President Trump's message on DACA

"In June of 2012, President Obama bypassed Congress to give work permits, social security numbers, and federal benefits to approximately 800,000 illegal immigrants currently between the ages of 15 and 36.  The typical recipients of this executive amnesty, known as DACA, are in their twenties.  Legislation offering these same benefits had been introduced in Congress on numerous occasions and rejected each time. . . .

"The temporary implementation of DACA by the Obama Administration, after Congress repeatedly rejected this amnesty-first approach, also helped spur a humanitarian crisis – the massive surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America including, in some cases, young people who would become members of violent gangs throughout our country, such as MS-13. . .

"The decades-long failure of Washington, D.C. to enforce federal immigration law has had both predictable and tragic consequences: lower wages and higher unemployment for American workers, substantial burdens on local schools and hospitals, the illicit entry of dangerous drugs and criminal cartels, and many billions of dollars a year in costs paid for by U.S. taxpayers.  Yet few in Washington expressed any compassion for the millions of Americans victimized by this unfair system.  Before we ask what is fair to illegal immigrants, we must also ask what is fair to American families, students, taxpayers, and jobseekers."

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/09/05/statement-president-donald-j-trump

And Speaker Paul Ryan

"President Obama’s DACA program was a clear abuse of executive authority, an attempt to create law out of thin air. Congress writes laws, not the president, and ending this program fulfills a promise that President Donald J. Trump made to restore the proper role of the executive and legislative branches. Now, the House and Senate, with the president’s leadership, will work to find consensus on a permanent legislative solution on this and many immigration issues, such as border security and interior enforcement." From Facebook

Unions and right to work

Public-sector workers had a union membership rate (34.4 percent) more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.4 percent). So our taxes pay the salaries of govenment workers and then they lobby against us. Never waste a crisis, so government union membership grew during the recession. Among occupational groups, the highest unionization rates in 2016 were in education, training, and library occupations (34.6 percent). I think this suggests that women, who dominate those fields, seem to want protection despite all the bravado and complaints about a patriarchy, and see the government as a father/spousal figure. (Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016.)

https://www.law360.com/articles/899211/challenges-continue-for-organized-labor-in-2017

"The union agenda has also shifted since the 1940s. What was once a collective bargaining focus has morphed into a political operation using those millions in member dues to support other liberal organizations and campaigns. From 2012 to 2015, union bosses have given away over a half-billion dollars to groups many of their members would never support."
 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/6/union-support-for-donald-trump-gives-big-labor-cha/

A comment from a FB friend:  "And, in Ohio, they have what they call a "fair share fee" for those who don't wish to join the union, but pay their share of the union representing them. The difference is supposed to be what goes to political activity. What is a fair share? 100%, of course. Nothing fair or accurate about that at all. Having served as union rep and on state executive board, I can tell you much of what is done is clearly partisan political activity, including much of what goes on in their conventions."

Fourteen years later the OSU fire is still a cold case

I was looking through some old letters to my family and noticed this one, April 19, 2003, and I wondered what had happened with the investigation into this tragedy: 

 "I don't think our latest tragedy here would have made your news, but 5 students died in a house fire on the campus early last Sunday (13th) a.m. Actually, only 2 were OSU, the other 3 were Ohio University (Athens, OH). Many still hospitalized. An old house with 12 bedrooms that the kids just love to rent, close to campus. Celebrating one of the guys’ 21st birthday, so everyone had been drinking. Happened about 3 or 4 a.m. Now they've decided it was arson, so people are really upset. Will be a big murder investigation--maybe the biggest Columbus has had. All the bios in the paper indicated they were all really good kids, but if you combine the gases and smoke inhalation with the fact that they may have not been as alert as possible, it was lethal. One young OU girl was from Dublin, north of here, and 1200 people came to her funeral yesterday.  The smoke was so dense the firemen had trouble finding them.  One girl was rescued unconscious by the fireman lying on top of her to protect her and scooting her by looping his arms under her.  But he didn’t know there was another student also in the room--and had barely found her."

Then it was 5 years. http://www.10tv.com/article/victims-legacies-live

The Dispatch caught up with the survivors 10 years later. http://www.dispatch.com/article/20130413/NEWS/304139720

Now it's fourteen and it's a cold case.  Families of the deceased still stay in touch and try to make life good in memory of their loved ones.
http://nbc4i.com/2017/04/13/still-no-answers-14-years-after-ohio-state-university-fatal-fire/

Monday Memories--Book club memories 2002

From a letter. "I had book group here September 9. I finished the book, “John Adams,” that Monday morning!  I made my mother’s apple walnut “Autumn bread” recipe and Phoebe’s cheese ball with crackers.  The leader, Carolyn A. did a fabulous job.  She’s been a John Adams fan for 20 years, and brought along all her other books about him, many of which had wonderful illustrations.  Our next selection for Oct. 7 is “Peace like a River” by Leif Enger.  I’ve been taking it down to jury duty, but haven’t made much progress.  In December I’ll be leading “The Persian Pickle Club” by Sandra Dallas, a wonderful story about women in the Depression.  Everyone loved the condo [we'd moved in January 2002].  It was still light enough they could see the grounds.  One lady asked me if we overlooked a park.  It really is that lovely.  I must get busy and finish the decorating.  It is hard after you live with it for awhile, because you sort of don’t notice some of the oddities.  This group formed in 1979, and still has about 3 or 4 of the original members, and some who’ve been with it for 19 or 20 years.  I didn’t join until I retired in 2000, so I’m a real novice at reading on command.   One woman said that when they started they had 20 women and 24 babies."

From a letter.  "Book group meets tonight, [November 4, 2002].  I stop at Adrienne’s about 2 miles north, and she’ll drive us up to Muirfield (northwest of here) to the hostess’ home.  The book is Anne Tyler’s “Back when we were grown ups,” and I can’t say I enjoyed it much.  I hope someone else has something to offer.  I can’t imagine a woman taking so long (she is 53 when the novel opens) to figure out her 4 daughters are all losers. With names like Patch, No-No, Biddy, and Min-Foo, what can you expect? Although people usually talk about Tyler’s humor, I thought the only funny part was when she gets together with her old boyfriend from high school/college for dinner (she is a widow and dumped him to marry her husband) and finds out what a dud he is too.  She had sort of romanticized the memory of their time together. I sort of felt they deserved each other--she’s been wearing a fake happy face for 30 years and he’s been following rigid routines and is mad because she walked out on him."

Secrets of the Alhamba

In September 2015 we visited Spain, including Granada and the Alhambra. It was an amazing trip hosted by our Finnish friends the Tulamos.  We celebrated my birthday at a Flemenco theater in Granada.  Interesting video on how it took 500 years to figure out the inscriptions of the Arabic in the Alhambra. http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170817-the-secret-world-of-granadas-alhambra-palace

https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/09/hola-we-home-from-spain.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did the federal government create the obesity epidemic?

