The referendum, fair of course, in Ukraine

Putin says they have voted to be Russians--the Ukrainian territories of Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Yes, we know how those middle of the night boxes arrive mysteriously full of votes. Of course, when it happens on the other side of the world instead of 8 critical swing states, the Democrats do get smart and will cry foul.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/30/europe/putin-russia-ukraine-annexation-intl/index.html

Think before you vote--it's still taking a life no matter what Democrats call it

If you live in a state that is going for a constitutional amendment for abortion (like Michigan) think before you vote. Especially if you are pro-choice. The amendment goes much further than Roe, and that's one of the slogans--return to Roe. That's a lie. It removes your parental rights, it forces you to pay for them, it removes your right to conscience protection if you are a health worker, and in the extreme since it could allow a 14 year old to decide to abort, it could remove her protection of current age of consent laws. If she can decide abortion, why not sex with an adult man? Liberals/progressives, Democrats, humanists just lie about important issues. I don't know why, but you always need to dig down deep for the truth. They also play with words. On the ballot, it will not be clear in most cases. Investigate before you vote. It's abortion anytime, anyplace, any reason. That could mean no regulation of clinics, or it could mean sucking out the brain the day before the due date. Although on that last one, if it's legal, I suppose the baby doesn't need to be dead before delivery to avoid homicide charges.

"Calling it a “hodgepodge of nonsensical gibberish” and a “word salad” of “incomprehensible argle-bargle,” opponents of the measure say it is so riddled with typographical errors that state officials should strike it from the Nov. 8 ballot.

“The text of the amendment is filled with run-on words that are incomprehensible, making an already confusing amendment impossible to understand,” Christen Pollo, spokeswoman for Citizens to Support MI Women and Children, a coalition of pro-life groups opposed to the proposal, said Aug. 16.

“Amending the constitution is serious business” she added, “and these people didn’t take it seriously enough even to proofread their own language.”" Oops! Typo-filled Michigan abortion amendment could have used a proofreader | Catholic News Agency

For those poorly catechized Christians who believe the liberals' lie that Jesus didn't address abortion, a common event in first century middle east, keep in mind what both the OT and NT says about taking care of the poor, weak and hungry. You can't find a better definition of a pre-birth baby.

October by Robert Frost

Since it's October 1, I thought I'd post the October poem by Robert Frost, but some critic spoiled my plan by reminding the reader that Frost was writing about death. It's the crows. When poets write about crows, says the critic, that tells you death is coming. But critics know that, and I didn't.

Poetry Analysis: October, by Robert Frost | The Literary Dragon

So let's just go with face value of the poem. The rows of maples on Henderson and McCoy have just a touch of gold this morning. Always sad to see since we know what coming, but thankful for the beauty.

"Taken at face value, this poem speaks, with a simple elegance, of the unique beauty of a crisp October morning. With an attention to detail that is characteristic of Frost, the poem carefully lays out the scene: just a quiet morning in early October. The air is silent, “hushed” even, but for the distant sound of crows. Multicolored leaves paint the ground in bright colors-red and gold and brown. A simple scene, rendered instantly familiar to any New Englander. Who would think to look any further?"

I checked my blog, and I've written 3 other posts about Robert Frost. I’m old enough to have actually attended a poetry reading by Robert Frost, one of the 20th century’s most famous and favorite poets, when I was a student at the University of Illinois. (He died in 1963.) My date that night was someone I'd met at Chinese Student Club, and I'm not sure if he understood anything, but he was polite and listened carefully. My roommate Dora Lee was Chinese (her family escaped from Communist China) which is why I attended Chinese Student Club.

The poem ends with grapes.  Isn't that nice?   A symbol for communion for Christians, although I doubt Frost of thinking in that direction.

Serendipity trivia:  While I was looking for a photo of Frost at the U. of I. on the internet, I took my 1959 Illio (yearbook) off the shelf.  It didn't have a good table of contents or index for special events so I started leafing through it.  I saw a photo of students at the first football game packed in like sardines, and there were two women from my house, McKinley Hall, Sandra McArthur and Mary Jo Brodd.  I also attended that game (got sick which is why I remember), so I studied it pretty carefully to see if we might have had a block of tickets, but I didn't see me.

