Safety in flying

An air traffic controller who lives in Columbus and attends our church writes:  “Thank you Mr. Obama and your inept Senate and administration whose gallant efforts today, to block Senator Moran's Contract Tower Amendment, succeeded; thus in turn costing me and a thousand other Air Traffic Controllers their jobs. Your political brinkmanship in using the safety of the national airspace system as a pawn in some elaborate narcissistic game continues to prove your inadequate ability to govern this country. Shutting down 238 Air traffic Control Towers (nearly 50%) which control nearly 1/3 (28%) of our nation’s air traffic is utterly absurd as well as dangerous. I now have grave concern for the flying public as well as the ripple effect that will be felt among all who use these airports across the country for their livelihood. You have done a great disservice to this country and I pray that the cost in not in human lives.”

Spelling was a victim of the sequester

These workshop providers are racists

I was watching/listening to some parts of a diversity/multiculturalism/hate all euro-Americans training session for teachers of Wisconsin that was narrated by Dana where participants were told it was impossible for blacks to be racists because they have no power.  Really?  A black president, black attorney general, blacks on the Supreme Court, black senators and representatives, black Secretary of State, black governors, black mayors, black CEOs, black college presidents, black doctors and lawyers, black millionaires,  our top military leaders are black, all the major franchises have black owners, and so forth.  I think what these trouble makers mean is that if a black is really successful in a capitalist country, they aren't down with the struggle as Al Sharpton said.

How racist is it to ignore the accomplishments, and power of 13.6% of the population?

Who was Charles Darwin?

Church of England, but no real belief system. Worshiped at a Unitarian Church. Grandfather was a doctor and poet—very liberal and “evolutionary” in his thinking. Father was a physician and a good communicator. Shrewd investor. The culture was of “free thinkers” when Darwin was growing up. Great winds of change.  Man is supreme; no need for God. Darwin didn’t like medical school, preferred natural sciences.  His father thought he was an idle, sporting man so pushed young Charles toward the clergy (positions could be bought) so he would have an income.  He couldn’t assent to the orders of the church. So he took an ocean voyage . . .

Columbus on the move

In the last 6 days I've done more traveling around metropolitan Columbus than probably the previous decade. I am so impressed with our city even on gray rainy days! Congratulations to our Republican governor and Democratic mayor. I saw lots of growth and ingenuity, great small businesses, and yet big developments, too. Our immigrant community is starting many new businesses; I saw expansion everywhere. (unemployment 5.8%)

It was three trips to the east side for my eyes (I was wowed by Mt. Carmel), and then lots of driving around picking out bathroom cabinets, fixtures, tops, lights, etc. Yesterday we spent an hour with a salesman who will be singing in Vaude Villities (a local talent show 71 years old). At all the businesses, the sales force was knowledgeable, polite and helpful. Today the contractor came and ripped out the old shower. Finally, we have a dumpster and big trucks in our drive-way just like our neighbors.

Remember when the feminists told women they didn’t need men?

Also told them that marriage was a trap.  Oppression.  What’s a piece of paper?  They needed to be liberated.  More liberated than men.  So why if it was a trap when a woman was married to a man, is it not a trap when it’s two women or two men?

Monday memories—bathrooms

We are stripping the walls, moving furniture, and emptying bathroom cabinets that will soon be removed.  The contractor is to start on Tuesday.  Two 1970s era bathrooms are being upgraded (I’ve got a bad case of sticker shock). Who knew we had 6 different boxes of band-aids, and never could find one when needed? And to think my father was a senior in high school before he knew people had bathrooms inside their homes.             

                                

The story he told me, which may be embellished a little because he was a great story teller, was he knew there were bathrooms in public buildings like schools.  He attended Polo High School and was in the senior play.  Because his parents lived on a farm and there was a night rehearsal and then the performance, he stayed overnight with a fellow cast member and realized that people living in town had toilets inside the house, just like at school!  He was a year ahead of his age group, since in rural schools they weren’t real picky about that, so I’m guessing he was about 16 or 17 when this was taken.

When I was in first grade and my father returned from service in the Marines after the end of WWII, his old route with Standard Oil had been taken over by someone else, so he was doing a long drive to a different area.  So he bought a home in Forreston, about 15 miles from our home in Mt. Morris.  It was an old farm house on the last street at the south end, and it had no indoor toilet.  And there was a pump on the counter of the kitchen.  Really, I don’t know what my mother must have thought, but she learned carpentry and plumbing and we soon had a bathroom.  Nothing fazed that woman. Of course, being six years old, I thought it was a great adventure.  Now, not so much!

