Since I've retired, I'm the one who's responsible for cooking dinner. Hey. Not a problem. I'm not a fancy cook; I like home-style cooking, as in corn bread, steak and gravy, potato salad, and pork chops. Not necessarily all at the same time.
After almost six months of kitchen duty, the menus are getting repetitive. I'm not opposed to trying a new recipe, although I think Larry shudders when I start clipping little squares from magazines. This week Larry has provided me with a good menu suggestion every morning. This morning's idea was Reuben sandwiches, which doesn't sound all that appetizing at 7:00 a.m., but the first three ideas worked out great, and by 5:00 p.m. I'm usually hungry enough that even fried chicken livers look good.
If you've never had a Reuben sandwich, it's made by putting corned beef, sauerkraut, and swiss cheese on some Jewish rye bread and grilling it in some butter. It's a deli staple and is usually accompanied by a big scoop of potato salad. I don't keep rye bread and corned beef in the "pantry", so this dinner required a trip to Food City.
I picked up the cheese, the kraut, the bread, but when I got over to the canned meat aisle, there was no corned beef. There was beef hash, canned chili, canned turkey, beef stew, but no corned beef. You know the kind I mean: the crumbly mystery meat that's usually "Packed in Brazil". On to Plan B. Since Chilhowie only has one grocery store, and the next nearest one is in Marion, about eight miles away, I thought I'd run by the Dollar General Store.
Was there a Plan C? Next stop was the Family Dollar Store. How can it be that there is not even one can of corned beef in Chilhowie? I made other plans for dinner and vowed to find out what had happened to the nation's supply of canned corned beef.
It didn't take much of a search to find out that in January canned corned beef started disappearing from store shelves. January? I read a newspaper every morning, watch TV news way too much, listen to radio, read magazines, and continuously surf the Internet like a huge great white looking for krill. This nugget of news has not been mentioned.
The cause of the shortage occured in Brazil where a major producer of corned beef has been banned from shipping its product to the United States. Banned. According to walletpop.com, two hundred tons of cooked beef products were recalled last year by Sampco, Inc., a Chicago company who imports meat from Brazil. The meat processed by this Brazilian company was found to have high levels of an animal drug, Ivermectin, which is used to treat parasites in animals. Yum-yum.
Grocery companies, like Wal-mart, refused to comment on the ban for the story on Walletpop. I suppose they thought no one would notice the empty shelves where canned corned beef used to be found. Why the secrecy? It appears that not only are we dependent on foreign sources for petroleum, we are also totally dependent on foreign nations for canned corned beef.
Let's see. We have Brazil, a fatty meat product, a Chicago company. In true Chicago style, perhaps Obama substituted the petroleum-producing agreement with Brazil to accomodate the loss of the corned beef sales. Plus the US government was able to eliminate yet one more tasty, unhealthy, cheap food product that many people depend on.
You know what this means, don't you? NO CORNED BEEF FOR YOU! (Sorry, soup Nazi.)
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Rebuilding
If I were a betting woman, I would have lost big on April 28. In the event of the rare tornado here in southwest Virginia, we might see what amounts to a strong wind storm. The power goes out, tree branches litter the roads, and some shingles blow off the roof. When we have a tornado watch, it's usually all right to go on to bed, because tornadoes are quite rare. The odds were against us this time.
Early on that Thursday morning, in the middle of the night, during an extraordinary outbreak of tornadoes across the South, an EF-3 tornado changed the lives of people in Glade Spring and Chilhowie, changes that will take a generation to overcome. People were killed, homes destroyed, trees sheared off, and fear was permanently instilled in survivors' memories.
Then came the beauracrats from Washington, DC, to further attack those who were still figuring out how to begin rebuilding. Yes, they were from the government, and no, they were not here to help anybody. Across the border in Tennessee, victims of the same series of tornadoes were granted assitance from FEMA. Virginia was not.
The news stunned Virginia residents. FEMA's reasoning, you see, is that state and local resources were sufficient to cover the losses. That's fine, unless it's your house that has just disappeared. People are living in tents. Our church is helping one man rebuild his garage, where he plans to live until the rest of his house is rebuilt. People have moved in with relatives or made whatever arrangements they can until their lives can be restored.
