These are the two piece of art we own of by dear friend, Rolland Golden, who passed away the Monday before the 4th of July.
The flag hung on a clothes line beneath Rolland's studio window and the watercolor of his wife, Stella, is called "Fisherwoman." He painted her in an angular manner with harsh lines when , in fact, she was a beauty when the was 19 and they married right before he joined the navy. The picture of Rolland and Stella was taken at their home located in a small town east of New Orleans.
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Bill's name just keeps resurfacing and, allegedly, his play toys get younger and younger.. (See 1 below.)
A very dear friend of mine and a fellow memo reader believes Hillary might have been planning to run again but if Bill is involved this would sort of take the opportunity and sideline it permanently.
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Rambling non-sequiturs and some free thinking.
I had lunch today with a close friend and fellow memo reader who is recovering from foot surgery.
Our conversations are very fluid and cover a wide range. He, like myself, is a reader but I would consider his reading more prodigious, his choice of books more varied and deeper.
As our conversation meandered he brought up the Women's Soccer travails and I responded I had seen the headlines in the Wall Street Journal but had not read the article. I also told him, as I read the headline about them wanting equal pay, I thought about something we had experienced recently on our trip back from Pittsburgh.
We were hungry so stopped at a Wendy's and as we pulled into a parking space we found a family of young Geese with their mom and pop. The pop was very protective and staying alert as his goslings and gander munched on the grass. It made me think about what would the animal world be like if we homo sapiens chose to alter their behaviour as we have sought to do our own?
Here was a male goose doing what males used to do in Colonial Days. He was protecting his family from potential harm, not seeking a" safe space" for himself. Suppose we humans were able to change the instinctive habits of animals, would elephants be confused about or questioning their sex? Would homosexual gorillas and apes be coming out of the fauna and flora acting aggressive because of their new found freedom? Would the animal world be so altered in their instinctual behaviour patterns we would still recognize them? Would they still relate to each other in recognizable ways or would they become increasingly adversarial and confused as to their natural roles?
Do animals notice the changes in the behaviour of homo sapiens? Do man's best friend sense the changes males are being told they must embrace as women seek equal status and deny the fact there are differences between the sexes?
I was raised in an age where males dominated the scene but also contributed certain attributes that were acceptable then but no longer. I was taught to hold the door, take of my hat, stand when an elder entered the room, always treat on a date and not talk back or be sassy to a teacher and/or an adult. I was taught certain standard manners, particularly at the dinner table and to wash my hands and face before coming to the table.
In military prep school I had a ton of new do's and dont's added to my list of behavioural rules..
I was rebuked if I used foul language in front of my parents. Now all this 'shit' is out the window! Capiche? Are we better off as beings and as a society because we are freer than ever? You decide?
As for the animal world, should homo sapiens attempt to alter instinctive behaviour of animals? If we believe it is appropriate for ourselves why not them?Would the world be better off if lions did not roar, baboons did not spit 20 feet and our feathered friends not poop on cars? Why should animals not be made to live by a code of acceptable behaviour? Progressives seem desirous of changing everything they touch and gloomy about everything they see.
How far are radical thinkers willing, or will be allowed, to alter man and keep coming up with new theories of how we are supposed to behave and think? What's wrong with "Animal Farms?" We used to have circuses until PETA thought otherwise.Since most liberals no longer place much relevance in God or some higher being/force is mankind free to do what he damn well pleases because one's "id" is more precious and sensitive than the collective/natural needs/desires of society?
Finally, what about the fragility of our republic. Our Founding Fathers constructed a constitution that place a good bit of emphasis on freedom but, at the same time, devised a code of conduct and demanded adherence to rules of law regarding how we exercised our freedoms so we would not impinge on the freedoms of others. Is that a worthy concept now that we favor a nihilistic life style and we have become more sensitive to the condition of the environment? If we are so hooked on personal freedom why are we so willing to be dependent on an ever growing government whose tentacles strangle the very freedom we claim we are seeking?
I recently posted a meaty piece by Shelby Steele that needs re-posting.
