Suddenly there was a strange noise like the tail pipe was hitting the bottom of the car. “Is that our car making that noise?” I asked.

I was hoping it was another car and not ours at all, but no such luck. It was our car all right, our only-a-year-old almost new car. There was nothing to do but get off the road as soon as possible before the entire bottom fell out. Unable to get to the right side due to traffic, we had to pull off on the left.

Drivers have little patience when they are on the Interstate highway traveling at high speed. “We are going to be killed,” I thought. One of these cars is going to slam into us and smash us to smithereens.

Honey got out to check. “Well, it isn’t the tail pipe,” he said. “We have a flat tire.”

Honey is a smart man. He works in computer security, speaks a foreign language and graduated from a major eastern university. But when it comes to fixing things, he is worthless.

“Do we have On Star?” I asked hopefully, remembering the time he locked the dog inside and himself outside and totally forgot about having roadside assistance available. Unfortunately, he had decided not to renew it after the free year.

“AAA, we can call them to come rescue us.” So we scrambled around until we came up with the plastic membership card. Cars were rushing by so fast that our car rocked in the wind. “We are going to die,” I thought.

Honey proceeded to place a call to AAA, trying to explain where we were so they could send road service to help us.

“Tell them we are going to die,so hurry,” I said, remembering the last time we had a flat years ago. We had waited and waited for AAA until finally a Good Samaritan stopped and changed the tire for us.

I saw a truck pull off the road on the other side. The state has vehicles that patrol the busiest sections of the Interstate to help people with car problems, people like us. They do it to keep the roads open, traffic moving, and to prevent secondary accidents.

That yellow truck with the flashing light looked a whole like a golden chariot to me. But it couldn’t get across the speeding lanes of traffic. Cars were rushing by so fast they almost melted.

I still don’t know how it happened, but when they turned on their flashing light, the traffic miraculously parted. The truck crossed the rushing automotive sea and pulled up behind us. Honey got out to explain the problem to Moses. Okay, maybe it wasn’t Moses, but he sure seemed like Moses to me.

“He wants me to get further off the road,” Honey said. Well, if Moses commands it, we better do it. It’s no time to be breaking commandments right before you die.

Moses jacked up the car and did mysterious things with the tire that I didn’t understand. I later found out he had pulled out a large metal spike that we had hit and plugged the hole. Then he told us to go forth and buy a new tire.

While he said he worked for the Department of Transportation, I’m still not so sure. After all, he was driving a golden chariot that flashed like fire.

If you’re in the mood for browsing the web, you might want to check out www.southernhumorists.com where I’ve just posted a whole passel of new stories by southern humor writers and sympathizers.  

Photo courtesy of Ken Teegardin, www.seniorliving.org

Will Rogers was wrong. The legendary humorist, speaking of the responsibilities each of us has as a citizen of this nation, once observed, “America is a great country, but you can’t live in it for nothing.” Unless, it turns out, you’re Eduardo Saverin, the 30-year-old co-founder of Facebook, who just before that company launched its initial public offering, which would make him a multibillionaire, renounced his American citizenship and moved to Singapore.

To be fair, according to Tom Goodman, Saverin’s New York-based spokesperson, “Eduardo recently found it to be more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time.” That is, take your choice, bull, baloney or bunkum.

Today’s capital gains tax rate in the United States — which is one-half of what it was when conservative Icon Ronald Reagan was president — is just 15 percent. But compared to Singapore’s zero capital gains tax rate, it must look irresistible to those who put profits over patriotism.

Some conservatives who seem to hate taxes more than they love America even praise expatriate Saverin for renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Forbes’ John Tamny, who covers “the intersection of economics and politics,” writes that “wise minds could very credibly proclaim him (Saverin) an American hero for doing what he did.”

Let us review the story up to now. Fleeing kidnapping threats against his wealthy family, Eduardo Saverin, at the age of 13, came to the United States from Brazil, his country of birth. He became a U.S. citizen and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, where he met the two other co-founders of Facebook.

Among the rights the United States provided to her adopted son Eduardo Saverin was security from personal danger, the freedom to become whatever his talents and hard work would permit him to be, copyright and patent laws to protect his invention and a court system to guarantee those protections.

You can call Saverin a genius, an extraordinary entrepreneur and a capitalist success. What you cannot call Saverin is a patriot. Ungrateful to the country that gave him safe harbor and a new life, Saverin put a price tag on patriotism and, rather than pay the taxes dues on his unfathomable fortune, chose to get himself a change-of-address card for Singapore.

