CuZev - Copper Wulff Cassi Creek Seasons

14 February 2012 Anything but Hallmark

2012-02-14T09:59:00.002-08:00

http://us.cnn.com/2012/02/14/opinion/coontz-santorum/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Santorum's stone-age view of women

By Stephanie Coontz, Special to CNN

updated 11:15 AM EST, Tue February 14, 2012

it is worth revisiting a couple of its points. Take, for instance, the book's dismissal of programs to help impoverished single mothers improve their job prospects by returning to school: "The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong." Or its claim that unnamed "surveys" have shown that educated professional women find it "easier, more 'professionally' gratifying, and certainly more socially affirming, to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children."

The Santorums' apparent hostility to women's educational and professional advancement is insulting and out of touch with today's world. But it is also odd in light of their purported interest in the welfare of children. It turns out that the most powerful single influence on a child's educational success is not the mother's marital status but her own level of education and her educational aspirations for her children, according to education researcher W. Norton Grub.”

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/317-65/9958-fox-commentator-military-rape-qwhat-did-they-expectq

Fox Commentator: Military Rape, "What Did They Expect?"

By Andy Newbold, Media Matters for America

13 February 12

Fox's Liz Trotta on sexual assault in military: "What did they expect? These people are in close contact."

during a segment about new rules regarding women in the military, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta attacked the Department of Defense for increasing spending on support programs for victims of sexual assault. Trotta also reacted to a Pentagon report showing a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults since 2006 by stating: "Well, what did they expect? These people are in close contact."

Trotta began by claiming "we have women once more, the feminist, going, wanting to be warriors and victims at the same time" and later added that feminists "have also directed them, really, to spend a lot of money. They have sexual counselors all over the place, victims' advocates, sexual response coordinators.... you have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much."

When Fox News anchor Eric Shawn said that "many would say that they need to be protected," Trotta replied: "That's funny, I thought the mission of the" armed forces "was to defend and protect us, not the people who were fighting the war."

From the February 12 edition of Fox News' America's News HQ:”

Cassi Creek:

It is readily apparent that the GOP\teavangelist\Fox News triad of repression is primed to repeal all the social, cultural, and political gains made by women since the American colonies were established.

Santorum, accompanied by the males-only Catholic Bishops organization is frothing at the mouth in his intent to prevent any and all access to birth control and any other method of family planning than Vatican roulette. History documents a long period, around 2000 years or so, when priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes saw no reason to suffer celibacy their selves while still denying any sexual activity to their captive congregations.

Trotta, expressing the Fox News approach to women’s rights, must have some terrific columns on the spike. She’s an apologist for every rapist, for every wife beater, for all the actions overlooked in today’s America because they happen primarily to women.

It doesn’t surprise me to see this sort of stupidity and bigotry expressed by Fox News and its medieval viewpoint for life. We all know that it supports the suppression of women right along with the suppression of intellect, equality, and truth. This is the sort of comment that is going to show up later in speeches by Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann as they try to blame rape and murder on the victims while using religious arguments to convince the victims that they are at fault.

I don’t see it that way, never have, never will. My mother brought me up to know better than that.

Still, the triad of repression will spend hours talking about the economic impact of today, Valentine’s Day. They’ll push roses, chocolate, and expensive meals, all proffered in hopes of being compensated by the recipient with some sexual favors.

On this day of commercial celebration, sex is fine as long as the financial component is disguised expensively. Hallmark generates large returns and lobbyists have an easy sell. Two people, in love, making love, without benefit of commercial assistance – obviously sinful, forbidden, and should be banned by Bishops in Boston.

“

13 February 2012 Happy birthday, Gloria

2012-02-13T08:07:00.001-08:00

Cassi Creek:

You came into my life at a time when neither you nor I was looking for any involvement. I was scheduled for job interviews in Alaska in the early months of 1993. I still carried layers of armor that made human contact unlikely at best.

When you should have never looked twice you shoved any angels foolish enough to be hanging around aside and opened your door and your life to me.

I recall vividly the thrill of seeing those first photographs of you. I remember how your smile lit up the entire airline gate on a bleak late autumn day. I remember how happy everyone was at our wedding!

We’ve traveled, danced, and dined. We’ve endured hurricanes, tornadoes, high water, hot weather, and excessive snow. We’ve fished, paddled, and you’ve learned to shoot.

It’s your birthday again. I’m thrilled to share it with you. I hope, at day’s end, that you will be happy that we are us. Always remember, you are the great joy, the great passion, and the great love in my life. Bonne Anee!

12 February 2012 Adventures in the realm of heat resistance

2012-02-12T10:36:00.001-08:00

Cassi Creek: After cleaning the wood stove Thursday, it has been in continual use since Thursday evening. Temperatures fell to 17°F last night with a wind chill below zero. The stove has consumed copious amounts of wood since last lighting it.

About 2300 yesterday I began to set up the stove for the overnight burn. I added two large logs to the firebox, which contained a good bed of coals. When I closed the door, one of the logs shifted, pushing the burning log on the bottom down and doorward. This prevented closing the door and the wide gap between door and stove allowed outside air to enter the firebox.

I have welder’s gloves I use to feed the stove. They have grown old and thin with use. They offer no thermal protection from anything bigger than a spark. They were absolutely worthless in removing the offending log.

In early January, I ordered a pair of fireplace gloves. They arrived in a timely manner and I laid them aside near the stove. Last night I thought to place them into service. This seemed to be the sort of complication that called for new, flame resistant, gloves. I pulled them on, grabbed the obstructing log, and laced the air with obscenities and profanities as the index and middle index fingers promptly flame-hardened and blistered my fingers. The gloves are not very flame resistant.

The appropriate 1^st aid for a 2^nd degree burn involves removing the injured body part from further contact with the heat source producing the injury. Immersion in cool water is helpful for extremity burns. But I had a blazing stove with an un-secured door that was the more urgent problem. I ripped off the new gloves, grabbed the old ones, and spent another 5 minutes wrestling with a problem in space and force before I finally managed to close the loading door. During that time, the old gloves were absorbing heat from the stove handles and pumping it into the existing blisters.

After securing the stove, I started cooling down the burns. By 0030 the pain had subsided sufficiently to allow me to drift off to sleep. At 0400, I was up feeding the stove again. I’ll bring in more firewood this afternoon.

I have two blisters on my index finger and one on my middle index finger. I’m fortunate that the injuries were not more serious.

I spent a large portion of the morning reading ads for new flame-resistant gloves and reading customer reviews of LL Bean fireplace gloves. Several reviews specifically indicate being able to pick up burning wood. I’d rather not challenge that capability directly. But it is only February and the stove-feeding season stretches out ahead of me.

11 February 2012 Don’t throw no celebrations. Don’t hold no parades, no

2012-02-11T12:03:00.001-08:00

Not unless you hold ‘em on Desolation Row.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-throw-us-an-iraq-victory-parade/2012/02/08/gIQAfy5O4Q_story.html

Don’t throw veterans an Iraq victory parade

By Colby Buzzell, Published: February 10

“The Iraq war is over. Should we throw a parade?

