We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Oxytocin, not Oxycontin which also, I hear, produces warm, fuzzy feelings: Kin and Kindness.
I aspire to fulfilling the Golden Rule in my life. Who would wish to grow old and to feel that they had not done so during their brief time here? I aspire to forgive those who sin or trespass against me too. It's all a struggle because I tend to react against fools, jerks, jackasses, the malevolent and the arrogant, but it's a worthwhile struggle anyway, with the Lord's help.
The Golden Rule comes easier with kith, kin and tribe, doesn't it? In a way, it's a definition of community. Ostracism is the community's curative; its purgative, but that is another topic.
Many on the left have lost any insight into their own bias; nothing Obama says is over the top, and nothing he has done lacks significance or inspiration. Likewise, nothing Romney says or has done amounts to much. By forcing a halo upon Obama, suggesting dark hearts among any who don't see it and follow, and ignoring the virtues of a decent man like Romney, does not serve the president well. It stirs resentment among voters who chafe at being told to love him or else.
Krauthammer on the White House kill list. "The hypocrisy is staggering.":
If you are too disabled to get into a swimming pool or hot tub, what are the odds that you will drown once you are dumped into it by a hydraulic lift? Lawyers win on both sides of this recent government absurdity.
In New York Magazine: Hope: The Sequel - For Obama & Co., this time around it’s all about fear:
...2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear. For many Democrats, this is just fine and dandy, for they believe that in the Romney-Republican agenda there is plenty to be scared of. For others in the party in both politics and business, however, the new Obama posture is cause for concern. From the gay-marriage decision to the onslaught on Bain, they see the president and his team as coming across as too divisive, too conventional, and too nakedly political, putting at risk Obama’s greatest asset his likability with the voters in the middle of the electorate who will ultimately decide his fate.
Whichever side is right, one thing is undeniable. For anyone still starry-eyed about Obama, the months ahead will provide a bracing revelation about what he truly is: not a savior, not a saint, not a man above the fray, but a brass-knuckled, pipe-hitting, red-in-tooth-and-claw brawler determined to do what is necessary to stay in power, in other words, a politician.
The main enemies of state power are family and religion.
Why do Lefties trust big government over free commerce, free markets, and achievement? I believe it is because they want to be in charge of things, in charge of me. I resent that impulse.
We all want nothing more than to have that perfect career that makes us feel like life is the equivalent of skipping through a summer field, with flowers in bloom all around and the golden sunshine on your face (this is a fictional world where there are no bugs in that summer field). Most of us instead end up with a career like that miserable camping trip where it rained the whole time, you were freezing and tired and hungry non-stop, and, oh yes, there were lots and lots of nasty, crawling, dirty bugs.
Reportedly, over half of American workers hate their jobs.
Paul Fussell Jr., was born into an affluent family in Pasadena, Calif., on March 22, 1924. His father was a prominent lawyer. Paul attended Pomona College, from which he was drafted by the Army in 1943. Too late for the Allied invasion at Normandy, he nevertheless saw brutal action in Europe, where, in southeastern France, at age 20, he lay wounded while men under his command were being killed in an artillery barrage.
“Before that day was over I was sprayed with the contents of a soldier’s torso when I was lying behind him and he knelt to fire at a machine-gun holding us up; he was struck in the heart and out of the holes in the back of his field jacket flew little clouds of blood, tissue and powdered cloth,” Mr. Fussell wrote in a 1982 essay in Harper’s Magazine called “My War.” “Near him another man raised himself to fire, but the machine gun caught him in the mouth, and as he fell he looked back at me with surprise, blood and teeth dribbling out onto the leaves.”
During his tour of duty he won the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts — he was wounded in the back and legs — and he emerged with a disdain for those who would justify wars, especially those who never fought.
If you've got the day off and plan on kicking back, I've recently added some goodies to my Special Videos area:
Sherlock Compilation — a 30-minute condensation of an episode in the new BBC series 'Sherlock', about a modern-day Sherlock Holmes.
