Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

Systemic racism

August 23, 2026

When this term began to flourish many years ago, I thought it was like the phrase youth in Asia from the 1970s. If you are not old enough to remember that decade, I will tell you a story. In history class, one day our teacher asked us to choose teams to debate a topic. I was a debater and was excited about the assignment.

My friend and I easily paired up with two other friends to oppose and choose our topic. We selected pornography and picked a court case about the book “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and discussed the idea of whether the book was pornographic or not. I have yet to read the book.

The humorous part was when the group that selected Youth in Asia began their debate, and it had nothing to do with Asia but was about people being allowed to commit suicide. One of the debaters stated that he thought the punishment for this should be the death penalty. That comment got him sent to the office.

For my younger readers, you can see that our generations are no smarter than yours. I had never heard of euthanasia at that time. If you do not understand a term, do some research or ask someone smarter than you. I could not find anyone who could define the term systemic racism for me. They knew racism; only how the term systemic applied confused them as well.

My research since that time has uncovered the true cause of this problem. It is not the systems in place but the individuals running the governments involved. I think the first I heard of this was in the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. While the officer who killed Mr. Brown was never charged or convicted of a crime, the city police department underwent many systemic upgrades due to the incident.

This type of event sparks changes all over our country. The most current ones involve U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers who have killed innocent people and claimed that they interfered in their investigations. These cases range from Maine, Texas, Virginia, and beyond. There have been problems in Greene County, Missouri, where I live, as well, with this department of the Federal Government.

The point I want to make is that no system is perfect when imperfect humans are responsible for enforcing the laws. Maybe we should eliminate the human element and assign these tasks to Artificial Intelligence? This is an oxymoron because while they may be artificial, they are not intelligent. They make mistakes as well.

You don’t believe me? Try these headlines for size: “Parents sue OpenAI for involvement in teenager’s suicide,” “xAI’s Grok makes antisemitic comments, lays out plan for assault,” “AI coding tool wipes out production database and lies about it.” That last one sounds all too human to me. Could it be that even something artificial designed by us will still have our flaws?

This is the main premise of my book “Cosmic Flatulence.” When we concoct a theory of the evolution of our world coming from nothing and no one, calling it the “Big Bang Theory,” isn’t that like saying God let a fart and all of this happened? I don’t have that much faith.

Social Insecurity

August 18, 2026

HISTORY LESSON ON YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD:

Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe me. Be sure and show it to your family and friends. They need a little history lesson on what’s what and it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are FACTS.

Up until the 1980’s, Social Security cards expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for identification purposes. Both my wife and I have these cards. My mother and father’s cards that I still possess show it as well. In college, my first student ID number was my SSI number.

Since nearly everyone in the United States now has a number, even our young children, it became convenient to use it anyway and the “NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION” message was removed. One promise is broken.

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. These are the promises that he made, with updates in brackets.

Participation in the Program would be completely voluntary [No longer voluntary, another broken promise.],

The participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual income into the program [Now 7.65% on the first $90,000, and 15% on the first $90,000 if you’re self-employed. That’s three promises broken.],

The money the participants elected to put into the program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year [No longer tax deductible, a fourth one bites the dust.],

The money the participants contributed would be deposited into an independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program [Under Johnson the money was moved to the General Fund and the Trust Fund no longer exists. This makes five broken promises.], and

The annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income [Under Clinton & Gore up to 85% of your Social Security can be taxed which makes six lies that were told.].

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put away.’

The worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe these promises were never made to citizens. If enough people hear this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will come. Maybe not, though. Some from both parties are awfully sure of what isn’t so — but it’s worth a try.

Remember this in November when you go to the polls. Both parties want to control you. Neither group wants to balance our budget or limit the number of terms that Congress and the Senate serve. They all want to live off your taxes and make fortunes from those they make wealthy while turning away from helping We the People.

Check the history of the shutdowns of our federal government and see that these two groups function as co-conspirators to destroy our country. It is time to vote against every politician on the local, state, and national level. Keep listening to partisan politics of any group and you will soon lose what freedoms you still have.

Cobra Scare

August 15, 2026

August 15, 1953 – A homeowner in Springfield, Missouri killed a 4½ foot long snake with a hoe. The snake was later identified as a deadly hooded cobra. Springfield was soon terrified as one cobra after another turned up. This all happened a year before I was born.

