THE MAGNIFICAT

 

Not exactly the image of Mary most of us grew up on The article in the Washington Post source of the graphic and an opinion piece from someone raised Evangelical, and the pastor's daughter at that. The  artist's name is Ben Wildflower. When I first read the entire piece it surprised the heck out of me. But heck, I was raised in the Methodist congregation either so liberal or so controlled by the status quo that we didn't do Advent and we didn't do Lent. 

The Magnificat Luke 1:46-55

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for He has looked with favor on His humble servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed,

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is His Name.

The first verses are the ones most of us are familiar with. Then there is the rest of the passage. The passage most conservative, even not so conservative, protestants are familiar with. Mary has received the visitation and goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Breaks into song and here is the rest. Prophetic song. The proud will be scattered, the mighty cast down, the humble raised, the hungry fed.

He has mercy on those who fear Him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

He has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich He has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of His servant Israel

for He has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise He made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children for ever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.

Amen, Alleluia. ^[8]

The Old Testament prophets repeated this message over and over. Also including merchants who gave false weights and mixed the sweepings from the floor with the good grain. Also modern politian's who don't want the poor to be too comfortable if  it means the rich might have to give up some of their wealth. 

CHRISTMAS CATS

This original story did not happen at Christmas. But it is way funny. And now picture everythng happening with Christmas decorations thrown in as everyone, including the cats, enters total chaos. 

And a differnt Christmas chaos courtesy of Simon's Cats. Imagine that wine hitting the cat at the top of the tree.

Bugs and The Great Wine Explosion

By Franny Syufy

It all started soooo innocently...
DH and I were strolling down memory lane decided to revist our ill-spent youth by buying a bottle of Asti Spumonte, a sparkling wine that sort of tastes like apples. We wanted it for dinner and DH decided to put it in the freezer...where we promptly forgot about it.

When we got it out of the freezer, it looked pretty frozen. For reasons that can only be described as male, DH decided it to open the bottle just as Bugs, with his back turned to him, decided to eat some kibble half a kitchen away. Before I could yell, "Contents under pressure, you idiot!" DH popped the cork.

Which flew. Across the room. Hitting Bugs on the butt. With considerable force. He levitated four feet vertically into the air — just in time to meet the stream of Asti Spumonte ice winging its way through the air. Mid-air collision: cat, half-frozen wine, DH trying to save cat.

Howls. From Bugs and DH, who catches Bugs, claws first, because they are now fully extended and working with piston-like energy in full getaway mode because DH has the bottle, which is making splurting noises and foaming in an alarming manner, in the other hand . Bugs uses DH's chest as a launching pad and races off in blind panic through the livingroom, showering flecks of wine ice everywhere he goes.

And where does he take cover? In our bed of course, under the duvet, rolling wildly to get the nasty-smelling cold stuff OFF his back. Which meant, of course, that he had to have a bath, because not only is he sticky, but we're concerned that wine just can't be good for brown cats. Although Tum, whom we caught lapping at the pool of melted wine in the kitchen, clearly did not agree, given the protest he made when we locked him downstairs for the duration of clean-up.

Anyways, Bugs, wet and completely disgusted, has banished us to the bench for a prolonged time-out with prejudice. Anybody like a glass of winecicle?

- drunementon

Franny's Note: "the bench" refers to the "Mean Mommy Bench," aka MMB, where forum members are relegated for acts cruel and inhumane toward cats. You'll find one or more of us huddled there at any given time, sharing hot cocoa, ice tea, or wine, depending on the season and our degree of remorse.

SOLSTICE AT NEWGRANGE

Newgrange is a Neolithic mound complex located on the north side of the river Boyne in County Meath Ireland. It is described as a passage tomb although archelogists are not totally certain what the complex was used for. What we do is what happens on the Winter Solstice. At sunrise the light enters the passage, illuminating the interior on that one day a year. It happens whether it's cloudy or not but it is mor impresssive if the sun is actually shining that morning. Newgrange is dated at approximately 3,200 BCE. Making it older than the pyramids.The builders had a fair knowledge of astronomy and a calendar of some kind. 

A Solstice Litany from the book Winter Solstice by James Matthews.

For the return of the sun – Blessings and Peace

For the gifts we give…and receive – Blessings and Peace

For all the gift givers – Blessings and Peace

For the Children of Wonder – Blessings and Peace

For the children everywhere – Blessings and Peace

For sunsets and starlight – Blessings and Peace

For sunlight and moonlight – Blessings and Peace

For streams rippling under the winter’s ice – Blessings and Peace

For raging torrents rushing to the sea – Blessings and Peace

For rain and rainbows – Blessings and Peace

For the warmth of fire in the cold of winter – Blessings and Peace

For the trees on the hill – Blessings and Peace

For the tree in the corner – Blessings and Peace

For the candles in the window – Blessings and Peace

For the gifts of friendship – Blessings and Peace

For Bards and their gifts of poetry – Blessings and Peace

For Singers and the music they share – Blessings and Peace

For the prayers for peace – Blessings and Peace

For those who pray for peace where there is no peace – Blessing and Peace

The authors encourage you to adapt to include whatever you’re thankful for right now. I certainly did. The Matthew's have a soft spot for hand bell ringers, good food and that vital necessity. Good cooks. 

 

THE SOLSTICE GREAT CONJUNCTION

Writer's block continues. And the family tree. Almost all roads seem to lead to Charlamagne. Thank heaven not all his wives and mistresses had children. And not all of those children had childred. Anywway when all else fails look to the sky. 

Picture from the North Carolina Weather Authority on the night of the 16th. Telescope shot obviously. I'm not sure if the little dot at the top of the picture is a moon of  Jupiter or a star. Or how the power of this telescope stacks against the one Galileo used. The planets look so close together there is really more than 450 million miles between them. And I'm not sure how long the exposure was to get this shot 

Astronomy has always fascinated me. Even had a telescope once upon a time. Too much city lights and living next to hills didn't provide very good "seeing." David Scharpf took this shot. 
 

JUPITER AND SATURN

 Shot taken by Jim Wright from Stonekettle Station. Shot taken today in the Florida panhandle. The bright one is Jupiter. The smaller dots close by are the four moons decribed by Galileo. The bright dot above is Saturn. Around the solstice the two planets will be at their closest. The last time they were this close was around 1674. I offer this since I'm suffering from a bad case of writer's block. If you have clear skies the two are visible to the southwest sometime before dawn. 