Lots of pretty charts in this report, but it looks to me like obesity rates began soaring with the War on Poverty, about the same time that marriage rates began dropping. Hmm. More government is supposed to solve what government created?

http://healthyamericans.org/assets/files/TFAH-2017-ObesityReport-FINAL.pdf

A Harvey rescue of a Chihuahua Rescue

Many people support the rescue services of specific dog breeds, especially when one breed becomes popular and then people lose interest and discover a Great Dane doesn't work well in a one bedroom apartment.  I don't know the source of this photo, but it looks like this Good Sam has picked up a boat load from a Chihuahua Rescue.  (Website of a California rescue.) There are some "deer heads" (like our little Abby), "apple heads" (sort of a pug nose), long hair, short hair, and mixed breed.  All sizes.  But bless this guy who apparently took them out of the rain and flooding--and I'm sure they are grateful, but shivering more than usual. In 2005 was blogging about Jinky The Hollywood Dog who was a long hair Chihuahua mix rescue with a lot of personality.

Sources for abortion from the Bible

From Catholic Answers: Question: where is abortion mentioned in the Bible?

Answer: Though we don’t find the word abortion mentioned in any biblical text, we can deduce from Scripture, not to mention natural law, reason, Church teaching, and patristic witness that abortion is intrinsically evil. On abortion, consider these Scripture passages:

• Job 10:8,
• Psalms 22:9-10,
• Psalms 139:13-15,
•  Isaiah 44:2, and Luke 1:41. 

In addition:

• Genesis 16:11: Behold, said he, thou art with child, and thou shalt bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Ismael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction.
• Genesis 25:21-22: And Isaac besought the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and he heard him, and made Rebecca to conceive. But the children struggled in her womb...
• Hosea 12:3: In the womb he supplanted his brother, and as a man he contended with God.
• Romans 9:10-11: But when Rebecca also had conceived at once of Isaac our father. For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand) . . .

The truth that these verses tell is that life begins at conception. Rebekah conceived a child—not what would be or could be a child. Note James 2:26: ". . . a body apart from the spirit is dead. . ." Since the soul is the principle which gives life to the body, then a child carried in the womb of its mother has a soul because it is alive. To kill it is murder.

DACA, the Executive Order mess

I don't know what President Trump intends to do about DACA, but it is a mess that Obama handed him that should have been decided by Congress, not the President. So. . . he should turn it over to Congress and step aside. Let the Republicans get some backbone and the Democrats take back their party. Obama had a Democratic Congress his first two years, but he squandered his power on the failed ACA theft instead of getting Congress to make some tough decisions on immigration.  Also, he knew the Executive Order could be undone by the next president, but it made him look good--compassionate, kind, and power hungry.

The main problem with the current immigration law is it wasn't followed.

The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the exclusive right to legislate in the area of immigration. Most of the relevant laws, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), are found in Title 8 of the United States Code. State governments are prohibited from enacting immigration laws. Despite this, a handful of states recently passed laws requiring local police to investigate the immigration status of suspected illegal aliens, creating some controversy.

Three federal agencies are charged with administering and enforcing immigration laws. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigates those who break the law, and prosecutes offenders. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) handles applications for legal immigration. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is responsible for keeping the borders secure. All three agencies are part of the Department of Homeland Security. https://www.hg.org/immigration-law.html

Winding down the season at Lakeside

Yes, it’s September. But chilly here on Lake Erie. The heat is on in the cottage! We return to Columbus today after church on the lakefront and breakfast. There was a terrific, end of season program last night—Riders in the Sky—a cowboy quartet, their 10th time at Lakeside and I think we’ve seen most of them. They showed some Roy Rogers footage; it was great fun played to an almost full Hoover auditorium. Then we picked up Bob’s paintings at the Patio restaurant and went to the fireworks.

This morning will be my final walk—I’ve been getting 4-6 miles a day, something I can’t do at home unless I get in the car and drive to the park. I still need flat areas for walking or I’ll irritate the bursitis. Here I’ve got streets that 10,000 years ago were Erie’s shoreline.

I’m watching EWTN thanks to Roku, which has worked well this summer with no cable TV. A Mother’s Day gift from our daughter and son-in-law. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen is on, still going strong after all these years. I remember my parents watching him; a real pioneer in religious TV. He’s talking about people marching and protesting in the streets who have no program or ideology, not even a coherent Marxism, so I assume this one is from the 1960s, but it plays well today.

We’ve decided to keep the cottage, year by year. We’ve got more help now and Bob is hiring more than he used to. He bought a new light for the hall and probably paid the handyman more than the cheap fixture cost. He thought our nephew would be coming near the end of summer and could do it, so when that didn’t work out, he hired a local man. Next year it will be a new washer dryer, and maybe new carpet for the porch. This has faded, but then 30 years isn’t bad

It's what real men do; the Harvey hurricane and flood

This has gone viral. Can't find the original source. I've seen it combined with video of a redneck monster (huge tires) car pulling a submerged military vehicle out of the muck.

"Let this sink in for a minute.....Hundreds and hundreds of small boats pulled by countless pickups and SUVs from across the South are headed for Houston. ...Almost all of them driven by men. They're using their own property, sacrificing their own time, spending their own money, and risking their own lives for one reason: to help total strangers in desperate need.

Most of them are by themselves. Most are dressed like the redneck duck hunters and bass fisherman they are. Many are veterans. Most are wearing well-used gimme-hats, t-shirts, and jeans; and there's a preponderance of camo. Most are probably gun owners, and most probably voted for Trump.

These are the people the Left loves to hate, the ones Maddow mocks. The ones Maher and Olbermann just *know* they're so much better than.

These are The Quiet Ones. They don't wear masks and tear down statues. They don't, as a rule, march and demonstrate. And most have probably never been in a Whole Foods.

But they'll spend the next several days wading in cold, dirty water; dodging gators and water moccasins and fire ants; eating whatever meager rations are available; and sleeping wherever they can in dirty, damp clothes. Their reward is the tears and the hugs and the smiles from the terrified people they help. They'll deliver one boatload, and then go back for more.

When disaster strikes, it's what men do. Real men. Heroic men. American men. And then they'll knock back a few shots, or a few beers with like-minded men they've never met before, and talk about fish, or ten-point bucks, or the benefits of hollow-point ammo, or their F-150.

And the next time they hear someone talk about "the patriarchy", or "male privilege", they'll snort, turn off the TV and go to bed.

In the meantime, they'll likely be up again before dawn. To do it again. Until the helpless are rescued. And the work's done.

They're unlikely to be reimbursed. There won't be medals. They won't care. They're heroes. And it's what they do."

