tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87502443066637080362024-03-18T07:38:13.807-07:00Pa Rock's RambleWelcome to my cocktail of old writing scraps, special memories, and current personal opinion. Please feel free to comment, criticize, or remark in any way that makes you feel better.
This effort is lovingly dedicated to my grandchildren, Boone Agustus Macy, Sebastian Phoenix Files, Judah Blue Winter Files, Olive Noel Macy, Willow Midnight Seraphina Files, and Sullivan Charles Macy - golden portals to the future.
-- Pa RockPa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.comBlogger6143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-29820416256951879172024-03-18T07:30:00.004-07:002024-03-18T07:37:29.204-07:00North Dakota's War on Geriatric Politicians<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This June voters in the state of North Dakota will have a chance to weigh-in on a on a citizen-driven ballot initiative designed to set an upper age limit on members of Congress elected from North Dakota. The proposed legislation would prevent anyone who would reach the age of eighty-one before the end of the term for which they are running from getting their names on the ballot. That would apply to people seeking to be US Representatives or US Senators from the state.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The specific language of the ballot initiative reads:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>"No person may be elected or appointed to serve a term or portion of a term in the US Senate or the US House of Representatives if that person could attain 81 years of age by December 31st of the year immediately preceding the end of the term."</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The state's political establishment does not seem to be getting too excited over the issue, assuming that if the populist measure is passed, it will quickly be challenged by some moldy, old politician and ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court, a political body that is unlikely to look kindly upon the notion of upper age limits for self-important government officials.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There was a big push across the United States at the end of the last century to control the amount of time that people could keep a seat warm in a legislature, and several states passed term limits for members of their state legislatures, often through citizen initiatives and much to the chagrin of many sitting legislators. But when the talk turned to limiting the number of terms that a national legislator (US Representative or Senator) could serve, the Supreme Court got involved and ruled in 1995 that the states cannot set qualifications for Congress beyond those set forth in the Constitution. Clarence Thomas, the only member of the current Supreme Court who was serving at the time of the term limits decision, dissented saying that the states or the people can act on issues where the Constitution is silent.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Clarence, of course, may view the entire matter differently now that he is finally in a majority in the Court, and it has become a bulwark of right-wing political machinations.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But, regardless, it's always entertaining to watch the US Supreme Court as it tries to justify its actions in thwarting the will of the people.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(My preference would be a lower age limit: <b>"75 and Out!"</b> has a nice ring to it!)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-62925968792931862242024-03-17T07:17:00.002-07:002024-03-17T13:17:40.833-07:00Of Unions and Starships and Cannibals<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On Thursday of this week right-wing influencer and billionaire Elon Musk took time out from his constant battle to keep the proletariat from unionizing <i>Tesla</i> to watch another of his companies, <i>SpaceX</i>. launch a massive "Starship" rocket into space - and this time, the third attempt, it actually worked! <i>Starship</i>, the largest rocket ever built (standing at nearly 400 feet), launched successfully and made its way into orbit, but was lost during reentry. The flight was still regarded as a success though, especially since the rockets on the first two attempts last year had exploded shortly after takeoff.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But Elon's week was not over. On Friday he focused on another of his business ventures, <i>X</i>, formerly known as <i>Twitter</i>, and managed to get involved in the current gang violence and government chaos in Haiti. Musk, in what some see as an attempt to stem the flow of non-white asylum seekers to the United States, posted a tweet that purported to show cannibalism being committed by some of the Haitian gang members. The video was unverified and <i>X </i>decided that it was likely based on misinformation and took it down - even though it had been posted by the boss! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> (It turns out that the same video had been posted on social media two years earlier, well before the current civil unrest in Haiti.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's the weekend now, so perhaps Elon can focus on the things in life that give him pleasure, like spending quality time with his three ex-wives and eleven children. He can get back to the grind of trying to control the world on Monday.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-57159410354473457902024-03-16T07:39:00.004-07:002024-03-16T13:45:49.352-07:00Interesting Times<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Two years ago next week President Biden told a news conference in Brussels, Belgium, that he would be "very fortunate" if he were to run against Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Biden has long seen a rematch against Trump as being his surest way to stay in the White House for four more years, and he likes to pat himself on the back for being the only person to have ever beaten Trump in a political race. (Unspoken is the fact that Trump has only been in<i> two</i> political races in his entire life, and he lost <i>both</i> of those substantially in the popular vote.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But Joe thinks he can defeat Trump again - easier than he could the other Republican hopefuls - so he cheered on Trump toward the nomination. God love Joe's blue-collar swagger, and God help us if he is wrong. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Conversely, Donald Trump has also said that he is eager to have a rematch with Joe Biden. Each candidate sees the other as being his weakest potential opponent.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Politico </i>ran an article two days ago by Catherine Kim dealing with the topic of "double haters," or voters who do not like either of the two major parties' presumptive nominees - and their numbers are not insignificant. Three polls - <i>Marquette Law School, New York Times-Sienna College,</i> and <i>Morning Consult </i>- all came up with the same number - 19 percent. (That 19 percent is basically equally divided among Democrats and Republicans, and tends to lean slightly younger and more Hispanic.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Roughly one in five Americans are dissatisfied with both Biden <i>and</i> Trump being on the national ballot. That sounds like prime fodder for third-party votes, a situation which could easily upend the election.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The two candidates each believe they have gotten lucky and drawn the weakest opposition, and a big chunk of the voting public seems to think they are both right.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Age, mental acuity, criminality.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We live in interesting times.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-2254265927638624102024-03-15T07:37:00.008-07:002024-03-15T07:55:21.437-07:00Sitting Along the Road Watching the World Rush By<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Time Minder</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When I have a meeting or an appointment, I am there early. It is an OCD thing, and it is a big part of who I am. That is especially true for medical appointments, of which I have plenty.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yesterday I had an appointment for an eye exam in Springfield, Missouri, a very large cowtown which is one hundred miles exactly from my home in West Plains. I have recently had some vision issues as well as difficulties with a couple of local eye doctors, so I had my personal physician refer me to a group in Springfield which he felt could deal with my eyesight and fit me with glasses that would meet my needs. It was an appointment that I desperately wanted to keep.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The appointment was at 10:15 in the morning. I had carefully packed all of the things that I needed to take the previous evening and had them in the car, ready to fly in the morning. I left the house at about 6:30 a.m. and headed to <i>Sonic</i> for my standard roadtrip breakfast, a bacon and egg toaster sandwich (so yummy!) with a Route 44 unsweet iced tea, and by 6:45 a.m. I was pulling out onto the highway with the better part of two hours to spare!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Vroom! Vroom!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Things were pleasant for the next ten miles. It was still dark out, thanks to daylight savings time, and the traffic was light. I finished my breakfast and was listening to a political podcast (thank you, <i>Alexa</i>) and the miles clicked by.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Drive, drive, drive.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Drive, drive, drive.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But then:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thump, thump, thump!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I haven't had many flats in recent years because I keep good rubber on my vehicles, but I recognized the sound of a flat tire when I heard one. I found a good place to pull over, said a few choice words, and proceeded to figure out how to respond. I had left with what I thought was plenty of time to spare, so the day was not lost - yet.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have changed many tires in my wild and wicked youth, but I am seventy-five now and no longer engage in that particular activity - and I honestly did not even know if the <i>Kia</i> had a spare tire or not. My car insurance has roadside assistance and my four new tires, which were less than a year old, were also insured, so I knew that it would just be a matter of finding the right numbers to call and then waiting.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The first obstacle that I encountered was that I couldn't figure out how to get the car's interior light to come on, but my phone was handy and I knew how the flashlight function worked. I found my insurance card in the glovebox where it belonged, and called my insurance agent - whose office I knew would be closed. The call automatically transferred to an after-hours' assistance line with an automated responder. I was asked a series of questions and had to respond with the phone's keypad. Eventually my issue was understood by the machine, who was also able to find my location through the phone, and I was told that a wrecker would be dispatched.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I sat in my car and waited patiently as the sun slowly rose and vehicles began rushing by at a faster pace. Everything roared by except for my tow truck. After thirty minutes or so I got a call from the tow truck driver who told me that he had been getting another vehicle off of his truck, but was now out on the road looking for me. (I was on a major highway, heading north, in a readily known location - very close to where the towing operation was headquartered.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After another thirty minutes I called the driver back and asked, nicely, if he had gotten lost. No, he said, he was on his way. Thirty minutes after that he finally pulled up. By the time he got the car on his truck and drove it and I back to West Plains to the tire shop where I had purchased the tires, it was almost 9:00 a.m. and I looked to be third in line. I phoned the eye clinic in Springfield and cancelled. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The tow was covered by my car insurance (thank you, <i>State Farm</i>). The tire place had to put on a "loaner" tire yesterday and my new one should arrive this morning - and the cost of it is covered by the insurance that I bought when I purchased the tires, although I understand there will be a couple of hidden fees that will come out of my pocket. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now I have a new appointment with the eye doctor for next month. Perhaps I should go up the night before and get a motel room!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Being old is damned hard work - even with insurance!