ORDERED LIBERTY IN NEW ENGLAND

I'm trying to do something about voting and the first split in the colonies over who had the right to vote in Massachusetts colony. It's going slowly.

(The Reverand Thomas Hooker. His disagreement with the leaders of Massachusetts colony led to the founding of Hartford in what became Connecticutt.)

When British emigrants came to the New World they brought more than their religious beliefs and folkways. Each group; Puritans and dissenters, Quakers and Pietists, exiled Cavaliers, British borderers and Irish economic refugees brought their own conception of liberty.

 The colonists of New Englanders had some conceptions of liberty that were unique to their settlements. David Fischer argues in Albion’s Seed that the word liberty was used in four different ways that would probably strike modern Americans as unusual.

 One  use of liberty described liberty or liberties that belonged to the community or communities rather than the individual. Writers, from the founding of the colony for the next two centuries spoke of the liberty of New England, the liberty of Boston, or the liberty of the town. There is evidence that Sam Adams wrote more often about the ”liberty of America” than the liberty of individual Americans.

 This concept of collective liberty was consistent, to New Englanders at least, with restrictions on individual liberty that modern Americans would find very restrictive to say the least. In early years of the Massachusetts colony, potential colonists couldn’t settle there without permission from the general court. Persons who were judged to have dangerous opinions, in the eyes of the authorities, could be and occasionally were shipped back to England. Not every Tom, Dick, or Harry was allowed to move into the colony without permission.

 Those colonial New Englanders accepted restraints, but did insist that the restrictions be consistent with the written laws of the Commonwealth. And they insisted that they had the right to order their communities in their own way. Not the way it was done in Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or in some cases even England. (An intersting bit of history given the extremely long shot attempt of Texas to try to tell four swing states how to run their electons.)

Liberty or liberties had a second meaning in New England. One that had roots in the counties of East Anglia where many of colonists and most of their pastors left when they emigrated. Individuals could be granted the liberty to do something that they normally couldn’t do. For example, certain individuals could be granted the liberty to fish or hunt in certain areas while that liberty was denied to others. In some cases the liberty granted depended on someone’s social rank. For example a gentleman could not be punished with a whipping unless the crime was extremely serious and “his course of life was vicious and profligate.” (The author didn’t provide any examples. However military commander, whose name escapes me at the momentm was fined when his wife met him at the door and he hugged and kissed her in public.) Those of lesser rank, had a lesser liberty: they were limited to forty stripes or less if they were sentenced to a flogging.

 And codified in the fundamental liberties of the colony was the right of any man, inhabitant or foreigner to come before the courts or town meetings and have his voice heard. And if he couldn’t plead his own cause he had the right to ask someone else to speak for him.

 And there was a third kind of liberty in New England. It was referred to as Soul Liberty, Christian Liberty or Freedom of Conscience. This did not mean freedom of conscience in the way we understand it. This was freedom to practice the true faith as defined by the fundamental law of the colony. This liberty did not apply to Quakers, Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, or even Presbyterians who did not agree to a very restrictive definition of reformed theology. And that definitions could, and often did, depend on the whim of the local minister.

 Basically, it meant they were free to persecute everyone else in their own way. I know, I’m getting a headache just trying to wrap my brain around the idea that the freedom to serve God in your own way in your own community could be defined as the right to hang Quakers for preaching in the town. Granted the death penalty was not used for a first offense. First the persistant preacher would be exiled. Second offense usually was met with a flogging. Man or woman on the bare back, sometimes tied to the back of a cart and flogged through the town. Come back a third time and and you might end up at the end of a rope. 

Actually Quakers were forbidden the right to settle in the Massachusetts colony up to early 1660's. In 1661 Charles II forbade the excution of Quakers. In 1684 the orginal Massachusetts charter was revoked, the basic laws of the colony brought into compliance with English law and a new governor installed.  In 1689 the Glorious Revolution saw the passage of the toleration acts. Which were exactly that. You still had to be a member of the Church of England and swear to I believe it was the Thirty Nine Articles to obtain a university degree, preach in church, get a license to be a doctor or a lawyer, You were tolerated. Unless you were a Roman Catholic. Many of the restrictions on Catholics were still enforced in Britain and, they weren't too popular in the colonies either. 

 And, at times, liberty was used in a fourth way. It described an obligation of the “body politicke” to protect individual members from what the author calls the “tyranny of circumstance.” The Massachusetts poor laws may have been limited but the General Court recognized a right for individuals to be free from want in a basic sense. It wasn’t a question of collective welfare or even social equality.

 In Fischer’s opinion these four ways of looking at liberty; collective liberty, individual liberties, soul freedom and freedom from tyranny of circumstance were all part of what the New Englanders sometimes called ordered liberty. The New Englanders had their ways of defining liberty; other colonies and their settlers didn’t always agree.

BEWARE THE GERRYMANDER

With apologies to Lewis Carroll you can sort of substitute the Gerrymander for the Jabberwock but I still don't know what a Jubjub bird or a bandersnatch looks like. But beware the gerrymander anyway. 

 “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

From the Public Policy Website, UMass at Dartmouth.

Ugly bugger isn't it. Gerrymandering isn't new. It's almost as old as the nation. 1812 wasn't exactly the best year in our early history what with the war and all. 

"In 1812 Elbridge Gerry, the Democratic- Republican Governor of Massachusetts, did something practically unheard of. He let Democratic-Republicans in Massachusetts use their political power to redraw district lines to ensure a victory for the Democratic-Republican Party in the state senate election. After Gerry signed a bill to make this kind of redistricting legal, a cartoon was put into a local newspaper that made the Boston district he had drawn look like a salamander. The name “gerrymander” comes from a combination of Elbridge Gerry’s name and the famous salamander from the cartoon. Ever since then, politicians have been altering district lines to fit their needs." Liz Anusaukas.

Gerry was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence. It's a pity that a man who served his country well in many ways is mainly remembered for that ugly amphibian. The Democratic Republicans came into being in opposition to the Federalists. 

CONSERVATIVES WHO REALLY ARE CONSERVATIVE

This year's presidential is slowly twisting and turning to a conclusion. Today is the final day for the states to certify the elections results for the electors. In spite of repeated court appearances and recounts the vote still stands and Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. Yeah, he has the full three names but everybody seems to call him Joe. In contrast to the current occupant who always signs everything Donald J. Trump. 

That has been mystifying me for awhile. Are there other Donald Trumps out there with a different middle name so "our" Donald has to be sure that nobody gets him mixed up with some other "Donald?" Weird. It's not like we are going to forget who he is. As much as some of us would like to regard him as nightmare that we can't wake up from. 