The man who predicted the resurgence of Islam

“The more important a book to our civilization, the quicker it disappears from the [library] shelves today. Recently, for instance, I discovered that the whole classics section (Greek and Roman) had been eliminated from Toronto’s Central Reference Library, on grounds of “no public interest.” And then that the classics sections in several college libraries had shrunk to the point where I now had more standard texts in my little apartment. . .

And no wonder, it seems to me, that we have ignorant mobs attacking relics of the past, such as public statuary. It becomes much easier to animate these mobs because, in the absence of materials unread and unrespected, they will believe anything about the past they are told.”

(By David Warren writing in The Catholic Thing, who was shocked to see that The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc had been reprinted.)

Hate crime bias

I've always been against the concept of "hate crime," especially in murder cases since people don't usually kill people they love (domestic violence for instance is not called a "hate crime" between 2 gays or lesbians, but it's very high), but the belief that blacks can't be racists, or the extreme caution in labeling their deeds as "hate" is absurd. Fredrick Demond Scott may be mentally ill (as his mother says) but he also has a grudge against middle age white men. It's hate. It's race based.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/31/kill-all-white-people-suspect-5-shootings/623482001/

"Prosecutors announced Tuesday that Scott is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Steven Gibbons, 57, and John Palmer, 54. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Baker also named Scott as a suspect in the shooting deaths of 67-year-old David Lenox, 57-year-old Timothy S. Rice and 61-year-old Mike Darby.

Palmer, Leno, Rice and Darby were all shot in the back, three of them in the head, on Kansas City trails. Gibbons was shot in the back of the head on a city street, according to prosecutors.

Police said they don't know if the killings were racially driven and are still searching for a motive. Scott is not believed to have known any of the victims."

"Kill all white people" ought to give police a clue about motive.

MS-13 in Columbus, Ohio

Here are the fine folks that sanctuary cities are protecting.  Notice, this designation as a criminal organization happened long before Trump became the president.

 

"In 2012, the United States government designated MS-13 as a “transnational criminal organization.” It is the first and only street gang to receive that designation. MS-13 has become one of the largest and most violent criminal organizations in the United States, with more than 10,000 members and associates operating in at least 40 states, including Ohio. In Ohio and elsewhere in the United States, MS-13 is organized into “cliques,” which are smaller groups of MS-13 members and associates acting under the larger mantle of the organization and operating in a specific region, city or part of a city. "

 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/members-columbus-clique-ms-13-arrested-and-charged

 

Disaster reports by CRS

Congressional Research reports on national disasters the last 5 years (through Obama's second term) via beSpacific Research.

• Hurricane Harvey and Army Corps: Background for Flood Response and Recovery, CRS Insight, August 29, 2017
• Oil and Chemical Spills: Federal Emergency Response Framework, August 29, 2017
• Introduction to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), July 25, 2017 Federal Disaster Assistance Response and Recovery Programs: Brief Summaries, July 18, 2017
• Private Flood Insurance in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), CRS Insight, June 2, 2017
• Federal Disaster Assistance: The National Flood Insurance Program and Other Federal Disaster Assistance Programs Available to Individuals and Households After a Flood, April 6, 2017
• Major Disaster Assistance from the Disaster Relief Fund: State Profiles, March 29, 2017
• Dam Safety: Federal Programs and Authorities, CRS In Focus, February 23, 2017
• FEMA Disaster Housing: The Individuals and Households Program–Implementation and Potential Issues for Congress, September 2, 2016
• Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies, May 19, 2015
• Deployable Federal Assets Supporting Domestic Disaster Response Operations: Summary and Considerations for Congress, May 13, 2015
• FEMA’s Disaster Declaration Process: A Primer, November 12, 2014
• FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund: Overview and Selected Issues, May 7, 2014
• FEMA Disaster Cost-Shares: Evolution and Analysis, April 4, 2013
• FY2013 Supplemental Funding for Disaster Relief, February 19, 2013
• Federal Involvement in Flood Response and Flood Infrastructure Repair: Storm Sandy Recovery, October 31, 2012

"Updated daily, beSpacific  (Sabrina B. Spacific) has a searchable database of over 44,000 posts on subjects including: the financial system, high profile government documents, privacy, cyber-security, knowledge management and strategic knowledge services, legal research, FOIA, civil liberties, privacy, Congressional and regulatory issues pertaining to law and technology, copyright and intellectual property, energy, the economy, education, tech related litigation, and libraries/librarians."

Although I look at her site every day, she is politically to the left in what she selects to show, although that seems to be the standard for government and civil liberties research.  Still I always find something worth investigating further in her research. She keeps her editorializing at a minimum. All information, all library collections and all librarians have a filter, and that's where information restriction begins.

Childhood cancer--a grandmother's guest blog

I first met Carol, her sisters and mother (a Methodist pastor), all bloggers, years ago but only on-line.  Then everything changed for her, including her blog.  Her seven year old granddaughter Lily was diagnosed in 2008 with cancer, and the battle continues after a heartbreaking relapse in 2016.

        *                           *                           *                          *

Today is September 1st - the first day of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and I want to honor my #1 childhood cancer warrior, my smart, brave and beautiful granddaughter, Lily. Lily was first diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) on December 1, 2008 at the age of 7. When she was diagnosed, I wondered how we’d make it through the 2+ years of treatment. It was a hard journey with daily chemo, fevers, hospitalizations, missed school, and missed childhood experiences. However, she made it through and finished treatment in February of 2011. She had a skating party to celebrate. She then had over five years of building back her health.

She went from being behind her peers academically (missing a year and a half of school will do that!) to beginning her sophomore year of high school in 2016 in advanced classes and being an active member of the high school girls’ volleyball team. Then in September 2016, she started feeling unusually tired again, and she had unexplained back pain – back pain that was all too familiar to her. She tells me that she suspected what was wrong well before it was confirmed. Blood tests were done again, and we got the heartbreaking news that she had relapsed. There was less than half of one percent chance of relapse that many years off treatment, and yet it happened. Learning your child or grandchild has cancer is horrible! Learning they’ve relapsed is so much worse!

Larisa – Lily’s mom and my daughter – tells about receiving that phone call confirming the relapse. She had to tell Lily and her younger sister, Sophie. When she went into Lily’s room, Lily said, “It’s back, isn’t it?” Larisa confirmed that it was. Then she, Lily and Sophie hugged each other and sobbed together. They KNEW how bad the treatment had been the first time, and they knew that treatment for relapse would be so much worse. The odds of cure go significantly down with a relapse as well.
Any of us adults in the family would have swapped places with Lily in a heartbeat if we only could have. I begged God to let it be me instead of her. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Our only choice was/is to be there for her as much as possible as she travels this terribly rough road.