I've read that FEMA is dealing with budget cuts due to the financial constraints our government is experiencing. The http://www.weather.com/ (The Weather Channel) site describes the problems FEMA will face as Congress looks for places to cut the budget in 2012. But the article goes on to say that FEMA is currently fully funded.
"FEMA has plenty of disaster recovery money for now. But the Obama administration only requested $1.8 billion for the budget year that begins in October, less than half of what will be needed to deal with recovery costs of past disasters like hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and the massive Tennessee floods of last spring even as the next wave of bills come in. Authorities are beginning to assess the damage and don't have estimates of recovery costs."
So what is the deal with granting assistance to some disaster areas and not others? Don't make me say that politics are involved. If everyone's needs can't be met, then FEMA should be defunded, and the individual states can take care of their own emergencies. Don't depend on FEMA.
In Glade Spring needs are being met. Local emergency responders and agencies picked up the baton. Churches are feeding people, clothing them, and helping them clean up while providing a shoulder to lean on. This is not an easy, nor a quick, fix, and the people of southwest Virginia are the ones who will rebuild their homes and businesses.
Our pastor told us Sunday evening about the Hall family whose home was one that was destroyed. When the storm hit, the bedroom window shattered, sending hundreds of shards of glass into the air. Mrs. Hall is still being treated for the dozens of wounds she suffered from the glass. The roof blew off the house, and in the dark and wet aftermath, Mr. Hall made his way to the yard where he met a Virginia state trooper. Mr. Hall was worried about the couple who lived in a trailer behind the house. As the state policeman and Mr. Hall made their way to the trailer, a third man joined them.
Mr. Hall said that even though it was pouring rain, the stranger didn't seem to get wet. When they arrived at the trailer, Mr. Hall and the policeman struggled to lift debris, while the stranger effortlessly raised up pieces of the trailer with one arm. The couple were rescued, and when Mr. Hall looked for the third man, he was gone.
"I lift up my eyes to the hills--where does my help come from? . . .The Lord will keep you from all harm--he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." Psalm 121: 1 and 7. Both now and forevermore, your life here on this earth, and your life beyond this existence.
Look for help from someone who has the capability to provide it and loves you enough to do it.
Early on that Thursday morning, in the middle of the night, during an extraordinary outbreak of tornadoes across the South, an EF-3 tornado changed the lives of people in Glade Spring and Chilhowie, changes that will take a generation to overcome. People were killed, homes destroyed, trees sheared off, and fear was permanently instilled in survivors' memories.
Then came the beauracrats from Washington, DC, to further attack those who were still figuring out how to begin rebuilding. Yes, they were from the government, and no, they were not here to help anybody. Across the border in Tennessee, victims of the same series of tornadoes were granted assitance from FEMA. Virginia was not.
The news stunned Virginia residents. FEMA's reasoning, you see, is that state and local resources were sufficient to cover the losses. That's fine, unless it's your house that has just disappeared. People are living in tents. Our church is helping one man rebuild his garage, where he plans to live until the rest of his house is rebuilt. People have moved in with relatives or made whatever arrangements they can until their lives can be restored.
I've read that FEMA is dealing with budget cuts due to the financial constraints our government is experiencing. The http://www.weather.com/ (The Weather Channel) site describes the problems FEMA will face as Congress looks for places to cut the budget in 2012. But the article goes on to say that FEMA is currently fully funded.
"FEMA has plenty of disaster recovery money for now. But the Obama administration only requested $1.8 billion for the budget year that begins in October, less than half of what will be needed to deal with recovery costs of past disasters like hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and the massive Tennessee floods of last spring even as the next wave of bills come in. Authorities are beginning to assess the damage and don't have estimates of recovery costs."
So what is the deal with granting assistance to some disaster areas and not others? Don't make me say that politics are involved. If everyone's needs can't be met, then FEMA should be defunded, and the individual states can take care of their own emergencies. Don't depend on FEMA.
In Glade Spring needs are being met. Local emergency responders and agencies picked up the baton. Churches are feeding people, clothing them, and helping them clean up while providing a shoulder to lean on. This is not an easy, nor a quick, fix, and the people of southwest Virginia are the ones who will rebuild their homes and businesses.
