December 23, 2011

A Barefoot Christmas

A Barefoot Christmas

When the weather is like this around Christmas, it reminds me of some Christmas celebrations at my grandparents. I know we spent time with my Daddy's family, but my most vivid memories are those at my Mama's home. There were more cousins near my age, and we had spent a lot of time together during summers and weekends.

We always had our shoes off when possible. Unless it was fairly warm, we ran the risk of  incurring adult wrath. We considered any temperature above freezing as acceptable, but they had different standards. So when it was this warm, off went the shoes. We were 'barefooted as yard dogs' as my Mama so colorfully put it.

The first thing on the agenda was the Christmas dinner. The cousins would roll out the old flatbed trailer. That was no problem because there a lot of us. The Aunts as we called them,  would cover the trailer with cloth and out came the food. 

The trailer was covered with some or all of the following:
Fried chicken, roast beef, sweet corn, hot biscuits, plain rice, green beans, okra (both fired and boiled), mashed  potatoes, cornbread, lima beans, corn on the cob, collard greens, pork chops, macaroni & cheese, Irish potatoes, gravies and dressings of all kinds, chicken pilau, catfish stew, pork roast, turkey, butter beans (the gray ones-yum!), yams, squash,  and many other dishes that escape me right now. 

For dessert, there was pound cake, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, apple pie, fruitcake, chocolate cake, cookies of all types, lemon meringue pie, and eleventy billion other things. It was a wonder we could even walk after the meal.

One time an aunt brought 'three bean salad.'  This concoction was viewed with great suspicion because it had not been fried, baked, broiled or subjected to heat and grease of any kind. People took some so as not to hurt her feelings. To this day I remember some of the looks given that dish.

After everyone had eaten, the real fun began. The adults cleaned up and gathered in groups to chat or whatever. WE, the kids, headed for the fireworks.  I do mean FIREWORKS! 

SC sold any and everything. Cherry bombs, M80s, Roman candles, HUGE firecrackers, and stuff I can't even remember. It seemed to include everything up to dynamite, and we probably could have gotten our hands on some if we had tried. 

We also got sparklers which were very dull unless used in an unsafe manner. Nobody ever said anything, so we used everything in an unsafe manner. Sparklers were good for 2 things as I remember. We played Sparkler Tag. That will insure Olympic speeds. We also scraped the powder off and found other uses for it.

Our parents bought us everything back then. They also never supervised us. We had a couple of general rules. We never hurt animals, and we never threw them an adult. That would insure an end to this tradition. When I look back on it, I wonder why none of use suffered major injuries, and if our parents were secretly trying to get rid of us through attrition.

At any rate, off we would go to blow things up. I think we even were making crude IEDs. At some point, 2 groups would form and the Christmas war would begin. We would go deep into the woods and gleefully toss these merry surprises at each other. There was a premium on arm strength, walking softly, excellent hearing, and very quick change of direction. At some undefined point, it would stop and we wandered back in or some rest.

We would sit on the front porch and either rock or swing. A few had to sit on the steps. We drank sweetened ice tea, and talked about everything. We also kept our ears open so that if the stories our Mamas were telling in the kitchen drifted our way, we might find out some secret family nugget.

I miss those barefoot Christmases, and the people we were then. Young, stupid, foolish and oblivious in those moments and sure we would not get hurt. We didn't argue about politics or current events. For that day together, we closed ourselves up in our own little world as dangerous as it actually was.

I don't see these relatives anymore because the discussions immediately start with political shite. It goes downhill from there. I long for the days when we only wished to blow useless stuff up and scare each other to death. Better that than trying to or supporting blowing the whole world up and scaring the entire planet to death.

(I hope this isn't used to start some sort of DU war. As bizarre as it may seem to some, this is my story. I think most people tell some family story that would raise eyebrows on some people. Thanks, Grits)

December 21, 2011

The Year In Pictures - Parts 1&2 (Boston.com: The Big Picture)***some graphic images***

A wave caused by a tsunami flows into the city of Miyako from the Heigawa estuary in Iwate Prefecture after a magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck Japan March 11, 2011. (Mainichi Shimbun /Reuters)


31The aurora borealis, or northern lights, fill the sky above the Takotna, Alaska checkpoint during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on March 9, 2011. (Bob Hallinen/The Anchorage Daily News/AP) #
Part one: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/12/the_year_in_pictures_part.html


43Canadian Forces soldier, Cpl. Ben Vandandaigue, plays on a drum kit on Forward Operating Base Sperwan Ghar June 24 overlooking the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province, Afghanistan. (David Goldman/Associated Press) #


25On July 5th a historic dust storm, or haboob, approaches downtown Phoenix, AZ. The wall of dust, which was estimated to be 70 miles long and over a mile high, moved at speeds of 35mph and had gusts up to 60mph. (Mike Olbinski Photography) #
Part two: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/12/the_year_in_pictures_part_ii.html

Mother Nature always bats last!