Lily’s relapse was diagnosed on a Friday, but her oncologist wanted to wait until Monday to start treatment. That meant we had a weekend. A weekend during which Lily had her hair highlighted because she wanted it to look pretty before she lost it. A weekend to be with her friends and family. I asked if Lily wanted a family dinner during the weekend. Lily said yes – as long as we were upbeat and didn’t talk about the relapse. She didn’t want everyone being sad or feeling sorry for her. So we invited the whole family over to our house for dinner that Sunday night. Lily chose the menu, and I bought a bunch of small pumpkins – thinking that decorating them and making jack-o-lanterns would be a fun activity for all the children. After dinner, we took the pumpkins to the front porch, and the children started drawing and carving faces.

Then Sophie asked if it would be okay is she smashed her pumpkin on the concrete walkway. Smashing pumpkins? Well – sure! Go for it! Within a few minutes, all the children - preschool through teens - were standing on the steps and smashing the pumpkins on the walkway. Pumpkin pieces were flying everywhere. Lily mostly watched and shook her head at the silliness. We adults watched and laughed at how enthusiastically even the youngest kids were throwing the pumpkins, but we also understood what was going on. Fear, anger, and uncertainty were being expressed via smashing pumpkins. It was a needed release. When they finished, the kids picked up all the pumpkin bits, and we all went back inside. It is a scene etched indelibly in my memory. The next morning, Lily entered the hospital, had surgery to install a port and receive spinal chemo - and began treatment again.

With her relapse, Lily was faced with another two years of treatment. Right now, she’s about half-way through the relapse protocol. Lily’s body has not dealt well with the new, more aggressive relapse chemo. She lost her hair three weeks in, and she’s gone through some rough and life-threatening reactions to the chemo. One chemo she tolerated well back in 2009, put her in anaphylactic shock this time. So far during this relapse treatment, she has had just about every unusual and extreme reaction in the books – and some not in the books. She has been a frequent topic for discussion at the oncology team meetings at the children’s hospital.

She is participating in a clinical trial (research study) and was randomized to the experimental arm of treatment that includes a new immunotherapy drug, blimatumomab. This drug was not available back in 2008 when Lily was initially diagnosed. The study involves three cycles of 28 days each of continuous IV infusion of the drug. Lily has to wear a backpack that contains the pump that keeps the drug going into her body through her Hickman line 24/7 for those 28 days. Surprisingly, Lily has responded well to the blimatumomab and, so far, her months on it have been two of her less sick months of treatment. The third and final cycle of blimatumomab is the next block on her treatment protocol. She will then have surgery to remove her Hickman line and install a new port. Then she'll continue with the rest of treatment.

She missed most of this past year (her sophomore year) of high school, but kept up with her school work thanks to her school’s amazing teachers who went so far beyond the call of duty to help her. And thanks, also, to the school district’s home-bound program (Thanks, Jojo!). She also took some classes online. She’s now into her junior year of high school and hopes to be able to attend more regularly, but that depends on how she does with the upcoming chemo.

When Lily was in the hospital during the early days of treatment in 2008, she told Larisa that she wanted to do something so other children wouldn’t have to go through such rough treatment. Out of that conversation, the Lily’s Garden Foundation at Vandy’s Children’s Hospital was begun. Lily’s goal was to help raise a million dollars for childhood cancer research. She reached that goal several years ago! Amazing! Lily didn’t stop at a million dollars, though. She continues working to raise money for childhood cancer research. She has become a proficient speaker for childhood cancer research. And there is a lot of exciting research going on right now! I'm very optimistic that Lily's dream of no childhood cancer will someday be realized.

Meanwhile, she still has another rough year of treatment ahead of her. She will finish treatment in September 2018. Incredibly, she will be a senior in high school then. Please continue to keep her in your prayers. She needs every one of them.

Lily was asked, "What can others do that would be helpful?" Her response: "Help bring awareness, and help raise money to find a cure." You can help Lily reach her goal of finding a cure; find out how by looking at her website: http://lilysgarden.org.

God bless you, Lily. You were dealt a rotten hand at age 7 and again at age 15 – and yet you handle it so well. I can't wait for our Northern Lights adventure as soon as you're finished with treatment and can travel again. You are my hero, and I love you to the moon and back!

Good bye to our bicycles

The Archives at Lakeside sale begins today. It's the major fund raiser for that wonderful organization. We donated two bikes (each over 40 years old with lots of good memories), a cedar chest probably from the 1920s-30s which had belonged to Florence, the previous owner, and things we found in the chest that we'd forgotten. That inspired a look at the storage shed that now only had one bike, and lots of unused tools also were donated. Not sure why we had a spade, axe and hoe--maybe belonged to Frank, the previous owner. Some items were unusable and taken to the trash. We have more room on the porch now (where the cedar chest sat). 

A lot of my past was donated this year--special dresses from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s even the 90s, my wedding dress made by my mother, my "mother of the bride" dress from 1993, my huge cat memorabilia collection, and now the bicycles.

Story of our bikes.

Tolerance vs. Forbearance

"[Forbearance] implies patience, mutual respect, the extension of time, a certain latitude, and perhaps some affection that motivates a person to carry the burden of disagreement. In this sense, forbearance is less a momentary cease-fire than an active extension of concern for one another. "

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/august-web-only/healthier-approach-to-disagreement-in-church-begins-with-on.html

From the book, Forbearance: A Theological Ethic for a Disagreeable Church, by James Calvin Davis (Eerdmans, 2017).

Houston strong

These people are not waiting in line to get something--they are the volunteers in Houston waiting for an assignment.

Building up vs. Tearing Down: Trump and Charlottesville, guest blog

Building up vs. Tearing Down: Trump and Charlottesville
by Jane M. Orient, M.D.

The President’s remarks that provoked an unprecedented storm of hate and outrage were made at a press conference about—infrastructure. President Trump explained why our infrastructure is in such terrible shape. There’s the permitting process that delays projects for years or decades, and causes costs to double, triple, quintuple, or more.

This resonated with me. My dad was a modestly successful general contractor. He built small commercial buildings like grocery stores, and affordable housing. He could have built more. “Old age and smashed feet” didn’t stop him. The city’s inspection process finally did. It was always a problem. He might have to sit around for days waiting for an inspector to deign to show up. Then the inspector could red flag a project just because he was having a bad day or felt disrespected.

So a man who built sound, durable buildings—who could and sometimes did do everything from surveying the land to digging the foundation to finishing the roof—whose livelihood was at risk if he did a bad job—was at the mercy of a government employee who might not know how to hold a hammer or even know the rules he was enforcing. It got worse and worse. Only the big guys who could afford lawyers and accountants, and who had “connections,” could stay in business. Houses got more and more expensive. And they got worse, not better. Most are now thrown together with sticks and stucco.

Big projects are far worse. The U.S. will never regain dominance in nuclear energy without a massive overhaul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A plant that is built in 2 years in Taiwan can’t even get a permit in less than 10 years here. And that’s for a plant that is exactly the same as ones that have been functioning flawlessly for decades. If you have a really innovative design, one that would be even safer, it takes more than 3 years for bureaucrats to evaluate the proposal. Meanwhile, you can’t even build a prototype.