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-15144954118568156502024-03-14T03:09:00.007-07:002024-03-14T07:49:10.454-07:00More Arrests in Super Bowl Shootout<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last month the Kansas City Chiefs won their second consecutive Superbowl, and on February 14<sup>th</sup>, one month ago today and Valentine’s Day, there was a big parade downtown followed by a rally in front of Union Station. More than a million people were in attendance. The joyful activity, however, was brought to a sudden halt when gunfire erupted out in the cheering masses. One person was killed and twenty-two injured, some of them children, in the ensuing bloody mayhem.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Local police arrested two adult males six days later and each face charges of second-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action, and unlawful use of a weapon. The shootout was the result of a disagreement, and others in the crowd pulled weapons as well.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Yesterday it was announced that three additional adult males (ages 19, 21, and 22) have been charged for their roles in the trafficking of firearms and straw purchases of firearms related to the shooting. None of the three are being charged as shooters in the deadly crime.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>The Kansas City Police Department did not rest on their laurels after arresting the shooters. They went out looking for the source of the guns, and, in the process made three more arrests – and - made their city safer. Every American city should be focused on not only taking down the shooters, but also on taking out the people responsible for putting guns into the hands of criminals. All the registration, licensing requirements, and waiting periods in the world will not be effective while straw buyers – people who can pass background checks – are purchasing weapons and then transporting them on to people with criminal histories and evil intent.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Surely there is room for federal authorities to provide much closer scrutiny of gun sales without forcing our cowardly politicians to have to vote on the matter. All levels of government should be using all available means to reduce the number of guns on American streets.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Focusing on gun traffickers and straw purchases makes good sense in the war on gun crime. When guns are used in crimes, they should be confiscated and destroyed – no exceptions. (Melt those suckers into 2<sup>nd</sup>Amendment paperweights and sell them to raise money for local law enforcement agencies. I would buy a couple!)<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Kudos to the Kansas City Missouri Police Department for casting a wide net. Taking five criminals off the streets is clearly an important step in the right direction!<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>And while I’m at it, kudos also to the courts of Michigan for bringing charges against James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of Oxford, Michigan, school shooter, Ethan Crumbley, a troubled teen who killed four students with a gun that his parents had purchased for him in 2021 – even though the young man had pronounced mental health issues which the parents actively ignored. (They had also declined to take him home just prior to the shooting when school officials had requested they do so.) Holding parents to account for the actions of their children sounds like something that should be considered every time a student shooter wreaks havoc and carnage in our schools.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Law enforcement and the courts both already have substantial powers to rein in gun violence, and they need to be proactive in using those powers relentlessly.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-49129871304202001782024-03-13T09:27:00.005-07:002024-03-13T09:37:21.179-07:00All the Psychos Have Gone to Durham County<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>TV Junkie</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I am a big fan of mysteries, both in print and on the screen, and I have a particular fondness for the mysteries and police procedurals produced by the <i>British Broadcasting Company (BBC) </i>which I regard as essentially the cream of the crop as far as television programming goes. (I subscribe to <i>Brit Box, </i>a service that delivers the best in British comedy and drama straight into my living room.) Lately I have found myself in the unique position of having seen most of the mysteries which are currently available from the BBC, and there are <i>many,</i> so I have been looking elsewhere for my entertainment.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A couple of weeks ago I came across an older series from 2007-2010 airing on <i>Amazon Prime</i> entitled "Durham County," a police procedural that was filmed in Canada and ran for three seasons. <i>Prime</i> is airing the first two six-episode seasons free to subscribers, and will no doubt offer the third season for sale at some future point. (Bezos, you're a sniveling greed head!)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The introductory blurb on the show's<i> Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB)</i> site reads:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>"An extraordinary series with an electric, oppressive atmosphere. A spiral of violence, unhealthy manipulations and tortured characters, Durham County excels in the detective series genre."</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">The writing on this show is exceptional and creepy. so creepy in fact that I would hesitate before moving into the same neighborhood as any of the writers. The primary writers of the show were Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik, one of the show's creators who wrote seventeen of the episodes, and Bruce M. Smith who penned one episode. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The cast includes only one actor of whom I was previously aware: Helene Joy, a former regular on the Canadian television series, <i>Murdoch Mysteries</i>. She plays the cancer-plagued wife of the lead homicide detective. Joy's character is also a doctor and mother of two who becomes emotionally involved with their neighbor who is a serial killer. Other stellar performers in the series include Hugh Dillon as the homicide detective, Laurence Leboeuf, the daughter of the detective and the doctor who also aspires to be a homicide detective, Greyston Holt, the son of the serial killer neighbor who would. like to be a writer, and Louis Ferreira as the psychopathic neighbor. The cast is superlative!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I finished the first season, which revolved around two independent serial killers who were focusing on several of the same young women, and I am now two episodes into season two which looks at serious, and even fatal, child abuse. Obviously there are characters in both storylines who are psychopaths, individuals who are devoid of standard human emotions, particularly empathy, and operate strictly on meeting their own twisted needs without regard to others, but what is surprising about this show is the number of psychopaths populating the stories. Those deep in the weeds of psychopathy include not only the two serial killers, but at least two cops, a psychiatrist, and a couple of children who seem to be in the process of becoming untethered from family and reality.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The program is dark and menacing, and the actions of the characters are relentlessly insidious. It is a struggle for me, an old hand at this type of show, to sit through a complete episode without becoming emotionally charged, angry, and sometimes even nauseous. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For those who relish the thought of having nightmares about a television show that you have just watched, "Durham County" might be right for you, but for those who prefer a more peaceful sleep experience, this show would be a good one to avoid. At this point I honestly don't know if I have the stamina to sit through the final four episodes or not. "Durham County" has more whack jobs than a Trump senior staff meeting, and keeping up with them is emotionally daunting.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Where have all the psychos gone? Gone to Durham County, everyone. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-49603609811112106762024-03-12T08:13:00.009-07:002024-03-12T08:21:56.008-07:00Tyson is Betting on Crickets<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Consumer of Food</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There was a cricket in our house a couple of mornings ago. The annoying insect didn't seem to be doing anything other than just making noise - which he did with sheer joy and gusto, He drove me nuts for a couple of hours, and then the noise abruptly stopped. I like to think that perhaps Rosie, who is a ferocious little lion of a hunter in HER house, found the irksome bug and ate him.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My family took two "vacations" to California when I was young, once in the summer of 1955 just after I had completed first grade, and the other in the summer of 1958 after I completed fourth grade. My parents did not believe in wasting money on luxuries like motel rooms, so we drove straight through on each trip and piled in on relatives once we were there. Because it was summertime - when my sister and I were out of school - and because much of the trip involved driving across the desert, my folks took turns driving at night, when it was cooler, and then finding places to pull over and rest during the days.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One night (it was probably during the second trip because I was ten then and remember the incident vividly) we stopped at a gas station in Needles, California, and found the establishment covered with screeching crickets, thousands upon thousands of crickets! The entire place - building, cars, gas pumps - was black with with crickets and the sound was horrendous. I remember crickets rushing into the car when my Dad got out to do some simple maintenance on the car while the attendant filled the tank. Rod Serling, who was in his writing prime back then, could not have scripted a wilder, more bizarre scene!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I found a mention on the internet the other day indicating that American meat producer, <i>Tyson Foods</i> of northwest Arkansas, the owner and operator of numerous poultry processing plants across the United States, might soon be opening a "cricket plant" for the purpose of processing the irksome insects into food for human consumption. I did some quick research on the internet and learned that <i>Tyson</i> was buying a minority stake in the French company, <i>Protix</i>, the world's leading insect ingredients company.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(I'm old enough to remember fighting to keep insects out of our food chain, and now we are intentionally bringing them in!)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I grew up in close proximity to a chicken plant, a plant which <i>Tyson</i> eventually purchased, and I can testify to the fact that pollution around that facility was a continual problem. Waste from the chicken processing, and there was a lot of it, was pumped into a lagoon where it was treated with chemicals and was supposed to eventually disappear. Of course, when the inevitable floods came, they washed across the lagoon and into the river where they quickly contaminated a large portion of our area's once scenic beauty. And the smell - oh god, the smell!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Tyson</i> closed that plant last year and put hundreds of good people out of work.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Apparently <i>Tyson's</i> agreement with <i>Protix </i>with give the American chicken king 40% of the French bug company, and they will enter a joint venture to construct a cricket processing plant somewhere in North America that will use waste from poultry processing plants to feed the crickets, a move that could conceivably solve - or at least lessen - the pollution issues associated with poultry plants.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Cricket flour is already a thing - a thing you can buy over the internet - and, I am sure, through speciality health and grocery outlets. It is supposedly rich in proteins, antioxidants, and many other things that are associated with positive health outcomes. I have also read that some prepackaged baked goods are already being manufactured with cricket flour.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Insect production is unlikely to replace American meat production any time soon, but it does seem to be an emerging alternative source of protein that could significantly impact our lust for meat in the future. The big players, like <i>Tyson</i>, aren't tearing down their chicken houses just yet, but they can hear the crickets chirping - and they know that change is always coming. <i>Tyson</i> has put a modest bet on crickets as playing a role in our sustainable future, and it is one that is very likely to pay off.