Don’t worry. . .

Are the campus cry babies and ISIS volunteers just Hunger Games babies?

“The world of the Hunger Games is a commentary on our own. The world in which we live is one in which our greatest goal is comfort, yet their [sic] are children dying in our streets from starvation. This is not just far away, it is right in our own country. This is just one talking point for Christians and the Hunger Games: what is it that we should be doing to curb our own “capitol”-like tendencies?”

Really?  Children dying in our country’s streets from starvation? When our 123 wealth transfer programs amount to $22,000 per person? When the average “poor” family in the US has HDTV, cell phones, regular manicures and over 30% have more than one car?
I’ve read the reviews of the books and movies.  I understand it’s science fiction, but I also understand that this is mind manipulation of children.

http://jwwartick.com/2012/03/25/hunger-games-movie/
https://www.reviveourhearts.com/true-woman/blog/a-parents-guide-to-the-hunger-games/

The Hunger Games movies have always been predicated on an emphatic and high-minded moral: War and death should never be a game. And it instructs that even when wounds from such dire dealings aren't visible, they sometimes never completely heal.

That kind of serious structure makes these movies hard to watch, none more so than this grand finale. Many people wondered how the final half of Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay book could possibly snag a PG-13 rating given its kill quotient. And it is truly a harsh experience—one that could really upset and even scar some moviegoers, particularly younger ones. I can't stress that enough … but even in the midst of such horror, this movie gives us hope.

When Katniss and what's left of her team take a breather under the streets of the Capitol—a metaphorical underworld, perhaps, bedecked with demons—the Mockingjay is overwhelmed by the horror of it all. She blames herself for the growing casualty count: "Everyone's dead because of me," she says.

But Peeta reminds her that those who died in the tunnels, they died as free men and women—unlike those who died in the games.

"All those deaths?" Peeta says. "They mean something. … They chose this. They chose you."

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 is no more a nice movie than Katniss is a nice person. But it is a courageous movie, just as Katniss is courageous. And it cares about a cause, just as she does.
http://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/hunger-games-mockingjay-part-2

Collective bargaining for teachers result in poor student outcomes

“Laws requiring school districts to engage in collective bargaining with teachers unions lead students to be less successful in the labor market in adulthood. Students who spent all 12 years of grade school in a state with a duty-to-bargain law earned an average of $795 less per year and worked half an hour less per week as adults than students who were not exposed to collective-bargaining laws. They are 0.9 percentage points less likely to be employed and 0.8 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force. And those with jobs tend to work in lower-skilled occupations.”

http://educationnext.org/bad-bargain-teacher-collective-bargaining-employment-earnings/

The new ten dollar bill

Here’s a history of how it’s changed over the years.  We know that this change will be political and that a woman will be chosen, even if she is unknown, unworthy, and undeserving.  It’s time; just like for the Democrat nominee.
https://thenew10.treasury.gov/history/history-10-note
Alexander Hamilton’s face has been on the $10 bill since 1929.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alexander-hamilton-woman-10-dollar-bill_55a6891fe4b0c5f0322bfcb6
http://www.businessinsider.com/hamilton-to-stay-on-10-bill-says-lew-2015-7
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-treasury-is-changing-the-10-dollar-bill-instead-of-the-20-2015-6

Already?

I was talking to my brother in northern Illinois yesterday when he mentioned the snow and predicted chill factor.  I hadn’t been watching the weather report, so I thought he was kidding.  No.  Snow is early this year, especially in South Dakota.

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2015/11/20/sioux-falls-snow-weather-forecast-south-dakota/76094970/

Fourteen inches of snow were reported in the southwest quadrant of the city by Friday evening, the National Weather Service office said. On the other side of town, Sioux Falls Regional Airport recorded 7.1 inches by 6 p.m.

The numbers shattered the previous snowfall record for Nov. 20, which was measured at 3.8 inches in 1975.

Other parts of southeast South Dakota had a variety of snowfall levels. In Harrisburg, one area measured a whopping 17 inches of snow, while Huron did not see a single flake, said National Weather Service meteorologist Kyle Weisser.

Snow totals for Friday

Tea –18 inches

Southeast of Harrisburg – 17 inches

Southwest Sioux Falls - 14 inches

Tyndall – 11 inches

Yankton – 8 inches

Salem – 5 inches

Chamberlain – 4 inches

Dell Rapids – 2 inches

Madison – 1.2 inches

Flandreau – 0.3 inches

A solution to the book overflow?

Most of the books designated for give away have at least left the garage counter (one bag is still in the car, one box is on the porch of our summer cottage, and 2 titles snuck back into the house).

A special Thanksgiving menu from November 22, 2007

               

Today is my wonderful daughter’s birthday—she has been such a blessing.  I can get teary remembering the first time I laid eyes on her—and her face really hasn’t changed that much, but she did grow into her long eye lashes.  Last night I came across this “Thursday Thirteen” which listed the 13 items she’d prepared for our Thanksgiving dinner in 2007, so I decided it was worth a delicious rerun.