The Mystery of 'North' — The story of a movie that was never released to DVD, and you'd never guess why.
The Challenger Disaster — It need not have happened.
The Columbia Disaster — No one to blame, nowhere to run.
The Concorde Disaster — One of the most beautiful eras in aviation ends because of the most insignificant thing.
The F-35 Debacle — How to shoot yourself in the foot, government style.
Straight Up — A very interesting documentary on helicopters.
Besides the 'Special Videos', there are a number of interesting things in my art gallery. There are three 'Web Vids' pages with what I consider to be the best short videos posted to the Web, lots of pictorials, and if you like watching movie 'trailers', I have my own version in the 'Bag O' Clips'.
Several years ago I stood in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, and stood, and stood. Someone with me asked what I felt. I had no words and was silent. -- Early this morning, my boys and I will go to Rosecrans National Cemetary. I probably still will have no words. Sometime in the future, my sons may as they see the rows upon rows of graves and the many silent men and women within, and the loss in the faces of those standing, and hopefully my sons will be better than I am at expressing their feelings of deep missing and the honor of being in their presence.
Well, that is retarded. Very few of the things humans eat have not been genetically-engineered by humans. Bear meat, for one. Fish and shellfish. Mushrooms, I suppose, also preserved from the scourge of genetic engineering.
But why should we stop improving our foods now, after 5000 years of doing it with remarkable success? We're much better at it now because we figured out the mechanism.
Hunger was once the norm. Now obesity is the "problem." I think obesity is just fine, for those who want it. Cheap and plentiful high-carb and tasty food is thanks to human ingenuity, and we all now struggle not to be over-fed. What a terrible problem, a human tragedy. Too much food.
Even our dogs are genetically-engineered. Nobody wants to sleep with a wolf at the foot of the bed, and nobody wants teosinte-on-the cob.
Photo is the pre-genetically-engineered teosinte, from which ancient central Americans engineered maize (corn, to us). Who would eat that mangy weed at a Memorial Day cookout?
By the way, corn (maize) is a high-carb food and is not on your weight-loss diet. It's like bread, grain.
Bird Dog is off partying like a Gatsby today. The new Gatsby movie by Robert Redford: Citizen Kane version. Hmm! Bird Dog does keep mumbling about his rose buds.
Friday, Bird Dog extolled his Stanley Steamer service. No wonder, the way Bird Dog parties:
Christians and everyone else will appreciate this personal narrative of the loving influence of Fr. Trevor Huddleston CR.
Today (actually starting last night) is the Jewish holiday Shavuot. It comes 50-days after Passover, Shavuot celebrating the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Shavuot also is when the hard work begins to harvest, as the hard work of wandering in the desert for 40-years. A key reading is the Book of Ruth, the significance of which binding Jews and Gentiles iscontained in this link.
-- Here's another: Shavuot and Pentecost have a common heritage: "both call to mind a God who wishes to reveal his plan, his power and his way to troubled humanities here below."
Meanwhile Christian Copts in Egypt continue to be persecuted. Where are the global protests?
While boycotts of Israeli products are a popular cause for leftists in the West, Palestinians themselves refuse to boycott and find these goods popular.
Barack Obama’s personal investment in company profiting from his legislation. “Within two (2) weeks of his purchase of the Biotech Stock that February 22, Barack Obama initiated what he has called “one of my top priorities since arriving in U.S. Senate,” a push to increase Federal Financing to fight Avian Flu”. Summer begins: Obama’s pool regs
An original screenplay by Marc Conklin, MEMORIAL DAY is about a 13-year-old boy who discovers his grandfather's (James Cromwell / THE ARTIST, BABE) World War II footlocker on Memorial Day. Though reluctant to talk about the war, Cromwell's character Bud, strikes a deal with his grandson to pick any three objects inside, and he'll tell him the stories behind each one. As we flash back to Bud's WWII experiences, we also flash forward to Kyle's future as a soldier in Iraq, where he experiences friendships, loss and moral dilemmas that parallel his grandfather's--bringing a new meaning to that day on the porch.