Reo Mowrer, owner of an exotic pet store a block away from where the first snake was found, denied they were his. As the hunt continued, police played snake charmer music through a loudspeaker to lure the snakes out. Cobras are deaf. Music does not draw the snakes through the music except by the vibrations

Frank Pike holding the stick with the cobra. Carl Gustafson is police officer in middle.

The story made national news and was featured in Life Magazine as eleven snakes were eventually killed. Mike O’Brien, a columnist for the News and Leader, reported in the seventies that the mystery had not been solved about the source of the reptiles.

Mister Mowrer had spoken to reporter O’Brien before his death and had admitted that he had a shipment of exotic snakes delivered just before the scare. The cobras were some of this illegal order. This information was not to be released until after his death.

Officers looking for more snakes

Years later, a Springfield man confessed that as a youth he had released the snakes from the pet shop. He was angry that a fish he bought there had died and the owner refused to refund his money. When I managed a pet store, our policy was to give a forty-eight-hour warranty with the return of the dead fish.

Holding another dead snake

If only that had been in effect in nineteen fifty-three this entire adventure would never have taken place. Now you see why enjoy writing non-fiction more than fiction. You just can’t make this stuff up.

Hillbilly at Heart

August 13, 2026

I remember in the 1960s when The Beverly Hillbillies first aired. As Ozarks Hillbillies, we knew that Jed and Granny and the rest of their family were not the same as us. They did not know about doorbells, modern telephones, or television. I remember when Jethro hooked up a phone for Granny and made it a party line.

Silver Dollar City and Branson, Missouri, are where we learned that we were in the hills. Some call it the Ozark Mountains or plateau. When they brought the cast and crew to these hills to film several episodes in the backdrop of SDC, the whole backstory changed. They were no longer from the Bugtussel and Oxford area.

The mayor of the city, Shad Heller, visited them in California on the set there. Of course, the interior scenes were filmed on a sound stage for the Ozarks episodes as well as the other episodes. This is common for most shows. Exteriors are often shot on location, while it is easier to use sound stages for the various interior and other shots.

Around that time, Judge Justin Ruark, a native of Neosho, eloquently defined an Ozarks Hillbilly as “an individual who has learned the real luxury of doing without the entangling complications of things which the dependent and over-pressured city dweller is required to consider as necessities.”

“The hillbilly foregoes the hard grandeur of high buildings and canyon streets in exchange for wooded hills and verdant valleys. In place of creeping traffic, he accepts the rippling flow of the wandering stream.” I have lived most of my life inside Springfield, the third largest city in our state.

In the last sixty years, most of the Queen City of the Ozarks has become more of an urban city and less of what we thought of as a rural community. Do not try to insult us when you say the term Hillbilly. We are proud to be from the Ozarks, where in twenty minutes we can be in the country with fields, forests, and streams or lakes.

The larger cities have parks where some of these amenities are available, but I can walk less than a mile from my home, which is in Greene County, and go for a walk in the woods or beside a creek. The Ozarks have many small communities that are a lot like the ones Jethro and Ellie Mae came from originally. It only takes ten minutes to reach the heart of a big city.

Silver Dollar City is no longer the tiny community it was in the early sixties. On my first visit there as a boy, we parked where the Marketplace now is and walked directly onto Main Street in front of the SDC Hotel. Shad’s blacksmith shop, Copper Kettle Candy Store, Marvel Cave, and one or two rides were all that was there.

When I traveled to Bradford, PA in 1975, I was asked about my hometown. Bradford had a population of 25,000, and Springfield was 135,000 then. I told them it was a small town, and when I stated the population as of the 1970 census, they realized that my hometown was more than these Yankees realized.

We may be hillbillies; we are not small-town hicks. Springfieldians live in the third largest city in Missouri, with the largest school system in this state. We have a lot to be proud of and should tell everyone that our metro area has been counted with a population of over 500,000 residents. Not bad for a bunch of hillbillies.

Are you your parents?

August 11, 2026

I like to ask people if they have looked in the mirror and seen one of their parents. I am not trying to insult them by saying that they are getting old. That would not be an insult, by the way. There is only one way to avoid becoming older: die now. Death is inevitable, and aging is as well.

If I did not have a good relationship with both of my parents, I would not bring them up in this way. My Dad was not intelligent in the normal way that I think of the word. He never wrote a book, graduated from college, or even high school. He was a city boy and served his country in World War II the best he could.

