FROM FAR TO NEAR, LARGE TO SMALL

The human mind is capable of seeking out nearly to infinity and nearly to eternity.     I’ve got a full range today,  a full plate.

From Far and Large,  it’s the full moon tonight,   the Full Flower Moon as it’s called in May:

Spring flowers are very much in bloom, I guess,  but people often report that this moon is pinkish-gold when it rises;  very pretty.

Astrologers and New Agers, and “Supernaturalists” have much to say about what this Full Flower Moon portends,  kind of like man’s small mind trying to add on to the immensity of Nature.   I say,  let each man drink in the beauty of a full moon and, if you give it time,  your own personal meaning will come — if only that God’s created world is just so pleasurable!

However,  a little less “Far”  and a little less “Large,”  there were people in Israel tonight who noticed the moon rose quite reddish and then turned to gold for a long time.   Apart from the astrologers excitement over Mars being stationery tonight   (i.e.,  Mars, the god of war in a fixed position over earth) ,   usually blood red moons portend war.

Indeed,  Israel tonight,  while that moon shone golden,  was hit by fifty rocket-launched missiles from the M o  s l e m  world.    Fifty!     So far.     Families,  men, women, and children,  are the targets of enemy rockets tonight.

I hope while our attention is on making peace in Asia,  we don’t forget that there is a war building in the Middle East.

Coming closer to home,  not too Far and not really that Large,   our area seems to be Ground Zero for Tropical Storm  Alberto tomorrow.   Sometimes those tropical storms do travel quite far north!

So,  rain and thunderstorms,  but not too much a chance for tornadoes, according to our weatherman.   We’re safe.

Hope it stays that way because for the next few days I’ll be busy planning and packing and cleaning and doing all those things that you do when you get ready for a long road trip —  right smack into Florida.   It’d be nice if they stop these “tropical storms”  for a while.

Hope I can keep an ear open to weather reports.   I keep a little transistor radio in my hand all night long — lots of interesting things on at night!  —    but  according to our Spaceweatherman,  we’re going to be hit by a little solar storm in a couple days.

Well,  not quite that big of an explosion on the sun this time,  but the solar wind that we’ll be getting is enough to send a lot of static into  radios!

And that brings me back out to the solar system,  really Far and really Large,  and all the way down,  right into my nearby little radio,  my little life.

Little lives in a huge universe.    Our minds can reach out into so much more than our own physical surroundings.

Deo gratias!

 

 

 

 

PRIVATE PROPERTY PROTECTIONS

I hope this posting will make you happy — really  happy and grateful for what you might have in your life.      I mean,  Home Sweet Home, right?

I got this photo today    (which I took as an invitation – ha ha! )   —

Never mind that the invitation comes from about 2,000 miles away.    Daughter lives there:  on the shore of Donner Lake,  High Sierra   (as in:  Donner Pass which closes regularly during the winter snows.)    Their property is ideal for summer picnics and parties,  so they get to be the hosts for all their friends for summer fun.

Hold on to that for a moment.

Then,  I was driving home one day and saw this beautiful contrast in Green:

(I know, I know;   some of my friends think I shouldn’t be taking pictures as I drive.)   It’s been a very nice Spring around here this year.  Lots of Green!

So I got home to my front yard.      Everything in a kind of monochrome bright green.  Leaves,  bushes,  grass,  all the same shade of Spring Green.

Back yard,  same thing:

Never in a million years would I,  a “poor”  kid growing up in Chicago,  ever dream that I’d own property like this.    Daughter has done well too.  Son has done well too.    All our neighbors have done pretty well too.

Whether it’s out West in California or here in the Far North,   we and most of the people I know Own Property.

I humbly thank God for this property.

I proudly thank our soldiers for  making it possible to hang on to our property,  defending our country and our Constitutional freedoms – with their lives.

Here’s the Memorial Day thought:     We have the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.     Which part of that does it take to actually own some property?

To own some property, no matter where it is and no matter what it looks like and no matter how big it is?   What does it take?

You can teach your children or young friends this:    It takes  the Freedom to look at some property that you’d like to have,  dream about it,   and then do what the people who live on property like that had to do in order to become owners.

They had to go to school and do good in school and then get trained to get a job that pays steady, living wages with a little bit more for savings.  ( I know some men who did not get married until they had saved enough to buy some property,  and a house,    for themselves and their future wives.)

If you have your mind set on a bigger, more beautiful house and land,  then you do what those kind of people did to get into a bigger, more beautiful house.    Usually that takes (1)  starting your own business)  and/or  (2)  going to some college for  a degree in some job that pays well . . . or very, very well.