The farm on Daysville Road

 In May we sold our summer home in Lakeside, Ohio, after owning it for 34 years. Part of the sale contract was we would stay until Labor Day, so we did get to enjoy one last summer. That's just a little longer than we owned our home on Abington Road where we raised our family. We bought it in 1988 and I still was suffering from a bad case of "empty nest." I remember how much fun it was to decorate it--we were starting from scratch because everything needed to be refreshed, remodeled, or replaced. In May 1989 Bob and his friend Ron changed the paint color from white to mauve, which it remained through summer 2022, our last year.  Some knick knacks and mementos made the trip from Columbus to Lake Erie, although I didn't want it to look like our home in Columbus.  I shopped in Sandusky for things like sheets and towels, and I believe the wall paper (all the rage then) in cream, mauve, rose and blue, came from a Columbus store. 

One of my own paintings seem to fit the theme of the master bedroom--sort of rural and folksy with maple furniture from the 1940s, so it made the trip to the summer home and stayed for 34 years.  This is an acrylic painting I'd done around 1978 from a photo I'd taken in around 1974 of the field of soybeans and neighboring farm at my mother's family farm near Franklin Grove.  I believe at the time I was told that was the --------- place, and it may have even been a distant relative, but I've forgotten the name. If I had the Lee County History book, I could perhaps look it up.  

I doubt that I painted the buildings accurately because it was the sky, particularly the clouds, that caught my eye that hot day. The sun was high in the sky and the fluffy clouds created a shadow on the fields.  The farm land in that part of Lee County is very flat, so when you're outside, you have a feeling that it's all sky--maybe like Montana which is called "big sky." A story that was told to me, I think by my father, is that this area was all marsh in the 1800s when the white settlers arrived. It was near Inlet Swamp.  I'd heard from my grandmother that her father had tiled the land to drain the water. He got the land very cheap, maybe $1.00 an acre because it was swampy and wet--considered worthless for farming.  If I could see what's west of that farm on Daysville Road in the painting I think it would be Old Mill Road and Franklin Creek Park.  

 So this painting hung in the Lakeside house for 34 years, and is now in the bathroom off my office.

Joe and Kamala--not a good week

Joe honored a woman in the room who was dead and Kamala said the U.S. was in an alliance with North Korea.

I don't blame them, I blame the Democrats for electing them. They knew exactly what they were getting--a confused old man past his prime (if he had one--he had a 45 year record as a gaffe machine and plagiarist) and a woman chosen for her race who actually called Biden a racist during the 2020 campaign! Now how dumb can the voters be!

And then his Spox Karine Jean-Pierre tried to cover for him when even the usually cover-up press corps brought it up. All she needed to say was, "He misspoke," and although it would have been a lie, it would have been over.  She just went on and on with her fable.

Vice President Kamala Harris commends US alliance with 'Republic of North Korea' in DMZ speech gaffe | Fox News

Watch: Joe Biden Searches Room for Deceased Congresswoman in Incredibly Awkward Moment – RedState

Transgenderism goes mainstream

Does anyone remember maybe 40-50 years ago Billy Graham was vilified by the Leftists for suggesting that rapists might be castrated to stop their attacks on women and boys? He apologized. Now we have everyone from university medical schools, to the AMA to the President of the United States claiming it's OK either through surgery or hormone blockers to castrate boys who fantasize about wearing dresses and attracting men. Yes, even adolescents or younger, no counseling, just confusion or a fantasy. And some of the parents go along to get along. My, how things change in the Halls of Ivy.

 
And we get to participate in this new form of child abuse by funding it with our tax dollars. We've got a clinic right here on the Ohio State campus (and all the other public university campuses like Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati). An abusers' "heaven." Only they dress it up (no pun) a little and call it, Transgender Heaven. Look it up, I'm not kidding.