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Will our great-great-grand-babies be "chirped" instead of "burped"? I really don't care, just as long as they are healthy and happy!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-55763930301976525542024-03-11T08:17:00.003-07:002024-03-11T08:24:32.113-07:00Jason Smith Whines about the State of the Union<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's a rare day indeed when my Republican congressman, Jason Smith of rural southeastern Missouri, does anything but complain, whine, and be divisive, so it should not be surprising when he chooses to project those failings onto Americans who are actually out trying to get good things accomplished for their country. President Biden's State of the Union speech before congress last Thursday night got Jason wound up good and tight, and this morning, in his weekly email newsletter, Jason lashed out at Biden's dynamic delivery of the constitutionally-mandated annual report to Congress as "the most divisive in history."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I saw a photo of Jason sitting in the House chamber during Biden's speech. He was a couple of seats down from Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman and national distraction from Georgia. Congressman Smith showed up in a suit and tie, but Rep. Greene, who obviously wanted the cameras on her, arrived on th House floor in full MAGA regalia and spent much of the evening directing catcalls at the President. One internet meme described her as looking like "a waitress at a KKK Fridays." That's what "divisive" looks like, Jason. I'm surprised you could even hear President Biden over Marge!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But Jason was angry that Biden had attacked Donald Trump in his speech before Congress, and Jason was particularly enraged that Biden had tried to blame problems at the border on Republicans. The border is a Republican issue, a key component in his party's plan to retake the White House and appoint more fascist judges, and the fact that a Democrat would try to steal that issue was just . . . . just . . . . divisive!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(Biden, of course was correct. There was a bi-partisan bill presented to Congress last month, and Donald Trump told GOP members of Congress to let it die because he wanted to campaign on border issues, and Jason and members of the House refused to even take up the measure. So yes, the current dysfunction at the southern US border is a result of Republican neglect on the matter - at the command of Donald Trump.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh, and social security, too. Joe Biden rightfully pointed out that there are Republicans trying to kill that life-saving program for senior citizens. Jason did not like revelation that nary a bit! No siree, Bubba, he did not!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But facts do not matter to people like Jason Smith of rural Missouri. Jason got so danged mad about Joe Biden's State of the Union speech that he went on <i>Fox </i><b>and</b> <i>Newsmax </i>to whine <i>ad nauseum</i>! Biden should have sounded older, more somber, more sedate, more boring. It's Trump's place to be hurling cheap shots and insults, not Biden's. And the show should have focused on Marjorie Taylor Green. How dare Biden upstage her! How utterly divisive!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Mama mia, there he goes again!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-54399295969999560072024-03-10T09:06:00.007-07:002024-03-10T11:02:55.964-07:00I've Officially had My Say, but I'll Say More in November<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Missouri Democrat and Voter</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For those who follow this blog, an admittedly small number of people who must lead exceedingly sad lives, you were already aware of my discontent on a couple of issues with regard to the upcoming presidential contest. I have been, and remain, massively unhappy that our ultimate choice will be between two elderly white men who are each older than me, and I am equally unhappy about the incumbent President rushing full-throttle to arm Israel while the death toll of civilians in Gaza, many of them women and children, roars past 30,000 with no end in sight - and his challenger who is barking mad to assume office and begin his own full-battle-rattle support of the genocide. (Yup, I used <i>that </i>word<i>.)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">It is very disappointing to me that Missouri is always a late participant in the presidential selection process. I have donated money to a candidate over each of the last two election cycles, and in both cycles (2020 and 2024) the candidate that I donated to had already dropped out of the race by the time I had an opportunity to weigh in with a vote. In fact, the candidates for both parties had already been determined before Missouri had any say in the matter. That sucks.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have also expressed my displeasure at the sporadic and tilted ways in which these poor choices for candidates are selected by the parties, and I am very disappointed that the GOP majority Missouri Legislature did away with our state presidential primary thus effectively denying most of our state's voters in both parties a practical way to participate in the process. The Republicans of Missouri recently held their caucuses, and participation from people who were willing to give up a Saturday morning and go sit in a room with hardened GOP politicians and loudmouthed Trump supporters and hecklers was tiny compared to the participation in the previous state-run presidential primaries. Most people, hundreds of thousands, chose not to participate, and that is exactly what the politicians and party leaders wanted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Missouri Democratic Party chose a different route, one that also will see much less participation, and that also bothers me. The Democrats chose to fund their own primary through a private "election contractor." For a Democrat, such as myself, to participate in the process, that person first has to hear about it and learn how to apply for a ballot. Even though I had gone to the trouble to request information ahead of time with the state party, I learned about how the election would work and how to get a ballot through my local newspaper. The article contained misinformation, and when I called the editor, who was also the lady who wrote the piece, she doubled down on the misinformation. She told me that prospective voters had to be officially affiliated with the party to join in the Republican caucuses or the Democratic primary. I knew that was wrong and I called the courthouse to confirm that it was wrong. But the editor was persistent, very pleasant, but persistent in the error.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Using the information provided in the newspaper through what was basically a press release, I got on the internet and requested a Democratic primary ballot. The first thing I received a few days later was a shiny brochure inviting me to send in $35 dollars and become an official party member. (As a senior, the ad said I could become a faithful Democrat for only $25.) I declined to send in anything because, if it was a request for money in order to vote - and the brochure never actually said that - but if it was, that would be a poll tax, and poll taxes and literacy tests are both outside of the bounds of my political religion as well as unconstitutional.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was already a "proven" Democrat anyway by virtue of being a former Democratic County Chair in Missouri as well has having contributed recently to the state party and a couple of high-profile state candidates. But I was not about to chip in a poll tax have my say - that is not the way MY America works.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The ballot arrived last Thursday, and I marked it and sent it back on Friday. It is due into the election contractor's office by 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 23rd - my 76th birthday. The results should be tallied by the next day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The seven choices on the Democratic ballot were, in this order: </div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">Joseph R. Biden, Jr.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Dean Phillips</div><div style="text-align: left;">Stephen P. Lyons</div><div style="text-align: left;">Armando Perez-Serrato</div><div style="text-align: left;">Marianne Williamson</div><div style="text-align: left;">Jason Michael Palmer</div><div style="text-align: left;">Uncommitted</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Jason Michael Palmer is an interesting character. He is a politician and entrepreneur who defeated Biden in the American Samoa Democratic Caucuses on March 5th, so far the only person to deal Biden a loss in the current election cycle.)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I cast a vote of conscience. It will be interesting to see if my minuscule participation has any impact on the ultimate selection and membership of the Missouri delegation to the national convention. But I had a say, officially, and that's all I wanted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now I would like to have a say in the national results, but as a resident in a very red state in a time when popular votes are superseded by electoral votes, that will be virtually impossible. Both candidates are already exclusively focused on a handful of "swing" states where the results could go either way, and the voters in those swing states will choose the next president. Those of us who live in solidly red or blue states will just have to be content with watching the process play out on television. The election does not really concern us as far as the campaigns are concerned - we are taken for granted, and our down ballot candidates (state and local candidates who could benefit from a visit by a national candidate) can go pound sand.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Well, here is where I stand on that: I will not vote for a candidate who does not hold at least one official campaign stop or rally in Missouri between the time of the convention and the election, and I would not vote for Trump even if he campaigns nonstop in Missouri the entire time.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Make of that what you will.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-78355134307374894792024-03-09T08:57:00.005-07:002024-03-09T15:24:30.781-07:00Marty and Mary Come Calling<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRnWIwR6Wxb6uSChkUQuiJRJ11hh04496k3sDRFziibsfS19NMyL-MP2NpgDVK9DEXG1PDXWCtn6UC1ne5mlaNfNNwVs6u-I9iOYANNtUuWsxzETkHkZ4jQDgY2R2LTw2r62oA60ANXnpkAun2kkCePTKmX1epqXNFqrPcIGaLcTOCXSpEmYwMuz9SdTkG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1231" data-original-width="1641" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRnWIwR6Wxb6uSChkUQuiJRJ11hh04496k3sDRFziibsfS19NMyL-MP2NpgDVK9DEXG1PDXWCtn6UC1ne5mlaNfNNwVs6u-I9iOYANNtUuWsxzETkHkZ4jQDgY2R2LTw2r62oA60ANXnpkAun2kkCePTKmX1epqXNFqrPcIGaLcTOCXSpEmYwMuz9SdTkG" width="320" /></a></div><br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Reminiscer</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The last time my friend Marty came to visit was on May 3rd, 2019, the year before the plague. I know that date is correct because I wrote about his visit in this blog the following day in a piece entitled "Forty Years Have Slipped Away!" Now, of course, almost five more years have slipped away.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My wife and I both began our teaching careers in August of 1977, during the same week that Elvis died. I was getting close to thirty-years-old, and she was a few years younger. We had two young children to support when we signed those first teaching contracts with Mountain View-Birch Tree Schools, a large rural school district in southern Missouri, for a whopping $7,200 per annum each. Fortunately, the state came up with a little more money over the summer after we had signed agreeing to teach, and our salaries were $7,600 per year by the time the school year actually started.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Marty was one of the students in a history class that I taught. He was bright and not bashful about speaking up. Marty was a kid who was easy to like. In fact, he still is a kid who is easy to like!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The first year that we lived in Mountain View we rented a drafty old Victorian home. As that year was ending and we had been offered slightly better contracts to teach another year, we decided to try and find a house of our own, and with a much-appreciated assist from my parents, our family was able to do that. Mountain View was and is a small town, so it was not surprising that one of our students would be living right across the street from the home we purchased - and that student was Marty.