Maggie's Farm

Just wanted to remind you, News Junkie, that today is a very special day in our hearts ... Pearl Harbor Day. You're too young to remember the incredible shock and horror of that day, all over the United States. My brother and I were returning from a Sunday lunch in the country with our parents when the news came over the car radio. We were stunned silent with horror. My parents looked at each other in silent dread, knowing that my brother, three years older than I, would be drawn into the conflict, as he was. The next day, President Roosevelt gave his famous "a day that will live in infamy.." speech on the radio. And my Mom cried.

Unlike in the present war, the country was transformed in the next five-six years in many many ways. Food shortages and rationing, clothes rationing, gas rationing, no new civilian vehicles made until after the war, women learning how to work on production lines in factories, so the men could go into the military. And all those young brave men, with no body armor, no high tech weapons except those the army already had, and had on order, loaded onto transport ships and sent off to Europe to protect us at home. And more than 400,000 died on the battlefields, including my fiance, a ski-trooper, in Italy on Mt. Belvedere. Others, like Bob Dole, were severely wounded and never completely recovered.

It changed our lives forever. It changed my life, so I can never forget. Many years later, my husband and I were in Hawaii, and we visited the battleship Arizona site, where 1100 sailors are forever interred in the sunken ship they served. It's very touching, and those who are sensitive to such things can feel the pressure of the memories. The ship still slowly weeps tears of oil from its buried tanks and passageways. And every US Navy ship that passes the gravesite musters its crew on deck to salute those dead heroes as it passes.

Please let us not forget them.

Marianne

Bird Dog ... just found it. Thank you ... very much.

MM

Barrett ... Alternative energy, whether wind power, solar power or biofuels, is the next great con. Biofuels really skew the food chain, as well as produce low quality fuel, wind power is OK until the wind drops, water power is more dependable than that, but still, how many dependable supplies of water power are there?

Nuclear power plants would be the best alternative for electricity and most of civilized Europe uses nuclear power. I read somewhere that France gets about 70% of its electricity from nuclear. But just mention nuclear power and the liberals start shouting "Oh my God! Three Mile Island," or something equally silly. IIRC, there are about 104 nuclear power producing stations in the United States -- ridiculously inadequate for a country our size. And it's the obstructionist Democrats who are preventing more nuclear power stations from being built. The suspicion has arisen that the Democrats want Americans to have inadequate power supplies so that we will beg the all-powerful, all-wise government to save us. Obama said during his campaign that he wanted to bankrupt the coal companies. In Texas, about 50% of our electrical power generating is from coal fired plants and we have only one nuclear power plant.

We must change this, in spite of the hostile Congress, if we want to continue to be a safe and healthy country.

Marianne

A note to Habu and Meta ... Habu, you say that your DNA "is that of a warrior" and you are proud," and that "this is a site that honors this country..." That's one of the reasons I am so devoted to this site, its owners and its commenters. Decent people who love their country and their independence are rare and to be cherished.

Meta ... I'm going on Amazon right now and ordering this book by Helprin. Thanks so much for the heads-up.

Marianne