The Exhaustion Of American Liberalism White guilt gave us a mock politics based on the pretense of
moral authority.
March 5, 2017 By Shelby Steele
Today’s liberalism is an anachronism. It has no understanding, really, of what poverty is and how it has
to be overcome. It has no grip whatever on what American exceptionalism is and what it means at
home and especially abroad. Instead it remains defined by an America of 1965—an America newly
opening itself to its sins, an America of genuine goodwill, yet lacking in self-knowledge. This liberalism
came into being not as an ideology but as an identity. It offered Americans moral esteem against the
specter of American shame. This made for a liberalism devoted to the idea of American shamefulness.
Without an ugly America to loathe, there is no automatic esteem to receive. Thus liberalism’s
unrelenting current of anti-Americanism. Let’s stipulate that, given our history, this liberalism is
understandable. But American liberalism never acknowledged it was about white esteem rather
than minority accomplishment. Four thousand shootings in Chicago last year, and the mayor
announces that his will be a sanctuary city. This is moral esteem over reality; the self-congratulation
of idealism. Liberalism is exhausted because it has become a corruption.
Remember, all of the above is food for thought and you are free to treat it as such as long as you keep your thoughts to yourself so as not to offend others by expressing them?
https://www.marketwatch.com/
And:
https://www.marketwatch.com/
And:
Maybe there is still hope in that tunnel with the train in it. (See 2 below.)
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Voter attitude regarding illegal immigration issue beginning to swing against Democrats and towards Trump. Once the mass media's denial of a crisis began to wear thin the tide began to shift. (See 3 below.)
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Voter attitude regarding illegal immigration issue beginning to swing against Democrats and towards Trump. Once the mass media's denial of a crisis began to wear thin the tide began to shift. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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TERRIFIED Bill Clinton Finally Speaks On Epstein Connections
Bill knows he’s in HOT water right now, listen to what he just said…
Recently former President Bill Clinton, via his spokesperson, finally spoke out against the arrest of his personal friend and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein about the sex trafficking charges placed on him, via Fox News:
Bill Clinton “knows nothing” about the “terrible crimes” linked to Jeffrey Epstein, the former president’s spokesman said Monday, in Clinton’s first statement after new sex-trafficking charges were lobbed against the wealthy financier. …
“In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation,” the statement said. “Staff, supporters of the foundation, and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip. He had one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time made one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail. He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and he has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.”
Do you think Bill Clinton will face any charges related to this stomach turning case?
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2)
2)
Twice as Many Americans Have Confidence in Police than the Media
By Daniel Greenfield
Posted by Ruth King
You might think that doesn’t mean much.
I have more confidence in your average schizophrenic homeless man screaming at ghosts than I do in the media. And you probably think I’m being too generous.
But the pattern here is that conservative institutions still tend to inspire more confidence than lefty ones.
Just three institutions — the military (73%), small business (68%) and the police (53%) — have garnered majority levels of confidence in all polls Gallup has conducted on each measure over the past two decades. The military has been the top-ranked institution or tied for the top-ranked institution each year since 1986.
Though 38% of Americans say they have confidence in the U.S. presidency, it is exceeded by the percentage of people who have very little or no confidence in this branch of government (44%), giving this institution a net-negative score.
Slightly more than a third of Americans also express confidence in the Supreme Court (38%), organized religion (36%) and the medical system (36%), while slightly less than a third have confidence in banks (30%), public schools (29%) and organized labor (29%).Fewer than one in four Americans have confidence in the criminal justice system (24%), newspapers (23%) and big business (23%).
Americans have the least confidence in television news (18%) and Congress (11%).
I wonder why.
The police earn more than twice the confidence level of the media.
The media screeches that the death of newspapers means the death of democracy. But the public has very little confidence in them. And even less in TV news.
The media trots out public schools as a banner cause, but people have very little confidence in public schools, less even than in banks.
Meanwhile small business scores twice as high as schools do.
There’s plenty of material here for smart conservative politicians to work with.