And it usually takes  (3)  time and making small steps.  Hubbie and I didn’t’ start out in this house.

Another thing is to NOT do the things the people with nice property didn’t do either.   Like partying every weekend;  like not saving money  religiously, as they say.     Like spending lots of money on entertainment.    Like doing illegal or immoral things that sidetrack you with “complications.”       Like always choosing the easier route.

Contrary to what you see in the entertainment-news media.  Americans  ALL have the Freedom to choose their lifestyle as well as to choose what kind of property they’d like to earn.     Freedom to Pursue Happiness.

Thank you and God Bless all our men in uniform who keeps this possibility going.

 

 

 

ROLLING ON FOR FREEDOM

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On my way home from  church this morning,  I was traveling through a couple towns behind a great and magnificent Harley.    It was a beauty.     Then I remembered –  It’s Memorial Day Weekend!!  That means  Rolling Thunder!!

So here’s just a peek into how many others are celebrating our Freedoms, purchased by the death of so many of our young men during wars.

Every year on this weekend hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists ride to Washington DC to call attention – and honor – to all those who are Missing In Action;  presumed dead and dead.

They are Rolling Thunder –

They come from all over our country, some of them leaving home a week ago to make it in time for this weekend.     (You may have noticed a slightly greater number of motorcycles on the road in your city streets this past week.)

Men, women, and children – and babies! –  meet together in Washington DC —

I remember reading,  many years ago,  how strong and peaceful  this group is, and some news magazine praised them for leaving behind no crime incidents and hardly any sign that they were there, by way of trash or broken anything.

(Compare to the Leftist-organized “protest”  demonstrations,  promoted and paid for by Globalists,  Global-Socialists,  and any other Anti-America me-too group,  where people and property are injured and the clean-up lasts for days.)

Literally  millions of people are involved as Rolling Thunder members or as admiring spectators.

Well, I just wanted to call your  attention to this event.    There was a time when my younger self didn’t’ even know about this.

It used to be that PBS stations broadcasted the event live each year.   Perhaps they did again this year.      Here’s a link to the schedule of events of these four days,  Friday through  Monday:

https: // www. rolling thunder run.com/2018-run-info/_

                                                                    (remove spaces)

There are full, busy days of rallies, speeches,  music,  picnics, and a running event.

This is American Patriotism in Action!

Hope you can take a peek.  See some video footage.    Celebrate our Freedoms and the men who fought and died for them.

Have a picnic!

Watch some of the Top War Movies this weekend!   (Or watch some again.)

Saving Private Ryan

Tora!  Tora!  Tora!

American Sniper

Sergeant York

Band of Brothers

The Longest Day

The Patriot

Bridge Over the River Kwai

The Great Escape

Schindler’s List

Each one of these is a winner.   Thanks to Breitbart news for reminding us.

 

FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY

 

The Freedom we enjoy today didn”t come cheap.   Memorial Day,  May 31st,   Memorial Day weekend now;  we honor those who gave their lives to keep us free – in past wars, especially the big world wars when invasion by an enemy was quite possible.

I’m honoring the good things about America   to honor what those men died for.  We all owe them that much.

FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY

It’s in the Bill of Rights,  something that is unique about America.  We can meet with people of our own choosing  without reporting to authorities.      We can be with friends and groups of friends in private,  without fear of being surveiled.   (That’s a freedom we’ve got to hang on to with all our attention.)

How do you exercise your freedom of assembly?     I was in a book club for a long time,  sort of like this:

No one asked us for a list of names who were meeting together like that,  discussing any book we wanted to discuss.    We were not registered with the local authorities.   We all were FREE to meet together!

I also chose to be in a community orchestra for a long time.  I think this is ours as it looks now:

I played flute and  I was the orchestra treasurer.  Everything honest, legal, above board, and quite interesting.         I never had to make reports to any authority.

That’s Freedom of Assembly with whomever  you want and for any purpose.    It’s in our American Constitution –  what our  dead war heroes swore to protect with their lives.

I  “assemble”  with my Recorder friend too,  every other week:

Now that it’s summer,  my friend and I can play outside,  in her gazebo.   The view from inside that outdoor room is wonderful!

It’s like  making beautiful music in a park!       Our Constitution gives us a right to Private Property too, and I appreciate that too this weekend.

Recorder practice and a nice dessert table.

 

Going down the steps into the gazebo

 

We are free in this country – still – to build little out-buildings,  barns,  and . . .  gazebos, too,   on our own property.

My friend has a garden, designed any way she pleases.    This time of the year,  the specialty is rhubarb!