Noah’s Ark—Lessons from

An orange a day . . .

                   

Usually I have such terrible, miserable colds that last so long--usually three weeks--I really should give them names--like hurricanes or tsunamis. I was coming down with a cold when my husband returned, sick, from Haiti 2 weeks ago. But not much happened. This winter I've been eating oranges. I've always liked them, but rarely have more than one or two a year. They just tasted awfully good this year, and I've been buying 8 lb bags for about $6 and have added one orange to my daily one apple. So I think I've eaten 5 bags since the fall, or 40 lbs of oranges. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=37

Also, I candied quite a few of the orange peels until eating them was making my mouth a little raw—and making me hungry for other sweets. Maybe it was all those peels.  Lots of good stuff in those too.

Waiting for Pope Francis’ first Angelus prayer at St Peter’s square on March 17, 2013

I was watching this on EWTN.  He drives his translators and security detail crazy by going off script and off in any direction.

Celebrate!

           

In just a few days. . .

They missed the apostrophe, but it’s still cute.

CPAC 2013

There’s nothing a Democrat fears more than a black conservative . . . Allen West

http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/video/former-congressman-allen-west-on-the-record-6/

Rick Santorum and Allen West

An early Ohio gun law decision

In 1920, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Mexican for concealed carry of a handgun–while asleep in his own bed. Justice Wanamaker’s scathing dissent criticized the precedents cited by the majority in defense of this absurdity:

"I hold that the laws of the state of Ohio should be so applied and so interpreted as to favor the law-abiding rather than the law-violating people. If this decision shall stand as the law of Ohio, a very large percentage of the good people of Ohio to-day are criminals, because they are daily committing criminal acts by having these weapons in their own homes for their own defense. The only safe course for them to pursue, instead of having the weapon concealed on or about their person, or under their pillow at night, is to hang the revolver on the wall and put below it a large placard with these words inscribed: “The Ohio supreme court having decided that it is a crime to carry a concealed weapon on one’s person in one’s home, even in one’s bed or bunk, this weapon is hung upon the wall that you may see it, and before you commit any burglary or assault, please, Mr. Burglar, hand me my gun.”
State v. Nieto, 101 Ohio St. 409, 430, 130 N.E. 663 (1920).

What goes on in an abortion clinic—the war against women

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J7YmrsY4KSY

Late term abortion clinic—but also an unsanitary shop of horrors. A process called “snipping,” was used by Dr. Gosnell. Scissors severed the spinal cord of the babies born alive—because he did late term abortions.  One woman in the film went back for 8 abortions. . . for that I don’t blame the doctor or the staff.  Abortions are lucrative—Gosnell became a millionaire.

“Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams called Gosnell's macabre medical clinic -- where agents found filthy and blood-stained patient rooms in addition to fetal body parts in glass jars and staff refrigerators -- a "house of horrors."”

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57572339-504083/dr-kermit-gosnell-abortion-doctor-set-to-go-to-trial-for-8-murders-in-philadelphia/

The last time this clinic had been inspected was 1993. Hair and nail salons have more supervision.  Why didn’t any of the women patients or staff say something and report Gosnell to the police?

State of the Union

And Blog

Friday family photo—Grandma in glasses

My grandmother began losing her eyesight as a child, and probably my father, the oldest of 9, was the only child she actually "saw," because eventually it was only light and dark, and then all darkness. The last decade of her life she wore dark, wrap around glasses to hide what we all knew--she had no eyes (nor taste or smell). Now I'm temporarily wearing very similar glasses to protect my new lens and the healing. I've been thinking a lot about her and what a wonderful inspiration she was to all who knew her love, kindness, sweet spirit, faith in Jesus, and service to others.

Republican politician Rob Portman flip flops on marriage because of his gay son

Many gay websites (Hillbuzz, for instance) and journalists have reported that Barack Obama is gay. So which is homophobic: hiding it, reporting it, covering it with symbolism and double meanings, or not reporting it at all?  The May 21, 2012 cover of New Yorker has a rainbow White House. The same month Newsweek's cover (Andrew Sullivan) also declared him the first gay president. Many, many people have supported gay friends and relatives without being declared gay by the media. The most recent being Rob Portman; but also Dick Cheney and former first Lady Laura Bush. So what's up with this?

Will they ever come to an agreement?