It’s like this for all industries here, including medicine. President Trump sent a signal that he was going to start cutting useless red tape. Would this be good for black people? Poor people? Industry? Taxpayers? Absolutely yes, yes, yes, and yes. It would be a start for making America great again.

But the signal set off panic among swamp dwellers: the 3 million bureaucrats who block productive work. The lobbyists who advocate for rules to crush little guys. CEOs of megacorporations who dread competition. And of course those who really don’t want America to be great, and politicians who keep their power by demagoguing on problems they themselves caused.

The hate-Trump, stop-Trump-at-all-costs media couldn’t allow people to learn about our infrastructure problems and what must be done to fix them. They needed a diversion. So they talked about a mob scene in Charlottesville, where part of the project to obliterate America’s history is happening.

A lot of good people object to tearing down monuments. But some bad folks you wouldn’t want to be associated with got a permit to hold a rally protesting the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. A few hundred people might have waved their signs, listened to speeches containing offensive ideas, and gone home. But another group crashed the party, without a permit, to fight the last war against “Nazis,” wearing masks and scary costumes, armed with baseball bats. The police apparently let them in.

To me (and apparently to the President) it looked like violent agitators type 1 versus violent agitators type 2. But reporters called them, respectively, “white supremacists” and “protesters.” Social justice warriors, including CEOs and congressmen, are engaged in frenzied virtue signaling. The President supposedly didn’t condemn the type 1 agitators fast enough or harshly enough and suggested there might be a moral equivalence. The type 2 agitators, in this view, had a pure motive for beating people up and throwing things, whereas type 1 agitators were pure Evil.

Some type 2s carried Black Lives Matter signs. Black lives are indeed threatened, but not by swastika-waving misfits. These are their real problems:

• Crime. Thousands of blacks are killed by (mostly black) criminals, mostly in inner cities ruled by liberal Democrats for decades. Trump wants more effective law enforcement.
• Drugs. While authorities blame doctors, international drug cartels thrive under the protection of sanctuary cities, pushing heroin, carfentanyl, and other things you can’t get at Walgreen’s. Thousands are dying. Trump wants to clean up sanctuary cities.
• Abortion. More than 19 million black babies have been aborted since 1973; the rate is three times that of whites. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a rabid racist. Trump wants to decrease abortion.
• Poor medical care. The past 8 years of ObamaCare have brought huge cost increases and deterioration in availability and quality. Trump wants to repeal it.
• Disease and poverty. Over-regulation by environmental radicals, based on fraudulent science, has killed and keeps on killing millions of African Africans (from resurgent malaria since banning DDT), and the war on affordable energy will keep Africa mired in poverty. Americans are less affected—so far. Trump wants to restore reason and honesty to the EPA and other regulatory agencies.

The frenzy really is about the subject of that press conference and its message that Trump is serious about draining the swamp. Those who have enriched themselves at the expense of black people and other hard-working Americans are not worried about neo-Nazis, but about loss of their special privileges. They will fight Trump—and those who elected him—with every vile tactic they can muster.

Antifa is the new KKK

". . .yet again for the umpteenth time in the history of the American Left, it has turned to violence. And just as the paramilitary and hooded Ku Klux Klan was used as, per Columbia University historian Eric Foner, “a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party” and, according to University of North Carolina historian Allen Trelease, the “terrorist arm of the Democratic Party,” so now the hooded- fascists of Antifa are being used as a paramilitary organization designed to further the Left’s political agenda by force.

Some things never change."

The American Spectator, Jeffrey Lord, August 29

When common sense reigns, lives are saved

When gang violence is reduced in our major cities, minority communities benefit the most because they are usually the victims. Democrats know this, but prefer the virtue signaling.

"Allowing officers to use their discretion when dealing with criminal aliens has been an effective tool in curbing crime. In 2008, former Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris revealed that a 24% decrease in homicides and a 26% decrease in auto thefts could be partly attributed to “a new immigration policy that allows our officers to use their discretion when dealing with criminal aliens” and “unprecedented cooperation between our investigative units and our state, federal, and local partners. (Maricopa County Attorney’s Office).” Border patrol contacts in the Tucson Sector reported that in the same fiscal year (2008 – October to September) they saw a 41% decrease in border apprehensions. Nevertheless, on July 24 the new restrictive immigration policy went into effect at the Phoenix Police Department at the request of an open borders coalition. Now officers can’t even use the term “illegal alien,” which has been officially replaced with “unlawfully present.”"

Judicial Watch, August 28

Monday Memories--sailing

Saturday, August 26, Bob went sailing with Tom, our neighbor, Jim another neighbor and Tom's brother Steve.  He often goes out with Jack, Tom's 12 year old son on the sunfish, but Tom also has a 32' sailboat with a cabin with bathroom and shower, small kitchen.  They were out about 2.5 hours.  I went to the end of the dock to see them (Bob called), but they didn't get very close.

Re-segregating the campus

Jodi Linley, assistant professor of art at University of Iowa, wants to segregate her classes by race, wants an anti-white atmosphere. It's trendy. Workshops on white privilege have turned into white shaming. It got her name and photo in the paper.

"She offered up five strategies other professors can use to deconstruct white privilege in their own classes, such as making sure students know that their views on race will be challenged, “interrupting oppression” that occurs in classroom settings, an...d segregating students by race so they can have more productive dialogues about privilege." http://www.wnd.com/2017/08/white-shaming-is-new-rage-on-college-campuses/

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/us/black-commencement-harvard.html

That is what passes for inclusivness and freedom of expression at that university, tax supported by white Iowans, of course. If education was supposed to elevate and improve the citizenry, she is proof that there is always an exception to the rule. 94% of Iowa is white; why should she be allowed to diss and insult them?

Was Amerigo a racist?

 The United States of America.  America was named for an Italian explorer and cartographer in 1507 (a white guy who called Brazil The New World) Amerigo Vespucci. I'm sure that makes the name of our country racist by association. And he worked for the French, Portuguese and Spanish, all those racist Europeans. This week-end a statue in Crawford Co. Ohio was decapitated--he wasn't even in the Civil War! But he was white. Probably just vandals, but aren't all anarchists vandals?

https://www.biography.com/people/amerigo-vespucci-9517978

Hillsdale Pledge

 

Hillsdale College Freshman Pledge

We, the students of Hillsdale College, commit ourselves to diligent study and patient reflection. Having come to learn, we are proud to do so with integrity and will conduct ourselves with exemplary honor. As sacrifices past and present make possible our education, we too become stewards of this College for the generations yet to come. We pledge ourselves to the pursuit of truth, the love of the good, and the cultivation of beauty, for the sake of our minds and hearts and for an ennobled society. By so doing, we embrace the high calling of liberal education.

 https://www.hillsdale.edu/


.

