Plant yourself.

Connie, a friend from high school, posted this on Facebook about planting seeds in your own biodegradable urn. If you've ever visited an old cemetery with a lot of trees, you see nature has already taken care of this--just a little longer span of time.

In the United States, which contains 8 percent of the world's forests, there are more trees than there were 100 years ago. That's a lot of coming and going. Trees store CO2, produce oxygen, remove toxins from the air, and create habitat for animals, insects and more basic forms of life.

My high school class of MMHS 1957 has donated several trees to the town  campus to replace those that have died or been lost to storms, but even in Mt. Morris, there are far more trees than when the town was founded. The “reforestation” of the former Mt. Morris College campus effort was largely led by Lynne Fleming Wilburn and other local class members, who also tended our first tree in its very young years. (Source)

MMHS 1957 newest trees.

MMHS 1957 tree marker.

It’s a 2-fer for the left—attack free speech and religion

At this point, I doubt you can trust anything you hear or read about the crazy Mr. Dear who shot 9 people, none of them staff or clients at the Planned Parenthood Clinic. But that hasn't stopped all the leftist MSM, so I might as well take a stab. I've also heard his police record involves animal cruelty, domestic assault, smoking pot and being involved in bondage. Also he's never been a registered Republican, no sign of being a Christian, and his voter registration says his gender assignment may have failed. I haven't researched this carefully, as I don't have access to his records, but then neither do the New York Times or our Attorney General or PBS, and it hasn't stopped them.

There's no information at all on the shooter Dear's intelligence, state of mind, or what he said, and the media have already blamed Republicans for a "toxic" environment and no safe places for this man to go to not hear about dead babies. They don't blame hip hop for assaults against women, or Tarantino for gun violence, or the inflammatory speech from black lives matter for the cop he killed He’s some kook who lives in the woods and probably doesn't own a TV, but somehow is inflamed by rhetoric about killing the unborn. He shot nine people, none of them clinic workers or clients of Planned Parenthood. One report says he killed two in the parking lot then ran into the building.  If he was inflamed, he was also blind.

There was a family of 4 shot by a neighbor on the Hilltop of Columbus, Ohio last week. Hillary has not gone on national TV and the President has not said the dead boy could be his son. I’m guessing all these people are white, if you haven’t seen it on the national news. A man yesterday shot up and vandalized our most famous art center here in Columbus, then killed himself; no one has said he hated art or that it's terrible what toxic things are said about shocking edgy art displays because it inflames people.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/planned-parenthood-exec-blames-hateful-language-hateful-speech?

Stop setting goals and pushing sentimental posters

             

Nice thoughts, but really inaccurate with maudlin generalities. Setting goals is way over rated, and my favorite book is "Stop setting Goals." Many successful people watch TV; but they're even more successful if they produce, direct and act in TV shows.  I've always been a reader, and am a retired librarian--how many famous, rich librarians do you know--they don't even get appointed to be "librarian of Congress." Fearing change is a political statement--liberals fear some—like having a baby when not prepared, conservatives fear others like having liberals run the colleges. I'm a saver and investor, but have never gotten the hang of a budget. I don’t hold grudges, but I know extremely successful people who do. I like to talk about ideas, others like to share photos of grandchildren and pets.  Who is right and successful?

That said, I’m guessing a conservative, or right of center, person wrote it.

It seemed reasonable to remove Confederate flags, and then . . .

But the left eats its own.  Any appeasement just makes them more hungry.  The fragile students we’ve been laughing at on college campuses demanding “safe spaces” have become neo-fascists.

First, protests gradually grow more extreme. Venom is directed at fellow leftists who are deemed insufficiently radical.

In revolutionary France, wild-eyed Jacobins soon guillotined reformist Girondins, who were considered passe. During the Russian Revolution, extremist Bolsheviks marginalized liberal Mensheviks. In the 1960s, many members of the SDS and Black Panthers hated liberals who disapproved of their violence.

A group called the Black Justice League wants the name of liberal-but-bigoted President Woodrow Wilson removed from Princeton University.   [and the leaders are wealthy . . .]

