Friday family photo—Aunt Martha’s quilts

I have two lovely quilts made by my grandmother's sister Martha Sanders who died in childbirth in 1889. No one in our family knew she had a granddaughter living in Dixon, IL, with many descendants. In 1999 my aunt Muriel noticed her obituary and the names of her parents and realized she was a cousin. She passed it on to me and I entered the names in the family database and corrected my copy of the family genealogy, The Jacob George Family of Adams County, Pennsylvania, (1998). Today my brother plans to meet with two of her daughters and hopefully find a good home for the quilts I've had for 40 years.

 http://memorypatterns.blogspot.com/2005/11/aunt-marthas-quilts-pt-2.html

http://memorypatterns.blogspot.com/2005/11/aunt-marthas-quilts.html

Presidential lies

LBJ:

• We were attacked (in the Gulf of Tonkin)

Nixon:

• I am not a crook

GHW Bush:

• Read my lips - No new taxes

Clinton:

• I did not have sex with that woman . . . Miss Lewinski

GW Bush:

• Iraq has weapons of mass destruction

Obama:

• I will have the most transparent administration in history.
• The stimulus will fund shovel-ready jobs.
• I am focused like a laser on creating jobs.
• The IRS is not targeting anyone.
• It was a spontaneous riot about a movie.
• If I had a son.
• I will put an end to the type of politics that "breeds division, conflict and cynicism.”
• You didn't build that!
• I will end the influence of lobbyists in Washington
• I will restore trust in Government.
• The Cambridge cops acted stupidly.
• No family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase.
• The public will have 5 days to look at every bill that lands on my desk.
• It's not my red line - it is the world's red line.
• Whistle blowers will be protected in my administration.
• We got back every dime we used to rescue the banks and auto companies, with interest.
• I am not spying on American citizens.
• ObamaCare will be good for America.
• You can keep your family doctor.
• Premiums will be lowered by $2500.
• If you like it, you can keep your current healthcare plan.
• It's just like shopping at Amazon.
• I knew nothing about "Fast and Furious" gunrunning to Mexican drug cartels.
• Claimed to be the post-racial candidate in 2008.
• I knew nothing about IRS targeting conservative groups.
• I knew nothing about what happened in Benghazi.
• I have never met my uncle from Kenya who is in the country illegally and that was arrested and told to leave the country over 20 years ago.
• And, I have never lived with that uncle. (He finally admitted  (12-05-2013) that he DID know his uncle and that he DID live with him.

What is happiness?

I heard an interview on happiness this morning.  He said there are four elements of happiness:  faith, family, friends/community, and work. He said women do a better job with cultivating and maintaining friendships than men--that 60% of men will say their wife is their best friend, and that's unfortunate (only 30% of women say husband is a best friend). The happiest people are conservative women; unhappiest are liberal men.

He said it is a myth that depression and unhappiness stalk us at Christmas--that is actually the happiest time for most people; the months of greatest depression are May-July (I think that's when women try on swim suits, but he didn't really give that as evidence--that's my own thinking). People are not happier when they are given things (like welfare) or win the lottery because work provides the satisfaction that leads to happiness.

It was the Bill Bennett show and I think he was interviewing Albert Brooks who recently had an article in the NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/a-formula-for-happiness.html?_r=1&

"Free enterprise gives the most people the best shot at earning their success and finding enduring happiness in their work. It creates more paths than any other system to use one’s abilities in creative and meaningful ways, from entrepreneurship to teaching to ministry to playing the French horn. This is hardly mere materialism, and it is much more than an economic alternative. Free enterprise is a moral imperative."

Robertson vs. Podesta

So Duck Dynasty’s Robertson is fired for stating what's in the Bible, but Podesta, an advisor to the President, gets to slander and vilify gay Republicans, senior citizen Republicans, Latino Republicans, Jewish Republicans, Black Republicans, and over half of all Americans? He called us a Jonestown cult. Why doesn't he get fired? He actually is part of the government from whom we are protected by our Constitution. A&E is just an "evil capitalist" who doesn't like the Bible. http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/12/18/podesta-gop-jonestown-cult/4109385/

Can't have anything tainted or smutty or outrageous on pure as the driven snow A&E cable TV. . . "the network that airs “Bates Motel,” the series “The Killer Speaks,” which interviews convicted felons, and “Psychic Tia,” and that has in the past aired “Growing Up Gotti,” “Criss Angel Mindfreak,” and “The Sopranos,” has deemed “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson unsuitable for its broadcast because of an interview answer where he paraphrased Corinthians 6:9–11. That’s where they draw the line! (Jim Geraghty, National Review Online) http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/366724/ae-finds-something-it-absolutely-cannot-tolerate-jim-geraghty

This morning, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal issued a statement in response to the news of Robertson’s suspension: “Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana,” Jindal said. “The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with. I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.”