Rhubarb Pudding Cake –  with whipped cream.     She do set a good table!

I’m going to travel soon,  to Florida,  to the Far Far North,  to California,  and back to Florida,  or some such order.

Because of our freedoms,  I can cross state line after state line and never have to show my identification papers.    (So far.)

I guess what I’m sayng is there’s not any activity that we all can choose to do that doesn’t honor our soldiers and sailors,  honor the freedoms they fought and died for.    Make your own list.  Do your own things!

Honor our young men in uniform.  Dead now.

Land of the Free because of  The Brave!

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AS MEMORIAL DAY APPROACHES

 

(a little rant before the weekend begins)

I always get “twitchy” around Memorial Day   – so many men gave their lives for . . .  for us    . . .  but for what, now?   

As you can tell by my Grandpa’s headstone up there,  he did not die in a war,  he was a veteran,  and Veterans Day is for honoring all the veterans.   But,  in my own small family,  I don’t think there is any man that died in an American war.   It’s just that I knew my Grandpa,  and I know how much he risked by joining the Navy during WWI –  sailing around France, in danger from German submarines.

But Memorial Day is to honor all those who died in one of our wars.     They had much to risk – and then they died after taking that risk.

Hubbie’s family, on the other hand,  did have two young men in the prime of their lives die,  fighting for our country.

Anyone see Hacksaw Ridge?    For me it was the best movie presentation of actual conditions of fighting.  (At least in those kind of wars.)    If you haven’t seen the movie yet, please do.  And if you are one of those who say,  “I can’t stand to see all that violence.”  I don’t want to watch all that violence and death . . .”  —   personally I think you should just excuse yourself from Memorial Day too.

Memorial Day is for the death and violence of war.  Remember the young man,  Dawson Doss,  whose life was depicted in Hacksaw Ridge?        Remember his life before the war? Remember where he came from?     From a beautiful rural area,  green mountains,  fresh air,  American traditions,  family,  and a brother, close in age to him.

Here’s a photograph of a similar young man back then,  with his best friend.   Ordinary, young American boys –  risking it all in a time of war.

One of the young men,  Hubbie’s uncle, the tall one,  didn’t make it back from World War Two.

Here’s the sweetheart he left behind (from an album page):

They were supposed to be married.  Instead, all that came home was his “body.”   He was blown up by a kamikazi pilot . . .   Then, a few years later,   his brother was pinned down with his unit in a river in  Korea –  and nearly all of them died there.

All those of our men who gave their lives in war were loved ones in their families.   They’re all missed, still talked about,  remembered,  honored – as best we can.

I wish we could honor them by preserving, by means other than war,   the country that they died for in order to preserve.

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It’s so dishonorable to participate in criminal activity,  dishonesty in public affairs,  cheating,  lying – tearing down this country by drug use,  gang activity and being soft on gang activity  –  that’s not America –   and by allowing foreign citizens to march into our nation in uncountable numbers demanding that our taxpayers take care of them or demanding that our laws be changed or that their religion be taught in our schools  (oh, yes, that’s happening all around our country);   and then it’s so dishonorable to tear down the moral fabric of our society, by engaging in the immoral behavior that our soldiers never meant to uphold. . .  by dissolving the sanctity of the family (man-woman-children),  and by killing so many of  our little babies.

Okay,  you could make up your own list of things our men did not intend to die for in the wars that took their lives.

_________________________________________________________________

 (So I get a little “twitchy”  when I think of these things.   Irritated.     A little prickly when discussions of  how bad wars are – of course they’re bad –  or of how many wars  are fought for illegal reasons benefiting only “the rich.”

I get a little irritated with those who want to avoid facing the thought of the  violence and death that our   men faced in war.  (Put some feathers over your face or something;  our men really had to die for what we enjoy today.)

And for goodness’ sakes!  Let’s make sure the Lawless and Wicked politicians in  high places get prosecuted!!!    Let’s be outraged that those under investigation  are “slow-walking”  their compliance, so that maybe their friends will get elected in November, and then maybe they will never be prosecuted!

This is not honoring all those who died for America.

Well, so, the rest of this weekend,   I’ll honor these men in my heart, as best I can;  I’ll pray for their souls,  which is a good thing to do;  and I’ll just count off in The Spruce Tunnel here  some of the things I can enjoy in my own little surroundings —  because these men died for us all.  

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“COUNTLESS LIVES WERE SAVED. . .”

That was the Headline in an article about yet another School Shooting.  It happened in Dixon Illinois,  not far from where I grew up.

The entertainment-news media didn’t make a big deal about it,  because they have an anti-American agenda to promote, and this event didn’t fit their agenda.