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Marty and his parents had moved to Mountain View from the Chicago area not long before we had arrived. His dad, Bill, had taken an early retirement from his job at a factory and needed someplace less expensive than Chicago in which to spend his golden years. Marty's older sister was a young adult who had chosen to stay behind in Chicago. Over the five years that we lived in that house we became good friends with Bill and Theresa and watched Marty finish high school and begin his college career. When our third child, Tim, was born in September of 1979, it was Marty, an ace photographer with his own darkroom, who came to the hospital and took the first official photos of Baby Macy.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One of my memories of Marty as a neighbor occurred one warm afternoon while I was doing some work in the yard when all of a sudden Pink Floyd came blasting through the summer calm declaring "Teachers, leave those kids alone!" Message received!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We didn't hear too much out of Marty or his family once we left Mountain View in 1983 and moved back to Noel. Bill and Theresa did drive over for a visit one afternoon, but they hadn't phoned ahead and we didn't know they were coming - so we were out, and they spent their time in Noel becoming acquainted with our new neighbors.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Marty and a friend of his showed up at a cabin that I was living in out in the woods near Noel in the late 1990's. He was driving a big convertible which reminded me of the one in which Patrick Swayze had chauffeured himself and his drag queen friends across the county in the movie, "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar" - a veritable boat of a car. That cabin was so small that I couldn't get the mattress and box springs up the tiny stairwell to the bedroom where my iron bed was assembled and waiting, and Marty and his friend helped to lift those big items up and in through the door of the small porch/balcony on the second floor.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The next time I saw the kid from Mountain View was twenty years after that - as referenced above - when he showed up unexpectedly at my home here in West Plains in 2019. The convertible was gone, and he was driving a large, shiny black pickup truck. We had a nice visit that morning, and I'm sure Rosie was all over us as we talked about days gone by.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Marty came back yesterday, and this time he brought his wonderful wife, Mary. They have been married quite a few years, but yesterday was the first time that Mary and I had a chance to meet. She is a retired public school teacher (elementary) so we had that in common. She told me that "principals" had driven her nuts, and I told her that as a principal, "superintendents" had driven me nuts! Marty is a retired state worker who is now in a second career working for the large metropolitan city government where they live.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Marty told me that he is sixty-two, which, of course, is not possible - so he must have been lying! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Marty's vehicles continue to fascinate me. This time he was driving a new Ford Bronco which he had specially ordered, and one which attracted favorable comments from a couple of locals later at breakfast. It is an odd shade of green which Marty said is called "Area 51," and he had a winch installed on the front bumper for which he claims no practical need. I loved it and am thinking that I might like to have a winch on my Kia Soul, just in case I ever get the big lawnmower stuck in a ditch or need to pull down a building. You just never know!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When Marty and Mary arrived I let the dogs maul them for awhile as I dragged out photos of the kids an grandkids, and then we went to town for breakfast at the Ozark Cafe where we enjoyed delicious food and a long conversation that stripped the hardened varnish off of our lives in Mountain View nearly a half-century earlier.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was a truly wonderful visit. Marty and Mary, thank you so much for coming to see me and the dogs! Please do it again sometime!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-10362128819419955332024-03-08T07:25:00.000-07:002024-03-08T07:25:32.468-07:00Musk Goes after an Ex-Wife, Just not his Own<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Billionaire Elon Musk, who at times clocks in as the world's richest human, is a thrice-divorced father of eleven who is happy to share his opinion on just about anything. That passion for sharing his opinion and trying to influence others is part of the reason he flushed more that forty billion dollars down the social media rathole with his purchase of <i>Twitter </i>a couple of years ago. This week Musk used <i>Twitter</i>, which is now called <i>X</i>, to go off on the topic of ex-wives, though the one who got him cranked-up was the ex-wife of a fellow billionaire and not one of his own.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Elon seems to be righteously pissed at MacKenzie Scott, the philanthropic ex-wife of <i>Amazon</i> founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. Actually, MacKenzie, who was married to Bezos for more than twenty years, helped to found <i>Amazon</i> and get it up and running, and when they divorced a couple of years ago she received $38 billion in <i>Amazon</i> stock. If MacKenzie had been a good ex-wife and just settled into a life of country-clubbing and shopping, Elon would have probably had no problem with her, but the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos instead went out and began giving her money away to a multitude of charities and good causes - things that were based on correcting social inequalities and benefiting marginalized groups - usually with no strings attached.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In 2022 MacKenzie Scott reported that she had given almost two billion dollars to 343 organizations "supporting the voices and opportunities of people from underserved communities." One of her more controversial gifts was a $275 million dollar gift to <i>Planned Parenthood.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The day before yesterday a tweeter on <i>X</i> posted a comment noting that MacKenzie Scott gives money to organizations that deal with "race and/or gender," and that particular comment got Elon's attention and set him to typing. He responded:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>"Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse should filed (sic) be listed among 'Reasons that western civilization died'"</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Later in the day Musk deleted his tweet. Perhaps he decided that his valuable time would be better spent trying to control the vagaries of his own ex-wives!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Kudos to Jeff Bezos for landing a truly classy individual as his first ex-wife - and super kudos to MacKenzie Scott for showing her fellow billionaires how they could be benefitting humanity with their wealth. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And raspberries to Elon Musk who tried to show his wit and wisdom, and instead just showed his ass.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-87841379924053153072024-03-07T07:58:00.014-07:002024-03-07T19:08:21.530-07:00Lunatic Move Would Make Schools Even Less Safe<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">At a time when more and more American schools seem to be functioning as shooting galleries for angry, impotent young men, along comes an attention-seeking, elderly male politician with an insane plan to make our nation's schools even more dangerous.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Last weekend at a campaign rally in Richmond, Virginia, Donald Trump, a man who makes former Republican President George W. Bush look like a Rhodes Scholar, laid this threat on America's schools:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><b>"I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate."</b></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Trump, of course was not talking about his own pennies, he was talking about ours - the public treasury - and while the federal government is not the primary funder of America's public schools, loss of federal funds would have a staggering impact on our nation's schools and cause many to close.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Trump's declaration in Richmond came as part of a long rambling diatribe in which he seemed to be, at best, tenuously tethered to reality. At one point during his ramblings he spoke as though the current US president was Obama. After the campaign speech, some of the people who clean up his messes were quick to declare that Trump had not meant what he had said - and that he was talking only about COVID vaccine mandates. Others, however, with clear hindsight, know that sometimes what Trump says, whether it sounds like nonsense or not, is exactly what he means and precisely where he is headed. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Trump said exactly the same thing in Rock Hill, South Carolina last month. It is a red meat line that he enjoys tossing to his extremist base who not only want to own the libs, but to tear them apart and feed them to their dogs for breakfast. Libs are their mortal enemies. Libs are often educated, and they become educated by going to school, so why not destroy the schools as a way to stamp out libs?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There would be no need to worry about Critical Race Theory if there was no place left to teach it. Closing schools would close the school libraries, and many kids would no longer be able to get those subversive books that the teachers want them to read. Taxpaying patriots would no longer have to spend sleepless nights worrying about who was using who's bathrooms at the local schools, or playing on which sports' teams. Gone would be concerns about pronouns, and furries! Getting rid of schools would just take care of so many important social problems all at once. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And then America's kids would be free to become rich using their own big brains and initiative - just like Donald Trump did!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But here are some other facts, facts that came about through the study of hard science and not theology, phrenology, reflexology, numerology, or even cosmetology:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Every state in the union has vaccine mandates that they impose of their public schools, and often other schools in the state as well - even the most conservative states. Virginia, where Trump succumbed to his verbal diarrhea last weekend, has eleven vaccine requirements for students attending schools or other child care facilities. </li><li>Massachusetts has had vaccine requirements for schools since 1853.</li><li>Trump, himself, was vaccinated against COVID.</li></ul><div>Donald Trump is not a visionary whose aim is to lead us to a bright and shining future. He is a mean-spirited and vindictive tyrant of a man who operates on grudges and retribution. If he says that he is going to do something that would be a death knell for American education, we had best believe him.</div><div><br /></div><div>Donald Trump's concern for America begins and ends with what is in his own interests - and school students certainly don't make that cut.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now instead of just worrying about where to hide when some crazy shooter rushes into their school, students will also be burdened with concerns about becoming ill or even dying from things like measles, mumps, chicken pox, polio, COVID, RSV, the Plague, and God knows what all! </div><div><br /></div><div>Some day soon we will all be as smart as Trump - if we can just get rid of the damned schools! </div><div><br /></div><div>And if we can't get rid of the schools, let's at least make them so dangerous that parents will be afraid to send their kids there. </div><div><br /></div><div>Keep 'em stupid, Trump. It's great politics!</div><div><br /></div></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-88493406837717638172024-03-06T08:03:00.007-07:002024-03-06T10:36:21.478-07:00Something Else for Congress to Investigate<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have learned quite a bit about helium (He) recently, and quite unintentionally, just by reading a scattering of news sites on the internet. I know, for instance, that that helium is so rare and important that it forms the basis of a billion dollar business. One thing I learned from the news recently was that once the balloon bursts and the helium floats off, it is gone forever. For the billion dollar industry to survive, more must be found.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yesterday there was a news story about a big helium discovery in Minnesota. The initial discovery actually occurred in 2011 when a crew drilling for platinum and palladium in Minnesota's Iron Range drilled into a pocket of gas that contained 10.5% helium, the second highest concentration of helium ever found in North America. Drillings at the site in the last month have yielded even better results with concentrations of helium ranging up to 12.4 percent. That's roughly thirty times the standard for commercial helium.