He was a swabby in the Navy on a repair ship. Yes, he was drafted and assigned to the US Navy. When I thought I might be drafted, I was also talking to them during the Vietnam conflict. I wanted to travel to the Far East but not under government invitation. I wanted to be assigned as a journalist on the front lines.

Dad did his job, came home to Springfield, Missouri, and married our mother. She had to lie about her education to get a factory job that only required a high school diploma. She did not have that either. Dad drove a truck, and Mom had been a waitress and cook in cafes before Zenith hired her.

I can’t drive a truck. Read my column, “I watched a truck driver today,” for more on this. I can cook and started my working career as a fry cook. I ended it as a purchasing manager, was an operations manager for a company I spent twenty-five years with, and graduated with a BA. This was all thanks to their example.

I am not my parents; however, I love them dearly, think of them often, and frequently comment on them in these articles and in my books. Without them, I would not be who I am. The best parts of me are due to them and their influence. My hope is that after reading this, you will say the same of yours.

They were not perfect or spectacular. They never did anything more than what most of us do: work, raise a family, and obey the law most of the time. They never did illegal drugs, drank alcohol to excess, or were arrested. They both served on juries when summoned and took us to church and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

That will not get you the parent of the year award from anyone except your own kids and sometimes not even them. That is the point of this column. What have you done lately to honor your folks? Maybe your parents were abusive and failed you miserably. I’m sorry if that is your story. Mine did not.

I recently spent some time with a professional counselor, and she did, like they all do, try to help us with our problems. She asked about them and my relationship with them growing up, abuse, and substance abuse. There is nothing in my experience in their home that is anything to cause me the difficulties I am having.

Professional counseling is often called for when we are dealing with life’s troubles. Don’t avoid it if you need it. Find a trained and qualified professional who is a good fit with you. Let them direct you to handle your issues, whatever they may be. I’m working on mine, and I hope your parents and you do the same.

Perception or truth

August 8, 2026

One employee is sitting at the computer working on what they were told to do three hours before. The boss is pleased because they are still on the task they were given. He does not know this job will only take them thirty minutes to perform, because he does not know how to do it.

The same official passes another employee who is in a breakroom getting a cup of coffee. He is there with two others who have been drinking coffee for fifteen minutes, and they all go back to their respective desks. “How long have they been in the break room?” he asks his secretary. “Fifteen minutes,” is the reply.

Later that day, the man who was pouring a cup of coffee is reprimanded. He is confused since he had gotten up from his workstation for the first time in three hours and is told he was drinking coffee for fifteen minutes. It is never mentioned to those who were the ones his secretary was talking about.

Perception is the problem in this case. Or, if you have my attitude, the misconceptions of an inefficient supervisor. I hope this has never happened to you. It has been done to thousands of associates at offices and plants all over the world. I know because I’ve seen it here in the U.S., and I believe that people are the same everywhere.

I’ll give you a couple of personal examples. I walked up on the line at a restaurant where I was a manager and saw three people correcting a problem with a customer order. One was out of his workstation. I jumped on him to get back where he belonged.

Once the problem was worked out, the other two informed me that the error was theirs and the young man just came over to help sort things out. I immediately went to him and apologized for my error and thanked him for his efforts.

A few days later, a tray of food flies over his head and hits a wall. The manager who threw it, my boss, storms out of the building. The situation was the same; an order was filled incorrectly. I took this as a sign that I needed to find employment elsewhere and did so. This was my last food service position, and I continued in other industries.

The problem of perception overruling truth is all around us. We often must look beyond what seems to be obvious to us to determine what the reality is. Many companies die because their managers and owners accept perceptions as truth and fail to see the forest for the trees.

I left an employer early on, expecting his business to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and then it took place a few months later. I was a purchasing agent and was constantly having to ask accounting to pay bills that were overdue to clear our accounts to ship new orders. My perception was that our bills should be paid on time.

There are those who have a perception that if they do not pay their bills promptly, nothing will happen. It may take a foreclosure or threat of some catastrophe to correct this erroneous thinking. In business, I’ve made those calls to clients asking for a past-due invoice to be paid. I always considered it a truth that they could pay, if they wanted to. What are your perceptions of the truth, and are you sure you are correct?