Here is a partial quote from one article about that Illinois School Shooting:

A school resource officer is being hailed as a hero after confronting a gunman at an Illinois high school Wednesday morning, officials say. The officer encountered the 19-year-old former student, who was armed with a gun, at Dixon High School around 8 a.m., Dixon Police Chief Steven Howell said.

Nowhere in that article, written by a CBS news-script writer did it mention that “school resource officer’s”  name,  but an accompanying short video said he was “Officer Dallas.”

Because he was armed,  and after several shots were fired into the school,  he was able to take down the shooter before lives were lost.

He ought to be a well-known contemporary hero!

No matter how many ways you analyze it,  the United States Constitution and especially our Bill of Rights stand in the way of the plans for total Global Governance.  Oh, it’s happening,  it’s forming now,  but it’s being slowed down by  American citizens who are willing to defend their own Constitutional rights.

That’s why one of the chief goals of the “Progressives” in our country is to take away gun ownership rights and disarm the American citizenry.

Leave us all defenseless.

Oh, yes.   There was another school shooting recently in Texas.   10 killed (so far)  and 12 injured.)

 

No guns allowed anywhere on that campus,  by anyone, anywhere.

Very convenient.

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WHY I DON’T FLY

   “Conduct offensive and without legal justification.”

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“Conduct offensive and without legal justification”   —  not to mention embarrassing, demeaning,  and intimidating.

 

This lady is Eva Kor.    She and her twin sister were put through Hell on Earth  by Dr. Mengele and his medical experiments in Auschwitz during world War II.    They did survive, and Eva, after long years of suffering and anger,  learned the power of forgiveness and now tries to send out the message that forgiveness is the pathway to peace and life,  true living.

She has a thought-provoking museum called C.A.N.D.L.E.S.  in Indiana;

I’ve been there a couple times;  and a part of me always comes out bruised and hurting, and amazed that forgiveness is a real AND TRUE  efficacious act of our wills.

Eva Kor is a tiny, but powerful lady with a message the world needs to hear.    Even without her tremendous humanitarian efforts for Peace, she should be treated with kindness and respect.

And that’s why I reacted so negatively when I read that article in the “news”  of the TSA  attacking American citizens again with their  “searches”    which in actuality violate our constitutional rights and provide no security as many audits and tests have proven over and over and over again.

Subservience  is a human attitude that is LEARNED.   Submission  is a human attitude that is LEARNED.      Inferiority is a human attitude that is LEARNED.      Obedience is a human attitude that is LEARNED.   And Slavery is slowly internalized and accepted  as “just the way things are.”

There is one reason why I don’t fly and won’t fly anymore.    The reason is “airports.”   ( I cannot physically tolerate all the electronics, WiFis, RFs, EMFs . . .   that’s my problem.)  But also at airports is the humiliation of American citizens who accept such intimidating behavior from the minions our Rulers have hired.

Unconstitutional crotch probe

What  does this mean for our “free”  country,  that this goes on daily against American wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters?

“”America:  Land of the Free and  Home of the Brave”  ?   We sure have not been acting like it for the past 19 years.

I know many of my friends say, “Oh,  nothing like that has ever happened to me.”  But that doesn’t stop the thousands of stories told by people who have been deeply probed and mauled by the TSA agents.   I haven’t flown much — but 100% of those times included an intimidating,  humiliating, and rather frightening experience.

Maybe some of you are just lucky.

 

(Eva and her twin sister, a little before Auschwitz)

 

  “Conduct offensive and without legal justification”   was the bottom-line judgment of some officials in a recent report of airport official behavior.

I’m glad Eva Kor’s experience was newsworthy.     But not enough of us will have read that news article,  and about 0%  will feel like doing anything about it.

A QUIRKY ANTIDOTE

Well, in the last post I kind of put the burden on each of us  to improve ourselves and so put goodness back into our society –  a job well-possible-   but it need not be a “burden.”

Making ourselves better  can be a lot of fun.   Just relax;   you pretty much know right from wrong.   You pretty much know we are to respect and love others as we want to be respected and highly regarded ourselves.

Relax, and have fun.  Or develop a good sense of humor.    I always say my favorite forms of humor  are irony and hyperbole.   Then – relax! – add a good sense of self-deprecating humor;  as in:  finding the ridiculous in yourself.     Enjoy your little quirks.

Quirkiness  hit me this week.   For almost a month I’ve had the strongest craving for  baba ganouj   –  that  tangy Mediterranean eggplant dish that you don’t eat with a spoon, you eat it with triangular wedges of something in the bread family.