Our pastor told us Sunday evening about the Hall family whose home was one that was destroyed. When the storm hit, the bedroom window shattered, sending hundreds of shards of glass into the air. Mrs. Hall is still being treated for the dozens of wounds she suffered from the glass. The roof blew off the house, and in the dark and wet aftermath, Mr. Hall made his way to the yard where he met a Virginia state trooper. Mr. Hall was worried about the couple who lived in a trailer behind the house. As the state policeman and Mr. Hall made their way to the trailer, a third man joined them.
Mr. Hall said that even though it was pouring rain, the stranger didn't seem to get wet. When they arrived at the trailer, Mr. Hall and the policeman struggled to lift debris, while the stranger effortlessly raised up pieces of the trailer with one arm. The couple were rescued, and when Mr. Hall looked for the third man, he was gone.
"I lift up my eyes to the hills--where does my help come from? . . .The Lord will keep you from all harm--he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." Psalm 121: 1 and 7. Both now and forevermore, your life here on this earth, and your life beyond this existence.
Look for help from someone who has the capability to provide it and loves you enough to do it.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The Princess and the Tornado
Do you want to believe in fairy tales? Years ago a book was published that was titled The Cinderella Complex; it explained how women secretly want to be rescued from a life of drudgery and fear by a prandsome hince; I mean, a handsome prince (My tribute to Archie Campbell and Hee Haw). I can understand that. Instead of scrubbing out the hearth and washing the dirty tea cups, I will be swept away by a tall, virile, athletic heir to the throne who worships me and provides everything I could possibly need with his extraordinary wealth. I will be the center of his life.
Who wouldn't want that? Oh, well. There is no escaping the need to get those dirty dishes washed up because I have no servants to do that or to do the laundry or to dust the dresser. And there is no princely fellow pulling up in the driveway, just a working man who is wondering what I've fixed for supper, after which he'll go outside and mow the grass.
The wedding of William Wales and Catharine Middleton last week delivered the Cinderella complex on the doorsteps of millions of women. If it can't happen for us, we thought, at least this wedding proves that it is possible. It is not just a fairy tale. As my daughter pointed out to me as she described watching the wedding, when Wills and Kate stepped through the door to the church, bells pealed, just like in the Disney film, Cinderella. Oh.
I think the world was ready to put on a pretty dress and have a good time. Earlier in the week I vacillated about getting up at 4:00 a.m. to watch the wedding as it happened. I did that when Charles married Diana in 1981, but I'm older and less excitable, and the early morning sleep seemed to be winning out over the wedding fol-de-rol. As it turned out, I needn't have spent so much time worrying about it.
Forever I will associate the gallantry and romance of a royal wedding with one of the most devastating disasters to occur in our region, a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe. I was not able to watch the wedding from London early Friday morning because in the wee hours of Thursday morning, a ruinous tornado sliced through small towns and farms near our home.
From late Wednesday night through Friday evening, we had no cable, internet service, or telephone. Only a short time earlier we had seen our electricity come back on and started receiving cell phone service again. People were killed in the tornado. Homes, businesses, churches, and schools were destroyed. When I saw the area for the first time Saturday morning, the only image I could relate it to were photos taken during World War II of bombed out German cities. The tornado struck at night, after the tornado watch had expired. The landscape will never be the same again, and lives of those who lived through it will forever be re-shaped by the terror of that night.
The miracle is that so many people survived.
The tornado and the wedding are somehow twisted together in my mind. Absolute bliss in London, cheering crowds, pealing church bells, and the clop of horse hooves. Sheared off tree trunks, houses with only walls left standing, sections of metal roofing wrapped around power poles, and trailer trucks bent in half. The memory becomes both real life and the fairy tale, the desolation and the exuberance.
Who wouldn't want that? Oh, well. There is no escaping the need to get those dirty dishes washed up because I have no servants to do that or to do the laundry or to dust the dresser. And there is no princely fellow pulling up in the driveway, just a working man who is wondering what I've fixed for supper, after which he'll go outside and mow the grass.
The wedding of William Wales and Catharine Middleton last week delivered the Cinderella complex on the doorsteps of millions of women. If it can't happen for us, we thought, at least this wedding proves that it is possible. It is not just a fairy tale. As my daughter pointed out to me as she described watching the wedding, when Wills and Kate stepped through the door to the church, bells pealed, just like in the Disney film, Cinderella. Oh.