Jindal will be in deep doo-doo now with liberals for a reference to a cultural icon like Miley Cyrus.

Purge with a passion

Here's a new book--but I'm not sure you want to give it as a Christmas gift--it might seem like a hint. Buy it for yourself and keep it on the coffee table. "Purge with passion; organizing principles from a Christian perspective," by Jodie Watson, WestBow Press, 2013. (ISBN 978-1-4497-9513-9, $17.95).  WestBow is a division of Thomas Nelson.

I'm not a hoarder, and I'm not swamped with clutter. . . but I do have "stuff." Stuff that's really important to me, that belonged to my great grandparents—tools and dishes, or my grandmother’s scrap books, or a Christmas dress sewn by my mother for a 1955 dance, or Mother’s Day plates my kids made for me 40 years ago, or books I'll never read, or my grandfather's 11th ed. of the Encyclopedia Britannica (also the 12th and 13th), or glass dishes from my childhood, or my wedding dress (also my sister’s, made by our mother), or my parents' bedroom set, and so on. See? Just the important stuff.

Watson, who is from England, has family in West Africa, and when she visited she saw they had so much less than those of us in "developed" countries, but seemed happier. This is so much more than a book about clutter. It's about being free to live your life for Christ when you lay down your burdens.

http://www.supremeorganization.com/wordpress1/Assets_Library/Media_Kit/2011_Media_Kit.pdf

Snowbama

Common Core—are you smarter than 4th grade math?

Government bureaucrats, from your local board up to Arne Duncan (Dept. of Education) will demean your concerns, calling parents the educational equivalent of racist or homophobe if they try to organize and express their concern. Time to stand up for your children.

Progressives on Social Security

There are so many holes in this testimony about Social Security it is hard to know where to poke. GW Bush wanted to reform SS by creating private accounts, but the "progressives" screamed.  It would have meant we actually owned and controlled and passed along our investment--taking it out of government hands, an anathema to the left.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/testimony/testimony-on-the-importance-of-social-security-for-sustaining-living-standards-in-retirement

Stop with the anti-Christmas meme!

Not once have I ever been stopped from saying “Merry Christmas.” Now, I have complained in the past that the Upper Arlington Public Library “holiday book list” doesn’t contain a single mention of Christmas; but there are churches that call their bazaars Holiday Frolic, and their concerts Festive Fun for All.  Why should I expect more from the library?

Hey, there are real Christians really being murdered for their real faith in other parts of the real world.  Areas and nations where they used to worship in safety, or a few hundred years ago, represented a major religion.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/christians-face-organised-persecution-from-islamists-in-middle-east-says-prince-charles-9012254.html

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/jihad-on-jesus-militants-firebomb-new-christ-statue-and-ancient-monastery-syria/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-james-clark/christianity-most-persecuted-religion_b_2402644.html

http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/persecution-of-christians-on-rise-in-u-s/

Distracted kids grow up to be distracted parents

"On October 1 (1990) the Wall Street Journal reported on the drop in literacy among school age children (Distractions of modern life)--even those whose mothers had spent hours reading to them as pre-schoolers. Children are too busy to read because of all their outside activities, no one converses with them, and they have developed two minute attention spans through TV and videos, concluded the article.

So that was 23 years ago, and those mothers who were too busy to read as children, now have smart phones, i-pods, i-tablets, e-books and they are posting on Face Book and Twitter and blogging, or tacking digital thingies on their Etsy page or Pinterest. They have children that hang out in groups with each child talking on the phone, but not to each other.

This doesn’t seem to be getting better.

Paula Priesse on the Messiah complex of Barbara Walters

“In one sentence Barbara Walters last night perfectly encapsulated the emotional immaturity of the liberal elite. When CNN’s Piers Morgan asked her why President Obama is “struggling,” a disappointed Walters responded: “We thought that he was going to be - I shouldn't say this at Christmastime, but - the next messiah.”