Maximilien Robespierre, the spear point of the French Revolution, was an upper-middle-class lawyer. Russian revolutionaries Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were the sons of prosperous Russian families. Former 1960s terrorist bomber Bill Ayers was the scion of a wealthy corporate executive.
Read More At Investor's Business Daily:

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/112715-782779-victor-davis-hanson-as-they-have-throughout-history-the-extreme-left-directs-its-hatred-at-others-on-the-left.htm

Obama can say we’re not a Christian nation, but that’s not how ISIS understands who we are.

“Secularists rush to deny the religious aspect of the conflict with jihadists. Whenever possible they talk about “extremists” or “terrorists” and try to avoid the obvious conclusion that the Islamic terrorists are motivated by their religion. Likewise, when the victims are clearly Christian, and have been targeted for torture and death because of their faith in Christ the secular news media will spin the story and relegate the horrors to “ethnic conflict” or “tribal wars.”

The fact of the matter is that Islamic terrorists are targeting Christians in specific attacks. Furthermore, we may not regard the countries of Western Europe and North America as particularly “Christian” countries, but the Islamic terrorists of ISIS do. They speak enthusiastically about the coming war with “Rome”, which is their shorthand for what they perceive as the Christian powers of the West.”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/longenecker/are-we-witnessing-the-start-of-a-new-crusade/#ixzz3svE4MAO9

Decorating the tree for 2015

Bob put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. We love looking at the old, tired ornaments--like the one our daughter's first grade teacher made (can teachers do that today?) and the little wood guitar I bought for our son, the cute wood ornaments purchased from a disabled woman (Jodi) at the UA Labor Day art show in the 1970s, and the various mementoes from our travels. We probably bought this tree in 1993 or 1994 at our daughter's urging--and have certainly gotten our money's worth. I suggested we go to a small table size tree like my parents did in their later years, but he said an emphatic NO.

When we moved to Columbus in 1967, I remember I went to the hardware store in the little Tremont shopping center behind our apartment complex and bought a package of gold painted angels which we used for years.  They are still in the box of decorations, but we haven’t put them on for a few years—the tree is a bit crowded.  We also have some table decorations we can hang from our years in the FCC Couples Circle 50 now about 48 years old. Of that couples group, I think Bob is the only man still living. We have some little cloth birds made by my mother into which she tucked money for the children.  The tree scarf was made by my sister I think for Christmas 1976, and we use it every year.

Same tree, 2010.

Same tree, 2012, with our niece and nephew, Julie and Joe from Indianapolis.

Same tree 2006, different glasses.

Same tree, 2000, with Dad, his first Christmas without Mom since 1934.  He made the “grand tour” and visited his children in three cities.

Computer scams and hoaxes

The last several days I've been getting phone calls from people with accents and noise in the background telling me they want to help me with my "windows" problem, or my reported computer problem. Usually I just hang up, because callers sitting in booths reading from a script need to earn a living and move on to the next sucker. But I've played along for a few questions then I ask them why they are running this scam. I chastise and castigate them before hanging up. Feels good. The economy has been completely restored, we're told, so no one needs to be working jobs like this even in India.

Non-use of technology

Periodically, I do a “fast” of Facebook or Blogging.  I sign off.  But when I return, there’s just as much posting as before.  Maybe more.  It’s a bit like a diet.  I can do it for awhile. In the “old” days, people gave up watching TV.  I can see myself in most of these studies.  Read on.

Resistance, addiction, and identity

“There are a number of studies that have focused on cases of deliberate, even conspicuous, non-use, as in when people swear off e-mail during their vacation or give up Facebook for Lent. In these cases of deliberate refusal of a technology, one of the key traits of the individual is her or his ability to resist the temptation of using technology. Approaches that frame (social) media and technology use as addiction fall into this mold (e.g., Andreassen, et al., 2012; Stieger, et al., 2013).

In other cases, non-use may represent an individual’s attempt to regain (a sense of) self-control over their own technology use (e.g., Ames, 2013; Baumer, et al., 2013; Schoenebeck, 2014). In many of these cases, the discourse is one of control. Because the resulting non-use may be partial or negotiated, these kinds of studies tend not to frame “use” as a monolithic concept for which non-use is the binary opposite.