Trump pardoned a civil servant; Obama drug dealers

 

But feminine clothing and accessories for men are encouraged in our culture--even the more drastic removal of male body parts and adding female hormones is encouraged. I don't get it. It mocks a violent criminal and violates his rights, but not a tennis athlete?

The death of the Republican Party

Republicans have stopped Trump. Only they had the power. Democrats are toothless, starving kittens looking for a meal of racism and Russian hackers to chase.

BRENT BOZELL: "In January of this year, they formally controlled both houses of Congress and the executive branch. Every single thing they’d ever promised was now possible. They now had the power to enact every single spending cut they’d ever solemnly pledged. All those wasteful programs designed to fill the liberal sandbox — PBS, NPR, Planned Parenthood, NEH and the rest of the alphabet soup; all the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare to multi-billion-dollar corporations; all of the hundreds of billions of dollars directed toward leftist social engineering — poof! All of it could come to an end with a stroke of a pen. They now had the power to restore fiscal tax sanity too. Remember the flat tax? The fair tax? Slashing the highest corporate taxes in the world? Giving you a tax break? All of it could be done with a snap of the fingers.

Repeal Obamacare? Check. End illegal immigration? Check. Build the wall? Check. Crush the Deep State? Done, by God, done! There was not a damn thing the Democrats could do to stop them from draining the swamp. Except the Republican leadership didn’t mean it. With the exception of the Freedom Caucus in the House, and literally a handful in the Senate, the rank-and-file didn’t either. Not one word of it."

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/27/exclusive-brent-bozell-the-slow-death-of-the-republican-party/

It's not what you think

Jobs? Border Security? North Korea? Graduation rates? Student loan debt? Zilch. Nada. Just monuments and flags, and next it will be WWII monuments and the U.S. stars and stripes. If you thought this was about slavery or the Confederacy, wake up.

Yet so many are naïve.  How many people were subjected to vague references to bigotry or "the last 7 months" with a big sigh in today's Sunday services? The Democrats are leaderless and Republicans spineless.

“I want to talk to you about the manufactured moral crisis in this country right now, because that’s truly what’s going on,” said Buck. “We’re in the midst of a moral panic. A manufactured moral crisis and while a lot of us could just ignore it, it will have ramifications. It should be met on the battlefield of ideas and blown to smithereens.”

“This is very dangerous stuff, he added. “This notion that we have to go back and erase, eliminate, re-write, pave-over, whatever it may be, different parts of history has got to stop. It feels incredibly soviet –because the soviets did exactly this kind of thing. It feels very totalitarian –because totalitarian regimes are quite concerned with the past as a means of controlling the future.”

http://bucksexton.com/buck-liberals-creating-manufactured-moral-crisis-in-america/

President Trump condemns bigotry

Why is the left so unhappy with Trump's public denounciation of the activists in Charlottesville? I've highlighted (in caps) the problem. He blamed them all.

"I just met with FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack that killed one innocent American and wounded 20 others. To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend’s racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered.

As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.

And as I have said many times before: No matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws, we all salute the same great flag, and we are all made by the same almighty God. We must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence. We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans.
Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, AND OTHER HATE GROUPS THAT ARE REPUGNANT to everything we hold dear as Americans.
 
We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our Creator. We are equal under the law. And we are equal under our Constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America. . . ." August 14, 2017, President Donald Trump

Trump pardons Sheriff Joe

Trump's enemies go crazy. (What's new?) Then look at Obama's pardons. . . crack dealers, money launderers, bank defrauders, wire fraud, mail fraud, tax fraud, transporting stolen goods. Trump pardons a man doing his job victim of the government's witch hunt. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-pardons

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348061-trump-pardons-arpaio

What are the specific charges?

Just like the Russian hacking charges or stealing the election, so we hear the references to Trump being a racist, but nothing specific. Once the DNC and DWS became serious suspects, the whole Russia story faded and the whole statue and flag conspiracy blossomed.  Oh, they didn't like the speed at which he condemned neo-nazis in Charlottesville.  But Obama waited 6 years to condemn terrorism by an Islamist at Ft. Hood.  Why the emphasis on speed--especially since the cell phone videos circulating now show how much of the violence was perpetrated by the alt-Left.

I see the charges and claims on social media and in the Bezo-WaPo/NYT/cable news cabal that Trump is a racist. I haven't seen or heard actual racism or specifics, just the charges.

•  Is it his slogan, "Make America great again," and you don't know any great black people or communities or leaders so you think he's leaving out people of color?
• Are you afraid that black citizens will take your job, so you want to frighten them?
•  Is it the Islamist terrorism warnings, the incidents Obama ignored and called work place violence?
• How many drone killings without trial has Trump ordered? Obama did that for some Islamists who were American citizens and they were quite frequent in Yemen according to the Guardian before Trump was elected.
•  Are Mexican gangs afraid they won't get sanctuary in Democrat run cities so they can kill more Mexican immigrants? 

 And besides, exactly what race are Mexicans and Muslims? Mexico is a very wealthy, multicultural country with citizens of many ethnicities who speak a European language, Spanish. In fact, if you turn on Telemundo or Univision, they are much whiter than U.S. cable.  Islam is a religion with several divisions, but it's not a race.

Mona Lisa smiles

Earlier this year our daughter gave us Roku, a device that allows streaming if you have an internet connection.  I selected quite a few movie channels, but most were just awful.  In fact, I didn't know there were so many terrible movies until I started browsing my Roku possibilities. Finally, I found a channel with Roku with some good movies (free), FXM. We watched Mona Lisa Smile with Julia Roberts (2003) last night because I didn't care much for the program at Hoover in Lakeside. We'd seen it when it was fresh, but since it is a period piece (1954) it doesn't age, even if its view of the early 50s is a bit prejudiced (said to be based on H. Clinton's recall). True, college women thought a lot about marriage in those years (at least I did in the late 50s), and we'd joke about the PHT degree, putting hubby through, but when I see the serial relationships and rape charges today, or educated women starting families at 40, are college students so much better off or prepared for life's challenges in 2017?

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mona-lisa-smile-2003

Ebert opines: "Julia Roberts is above all an actress with a winning way; we like her, feel protective toward her, want her to prevail. In "Mona Lisa Smile," she is the conduit for the plot, which flows through her character. The major supporting roles are played by luminaries of the first post-Julia generation, including not only Dunst, but Julia Stiles as Joan Brandwyn, a girl smart enough to be accepted by Yale Law but perhaps not smart enough to choose it over marriage; Maggie Gyllenhaal as Giselle Levy, who is sexually advanced and has even, it is said, slept with the studly young Italian professor, and Ginnifer Goodwin as Constance Baker, who is too concerned about her looks."