First of all, what’s up with this “we” business? She’s certainly not talking about all of us. If she means her media cohorts, at least Walters finally admits that they’ve been in the tank for Obama since day one.

Secondly, what possibly made Walters feel this way? Barack Obama was a one-term senator with not a single day of executive experience. Which makes one conclude that it was simply a matter of skin color. If so, Barbara’s cocktail buddies must be the most shallow and insipid individuals on the face of the earth.

Finally, and most importantly, anyone who thinks that any politician, left or right, will be America’s next “messiah” is mentally ill. The majority in this country, Ms. Walters, still believe that there is, and will forever be, only one true “Messiah.” “

Organizing for America’s silly ads

OFA has put out an ad with a dopey Millennial in his Onesie PJs drinking hot cocoa urging his age demographic to sit around and talk about health care.  So of course, people are ridiculing and revising it—to wait for the website to load.

This is sillier than the ads from the Colorado exchange which Democrats claim is not their fault nor tax supported because a non-profit designed them and they were meant to be “provocative.” Doh!

It’s almost as though someone on his own staff doesn’t like him

Eula Hall interview

Recently I received a notice of a new book about Eula Hall who has run a medical clinic in Kentucky since 1973, Mud Creek Medicine: The Life of Eula Hall and the Fight for Appalachia.  Upon checking, I found a 1988 interview for an oral history project, Appalachia Oral History Collection, Family and Gender in the Coal  Community Oral History Project.  I think you’ll enjoy it.

Interview with Eula Hall, June 14, 1988

"Whether it is the trailblazing, family feuds, coal miners' strife, moonshinin', or just folksy charm, the personal stories of individuals found in the hills of Appalachia often do rise to the heights of drama and intrigue, and reach to the depths of the American experience. Eula Hall's life is no exception. Eula's story is of a woman of remarkable strength, shaped by her community above all else. It is a story that should appeal to those with no connection to Appalachia, and to those who simply want to leave the world a better place than they found it. From a rugged mountain youth to hired girl to organizer, health care entrepreneur, and iconoclast, Eula's story echoes the story of America in the twentieth century, in all her rage and glory. She is the quintessential Appalachian-American poverty warrior combined with bucolic self-sufficiency, and she represents a dual ethos of community and individualism that is unique to the mountains.

"Eula, like so many quiet civic heroes, didn't do it for fame because, in her words, 'Fame ain't worth a damn'; didn't do it for accolades because 'We need action, not awards'; and sure as hell didn't do it for money because she's 'been rich without money since birth.' She fought on, and risked her life at times, as the sign outside the clinic reads: 'For the People.'" Pages: xvi – xvx Mud Creek Medicine

Butler Books, 2014.

More woes to come with Obamacare

The poorly named, “Affordable Care Act” is only going to get worse, reports an article in the Wall Street Journal on the 15th.

“More IT failures are likely. People looking for health plans on ObamaCare exchanges may be able to fill out their applications with more ease. But the far more complex back-office side of the website—where the information in their application is checked against government databases to determine the premium subsidies and prices they will be charged, and where the applications are forwarded to insurance companies—is still under construction. Be prepared for eligibility, coverage gap, billing, claims, insurer payment and patient information-protection debacles.”

“In the nearer term, a political iceberg looms next year [2014]. Insurance companies usually submit proposed pricing to regulators in the summer, and the open enrollment period begins in the fall for plans starting Jan. 1. Businesses of all sizes that currently provide health care will have to offer ObamaCare's expensive, mandated benefits, or drop their plans and—except the smallest firms—pay a fine. Tens of millions of Americans with employer-provided health plans risk paying more for less, and losing their policies and doctors to more restrictive networks. The administration is desperately trying to delay employer-plan problems beyond the 2014 election to avoid this shock.”

From a different WSJ article, Almost everyone loses

“. . . what ObamaCare means to the uninsured who were not uninsurable is higher prices for a product they already were disinclined to buy, along with a punitive tax on not buying it. That seems more like a mugging than a benefit.

How many of the uninsured lack insurance because of pre-existing conditions? It's hard to know, but it would appear the proportion is not high.”

“If ObamaCare's architects had approached the matter intelligently, they would have conducted research to identify the extent of that precise problem and carefully targeted their response. Government is quite capable of implementing even modest programs disastrously, but the hubris of demanding "comprehensive reform" gave us a law that had to be marketed via massive consumer fraud, and that harms almost everyone it affects.”