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The gas was found at depths between 1,750 feet and 2,200 feet.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Another thing which I have learned recently is that only about three percent of helium is used to fill balloons. The precious gas is also used for an industrial coolant and in the production of fiber optics, semiconductors, and rocket components - and it is necessary in the running of MRI machines. Clearly balloons are a fun distraction that waste an extremely valuable and rare resource which has many more important uses.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now, please bear with me as I digress far afield.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Concentrating on helium concentrations led me to ponder the ultimate fate of my two favorite balloons in the <i>Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade</i>: Rocky and Bullwinkle. And reflecting on those two great Americans brought me to the realization that there is another floating element, one which was discovered by Bullwinkle's Uncle Dewlap. That element is a metal called "upsidaisium," which is not yet listed on the <i>Periodic Table of Elements</i>. Dewlap left his upsidaisium mine, which was located on Mt. Flatten, to Bullwinkle, and that event inspired 36 segments of his and Rocky's hit television show during its second season in 1960-61.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There were problems associated with that bequest, of course, primarily caused by Russian agents Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The exact location of Mt. Flatten was never given on the show, perhaps out of national security concerns, but considering the fact that Rocky and Bullwinkle were both Minnesota natives - from Frostbite Falls - it would seem entirely possible that Uncle Dewlap was from that area also - and ergo, his mine might there as well.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now, I am definitely not a believer in coincidences, but if helium and upsidaisium are both naturally occurring elements beneath the ground and lakes of Minnesota, perhaps we should be taking extreme measures to protect those valuable resources and keep them safe. Boris and Natasha are still around, you know, only now they work for Putin, and he is far more dangerous than their old boss, Khrushchev.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Chances are Boris and Natasha are already holed up at <i>Mar-a-Lago</i>, poring over their charts and maps, and planning to steal the new helium supply and float it off to Moscow in a Chinese spy balloon.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Congress should investigate. Congress MUIST investigate! It's not like they have anything better to do!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-10672776476638038802024-03-05T10:02:00.002-07:002024-03-05T10:07:31.403-07:00It's Not Immigrants Who are Poisoning America<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In Adolf Hitler's manifesto, "Mein Kämpf" he used the term "blood poisoning" to criticize what he saw as the "mixing" of the races, and he was particularly distraught at the idea of German blood being "poisoned" by Jews. The notion of poisoned blood is a strong racist sentiment that is deeply rooted in Nazi totalitarian movement that took over much of Europe and threatened the entire world during World War Two. Unfortunately, that sentiment is still promoted and thriving in certain fascist and authoritarian countries and milieus today - including among modern day Nazis.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Donald Trump obviously likes to promote racist tripe like that because it helps to keep his low-information and less-educated base stirred up and focused on the southern border while also distracting them from Trump's criminal history, lies, and grifting. In December while campaigning in New Hampshire, Trump went off on one of his tirades about immigrants by thundering at a rally in Durham, "They're poisoning the blood of our country. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Spewing about "blood poisoning" and then citing Africa and Asia as offending exporters of immigrant populations - places when the majority populations are non-white, hits all of the right notes in Trump's dog whistle symphony.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Trump particularly likes to focus on Mexico and our southern border because that is the immigration issue which is easiest for him to use to manipulate his voters. One of his tired, old rants about the immigrants out of Mexico is: "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists." Drugs, crime, rape - odd selections to focus on for that particular orator.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Alaska's senior US Senator, Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, also thinks America is being poisoned, but Murkowski sees the poisoning as having an entirely different source than the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska, believes the source of the poisoning of America is Donald John Trump. Back about the time Trump was venting his spleen on the subject of "poisoning American blood," Senator Murkowski issued this rebuttal on Twitter:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>"With the exception of Alaska Natives and Native Peoples, most of us are daughters and sons of immigrants who came to this country to build a better life for themselves and their families. Legal immigration from people across the world is woven into the fabric of American exceptionalism, and comments from the former president couldn't be further from the truth. This is more hateful, harmful rhetoric from Donald Trump that is poisoning our country."</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Senator Murkowski said yesterday that she will not vote for Donald Trump in November - nor will she vote for Biden. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican senator from Utah, has also said that he will not vote for Trump in November. Romney, a former Republican presidential nominee, said that he will probably write in his wife, Ann Romney, for president. A third Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, has stated that she is not currently supporting Trump's bid for the White House.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Today is "Super Tuesday," the day in the election calendar when people in certain states get to cement in the nominees for the major political parties that the rest of us are supposed to feel obligated to support - and on this Super Tuesday the Republicans are having a presidential primary election in Maine (the home of Republican Senator Susan Collins), and presidential caucuses in Alaska (the home of Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski) and Utah (the home of Republican Senator Mitt Romney). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Wouldn't it be great if the Republican voters in those three states - Maine, Alaska, and Utah - could summon the integrity and moral courage of their senators, push the poison aside, and do what is best for the nation. If they want a strong conservative, Nikki Haley is on the ballot, and she isn't dragging along criminal and racist baggage.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The immigrants are not the problem. Donald John Trump is.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-68326473849326047992024-03-04T09:16:00.007-07:002024-03-04T10:35:55.611-07:00Jeanette Rankin Stood Tall for her Beliefs<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>History Enthusiast</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A young suffragette and peace activist from Montana by the name of Jeanette Rankin became the first woman in history to be seated in the United States Congress on this date in 1917. She had been elected, as a Republican, the preceding November to one of two at-large House seats that had been allocated to Montana based on the relatively new state's population. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rep. Rankin became a member of the US House of Representatives more than three full years before women across the entire United States received the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in August of 1920. By the time that women's suffrage (the right to vote) was granted nationwide by the Constitution, it was already in effect in several western states including more than a half century in Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870). Rep. Rankin's own state of Montana had granted women the right to vote in 1914, two years before Rankin won her seat in Congress. She had been an activist in the fight to get the vote for women in Montana.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jeanette Rankin made her mark in American history by being the first female elected to Congress, but she didn't stop there. It was as a peace activist where she truly had an impact. The lady from Montana had been serving in the House for exactly one month when President Woodrow Wilson came before a Joint Session of Congress and gave a speech requesting a formal declaration of war against Germany. Jeanette Rankin was one of fifty House members to vote "no" on the request to take the United States into what would become known as World War I. (Six senators also voted "no.")</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The following year the Montana legislature changed the congressional delegation selection from two at-large seats to two single district seats, and gerrymandered Rankin into a strongly Democratic district, so she chose to run for the Senate instead and lost that election decisively. Her opposition to the entry of the US in World War I has been seen as part of the reason she lost that election.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On that vote in opposition to the US entering the war, Jeanette Rankin later said, <b>"I felt the first time a woman had a chance to say no to war, she should say it."</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In 1940 Jeanette Rankin again ran for Congress in the state of Montana and managed to win that election . She was sworn into office on January 3rd, 1941, and during most of her first year in Congress there was a great deal of national dialogue about whether the United States should engage in the wars which were spreading around the globe. However, public opinion on the matter was not solidified until December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Then, of course, President Franklin D. Roosevelt went before a Joint Session of Congress - as President Wilson had done during Jeanette Rankin's first term in Congress. - and asked for a Declaration of War against Japan.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The vote for entry into the Second World War was far more lopsided than the vote for entry into the First World War had been. This time only one member of either chamber, the House or Senate, voted against entry into the war - and that member was Jeanette Rankin of Montana. There were boos and hisses from the House gallery and recriminations nationwide. Rep. Everett Dirksen of Illinois tried to get her to change her vote, or to at least abstain, but the principled congresswoman refused. She was chased into the House cloakroom by a gaggle of reporters and took refuge in a phone booth until she could be rescued by Capitol Police. Photos of Rankin in the phone booth ran in newspapers across the country.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jeanette Rankin said of her second vote against going to war: "As a woman I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Her political career was over after two single terms in the US House of Representatives, but Jeanette Rankin was not finished as an activist. She traveled extensively and visited India on multiple occasions where she studied the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">During the 1960's and early 1970's the indomitable Miss Rankin was out and about leading protests against US involvement in the war in Vietnam. "The Jeanette Rankin Brigade," a coalition of women's peace groups, held an anti-war march in Washington DC, that was the largest women's demonstration in the US since the days of the suffragist movement, and Rankin herself, then in her late eighties, led a march of 5,000 women from Union Station to the Capitol Building where they presented a peace petition to the Speaker of the House.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jeanette Rankin passed away in Carmel, California, on May 18th, 1973, at the age of ninety-two. She has been memorialized with a statue in Statuary Hall at the US Capitol as well as in the Montana state capitol, and she has also been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When it came to standing up for her beliefs, few have stood as tall as Jeanette Rankin. She talked the talk and walked the walk - and never worried about mundane matters like getting re-elected!