Being raised in a Scandinavian family,  the strongest spices I enjoy are cardamom and cinnamon!    Baba ganouj is definitely . . .  strong.  Tangy strong.   I have no idea why I began craving it,  but I braved some heavy-duty construction in the main intersection of our little town,  worked my way through the orange cone mazes and black-and yellow striped obstacles — in heavy traffic one day — to find that Mediterranean restaurant behind the construction trucks,  where I knew I could order some take-out baba ganouj – no matter how long I had to wait for it!

It was a good day.   It was ready for me almost instantly,  and I had already learned the “secret” unmarked passageway back through the construction,  and since I live here,  I even avoided some rush hour traffic red lights.

But . . .  why baba ganouj?      (It was delicious!)

Quirkiness #2,  now that I think about it:

Came   home one evening and saw this dead bumblebee on my driveway.   It was kind of sad, because this might be the one that claims much of my front yard and hangs around us in a friendly manner when we’re outside.   Sometimes, if we get too close too “something,”  he actually bumps us,  bumps into us, to push us away, as though his tiny little body could move a human being.

But it works.    And Son was just describing how intelligent bees are, in particular their memory.    So it was sad to see it lying there, dead.

The next day,  its little body was still there.  No bees came around to mourn, of course.   Maybe it was kind of childish,   but it seemed respectful to the bee,  to all of Creation, to God who made the bee,  that I bury its little body in a protected place in my garden.

I don’t know.    Dumb?   Childish of me?

At least I used a Mickey Mouse shovel.

Improve society?    Respect all life.  Bury a friendly  little bumblebee  — and then smile at the quirky absurdity of it all.

 

Quirkiness #3 —  

I hope you all gave your mother as wonderful of a Mother’s Day as I had.   Thank you Daughter and Cooper who wished me a very long-distance:  Happy Grandma’s Day!!!!!  And thanks especially to Son who pulled the whole day together,  including a mad dash out for MEATS of all kinds –  anything we wanted! –  and then another mad dash out while the meat was grilling to get the ketchup we had forgotten…..

Here’s  just  the dessert part of our meal,  because  grilled meats on a plate don’t always look so appetizing in a photo.

Tarts:  Key lime;  creme brulee,  cheesecake,   chocolate hazelnut, and chocolate caramel.  (Just want to post it here so I remember this in the future.)

On my table was a beautiful selection of hyacinths – perfect for the improvements I’ve been making in the garden.   I really care about flowers,  but I’m slow at getting the skills to take care of them.

They look like they need to be put into the earth now;  some of the bulbs are showing.    (Is this natural?  Or are they tipping over?)

I couldn’t help thinking that I got these beautiful flowers,  and now I’ll have to bury them.

I’ve got instructions.    But it sure feels like I”m burying my Mother’s Day flowers!

Just a goofy,  quirky feeling I have.

 

When you give yourself cause to smile, or  laugh,     you’re all right!

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THE ANTIDOTE

(An essay on divisiveness in our lives.)

They say “traveling broadens the mind” – broadens your understanding.

Yep – it does.    A couple years ago I was standing in the middle of the Badlands of South Dakota.

Really, it was like peering down into the alien crevasses of the moon. I walked here and there with my camera, trying to get the very best photo of the Badlands, going off the trail in many cases, the camera in front of my face, moving sideways or backwards – whatever was needed to get that one great photo of  these amazing landscapes.

It was so windy that day that I felt like my body was in constant motion – overlooking the edge of the rocks.  If I fell, I was going to have a very Bad Landing in the Badlands.

 
Sometimes I stood on a steep, gravely decline, having to keep moving my downward leading foot upwards to join the rest of my body because the gravel was so slippery. but, you know, that best picture takes a little effort.

 
I think I got some good photos. (Truthfully, if I had just downloaded some Badlands pictures off of the Internet, I would have had the same thing, without a thousand mile road trip.)

 
Shortly after I got home, as I was reading the news, I found an article about a young college age woman who had been visiting the Badlands with some friends. She had been doing what I was doing – taking some “really good” pictures and then she had backed up a few steps – right onto a rattlesnake.

She was helicoptered to Rapid City where she received the ANTIDOTE to the venom. One shot and she was okay.

 
I write all that to emphasize that the antidote to the divisiveness we find in our country today is not a one-shot deal.

 
Divisiveness is all over. * When we bump into it, we know it’s wrong and we know it’s destructive, but we’re caught up in it. We find ourselves answering accusations, spoken or unspoken, of “Racist!” or “Bigot!” or “White Privilege!” or “Triumphalism!” “Stupid!” for voting for . . . whatever, or “—ophobe” or “—ophobe” or “—ophobe.”