“It's all about being thankful--for family, friends, country and milestones passed. So yesterday after church we drove along the river and past some woods to my daughter's home for her 40th birthday and our Thanksgiving celebration. I asked several times and offered to bring something, but she wanted to do it all, and she really did. All I did was dry the dishes after dinner.

Here's the fabulous meal that awaited us--and we're going back today for leftovers! Everything was sugar-free, and most dishes were low-fat until we got to dessert. She used her lovely Lenox wedding china and crystal and seasonal decorations.

1. A 24 lb turkey roasted to perfection--I've never seen a prettier golden brown.

2. A spiral sliced honey baked ham.

3. Cubed and roasted butternut squash, the best I've ever tasted.

4. Fresh, buttered beets.

5. Homemade, chunky applesauce.

6. Wild rice and mushroom stuffing (I think I saw one of her Martha cookbooks on the counter).

7. Sausage/corn stuffing (with a side portion without corn for my husband who hates corn)

8. cranberry relish, home made

9. Veggie platters of 4 colors of bell peppers, grape tomatoes, pickles, celery

10. hot clover leaf rolls

11. Mashed potatoes and gravy

12. red wine (2 choices), coffee

13. 2 deep dish homemade pies (apple and cherry) and one pumpkin pie, with crusts so tender and flakey she's getting very close to my mother's standard, served either with Cool Whip or vanilla ice cream.”

We’ll be going to her house this coming Thursday; I can’t wait to see what special things she’s prepared for her family.

Black, female professor is under fire from transgender students

Must be both sexist and racist in addition to anti-Christian bigotry.  I can’t tell which direction the student is going based on the photograph.

Carol Miller Swain is an American political scientist, professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, and television host. She is the author or editor of six books. Wikipedia

https://www.outandaboutnashville.com/story/vandy-trans-student-we-are-allowing-culture#.Vk-_efmrRbW

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/19/black-christian-conservative-vanderbilt-professor-carol-swain-says-facebook-blocked-account-calls-religious-discrimination/

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/20/facebook-restores-carol-swain-account-breitbart-exposes-block/

So conservative Christians are being blocked on social media.  This is the kind of hatred that has turned “progressives” into fascists.

Yes, m’am, women are interested in different things

Yesterday some guy from Apple (I’ve never heard of) got himself into deep do-do by commenting on how women search for music differently than men.  Now he’s been forced to walk it back and apologize!  (It actually made sense to me, having been a young girl thinking about boys at one time.)  Apparently, this angel investor, Christina Brodbeck, co-founder of YouTube which made her fabulously wealthy when she and the other two sold it to Google for for $1.65 billion in stock in 2006, also chooses at least some of her investments based on relationships and “things that interest” her. Really, do you think a guy  (she does have a male co-investor) would have come up with Icebreak, which helps couples increase understanding, excitement, and connection in their relationships.

“Christina was on the founding team of YouTube, the company's first UI Designer, and then later went on to lead design for the company's mobile efforts.

Before that, she worked at NASA Ames, MRL Ventures, and Keynote Systems. She's a proud Chicagoland native and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds a master's in Instructional Technologies and Multimedia Design, and is passionate about building technology that makes people happy and improves their everyday lives.

Christina lives in San Francisco.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV2nxO0y78E

Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren, Winona Lake, Indiana: Panoramic Photograph, 1913

I don’t have a scan of the photo, but I would be able to see it if I went to Manchester University (formerly Manchester College) in North Manchester, Indiana at the Funderberg Library college archives.  I only note this because I think the archivist was very clever in finding a method to preserve it—a hot humid day.

“Many panoramic and oversized photographs were rolled up and stacked on a metal shelf in the photograph section of the Archives.  These pictures had become dry and were impossible to unroll.  The Archivist took the photographs outside on an extremely humid and hot summer day.  In about 30 minutes the photographs had relaxed enough to unroll and were brought back into the Library and pressed under books, using archival photo file folders as blotters between pictures.”

I think I remember my mother telling me about attending Annual Conference at Winona Lake, and at one time I had a post card of the facility. I may have even scanned it for the blog since it had been addressed to my mother, but after 13 years of blogging, and many tagging systems, I doubt I can find it [after checking I found a mention in a 2006 blog, and noted in 2005 that the Winona Lake post card was from her brother Clare]. 

There must be dozens of rolled up panoramic photos in attics and store rooms—perhaps they could be left in the bathroom with the hot shower left on.

I have a panoramic photo of the Tennessee Reunion, but I don’t believe it was rolled. Very difficult to store or frame.