Anyway. It looks like the current occupant is discovering that conservative may mean exactly that. It appears that judges with a rep for being conservative appear to be reluctant to interfere with existing election laws, expecially when there is no evidence to back up the requests to do so. Even Giuliani had to admit that there was no evidence of fraud to back up his claims of fraud. At least one of his witnesses was so unhinged that even he was trying to shut her up. I am not sure what that witness was on but, she appeared to be higher than a kite. And has a record for computer crime. She just came off probation.

And it turns out that Jenna Ellis, a senior legal advisor to the soon to be ex president, has inflated her resume. For me this is more evidence getting doctorate in the law does not guarantee you are much of a lawyer. I used to believe that law school must be really hard to get through. Seems she never really got above traffic court as a prosecutor.

Some of the corrent occupant's supporters have floated the idea of having the military step in and do a rerun of the election undeer martial law. We'll probably never know what was said behind the scenes. More than one officer may have remembered their oaths and pointed out that in this country the military does not just "step in." And that there has to be a damn good reason to declare martial law and losing an election with no evidence of fraud is not a damn good reason no matter what advice a couple of retired generals are giving you.

Even if, if, the tRump campaign managed to get even one legislature to step in, where's the guaranty that a majority would even vote to overturn the slate of electors chosen by popular vote? It's a big jump to change the law governing the state's election AFTER the election.

The idea does bring up a disturbing picture. A few states where the legislature chooses the electors without the people casting a vote. While other states hold what most of us regard as normal elections. Now that would open a pretty kettle of rotten fish.

This will end up being a two parter. My vote and how important it is was drummed into me for as long as I can remember.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET THE VIRUS TO DIE FROM IT

 I don't usually post more than once a day. But this came up. Oregon doctor has his license suspended. Indefinitly. His admission came out at a local "stop the steal" rally. Likened the virus to the common cold and urged everyone to quit wearing the "mask of shame." His family practice clinic is closed. Way to go doc. Your employees are now out of jobs. At least for now. And he makes me so very angry. 

My folks wedding picture. I think I can count on one hand the times I saw dad in a suit and tie. Including the wedding picture. Not a bad looking couple. Not bad at all. This year was their seventy fifth wedding anniversar.

Our mother, our always smiling mother, did not die from the virus. I believe she died because of the virus. Yes, she was ninety four. Yes, she was hard of hearing. Yes, she was getting more at home in the past than the present. Well, the past was where all the fun was. The house, the yard, the cats, the trips to the farmer's market or a ride up the mountains where we used to live. She was comfortable. Had her books. Had the cat. Didn't really do much. Our talks on the phone were mostly about cat antics and the garden we used to have. 

I may have written about this before, if so bear with me. She fell in February, broke her ankle. Had surgery went into rehab just before the virus broke out. She hanging in there. Getting to recognize the staff, sis was in almost every day. I tried to talk to her on the phone two or three times but it was noisy and without the cocoon of her room I ended up spending most of my time getting her to realize she was talking to ME. 

Then the lockdown began. Staff in masks, sis not able to visit. Granted mom's doctor believed that at her age she probably would have trouble healing properly, which might have meant a wheel chair. She was already using a walker. It didn't take long. I called the facility three or four times a week to try and find out how she was doing. Sis called Thursday night, mom was going on hospice. Saturday sis called. She was allowed one visit, could stay as long as she wanted, kept telling mom she'd be "dancing with dad." Guess dad was really smooth with a waltz. 

Just after midnight sis called. Mom's dancing with dad. I hope they were met at the rainbow bridge. Candy, Sam, Tinker, cats whose names I don't remember. There 's no chance I'll ever meet this thrice damned idiot face to face. To be honest my blood pressure probably wouldn't take it. 

Thanks for listening, whoever reads this. 

YOU CAN'T ESCAPE REALITY

 I've learned to like NCIS New Orleans. For starters, the music during the first seasons. The fact the Scott Bakula can play jazz piano and carry a tune doens't hurt. The crowded street life Mardi Gras. Caught the first three episodes of this season on the CBS streaming. The first two parter hits you right in the gut. Now I do enjoy the one star ratings on Amazon and found this one. 

I have purchased every Season of NCIS New Orleans. And, up until now, I ave enjoyed the show... At least up until now. If the first two episodes are any indication of the rest of the Season, I'm finished watching. I am a Healthcare Professional working in this every day now for months. Tragically, people do die horrible deaths (less than 1%), and 99% survive. I come home to watch TV to be entertained, not for a show to use COVID 19 and make it their storyline. If I want to experience that, I'll simply go to work. Not have the garbage forced down my throat at home, too. Lose the masks and this storyline (which is highly sub par) or you've lost a faithful fan. And it appears, from what I read, many others, too. Unless something changes, save your money. I wish I had.

I thought this one over and decided not the leave a comment on the comment. You have to pay attention but the story basically starts off about a month into the pandemic. New York is locked down and the Big Easy is headed that way. Deserted streets that once were crowded. Trying to keep up with the need for protective gear. Body bags croweding the county mourgue. Checking the hand written inscription on a body bag to find a friend inside. The despairing "there's no more room." The refrigerated trucks running out of room. One of the other agent's ex was visiting Italy, managed to get as far as his family in England. And they weren't going anywhere soon. 

Last March we didn't know what the real death toll would be. It's not as bad as expected because we've learned a lot. Too bad too many of our fellow citizens won't wear a mask when they go outside and ignore what needs to be done. And last I checked the death toll was still over one percent and more than a few survivors end up wishing they'd died. Nothing like a double lung transplant to focus your life. 

And how about dumping the "health care professional" and telling us what you actually do. Nurse, orderly, custodian, medical examiner? And in case the commenter hadn't noticed the plot lines on this show tend to be fairly timely. 

OK. Little rant over. It was the empty streets that got to me. I mean Could have been Omega Man or one of those end of the world movies from the seventies Oregon isn't as bad as many other states but it's bad enough. 

The virus is out there. No thanks to the repsonse of the elected hired help it isn't going away any time soon. I don't know what to suggest to this person without sounding like a total snark. What Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel or something. Might put you into a sugar coma but, what the hey. 