After all, the Super Bowl champion New York Giants got one this past week, complete with 30 tons of confetti falling from the Manhattan sky.

…“We simply don’t think a national-level parade is appropriate while we continue to have America’s sons and daughters in harm’s way,” said a spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I’m not all that concerned with parades, not in a big city or a small town, at halftime or any other time. What concerns me is the day after the parade, the day after the Sept. 11 anniversary events, the day when the flags are put away and America stops cheering and it’s back to business as usual. That’s what scares me.

“Less than 2 percent of Americans serve in the military, and for them, a parade would be just another superficial acknowledgment of a sacrifice that has not been shared and certainly not celebrated. Some people argue that it’s a way to show support for the troops, some argue that it’s premature since there’s still a war in Afghanistan, and others argue that Iraq and Afghanistan are different fights.

“While all this arguing is going on, veterans are struggling. In this country, an average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day. The jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is as high as 15 percent. They are trying to find work despite having been labeled ticking time bombs, unable to assimilate back into society, plagued with post-traumatic stress.

“Later this month, on an evening like any other in America, nearly 70,000 veterans will spend the night on the street …”

Cassi Creek: We woke up to find blowing sleet and snow at 0600. Gloria decided to stay home rather than to drive into Johnson City for a class on engraving. We have been treated to falling temperatures, more snow, short intervals of blue sky, and 15-20 MPH winds from the NW. We had planned to dine out tonight but Gloria isn’t feeling up to par and we’ll celebrate the occasion another day. Instead, we’ll hunker down and let the wood stove do the heavy heating, as much as possible. That will require a series of trips outdoors to bring in large, cold, segments of former trees to convert into heat and ashes. The dog is happily stretched out in front of the stove, moving only long enough for me to add fuel before reclaiming her space.

The purpose of a victory parade seems antiquated now. We are no longer actively waging war on our home real estate, we conquer and keep no ground, expending lives in order to occupy it temporarily as if doing so will change the attitudes and behaviors of those shove aside. We hope it will, for we know it matters all too little back in the world where IEDs no longer serve as traffic signals.

Perhaps 2% of our populace now has shared the commonality of a barracks and weapons in our hands every waking hour. The rest have no idea that a parade marks a transition, a change of command, honors afforded to a comrade, or other symbolic event. The end of continental or global wars deserved a parade to mark the end of those wars and to honor the troops who took entire nations and held them long enough for new governments to be established. But those reasons no longer exist except in the reality of soldiers, sailors, and airmen. The military leadership knows that the world has changed diametrically since the late days of 1945. Ideological control of nations now replaces seizing land masses.

With the change in why and how we fight wars one would expect a change in how we treat our troops. But it has become easier for the masses that no longer serve to also no longer recall. Mountain View Veterans’ Affairs Hospital began its existence as a home for men who fought the civil war and then wound up homeless, jobless, and of no use to society. We no longer make pretence of helping our soldiers who saw too much. There is no public concern for the “shell-shocked,” “battle fatigued,” or those with PTSD. They are expected to absorb the cultural and emotional shock to their minds and bodies and to pick up their lives at the point where they hopped off the civilian routine and into the meat- grinder of modern combat.

Some of us manage to return to civilian life and to become “normal” and productive. Others find that the return is not as easy or as complete. PTSD can hide for long periods, surfacing, creating havoc and discord before being shoved back under for another genie in the bottle existence.

During a recent physical, I mentioned to my primary care doctor at VA that I wasn’t sleeping well – something that was a marked change for me now. She ordered consults and I went to the appointments. I’m sleeping better again most nights. There’s no way to decrease the shoulder and neck pain that is a partial cause of my insomnia.

Unlike many VietNam veterans, I’m fortunate to be sleeping indoors, eating regular meals, in a loving marriage. I spent most of my life after VietNam working in a technical job; retiring only due to work-related injuries. I have no addictions, and I receive regular medical care.

I’ve lived with PTSD for 44 years now. No parade, no free steak dinner in San Francisco, no amount of ethanol and war stories in a VFW bar would have prevented it. The military is beginning to realize that everyone who serves in combat is going to undergo some degree of PTSD. The Joint Chiefs are correct. It is not time for a parade. It is time for Congress to understand that they authorized the conflicts that are going to tear another generation of troops apart at the hidden seams. They need to quit allowing lobbyists for Halliburton and other profiteers to drag us into wars. They need to value our steadily diminishing numbers of men and women in uniform as the heroes the truly are.

2012-02-10T08:40:00.000-08:00

10 February 2012 “ But their religion wants world conquest!”

Cassi Creek:

For today’s message, brothers and sisters, we find our inspiration in the eloquent work of the cartoonists, Luckovich and Telnais. Please open your Washington Post to the Opinions section. Join in as we take up the matter of “Obama’s attack on religion.

The religious right, spearheaded by a largely masculine leadership and power structure is once again dragging out the fictitious “war on religion (read that as war on Christianity).” In an unwarranted action, the GOP\teavangelists\Roman Catholics are trying to roll back the availability of reproductive health services for women to the pre-Sanger days, and the status of women nationwide to that of women in Colonial America.

There is no war on religion. However, churches enjoy taxation loopholes similar to corporations due to their supposed “non-profit \ charitable” nature. Churches are not non-profit entities – track the real estate holdings of the Roman Catholic structure and the worldwide worth of the LDS. Both of those “churches” routinely lobby and attempt to legislate from their pulpits in a manner that would be equally at home in Saudi Arabia or Iran. These immense churches want not only to dictate medical and social choices for their members; they insist upon inflicting their medieval canon law upon civil law and life in these United States. They essentially want social, cultural, and legal dominance over every U.S, citizen and resident. This is the same dominance they object to in those nations that are officially Islamic in nature.

There is no war on religion in the United States. That is not to say that there should not be. I harbor a great deal of animosity toward mullahs and imams who pray and plan for the Caliphate to be established again. I harbor an even greater amount of animosity and anger toward those “Christian” leaders who would happily take us back to the days of state religions, the Holy Roman Empire, and witch trials for heretics, apostates, blasphemers, and atheists. Our “Western” religions have undergone enlightenment along with the civil nations of Europe. They have no justification for their patterns of rejecting modern science and medicine in order to teach and enforce the practices of superstition and mythology upon their members. But to attempt to enforce such practices upon non-members is simply criminal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catholic-leaders-reach-outside-their-flock/2012/02/09/gIQAa5lM2Q_video.html

Shabbat Shalom!

9 February 2012 steaming dog, putty in my hands, will work for biscuits

2012-02-09T11:29:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gop-scrambles-for-a-bogeyman/2012/02/07/gIQAyrZwzQ_story.html

The GOP scrambles for a bogeyman

By Harold Meyerson, Published: February 8

“Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, one thing is increasingly clear: Boy, do the Republicans miss communism…”

For those of us who grew up in the days when we were encouraged to check under our beds each night for “Reds”, that single sentence rings loudly true and covers much more ground than younger people can ever imagine. In those not so distant days J Edgar Hoover’s “Masters of Deceit” was required reading in those school districts that liked Ike and Nixon. The Boy Scouts, admittedly a para-military organization in those days before fear of litigation transformed the program into a competition for membership numbers, showcasing adolescent males in uniforms designed by an Italian fashion house, were encouraged to spy upon their families and neighbors in order to detect communist spies.