I think the world was ready to put on a pretty dress and have a good time. Earlier in the week I vacillated about getting up at 4:00 a.m. to watch the wedding as it happened. I did that when Charles married Diana in 1981, but I'm older and less excitable, and the early morning sleep seemed to be winning out over the wedding fol-de-rol. As it turned out, I needn't have spent so much time worrying about it.
Forever I will associate the gallantry and romance of a royal wedding with one of the most devastating disasters to occur in our region, a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe. I was not able to watch the wedding from London early Friday morning because in the wee hours of Thursday morning, a ruinous tornado sliced through small towns and farms near our home.
From late Wednesday night through Friday evening, we had no cable, internet service, or telephone. Only a short time earlier we had seen our electricity come back on and started receiving cell phone service again. People were killed in the tornado. Homes, businesses, churches, and schools were destroyed. When I saw the area for the first time Saturday morning, the only image I could relate it to were photos taken during World War II of bombed out German cities. The tornado struck at night, after the tornado watch had expired. The landscape will never be the same again, and lives of those who lived through it will forever be re-shaped by the terror of that night.
The miracle is that so many people survived.
The tornado and the wedding are somehow twisted together in my mind. Absolute bliss in London, cheering crowds, pealing church bells, and the clop of horse hooves. Sheared off tree trunks, houses with only walls left standing, sections of metal roofing wrapped around power poles, and trailer trucks bent in half. The memory becomes both real life and the fairy tale, the desolation and the exuberance.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma Chameleon
In recent months I've seen several Facebook posts and comments about karma and the universal truth. When I hear the word "karma", I think about a trip we took to St. Simons Island, Georgia. Traffic was heavy in the little village when a girl whipped her car from the line of traffic to cut through a restaurant's parking lot and beat the rest of us who were waiting for a light to change. She found that the traffic in the parking lot was just as bad as the traffic on the street. She had to wait, creep forward, and finagle her way through the cars in the parking lot, so when she was at the street ready to pull out, there we sat. In one of my meaner moments, I just kept my car close to the bumper of the car ahead of me. As we inched right on by her car, she called through her open window to us that karma was an evil-spirited woman of ill repute. Yes, indeed, honey, it sure is. When you're not willing to wait your turn at the light, you get caught and have to wait.
Karma is one of those concepts that has grown away from its original meaning. The term is thrown about commonly in American culture, but karma is a concept from the Buddhist religion. Let me be clear about one thing: I am a child of the sixties. I am quite accustomed to vegetarians with peaceful intent, practicing various poses during meditation while burning incense. In the sixties my generation thought they had personally discovered something new. We weren't nearly as creative or intelligent as we thought we were. I suppose people my age have dragged our non-traditional, homemade religions along into the 21st century.
Basically karma means you reap what you sow, and according to Boy George, "You come and go." The other lyrics in Mr. George's song are rather indecipherable to me, but I got that much out of it. The ideas of karma, reincarnation, and emptying of your mind through mediation are part of a complex system of belief that is so convoluted it takes a lifetime of studying to know how to become one with the universal truth. You see, in Buddhism there is no God. There is no way to "redeem" yourself except through doing good works (good karma). I'm doomed right there.
I'm doomed because I can't resist messing with some dippy girl in St. Simons who's trying to beat the traffic light and come out ahead of everybody else. And that's a mild reaction compared to some more intense temptations I've not been able to resist.
As a Christian, I find that Buddhism is the opposite of what I believe. My redemption was paid for 2000 years ago, because there aren't enough good works that I can do to pay for my sins. I'm not trying to go through multiple lives until I've earned enough karma points to become part of the divine universal truth, because my God is omniscient, omnipresent, and a personal entity that I worship, not something of which I will become a part.
When mention is made of the universal truth by someone who claims Christ, I'm surprised. I once had a pastor who conducted a study of world religions, cults, and various belief systems so that his congregation would better understand how Christianity is different from them. In a multicultural society it's important to know who we are so that we don't get muddled up with something we don't really believe. I don't want to be a karma chameleon who changes colors to match whatever happens to be beside them at the time.