Moving beyond the individual, the voluntary non-use of technology may function as the production or performance of a particular sociocultural identity. For instance, abstention from Facebook becomes an act of performing a particular identity, one bound up with “conspicuous non-consumption” and a rejection of neoliberal values of commodification (Portwood-Stacer, 2013).

Non-use (and use) of the smartphone app Grindr also figures prominently in partners’ negotiations about the status of their own relationship (Brubaker, et al., 2014). In another example, the Christian period of Lent becomes, for some, an occasion to limit use of social media (Schoenebeck, 2014).”

I tried to resist and regain power over my life, but just now I posted on Facebook:

Donald Trump is such a jerk, and he's the perfect Trojan Horse (for those who haven't studied history, that is not a condom but a trick) that the Democrats will use to elect Hillary. This woman has committed more crimes than most people already incarcerated, and will complete what Obama has left unfinished.

Academe—we reap what we sow

“After 50 years of teaching at Harvard, I have never met a less courageous group of people than tenured faculty.” Alan Dershowitz.

“There’s clearly a double standard. Minority students, gay students, transgender students, Arab students generally have a greater leverage and a greater voice, and their grievances are taken far more seriously than the legitimate grievances of Jewish students, Zionist students, Christian students, conservative students.”

http://dailysignal.com/2015/11/20/these-are-tyrannical-students-what-a-former-harvard-professor-thinks-of-college-protests/

Donations for personal hygiene

We took about $50 of groceries to the Thanksgiving service at UALC on Thursday (nicest church service of the year with the best hymns).  But I kept aside a bag of personal care items I’ve been buying—shampoo, sanitary napkins, deodorant, bar soap, toothpaste, tooth brushes, liquid hand soap. These are for Tammy Jewell’s ministry, “God’s Hygiene Help Center,” which offers basic hygiene care to people who have lost their dignity because they simply can’t afford everyday items.  Some are for children, some for out of work men and women looking for jobs, some for the elderly and homeless.

Jewell is a former victim of human trafficking who came to know Jesus. Now she reaches out to addicts and trafficking victims.  When she shares Jesus, she also offers some small material aid.

From UALC.org Cornerstone, Nov. 22-26, 2015

A hoarder’s collection becomes art

We’ve all known a hoarder—and maybe there’s a little of that in all of us.  I don’t think of myself as a hoarder, yet I do have favorite “collections,” like small pieces of Hull Pottery, works by Ohio artists, kitty boxes (small) made of glass, ceramic, card board, etc., glass and crystal that belonged to my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, books I’ll never read but like to look at on the shelves, old photographs, and when we put up the tree yesterday, I could see decorations 40-50 years old. I even have three editions of old Encyclopedia Britannica, about 100 years old. And of course, my clothing “archive,” dresses or jackets I wore in the past to dances, weddings, Easter services, etc. The oldest is from winter dance 1955, if you don’t count the dolls and doll clothes which are from the 1940s. These dollies (mine) are sitting on my great grandmother’s chair next to my husband’s grandparents’ secretary. But is that hoarding or saving antiques? Ask my daughter after I’m gone and she has to dispose of it.

         

  

This daughter was ashamed of her mother’s hoarding, but eventually learned to turn it into art.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/a-mothers-hoarding-a-daughters-art/?

http://www.stephanielcalvert.com/resume/

          

The turkey monster

Our cat has always had "issues" about food--she was abandoned and homeless, then dropped at a rescue where the other cats terrified her, then she found us--for 18 years now. For 18 years she's believed she will be put on the street and must eat. Obviously, childhood memories don’t go away with lots of love.  Yesterday I cooked up the turkey carcass, but my SIL had done such a great job of cleaning it, there wasn't a lot left for casseroles or soup. So I chopped up the bits of skin, meat and fat after straining it thinking I'd dole it out to Lotza over the week-end. She demanded the whole thing! This morning she slept until 5 a.m. (instead of 3) in a turkey stupor. Now she's turning her nose up at the canned Friskies turkey. She's just staring at me, which if you've ever had a cat, you know the look.

Cats like to stir the water in their bowl, so her bowl is very heavy and says, “Dog.” When she would spill it on the marble, we couldn’t see it.

This is her favorite napping spot. . . my husbands’ legs.  Once she moves to our bed, she likes to sleep on my legs. She’s really not very large, maybe 6.5 lbs, so she a heat seeker.