This is the thanks he gives to the people and their government that welcomed him and guaranteed that the air he would breathe and the water he would drink were clean, that the food he ate and medicine he took were healthful, and that he and his family were protected by the world’s best military.

It is beyond kind to call someone who greedily grabs all that his new U.S. citizenship gives him and then refuses to give back what he owes a freeloader. No, this loathsome behavior is instead parasitic.

Fifty years ago, a young American president told the world that “to assure the survival and the success of liberty,” he and his fellow countrymen “will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship.” Today, for Eduardo Saverin and his apologists in the tax-avoidance club, to be a citizen is all about your rights and nothing about your responsibilities. And if you don’t like any law, you can just do what to the rest of us is truly unimaginable — and renounce your American citizenship.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

Photo courtesy of Laurenco Parente

My late father was a man of strong opinion. He despised phonies, cowards and liars. He named names — sometimes in very close proximity to those being singled out. A veteran of World War II, he recognized a weasel when he saw one.

But my dad never denigrated rich people in general.

We lived in Levittown, N.Y., where everybody had pretty much the same — that is, not much. We ate tuna casserole, hot dogs and Hamburger Helper. My parents never owned a new car.

Ten miles away, my dentist, a college classmate of my father’s, lived in Garden City. Lovely place, filled with rich people. My father often drove us through there and never said a disparaging word about the fine lawns and shiny foreign cars. America was the land of opportunity, and Garden City proved it.

But that was then.

Today, many Democrats believe the wealthy are bad to the bone. A new Gallup poll asks: “Do you think the U.S. benefits from having a class of rich people or not?”

An amazing 46 percent of self-described Democrats answered “or not.”

When I asked two left-leaning pundits about this, they said it is all about “income inequality.” They asked me whether my father would approve of that. I said he most likely would reject the entire concept of “income inequality” by giving the pundits the same advice he gave me: “If you don’t like what they’re paying you, work someplace else.”

And I followed that advice, moving 10 times in 15 years on my way up the television news ladder. It wasn’t easy, but if I thought my employer was hosing me, I began looking around.

That’s how capitalism is supposed to work. America is mandated to provide “equal opportunity,” not equal outcomes. The boss man can pay what he wants. It’s our choice whether to take it or leave it.

President Obama doesn’t seem to get that. He often puts forth that wealthy Americans are not paying their “fair share,” that somehow the fix is in, and the rich folk are gaming the system at the expense of working people. But for two years, Obama had an adoring Democratic Congress that did absolutely nothing to further the concept of “income equality.” The reason? It’s unconstitutional. The feds cannot dictate salaries and benefits in the private marketplace. Obamacare is an attempt to breach that constitutional wall. We’ll soon see what the Supreme Court says.

Capitalism is no beach day. The strong and sometimes ruthless prosper. The poorly educated and unfocused often fail. For many Americans, failure is unfair and unacceptable in a “just” society. But my dad knew and accepted the truth of capitalism: Some will win big, some will lose big, but most will live comfortable lives in the middle. Just as he did.

Veteran TV news anchor Bill O’Reilly is host of the Fox News show “The O’Reilly Factor” and author of the book “Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama.” To find out more about Bill O’Reilly, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. This column originates on the website www.billoreilly.com.

Photo courtesy of Olivier Hodac

Now that the dust has settled on the world’s most discussed photo of a woman nursing in the history of time — and Time — let me stop and assess my own feelings.

OK, here goes.

I don’t care whether you nurse or for how long. I don’t care if you co-sleep, wear your baby in a sling, feed your baby chicken nuggets or home school your kids until they are antisocial little freaks who understand algorithms and true love better than I ever will.

Yep. That about covers it. I don’t care whether YOU cover it. I’m a live-and-let-nurse kind of girl.

All this mom-on-mom crime is getting kind of dull. Scratch that. It’s been dull since I became a mom more than two years ago and began tuning in to the infighting and judging going on in mommy groups and comment sections and social groups across this land. Maybe if I had stronger opinions about the “right” way to parent, I could muster more judgment against those of you not meeting my standards.

However, when I look at other moms who seem happy with relatively normal kids, I think, whatever they’re doing, it must be working. Keep on trucking. Or suckling. Sorry.