Karma is one of those concepts that has grown away from its original meaning. The term is thrown about commonly in American culture, but karma is a concept from the Buddhist religion. Let me be clear about one thing: I am a child of the sixties. I am quite accustomed to vegetarians with peaceful intent, practicing various poses during meditation while burning incense. In the sixties my generation thought they had personally discovered something new. We weren't nearly as creative or intelligent as we thought we were. I suppose people my age have dragged our non-traditional, homemade religions along into the 21st century.
Basically karma means you reap what you sow, and according to Boy George, "You come and go." The other lyrics in Mr. George's song are rather indecipherable to me, but I got that much out of it. The ideas of karma, reincarnation, and emptying of your mind through mediation are part of a complex system of belief that is so convoluted it takes a lifetime of studying to know how to become one with the universal truth. You see, in Buddhism there is no God. There is no way to "redeem" yourself except through doing good works (good karma). I'm doomed right there.
I'm doomed because I can't resist messing with some dippy girl in St. Simons who's trying to beat the traffic light and come out ahead of everybody else. And that's a mild reaction compared to some more intense temptations I've not been able to resist.
As a Christian, I find that Buddhism is the opposite of what I believe. My redemption was paid for 2000 years ago, because there aren't enough good works that I can do to pay for my sins. I'm not trying to go through multiple lives until I've earned enough karma points to become part of the divine universal truth, because my God is omniscient, omnipresent, and a personal entity that I worship, not something of which I will become a part.
When mention is made of the universal truth by someone who claims Christ, I'm surprised. I once had a pastor who conducted a study of world religions, cults, and various belief systems so that his congregation would better understand how Christianity is different from them. In a multicultural society it's important to know who we are so that we don't get muddled up with something we don't really believe. I don't want to be a karma chameleon who changes colors to match whatever happens to be beside them at the time.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
If You Tell a Lie. . .
Everyone from George Washington to Pinocchio knows that if you tell a lie, the consequences are unpleasant, and seldom do you get through life without your secrets being discovered by somebody. Many people choose to ignore this life truth for individual reasons; unfortunately people who are in charge of our country, our universities, our churches, and our businesses are among those who think they can manage the consequences so that they can maintain the power they have obtained. This trend is prevalent in our political system to the point that it is a commonly accepted behavior, and candidates for office think they can't win an office if they are truthful.
In 2004 when Mr. Barack Obama gave forth with an attention-getting speech at the Democratic National Convention, I thought he did pretty well. His books, Dreams from my Father and The Audacity of Hope, set the country on fire because of how well they were written. (A disclaimer: I haven't read either of these books.) But you know, sometimes you pick up on something intangible, something intuitive, that tells you that things are just not right. Every time I heard Obama speak, I had that feeling. If he were the inspirational communicator people found in his books, why did he hem and haw, stutter, and totally depend on a teleprompter when he spoke. He did not have the words in him.
So when I saw Jack Cashill on C Span promoting his new book that de-mystified the great Obama, I knew I had to read it. What a wild, wonderful trip it was.
Before I read the first word, I flipped to the back of the book to see if he had footnotes and references. He did. Unfortunately his references listed secondary sources. But the book is, for all practical matters, a literary analysis, so using material from the works being analyzed and other analyses is fair, I think. Also consider that any records pertaining to Obama, his family and friends, his education, and his work have been scrubbed as clean as a Dutch housewife's kitchen floor.
Deconstructing Obama has two main tenets: Obama did not actually write either of his books, and Barack Obama, Sr., is not his father. Obama's life and work, as the public knows them, were structured to enhance his political opportunities which in the beginning consisted of aspirations to be the mayor of Chicago. Even the most astute political analyst did not foresee the election of 2008.
To my thinking Cashill deftly proved that Dreams from my Father was written by Bill Ayers. The analysis is long and complicated, so read the book if you need the full story. Cashill provides examples of Obama's early writing, and the difference in any writing example that is presented and the Dreams book is more than striking. Let it suffice to say that Obama needs work on subject-verb agreement, something that most eighth graders can master. Cashill also presents a poem that Obama wrote that is so incoherent it sounds like something those proverbial monkeys in a room full of typewriters wrote.
As for the paternity issues, Cashill presents several possibilities in the absence of any proof. First, he raises doubt about Barack Obama, Sr., the Kenyan, fathering Ann Dunham's child. Cashill says the birthers are following the wrong story and overlooking the obvious reasons that records have disappeared and family and friends have been told to zip it when reporters and researchers come around. Of course, most of the primaries in this situation are dead. You know what they say about dead men and tales.