It was certainly better than this Rolling Stone review:  "The girls are played by a who's who of young Hollywood womanhood — Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal — each given one emotion to play and each forced to stare at Roberts in awe for showing them the way. That Mike Newell (Donnie Brasco, Four Weddings and a Funeral) directed this insulting swill is beyond depressing. Women of the Fifties, rise up in protest."

https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/history-versus-her-story/Content?oid=914311

http://www.threemoviebuffs.com/review/mona-lisa-smile.html

D'Souza knows racism

According to immigrant Dinesh D'Souza (who is classed as White in the U.S. Census as is Bobby Jindal) there's no evidence that Republicans ever owned a slave (whereas free blacks did), so maybe when all the statues are destroyed, the Democrats can claim there was no slavery?

"Part of the Democrats’ big lie is to shift the blame for slavery from themselves to the South. This licenses leftist intimidation, vandalism and even violence in the name of fighting Southern bigotry. But let’s remember that most Southerners did not own slaves. Most Confederate soldiers did not own slaves. Let’s also recall that the Northern Democrats led by Stephen Douglas supported slavery with the same resourcefulness and determination as the Southern Democrats."

Christians and social media

Today I read a really convicting article on line about social media and why it is so bad for Christians. Of course, she had a blog, wrote for on-line publication, uses FB and e-mail and twitter, but still made good points. I am guilty as charged. So now I'm dropping a quarter into a cup on my desk each time I turn on my computer. I'll find a good cause. So far, it's $1.25 today.

Things I know about President Trump. He's not a racist.

• I know hip hop performers and black comedians regularly use the N-word, but I’ve never heard the President use it.
• I know white liberals whose only black friends are their janitor, door man or the med tech in their doctor's office, but President Trump has decades of real friendships and working relationships with the black movers and shakers.
• I know of some neighborhoods where liberals use “green” regulations to raise costs to keep out minorities, but I’ve never heard that a Trump development did that.
• I know that many government regulations work together, whether by design or accident, to keep minorities poor by destroying families, but President Trump wants wealth for everyone.
• I know that Planned Parenthood targets black communities with their abortion services, but I’ve never heard of President Trump favoring abortion to reduce the black population.
• I know that our public school system works against poor minority students, but President Trump wants all children to succeed and have choices like charter schools that the children of rich Congress members and President Obama have.
• I know that tougher crime laws have reduced violent crime by about 70% since 1993, mostly to the benefit of black citizens, but I’ve never heard President Trump sound like Mayor DiBlasio who seems to be working to undo 2 decades of improved law enforcement in NYC.
• I know bullying when I see and hear it. The advice is usually one of two methods to counteract it: push back or walk away.  Do you really believe he will walk away from this bullying from the Left?

So why when the President points out that two fringe movements (with the same basic philosophy of hate and anarchy) are a problem in Charlottesville and in the culture, do the media and Democrats rend their clothing and scream racism? Everyone now calling out bigotry and hatred are using them as code words for racism, unless it is from Communist inspired Antifa and BLM.  But Democrats are Johnnie one Note and have no other song.

Diversity

Daniel Henninger of Wall St. Journal:

  "The Google firing of James Damore was one of these big events. Its meaning was that the goal of diversity, whatever its original intent, has become mostly a totem. Mr. Damore was the little boy in the folk tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” who shouts, “But he doesn’t have anything on!” Google’s emperors banished James Damore for unmasking their diversity conceit."

http://www.businessinsider.com/harmeet-dhillon-james-damore-2017-8

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/op-ed/articles/2017-08-22/why-fired-engineer-james-damore-may-have-a-federal-case-against-google

If you defend yourself, the leftists will call you a mascot of the Alt-Right. https://qz.com/1055466/the-alt-right-has-an-all-new-formula-for-undermining-silicon-valley/

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/fired-google-engineer-james-damore-says-this-.html

A plea to Democrats from Alan Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz implores his fellow Democrats: "Do not glorify the violent people who are now tearing down the statues. Many of these people, not all of them, many of these people are trying to tear down America. Antifa is a radical, anti-America, anti-free market, communist, socialist, hard-left sensorial organization... They use violence. Just because they are opposed to fascism and to some of these monuments, should not make them heroes of the liberals. ... Doing what Stalin did, just erasing history and rewriting it to serve current purposes does pose a danger. And it poses a danger of education malpractice. I'm a liberal, and I think it’s the obligation of liberals to speak out against the hard-left radicals, just like it’s the obligation of conservatives to speak out against the extremism of the hard right.'' (via Patriot Post) I'm afraid if Dershowitz doesn't stop making so much sense, he'll lose all cachet with the liberals.

From liberal rag to fish wrapper

Since Amazon's Bezo bought Washington Post almost 4 years ago, it's been a less than worthless fish wrapper. Anti-Christian, anti-U.S., anti-Trump. Someone please buy it and "make the Post great again." Is it worth giving up on Amazon to protest? http://www.dailywire.com/news/20102/wapo-editorial-satan-good-christians-are-john-nolte

Antifa and BLM

"When Minnesota Black Lives Matter marchers chanted of police, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon,” was that a call for violence that was not long after realized by a spate of racist murders of policemen in Dallas? Are such advocates of torching police officers morally equipped to adjudicate which Confederate statue must come down?" Victor Davis Hanson

"Two parties, two culpabilities; but except for the initial statement of President Donald Trump, condemning both sides, only one party has been held accountable, and that happens to be the one that was in the park legally.

What is taking place in the media accounts and political commentaries on this event is an effort by the left to turn the mayhem in Charlottesville into a template for their war against a mythical enemy — "white supremacy" — which is really a war on white people generally." David Horowitz, Aug. 21

The Boston rally in a nutshell: “Excuse me,” one man innocently asked a Globe reporter, “where are the white supremacists?” (Jeff Jacoby tweet)

When a peaceful group called for prayer, it was called “White Supremacist. Nancy Pelosi has called Joey Gibson's group white supremacist): “I’m not white. We have about eight speakers and only one speaker is white. You know, we have a couple of black speakers, a Hispanic, we have a transsexual speaker; we have a woman speaker. It’s very diverse. It’s really just about what’s on the inside – what you believe, what’s in your heart, your soul – it has nothing to do with skin color.”

In Charlottesville, one side wore white hoods the other black hoodies.  Both violent, both racist, but only one side is part of a global movement with financial support from George Soros.