Rare earth minerals

Having sold off so much of the US strategic critical mineral reserves, the US now depends on China for rare earth minerals, which are crucial for everything in the US military from F-35 fighter jets, missiles, and tanks to mobile phones and radio communication.

The rare earths dependency on China stems in part from the fact that extracting rare earth minerals is an extremely polluting process that China has been willing to undertake, while most other countries have not, including the US, which ironically prides itself on having strict environmental regulations in place."

How the US Squandered Its Strategic Minerals :: Gatestone Institute

Compare and contrast the response to Katrina and Ian

Let's review some history of the media and Democrat party (redundant). Remember Katrina? In 2005 New Orleans was devastated. It had a black Democrat mayor responsible for the local evacuation and safety. Louisiana had a female Democrat governor who should have had the rest of the state ready to respond as well as her neighbors. Who did the press blame? President Bush. Why? Because he flew over and looked at the devastation and didn't parachute into the eye of the storm. Makes sense right?

 
Let's contrast to Ian, the storm currently devastating Florida. Some in the mainstream media (not all are so stupid) can't blame Biden so they want to discuss "climate change" which they confuse with weather. That way they can continue to back Biden's inflationary plans for the green new deal (IRA) instead of fighting highest inflation in 50 years, shortages of fuel which could leave Europe freezing this winter, and chaos at our southern border with the sex and drug trafficking.

 
Because DeSantis was better at controlling Florida's economy while the rest of the nation locked down and shuddered at the latest pronouncement of Fauci and CDC (many of which have been proven wrong) the left has temporarily postponed their attacks on Trump (J-6 clown show was set aside) and moved on to DeSantis, like the ugly ladies of the View, the MSM talking heads and the Soros backed twitter bots.

Oh yes, and President Bush was called racist during rescue efforts during Katrina, because many died in the poor, black neighborhoods of NOLA. Four years later when all the data were examined, it turned out that NOLA with 65% black population showed 51% of the dead from all storm related causes were blacks, and it was the elderly that were most vulnerable. That should have been the take away from that disaster. It could have been applied to the pandemic, along with centuries of experience. But no. For holding on to power, Biden needed to control the whole nation, and particularly shut down the churches while leaving bars and tattoo parlors open. Governors (like ours in Ohio, a Republican) followed meekly, trusting one science, but not another. Mayors of blue cities allowed crowds for rioting but not open churches because George Floyd was a good cause (for BLM).

 
In NOLA during Katrina and aftermath many of the elderly died when the power was out. In Florida, I heard on an interview yesterday, all nursing home and retirement facilities have 100% secondary back up for power. (Those fleeing in electric cars were just out of luck.)

Hurricane Katrina Deaths, Louisiana, 2005 | Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness | Cambridge Core

Are you a classicist?

A Pelosi staffer (an intern) interrupted Victor Davis Hanson in a luncheon presentation for government staffers accusing him of being a classicist. Puzzled, VDH questioned what he meant. He said that because he was a classicist he was oppressing the poor and working classes. When VDH calmly explained that a classicist was a scholar who studied ancient languages, literature and history of Greece and Rome his attacker stormed out, grabbing several boxes of pizza as he left. And that my friends is what goes on in the bubble we call D.C. (VDH show on Sept. 27, podcast)

Joe Biden just doesn't care

Joe Biden doesn't care about those who worked and paid their own costs for college--tuition, fees, transportation, housing, meals, and social life for four or five years, more if they went to graduate school.

Joe Biden doesn't care about those who applied for loans and grants and graduated with debts they paid off just as they had agreed to do.

Joe Biden doesn't care about those who were promised more than could be delivered, who left college with debt that plagued them for many years. Like the appliance repairman who was here a few days ago who left college with $40,000 debt and a job that didn't pay as well as he had before he enrolled.

Joe Biden doesn't care about those who finished high school with a degree or GED and went on to build a successful life and never went to college or accumulated no debt for their training on the job.

Joe Biden doesn't care that each U.S. household since he's moved in part time at the White House has lost about $4600 a year due to inflation.