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-70850794402929175372024-03-03T09:29:00.004-07:002024-03-03T09:39:19.400-07:00A Nomination for Our Next National Anthem<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I came across a historical blurb on the internet this morning stating that "The Star-Spangled Banner" became our official national anthem on this date in 1931 as the result of a resolution passed by Congress and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover. That means that seven years from now it will have been our official national song for a full century. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Perhaps now might be an appropriate time to consider an upgrade - and that is something that I do not propose lightly. The current anthem is a description of the "defense of Fort McHenry" (aka the British bombardment of Baltimore) during the War of 1812. It was, as many of us learned in elementary school, penned by Francis Scott Key on the morning following the battle when he saw the American flag still flying. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Francis Scott Key not only wrote the words to what would become our national anthem, he also paired them to the tune of an old British drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," a song that was popular in the men's social clubs of London in the 1700's. (So while the words were a counterpunch to British military might, the tune paid homage to British life and culture.) It is the same tune (?) that is still in use with the song today.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A variety of songs had been used to show American patriotism before the "Star-Spangled Banner" became officially enshrined as our national anthem, and some were much more pleasant to the ear and easier to sing. One often cited is "My Country Tis of Thee" which was written by Samuel Francis Smith in 1832, just twenty years after Key penned his poem and song. We've all heard it, and we all can sing it. Here is the opening chorus:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">"My country, 'tis of thee,</div><div style="text-align: left;">sweet land of liberty, </div><div style="text-align: left;">of thee I sing:</div><div style="text-align: left;">land where my fathers died,</div><div style="text-align: left;">land of the pilgrims' pride,</div><div style="text-align: left;">from every mountain side</div><div style="text-align: left;">let freedom ring!"</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And there are plenty of other patriotic songs that could inspire Americans to stand and cheer and sing. My personal favorite, and the one I would nominate as a replacement to our current less-than-riveting national anthem is "This Land Is Your Land" by American musician, singer, poet, and patriot, Woody Guthrie. Guthrie wrote his iconic, people-based vision of America in 1940 as a response to Irving Berlin's religiously-laced offering, "God Bless America."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Here is America as seen through the unflinching eyes of Woody Guthrie. I'm smiling and singing along as I type!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i></i></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This Land is Your Land</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Woody Guthrie</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This land is your land, and this land is my land</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>From California to the New York island</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This land was made for you and me</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>As I went walking that ribbon of highway</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And I saw above me that endless skyway</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>I saw below me that golden valley</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This land was made for you and me</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>I've roamed and rambled, and I've followed my footsteps</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>All around me, a voice was sounding</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This land was made for you and me</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>A sign painted said "Private Property"</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>But on the backside, it didn't say nothing</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This land was made for you and me</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>When the sun come shining, then I was strolling</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This land was made for you and me</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This land is your land, and this land is my land</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>From California to the New York island</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>This land was made for you and me</i></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><i></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-42641424011085733252024-03-02T08:28:00.012-07:002024-03-02T15:11:28.214-07:00Human Rights Should Still Matter<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Palestinian health authorities in Gaza have reported that at least 112 Palestinian civilians were killed and more that 280 wounded this past Thursday when Israeli forces opened fire on a large group of people as they were trying to get to aid trucks carrying food near Gaza City.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Israeli forces, while not denying that they fired into the crowd, attributed the "dozens" of deaths to people being trampled.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Meanwhile the <i>World Health Organization</i> yesterday officially listed its tenth fatality report of a Palestinian child having starved to death.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Desperate people who are starving and whose children are literally dying of malnutrition and starvation are climbing over one another through flying bullets trying to grab anything that could prolong their wretched lives. There have been reports of humans and rats fighting over scraps of food. The situation is horrible beyond description, beyond measure.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Amnesty International </i>and<i> Human Rights Watch</i> have both accused Israel of blocking relief aid headed to Gaza.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The death toll in Gaza is now over 30,000.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There is talk of an extended ceasefire, and talks are occurring in Qatar, but Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu does not seem to be ready to halt the assaults on Gaza. President Biden is talking about using the US military to air-drop food and medicine into Gaza as a way to get around Israel's blocking of aid delivery, but so far that is only talk and nothing is airborne.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yesterday there was a photo on multiple internet news sites of a group of female Israeli soldiers standing on a rise in front of bombed-out stretch of urban landscape in Gaza. They were smiling into their cell phones and taking "selfies." What their cell phone cameras undoubtedly failed to capture was the misery clawing around in all of that rubble for anything edible, even garbage.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">At what point will it be politically correct in the United States of America to openly refer to what is happening in Gaza as "genocide"? When will Americans be able to complain about the overreach and cruelty of the Israeli government and military without being vilified as being "anti-semitic"? Will there come a time when we can recognize this atrocity for what it is and quit funding it?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Human rights should still matter.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Update: News reports today state that the US has just dropped 38,000 prepared meals into Gaza. Well done, Joe! Don't stop now - keep it up!)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-26671839489011217362024-03-01T07:55:00.003-07:002024-03-01T07:59:42.437-07:00Notes on the Passing of Brian Mulroney<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have seen five US Presidents in my life time, three before they were elected to that office, one while he was actually serving, and one after he completed his tenure, but I never actually got close enough to any of them to shake their hands or to offer up sage advice. But I did have one close encounter with the leader of another country. In 1990 I walked up to Brian Mulroney, who was then the Prime Minister of Canada, as he was dealing with reporters outside of the Canadian Parliament building in Ottawa, and I shook his hand. Mulroney was every inch the well-dressed, conservative politician who had just finished a major address to a joint session of Parliament and to the Canadian people, and I was an an American tourist who looked as though he might be aspiring to be the next Chevy Chase in a film called "Canadian Vacation." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Mulroney was not nearly as impressed with our encounter as I was.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This morning I heard that Brian Mulroney, who served as Prime Minister of Canada from 1984 until 1993, has died. He passed away yesterday in Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of eighty-four.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The following is a piece that I wrote for this blog on October 24th, 2014, which discussed that very brief encounter which I had with the Prime Minister of Canada on what was one of the most important days of his tenure in that high office.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i></i></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><i>"Terrorism Comes to Canada"</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i>by Pa Rock<br />Citizen Journalist<br /><br />A young Canadian man and possible recent convert to Islam (according to Fox Noise) shot a soldier at the Canadian War Memorial in Ottawa a couple of days ago, then commandeered a car and driver and made his way to Parliament where he managed to get inside of the building and fire off a couple of more rounds before he was fatally shot by Parliament's Sergeant-at-Arms. The shooter, 32-year-old Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, had recently had his passport revoked by the Canadian government and was reportedly a person of interest to the government. He was using a lever-action hunting rifle that, without reloading - which he did not do - could fire a maximum of eight single shots.<br /><br />The Canadian Parliament has been remarkably easy to access. When the shooter was killed, he was reportedly outside of the room where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with his party caucus.<br /><br />I heard on the radio this morning that the grounds of the Canadian Parliament are used by the public on a daily basis - for strolling, playing frisbee, and even yoga classes. Now, sadly, security is likely to be ramped up with the result being something like the nearly inaccessible United States Capitol.<br /><br />In the summer of 1990 our family took a leisurely vacation drive through much of Ontario and Quebec. One Saturday as we were driving toward Ottawa, the capital, the Prime Minister at the time, Brian Mulroney, was on all of the local radio stations promoting the <b>Meech Lake Accord</b>, an agreement that he and the ten provincial premiers had reached regarding five new proposed amendments to the Canadian Constitution. The amendments, which ultimately failed to make it into the constitution, were designed to make the residents of Quebec, a province with a strong historical French culture, feel more respected and accepted by the rest of Canada. Mulroney was giving his radio address from the Parliament building in Ottawa.<br /><br />Mulroney was still speaking as we rolled into Ottawa and onto the grounds of Parliament. We had just parked and were climbing out of our van when a group of reporters rushed by and one said that the Prime Minister was about to come out. Being tourists, we followed the crowd to a set of large ornate doors which immediately swung open and discharged Prime Minister Mulroney, his wife, and a squad of government bureaucrats out into the small crowd. The elected leader of Canada paused long enough to shake a few hands, including mine, and then climbed into his limo and was whisked away from the unwashed masses.<br /><br />I thought at the time how refreshingly different Canada was from Reagan's fortress America. I hope this week's shooting doesn't result in them becoming as paranoid and as isolated from their halls of government as we are.<br /><br />Canada, do not overreact. You're better than that!</i></div></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><i></i></div><div><br /></div></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-68285608438223426082024-02-29T09:47:00.009-07:002024-02-29T14:41:50.470-07:00If You're Confused, Blame Greg<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div><i>Calendrical Calculator</i></div><div><br /></div><div>If my parents had possessed the good sense to conceive their first pregnancy just twenty-three days before they actually hit the jackpot back in the 1940's, I would be celebrating my 19th birthday today instead of staring down the shotgun barrel at the imminent arrival of number seventy-six in just a little over three weeks.