 
People have become cautious and uncomfortable with each other. Friends become enemies.    Americans did not step on a rattlesnake to get this way.

 
Although “divide and conquer” was a well-known strategy by military planners from ancient times, it’s only with the Marxist-Leninist victory over unsuspecting Western societies that deliberate divisiveness was inserted into our culture, our daily lives, and not for the purpose of winning a military victory. It’s the “Politics of Personal Destruction” of the” Progressives” infecting our daily communications.

 
(Each of those phrases could be expanded into books, for greater understanding, but I can’t . . . I can’t.  Not now.)

 
But you can probably understand why the antidote we need is not one easy act or one bright idea or one agreeable assent.

 
Enmity is from the Evil One through various human instruments.  Divisiveness, then, is a moral issue. Moral issues are internal to each of us. The moral compass was written into Creation from the beginning of humanity, and the “compass” has not changed anymore than the law of gravity has changed.

 

 

No matter who or what you are,   you  really are obliged to seek out and discover God’s idea of right and wrong,  and then to live by those “instructions.”    That heals and strengthens a society.

 

It’s not a “one-shot”  deal —  it takes a lifetime.

 

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What we see from social media  and general media sources:

.* We quickly call our enemies divisive. Well, on the entertainment-news medai, the only thing I actually hear is that the Left is calling the right “divisive. There is no “unitive” discussion; it’s just if you don’t agree with the Left, you have divided yourself from the Left; ergo, you are divisive. No freedom of thought.

WHY I DON’T PROTEST (much)

Young people don’t realize how many crossroads they’ll come to.   Throughout our lives we come to crossroads, make our decisions,  and then  get on with things.

Here is a photo of me at a “crossroad”  in my life.

I was going through “old papers” recently, and came across this photo of Hubbie and me at a prom,.  It wasn’t our prom,  we were chaperones at the prom of the school where we both taught.    You want a date?   Seems to me that the theme song for the prom was “Knights in White Satin,”   bravely sung by a  twelfth grader with a shaky voice.

I was dressed in my best formal Hippie dress, mostly of blue and white flowers.  I’m surprised the photo was taken  in black and white.   My hair was down to my waist,  my feet were in open sandals.

Demonstrations and protests were in the air.      We were not philosophically inclined towards any of the Causes of the protest movements,  but it seemed we ought to be able to find something to protest.    Everyone was doing it.

 

We almost found a Cause.   At the time, with little information,  we couldn’t understand why our troops had   “crossed the border”   into Cambodia, so  we were interested.  We got out there and had our first experience with tear gas –  leftover tear gas,  it wasn’t much.   In those days the lingering smell of tear gas was sometimes as common as the lingering smell of Mary Jane.     (We live in a university town, after all.)

Our impressions at the end of that day were that the protests were dumb:    unorganized,  unfocused, purposeless,   messy,   really dirty,  obscene,  overly emotional,  and, in the end, ineffective.

Which, I think, is my point.     “Jenny”  from Forrest Gump and I made our opposite decisions in those days.    She went one way,  I went the other.

Hubbie and I sure had big bumps and problems from time to time,  but the overall structure of our lives was  steady,  purposeful, focused,  pretty clean and organized, family-first,  and effective.

Now that I am reaching the end of my time and trying to clean up all the ordinary lifetime debris of papers and keepsakes,   I can read back over all the events,  all the headlines,  all the hopes and causes,  all the chatter from the Leftists who began all that “protesting,”  and what I see is:  THE SAME HEADLINES, THE SAME HOPES AND CAUSES,  THE SAME ANTI-AMERICAN ATTACKS FROM THE LEFT are still occurring!

Sometimes I would not be able to place old headlines and editorials in the proper decade.

I care.  I care about some things . . .  but not too much about the latest chapter of politics.     Not too much about the latest scare tactics from the Left.  . . .    Not too much about “changing the world.”

I care.   I have a different way to “protest”  the wrongs of this world.    But, to resurrect good advice from the Sixties:  “Cool it.”      Do what you can, but we’re on this planet for such a short time and this experience  is so very important,  so very crucial to the rest of  our eternity.

We’ve got time now, maybe lots, maybe only a  little,  maybe unexpectedly time’s up!    Our business is actually our Selves,  our Souls,  which, along the way includes taking care of the other souls in our immediate lives.

You know,  “save the world, one person at a time” – starting with you.

It all works out.   Unless you’re a prince or a king or a president or elected to some high office that could make huge differences int he world,  the rest of us people have only a very tiny role to play in “earthshaking” movements.