You get what you pay for

August 7, 2026

This phrase has been used often to justify spending someone felt was necessary. Sometimes it is a man speaking to his wife about the new boat or car. Other times it is a woman speaking of her new jewelry or dress. Or it may be the Senator, Congressman, or President trying to convince voters that the government’s expenses are reasonable.

In our society, most people, they do not receive the quality and expectations for which they are paying. My career put me in a position to work with manufacturers for twenty-five years, and I ended my career after working at three manufacturers. I learned that the cost of manufacturing products is often a minor part of the retail price.

This is why we have the mysterious MSRP or Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. Sometimes this is not necessarily suggested by the company that made it. Often a major distributor sets this price. In my first purchasing position, I learned that some major retailers have a minimum markup of 35 to 40 percent. I was required to negotiate special pricing from our vendors to meet these requirements.

When I moved to industrial products, our profit as a distributor was often 75%. I also learned how to calculate profits in a suspiciously obscure way. This is how retailers say they are selling at a percentage of their cost and still make millions of dollars. There are also rebates, hidden discounts, and multiple levels of warehouses that each have a markup.

I have spoken before about stores that open each season with sales of thirty percent discounts, and other retailers only give a ten percent discount on sale prices. My wife and I prefer to purchase products at fifty percent or less of the standard price. We also look for clearance sales and occasionally find 75-90% sales after the season ends.

For fifty years, we have bought things that we could afford. We recently purchased a car that was more expensive than we ever bought before. It was a 2016 Buick SUV with about 60,000 miles. God provided a desire for us that He often has done in previous years. We don’t receive everything we want but often find Him giving us exactly what we desire.

The title of this column is correct, and you receive more than you paid for if you allow Jesus to be Lord of your life. I have followed Him for most of my years and hope that you have found the same to be true in your lives.

The Sinner

August 1, 2026

This word describes all of us who have missed the mark. One of the words translated as “sin” literally means “to miss the mark,” as in an archer not hitting the center of the target. We need to understand this concept as related to the law of Jehovah that is written in the Bible.

When we talk about failing to follow His instructions, we often want to give ourselves some slack and want others to be dead on. When He says, “honor your father and mother,” we wonder what the word honor means. Am I missing the mark if I disobey or talk back to them?

We know that saying we hate them is not honoring them. It is like when you drive five miles over the speed limit. You know that you have broken man’s law. There are no lasting consequences if you aren’t stopped, and if five miles is all you are going over, the police might not even bother to pull you over.

The title of this column is taken from an episode of The Waltons. In season one, episode seven, this is the one that introduces John Ritter as the Baptist preacher in their mountain church. Matthew Fordwick is a minister fresh out of seminary who comes to give his first sermon before going onto the mission field.

After a night with Grandpa Walton at the Baldwin home, he has a falling-out with the woman who brought him to Virginia. This uppity missionary is disappointed because the young preacher is exposed to the Baldwin sister’s recipe, which is moonshine or white lightning.

This sheltered Christian man did not recognize the taste of this herbal elixir as bootleg whiskey. I might have made the same error and become intoxicated as well if I were given a beverage with alcohol without my knowledge. We all need others to help us with advice and knowledge to avoid being sinners.

Part of my ministry has been working with young people and trying to help them navigate the road leading to adulthood. I advise them not to begin drinking alcohol at all, but discourage any early use because statistics show that the earlier you start consuming alcohol, the more likely you are to become an alcoholic. The same is true of guiding them through making many other life decisions such as when and with whom to have sex, choosing a career, and a mate.

Condemning others for the choices they make is not our job. If your opinion of someone’s decisions is voiced in a way that does not show compassion, they are more likely to reject any advice or information that you give them. Calling anyone a sinner may not be the best way to help them correct life choices that are causing problems.

Jesus told a story about a young man who left home with his inheritance, wasted it, and finally returned home repentant for the errors he made. His father did not condemn him but rejoiced in his presence. His brother felt slighted about the party that is being held. The father is God, and the brother represents some of us. Is it you?

We can complain about what others have done and condemn them, especially when they have missed the mark. When we miss the mark, we need to ask forgiveness and keep trying to hit the bullseye. Pointing out the other guy’s errors does not get us any closer.

It’s just business

July 23, 2026

I hate that saying. I hear it in movies and TV shows but have never heard it in real life. This phrase is usually proceeded by “It isn’t personal.” But it is personal in business, if you want your commercial relationships to succeed. When your business isn’t personal it will most likely fail.