Jeane Kirkpatrick was not as much a political leader as she was a model citizen, a woman from the heartland who helped shape the time in which she lived. It is encouraging to know that our society can produce such citizens, but we'd have more confidence in the country's future if they were not so rare.
Those who serve in our armed forces stand a bit taller and straighter when saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Remember these words when next you do. Remember the sacrifices we commemorate on Memorial Day. From a speech given by John McClain.
As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.
This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home.
One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian.
Mike came from a small town near Selma , Alabama . He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17, he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School . Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.
As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing.
Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the inside of his shirt.
Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike's shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.
I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the most important and meaningful event.
One day the Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered Mike's shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it.
That evening they returned, opened the door of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the door of the cell and threw him in. We cleaned him up as well as we could.
The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle on which we slept. Four naked light bulbs hung in each corner of the room.
As I said, we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died down, I looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend, Mike Christian. He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, making another American flag. He was not making the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better. He was making that flag because he knew how important it was to us to be able to Pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.
So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you must never forget the sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have made to build our nation and promote freedom around the world.
You must remember our duty, our honor, and our country.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
It's inspiring to see chicks who aspire so ardently for adulthood, independence, and self-sufficiency. They eat, sleep, scratch, and preen, but they want to fly and hunt.
Feathers, bones, fur, guts - they eat it all and leave nothing.
"Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism.
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."
...imagine if a presidential candidate in 2012 announced that his anti-poverty program entailed teaching the poor old-fashioned morality, a passion for work, self-reliance, restraining one's consumption, and saving for future purchases versus credit-card debt. That is, traditional (pre-1960s) middle-class values. He would be vilified, accused of imposing "white" values, and clobbered by a rival who instead promised instant cheap college loans as the instant pathway to the American Dream (see here).
It gets worse. Conflating outward appearance with underlying traits is typical of poorly educated Third World nations and, sad to say, America is increasingly drifting in that direction. In these societies, possessing a fancy paper saying "diploma" becomes irrefutable proof of being "educated." "Education" may also be acquired by dressing as an educated person--glasses, a three-piece suit, a briefcase, a fountain pen and similar theatrical props. Translated into current American society, one becomes "middle class" by owning a college diploma even if the acquired learning is less than what was once gained in high school and acquiring the degree required a small army of helpers.
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.
The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Thanks, reader, for highlighting this piece. You can read about Millay's colorful life at Wiki, where it says:
Her reputation was damaged by poetry she wrote in support of the Allied war effort during World War II. Merle Rubin noted: "She seems to have caught more flak from the literary critics for supporting democracy than Ezra Pound did for championing fascism."
I was just looking at the Memorial Day commemoration events around San Diego, mostly put on by veterans groups, and featuring speeches by politicians most of whom are there because elections come soon.
But, if you go to one, or are at some other event where Memorial Day is mentioned, look at the veterans who are there, especially those who served in a war. They are glad to be alive, sad to have lost comrades, quiet in their thoughts. It’s difficult to share with those who haven’t experienced it.
Here’s a letter from a young Marine who lost two limbs who attended a Marine reunion in Florida. It speaks to the bond among us, forged in duty, honor, country, forged in courage and sacrifice, forged in fun when we could. Across years, across generations, across wars, across miles, war veterans keep in touch with each other. How many of your school chums have you kept in touch with?Far fewer, I’m sure.
It also speaks to that, thanks to better medicine and logistics, far, far fewer die from combat wounds today, but many suffered grievous wounds. If we are to match their spirit and guts, please remember to contribute to the various wounded warrior charities.
7 Wrong Ways to decide your life's career
If you've got the day off and plan on kicking back, I've recently added some goodies to my 
Memorial Day and ordinary men
Insty noted that California is considering 
"Four years ago this Memorial Day I was home on leave from my Iraq deployment. I was still recovering from my jet lag but 
Dirge Without Music