Joe Biden doesn't care that he's adding $4 Billion (CBO figure) to that 8.5% inflation to illegally forgive student debt which will affect the middle income much more than the lawyers and doctors who can now spend more without their student debt.

Joe Biden doesn't care that he's given the green light to academic administrators to raise their tuition and fees even more.

What Joe Biden really cares about is the votes he's buying for the November election to keep the Democrats in power to spend, lie and steal.

Inflation costing Americans an extra $460 per month: analysis (nypost.com)

2022-09-27-garrison-v-us-dept-of-education-complaint.pdf (pacificlegal.org)

St. Lorenzo Ruiz Feast Day

 One of the advantages of using a Catholic publication (Magnificat) for my morning meditation time is the history and fine art that I learn.  As a protestant, my exposure to Christian history, after the death of the disciple John, was whatever happened after 1708 (Church of the Brethren) or later when we joined Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, the dispersion and scattering of Christians into thousands of denominations after Martin Luther (German) and John Calvin (French) in the 16th century. 

On the Catholic calendar today is the feast day of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint, and he was born around 1600 and canonized by John Paul II in 1987.  Although some U.S. Christians deny that Christians today are martyred or persecuted for their faith (the largest number by Communists), that's not what the statistics show.  Just because we have the First Amendment to our Constitution in the U.S. and do not feel personally persecuted doesn't mean it isn't happening in Asia and Africa where the growth is the strongest. 

"[He] and his 15 companion martyrs, all members and associates of the Dominican Order, were slain in Japan between 1633 and 1637.  Persecutions stemmed from a 1603 edict by the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu banning Christianity.  From 1623, suspected Christians were forced to tread on images of Mary and Jesus. Those who refused were executed.  The tortures from his period were designed to force the victims to renounce their Faith.  Some Christians did apostasize.  The men and women honored today spent their last excruciating hours with their hearts raised in prayer and hymns of praise." (Magnificat, vol. 24, no. 7, p. 388-389).  

So of course, I had to turn to the internet for more information since my personal library is not much help. His death is just too gruesome to repeat, I don't even recommend that you look it up, but I was struck by the fact he was sort of an accidental martyr.  Although a devout Christian, he really hadn't intended to be a missionary to the Japanese, and got there by accident fleeing his homeland on a homicide charge. He arrived in the middle of a terrible persecution, but his faith and early training held up and endured the most terrible torture. 

Because this group of Christians who were killed in the 17th century were in Nagasaki, one of the bombed cities at the end of WWII, I continued looking through historical material on the internet.  I found out a remnant of the Christians survived, and even had a thriving community in the 1940s.  That area of Nagasaki where they lived was at the center of the destruction and was destroyed.  One Christian survivor of the A-bomb  believes "the war ended because of our sacrifice.” https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2015/10/08/nagasakis-hidden-christians-survive-persecution-and-the-atomic-bomb/

Christian Persecution in the 21st Century - Good News Christian NewsGood News Christian News (goodnewsfl.org)

Compare the media treatment of Trump and Biden

Let's do a dose of "whataboutism."

Remember how hysterical the media Democrats (redundant) were about the Charlottesville attack with a car during a protest about removing a statue from a city park 4 years ago? Remember who they blamed? That's right. President Trump, who had nothing to do with it, and had said nothing violent or "fascist" about the local dispute. They condemned him as a racist for NOT condemning the perp strongly enough, even though at the time there was no motive, no information on the killing. They blasted that all over the news for months. Now compare that to the crickets from the Left and Joe Biden's handlers in the recent death of teen-ager Cayler Ellingson, 18, who was killed on Sunday in North Dakota after 41-year-old Shannon Brandt ran over him with his car deliberately following a political dispute. Brandt claims Ellingson is (was) a right wing, Republican terrorist, using the words of Biden, Clinton, and other Democrats hyperinflated with their own power. Brandt not only hasn't been condemned for following the suggests of Biden in how to deal with right wing opponents even if they've never done anything, he's walking free on low bond. Meanwhile, parents are terrorized by the government for speaking out at school board meetings, and the FBI is sent to arrest a pro-lifer in Florida whom they claim "pushed" a pro-abortion agitator. Well, Brandt "pushed" an opponent with his car, and killed him. And that guy goes free.