December 21, 2011

Occupy protesters indicted on felony charges in Houston

Seven Occupy protesters were indicted on felony charges by a grand jury in Houston on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office says, in connection with their demonstration at the local port as part of a national day of action by the movement.

The decision comes nearly a week after a judge initially dismissed the charges, saying the protesters could not be charged with possessing or using a "criminal instrument" – a felony in Texas – for their use of PVC pipe.
<snip>
"They are feeling, 'wow,' is the word. ... They're in a lot of shock. They were very happy with the justice's decision last week, they believed in her, they believed in the justice system," Silverman said. "These people ... are not criminals. These folks are out there attempting to make the country better for all of us."

Silverman, who noted that she believed the law had been wrongly applied by the prosecutor, said it's likely the protesters will be back in court in January to talk about the next step, such as negotiations or to go to trial. If convicted, they face up to two years in jail.

Protester Dustin Phipps -- who is not one of the seven charged -- said it was a "strategic move" by local police to discourage others from participating in civil disobedience.

More: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/20/9587551-occupy-protesters-indicted-on-felony-charges-in-houston

Those bastids!

The protestors were arrested and charged with using PVC pipe in a threatening manner. They had used the pipe to link their arms together to make it hard to be arrested.

I'd love to read the grand jury transcript and see how the DA portrayed PVC pipe. He probably made it seem as dangerous as C4.

This is just wrong on so many levels!

December 20, 2011

A letter from Harper Lee to a young fan:

Advice from Harper Lee
A young fan of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' named Jeremy wrote to Harper Lee in 2006, and asked for a signed photo. He didn't get one, but instead received this lovely piece of advice from the author that is far more precious.

Transcript follows. Image courtesy of Nate D. Sanders.



A young fan of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' named Jeremy wrote to Harper Lee in 2006, and asked for a signed photo. He didn't get one, but instead received this lovely piece of advice from the author that is far more precious.

Transcript follows. Image courtesy of Nate D. Sanders.

Image: Nate D. Sanders

Transcript
06/07/06

Dear Jeremy

I don't have a picture of myself, so please accept these few lines:

As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, "I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal."

(Signed, 'Harper Lee')

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/12/advice-from-harper-lee.html


Words to live by!

December 20, 2011

Here are some college football players with the real holiday spirit!

Louisiana Tech Players Give Bowl Gifts to Make-A-Wish Foundation

SAN DIEGO - A group of Louisiana Tech players took their community service event to another level Monday as they gave their bowl gifts to kids involved in the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Wide receiver Quinton Patton and linebacker Adrien Cole both donated their Best Buy gift cards (a $300 value) and Cole gave his Tourneau Poinsettia Bowl watch (a $97 value) during the Poinsettia Bowl's Make-A-Wish Foundation event.

"They're just material things," Cole said. "They need it more than I do."
Players from both Louisiana Tech and TCU were attending the community service event in San Diego as a part of the events leading up to the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl on Dec. 21.

A representative for the bowl said that he could not recall any player ever doing that in the history of the bowl.
http://www.latechsports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/121911aae.html

Good on them!
I hope more bowl players do this.