The GOP was in tall cotton, blacklisting musician and folk-singers, investigating “un-American activities.” They added “God” to every document and desk that didn’t escape or evade faster than the worshipers of the senile Saint Ronnie could stick his name onto ever-public edifice in the late 80s. The John Birch Society spearheaded all sorts of idiocy, demanding we leave the United Nations; cheerleading client state wars with Soviet proxies like Gingrich, Palin, and the teavangelists are trying to start new ground wars in Iran and Syria. And of course, those wars, if we buy into them, will be fought by the poor. Never knew war was a social safety net? You do now!

Cassi Creek:

Today began at 0500 and a drive into Mountain Home VA Hospital for an Occupational Therapy consult. The therapist took lots of measurements and agreed with me that I have lost range of motion, grip strength, and dexterity. She sent me home with a book of exercises, a high-resistance sponge, and some medium resistance putty to use in those exercises. She is also ordering two resistance devices that may be of help.

We bathed Loki this morning. It took both of us to encourage and shepherd her into the bathtub. The last time the three of us occupied that space we were hearing tornadoes roar by. Loki tolerated the process, shook to dry, and promptly laid down by the wood stove to steam the afternoon away.

I had no breakfast this morning as I thought I might buy some sort of country breakfast at VA. When I looked at the serving line, it didn’t look that appealing. I enjoy buttermilk biscuits but I think I’ll have to buy some to have on hand at home. I don’t want fast food biscuits. Only the finest biscuits will do.

VA, I believe, is granting my compensation request for PTSD. I’ll have to appeal the hearing loss claim. I’ll be keeping an anxious eye on the mailbox.

“Guilt by association was so much simpler when the association, or alleged association, was with communists. In their absence, Republicans have had to grow more ridiculous. They’ve been up to the challenge.”

meyersonh@washpost.com

8 February 2012 E-file and be done with it

2012-02-08T06:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at 1400 I sat down to file our 2011 tax forms. By 1500 I was done with the paperwork. Granted, I used the free version of TurboTax obtained via the IRS. Granted I had most of the paperwork organized. But mostly, we generate so little revenue that we have fallen from the former middle class into the near poor class. As do far too many Americans, we live from payday to payday. We haven’t been to a movie theater in more than 7 years. (Yes, we’ve been to several concerts in that period, primarily family and old friends). We don’t buy DVDs, don’t rent movies or stream them. We read a lot.

We don’t buy meat or seafood that isn’t on sale. As for box meals, junk foods, soft drinks, and other such items that load the average grocery cart, we gave those up long ago. Our largest expenses are medical and pharmaceutical.

This isn’t the life we imagined, watching ourselves dropping down the social ladder rung by rung while the political and social structure becomes more and more like pre-industrial Eastern Europe. However, it could be far worse. No one is shooting at us over internet remarks. There will be someone to vote for this year, running against Phil Roe, whom I can vote for without lying to myself. In addition, the IRS accepted our tax forms. We’re through for another year. There is no refund to wait for. There is no unpaid tax bill to worry about.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/rick-santorum-wins-colorado-missouri-minnesota-beyond-the-sweater/2012/02/08/gIQAMQ79xQ_blog.html

Posted at 01:08 AM ET, 02/08/2012

Rick Santorum, beyond the sweater

By Alexandra Petri

“Santorum’s pitch has always been old-fashioned. One would expect nothing less from a man whose sweater vest is his most constant companion. He spoke of the Declaration of Independence, to which the Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their “sacred honor.”

Sacred honor is not a term you hear flung around very much nowadays. Since Ms. Blackman, Honor has taken a bit of a downturn. But that’s what Santorum is all about – restoring the America of the Founders. Especially the honor bit. And, if he’s lucky, the parts where no one in the country has access to any form of birth control not available in Colonial times, and gay people not only can’t get married but are liable to be tried for witchcraft…”

Cassi Creek: Santorum’s performance in Missouri is not at all surprising. St. Louis and the outward population expansion were largely fueled by French Catholics, German Catholics, and German Lutherans. The southern part of the state is overgrown with Pentecostal, evangelical, fundamentalist, and bible thumpers of every sort. This is a state that remembers what “Southern Baptist” means.

In the 1990s, a woman was appointed Postmistress for the town of Nevada MO. She happened to be Black. The town of Nevada MO has an annual celebration commemorating the town being burned by Union troops during the civil war because locals had helped William Quantrill stop a hospital train and murder the wounded troops aboard it. At that time, the total black population of Nevada MO was 0. There was suddenly no housing available in the entire town. The new Postmistress wound up living in neighboring Fort Scott KS 25 miles westward, where housing was available.

While Catholics are also a very small portion of the populace, Santorum’s rabid fundamentalism fits the voter base in the Southwestern MO. I have no doubt that Santorum and the GOP carried the town of Nevada MO and most of the surrounding counties.

7 February 2012 “Someone will set the spark off… and we will all be blown away

2012-02-07T08:26:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americas-red-lines-in-the-sand-on-iran/2012/02/06/gIQAr6W5uQ_story.html

America’s red lines in the sand on Iran

By Richard Cohen, Published: February 6

“There are three red lines when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. The first is the moment when Iran tunnels so deeply underground that Israeli bombs will be incapable of doing real damage. The second is when the tunneling goes even deeper, and the United States’ “bunker buster” bombs will be insufficient. And the third — well, that has already passed. It is the conviction that the current Iranian regime will never let Israel live in peace.”

Cassi Creek:

I find myself wondering how much collusion there is between D.C. and Jerusalem over the Iranian nuclear program. Israel has the greater risk and will suffer more proportionately in the event of an Iranian attack. The U.S has the greater target exposure and might well sustain multiple attacks with nuclear weapons. Both nations are correct to be worried about the risk of Iranian bombs. Cohen points out the increasing danger in waiting for Iran to behave as a reasonable western power. They’re never going to be a reasonable western power.

Is it worth waiting for Iran to shoot first? While it may be possible to delay their nuclear weapons program by means of air attacks, airpower can’t change their intent or their malevolence. There will be no moral high ground in allowing our nations to be attacked before striking. Iraq’s invasion was not justified. Bombing Iran’s nuclear weapons program may be.

In the end game, if we destroy their production line and enrichment plants, there is absolutely nothing to prevent Iran from buying nuclear weapons from Pakistan or North Korea.

6 February 2012 Paying to watch commercials and other stupidity

2012-02-06T12:26:00.001-08:00

Last night the mania made manifest, know as the “Super Bowl” took place. From what I have heard or noticed on screen scrawls during programs that are supposed to be about actual news, ticket prices begin at $2800. In hopes of increasing the revenues generated by fan who actually seem to think that a gladiatorial melee between two greatly overpaid stables of athletes has any valid social significance beyond enriching illegal gambling, the “game was televised. Thus the fans who don’t have thousands of dollars to throw away for a day of beer-soaked half-attention to a game can be persuaded to offer up a portion of their more meager incomes buying dangerous foodstuffs, newer and bigger televisions, and, of course, beer; gallons and gallons of mostly cheap and flavorless beer.