Other turkey/cat stories:

This is humor.  http://www.catster.com/lifestyle/humor-cat-behavior-turkey-thanksgiving-tryptophan

Turkey is not toxic. https://www.facebook.com/notes/aspca/animal-poison-control-faq-turkey/455486574631

http://www.darwinspet.com/our-raw-foods/our-raw-cat-food/natural-selections-for-cat-turkey/

Three Word Wednesday for November 25

I must have been thinking turkey and pumpkin pie, because the 3WW day slipped right past me.  The clues this week are:

Habitual, adjective: done or doing constantly or as a habit, regular; usual.

Illustrious, adjective: well known, respected, and admired for past achievements.

Jumbled, verb: mix up in a confused or untidy way

and there is an event being reported on TV.

“Active shooter situation, Colorado Springs”
Norma J. Bruce
November 27, 2015

Several are injured, and the police are swarming.
Jumbled thoughts as family and friends agonize.
By-standers send in video and reports.
Waiting.  Waiting. A hostage is released! Then another!
These shootings seem to be habitual.
Except the victims and aggressors are different each time,
Illustrious of past events of which they were never a part
And could not ever imagine.

INCIDENTAL COMICS: Collecting My Thoughts

INCIDENTAL COMICS: Collecting My Thoughts

Thanksgiving 2015, Friday family photo

Isn’t this beautiful?  My husband has been taking guitar lessons for about a year, and his teacher, Dr. Smoot, wrote an arrangement for him and our son to play together.  So they were practicing in the living room and our daughter came in and looked in the piano bench for something in the same key.  I got all teary.  Had to eat another piece of candy.

It’s my recollection that I bought the piano in 1965 when I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois.  Which would make it 50 years old.  So I looked around and found a photo.

We had some great food, all prepared by my daughter, but she hasn’t sent the photos yet (she was having a contest with her sister in law in Colorado).  All I have are the pies.  For only 5 people, that’s a lot of pie. Hers are always very artistic.

Do you ever feel this way?

Special words

Liberté, égalité, fraternité and #blacklivesmatter

Although the media told us the recent events in Paris by Islamic jihadis were the worst since WWII, it was certainly not the worst religious violence in its history. Compared to what the French did to the Catholics, it was kids' play. In the French Revolution of the late 18th c., France was de-christianized, with thousands of citizens with ties to the church were murdered, imprisoned or deported. Churches, schools, nunneries, monasteries, schools, hospitals, etc. were violently destroyed. About 40,000 churches were destroyed and parishes left with no priest. The violence was at first against the throne with its ties to the Catholic church, then against everything Christian. Cries of Liberté, égalité, fraternité like the cries for "justice" and one group's lives mattering by our spoiled university students of today were meant only for a select few.

http://catholicexchange.com/a-new-look-at-the-french-revolution

http://www.wnd.com/2008/12/84742/

http://www.inthevendee.com/vendee-wars/vendee-wars.html

Ridiculous Black Friday stories

After we left our daughter’s home yesterday they were going to go out to buy . . . king size sheets.  One of the specials for Black Friday which started on Thursday. She should have been exhausted from her 2 days of cooking and planning, but there’s something about shopping that energizes some people.  Maybe I had that sort of energy in my 40s—and just don’t remember.

On Fox this morning I saw a story about 2 women who had shopped for “mini-sports” cars for their kids, and the containers for the toys wouldn’t fit into their cars.  So with the Fox reporter guarding their finds, they went off to find a rental car that would hold their treasures.

Now, think about it.  How much money can be saved if you need a rental car to haul home your treasures?

Students demand the President of Princeton stand up to bullies

Dear President Eisgruber,

We write on behalf of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition to request a meeting with you so that we may present our perspectives on the events of recent weeks. We are concerned mainly with the importance of preserving an intellectual culture in which all members of the Princeton community feel free to engage in civil discussion and to express their convictions without fear of being subjected to intimidation or abuse. Thanks to recent polls, surveys, and petitions, we have reason to believe that our concerns are shared by a majority of our fellow Princeton undergraduates.

http://100percentfedup.com/finally-fed-princeton-students-fight-back-black-lives-matter-terrorists-demands/#