I'm not going re-tell all of the theories about who Obama's father is. I will say that if you look at pictures of Barack Obama, Sr., Ann Dunham, Frank Marshall Davis, and Barack Obama, Jr., side-by-side, there are amazing revelations. If you don't know who Frank Davis is, you'll need to do some research on your own.
And let me say that all this information that was new to me is all over the internet. I had no idea until I read Deconstructing Obama. I had never seen a picture of Obama's maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham. Barack Obama, Jr., is the spitting image of his grandfather. Who finds out these things? Apparently thousands of bloggers and writers on the internet.
Another issue discussed in the book is the pictures of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham. The pictures show a nude woman who is attributed to be Ann Dunham by many people. Of course, this is denied and the pictures are reportedly of a 1950 pin-up girl named Marcy Moore (so says Snopes.com and others). I looked at the pictures of the nude and also of Marcy Moore, and I have to believe that these are pictures of Ann Dunham based on the similarity of other pictures of Ann Dunham. She has the notorious Dunham chin, and Marcy Moore really doesn't look that much like Ann Dunham, except that they both have dark, short hair.
Some of Cashill's theories have strong documentation. Some of his theories do not. All of these theories are predominant on the internet, just as much as the birther theories are. Quite a bit of band width and time are being spent on these topics. While our country is gurgling down the drain, we're spending time figuring out who is really the father of Barack Obama. And Barack Obama and his handlers are spending their time denying it and perpetuating the Structured Obama.
How much better off we all would be if Obama had just told the truth. I think we could handle it.
In 2004 when Mr. Barack Obama gave forth with an attention-getting speech at the Democratic National Convention, I thought he did pretty well. His books, Dreams from my Father and The Audacity of Hope, set the country on fire because of how well they were written. (A disclaimer: I haven't read either of these books.) But you know, sometimes you pick up on something intangible, something intuitive, that tells you that things are just not right. Every time I heard Obama speak, I had that feeling. If he were the inspirational communicator people found in his books, why did he hem and haw, stutter, and totally depend on a teleprompter when he spoke. He did not have the words in him.
So when I saw Jack Cashill on C Span promoting his new book that de-mystified the great Obama, I knew I had to read it. What a wild, wonderful trip it was.
Before I read the first word, I flipped to the back of the book to see if he had footnotes and references. He did. Unfortunately his references listed secondary sources. But the book is, for all practical matters, a literary analysis, so using material from the works being analyzed and other analyses is fair, I think. Also consider that any records pertaining to Obama, his family and friends, his education, and his work have been scrubbed as clean as a Dutch housewife's kitchen floor.
Deconstructing Obama has two main tenets: Obama did not actually write either of his books, and Barack Obama, Sr., is not his father. Obama's life and work, as the public knows them, were structured to enhance his political opportunities which in the beginning consisted of aspirations to be the mayor of Chicago. Even the most astute political analyst did not foresee the election of 2008.
To my thinking Cashill deftly proved that Dreams from my Father was written by Bill Ayers. The analysis is long and complicated, so read the book if you need the full story. Cashill provides examples of Obama's early writing, and the difference in any writing example that is presented and the Dreams book is more than striking. Let it suffice to say that Obama needs work on subject-verb agreement, something that most eighth graders can master. Cashill also presents a poem that Obama wrote that is so incoherent it sounds like something those proverbial monkeys in a room full of typewriters wrote.
As for the paternity issues, Cashill presents several possibilities in the absence of any proof. First, he raises doubt about Barack Obama, Sr., the Kenyan, fathering Ann Dunham's child. Cashill says the birthers are following the wrong story and overlooking the obvious reasons that records have disappeared and family and friends have been told to zip it when reporters and researchers come around. Of course, most of the primaries in this situation are dead. You know what they say about dead men and tales.
I'm not going re-tell all of the theories about who Obama's father is. I will say that if you look at pictures of Barack Obama, Sr., Ann Dunham, Frank Marshall Davis, and Barack Obama, Jr., side-by-side, there are amazing revelations. If you don't know who Frank Davis is, you'll need to do some research on your own.
