World. Figured I’d see if wearing Tens instead of Nines made any difference before I laid out a hundred bucks or more for a higher quality pair. Having a really nice pair of Brooks running shoes, I was hesitant to get rid of those. Just left them sitting by the clothes hamper in the bedroom. Right next to the new pair of larger and wider but cheaper Avias.

They seem to be working well. I like the looser fit; they certainly feel more comfortable. No change yet in the sores on my toes but the doctor tells me to be more patient. (See what I did there? Tee hee…) Well, they felt more comfortable until this morning.

While I was sitting there in the bathroom in a reflective mood, I noticed that my right foot felt a bit cramped in the shoe. I curled my toes down to verify it wasn’t just a momentary mental apparition. Yep, that didn’t feel good.

“Good grief!” I thought, “How could my feet already be getting bigger in just two weeks?”

I leaned over and squeezed the end of my shoe. Yep, toes pushing right against the end of the shoe, just like they were in that old pair of Brooks… Hey, wait a minute… that is my Brooks! Good grief, indeed, Charlie Brown!

New Avia on my left foot, old Brooks on my right. That explains the tight fit and the little mix-up getting dressed in the dark this morning. Now, a few hours later, I’m wearing matching shoes and enjoying the more comfortable fit.

It’s understandable that we get a bit confused, slip up and embarrass ourselves from time to time. Part of the package with this human experiment, er, I mean human experience, thing. Making mistakes is just part of it. Can’t help that. Continuing to wear the wrong shoe instead of admitting the mistake is something else.

Sometimes pride and stupidity become rather intertwined. Either one of them can trip you up. Combining the two can be downright dangerous.

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Turning It over to the Lord

Posted on February 27, 2025 by Doc Arnett

Good afternoon and good blessings to you,

Doc

Turning It over to Jesus

Where and when does not matter. The names have not been changed to protect anyone, whether guilty, innocent or a bit of both. They’ve been made up entirely. Well, except for the titular character, that one’s pretty much historically accurate.

When it came share time at that week’s meeting of the Folks Trying to Throw off Shackles, Jenny raised her hand to share. Okay, Jenny, what do you have for us?

“Well, you know we’re always hearing y’all talk about ‘turn it over to Jesus’ or ‘turn it over to your Higher Power.’ Well, I did that last month.

“I’d written a bunch of bad checks and I knowed they was bad when I wrote ‘em. But I did it anyway. And then, I got real skeered ‘cause I knew them checks was gonna bounce like a golf ball on concrete. And I wuz so worried! I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do nothing. Just knowing them checks wuz all out there and knowing they wuz gonna get to the bank and then go right back to whoever I wrote ‘em to.

“But then, I got to remembering what y’all said: ‘Turn it over to the Lord.’”

“And so, that’s exactly what I did, I just turned it over to Jesus. That’s whut I did. I went to bed that night and I slept like a little baby.”

Jenny paused, silent for what seemed like a long while. Finally, one of the other shackle-shaking members asked, “So, what happened after you turned it over to Jesus?”

“Well, I’ll tell ya,” Jenny answered with a sly smile, “I woke up the next morning and found out he’d turned it over to the Sheriff.”

I guess sometimes the Lord takes care of things himself and sometimes he delegates. Either way, just remember: he’s always working in all things for our good.

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Regarding Allegations and Affirmations

Posted on February 25, 2025 by Doc Arnett

I recently read once again, someone’s affirmation that “God is in control.” It was apparently intended to bring reassurance in spite of what many consider to be deeply disturbing actions taking place in our nation. Especially in light of the overwhelming number of things going on in our world at this time, I like the reassurance of that notion.

I try to believe in the perseverance of good and courageous people. I do find comfort in being reminded that God is in control.

And yet… I remember that God was in control when Hitler took over Germany and much of Europe. God was in control when millions of his chosen people were imprisoned, tortured, and exterminated. God was in control when Germany turned from a shining beacon of culture and arts into a black hole of putrid hate and vile oppression.

God was in control when Idi Amin, Saddam Husein, Muammar Gaddafi, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and every other cruel dictator in the history of the world came to power. God was in power when millions suffered and died.

God was in power when every president of this nation was elected, Democrat, Republican, Whig, Tory, whatever. According to scripture, every single one of them was the one God had chosen to be in power at that time.

Through it all, God’s people were blessed, afflicted, comforted, and tortured. Some overcame, some were welcomed into eternal rest. I know that these concerns are with this world and not with the things that are from above.

Regardless of what happens in this nation and the world, I know that “God is at work in all things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” Even if this democracy succumbs to plutocracy, populism, oligarchy, anarchy, fascism, or some other bastardized blending of greed and power, pride and prejudice, God will still be at work for our good. Before, during, and after.

On the other hand, I also know that God disciplines those he loves, that he sometimes uses evil people to accomplish his plans, and that suffering builds perseverance and strengthens faith.

What if what is going on is intended to shake us to our very core? What if God is intending to remind us that those who tolerate evil bring destruction upon themselves? What if his plan is to teach us that all who rely upon wealth and earthly power will be shaken? What if he is planning some great testing that will reveal true faith and bring glory to his name?

Knowing that God was in power through both World Wars, indeed through all wars, knowing that he was in power through every famine, every pestilence, every calamity, every catastrophe, does not assure me that everything will be fine from a material point of view. It reminds me that “whether in this body or absent from this body, I will be with the Lord.”

God can be in power and allow it to happen here.

We cherish the fantasy that this country is God’s chosen rather than remember that he has called his people from every nation. I believe that eventually, whether in the courts of the world or at the judgment seat of Christ, all who oppress the poor, trample upon the weak, and indulge their own greed at the expense of decency, compassion, and kindness, will be punished for their sins. As will those who support such things, even if believing it is somehow for the greater good.

And, I remember, that reckoning will include both kings and peasants, knights and knaves, shamans and sharecroppers. And me.

And that is why I struggle each day not to get caught up in political controversy. I struggle to keep my heart set on “the things that are above” and to remind myself that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Though I prize earthly freedom and the privilege of democracy, those mean nothing compared to the liberty I have in Christ, the wealth stored up for me in heaven.

Peace to you all.

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