Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson visits Alabama and advocates teen brides

In a town infamous for it’s bigoted, inglorious racist history, and “dry” Oktoberfest, comes this not-so-unusual item.

The north-central Alabama town of

Florida Taxpayers Bilked for Welfare Drug Test Costs by Republican Gov. Rick Scott

Updated October 27, 2012 – Readers should be aware there is now two years of data. The original story was published in 2011, and the three new stories added are from 2012, and show similar data – that being, that the cost of the program to mandate drug testing for all public assistance recipients in Florida – is unproductive and wasteful, and costs more in tax dollars and time wasted than it purports to save.
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Dedicated to everyone who believes that merely because some people need a helping hand that they’re automatically suspect.

It’s not a crime to be poor. And Christ said, “The poor you will always have with you.”

The line of thinking on drug testing goes like this: A.) The exceeding majority of public assistance recipients are lazy, good-for-nothing drug abusers, so B.) Taking them off the dole will save hundreds of thousands – if not tens of millions of dollars, so C.) Make them pay up front to defend themselves against the blanket accusation, and reimburse them if they don’t “come up dirty.”

Turns out, however, that only a measly 2% of recipients have been positive. In other words, the vast and exceeding majority of public assistance recipients – 98% – are law-abiding, non-drug abusing citizens.

What does that mean for the good, hard-working, tax-paying people of Florida? Why, they’re on the hook to cough up some reimbursement money to the folks that paid up front to be tested. And at $43,200/month, that’s over $518,000/year. Not exactly chump change – especially in tough economic times.

Why, even the old Charlie Daniels song acknowledges that

The South’s gonna’ do it again!

Music lifts our souls and spirits, innervates and energizes us, soothes our weary souls, troubled minds and hearts. It is the veritable soundtrack of our lives, sometimes reinvigorating and re-energizing us to press on, to continue, to bear up under duress, and for a brief moment, forget about our troubles, to leave them all behind in an ecstatic abandonment of rapturous joy.

Every generation has their own music, those seminal and prophetic voices of the era. To some, it’s hated, while to others, beloved, and yet to others still, misunderstood and frequently mischaracterized, even demonized.

And through it all, we every one acknowledge our own depence upon music to be there for us, albeit if unconsciously.

And so, with a nod of the hat, I give you the following. I only wish you could hear it. And if you’re of that era, I’m certain you will.