Very tiny compared to to one Soul you’re responsible for.

 

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WHY I DON’T WATCH THE “NEWS”

Looking more closely and following up on the Iran Nuke “deal.”

If you listen to or watch the  “news” you would think the U.S. has made a big mistake backing out of an international treaty-type agreement with Iran.   They are making a big case for it.

Turns out,  there was no “Iran Nuclear Deal”  or Agreement  or Treaty  to even pull out of.  Those speaking on the entertainment-news media about how dangerous  President Trump’s recent decision about Iran is,  those people were generally against the whole affair in the first place.

The “deal”was signed by the Barack-Hussein person,  but it was NOT signed by Iran!    Nor any other country.   Just one man’s idea, one man’s signature — and Congress would not support it!   It was supported by a meager 21% of . . Congress, I think,  if not of the American people.

So no “deal”  really.     And one of the bad provisions in the signed document is that  IF and WHEN  Iran is attacked by any other nation,  the U.S.  would have to come to its aid, militarily.    We would have to attack any other nation that attacked Iran!!!    The Barack Hussein person signed us on to a future Middle East war.

So who is the angriest over the U.S.  withdrawal from the Iran Nuke “deal”?    Why, it’s John Kerry.  John   Kerry, who holds no official government position and yet has been violating the Logan Act right and left lately.  Oh, he won’t get into trouble.   He will not get indicted or found guilty and punished,  even though his activities that are illegal are being done in public.

Why not?   He has the Global Socialist George Soros  backing him up with all the global might that he possesses and all the billions of dollars that are at his command.   You got that backing,  nothing is going to happen to you.

But if you do NOT do as Soros and the globalists want,  then you get messages like this:

If and when he violates the international agreement, he will own the consequences

. . .   reports the  entertainment-news media.

The “he” is President Trump.    A message like that,  considering the source,  would scare me.

Why do the Globalists  want to stay in the arrangement made by the Barack-Hussein person’s signature?   Because to end it would mean returning economic sanctions on Iran — and no Globalist wants the flow of money stopped.    NO SANCTIONS for Iran!!!

(Darn that Trump.)

The entertainment-news media is an instrument of these Globalists and they have the means to build their case for them.

(Why I don’t watch the “news.”)

 

 

HEADLINES – AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT

Another long absence, for which I feel I should apologize . . .  but I know,  no need. Sometimes I feel “responsible”  to write, here,  for so many reasons,  and then when things intrude, I feel I haven’t met my responsibilities.

Sigh-h-h-h-…   You’d think after ten years I’d understand this blogging thing.

What intruded this time is a very serious medical concern about my very own sister, who is so much younger than I that she is supposed to live a lot longer than I’m supposed to.
“Supposed to”  being the operative phrase there:  “Man proposes, God disposes,”  always.

   Actually,  I have a couple of personal health concerns that are “supposed to” knock me down sooner than my sister –  exacerbated this past week again by tangling with the all-pervasive RFs and EMFs that assault us.      I just cannot leave electronic gadgets alone.

So . . .  “ouch”  here at the keyboard for a while, so I can at least communicate.

HEADLINES:

In the headlines today is this information:

    TRUMP NUKES  IRAN  DEAL!

It’s from Drudge.  The Drudge Report.

It is likely that Donald The Art Of The Deal Trump can recognize a very bad deal for this country when he sees one.      Perhaps he didn’t always make good deals at first  in his long career in real estate development, investing, and the  Hollywood celebrity world and the many other numerous activities he has been involved in,  but I think his ultimate “success” indicates   a learning curve about Deal-Making that has been steeply upward.

And then he became president.    I think  several times he expressed astonishment at the mess Washington politics is in.   The mess;  I think this is what he calls the Swamp. Corrupt politicians making bad deals for our country,.

The “Iran Deal”  was so bad that the previous man who was placed in the office of our presidency,  the Global Socialist  Barack-Hussein person,  was even made to pay off Iran with a couple C-130 cargo loads of cold, hard cash — to the sum of over one billion dollars.

C-130 cargo loads of cash!   I think a C-130  could swallow up my entire house.

Why cash?  (heh  heh — you can figure that out)      You don’t pay out that much cash for good honest and lawful  reasons.

The Globalist leaders of the world made a bad deal with Iran   and  paid Iran cash money?

President Trump is not a Globalist.  he is an American president.     Here is what he said, quoted in that article:

Trump said the 2015 agreement, which included Germany, France and Britain, was a “horrible one-sided deal that should never ever have been made.” He added that the United States “will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction.”