The refugee crisis in South Sudan

You haven't heard about it?  Not surprised. This summer at Lakeside we had a speaker from South Sudan who now lives in Columbus, Bol Aweng  one of the "Lost boys of Sudan" who were in the news some years ago. He has a non-profit and is also a very talented artist.  I subscribe to a Catholic news service which is covering the tragedy in South Sudan and noticed its story.  So I Googled it. "South Sudan refugee crisis." The top seven entries (mostly paid ads) were all charities, Save the Children, Doctors without Borders, CARE USA, Rescue. org, Mercy Corps, UNHCR, and Oxfam. No news from the major MSM in the U.S., but some from BBC and Aljazeera.  Contrast that story which involves millions of people and ethnic (black on black tribal and political violence) conflicts with the Google search "Trump Charlottesville" and you'll find the top entries CNN, NYT, WAPO, Politico, Fox News, NY Post, Fast Company and NPR.  And they all focus on the same story--Trump condemned violence on both sides in Charlottesville, one group had a permit to demonstrate, and the other didn't.  It's too bad those news outlets have no one in Africa. With whom would they side?

https://www.crs.org/media-center/news-release/uganda-now-hosts-more-1-million-south-sudanese-refugees-hunger-crisis

http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/stories/2017/8/59944a0b4/khaled-hosseini-marks-millionth-south-sudanese-refugee-uganda.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/06/uganda-south-sudanese-refugees-crisis-170621092317423.html

Trump and the Republicans

"Something has gone very wrong since Trump ascended. And it’s not him. He’s virtually the only one trying to do the right things. At this point, it’s clear we have a combination of sick factions in the GOP, and none of them give a damn about the party’s voters, none of them give a damn about the principles they claim to have stood for in the past years, and none of them have a clue about what they are doing.

What has this party done since Trump saved their bacon, keeping them in the majority, saving them from becoming a worthless second fiddle to a corrupt Hillary? Nothing. Just nothing. And now worse than nothing. I am not the first to say this, but let’s be clear, the GOP has become a party of spineless wimps and frauds. They have betrayed half of America, betrayed the base that once supported them so well, and also betrayed their country."

American Spectator, Aug. 21, 2017

The Resistance--now it's statues, tomorrow maybe you

The Durham, NC statue "was pulled down and then stomped on by a crew of radical leftists, identified by the local paper as members of the Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the ubiquitous antifa gang. In other words, these people are about as far left as you can go without falling off the edge of the earth." https://www.billoreilly.com/b/First-They-Came-For-the-Statues/425206911343892859.html

I wonder where the Democrat Congressional leaders, media poo-bahs, librarians, teachers and electricians are who will condemn American Communism by name and rank? And it must be names--can't just condemn bigotry and hate, as we have learned this week. Communism or some form of it killed about 100 million of its own citizens in the 20th century.

 When, like the Taliban destroying ancient Buddhist temples in 2001 in the name of Allah and Islamic political correctness, any founder who owned slaves will need to have his/her reputation destroyed; but it never ends, because self-righteous, virtue signaling feels so good to people who don't know history or who abort black babies in the name of "health care for women." It's critical to destroy history, as communists well know.

 Eventually, when demonizing white microaggression and bullying the millions whose ancestors came well after 1865 from hundreds of countries, including Africa, have run their course, the Leftists will need to take out those blacks with European ancestry. No one will be safe. Remember when Joe Biden called Obama the storybook candidate because he was a clean, light skinned African American?

The Soviet show trials, or purge, would be a good place to start for those in the vanguard of the resistance. For old timey liberals, and newby socialists, and 40-something followers. "The NKVD was handed a list of those who were now labelled ‘enemies of the state’ – effectively the Bolshevik Party’s Old Guard – for example, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin. Anyone associated with these men was also under suspicion. They were put on trial at heavily manipulated show trials where the verdict was never in doubt. The show trials had to prove their guilt preferably with a very public admission of betraying the revolution and therefore the people." http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/russia-1900-to-1939/the-show-trials-in-the-ussr/

Friday Family Photo Lakeside 2017

Bob and his sister Deb heading to Hoover for an evening of music.

 

 

Checking out the new pool and wellness center at Lakeside. Deb and Sue went to water aerobics.

Whataboutism

Robert C. Byrd waited years to say that his KKK membership was a mistake. Democrats loved him; named highways, mountains and parks after him. (Where are the demands to take his name down?) He was a good friend of the Clintons.  President Obama waited six years to even hint that the Ft. Hood massacre was terrorism, and even then he never clearly stated it. Loretta Lynch has never fessed up to the tarmac tango with Bill--we're still waiting. Donald Trump waits 24 hours to name KKK after his original condemnation as just one of the hate groups (Antifa was there too but they are ignored by media), and Democrats, media and never Trumpers go berserk

http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/08/09/new-york-times-emailed-obama-white-house-about-lynch-clinton-tarmac-meeting-jordan-sekulow.html

http://thefederalist.com/2017/08/09/yes-media-covered-lynch-clinton-tarmac-meeting-pillow/

https://spectator.org/hypocrisy-at-charlottesville/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/14/eric-holder-hit-with-fort-hood-workplace-violence-/

Trash talking in Lakeside

A strike for equality. Bob watched the "sanitation engineers" in the giant blue garbage truck doing the north south route deftly tossing sacks and cans Tuesday. "Hey," he said, "There's a woman on that truck, and she's really good--moving fast." Knowing that she was probably earning a higher hourly wage than a librarian or an RN, I thought, "YES! You go girl." Then later when I was walking to the Farmer's Market, I saw the truck doing the east west streets, and the same worker jumped down to grab the garbage. It was just a guy with a "man bun" and a slender build. So disappointed.

Our great grandnieces

Twin grand daughters of our niece, holding hands as they go to class. I think this is pre-school in the private school where their grandma teaches.

Are the media happy now? Of course not.

We knew this would happen. First President Trump condemned all racism, bigotry and hatred. Remember, Antifa was attacking the protesters. Now he’s spoken out more clearly, naming names. But the media are on the attack. After my morning walk, I entered the living room to hear ABC this morning and they are covering Charlottesville and the president’s horrible wait of 48 hours. They are saying he’s retweeted comments from racists and then denied they denied it after planting the seed. Then they spend 2 minutes on North Korea and it’s back to Trump and Charlottesville. They say there were two sides in Charlottesville, but they only give one. I don’t think they spent that much time on Ferguson, Baltimore and NYC combined.

President Trump has been condemning David Duke and the KKK for two decades. How often is enough for the media? It will never be enough because it's not an actual criticism, it's part of the attack plan, like a yapping, nipping dog with sharp teeth circling and running.

White supremacists have built their membership the same way the anarchists/leftists/Islamists have--social media and constant publicity of the broadcast and cable news. (The media also gave Trump billions in free publicity during the primaries.) They are fringe of the fringe. But the leftists, from moderate Democrat, to Bernie Babies, to wild eyed Antifa, control the culture, and that's BIG. Remember, even in late 2012 Obama and Clinton were claiming to believe in traditional marriage and separate locker rooms for men and women. Today that is called white nationalism.

Update: I know there are people who sincerely believe President Trump is the worst thing that has ever happened, but after I listened on Tuesday (WJR Detroit) to a woman organizer of the protests against the President, I saw clearly you are being seduced, used and manipulated to help destroy not just Trump---he's a small fish in their big pond--not just the November election--but the nation. I'm not sure she/they have any plans beyond the ash heap; their task is to just bring it all down.