During the previous week, I’ve ignored newsreaders drooling over the “leaked” commercials slated to be aired at a mind-numbing rate per minute during the “game.” There seems to be a fascination with commercials aired during the “game” Companies apparently use this over-priced time to debut sales pitches. Obviously, football has become secondary to the advertisements when they build in delays in the “game” to pitch consumption.

Having no interest in football (or basketball) and no interest in the cheaper American beer breweries that will compete to see how many discarded cans and bottles they can provide for erosion control along our roads and parking lots, I never watch this circus.

Mind you, I’m not opposed to material goods and fine food. But grease-laden pizza, and “celebrities” I neither recognize nor care to know pushing me to drink bad beer and buy ever bigger, ever louder televisions to watch and listen to programs that have become less about plot and more about audio and visual effects don’t motivate me to part with money or time.

Yesterday, I watched “The Crucible.” It is my opinion that we have our own little witch hunt developing in New York now. Conversion disorders do exist but the rapid onset of multiple instances among a populace prone to shared hysteria and/or hoaxes suggests to me something beyond a need for medical intervention. Rather, a serious talk about hoaxes and frauds interspersed with a stark, harsh review of possible legal consequences, if combined with confiscation of cell phones, landlines, and computers, so as to render the group unable to conspire without direct parental overview, just might spur an amazingly quick and complete recovery. It’s certainly worth a try.

As for the commercials, we were once told that cable television would remove them from the programming we were offered. They seem to have only become more prevalent, more invasive, and more obnoxious. A large portion of our population spent time actively watching advertisements for things that they did not need, could not afford, and had the intellectual depth of Sarah Palin and her prayer warriors as they were prayed over to prevent harm coming to them from witchcraft. We can do better with that, can’t we.

5 February 2012 Turn up the band turn down the background

2012-02-05T09:17:00.000-08:00

(04-Feb-12) The road into Jonesborough was wet, narrow, and full of traffic as we drove in tonight. There was enough fog to make the reflected light unpleasant to deal with. There seems to be a lack of understanding among local drivers about how to drive in fog and when one should dim one’s headlights. The preferred options seem to be,

In fog, switch on fog lamps and high beam headlights so as to blind the driver and oncoming drivers, while increasing one’s speed.
Headlights are never to be dimmed for oncoming traffic.
Have the vehicle altered in such a fashion that the headlight lamps are suitable to use as aircraft landing lights, and that those lights are aimed directly into the eyes of oncoming drivers
Extra points will be awarded to those drivers who can manage to control the aim point of their headlamps from inside their own vehicle.

The bane of my existence at the dance gate may well be the little girls from the local colleges who arrive in groups of 5-6. They will either hand me a $20.00 bill or they will stop the line while they unroll a folded mass of currency and peel off 5 sticky $1.00 bills. Tonight the line reached 10 who wanted to pay separately with $20.00s. I had little but singles in the cash box when they all descended upon us. I’d love to have a sign requesting exact change but that would never go over with the organization. One of the local young ladies just emptied out her wallet in order to pay with pennies. Rather than count pennies repeatedly I let her in and told her to keep her pennies.

There is such a difference in how college students are treated locally now compared to how I recall things being when I entered college. Students were often barely tolerated by the town’s folk. They were used for cheap labor by the schools and by local businesses. Student housing was horrid in nature, one step above being torn down. I recall one house actually owned by the university that was jacked up above its foundations. Despite the unsafe nature it was rented to students. 6-9 people lived in it while I was in school there. One lived in the unheated attic, one in the basement, and one in the coal bin. After an ice storm hit the area the tenants filled two rooms with broken branches and strung Christmas lights. The university finally evicted everyone but never saw its own culpability.

(05-Feb-2012) Continuation… is making me weight!

Now for something completely different.

Bob Mead's realistic mosquitoes:

This is a very good example of realism in tying flies to be used for fishing.

The fly is tied by Bob Mead; the photo is by Peter Frailey. For more information about realistic flies, fly tying, fly fishing and some excellent photography, visit Peter Frailty’s excellent blog:

http://www.fishingwithfliesblog.com

For more information about what it takes to construct one of these flies, visit:

http://www.fishingwithfliesblog.com/2012/01/bob-meads-realistic-mosquitoes.html

Two, perhaps three of these flies will sit on the face of a dime without crowding each other.

4 February 2012 Holes in the safety nets

2012-02-04T08:57:00.000-08:00

It comes as no surprise that Romney has publically expressed disdain and disregard for the poor Americans. His promise to repair the social safety nets designed and implemented to protect the poor rings extremely hollow.

The safety nets in question include those designed to provide housing, food, health care, education, job training, and other programs intended to keep a large segment of the U.S. populace from falling into Dickensian conditions of poverty. The programs called for the various states to use federal funds to administer many aspects of the safety nets. But years of GOP defunding along with increased need for services have left the states with nothing to provide except reductions in levels of services. Many people now depend upon food banks and other charities for sustenance. There is much less charitable contribution of housing and health care. And some services can’t be and shouldn’t be provided by charities and churches.

For instance, family planning can be regarded as essential for purposes of mental and physical health, housing, education, and many other common needs. However, Catholic and fundamentalist churches are opposed to birth control in many or all form. Allowing them to limit services provided by other charities is essentially cutting out huge segments of the social safety nets while allowing the teavangelists to deny responsibility for reduction in services.

Are we ready to bring back the workhouses, perhaps under the guise of returning jobs to America? If Chinese factory workers on manual assembly lines can pull 35 hour shifts. Are American workers any less capable?

3 February 2012 Home before daylight

2012-02-03T12:33:00.000-08:00

The night delivered two more hours of sleep than was granted the night before. The afternoon was consumed by odds and ends. I cleaned out the stove and laid a new fire to, hopefully, ignite and burn with the application of one match. Carried in firewood. Fixed an elegant dinner – hotdogs and beans, eventually dragged Loki, and fell into a most welcome sleep.

Today included a hike with Mike. We need t coordinate our VA appointments; we’re missing some exercise walks. Traffic today was better than yesterday’s. Fewer idiots driving without brakes, cleaned windscreens, and valid drivers’ licenses. The number of people charged with driving with a revoked or suspended license gives one pause. It is safe to assume that the majority of those revocations are due to habitual collection of DUI arrests.

The menu tonight calls for salad and pizza.

Shabbat Shalom

2 February 2012 I just might get some sleep tonight.

2012-02-02T10:12:00.001-08:00

Short version: up at 0420, up at 0500, up at 0530

Move to couch to avoid waking Gloria.

Up at 0636, up at 0730

Shower

Hike with Mike

Drive to Greeneville

Pick up Gloria’s meds

Get haircut

Buy 4 bags water softer pellets store 3 add 1 to filters

Collapse is planned.

1 February 2012 Useless traditions No need to poke a ground hog

2012-02-01T09:59:00.001-08:00

The forecast for our mountains calls for a probability of rain tomorrow. Therefore, no shadowy apparition should be seen by irritated and sleepy woodchucks. I see no need to rise before daybreak in order to poke at an angry rodent in order to satisfy some old superstition or tradition. Just because our ancestors did it that way does not make it worth preserving. They used to hunt for meat with bits of rock tied to sticks, thereby becoming meat as often as acquiring meat.