He’s drowning us in watered down values

“No commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces can be wholly irrelevant, but to the extent one can be, Mr. Obama is,” writes Peggy Noonan. “After the attacks Mr. Obama went on TV, apparently to comfort us and remind us it’s OK, he’s in charge. He prattled on about violence being at odds with ‘universal values.’ He proceeded as if unaware that there are no actually universal values, that right now the values of the West and radical Islam are clashing, violently, and we have to face it.” “ Quoted in Wall Street Journal, Nov. 20, 2015

Using “thou” instead of “it”

“This week’s practice [poetry] exercises included some fun options. Wooldridge suggested changing our perspective by referring to an object as “thou” instead of “it,” and asking questions of it.”

The shoe box of VHS tapes
By Norma J. Bruce
November 20, 2015

I’ve made an inquiry.
Thou who wait
Imprisoned in the dark
And dust,
Sitting in an old box, a cell size 8 medium
Longing for the glory days
When thou did entertain and
Enlighten.
Alas, the VHS player has been loaned
To a homeschooling Mom
Who knows not thy desire.

Do you ever read poetry?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srt2j6iVhsM

Christina Rosetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Three word Wednesday, post Paris poem

The words to use this week are not difficult to use as looking back to Friday the 13th and the events in Paris:

Enigmatic, adjective: difficult to interpret or understand; mysterious.
Faulty, adjective: working badly or unreliably because of imperfections, (of reasoning and other mental processes) mistaken or misleading because of flaws, having or displaying weaknesses.
Grovel, verb: lie or move abjectly on the ground with one's face downward, act in an obsequious manner in order to obtain someone's forgiveness or favor.

Paris and Beirut, November 2015

We will not grovel
or  submit to your evil
hateful attacks and
beliefs enigmatic
tools in the hands of  leaders’
faulty interpretations.

And speaking of enigmatic and faulty, what a perfect description of our President.  Not only can he not interpret the Quran, he's completely ignorant of what the Bible says.

Links

Why legal abortion is the main cause of family breakdown

http://eppc.org/publications/social-and-economic-costs-of-legal-abortion/

The author writes: Fifteen years ago I published a paper on the “Socioeconomic Costs of Roe v. Wade.”  In it, I estimated the impact of legal abortion in reducing the U.S. population (about 20% so far) and concluded, “taken in its entirety, legal abortion is perhaps the single largest American economic event of the past century, more significant than the Great Depression or the Second World War.”[6]

• legal abortion is single-handedly responsible for the prospective deficits in the pay-as-you-go social security retirement system,[7] and
• suggests that legal abortion was also directly responsible for the 1970s and 1980s rise in crime rates.[8]

ISIS has grown 4,400% under Obama!

“CIA Director John Brennan talked about his thoughts on the Paris attacks, ISIS and the possibility of terrorism on U.S. soil Monday.

In a previously arranged appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, Brennan said it is likely that ISIS has other attacks planned.”

“I don’t think we are underestimating at all the capabilities of ISIL. Its growth over the last several years in particular – but as you know, that it had its roots in al-Qaida in Iraq. It was, you know, pretty much decimated when U.S. forces were there in Iraq. It had maybe 700-or-so adherents left. And then it grew quite a bit in the last several years, when it split then from al-Qaida in Syria, and set up its own organization.”

http://time.com/4114870/paris-attacks-cia-john-brennan/

Watch the graphic on how the Islamic State attacked

The wars were over before Obama took office, but obviously the countries were not secure.  But he had to do the pull out of troops to satisfy his handlers, and ISIS, the JV team,  filled the vacuum.  He created this mess, and claims “containment” is working. Tell that to the grieving families in Beirut and Kenya and Paris.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/islamic-state-attacks/

August 5, 2014

July 12, 2015

The size of circles corresponds to the number of noncombatant casualties in attacks. Data for attacks by Boko Haram is unavailable before July 1.

“Kiss the devil” was being sung

The band was seven songs into a sold-out concert  at the 19th-century Le Bataclan theater in Paris when its performance of “Kiss the Devil” was interrupted by gunfire. Band members escaped through a backstage exit, but their fans were picked off one by one.  On Saturday the band cancelled the remaining 20 dates on the European tour.  For many, the rest of their lives were cancelled.

“Kiss The Devil” – by Eagles Of Death Metal

Who’ll love the Devil?
Who’ll song his song?
Who will love the Devil and his song?

I’ll love the Devil
I’ll sing his song
I will love the Devil and his song

Who’ll love the Devil?
Who’ll kiss his tongue?
Who will kiss the Devil on his tongue?

I’ll love the Devil
I’ll kiss his tongue
I will kiss the Devil on his tongue

As the French death metal fans were singing along with those lyrics, offering their love to Satan, the Devil responded.

Remember this? The compassionate Obama?

http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/obama-refuses-to-allow-yazidi-christians-fleeing-isis-to-enter-united-states/

And he has the gall, and the snark, to say “this isn’t who we are” (to turn down Syrian Muslims, unvetted young men, who could be members of ISIS and sitting in the Trojan horse).

Advent and Christmas Schedule, 2015, UALC