 

Of course, socialists all over the world are decrying this decision.      Lenin’s Useful Idiots in the entertainment-news media are happy to report how awful Pres. Trump is for protecting the United States  and the safety of the entire world.

“World Leaders”   who obey our global-Socialist Rulers also must speak out against ending the Iran Nuclear Deal.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday the U.S. is pulling out of the landmark international nuclear accord with Iran, declaring he was making the world safer but dealing a profound blow to allies and deepening his isolation on the world stage.

 

Actually,  he’s not moving us away from “the world stage,”  per se,  but he’s moving us away from Global domination;   from global rulers who would make Policy for our own sovereign nation;  from Global Socialists who tramp down on our American Constitution, freedoms and culture.

Sometimes “headlines”   are just click-bait, as we say nowadays.  They draw us in and then don’t deliver on their promise, and we’re left not getting the information we expected.

But this time, I think that Headline on Drudge was right on and  clever:

Trump Nukes . . .  something.

Trump nukes the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Which could have nuked us.

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(Please, if you are so inclined,  pray for my sister.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

MURDER IN THE AIR

Category:  Do something!

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 Hawken

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Not much of a prayer,   this:

“Oh, Lord,  here these misbegotten, worthless, trashy, no-count and misguided souls is.    Do whatever the hell you want to with them.  Amen.”

Spoken by a Good Guy after he was sure the four Bad Guys were real dead* in their shallow grave.     He had killed them before they could carry out their unspeakably evil plans.  Real genuine Bad Guys.  He had heard them speak deliciously about what they planned to do to  the travelers  just up ahead.

The Good guy had prevented a horrible fate for innocent babies, children, teenage girls, and young mothers.

Our Good Guys may be rough around the edges but they are watchful and protective and capable and scarce. 

Irony

Good Guys like this helped the  innocent men, women, and children to make it out to their new homes out West,  along the West Coast of the United States.    Ironically,  many of the descendants of those good settlers are now the Extreme Leftists,  trained by marxist-socialists  to tear down our United States.

They threaten murder and violence against people who don’t agree with them.  They beat up and destroy property at universities where  people they don’t agree with come to speak.      They riot and do violence all up and down the West Coast, attempting to erase one of the foundation points of civilization:  the right to free speech and assembly.

Graffiti and car windows smashed –  for having a Trump bumper sticker.  

You could find thousands of photos of incidents like this.   You don’t have to be a Trump supporter to know that this is wrong.  It is wrong, isn’t it?

 

In the news:

Trump facing death threats.  Trump supporters threatened with and experiencing violence against them, losing their jobs and their reputations.    Kanye West with a death contract out against him – from the Crips.

Politics has  gone mean and violent because the society  we live in has gone mean and violent.     We like our entertainment that way.    We like our social media that way.   Nobody pushed back as it was developing.       Not even the Decent People.**

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Again, it comes down to the Good Guys against the Bad Guys.

 

It’s a hard rough road to build up a civilization to the point where a person can count on civilized behavior from his fellow citizens.    I don’t know all of history,  but I’ve never seen a civilized world trash its own self and then build itself up again.

When civilization goes,  it’s gone.

So, yes,  when civilization goes you can’t live the same way again.

Things like Goodness and Virtue  and Faith build up a civilization.     These things need to take back control over our entertainment,  our information sources,   our schools,   our medical system,   our government,   our public lives and our private lives.     That’s not easy to do when Good things are gone,  but you don’t have to pick up a Hawkins or Bowie.     Good qualities come from within a person.

And, yes, I’m reading Westerns again.   William W.  Johnstone,  one of the finest western writers – ever –  but I won’t say the name of this book.   He’s  politically incorrect  — and it has “violence”  in it.      Everyone needs to read his books anyway,  but seems like a whole generation or two have been told “reading is too hard,”  “it’s not worth the time,”   and “you can’t learn anything from fiction anyway.”

Just learn what you need to know from “society.”      because there are “people”   in charge of our society .  . .  what’s left of civilized society,  if they even define it for you.

Or we can step up and use our own minds and willpower and courage . . .  .

 

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.*  Someone who’s not quite dead can do you real harm.

 

. **   Or at east not enough Decent People.      Anyone remember how Tipper Gore was ridiculed?  Anyone remember how Nancy Reagan was ridiculed?    Anyone remember how Phyllis Schlaffley was ridiculed?     Any of the others  speaking out  against violence, crime, and  indecency  in our society?   Anyone push back at the mean-spirited mockers?

 

***    Sure, there is Good and Bad,  Right and Wrong.   You’d be  Dopey to let them make you think otherwise.

Or maybe you’d be  Sleepy . .  .

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