What other useless traditions might we dispose of?

Our youth are wailing and complaining about the cost of college education. They feel that student loans are hampering their ability to enjoy college life fully and that their lives after leaving college are ruled by the necessity of working to repay student loan fees. Many college students have been led to believe that their parents owe them college educations.

This same set of students may well believe that new cars, credit cards, and spring break trips are things that they are all entitled to enjoy. Credit card bills amassed during spring break trips are not really education costs. Nor are automobile expenses, auto insurance, and other luxuries such as gaming systems

Also in the tier of useless traditions, w might find field houses and stadia. The myth of the student athlete competing for the non-existent honor of a university is exactly that, a myth. Those pseudo-students are recruited and housed in luxury dorms with under the table money for dessert in order to coax wealthy alumni to keep funding an athletic program that serves only those pseudo-students who will most likely play at some game until hurt and unable to play, or until recruited by a professional franchise. In either case, graduation is unlikely. Benefit to the average student due to a professional athletic training program is next to non-existent. In fact, it causes their student fees for non-class work related items to be higher.

As much as they would complain if those professional athletic programs vanished, the alumni who most likely are complaining about leaving taxes to their spawn would demonstrate not one bit of regret at saddling future generations of students with the costs of new athletic facilities, their upkeep, and the outrageous and un-necessary salaries paid to coaches and trainers that exist only to service the mercenary athletes who are looking for the best pro-recruitment draft deal.

Think about it. I’ve never heard a college athlete complain about tuition costs or student loan reimbursement. That is truly a useless tradition!

31 January 2012 Aim for the foot again

2012-01-31T14:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/establishment-republicans-have-only-themselves-to-blame/2012/01/30/gIQAmECOdQ_story.html?hpid=z2

Republicans have only themselves to blame

By Richard Cohen, Published: January 30

“On Saturday night, at precisely 9:19 and 30 seconds, my iPhone, my iPad, my computer and, for all I know, my toaster were informed that Herman Cain had endorsed Newt Gingrich. The ping-ping of the devices suggested that something momentous had happened — alerts from both The Post and the New York Times — but in fact it was just additional evidence that the Republican Party has become a circus: One clown endorsed another.”

This situation would be highly amusing if it was happening in some banana republic that had never known representative government or had social safety nets, good schools, and trustworthy leaders. Seeing it unfold here is painful, and is going to become much more painful.

The GOP is bleeding badly, thanks in large part to idiot candidates like Gingrich and Palin who manufacture dissent and fracture truth into smaller bites to feed the bottom-feeding teavangelists that clamor for their groundless attacks upon the media and upon any voter who actually studies the issues and reads history that doesn’t come from cartoons.

30 January 2012 There’s NO intelligent life on the Moon

2012-01-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

http://us.cnn.com/2012/01/30/opinion/frum-moon-colony/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

A moon colony is a waste of money

By David Frum, CNN Contributor

updated 8:04 AM EST, Mon January 30, 2012

NASA moon and ISS – current technical limit

Verne’s imagined limit

Sheppard takes Antares to the moon - previous technical limit

Gingrich meets technical and financial limits

Current acceptable technical, financial, and political limit

Cassi Creek: Base off base with current reality

Frum writes in reference to Gingrich’s promise of a moon base cum 51^st state:

“The hard truth to deliver to the laid-off engineers on Florida's space coast is that space exploration is another industry where automation has reduced the number of human employees needed. To propose putting 13,000 human beings on the moon is a lot like proposing to return to the days when steel mills employed tens of thousands of people. It's not a vision of the future. It's nostalgia.”

The Gingrich proposal makes no mention of how the other nations of the world may regard such a blatant act of colonialism. While I regard our decline in funding and results for space exploration, the time has come for actual human expansion toward the stars to become a global project aimed at expanding the drive to explore and exploit our universe. No single nation should plan to colonize the moon and outer planetary bodies as we did various parts of the Earth.

Gingrich’s “moon state” is obviously intended to become a militarized base with US troops securing the moon for corporations that have paid for GOP/teavangelists to be re-elected. We have no means of transporting and sustaining a battalion or so of lunar-based troops at the outer ends of our technologic and economic reach. While there may be people desperate enough or foolish enough to sign up for a one-way trip to the moon, I don’t know of any foolish enough to sign that contract. That duty station would be grimmer and less socially rewarding than being stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan and having to live under local customs and religious laws. Yet as grim as that would be, lunar duty would demand and require an even harsher social and military contract.

If Gingrich wants to staff an all-volunteer colony on the moon, it should be his name and his ass that fill the first transport roster and seat. And it’s doubtful that he’ pass the physical or mental exam to become a colonist. His abrasive and combative nature would be likely to cost him dearly. His “I’m smarter than you all” attitude would keep him from listening to the “underlings as they explained how such necessary things as pressure suits, toilets, water sources, and airlocks work and how they had to be used.

Next episode: “Explosive decompression and sanitation modules” or “Cleanup in tunnel 5”

29 January 2012 Newt don’t phone home

2012-01-29T08:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/gingrich-the-most-persecuted-man-in-america/2012/01/28/gIQANGINYQ_blog.html

Posted at 08:45 AM ET, 01/29/2012

Gingrich: The most persecuted man in America?

By Jennifer Rubin

“The one incident from Newt Gingrich’s speakership that stands out in most people’s minds is the pout-a-thon concerning Air Force One….

“… quintessential Newt Gingrich — thin-skinned, self-absorbed, destructive and, yes, “petty.” He excels in converting his own missteps into tales of martyrdom. All of this has manifested itself in the campaign in big ways and small…

“…When Gingrich experiences the normal rough and tumble of a campaign, Sarah Palin (another perpetual mainstream media exploiter) claims that the attacks are “Stalinesque.” From her house, she might see Russia, but her understanding of Stalin is nonexistent; Stalin, of course, prevented free elections and the robust expression of free speech.

“Gingrich boasts of his association with Ronald Reagan and then becomes unhinged when Reagan’s former advisers beg to differ about Gingrich’s fidelity to the president. He goes bonkers, accusing them with no facts whatsoever of being part of a grand scheme. The notion that respected conservatives would simply be fed up with his puffery and concerned he might actually win and thereby ruin the party and the conservative movement is foreign to him.Once again, he’s the victim when in fact he’s simply been caught misbehaving (in this case, in excessive opportunism).”

Cassi Creek: The former Speaker seems determined to shoot himself in both feet by continuing to behave like a spoiled middle school nerd who wants to run the entire school but who has no social skills beyond sitting in a corner and sulking.

The mainstream GOP is demonstrating their unwillingness to be represented by Gingrich and the teavangelists, but they remain unwilling to step on his candidacy in order to salvage some semblance of a political campaign for 2012. Jennifer Rubin comes about as close as anyone in trying to push Gingrich from the martyrdom and teavangelist planks of the GOP platform.

What is going to be necessary is a brutal and bloody public dismissal of Gingrich by the GOP powers. I can see the banner – “Newt Find Other Work – Don’t phone home!”