My mantra when it comes to other people is that if something feels right to them, it’s right. This is a total dead-end nonstarter when it comes to me, though. It’s just a disaster when I look inward and find that I have very few strong instincts. I don’t know what feels right. I wish I were staunch in some direction. I wish I were a super-believer in something when it comes to parenting. I wish I had that kind of conviction in any direction.

If I were on the cover of Time, it would be like one of those bumper stickers on a commercial vehicle: “How’s my driving?” All I ever want to ask anyone, all I truly want to know is: Am I doing this right? Because all I know is that I want to be, that I’m dying to compare myself to others just so I can know where I stand. Is my kid in day care too many hours? Too few? Am I too strict? Too lax? If I knew what this was supposed to look like, I could just compare my parenting to the picture in my head and decide it was close enough. However, there is no picture in my head.

Maybe that’s why that cover caught fire. What’s incendiary is not just the lady and her kid and her boob, but the fact that she and her fellow attachment-parenting types seem to know exactly what they think we should be doing. They have a magical thing, right or wrong, called certainty. They have conviction. We have a primal need to know whether they are right — or just super-serious about how right they think they are. If they are, that means we may not be “mom enough,” and that’s a fright.

There are so many ways to be a mom today. I know moms who work part time, work full time, have a nanny, have a part-time sitter, home school, send kids to day care, send kids to preschools of every kind and cost, attachment parent, lightly parent, you name it.

If you tell me to do what “feels right” to me, I just need you to tell me exactly what to do, step by step, because I can follow directions better than I can follow my own heart.

We parents should be grateful for all of the options we have these days, and maybe some are. But from all the talk that exploded about that Time cover, I would argue that lots of us are comparing and judging and finger-pointing because it’s too complicated to just calmly and peacefully choose a path.

If a lady breastfeeds her super-big kid on the cover of a magazine, we can all look at her and know one thing for sure: That poor kid is going to wish Google was never invented when his high school friends look him up. That much I know for sure.

Teresa Strasser is an Emmy-winning television writer, a two-time Los Angeles Press Club Columnist of the Year and a multimedia personality. She is the author of a new book, “Exploiting My Baby,” the rights to which have been optioned by Sony Pictures. To find out more about Teresa Strasser and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo illustration by Todd Wiseman

The cost of college in Texas is back at center stage, following speculation over the last week that University of Texas at Austin President Bill Powers’ job was in jeopardy over his public disappointment with University of Texas System leaders for their decision to freeze tuition at the flagship campus.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/higher-education/texplainer-how-much-do-texas-public-universities-c/.

Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore

You don’t need a psychoanalyst to detect the latent theme running through the endorsements currently showering Mitt Romney like broken rain gutters pouring down on a concrete toadstool. And that premise is ennui. “Mitt? Really? Yeah. Okay. Whatever.” Makes tepid sound like a crazed bellow. With wild enthusiasm as MIA as World Series trophies in the Wrigley Field display case. Within the last 104 years, that is.

Someone should warn NASA because we are approaching stratospheric heights of apathy here. The only thing these highly solicited testimonials have accomplished is given a face to listless. The guy needs industrial-strength hip waders to slog through the thigh-high lethargy.

George W. Bush carved a precious three seconds out of his busy schedule to make a momentous announcement from the inside of an elevator telling an ABC news crew, “I’m for Mitt Romney” as the doors closed on him. Not that the candidate-in-waiting was particularly lusting after 44′s imprimatur, which some might call the Kiss of Campaign Death. But it effectively does nail down the eminently sought-after spoiled rich kid vote.

Rick Santorum got around to his ringing endorsement 13 paragraphs into a 16-paragraph email sent out to supporters after midnight. The only subterfuge he neglected to employ was to disguise it in semaphoric code. And these are Romney’s big-time Republican buddies. You’d think they were having their teeth pulled with families held at gunpoint on a listing catwalk yawning over an erupting caldera.

It’s been like that ever since the nominee became presumptive. Politicians oozing from the woodwork with the same kind of energetic frenzy fifth-grade school girls normally reserve for haggis-flavored ice cream studded with garlic pickle chips.

You got to know this is just the beginning of a series of sluggishly recalcitrant pledges of approbation. Here are some other passion-challenged tributes we can expect over the coming weeks.

“Mitt Romney. Had to go with somebody, right?”