THAT'S COLD, THAT'S REALLY COLD

 I've been at sixes and sevens over the totally unhinged response from the soon to be former president of this country. I don't know if his responses are true or if he's having us on, or playing to his base in one last bought of hopeful fund raising. Anyway he did a phone in interview Sunday. And out of the forty claims he made? None of them are true. The journalist at the other end of line made little or now effort to refute the claims. I don't know if it was fear of crossing him or a case of "what the hell he won't listen anyway." 

A member of the president's legal team, Joe DiGenova, said in an interview with Newsmax that the former head of election security, Chris Krebs, should be taken out and shot. Or drawn and quartered. He apparently doesn't care which. Krebs is threatening legal action and I can't say that I blame him given the unhinged threats from the Cult of #45. But honestly at any other time how many of us have someone say "I'm gonna bust his ass." "I'd love to shoot that SOB." Drawing and Quartering is an English thing you don't hear about that on this side of the pond very often. 

In saner times we'd check the sobriaty of the person making the threat and figuare they'd cool off befor any real damage was done. But these aren't sane times With radical militia members threatening to kidnap a sitting governor, try her for treason on live TV and then execute her no threat can be ignored. 

Back to that interview. So far the current occupant has blamed damn near everyone in sight from former president Obama to his own DOJ for his loss. He doesn't seem to understand how the whole system of government in the United States works. 

The secretary of state of Georgia may be a Republican. He may have voted for you. That does not mean he's going to ignore the laws of the state of Georgia and throw out legal vote to give you a second term. The conservative judge you appointed is not going to rule that an election is fraudulant when there is no proof. And in what may be one of the unkindest cuts of all Arizona governor Doug Ducey boasted last summer that he had a special ringtone for calls from the president or vice president.

 He set his phone to play Hail to the Chief.  Ducey received a call on his cell phone while publically signing the paperwork to certify the results of the election in Arizona. The phone was heard playing the special ring tone, Ducey took to phone out of his pocket, looked at it, appeared to mute it, set it on his desk and continued to sign the paperwork. That's cold folks, that's really cold. 

The soon to be expresident has some interesting advice to Republican voters for the run off elections for senators from Georgia. Don't vote. Or write in his name. Looks like we have the political version of a family annihilator. Republican judges and state officials continure to support the rule of law, refusing to throw out votes or send the question to the legislature to have electoral votes assigned to him in spite of the actual vote. So the hell with the party. Take it down with me. I don't know why anyone expected him to act any differently. He spent the last year saying what he would do and he's trying to do it. Except no one else with the power to do what he wants is willing to play his game. He's about to find out just how cold it can get out here in the real wold. 

HAPPY PLEASE BE SAFE THANKSGIVING

 Until the era of trains, freeways and cheap flight tickets the holidays were pretty much an at home holiday. At best we would go to the grandparents in Eugene and the Portland contingent would make the two hour drive to Eugene. That's two hours on the 5. I have no idea how long it would have taken on old 99. I know it took us almost an hour to do the just under forty miles on the truck route of hwy 59.

So this zipping off to the other side of the country for the holidays has really only been going on since the early sixties. Come on, It's one Thanksgiving and maybe one Christmas. To try and make sure there are no empty places at the tables next year

And I'm reminded of a scene in the movie 1776. John and Abigail Adams are having a long distance mental conversation. John has been gone for months. Why doesn't he come home for a visit. "It's only three hundred miles. If you left right now you could be home in only eight days." 

That was brought on by the digging through the family tree. If the Thanksgiving holiday had been celebrated in the colonies getting the family together, well probably wouldn't happen. At least not very often. If James and Abigail Heaton, living in the colony of New Jersey had decided to risk the North Atlantic they would have had to leave in October. Hope the seas and the storms were cooperative spend at least three weeks at sea aboard a boat about a hundred feet long with no passenger cabins. Probably landing at Liverpool. 

Once you are back in England where do you go? The Heatons are from West Yorkshire in the north and the Paxons hail from Buckingham county near London. It's a little further to London but the abysmal roads are even more abysmal the further north you travel. Which is why the whole trip would never have happened in the first place. Catch the Pilgrim Adventure on TCM sometime. I assume the boats were a little better by the seventeen seventies but, The North Atlantic in the fall was no joke and you didn't sail if you didn't have to.

And yes, I probably should have had this bright idea last week before folks started traveling. You catch that note "lost at sea" for a Massachusetts man, or shipwrecked for a a couple of guys from the Viking era you stop and think. To Skype or Zoom or cell phone for this Thanksgiving is no great sacrifice to make sure that you all are there for the next Thanksgiving.

And a special thanks to all the folks who have to work on this day. And probably would have been working anyway. First responders, doctors, nurses, care givers, those deployed overseas or on bases on the other side of the country. Saying thank you for your service seems very trite, but it's all I've got. 

COMIC BOOKS WITH EXTRAS

 Way back in the dark ages, when I was buying comic books. The comic usually had a one page prose story tucked in. Don't remember many but, there was one about a frontier doctor that introduced the idea of the placebo. Don't remember what was wrong with the patient but the sugar pills worked. And introduced the idea that sometimes the problem was in the patient's mind not her body. 

One story ws about a young cowboy who had spent all his extra money on a silver decorated saddle. The ranch owner had a young daughter who loved her pony just about as much as the cowboy loved that saddle. One night the stable caught fire and he could only save one thing. His saddle or the pony. And this being early sixties, he saved the pony. And had his saddle replaced. 

There was the story about the Piltdown Man. Presented at a time when there were still very few hominid fossils and no way to date fossils except by analyzing the stratigraphy of a site. Most of them were from France and Germany. There was some headscratching from the start but England had her very own early human. Pride trumped asking too many questions for nearly forty years. 

The skull was from a modern human, the jaw fragments and altered teeth were from an Orangutang. The whole set of fragments treated chemically to make them look old. The scientists involved with either discovery or support were safely dead and, you probably don't blush in the afterlife. It's main importance now is that it is still being dragged out by critics of natural selection. Look up the evidence you are criticizing for crying out loud. 

And there was this little poem that probably stuck the longest and ignited a life long love of English history. "King Henry VIII to six wives was wedded. One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded. Heck this was Oregon logging town I'd never even heard of divorce. And I knew old kings had a lot of power but never heard of any that had them killed.

The devil, so they say is in the details. Henry was married to Katherine of Aragon for more than twenty years. Sons she bore him, they all died. His one daughter Mary survived. Took some study to understand why Henry was so determined to have a son. The idea of a woman reigning in her own name had only happened once in English history. Matilda daughter of Henry I, and that led to civil war. Marry a subject and the other lords are likely to be jelous at best, potential rebels at worst. Marry a foreigner and your kingdom is likely to get dragged into foreign policy decisions that don't benefit you country. Mary discovered that.