PS, Keep Palin with you

28 January 2012 “Standing on the moon…

2012-01-28T11:12:00.001-08:00

Where talk is cheap and vision true
Standing on the moon
But I would rather be with you
Somewhere in San Francisco
On a back porch in July
Just looking up to heaven
At this crescent in the sky”

("Standing On the Moon"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/opinion/blow-lunar-colonies-lunacy-and-losses.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Lunar Colonies, Lunacy and Losses

By CHARLES M. BLOW

Published: January 27, 2012

“Newt Gingrich is spaced-out. Literally.

…Gingrich told a crowd on Florida’s so-called Space Coast on Wednesday that “by the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the Moon. And it will be American.” And he said that he would push for the introduction of a “Northwest Ordinance for Space” so that when the number of colonists reached 13,000, they could petition for statehood.”

While I grew up watching the Cold War’s Space Race take place, and regret the loss of excitation about inter-planetary exploration that is now the norm; Gingrich’s hollow proclamation is nothing but empty lies offered for votes from another downsized technical industry seemingly abandoned by the government and population.

This lie demonstrates a decided lack of historical awareness as well as a horrific lack of technical and astrophysical education on the part of the liar. The Space Race with the Soviets was always a demonstration of military capability played out against the peaceful vista of a cold, dead, rocky satellite. Every orbital flight demonstrated possessing enough heavy-lift capacity to lob thermo-nuclear warheads. Every survey mission dealt in some manner with surveillance of another power. Every capsule, every command module, every shuttle flight was highly experimental and carried the risk of fiery death, explosive decompression, radiation storms, and countless other hazards that cost the lives of pilots, flight crews, and even ground crews and entire design and production teams. The flights today still carry all those risks.

The goal of a moon base has been postulated by every science fiction writer who has gazed skyward. We’ve put men on the moon and outlasted the Soviets. Truthfully, given the state of instrumentation today there is little we can gain from putting men on the moon again that can’t be determined by miniature robots such as those that have performed so remarkably on Mars.

Gingrich’s promise of a moon base demonstrates that he has as little knowledge of what engineering and scientific challenges would have to be overcome as he did of the combat in the VietNam war. He’s willing to take credit for the hard work of others but like most of the GOP/teavanagelists of his era, don’t ask him to take part in any of the scut work or endure any personal sacrifice.

The 51^st state boast is clear evidence that the “former speaker” would do everything possible to annex a global satellite as an American territory. He, of course, would have no historical clue about how the other industrialized/technical nation would take offense at such action. Nor would he care. He’d be quite willing to start the first inter-planetary war, just as long as no one asked him to give up anything.

27 January 2012 Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul

2012-01-27T08:05:00.000-08:00

Well, Cassi Creek will have to substitute for the river. But the Nolichucky’s proximity – three miles downstream – is close enough. An inch of rain since midnight onto an already well-watered drainage system has the creek clamoring raucously as it rushes past and moves large limestone boulders downstream.

Raucous describes the GOP “debate” in Jacksonville FL last night as Gingrich, the pig-faced newt, ran aground on the shoal of Blitzer’s refusal to be browbeaten by the “Former Speaker.”

Alexandra Petri described it well in her column in the Washington Post -http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/mitts-priceless-performance-newts-loony-business/2012/01/26/gIQAiukHVQ_blog.html She lets the body parts fly and fall where they may.

I chose not to watch this debate, as I have chosen not to watch the previous hours of commercial propaganda that is intended to convince me that one of the GOP “candidates” is qualified to hold any elected position that involves public money, public service, public education, or public trust. I need not bother; the news services will echo the funny and the sadly true bits for the next week after some teavangelist uttered them.

I probably won’t watch the “debates” between Obama and the teavangelist candidate. I know whom I will vote for even if it is reluctantly. Again, it will all be replayed and twisted by the propaganda services.

The levels of hatred in this campaign are going to climb to record levels.

Temperatures are dropping today. Shabbat Shalom!

26 January 2012 Moonlight wails as hound dogs bay…

2012-01-26T10:39:00.001-08:00

…but never quite catch the tune
Stars fall down in buckets like rain
till there ain't no standin' room
Bright blue boxcars train by train
clatter while dreams unfold
Way down
down along
Lazy River Road

("Lazy River Road"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia

“Lazy River Road”, “Liberty” and “So Many Roads” were introduced into the Grateful Dead rotation toward the end of the band’s existence. There was a perceived need for new material and a few new ballads were phased into the rotations.

“So Many Roads” was first played 22 Feb 1992 during the 1^st Set.

“From the land of the midnight sun
where ice blue roses grow
'long those roads of gold and silver snow
Howlin' wide or moanin low
So many roads I know
So many roads to ease my soul”

Liberty was originally recorded by Robert Hunter in 1988

“Ooo, freedom
Ooo, liberty
Ooo, leave me alone
To find my own way home
To find my own way home
I'm gonna find my own way home”

I happen to like the bridges in So Many Roads,” and Lazy River Road,” finding them sadly well suited to the deteriorating state of Jerry Garcia’s voice and capacity to stand with a heavy guitar slung over a body weakened by CHF while playing for 2.5 – 3 hours.

Today began with an 0530 wakeup and a dental appointment to have to cavities filled. The lidocaine has worn off now and I can drink from a cup without drenching myself. Possibly falafel tonight.

25 January 2012 Here Comes Sunshine! Get your hearing protection

2012-01-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/images-from-space/2012/01/12/gIQAH8i3vP_gallery.html#photo=1

Tremendous video of the sun as it hurls CME’s outward

http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/stereo_solarwind/sounds_examples2.html

“Helios Flux Data Sonifications

“The following sounds were generated at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California in Berkeley using solar wind particle data from two different satellite missions, Helios 1 and 2 and the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE” Listen to the links.”

http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/space-audio/typeIII.html

The University of Iowa
“Type-III Radio Bursts Produced by the Oct. 28 and Nov. 4, 2003, X17 and X28 Solar Flares as detected by the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Science Instrument “

24 January 2012 “Fair and balanced” simply isn’t

2012-01-24T10:09:00.001-08:00

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149624/majority-continue-distrust-media-perceive-bias.aspx

“September 22, 2011

Majority in U.S. Continues to Distrust the Media, Perceive Bias

More perceive liberal bias than conservative bias

by Lymari Morales

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The majority of Americans still do not have confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 44% of Americans who have a great deal or fair amount of trust and the 55% who have little or no trust remain among the most negative views Gallup has measured.”

Cassi Creek:

The media, our 4^th Estate” watchdog, is supposed to provide us with accurate and timely news presented simply as un-biased information. With that information it then becomes up to us how honestly we process it and act upon it.

Those of us fortunate enough to have any memories of Murrow, Cronkite, Rooney, and the rest of the tremendous news teams put together to cover WWII are fortunate. Given the industry, standards imposed by the 24-hour news cycle those old and honored journalists are not going to be eclipsed by their linear descendants.

There is a continual battle for ratings among the news teams and a limited amount of “news” to be read by young and physically pleasing newsreaders.

There is also a limit to how many times we can sit through a repeat of news stories that have been vetted, washed, polished, and re-processed for the next reader and his/her demographic.