“Not the brainwashed Romney. That was his dad.”

“Only two of Mitt Romney’s five sons think he’s a soulless Cyborg.”

“May be out of touch with the mainstream but looks pretty good tanning on the embankment.”

“Mitt Romney. Hey, it could be worse.”

“Not the kind of guy who would hold you down and cut your hair, unless you really were asking for it.”

“Pretty down to earth for someone building a 57-room mansion with a car elevator.”

“Will do for America what he did for Bain Capital.”

“Survived the mean streets of Bloomfield Hills.”

“Hardly ever sneaks out at night to kick homeless guys. Anymore.”

“A man who stands by his previous statements, no matter what they are.”

“Mormons are just like Christians, aren’t they?”

“Mitt Romney. Not that bad, when you consider the alternatives.”

“He’s no John McCain.”

“Going to make the world safe for rich people.”

“Mitt Romney. When good things happen to bland people.”

“He’s Oxymormonic!”

“Hasn’t strapped a dog to the roof of his car in over 28 years.”

“Mitt Romney. He’s got gas money.”

“Never ridden a bus in his entire life.”

“Looks more like Gordon Gekko than Michael Douglas ever did.”

“Mitt Romney. A man who feels strongly about both sides of many issues.”

The New York Times says Emmy-nominated comedian and writer Will Durst “is quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today.” Check out the website: willdurst.com to buy his book or find out about upcoming stand-up performances.

Photo courtesy of anonymonk

The moon is endlessly creative in finding ways to amuse us. Just two weeks ago, the Earth’s only natural satellite was unusually close to us, and looked bigger and brighter than normal. The result was a Supermoon, which dazzled skywatchers across the U.S.

Now its orbit has taken the moon farther away than average, just in time it to pass directly in front of the sun on Sunday, fittingly enough. Ordinarily, that would cause a total solar eclipse, with the moon blotting out the sun entirely for a few minutes. But the moon appears smaller than normal — small enough, in fact, that it can’t block the entire sun, even when they’re lined up perfectly.

The good folks over at Climate Central graciously allow Oak Ridge Now to republish their content.. This article comes courtesy of their team.

So instead, the lucky folks who live in a swath of the country from Northern California into Nevada will see what’s known as an annular eclipse on Sunday, late in the afternoon, the first visible in the U.S. in 18 years — weather permitting, of course. What it means is that when the moon is dead-center in front of the sun, a fiery ring of sunlight will surround the moon’s silhouette (“annulus” is Latin for “ring”).

“I like to compare different types of eclipses on a scale of 1 to 10 as visual spectacles,” said NASA’s Fred Espenak of the Goddard Space Flight Center on the agency’s eclipse website. “If a partial eclipse [where the moon crosses the sun off-center] is a 5 then an annular eclipse is a 9.” (His ranking for a total solar eclipse on that same 1-10 scale: “A million! It’s completely off the charts.”

One note of caution: even though the moon will cover 94 percent of the sun on Sunday, there’s still enough light to blind you. Use an approved solar filter if you want to take a look, or, suggests Espenak, “A #14 welder’s glass is a good choice.” If you’ve got one lying around, that is.

Photo illustration by Todd Wiseman

Texas added 13,200 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 6.9 percent in April, according to the latest statistics released by the Texas Workforce Commission. Although April marks the 21st month in a row that the state gained jobs, the service industry actually declined by 800 jobs, predominantly because of 4,300 jobs lost in the leisure and hospitality industry.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/texas-economy/economy/april-jobs-report-texas-economy-growing-slow-stead/.

Photo courtesy of Robyn Lee

Be sure to buy a ripe, fragrant pineapple for these margaritas. If you cut it open and discover that it’s not super-sweet, microwave your pineapple chunks on a plate for 12 seconds (no more!) to bring out the juicy, sweet flavors. Let cool before adding to blender.

Oak Ridge Now republishes articles and recipes graciously provided to us by our friends at Serious Eats, a website focused on celebrating and sharing food enthusiasm through blogs and online community. We hope that you not only enjoy this article, but that you also frequent their compelling original and acquired food video, and spirited, inclusive, conversations about all things food- and drink-related.

Note: We like the light caramel flavors of reposado tequila in these margaritas, but you can substitute blanco tequila if it’s all you have on hand. To make simple syrup, combine equal volumes of sugar and water in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Get more fresh-fruit margarita recipes here »