Democrats, especially the media, have no standards, no foundation in goodness, and no idea of truth and justice. They are all talk and they redefine the words to fit their narrative--it's not justice, it's JUST US. Whether it is about the value of life (willing to abort babies and sexually abuse children with "medical" transcare), or the security of our nation (allowing millions of unexamined border hoppers in), or the rights of women (forcing them to compete with men with the slice of a knife, or popping a hormone pill or just fantasizing about their bodily needs), they twist and turn the words to stay in power.

The bureaucratization of the killers and the dehumanization of their victims

I noticed this phrase in a City Journal article about the Russia vs. Ukraine war: "Russian atrocities against Ukrainians rely on the bureaucratization of the killers and the dehumanization of their victims." Re-read that carefully. Read it again. Let it sink in. In a less bloody form, that's the battle we are experiencing in the U.S. A huge bureaucracy, wealthy, powerful, masked and murky is battling their imaginary foe made up of their brothers and sisters of the same culture, history and language with demeaning, dehumanizing name calling like "deplorable," "racist," "terrorist," and "you-name-it phobics." More recently and with just a veneer of benign slurs, Colleen Shogan, Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the National Archives and Records Administration (the agency going after Trump), was questioned about a paper in which she disparaged every two-term Republican president since World War II as being not too bright--perhaps too stupid to run the country. See the slant? Demean and diminish. Divide and conquer. Just a change in flag and uniform. Methods are the same.

"In all these cases, in circumstances as distinct as those in Germany, Rwanda, Armenia, or Ukraine, we find a machinery of barbarism with no particular relation to one or another culture. It has been perfectly demonstrated and analyzed during trials for genocide, particularly in the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. The barbarism always stands on two foundations: the bureaucratization of the killers and the dehumanization of the victims."

Russia's Machinery of Barbarism | City Journal (city-journal.org)

Boring books

I've mentioned before that I listen to a lot of podcasts. They are more interesting than radio or TV shows and most don't have commercials. Particularly for walking outside, loading the dishwasher or sleeping. Today I found one called "Boring Books for Bedtime," and it consists of truly boring books read slowly by a woman with a soft, husky, hushed voice. The list of titles is indeed boring. Just to try it out I listened to the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalog Grocery Department. But some titles are on butterflies, or oceans, Aristotle, Darwin, Thoreau, political issues of 50 years ago, or home building (in 1894). Here's one that actually sounds like it would keep me awake--"Pictures from Italy" by Charles Dickens. Truly a wonderful idea.

https://boringbooksforbedtime.libsyn.com/relaxation-rewind-the-color-of-a-great-city-by-theodore-dreiser-part-1

Italy has its first female prime minister

So the new prime minister of Italy is "far right wing" according to U.S. media--no to gender nonsense, yes to traditional family and border security, no to Muslim terrorism. Sounds like the U.S. before Obama decided to "fundamentally" change the country in 2009.

Baby names

Today I was going through papers from my desk at our Lakeside house (sold) that I brought back to Columbus. Some warranties, notes from Mrs. Thompson (previous owner) on names of plants, and old bills. Like removal of 4 skunks, $60, about 30 years ago. I'd never paid attention to his name before, but it was Ulice. The first thing I thought of was that Mama didn't know how to spell Ulysses. But I looked it up. Yes, it is an American male name, though very rare. Then I learned it was first recorded in 1886 as a birth name. Ulysses S. Grant was president from 1869-1877. I'm going with my first guess.

Speaking of skunks last week we reported a huge wasp nest in the tree in front of our house, and I looked out just now and saw a guy with a big ladder wearing a haz-mat suit and big hat. Not an easy job, I'm sure. I will observe from inside and won't ask him his name.

There are so many workers out there who at the end of the day can say they've accomplished more than our Congress and President.