The belief that our media is largely biased is supported by poll data and by close examination into how the stories are presented. Fox News is among the most biased sources of all, being essentially an advertising conduit for the GOP and a propaganda organ for the teavangelists. CBS News is probably the most reliable broadcast media with MSNBC being the cable opposite of Fox News. CNN News, along with NBC, CBS, and ABC are the outlets I trust to be the least biased in their reporting.

Tonight is Obama’s opportunity to deliver the State of the Union Address. I won’t watch it. Nor will I watch the disloyal opposition’s attempt to create lies about his speech or from it. I’ll find a copy and read the actual text. As long as we can obtain and read such speeches, we can retain a high degree of personal and national freedom. Allowing the opposing party and/or the opposing hired media to spoon feed us the words of sitting politicians without making effort to read and study the actual items is the beginning of our downfall as a nation. Keep reading the actual documents. Keep reading, and keep demanding honest reporting from our media.

23 January 2012 War with Iran OK with Santorum

2012-01-23T08:37:00.001-08:00

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/22/santorum-brushes-off-s-c-takes-on-iran-in-florida/

“Santorum nonetheless shifted to more serious foreign policy topics such as Iran toward the end of his remarks.

"If we reach a point where I believe the only thing that will stop them from this program being realized and having a nuclear weapon - I will make a clear declaration to the Iranian government that you either open your facilities, you begin to dismantle this nuclear program, or we will dismantle it for you," Santorum told the crowd to much applause. He then argued that acquiring a nuclear weapon would allow Iran "carte blanche to spread a reign of terror around not just the Middle East, but here in America, here in Florida, here across western civilization."

“Quickly dismissing the idea that such aggression would be an act of war, Santorum said it would be justified, comparing the Iranian government to the terrorist organization al Qaeda.

"They're just as radical as the people who run al Qaeda - their theology is identical. Again different strengths, but identical in their fundamentalist, Jihadist version of Islam," Santorum said. "We cannot allow the equivalent of al Qaeda to have this weapon."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/opinion/keller-bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-iran.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?

By BILL KELLER

Published: January 22, 2012

“…In the Republican field we have one candidate (Rick Santorum) who is about as close as you can get to the bomb-sooner-rather-than-later extreme, another (Ron Paul) who is at the let-Iran-be-Iran extreme, and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are in between. Of particular interest is Romney, who has performed the same rhetorical trick with Iran that he did with health care. That is, he condemns Obama for doing pretty much what Romney would do…”

“…American policy has been consistent through the Bush and Obama administrations: (1) a declaration that a nuclear Iran is “unacceptable”; (2) a combination of sticks (sanctions) and carrots (supplies of nuclear fuel suitable for domestic industrial needs in exchange for forgoing weapons); (3) unfettered international inspections; (4) a refusal to take military options off the table; (5) a concerted effort to restrain Israel from attacking Iran unilaterally — beyond the Israelis’ presumed campaign to slow Iran’s progress by sabotage and assassination; and (6) a wish that Iran’s hard-liners could be replaced by a more benign regime, tempered by a realization that there is very little we can do to make that happen. This is also the gist of Romney’s Iran playbook, for all his bluster about Obama the appeaser…”

“…The point of tough sanctions, of course, is to force Iranians to the bargaining table, where we can do a deal that removes the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran. (You can find some thoughts on what such a deal might entail on my blog.) But the mistrust is so deep, and the election-year pressure to act with manly resolve is so intense, that it’s hard to imagine the administration would feel free to accept an overture from Tehran. Anything short of a humiliating, unilateral Iranian climb-down would be portrayed by the armchair warriors as an Obama surrender. Likewise, if Israel does decide to strike out on its own, Bibi Netanyahu knows that candidate Obama will feel immense pressure to go along.

That short-term paradox comes wrapped up in a long-term paradox: an attack on Iran is almost certain to unify the Iranian people around the mullahs and provoke the supreme leader to redouble Iran’s nuclear pursuits, only deeper underground this time, and without international inspectors around. Over at the Pentagon, you sometimes hear it put this way: Bombing Iran is the best way to guarantee exactly what we are trying to prevent.

Cassi Creek: Just what we need now, another unfunded un-winnable war against an Islamic state demanded by the teavangelists.

There’s every chance for a shooting war to develop between Iran and us. The Pentagon has gamed out every potential play for every predictable scenario. No matter how it games out, the plans become trash to be shredded once the first border is violated, the first bullets fired by some trigger-happy would-be-martyr, and the first missile fired by some Revolutionary Guards Navy officer. That, of course, ignores the point that we are already unofficially at war with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Don’t forget Santorum’s religion. With the xenophobic, anti-Islamic support of the redneck pulpit pounding teavangelists, he seems as willing to start another crusade, as do the mullahs of Iran who brand the U.S. and Israel as eternal enemies of Iran.

Of course, it is easier to start a war if you have no personal risk of being invited to dance. Our all-volunteer armed forces backed up by expensive mercenary companies owned by friends of Congress fills its dance card as soon as the doors are open. Recent history shows us that we don’t and won’t have the personnel strength to take part in another round of foreign-soil adventurism.

We’re correct in believing that we need to keep the sea-lanes open. But we need to make it plain to all the industrialized nations that their navies are invited to the party as well. Since we don’t buy Iranian oil we shouldn’t sponsor the dance, particularly that contingent of dancers who took off our national uniform to put on a corporate costume.

Santorum, Gingrich, and two generations of Americans have avoided most forms of military service while pushing for wars to control oil and other commodities used by speculators to pile up fortunes that are larger than the combined treasuries of Central America. They view war as video games played on a larger screen by people who can’t afford to play them electronically. They consider the current KIA and WIA totals as horrific. Their concept of wars is sanitized and is played out remotely. Thus, they demand that Americans join yet another crusade stirred up by hate mongers and demagogues who find it all too easy to push the teavangelists into believing that forcing school prayer onto the public and cheering for posturing athletes will convince Jesus to intercede in a war with Iran while simultaneously restoring jobs to the American Middle class.

That isn’t the way it is. The number of men and women we’ve lost in combat may be smaller than in previous wars but they were important to their families and to their shipmates and squad mates. The nature of a war with Iran over nuclear weaponry will be much different than the drone strikes and small unit battles we see on television today. The body counts on both sides will outstrip the imagination of the politicians who let the teavangelists push them into supporting yet another war for corporations.

There’s a very good reason I think our politicians should be required to serve in our combat branches. Its explanation begins with a five-letter word, “Medic!"

22 January 2012 Sane Republicans? Which Universe?

2012-01-22T09:39:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/an-open-letter-to-republican-leaders/2012/01/21/gIQA9abjGQ_blog.html

Initially posted as: An open letter to sane Republicans

Jennifer Rubin posts a plea for her favored party to accept and act upon reality. Unfortunately for her, it is highly doubtful that any “sane Republicans exist.