</div><div><br /></div><div>Wouldn't that be something, to be sitting down to a birthday cake with my name on it and just nineteen candles! Of course I would still be 912 months old - aka 27,759 days old - and possibly not have enough wind or energy to blow out nineteen flames!</div><div><br /></div><div>Welcome to Leap Year 2024 - the only time the month of February will have twenty-nine days between the February that occurred in 2020 and the one that will happen in 2028. The solar calendar, the one used by most of the world, was designed to reflect a complete cycle of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, but that orbit actually takes about three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, so an extra day (February 29th) was added every four years to keep the calendar and the seasons aligned. We call that auspicious date "Leap Year."</div><div><br /></div><div>But even the adjustment of an extra day every four years does not completely end the discrepancy, and to bring the solar calendar into even tighter alignment with the time it actually takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun, one Leap Year has to be dropped in three of every four centuries. In the Gregorian calendar, the one established by Pope Gregory XIII and the one we use today, there is no Leap Year for years ending in double zeros - unless those years are divisible by four. So, after Greg finished putting his new calendar together in 1582, and 1600 rolled around, there was a Leap Year because 1600 is divisible by four. But there was no Leap Year in the years 1700, 1800, or 1900. But, when 2000 arrived - our beloved New Millennium - there was a Leap Year - which would have given me my 19th candle - if today was my birthday - which it isn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you're confused, blame Greg - and tax the church!</div><div><br /></div><div>Happy Leap Year anyway!</div><div><br /></div></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-77936194990189536972024-02-28T08:30:00.007-07:002024-02-28T19:23:01.033-07:00Number 24 Keeps his Mouth Shut<div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Senior in a Warm Spell</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yesterday was beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. When <i>Alexa </i>woke me before daylight, she announced that the temperature outside was already in the mid-fifties, and during the day it would likely reach the mid-eighties. That's not too shabby for late February with several weeks yet to go before spring officially arrives. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I've had jonquils blooming for two weeks, and the narcissus are just a couple of days away from showing their own blossoms.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I spent yesterday morning in front of the computer, like I always do, banging out some thoughts for the blog. As I watched the birds at the feeders being blown off of their perches by the warm, gusty spring breezes, I typed a posting about people who set themselves on fire and burn to death as a form of social protest. Then, when that obligation was complete, I decided to capitalize on the beautiful day by doing something entirely for me - and I grabbed a few supporting documents and headed off to the local DMV to get my driver's license renewed!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Ah, spring!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The DMV was crowded, like it always is, but they have a system set up where customers "take a number" from a dispenser when they enter the building. I headed straight to where the little ticket dispenser had stood on a counter for the past several years, and was panicked to discover that it was no longer where it belonged. Finally a good Samaratan (Number 23) who was sitting next to the door, directed me to the ticket dispenser's new location and I pulled out ticket Number 24. The counter on the wall said that Number 15 was currently being served, so I found a comfy spot out of the way and began concentrating on clearing the spam from my phone.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Sixteen." Great, we were starting to move!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I have the unique ability to entertain myself in group settings without bothering others, but unfortunately that does not seem to be a skill shared by the people who tend to congregate around me. As I sat there trying to do my own thing, I kept being drawn toward the conversation of two old coots sitting further down the row. Both of the men were there for driver's license renewals, just like me, and one was busy describing to the other a piece of land and an old house that he owned in a community that is about seventy-five miles away from West Plains, the place where the discussion was occurring.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As the man got into his spiel I quickly realized that although I did not recognize him, the land and house that he was describing were familiar to me. I had heard that same long-winded description given in the very same office at some point in the past. Perhaps he and I had both been there on the same day three years earlier when we had our drivers' licenses renewed the last time!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I didn't hear the property owner give his age, but the listener, a well dressed man who was there with his wife, announced that he would be ninety-two in a few days - which means the he likely got his first license on just about the day I was born.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A couple of clerks finished their dealings with customers, and instead of calling new numbers, disappeared. It was lunch time and the office which didn't close for lunch, nevertheless allowed its employees to eat. Just my luck.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Seventeen." There went the man with the out-of-county property. I focused on my phone with a vengeance out of fear that his 92-year-old buddy would turn on me for conversation.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Eighteen." The property owner had been sent out to secure another document, and his clerk was open for a new customer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one." A worker had returned from lunch and the first two numbers he called had apparently given up and left. I had cleared my in-box and messages, and was working on emptying the spam and trash when things in the office suddenly began to get interesting.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Twenty-two."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A very old and large man who had been holed-up in the most remote corner of the lobby slowly got to his feet, leaned on his lethal-looking cane, and said in a loud, yet solemn voice, "What happened to twelve?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Twelve?" A young worker at the counter asked with more than a little trepidation in her voice.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"I'm number twelve and I'm still waiting on my turn." The man was bald, but there was a small black storm cloud gathering above his head that resembled a toupee.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Sir, we've already called twelve and nobody answered."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"No you didn't." He did not look or sound like the type of person who would take "no" gracefully. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There was undoubtedly a sign somewhere that said firearms weren't permitted inside of the DMV, but I hadn't seen it - and we were in Missouri - so I started looking for cover, but that proved to be unnecessary. The lady who was dealing with the man had apparently been to an inservice training based on just this contingency, and she handled the matter expertly. The clerk apologized and promised the individual that he would be the next served, and nobody down the food chain, including the usually problematic Number 24, offered any objections whatsoever.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And thirty minutes another clerk called my number, I yelled "bingo," and thirty minutes after that I was home and typing again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Today it's colder, but I will still head out to cardiac rehab in an hour or so dressed in gym shorts and a sweatshirt. When you're my age, you live life with the throttle wide open!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-90309048409937243732024-02-27T09:02:00.001-07:002024-02-27T09:04:49.607-07:00The Shock and Power of Self-Immolation<div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">A young man with a Palestinian flag set himself on fire outside of the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta on December 1st, and while he did not die in the incident he did suffer very serious injuries in his highly personal protest of Israel's unrelenting attacks on the civilians and children of Gaza.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This past Sunday Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old member of the United States Air Force, set himself on fire outside of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, again over the savagery that the Israeli military has been unleashing on the Palestinians in Gaza. Airman Bushnell, who live-streamed his self-immolation on social media, died from his injuries the following day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That type of personal protest, setting oneself on fire, is not original, but it does tend to be highly effective in drawing the eyes of the world to a specific problem.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On June 11th, 1963, a Buddhist monk who was living and working at a monastery and orphanage Hue, the old capital of Vietnam, decided that he would set himself on fire as a protest to the United States' growing involvement in the civil war in his homeland. The monk, Thich Quang Duc, loaded his Austin Westminster Sedan with a few younger monks and a couple of cans of gasoline - and drove off to Saigon where he notified several foreign journalists of a planned "shocking political protest" that he was going to hold against the government of South Vietnam which was being backed by the United States. The monk told the journalists where and when the protest would be held, but only one showed up, a photojournalist named Malcolm Wilde Browne who wound up winning a <i>Pulitzer Prize</i> for taking the time to attend the monk's protest.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When Thich Quang Duc arrived at the scene he seated himself on the curb in the lotus position and waited as several hundred people gathered. Then the young monks carefully and thoroughly doused him in gasoline, and the seated monk struck a match and set himself ablaze. For the next couple of minutes the burning monk chanted prayers while the flames consumed him - and the journalist took photos</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The ;photographs of the burning monk resonated with people around the world, and President Kennedy was reportedly so affected by the image that he began to reevaluate his position on the war in Vietnam.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Self-immolation is a drastic measure of passion and self-sacrifice that is very effective at drawing attention to an issue. We may question the ultimate sanity of those who choose this recourse, but their commitment to the cause is beyond doubt.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-86641395612324917782024-02-26T09:31:00.002-07:002024-02-26T09:35:23.776-07:00Rod Stewart is Still Making his Music<p> </p><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Music Fan</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Alexa and I are listening to Rod Stewart and Jools Holland's new album, <i>Swing Fever</i>, this morning, and it has the house a-rockin'!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rod Stewart first pounced on the music scene with <i>Maggie May, </i>more than half a century ago (1971), and he has gone on to sell more that 120 million records including ten number one albums and six top singles. In his spare time Stewart has shared his life with five long-term female partners and three wives - and accumulated eight children and a knighthood along the way. Today, at seventy-nine, Sir Roderick David Stewart is still performing fifty or sixty live shows a year - and continuing to share his full-throated, raspy voice with the world.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Stewart's latest, the swing-jazz collection, <i>Swing Fever, </i>is a collaboration with British pianist an band leader, Jools Holland, and it is a clear change of pace for the old rocker - very smooth, rhythmic, and jazzy - and a pleasing break from the Rod Stewart we have known and enjoyed over the many years that he has been performing. In some ways the new album reminds me of when Willie Nelson changed his pace with the <i>Stardust</i> album or when Linda Ronstadt's <i>What's New</i> with Nelson Riddle and his Orchestra took her and us to another time.