So he kept trying. Dragged England out of the Roman church to do it. Anne Boleyn gave him a daughter Elizabeth and may have had at least one, possibly two miscariages. Jane had a son, and died doing it. Anne of Cleves never had a chance to try. The political reasons for a Protestant marriage disappeared. Anne accepted annulment and a very nice settlement in exchange for cooperation. Heck, look at it from her point of view. A palace, some manor houses, three thousand pounds a year, freedom and indepencence, She was a rarity. A woman of rank with no man except the king to tell her what to do. He styled her his "sister." She must have been fairly happy. Even after Henry died a few years later she didn't attempt to either marry or return to Cleves. 

Fat, ailing and ill Henry tried again. Anne may have been charged with adultery on trumped up charged but there was no doubt about the guilt of Kathryn Howard. Barely more than a teenager she was a pawn in the behind the scenes tug of war between the religous reformers and the Catholic party. Henry married one last time. Katherine Parr was twice widowed with experience dealing in older husbands with health problems. She managed to outlive Henry, barely. Wives were pawns in the religious rivalries. 

But what would have happened if one or two of the those sones Katherine of Aragon lost. With a young Henry or Richard safely in the nursery the other five marriages probably would never have happened. No young King  Edward being brought up Protestant by his Seymore uncles and ambitions lords. And more importantly, no Elizabeth. Navigating the tides of between Lutheran Germany, Catholic France and Spain and, Spain's rebelious provinces in the low countries. There might have been a queen Mary of Scotland but, she wouldn't have been plotting to become queen of England. No armada from Spain. Without the covert help and financial support of England what would have happened in the provinces that became Belgium and the Netherlands? Even poor battered Ireland might have had a different histoty if the religious wars had played out differently.

Perhaps no James I, no Charles I, perhaps no English Civil war and where would we be now? Interesting thought experiment. And a side note. While Henry VII raised a fairly healthy family Arthur the oldest died young. Henry VIII managed three between three wives. Henry's elder sister married a prince who became king of Scotland and only one child lived long enough to take the throne. His younger sister married a good healthy Englishman and not only lost her son early but died young herself. I'd love to see what that Tudor DNA looked like. 

Like most kids I read comic books. But ours had a little extra that probably can't be found now.

SHE TOOK A RING FROM HER FINGER

Watched the documentary again today. It's on YouTube. Love the epilogue. The kids running up to him, can't pick them up with his bad back. But smiling. His desk was open in the middle. I can remember shot of John Jr. playing under the desk while his dad worked. And got curious. Jackie was coming off a C Section less than four months before. They lost a son five and half weeks premature to a syndrome they could probably handle now. 

She didn't often go on those political junkets with Kennedy. Makes me wonder if they saw the trip as a chance to just get out of Washington. And for the most part it was a good trip. Crowds were welcoming. People smiling. Then the shots rang out. And it reverberated around the world. And I will hear those damn, muffled, one hundred beats per minute drums for the rest of my life. 

 Mom and I stayed up last night and watched the documentary Four Days in November on TCM. As the story unfolded I recognized something that I was probably too young to realize fifty years ago. How much we owed Jackie Kennedy. By Monday she was done crying, at least for a few hours. Veiled in black and straight as a blade she led that procession from the Capitol to the Cathedral.

He wasn't perfect. Neither was she. He had flaws that probably would have kept him from running in our "we have to know every last secret of your life" era. And what does it say about us?

Their marriage had bent, but it hadn't broken. Air Force One was waiting. The casket was still open when she took off her wedding ring. Then the casket was closed and the journey back to Washington and a waiting country began. The ring was returned to her later but the image caught and held. When senator Mike Mansfield delivered the eulogy under the Capitol Rotunda on Sunday November 24 it became a refrain.

There was a sound of laughter; in a moment, it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.

There was a wit in a man neither young nor old, but a wit full of an old man's wisdom and of a child's wisdom, and then, in a moment it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.

There was a man marked with the scars of his love of country, a body active with the surge of a life far, far from spent and, in a moment, it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.

There was a father with a little boy, a little girl and a joy of each in the other. In a moment it was no more, and so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.

There was a husband who asked much and gave much, and out of the giving and the asking wove with a woman what could not be broken in life, and in a moment it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands, and kissed him and closed the lid of a coffin.

A piece of each of us died at that moment. Yet, in death he gave of himself to us. He gave us of a good heart from which the laughter came. He gave us of a profound wit, from which a great leadership emerged. He gave us of a kindness and a strength fused into a human courage to seek peace without fear.

He gave us of his love that we, too, in turn, might give. He gave that we might give of ourselves, that we might give to one another until there would be no room, no room at all, for the bigotry, the hatred, prejudice, and the arrogance which converged in that moment of horror to strike him down.

In leaving us -- these gifts, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States, leaves with us. Will we take them, Mr. President? Will we have, now, the sense and the responsibility and the courage to take them?

I pray to God that we shall and under God we will.

DREAMS OR NIGHTMARES?

Fifty seven years ago today, give or take a couple of hours, I was in eighth grade homeroom. Our assistant principal entered the room, gave Mrs. Redmond a piece of paper. President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. Looking back I don't know if admin thought it was better to go from room to room or if they just couldn't trust their voices over the intercom. Presidents had been murdered before but, this happened on TV. Until the funeral on Monday the country basically ground to a halt. The secret service practically had multiple breakdowns when LBJ announced he was walking to the cathedral with everybody else. If I'm afraid to go out where the American people can see me I don't deserve to be president. Or words to that effect. That day in Dallas and what came after changed this country. I believe the fallout is still happening. 

 This weekend is the fiftieth anniversary of death of a president. If you were in grade school or older on November 22 you’ll know who I’m talking about. If you weren’t you’re probably wondering what all the hub bub is about. I’ve never really thought of myself as part of a declining generation before, but that death in Dallas marked the beginning of a series of events that almost defined a generation.

Montgomery, Dallas, Birmingham, Selma, Memphis, Kent State, Watts, Los Angeles, Vietnam. History landed in our living rooms every time we turned on the evening news. The Summer of Love turned into decades of destruction that haunt us like hungry ghosts. Good laws had unintended consequences. The voting rights act allows minorities to vote. Gerrymandering state houses work to make sure they get to vote for as few candidates as possible.