Relationships must be personal or else they will not work. The opposite of personal is impersonal like immoral is not moral. Let me tell you about the similarities and contrasts in my life for the last seventy years. I should probably say sixty-five because I don’t remember much before 1960.

My parents made raising my brothers and sister and I a job that they participated in. We rarely had a babysitter. My oldest brother could watch us by the time I was eight or nine and our parents allowed that from time to time. This was usually at home, but he also took my other brother and I to the park, school, and the movies.

He and the rest of my family were there for us. They did it because they cared about us and not because someone paid them to do it. I remember going to my uncle Dean’s home for a family event after we had an accident in our car. He saw the damage and proceeded to do what he could to repair it quickly. I thought of that day when we were at his funeral.

My first boss, when I turned sixteen, demonstrated that you can operate a business providing teenagers with work experience and a paycheck while encouraging them to work hard. Our daughters were fortunate enough to have a similar experience in their early years. It was personal and not just business.

I’ve spent over fifty years in ministry and after a few years I determined my ministry was in the workplace. I was to serve the people I encountered in business and just in life for Jesus. I have been a friend, a listening ear, a confidant, and even a pastor to many even though I have never pastored a church.

I have performed weddings, funerals, and answered questions about anything they would ask. I have answered the tough questions. I think the hardest was, “If God created everything, who created God?” The answer, “He has always existed. That is what makes Him God.” His name is “I am that I am.” I knew this question was coming and did not know the answer until it was asked. In that moment, I just answered what came to my mind through Holy Spirit.

If you think the decisions that you make in your business life are not personal, let me ask you to put yourself in place of the one that is affected. If you were laid off, had your pay frozen, or refused a promotion, would you accept this as just being business? Decisions should affect everyone in the company, not just certain people or departments.

Republicrats are scrambling

July 21, 2026

Donald Trump is preparing to accuse every state of rigging the election this year when his party is defeated in Congress and the Senate. His bill would allow him to violate our Constitution and force the court system to, once again, keep him from overstepping the powers that this document gives the president.

He has announced that he will not sign any more of the bills that our legally elected legislators have approved until they give in to his childish temper tantrum. Parents, how much of your time is spent fighting to get your children to listen to you? Is our Chief Executive acting like a spoiled brat?

Let’s look at the problems in our country. Skyrocketing inflation, severe weather, poverty, the breakdown of our families, and the list goes on. These are the things that we want our government to address. The question is how? How do we go about solving these problems?

This bill that President Trump wants passed will solve which of these difficulties? That’s correct, none of them. Its purpose is to give our federal officials more control over elections. According to our Constitution, that right falls to the state governments. We are The United States of America.

We will start with our economic problems. Many people are having trouble paying rent, providing food, and maintaining their homes. Our Missouri state legislature has given us the opportunity in our Amendment Five to eliminate our state income tax and save a lot of the citizens a great deal of money.

The problem is that to accomplish this, all we the people must do is revoke a Constitutional Amendment we passed decades ago that does not allow them to tax us without asking us first. I would like my taxes reduced. I am retired, and my wife is also. Our state taxes on income are practically nonexistent.

This would have been great when we were working, or would it? How much money is left at the end of your month? For us, it was little to none. Another way of putting this is to consider how much must be paid each month when the paycheck is spent. For us, that was often a week or more. If you stop taking my state taxes out of my pay each week and increase the cost of food, fuel, and rent by an equal amount, you have not helped me, the taxpayer.

This bill won’t help me; it will aid elected officials in raising more money from people who can afford to finance their election campaigns. They are the ones who are paying for the ads where a little old lady says that she will have more money for her grandchildren.

Give me a break. Do I look that stupid? Whether it is in the national legislature or our state houses, we need to see a lie when we are told one. Stop the ones who are lying to us by voting them out of office. Here in Missouri, August fourth is our primary election. Do not allow these corrupt individuals to keep their jobs.

Let’s give someone else the chance to represent us, and do not listen to the names that their opponents are being called. I am talking about “woke,” “liberal,” and “Democrat,” here in the seventh district of Missouri.

What names are your incumbents calling others where you live? And what are they trying to get you to believe that is not true? If you look closely, you will see their lies as well.

Walk With a Servant