And let me say that all this information that was new to me is all over the internet. I had no idea until I read Deconstructing Obama. I had never seen a picture of Obama's maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham. Barack Obama, Jr., is the spitting image of his grandfather. Who finds out these things? Apparently thousands of bloggers and writers on the internet.
Another issue discussed in the book is the pictures of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham. The pictures show a nude woman who is attributed to be Ann Dunham by many people. Of course, this is denied and the pictures are reportedly of a 1950 pin-up girl named Marcy Moore (so says Snopes.com and others). I looked at the pictures of the nude and also of Marcy Moore, and I have to believe that these are pictures of Ann Dunham based on the similarity of other pictures of Ann Dunham. She has the notorious Dunham chin, and Marcy Moore really doesn't look that much like Ann Dunham, except that they both have dark, short hair.
Some of Cashill's theories have strong documentation. Some of his theories do not. All of these theories are predominant on the internet, just as much as the birther theories are. Quite a bit of band width and time are being spent on these topics. While our country is gurgling down the drain, we're spending time figuring out who is really the father of Barack Obama. And Barack Obama and his handlers are spending their time denying it and perpetuating the Structured Obama.
How much better off we all would be if Obama had just told the truth. I think we could handle it.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
All the News That's Fit to Print
Things are popping in Applewood. My neighbor to the east of our house is having some work done on his kitchen. I know this because of the sign in the yard saying it's a "Lowe's" job and the truck in the driveway with the sign on the door advertising that they are kitchen specialists. My neighbor at the entry of the development is getting a new mattress from Kiser's Furniture.
My news is that my peas, onions, potatoes, and lettuce were buried today, and in seven to 10 days they will be resurrected in a brand new body. The soil is probably too wet to be planting, but I dumped three bags of Black Kow composted cow manure into my little plot anyway and carried forth. You can grow anything, anywhere, if you put enough manure into the ground where it's planted.
My plan was to plant my garden by the signs, but today was designated as a "most barren period". Anyone wanting to plant root crops, according to the Farmer's Almanac, should do so on one day about the first of March and one day next week. I think today was listed as good for killing pests, digging holes, and slaughtering. Wonder what kind of potatoes that will produce.
I grow peas because you cannot buy (at least around here) fresh peas in the shell. A few years ago I bought some pea seeds on a trip to Monticello, and I've saved seed from them every year since then. I'm not sure I'll have peas this year though. When I save the seeds, I dry the pods and then shell the seeds out of them, storing them in an envelope until the coming spring. Last fall, either through laziness or abject distraction, I left the peas in the dried pods in a little bowl in my china cabinet. This morning I started shelling the peas out of the pods, but I was distraught to find the pods in the bottom of the bowl were molded. Most of the peas seemed okay, so I went ahead and planted them. In a few weeks we'll see what kind of peas you get from moldy seeds.
The big news in Applewood today, though, is that someone is refurbishing the old apple barn down by the "big road". A few years ago someone cleared out the brush around the barn and put a new roof on it, but today someone has not only used heavy equipment to pull the vines off the walls and roof and clear out the weediness, but they have replaced the door on the loft, cleared out all the old packing boxes, re-done the parking area, and, of all things, painted it red. Nobody puts that much work into a building unless they have plans for it. So the big mystery is what will take place in the old apple barn.
My news is that my peas, onions, potatoes, and lettuce were buried today, and in seven to 10 days they will be resurrected in a brand new body. The soil is probably too wet to be planting, but I dumped three bags of Black Kow composted cow manure into my little plot anyway and carried forth. You can grow anything, anywhere, if you put enough manure into the ground where it's planted.
My plan was to plant my garden by the signs, but today was designated as a "most barren period". Anyone wanting to plant root crops, according to the Farmer's Almanac, should do so on one day about the first of March and one day next week. I think today was listed as good for killing pests, digging holes, and slaughtering. Wonder what kind of potatoes that will produce.
I grow peas because you cannot buy (at least around here) fresh peas in the shell. A few years ago I bought some pea seeds on a trip to Monticello, and I've saved seed from them every year since then. I'm not sure I'll have peas this year though. When I save the seeds, I dry the pods and then shell the seeds out of them, storing them in an envelope until the coming spring. Last fall, either through laziness or abject distraction, I left the peas in the dried pods in a little bowl in my china cabinet. This morning I started shelling the peas out of the pods, but I was distraught to find the pods in the bottom of the bowl were molded. Most of the peas seemed okay, so I went ahead and planted them. In a few weeks we'll see what kind of peas you get from moldy seeds.