Integrating the suburbs meant that those with money and mobility could leave the cities with their crowded streets and poverty behind. The city became the place where you worked, played, bought drugs and headed home to the house, minivan and 2.5 kids. Safe in gated communities we could ignore the blasted neighborhoods with too few jobs, crumbling schools and damn few local role models. Public spaces are turned into “free speech” zones or strip malls where there’s no “public” space at all.

Vietnam taught the military and the elected hired help two important lessons. Pay somebody else to do the dirty work and keep the media as far away from the action as possible. The mid seventies to the early nineties were years of death, torture and displacement for hundreds of thousands of people living in Central and South America as the US channeled aid, equipment and millions of tax dollars into the pockets of brutal dictators who claimed they were fighting “subversives” and our war on drugs. Turns out the war on drugs was a great way to channel off the books military aid into those countries.

The Great Communicator challenged Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” in Berlin while our proxies were blowing up fields, shanties, tenements and refugees in El Salvador and Guatamala; it almost never made the evening news. It sure as hell didn’t make it into the local papers.

When we finally chose to do our own dirty work in the Middle East the military made damn sure that the correspondents weren’t allowed to go nosing around on their own. And some of the ones who did try ended up being murdered by the extremists on the other side. Now technology makes it possible for a technician in a control room in the continental US to push a button and kill without ever seeing the ones who die. No more Ed Murrows hitching rides on British bombers and filing reports on the missions.

Voters put a Black man in the White House in 2008 and we pretended that this proved we were living in a post racial society while every new day proves that the divides are deeper and deadlier than ever.

Who knows. Maybe this generation has to pass before we can finally heal the divisions and finally make at least part of the dream Jack Kennedy described for us when he took office half a century ago.

BUGS (CAT) AND THE GREAT WINE EXPLOSION

I'm looking for something else in my blog. and still not finding it. However I ran across this. If you know cats and have a good imagination you can see this "situation" play out. Drenched cat who only wants to get away. Pandemoniam. And a laugh at the end of a week that really could use a good laugh or ten. And this as I am hanging on to my last good nerve.

Without further ado. "Bugs and the Great Wine Explosion." And can you just imagine the mess. 

This piece is an absolute riot. It would make a great cartoon short. I believe DH stands for dear husband. As for Bugs levitating when hit with the wine cork? Back when Midge was about six months old and we were still using the laundry basket for an upside down play pen. She was by the front door when the mailman left a package and rang the doorbell. We don't get a lot of company and at that point the Midgelet absolutely, totally hated doors. Doorbell rang and about five seconds later she was in the back closet. Eyes about the size of saucers. And still in the laundry basket play pen.

"Bugs and The Great Wine Explosion

By Franny Syufy

It all started soooo innocently...
DH and I were strolling down memory lane decided to revist our ill-spent youth by buying a bottle of Asti Spumonte, a sparkling wine that sort of tastes like apples. We wanted it for dinner and DH decided to put it in the freezer...where we promptly forgot about it.

When we got it out of the freezer, it looked pretty frozen. For reasons that can only be described as male, DH decided it to open the bottle just as Bugs, with his back turned to him, decided to eat some kibble half a kitchen away. Before I could yell, "Contents under pressure, you idiot!" DH popped the cork.

Which flew. Across the room. Hitting Bugs on the butt. With considerable force. He levitated four feet vertically into the air — just in time to meet the stream of Asti Spumonte ice winging its way through the air. Mid-air collision: cat, half-frozen wine, DH trying to save cat.

Howls. From Bugs and DH, who catches Bugs, claws first, because they are now fully extended and working with piston-like energy in full getaway mode because DH has the bottle, which is making splurting noises and foaming in an alarming manner, in the other hand . Bugs uses DH's chest as a launching pad and races off in blind panic through the livingroom, showering flecks of wine ice everywhere he goes.

And where does he take cover? In our bed of course, under the duvet, rolling wildly to get the nasty-smelling cold stuff OFF his back. Which meant, of course, that he had to have a bath, because not only is he sticky, but we're concerned that wine just can't be good for brown cats. Although Tum, whom we caught lapping at the pool of melted wine in the kitchen, clearly did not agree, given the protest he made when we locked him downstairs for the duration of clean-up.

Anyways, Bugs, wet and completely disgusted, has banished us to the bench for a prolonged time-out with prejudice. Anybody like a glass of winecicle?

- drunementon

Franny's Note: "the bench" refers to the "Mean Mommy Bench," aka MMB, where forum members are relegated for acts cruel and inhumane toward cats. You'll find one or more of us huddled there at any given time, sharing hot cocoa, ice tea, or wine, depending on the season and our degree of remorse."

SILENCE

 I wrote this just over five years ago. When these words were written I never in my wildest nightmares imagined this country would end up where the last four years have taken us. I still hightly recommend Lernoux's Children of God. If you can find a copy. It's out of print. The internet archive has copies you just have to go through the hassle of reborrowing the book every hour. 

I’m not sure of the date; it was probably early to mid seventies.

“The atmosphere in the church was tense. Crowded inside were several hundred young Brazilians, there to attend an afternoon Mass for a fellow student killed by the military police. Outside the church, stationed in the plaza and all along the thoroughfares that crisscross this part of downtown Rio De Janeiro, were soldiers from the 1^st Division of the Brazilian Army.

Earlier in the week, after the first funeral mass for the student, mounted police had attacked all those leaving the church. On the morning of this, the second Mass, the city had been readied as though for war, with machine-gun nests at the crossroads, armored cars, barbed wire entanglements, and aerial patrols. When the Mass ended, the unarmed people inside the church would have to confront the military. Set in the middle of a large plaza/parking lot that straddles Avenida Presidente Vargas, the Candelaria church is an unprotected island, with no narrow side streets or alleys for refuge. Surely more people would die this afternoon.

One of the priests forbade any in the congregation to leave the church ahead of the clergy. Dressed in alb and stole, the fifteen priests than followed Bishop Jose Castro Pinto out into the plaza, where, holding one another by the hand, they formed a line to confront the drawn sabers of a row of mounted military police. Slowly, slowly, this strange procession forced the horses to fall back. The priests then moved down Avenida Presidente Vargas to Avenida Rio Branco, the crossroads of downtown Rio. Forming a protective arc around Candelaria until the last person had left. It was only then, in the crossroads, that the cavalry and soldiers lashed into the crowd with their batons, hurling tear gas grenades, but at least there was somewhere to flee, someplace to hide”  Cry of the People by Penny Lernoux pp 313-314. The US media lapped up the picture of the student confronting the tank at Tiananmin Square in China. Nowhere have I ever seen a picture of this. Fourteen men against an army. Standing between death and their people. 