2a)
In Our Political Babel of
Anger and Arrogance,
Conversation Changes
By Suzzane Fields
Summer is the time for conversation, at the beach or in the mountains, on the front porch or a park bench, wherever we find the change of pace that pleases. It's a time for stretching and refreshing body and mind, for looking at things with a fresh focus. At least that's how it used to be when friends and family gathered together for lively talk after jumping waves, hiking new trails or climbing the stairs of an old lighthouse.
The seasonal regrouping encourages us to enjoy and challenge the familiar, an opening to expand perspectives for our daily lives.
But conversation these days is of a different order than it used to be, even on a dreamy Carolina seashore. Political debates dominate the social as well as the intellectual landscape as we try to grasp the kind of country we have become and how we want it to be. The leaders we choose in the next election will both reflect and influence how we think of ourselves.
The Democratic debates could help open our eyes to different possibilities from different candidates, if we measure what we hear against what we know. But it's important to cut through the spin that attempts to persuade by endless and empty repetition.
It's particularly important to avoid the "shape-shifters," those who rearrange an image to suit the politically correct attitude of the moment, who distort time past to fit into time present. That hardly inspires trust or confidence. Those of a certain age recall the authoritative voice of Walter Cronkite, who anchored the CBS Nightly News between 1962 and 1981. He was both soothing and serious in reporting facts. That kind of figure has vanished with the ascent of the internet and cable television.
We now watch and listen to talking heads that dispense the news with biases paraded as badges of honor, whose angry "insights" are swiftly repeated on Twitter and Instagram by sympathetic supporters and outraged antagonists. The president's tweets usually don't add clarity to the confusion of these infomercial marathons that reduce argument to exhortation.
Donald Trump dominates the conversation, but in our Babel of polarities we suffer broken conversations of anger and arrogance. Fragments of ideas flit across screens like liberated stink bugs that are quickly (but warily) squashed or flicked away. The Procrustian bed of identity politics squeezes issues into narrow categories of thought, reinforcing prejudices.
This should be an exhilarating time of year, with sun, showers and lively discussions, but instead conversation often veers toward the arrogant and acrimonious. Ideas are often offered to feed ideological appetites rather than stimulate creative thinking. Few do the history homework to examine complexity in the context of another time.
Democrats eager to damage former Vice President Joe Biden, to reduce his lead in the public opinion polls, were thrilled by Sen. Kamala Harris' cheap shots at him recalling her personal experience with busing. As if by magic, T-shirts of her as a little girl in braids suddenly appeared online for $30 each. She was our new Dorothy, having escaped from Oz, and the applause failed to note that she was born to privilege. Her father was a professor at Stanford, her mother a medical researcher.
Her personal anecdote was aimed at black voters, whose support for her was weak and who were spared thinking about why mandatory busing lost its popularity among both blacks and whites as neighborhoods were broken and disrupted. Children were dispatched to schools great distances from where they lived. Both blacks and whites at the time polled heavily against the arbitrary boundaries for busing, coldly drawn by government bureaucrats to meet quotas of desegregation determined by politics, not the values of the community where people actually lived.
"The discussion in this race today shouldn't be about the past," Biden said. "We should be talking about how we can do better. How we can move forward." Who could argue with that?
The problems of the past as perceived in the present tense create a schism in the Democratic Party that is the result of both ideology and social media. This growing schism, says Michael Tomasky in the New York Review of Books, is the conflict between "the younger, urban and more left-leaning people who carry out a daily and often pestiferous political dialogue on Twitter, and the older and more traditionally liberal-to-moderate people who make up the actual backbone of the party across America."
You don't have to be a Democrat, Republican or independent looking for workable solutions to agree with his conclusion: "If there is a division within the party that will bring it to ruin in 2020, this is it." This is the conversation Democrats need if they're serious about taking on Donald Trump. And if the rest of us listen, we might learn a thing or two as well.
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3) Majority of Americans Want Mass Deportations of Illegal Aliens Following Congressional Inaction
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3) Majority of Americans Want Mass Deportations of Illegal Aliens Following Congressional Inaction
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