“Dear Govs. Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal; Sens. Jon Kyl, Marco Rubio and Jim DeMint; and Reps. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and Mike Pence (R-Ind.):”

The group of “leaders” she targets are all too busy increasing their own fortunes to be concerned with the well-being of the nation.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/sarah-palin-id-vote-for-newt/

Jan 17, 2012 9:51pm

Sarah Palin: ‘I’d Vote for Newt’

“Well, I could tell you what I would do if I were a South Carolinian,” Palin told Hannity.

“That’s close to an endorsement,” Hannity said.

“If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going I’d vote for Newt and I would want this to continue,” Palin said. “More debates, more vetting of candidates because we know the mistake made in our country four years ago was having a candidate that was not vetted, to the degree that he should have been so that we knew what his associations and his pals represented and what went into his thinking, the shaping of who our president today is.”

The Gingrich campaign could not be reached for comment, but Gingrich’s twitter handle @NewtGingrich tweeted “Thanks @SarahPalinusa for throwing your support my way in the South Carolina primary.”

Cassi Creek:

The prospect of a Palin presence in a Gingrich administration is sincerely terrifying. She has no business in any public office or in any appointed capacity. That Gingrich would seek her support indicates his lack of concern for the nation and the depth of his intention to exceed the Harding and Reagan administrations in corruption and graft.

I can’t begin to believe that anyone would give credence to Palin’s claim that McCain was not properly vetted. She’s obviously out to destroy him for his refusal to let her launch a new campaign from the ashes of the 2008 election that she helped burn down. She is off her medication again.

21 January, 2012 January White sales mythology & primaries

2012-01-21T10:08:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/opinion/blow-newts-southern-strategy.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Newt’s Southern Strategy

By CHARLES M. BLOW

Published: January 20, 2012

“Up with Newt. Down with dignity. That’s the way it goes.

“Newt Gingrich is surging in South Carolina and has a good chance to win that state’s primary on Saturday. But, as he rises, so grows the dark shadow that he casts over his party and the grievous damage he does to its chances of unseating President Obama.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/grandiose-look-at-yourself-rick-santorum/2012/01/20/gIQAL0OCEQ_blog.html

Posted at 02:01 PM ET, 01/20/2012

Grandiose? Look at yourself, Rick Santorum.

By Stephen Stromberg

Commentators are giving Rick Santorum a lot of attention for insisting on Thursday night thatRepublicans didn’t need a “grandiose” leader like Newt Gingrich, or a flip-flopper like Mitt Romney…

…”Speaking in front of a banner that read, “PersonhoodUSA,” Santorum’s point, of course, wasn’t biological — it was theological. He was not merely saying that sperm uniting with egg satisfies some technical definition of basic life; he was arguing that it creates a human with a soul and moral rights identical to those any of us have. And while science tells us when the brain forms and when it begins to function — long past conception — science has not been able to establish whether or when a soul enters any collection of cells.

Santorum’s declaration arrogantly dismissed those who — perfectly reasonably — hold a different view on the question of when human life meaningfully begins, for which there is no definitive answer, and it denigrated those who aren’t sure. It also abused the crucial notion that knowledge can be distinguished from belief. In that, it was subversive to the very underpinnings of modern society, which relies on the rational accumulation and application of hard evidence to do everything from launching space shuttles to designing factories that pump outinexpensive sweater vests…”

Cassi Creek:

From my vantage point, what, where, and to some extent when and with whom Gingrich chooses to engage in sexual activity is of relative little concern to me. Unfortunately, Gingrich and supporters are hell-bent upon interfering in my sexual activities and freedom. The Christian Right’s insistence upon forcing their religion and its fundamentalist restrictions onto everyone else is not acceptable. Their continual cries of “anti-Christian persecution” directed at those who prefer not to be forced into a theocracy driven by the American equivalent of the Taliban are increasingly growing old and have always been a blatant lie designed to stir up members and membership, in consequence, bringing in large amounts of revenue to the ruling fathers (there are no founding mothers – only founding breeding stock) who then funnel portions into campaign funding for the teavangelist elect. (Diagram that sentence if you can)

The voter base Gingrich is trying to stir up is the remnant of the populace who fought tooth and nail for segregation and against the Civil Rights laws of the 60s. These are the same good souls who marched in white robes and hoods in effort to intimidate black citizens and whites who actually understood that Christianity, if practiced accurately and honestly, had to support equal rights and opportunity. No one wants to admit in public that the Southern Baptist church was established to support the South’s continued demands for legal slavery; just as they prefer not to admit that women are excluded from the priesthood (call it what you will) and are commanded to be subservient to men. I see little to distinguish the fundamentalism of America from that of Islamic states beyond the language used and the name on the sacred book.

We've left the era of divine right rulers behind and I have no interest in restoring that type of government to the hypocrites of the teavangelist party. If the ex-wife disclosure had taken place on Fox News in referent to a Democratic candidate the hate mongers who cheered Gingrich on would still be applauding Fox News actions in attacking “immorality and hypocrisy in the Godless, socialist, Democrats.”

The southern base is solidly in the Gingrich camp because he plays to the residual, ingrained from birth racism that exists still in those states. Santorum tags along using the linked fundamentalist dogma that is used to prevent women receiving reproductive freedom at all levels. The various evangelicals will pair with anyone sharing their dogma about sexual freedom. Santorum, if he hangs around long enough, will discover that his Roman Catholicism is regarded by the teavangelists to be just as much of a cult as is Mormonism.

The primaries are underway and the 2012 white sales are doing a booming volume in white sheets and robes.

CuZev - Copper Wulff Cassi Creek Seasons

14 February 2012 Anything but Hallmark

13 February 2012 Happy birthday, Gloria

12 February 2012 Adventures in the realm of heat resistance

11 February 2012 Don’t throw no celebrations. Don’t hold no parades, no

Don’t throw veterans an Iraq victory parade

By Colby Buzzell, Published: February 10

9 February 2012 steaming dog, putty in my hands, will work for biscuits

8 February 2012 E-file and be done with it

7 February 2012 “Someone will set the spark off… and we will all be blown away

6 February 2012 Paying to watch commercials and other stupidity

5 February 2012 Turn up the band turn down the background

4 February 2012 Holes in the safety nets

3 February 2012 Home before daylight

2 February 2012 I just might get some sleep tonight.

1 February 2012 Useless traditions No need to poke a ground hog

31 January 2012 Aim for the foot again

30 January 2012 There’s NO intelligent life on the Moon

29 January 2012 Newt don’t phone home

28 January 2012 “Standing on the moon…

27 January 2012 Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul

26 January 2012 Moonlight wails as hound dogs bay…

25 January 2012 Here Comes Sunshine! Get your hearing protection

The University of Iowa “Type-III Radio Bursts Produced by the Oct. 28 and Nov. 4, 2003, X17 and X28 Solar Flares as detected by the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Science Instrument “

24 January 2012 “Fair and balanced” simply isn’t

23 January 2012 War with Iran OK with Santorum

22 January 2012 Sane Republicans? Which Universe?

Initially posted as: An open letter to sane Republicans

Sarah Palin: ‘I’d Vote for Newt’

21 January, 2012 January White sales mythology & primaries

The University of Iowa
“Type-III Radio Bursts Produced by the Oct. 28 and Nov. 4, 2003, X17 and X28 Solar Flares as detected by the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Science Instrument “