Of course we have to protect our liberties. And we protect our freedom by working to protect the freedom of others. Too often since WWII we turned away, looked away, sat in the corner with our fingers in our ears, eyes closed, humming. Loudly. Until the nineties the excuse was “the commies are coming, the commies are coming.” Since 2001 it’s “the terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming.” 

We not only closed our eyes and ears to what was happening in Latin America from the sixties to the nineties. We aided, abetted, trained, paid; gave aid, comfort and cold hard cash to murderers and torturers. The few in this country who tried to ring the firebell were denounced as traitors, communist sympathizers if not actual communists. Sound familiar? Only now the cry traitors, cowards, etc. etc, so on and so forth. Rush, Glenn, Sarah, Michelle, Alan, all the rest and especially Mitt. Are you out there? 

Trouble is, and I can’t remember who said it or find the quote in Lernoux’s book again, “you can’t spread democracy by killing people” whether they’re farmers accused of aiding subversives tribesmen living too close to the drone strike.

Pastor Niemoller’s lament updated for the late twentieth and twenty first century.

They came for the Indians in the rain forest, but it those trees and those Indians didn't live in my country and I’m not an Indian so I didn't object.

They came for the farmers trying to scratch out a living for their families. And I’m not a mestizo farmer so I didn't speak out.

They came for those who tried to protect the rain forests and all who live in them. The forest is so big how can it all be destroyed? I still didn't speak.

They came for the teachers. And still I didn't raise my voice.

They came for the workers trying to organize some kind of unions. My silence was deafening.

They came for the lay church workers, the nuns, the brothers, the missionaries. My voice was lost in a black hole.

They came for the priests, a bishop or three and one archbishop. Hello! Is there anyone out there?

Now they've come to my country. For the immigrants, the Muslims, for those who fight for enough to feed their families, for those who try to protect the land and those who live from the land, for those with skin a different color, for those who call God or the Goddess by a different name. And finally they came for me and there was only silence. 

To be honest I got to the end of this, it's been awhile since I've reread it, and it was a kick in the stomach. I was reworking Neimoller's words. I haven't been silent but three years worth of illness, rehab, moving to the other side of the state, I haven't been very vocal either. Damn. 

SLASHING AT THE TIES THAT BIND

I'm digging through older blog entries looking for some specific information when I ran across this piece from right after the 2012 election. Not only has nothing changed, Most of it gotten worse. Perhaps we have finally hit a tipping point. Keep all the voters that put us over the top this year energized along with the rest of us.  

For nearly forty years the right has waged an unrelenting assault on some of the ideas that help hold our society together.

The belief that anyone would want to make a career of public service is derided. Career politicians they’re called and not to be trusted. When the cat is sick I don’t go to the Buick garage and when the car needs work I don’t go to the vet.  The myth that rank amateurs can do the nation’s business leaves the door wide open for the think tanks and lobbyists to assume control. Paul Ryan never did explain his budget plans if R & R were elected. Rumor has it that his budget and suggestions for the budget came from lobbying organizations and think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation which might explain why he couldn’t explain the figures. Forgot to do his homework.

Which brings us to the second umbrella idea.  The law and the judges that interpret it. From the time of Edward Coke in the seventeenth century most of us have accepted that there has to be a final arbiter. And individual judge or a panel of jurists with the final say on what the law says. I don’t always agree with the results, but I don’t try to undercut their authority just because I don’t agree with the results. Over and over we hear the term “activist judge’ when the right doesn't agree with the results. And that the majority should rule. Never admitting to themselves that there might be a time when they are in the minority and needing protection. There has to be a final, hopefully neutral arbiter.  And we all need to remember that where there is one there is a majority of one and the courts are the last protection for those majorities of one.

Now on to the teachers and the education system. How can teachers do their jobs when the respect they need to do that job is constantly undercut.  Laws that allow wet behind the ears kids to refuse to learn what they need to know to compete in science with other countries because it might go against their belief in a cobbled together, cherry picked set of scriptures that were never meant to be taken literally in the first place. I was taught genetics in biology at the U of O by guys who’d been put up for the Nobel Prize for heaven’s sake. I’d have no more dared question them than I could fly to the moon. At least until I’d taken a few classes. And yes I question my faith but it wasn’t caused by anything I learned in the science class room.

And in the last two election cycles we’re being warned to distrust our fellow citizens. With a solution in search of a problem the drum beat of “voter fraud” has been heard in state after state. Even though there is almost no evidence of voter fraud. And the little we've seen this election cycle appears to have been almost all on the Republican side. 

So who benefits when the groups that help hold society together are discredited and demoralized. The would be puppet masters. The would be puppet masters who may have to wait just a little longer to remake America in their image. And the excuses that are coming out of the right are absolutely delicious.  

If I ran a business that took a shellacking on the scale of Tuesday's election I'd be on the phone to my customers wanting to know what the hell was wrong. And I wouldn't sit there telling them that my product was just fine, they were wrong. You know when you drop a hammer on your toe and it hurts you don't keep dropping that hammer over and over and over.  

A NEW DISEASE

 Danger: Entering Jackie's rant zone.

I posted this on my original (now retired) blog. I've been searching for something else, but ran across this. With the clock counting down to certifying the election I believe we have an epidemic of a previously unidentified disease. I can't claim this. It was in a letter to the editor in my hometown paper. Drum roll please.

Cranial Rectal Syndrome: The condition of having your head so far up your ass you can see the light beyond your tonsils.

Color me disgusted with our soon to be ex so called president and his bootlicking supporteers. Lindsey Graham springs to mind today. 

ECONOMIC PORN

 

The times they may be achanging. Reliable rumer has it that Eddie Munster lookalike Paul Ryan used to hand out copies of Atlas Shrugged to his new hires. I don't know if he ever asked them if they actully read the damn book.

I think I read the Fountainhead in Jr. High after seeing the movie on TV. Haven't seen it since so I suspect the film left out an important subplot. And being all of say fourteen I kind of missed absorbing in the book. When the so called hero's girlfriend turns him down? He rapes her. All she needed was a good shagging and she immediately falls under his spell. His building doesn't get built according to his dreams so he rapes it. Excuse me. Blows it up.