The big news in Applewood today, though, is that someone is refurbishing the old apple barn down by the "big road". A few years ago someone cleared out the brush around the barn and put a new roof on it, but today someone has not only used heavy equipment to pull the vines off the walls and roof and clear out the weediness, but they have replaced the door on the loft, cleared out all the old packing boxes, re-done the parking area, and, of all things, painted it red. Nobody puts that much work into a building unless they have plans for it. So the big mystery is what will take place in the old apple barn.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Senior Attention Deficit Disorder
Note to self: select a topic for a new blog. Possible topics are: organizing the attic, learning to throw away items to which you're emotionally attached, was the weather prediction by the groundhog accurate, cooking, paying taxes, Winston Churchill, digging up the garden, cooking, going to Asheville, Estep family history, and cooking.
Have I lost every smidgen of my ability to focus? I believe I have.
I am just about three months out from my last day at work. I'm beginning to take this retirement thing seriously. My hair stylist told me last week that most people she knows who've retired spend the first year doing all the house work they've neglected over the last 30 years. That's not true in all situations of course. A friend of mine who retired about five years ago immediately went on a trip to Scotland, and even today she seems to have a good time. She supplements her income by painting "primitive" landscapes that she sells through an antique mart, and she just bought a cabin in the mountains.
I suppose I've taken the route of cleaning out all the detritus we accumulated in this house since 1991. I haven't exactly given up on that project, but I am taking a break. Big jobs are more easily accomplished by breaking them into smaller jobs. It takes longer, but it's an effective mental game to play on yourself. "Today I will do this one thing. Then I'll go to Wal-Mart." I'm still waiting, of course, for better weather to clean windows and carpets.
Those things that I thought would make retirement worthwhile have somehow been pushed to the side. All of the genealogy I was going to write up is sitting in a stack on the floor of our home office. The painting I planned to finish reclines on the easel. I'm still cleaning house.
So I've determined that I'm not exhibiting some kind of old person "nesting", but rather I'm afflicted with a syndrome called Senior Attention Deficit Disorder (SADD). It's commonly found among new retirees overcome with all the possibilities of things to do each morning. Instead of selecting a course of action for the day that is enjoyable and productive, SADD sufferers lose calendars and misplace cell phones as they drift from one possibility to another. This isn't a memory problem; I don't forget to do things, but I am having trouble finishing what I start. Just like one famous Georgia girl (and many other retirees), I can always do it tomorrow.
Have I lost every smidgen of my ability to focus? I believe I have.
I am just about three months out from my last day at work. I'm beginning to take this retirement thing seriously. My hair stylist told me last week that most people she knows who've retired spend the first year doing all the house work they've neglected over the last 30 years. That's not true in all situations of course. A friend of mine who retired about five years ago immediately went on a trip to Scotland, and even today she seems to have a good time. She supplements her income by painting "primitive" landscapes that she sells through an antique mart, and she just bought a cabin in the mountains.
I suppose I've taken the route of cleaning out all the detritus we accumulated in this house since 1991. I haven't exactly given up on that project, but I am taking a break. Big jobs are more easily accomplished by breaking them into smaller jobs. It takes longer, but it's an effective mental game to play on yourself. "Today I will do this one thing. Then I'll go to Wal-Mart." I'm still waiting, of course, for better weather to clean windows and carpets.
Those things that I thought would make retirement worthwhile have somehow been pushed to the side. All of the genealogy I was going to write up is sitting in a stack on the floor of our home office. The painting I planned to finish reclines on the easel. I'm still cleaning house.
So I've determined that I'm not exhibiting some kind of old person "nesting", but rather I'm afflicted with a syndrome called Senior Attention Deficit Disorder (SADD). It's commonly found among new retirees overcome with all the possibilities of things to do each morning. Instead of selecting a course of action for the day that is enjoyable and productive, SADD sufferers lose calendars and misplace cell phones as they drift from one possibility to another. This isn't a memory problem; I don't forget to do things, but I am having trouble finishing what I start. Just like one famous Georgia girl (and many other retirees), I can always do it tomorrow.
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