Oops. Obama supporters losing insurance

“Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it.” New York Times  In the past (before Obama) they were able to purchase health insurance with group rates through their associations—now they are thrown on to the pricey individual market.

“. . . under the Affordable Care Act, they will be treated as individuals, responsible for their own insurance policies. For many of them, that is likely to mean they will no longer have access to a wide network of doctors and a range of plans tailored to their needs. And many of them are finding that if they want to keep their premiums from rising, they will have to accept higher deductible and co-pay costs or inferior coverage.“

But of course, it’s all the Obstructionist Republicans who are to blame, just like the untrained, unvetted navigators is just a plot to defeat this.

Washington Post has listed the president’s “If you like your health care plan.. .” as one of the big whoppers of 2013. 

Abby Johnson is fruitful and a blessing to the oppressed, a savior for the unborn

At one time she helped women obtain abortions—she worked for Planned Parenthood.  She also had abortions and knows exactly the physical and psychological pain—and realizes how ignorant she was at that time.  Now a Christian, Abby Johnson works to prevent abortion, and has a special heart for abortion workers, encouraging them to leave their jobs and helping them find new careers.  An amazing lady. Today she announces a new blessing.

Genesis 1:28 says, "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.'"
Psalm 127:3 says, "Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him."

Doug and I feel incredibly blessed to announce that we are pregnant with Johnson baby #4!! We covet your prayers during this exciting time in our lives. Yes, we will "have our hands full," and we can't imagine it any other way.

“Conversion is always at the heart of the prolife movement.
Pray for conversion of abortion clinic workers, those who support abortion, women in crisis pregnancies who may consider abortion, abortion supporting clergy and religious, abortion supporting politicians, apathetic Christians and those in our own movement who seek to divide and destroy our common goal.”  Abby

So, some who read this page are being prayed for by Abby. . . and me.

Happy birthday Boston Tea Party, December 16

The Boston Tea Party was a nonviolent political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773. The Tea Party became an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it--got to love the language, "odious miscreants and detestable tools" "murder and destroy," "vile ingrates," committee for "Tarring and Feathering." Very detailed history of the event at this site.

http://williamdbailey.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/the-boston-tea-party/

Megyn Kelly and her critics—Santa Claus

I'm not sure what the dust up is about Megyn Kelly reporting that Santa Claus (St. Nicholas) was white. That one I know since today's 19th century caricature is based on a real Scandinavian. The cartoon version can be any ethnicity the parent wants. As for Jesus, who knows? And he's the reason for the season. Yesterday I read a very compelling story about a Syrian man who had fled to Turkey with his family and instead of his successful construction business, he was working in a sweat shop, and happy to get it. He had green eyes and very light skin. As do many Kurds and Berbers.

It's a puffed up argument in my opinion meant to detract and make us all look silly. Kelly's very successful and beautiful, and that makes all the other network talkers mad. No one knew who Aisha Harris was, but they do now after the race baiting, knee jerking men got done ridiculing Kelly. Really, it's embarrassing to even show this, and the level that networks go to (down): http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/12/16/megyn-kelly-addresses-white-santa-comments

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/

Catholics shoot themselves in the foot over politics

The only organization/agency large enough and powerful enough to face the power of the federal government is the Catholic Church, which Obama continues to denigrate and insult with his actions and policies, the latest being closing the Vatican embassy, but including the dreadful HHS mandate, using lackey Catholics in his administration and announcing embryo experimentation at a Catholic institution. Why Catholics continue to put their politics above their church baffles me.

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/president-obamas-faithful-helpers?

“In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, [Raymond] Flynn said “it’s not just those who bomb churches and kill Catholics in the Middle East who are our antagonists but it’s also those who restrict our religious freedoms and want to close down our embassy to the Holy See. There’s no diplomatic or political benefit to the United States.”

“This latest insult to Catholics by President Obama is just the most recent attempt to weaken the influence of the Church on family and life issues. It is a strategy that has been effective for the President since the earliest days of his presidential campaign when he enlisted the help of progressive Catholic groups like the George Soros-supported Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and its sister-organization, Catholics United, to successfully convince Catholic voters to focus on social justice issues like poverty as the way to reduce abortion rates without restricting abortion rights. Refusing to hold politicians like President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius accountable for their votes in favor of partial birth abortion and taxpayer funded abortion here and abroad, the Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United encouraged Catholics to elect candidates who would address what they called the “root causes” of abortion.”