December 20, 2011

Tebow's Religion: Fair Game

<snip>
Which made a lot of the chin-stroking about Tebow's religion over the past weeks pretty much beside the point. It has been argued paradoxically that his faith is both vital to his success and off-limits to criticism. This is, of course, nonsense. He put his business in the street that way, and he did so by allying himself with the softer side of a movement that contains other organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which knows about this stuff, recently designated as hate groups. There was considerable thumb-sucking about the propriety of criticizing — or, gloriosky, perhaps even mocking — Tebow's conspicuous religiosity. This was an ironical moment in that it came in the week that journalist Christopher Hitchens died, and it was Hitchens whom I first heard say, although he may have been quoting someone else, that the only proper answer a journalist can give to the question "Is nothing sacred?" is "Yes."
<snip>
Let us be quite clear — Tim Tebow adheres to a particular form of American Protestantism. He belongs to — and proselytizes for — a splinter of a splinter, no more or less than Mitt Romney once did. This particular splinter has a long record in America of fostering anti-Enlightenment thought, retrograde social policies, and, more discreetly, religious bigotry. To call Tim Tebow a "Christian," and to leave it at that — as though there were one definition of what a "Christian" is — is to say nothing and everything at once. Roman Catholics are Christians. So are Lutherans, Episcopalians, Melkites, Maronites, and members of the Greek and Russian Orthodox faiths. You can see how insidious this is when discussion turns to the missionary work that Tebow's family has done in the Philippines. This is from the Five Priorities of the Bob Tebow ministries, regarding its work overseas:

It is the goal of the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association to preach the gospel to every person who has never had an opportunity to hear the good news of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Most of the world's population has never once had the opportunity to hear the only true message of forgiveness of sins by faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

It so happens that 95 percent of the population of the Philippines is Roman Catholic. Catholic doctrine just happens to be in conflict with what Bob Tebow and his son preach in regard to personal salvation. (To devout Catholics, for example, sins are not forgiven "by faith alone," but through the sacrament of reconciliation as administered by a priest.) Bob Tebow's goal is not to convert unbelievers. It is to supplant an existing form of Christianity. So who's the actual Christian here? This is not an idle point to be made. Down through history, millions of people have died in conflicts over what a "Christian" really is, which is what so exercised Madison, and also what brought down a lot of Hitchens' wrath upon religion in general. History says that as soon as you start talking about "the only true message" in this regard, you guarantee that, eventually, people will get slaughtered in the town square.
<snip>
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7369021/fair-game

This what people don't know or understand about Tebow's Christianity. The work done in the Phillipines is not just charitable aid. It goes hand in hand with the promotion of a strict and unforgiving form of religion.

Tebow and his family want to remake the religious world into one that adheres only to their beliefs. They aren't alone because there are others who also promote their version.

This is why I am wary of the wave of approval for Tebow. A lot of people think they have the same beliefs. I want to ask them if they really do? Do they really believe all of the facets of his faith?

December 19, 2011

Forensic Examiner Found No Match of Cables on Manning’s Laptop to WikiLeaks’

FT. MEADE, Maryland — A day after a government forensic expert testified that he’d found thousands of diplomatic cables on the Army computer of suspected WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, he was forced to admit under cross-examination that none of the cables he compared to the ones WikiLeaks released matched.

Special Agent David Shaver, a forensic investigator with the Army’s Computer Crimes Investigations Unit, testified Sunday that he’d found 10,000 U.S. diplomatic cables in HTML format on the soldier’s classified work computer, as well as a corrupted text file containing more than 100,000 complete cables that had been converted to base-64 encoding.

Six months after Manning was arrested for allegedly leaking documents to WikiLeaks, the site began publishing 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables that ranged in date from December 1966 to the end of February 2010. But Shaver said none of the documents that he found on Manning’s computer, and that he then compared to those that WikiLeaks published, matched the WikiLeaks documents.

Shaver wasn’t asked how many cables he compared to the WikiLeaks cables, or which dates those cables had, he just said he matched “some of them.” In re-direct examination, however, he noted that the CSV file in which the cables were contained was corrupted and suggested this might indicate that it had not been possible to pass those cables to WikiLeaks for this reason. The defense objected to this assumption, however, noting that Shaver could not speculate on why the cables were not among those released by WikiLeaks.
<snip>
More: http://tinyurl.com/7gtu2kw

Lying sacks of shite!

December 19, 2011

Sweet Jeebus! is Sandusky's lawyer defending him or trying to get him a reality show in prison?

Sara Ganim (@sganim)
12/19/11 9:19 AM
Joe Amendola told me Dottie and Jerry #Sandusky want to talk to Oprah, 60min, Rock Center or Barbara Walters after Jan.1


Amendola would gladly set up the interview. He acts more like an agent.

December 19, 2011

50 Best Photos From The Natural World (The Big Picture-Boston.com)

More: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/12/50_best_photos_of_the_natural.html

I love these photos! I think the owls picture is my favorite.
The Big Picture is usually great.

December 19, 2011

Satellite pic: North Korea vs South Korea at night

This just about sums up the state of that country.