Memorial Day event

Did anyone go to any of the commemorations? I went to the one in my area, and guess who the featured speaker was? General Russell Honore', the hero of the Katrina aftermath, the man who gave us the catchphrase "Don't get stuck on 'stupid'!"

Oil spill live cam

I can't watch. But, here's the video feed, in case you can. God, how awful this disaster is. And yet, we will surely drill the planet dry of oil before the Age Of Petroleum is over. We'll drill our ancestors' graves if we have to.
This is one video post of mine that I hope goes dark very, very soon.

They grow so fast...

My oldest became taller than her mommy this past winter. Seems like yesterday I was giving her horsey rides to her bed. (Actually it *was* yesterday. Oof!!)

And she's going to be an absolute stunner when she grows up. Tall, willowy figure; mysterious feline eyes, one of those soft horse-faces that Hollywood goes for nowadays, and for which Alfred Stieglitz would have abandoned Georgia O'Keeffe.

I sure hope I can guide her through her tween and preteen years safely. She's a great kid, smart & talented & no trouble at school. But, at home, it sometimes seems like she went straight from terrible twos to mouthy adolescence. Sometimes, when she flies into one of her little rages, she searches for something valuable to destroy. All the while I'm thinking, I hope she's well into adulthood before she discovers that the most valuable thing she could destroy is herself.

Still, childhood should be a journey, not a race. Her life is like anyone else's, a course of little trials and little triumphs. I'm so proud to see her grow and achieve; I hope to God that these years will instill resilience into her, for the road yet to come.

Just an early Father's Day thought....

Nic-jacked!

My nic, The Sanity Inspector, has been forged by a racist on usenet, who is spewing his filth in my two favorite groups. Grrr... Fortunately, everyone there knows me well enough to realize that this is not me. Hope Google's net cops can have these things taken down pronto.

California bleeding jobs

Here's a striking list of companies that have bugged out of California. The authors of the list obviously have an agenda, but it's still appalling to see so many employers seeking less onerous places to set up shop. Enjoy your granola, greenies...

Thomas Friedman once again wishes to be king--I mean, China--for a day

The thing that admirers of what they imagine to be benevolent despots forget is this: When dictators close off the public input loop and just bull ahead, they can do as much untold harm as whatever good they might do. There was no public brake on the Soviet Union's industrial diktats, so they wound up with dustbowls, Chernobyl, and the withered Aral Sea. There are villages in China whose groundwater is poisoned by industrial chemicals--and the voiceless inhabitants are forbidden to move away. Friedman & Co.'s daydreaming that surely they, their own anointed selves, would get things right, betrays a monumental lack of respect for the American people, and an equally monumental inflated sense of their own probity.

Draw Mohammed Day

I'm not participating, because I'm not altogether comfortable with gratuitously insulting The Prophet just to make a point. (I'm also not participating because I can't draw.) This dealy-bob puts me in mind of a scene from Israel's war of independence, from the book O Jerusalem:

"Lieutenant Fendi Omeish took a last look through the 25 pounder's gunsight. It was pointed straight at the center of Notre Dame's façade. "Try not to hit Mariam," he told his Moslem gunners, who had, too, a certain veneration for the Virgin. Then he ordered the shelling to begin."

Gallant, that. I do hate and fear the prospect of creeping shariazation. But I'd rather fight battles like this on more consequential issues. No, Muslims; you can't have a separate swimming pool. You don't get your own break room and extra time off during the day. Yes, Muslims; you have to remove your veil to have your driver's license taken. Yes, you have to take that taxi fare even though he's just come out of a bar. The law of the land of the free trumps your stern Dark Ages total plan for everyone else's life. Cope, or leave. Or as the Old Testament says, "Thus far and no farther will you come. Here your proud waves must stop."

Ringo! Oh, Ringo!

I win the bad timing daddy award of the month. My son had been sporting a splendid Beatles mop all spring, until I finally sat him down in the kitchen and sheared it off. The next week he got his assignment for the Living Wax Museum at school, where he writes a report on someone and dresses up like that person. His topic? Ringo Starr.

Saudi woman beats up virtue cop

Good. Hope she doesn't wind up getting lashed. This doesn't bring back the schoolgirls that these gendarmes forced back into a burning school because they were under-dressed. But it's something.

Zimbabwe preparing "ark" for North Korea's dictator

Via One Free Korea, comes news that dictator Robert Mugabe is rounding up wildlife from a preserve, to send to Kim Jong-il for a private zoo. International animal lovers are in an uproar, and rightly so. But, cynical me thinks the following: The outrage is only because wildlife is being affected. Mugabe is a lefty dictator. If he were sending, say, human prisoners to NK, to be committed to forced labor there, he'd get a complete pass from Western proggs.

Happy Fifth Birthday to YouTube

Congrats to the most influential website of the past half-decade!

Prize quip left on the guest comments: "This congratulation not available in your country."

Random Rock Bloggage

Mother's Finest, from their late 70s peak. Download this rascal before the German copyright polizei have it taken down!

No praying over government food?!?!?

Who can ever forget the turbulent political climate, that time years ago when we had a big national referendum and voted to excise "...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" from the Third Amendment to the Constitution? The marches, the shouting on the Sunday roundtable shows, the raucous townhall meetings, the impassioned op-ed columns. Well, at least they let us vote on it, even though it didn't go our way.*

Doesn't make things like this go down easier. Who would ever expect that people would be forbidden from praying out loud, while chewing on federally-funded chicken florentine.

Georgia Seniors Told They Can't Pray Before Meals

Tim Rutherford, Senior Citizens Inc. vice president, said some of his staff recently visited the center and noticed people praying shortly before lunch was served. Rutherford said his company provides meals like baked chicken, steak tips and rice and salads at a cost of about $6 a plate. Seniors taking the meals pay 55 cents and federal money foots the rest of the bill, Rutherford said.

"We can't scoff at their rules," he said of federal authorities. "It's a part of the operational guidelines."

Rutherford said the moment of silence was introduced to protect that funding. He said although the change may have been misinterpreted, perhaps his company could have done a better job selling it.

"It's interpreted that we're telling people that they can't pray, but we aren't saying that," he said. "We're asking them to pray to themselves. Have that moment of silence."

Step by step, inch by inch, ratchet turn by ratchet turn...


*As if!

Via What's Wrong With The World

Hispanic teacher exhorts Los Angeles students to revolution

Despicable, of course.

My objection to illegal immigration is this: The United States is a nation of laws. Mexico, and no few other latin American countries are governed para la mordida. Having millions of people living here who, more from acculturation than malice, have no respect for the law, can't help but spell trouble down the road. A societal ethos of honesty, integrity, and fair play becomes quite conspicuous in its absence.

The La Raza revanchists only make the situation more stark, in my mind.