Ok. I'm a logger's kid. Before dad was a logger he was a farm kid. Every summer the kids worked the harvest. Farm by farm. Sort of sexist by our outlook now. The boys worked the fields and the girls helped feed them. Ten cents a day extra if you took the teams home with you and brought them back in the morning fed, curried, harnessed and ready to hitch up. Note. Dad's best friend got put on the end of the line. He was a leftie. No farmer could do all the work on his/her own. 

Dad was a logger before the field went to heavy mechanization. Self loading trucks, smaller crews. Partly because it was getting harder to get crews and because even now logging is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. To be safe a crew depends on each other. Can't do it on your own. 

Sidenote: Workman's comp insurance premiums are figured on lost time accidents. I don't know how it's figured now but when dad was working a work related death was an automatic TEN THOUSAND HOURS. A fairly small company in western Oregon company lost four men in a landslide one day. The company got out of the cutting side of the business, contracted it out and still ran the mills.

I am getting somewhere with this. I tried Atlas Shrugged. I think I got about half way through and tried my usual cheat. Jump to the last couple of chapters just to see how the damned book turns out. I got about half way through Galt's "manifesto" and took the book back to the library. She was a crappy writer, her characters were cardboard. And as a kid who watched her father try to keep going, and then get tossed on the trash heap when his body finally got too hurt to go on I found her so called philosophy totslly unbelievable. Damn it. My sisters, especially the youngest, never knew dad when he wasn't hurting. 

Only people who work in offices with degrees in management or economics can pretend that we have any control over events more than a few years down the road. That you can make an investment plant that will guarantee much of anything for more than a few years is a pipe dream. You get hurt on the job, there's the recession from hell, there's a pandemic and those plans go out the window. Mismanage the response from the top and it get a hundred times worse. 

Throw in Rand desciples with an individual who shouldn't be trusted to take care of a gerbil much less a country and well, here we are. Heck I wouldn't let the Current Occupant look after a pet rock much less a living thing. Does anyone in that family have a pet? I know the boys like killing things. 

Someone joked on the FB entry where I found this that the kid should stick to comics or porn. Actualluy as far as I'm concerned Rand's philosophy is a form of pornography that justifies economic exploitation in plae of sexual exploitation. Everything has a price. The water we drink. the air we breathe, the food we need to survive. Yes there are costs but the US has a peculiar form of socialism. The profits are privatized while the costs in destroyed lives, pollution, soil loss, climate change are dumped on the shoulders of the taxpayers. 

All of a sudden this is looking like at least a two parter because I have a bit of a horror story on the back burner,

RESPECT

I will admit that I am more than slightly weird. When girls my age were reading romances I was reading about submarines, DNA, the history of almost anything, the geography of almost anywhere. Did read a couple of romance novels. Bored me to tears. 

 "When that moment comes, men will not follow you because you're a big, mean, tough son of a bitch. They will not follow you because they fear you. They will not follow you because you're better educated, or older, or more experienced. They will not follow you because you out rank them. They will not follow you because you're their friend or father figure or because they love you. And they damned sure won't follow you for freedom and democracy or other high ideals. No, Sailors, Marines, Soldiers, Airmen will follow your orders in that moment, they will give up their lives on your command, for one reason, and one reason only - respect.

Respect cannot be bought, it cannot be forced, it cannot be bargained for - it must be earned. It must be earned each and every day, by every action, by every word, because when that moment comes it is far, far too late. You'll have seconds at most, and either you are that person men will follow into battle, or you're not. It's that simple. That is what it is to be a Chief. That is what it is to be a Warrant.

That is what it is to be a leader.

Rest in peace, Ed. Your sacrifice was not in vain."

From Jim Wright at Stonekiettle Station.. It is part of his Remembering December 7 entry back in 2007.  It's the story of a ship and two men. The ship was the battleship Nevada. The men were an ensign, Joseph Taussig, and a Chief Warrant Officer, Edwin Hill. It was Sunday morning. Taussig was officer of the deck and in charge of the anti air cratt guns. Hill was the chief Boatswains mate. Part of his duteis involved the mooring lines and anchors. As luck or providence would have it drills were being conducted in engineering and several of her boilers were hot. As luck or providence would have it the Nevada was at the end of the line on Battleship row, sister ship the Pensylvania was in dry dock. 

Already under fire Ensign Taussiig ordered the ship to make for open sea. There was no one on the dock to release the lines. Hill ordered his crew to swim to the dock and let go the mooring lines. At that point, at Wright relates the events, Hill and his crew had done their duty. The Nevada was clear of the dock. heading open sea. He ordered his crew to swim back to the ship. And they obeyed that order. As Wright put it "that's when you find out what you are made of." And that is when your crew follows that order, 

Note: The west coast and Hawaii are not exactly known naval bases sitting right next to open sea. If the Nimitz batle group is in harbor in an emergency she has to make her way through Puget Sound first. I believe its at least a hundred miles. Pearl Harbor is a lovely sheltered harbor with a relatively narrow channel entrance and Ford Island right in front of it on the navy side.The Nevada had to make her way past Ford Island. Past the blazing Arizona, past the capsizing New Jersey and past the Oklahoma. 

Battleship row December 7, 1941. Those ship images are not to scale and darn it Hospital Point is not labeled but I believe it's just past the dry docks before a ship would enter the main channel. Just in time for the second wave of Japanese planes. The Nevada became a prime target. On fire, taking on water, Taussig was ordered to beach her at hospital point. Hill and part of his crew were on the stern probably trying to release the anchor when a five hundred fifty pound bomb hit the ship. Hill and his crew were killed. Ensign Taussig was in charge of his anti aircraft guns when he was severly wounded. Lost a leg, was awarded the navy cross, and returned to duty. Hill was awarded the Medal of Honor. Posthumosly.

I'm not a big believer in wars. I wish fervently that humans could find a way to settle our differences without blasting the living hell out of each other. I realize this entry is sort of disjointed. Take the time, please to read Chief Warrant Officer, retired Jim Writght's entry. After four years of the current occupant if our military is still functional it's because of officers like him and not the individual in the oval office who has been quoted "they're losers and suckers." Couldn't get to the Tomb of the Unknown on time on Verteran's Day, acted like he'd rather be somewhere else. (That or he's having trouble standing still for any length of time. I can't either but I have problems with my back and bum legs.What's his excuse?) 

I guess that's my biggest problem with #45. I can't respect the man. You can not respect someone but still admit that they are good at their jobs. He can't even do that and I won't waste my time cataloging everythig else he's either failed at or proved he's a boor, a bore, and a borderline pedophile.