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The cuts on <i>Swing Fever,</i> which just came out three days ago, are: Lullaby of Broadway (with tap dancing!), Oh Marie, Sentimental Journey, Pennies from Heaven, Night Train, Love is the Sweetest Thing, Them There Eyes, Good Rockin' Tonight, Ain't Misbehaving', Frankie and Johnnie, Walkin' My Baby Back Home, Almost Like Being in Love, and Tennessee Waltz.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(Yes, Stewart and Holland even jazzed up Patti Page's old hit, <i>Tennessee Waltz</i>, and gave it new life!)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Young Rod probably could have stolen his daddy's cue back in the 1960's and make a living out of shooting pool, but this tired old typist, for one, is mighty glad that he didn't!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rock on, Sir Rod!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-53315168319925799082024-02-25T09:16:00.005-07:002024-02-25T09:32:03.098-07:00More Political Interference in Reproductive Rights<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Reproductive rights were in the news again last week when a group of Cracker Jack lawyers calling itself the Supreme Court of Alabama issued a ruling declaring that frozen human embryos are de facto human babies and deserve the same rights and protections that Alabama hopefully gives to its babies who have passed through a birth canal and are now breathing air. A day or so later GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a married Christian mother of two grown children, entered the discussion by saying that she also regards human embryos as babies.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>In vitro fertilization </i>is a procedure in which eggs are removed from a woman's ovary and combined with sperm cells outside the body to form embryos. The embryos are grown in the laboratory for several days and then placed in a woman's uterus or cryopreserved (frozen) for future use. The overall process is generally referred to as<i> IVF.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">Last week's decision by the Alabama Supreme Court was in response to couples who lost their frozen embryos because of an accident in a south Alabama storage facility. The court said that the couples could sue under the state's wrongful death law. That sent shock waves through hospitals and laboratories involved in <i>IVF</i>, and three Alabama hospitals - including the University of Alabama Hospital - have since announced that they will no longer be involved in<i> IVF</i> procedures until the law is clarified and personnel involved in the procedures have legal protections.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>IVF</i> is a fairly common procedure used by couples who encounter difficulties in procreating. There are currently an estimated 800,000 to one million frozen embryos in the United States.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Politicians, and Republican politicians in particular, who often have an outsized interest in reproductive issues, and who have generally been opposed to procedures like abortion, surrogacy, and even birth control, seem to have been caught off guard by the wide public support of <i>IVF</i>, and many are now scrambling to get onboard with the well established medical process. Donald Trump, a politician who reportedly favors a national abortion ban, has sprung to the defense of <i>IVF </i>and called on the Alabama state legislature to pass a law safeguarding the procedure. Joe Biden, a more ardent supporter of reproductive rights than Trump, has called the decision by the Alabama Supreme Court "outrageous and unacceptable."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">With the Big Kahunas of both major political parties spurning the Alabama decision, perhaps it will be legislated away before the elderly politicians (of both genders) on the US Supreme Court feel compelled to weigh in - and God only knows what type of egg they would hatch! A quick legislative solution at the national level would be ideal, but, of course, the current Congress is one of the most ineffective in the history of the republic, so a remedy from them is unlikely. The impending lack of a quick, national solution opens a whole Pandora's box of other issues.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If a frozen embryo has a right to life, what other rights does it have? Should it have representation in government as a person - or perhaps as a "partial" person as the Founding Fathers originally deemed slaves in America to be? Will it have a right to legal counsel or public assistance in the event it is abandoned by its donors?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It is truly a shame that our political leaders do not take the same level of interest in meeting the basic needs of living, breathing children as they do the "babies" in the freezer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-61919906799643516772024-02-24T09:26:00.007-07:002024-02-24T09:48:02.766-07:00Letitia James Kicks Political Butt!<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Citizen Journalist</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">New York's relentless and ferocious attorney general, Letitia James, has just felled her third political giant in less that four years - and the second in less than a month - feats that mark her as a political force in her own right </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In 2021 Ms. James began looking into allegations of sexual harassment of female state employees by the three-term Democratic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, the son of a former governor and the brother of a well-known national news television correspondent. The state attorney general, herself a Democrat, did not let party affiliation interfere with her investigation of the women's complaints against the governor, and in August of that year she issued a finding and a lengthy report stating that Cuomo had harassed current and former state employees as well as a number of women outside of state government. A couple of weeks after her report was released, Cuomo bowed to mounting public pressure and resigned as governor.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Score one for the giant killer!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Ms. James also brought a fraud case against Donald Trump in the state of New York alleging that he had defrauded the state out of millions of dollars by intentionally distorting and misreporting the values of his properties in order to obtain preferential loan and tax tax rates. A little over a week ago the judge in that case ruled that Trump owes the state of New York in the neighborhood of $450 million - nearly a quarter of which is back interest on that debt. (Post-judgment interest on that debt is nearly $112,000 per day.) Trump is whining about political persecution, and Ms. James is countering that the state will begin seizing his New York assets if he does not pay up - and she was reportedly looking at Trump Tower when she said it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Score two!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The <i>National Rifle Association,</i> a non-profit gun-rights group which was based in New York, became a target in 2020 when Attorney General James sued the the group for violating state law governing how charities registered in New York can operate. A particular target of the suit was alleged extravagant personal spending by Wayne LaPierre, the group's leader for the past three decades, as well as spending by some other members of top <i>NRA</i> leadership. LaPierre resigned his position within the group as the trial began, but that did not allow him to escape legal consequences for his past actions. Yesterday the <i>National Rifle Association </i>and Wayne LaPierre were found liable for misspending millions of dollars on extravagant perks. LaPierre himself was found liable for $5.4 million in damages - much of which went for expensive vacations, flights on private jets, and fine Italian suits.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And that makes a three-bagger!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Letitia James is a political dynamo, someone who is not afraid to deal with corruption where she finds it and to face down the political giants of our time - of either party. Some would have us believe that that there are no US political leaders-in-waiting who are capable dealing with Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, or Putin, but Letitia James would no doubt disagree - and so might Andrew Cuomo, Donald Trump, and Wayne LaPierre. And at sixty-five years of age, she is still a pup by the standards of both major political parties, but that pup sure can bite!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8750244306663708036.post-16017414870569394242024-02-23T09:06:00.005-07:002024-02-23T09:12:39.655-07:00February Is Now be the Cruelest Month<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>by Pa Rock</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Observer of Nature</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For those who plan their lives around a calendar, spring traditionally begins during the third full week of March, and for others of a more intuitive nature spring has sprung when the roses begin budding and blooming, the baby birds are hatching out, and the sounds of lawnmowers start to fill the air - and all of that often happens in April, or at least it did up until a few years ago.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The 14th century poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, saw April as the time of rebirth. In the prologue to his "Canterbury Tales," Chaucer declared: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">"When April the sweet showers fall</div><div style="text-align: left;">And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all</div><div style="text-align: left;">The veins are bathed in liquor of such power</div><div style="text-align: left;">As brings about the engendering of the flower . . . "</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And nearly six centuries later American and British poet T.S. Eliot expressed a very similar view in the opening lines to his epic poem, "The Waste Land:"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">"April is the cruellest month, breeding</div><div style="text-align: left;">Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing</div><div style="text-align: left;">Memory and desire, stirring</div><div style="text-align: left;">Dull roots with spring rain."</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But weather patterns have changed and poets today who want to bang on about the arrival of spring might feel pressured by reality to forgo the pleasant two-syllable "April" and instead go with the clunkier four-syllable "February" in celebrating nature's annual rebirth.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The temperature was in the seventies here in the Ozarks yesterday, and it will be again today - as well as much of next week. Winter almost never happened, and it certainly did not get cold enough for long enough to interfere with the coming summer's crop of ticks and chiggers. This summer will likely be an itching and scratching fiasco! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The sprawling old lilac bush that stands in front of my house and tries to pull me off of the mower whenever I get too close is already heavy with green buds. It's veins are drawing liquor from the dead land and preparing to burst forth into fragrant flowers - and it's only February!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Can the dandelions be far behind?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The arrival of spring stayed fairly constant during the five hundred and thirty years between the time Chaucer penned his <i>Canterbury Tales </i>in 1392 and Eliot described his <i>Waste Land </i>in 1922, but now, just one century past Eliot's classic, spring has advanced two full months.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's called global warming, and it is a product of global capitalism raping, and smothering, and poisoning the only home that we have, the home we all must share - and it has been done solely through greed so that some may live better than others.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Chaucer and Eliot would both be aghast and ashamed, and all of us should be.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Note for language purists: Yes, I realize that I spelled "cruelest' two different ways. It has one "l" in the title because that is the American spelling and this is an American blog-posting, and the word has 'two "l's" in the quote from "The Waste Land," because that is the British spelling and the poem was composed and published in Great Britain, and that is the spelling which was used by the poet - who was actually a native of Missouri.)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pa Rockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16747526882424245608noreply@blogger.com0