We carry with us these footprints of vanished places: apartments we moved out of years ago, dry cleaners that went out of business, restaurants that stopped serving, neighborhoods where only the street names remain the same. Verlyn Klinkenborg - Remembered Spaces - New York Times Today's number is 24...One of…
Today will be radiation treatment #23. That means just 13 more to go... The weather station on the wall has the outside temperature at 73°. That would be very comfortable for this time of year except that the humidity reading is 99%. After the morning rains yesterday we had a…
I have spent the morning doing some WordPress studying so my muse hasn't really kicked in. In the process of looking for something online to help Fred First with his integration into WP I stumbled onto a keycode that opens the extended editing bar in the wysiwyg editor...Just hit alt-shift-v…
I hope some of you out there were able to catch Bill Moyers Journal last night. It was one of the strongest cases I have seen made to date in favor of impeaching both the President and the Vice-President. The thing that impressed me the most was that the strongest…
This week's challenge: 'Barren' Taken in January 2005 on my last trip to Vegas... PHOTO FRIDAY Please read our Participant Guide before deciding to submit a link. Your link must be to a static page that will always show your challenge image, and not your website's main page. Read this…
Well, I meandered thru my email, read the headlines and opinions of the paid opinion makers, and finished my morning muse cup of coffee. The news was full of the latest on Bush, the Congress, and Iraq...None of which I want to think about this morning. The weather has been…
Warning...Political Rant Coming Ok, if this trend continues, we are going to have to suspect divine intervention in the AG firings. How else can we explain the "fact" that no one had any input on which AGs were fired? Seems from all of the testimony so far that no one…
Lady Bird Johnson dies at 94 | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle Lady Bird Johnson, a former first lady, a Texas legend, a woman who used the humble wildflower to teach an entire nation to treasure and preserve the environment, died Wednesday. She was 94. She was a damn fine Texas…
Today is the end of my fourth week of radiation treatment. After today I will have three more weeks to go. The treatments have become a daily routine...The people at the treatment center are really nice and always courteous. The patients I see each day are all friendly. I have…
I have been lax lately in being the doting grandpa....Here are a couple of shots of the grandson . Father and son eating ribs on the fourth... Mother and son at rest...
One year ago this week we were sitting on the side of a mountain in northwestern North Carolina. We aren't the first Texans to have discovered and fallen in love with the Blue Ridge Mountains and I'm sure we wont be the last. The plan for this year was to…
Via The Ethicurean this morning I followed a link to the following... In his Meat Manifesto, Fearnley-Whittingstall corners the reader: “Are you,” he demands, “among the millions of consumers putting pressure on farmers to produce mountains of cheap meat of dubious quality, by dubious means?” I thought I had perhaps…
They can't spin it, they can't excuse it, they can't hide it. It's a payoff for taking the fall for the big guys. And Bush's very history spells it out. In the six years that Bush was governor of Texas, he commuted a single death sentence and allowed 152 executions…
7/7/07 - trip sevens Our neighbor is using this as an auspicious date for a wedding. I just think the groom was looking for an easy anniversary mnemonic. He sure wont have much excuse for forgetting it down the road 10 or 20 years. Anyway, wishing lots of good luck…
It was a little strange this morning, waking up to the sounds of silence. No thunder, no pounding rain, not even the subliminal sound of water dripping from the eaves, seems very weird. I am sure it won't last as the humidity is at 99% and the temperature is already…
The rain falling again this morning almost lulled me back to sleep after our wet and rainy 4th. I finally dragged myself out of bed...But, now that I am through with the first (pre-commute) cup of java and have read all of my email the coffee muse isn't musing and…
Keith Olbermann has another of his special commentaries out. It's too bad neither President Bush nor Vice-President Cheney have an iota of understanding about what it is they have done that sets so many Patriotic Americans teeth on edge. And as far as doing the right thing is concerned, Mr.…
People are going to be having fun with the convoluted logic of this step by President Bush right up until he is facing judgment himself. In commuting Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.'s 30-month prison sentence on Monday, President Bush drew on the same arguments about the federal sentencing system often made…
The external world, so fascinating, so infinite in its variety, has us firmly in hand and thoroughly mesmerized. Lasting happiness is almost ours – over there, just ahead of us, right around the next corner. When we round that corner and find it has eluded us, something in us says,…
Can you imagine what must have been going on behind the scenes on this day all those years ago in Philadelphia? The discussions, the arguments, the compromises all to commit...treason. Each and every signer of the Declaration of Independence was putting his head in a noose for what he believed…
Just when you thought they couldn't get any more blatant at thumbing their noses at the law...WASHINGTON — President Bush commuted the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby today, sparing him from a 2 1/2 -year prison term that Bush said was excessive.Bush's move came hours…
I rolled out of bed this morning to the sound of thunder and pouring rain. That seems to be the pattern around here the past week or so. What is unusual about that is thunderstorms, unassociated with a weather front usually don't happen before the sun has had a chance…
This caught my eye this morning in the Houston Chronicle... They're scattered across Houston's neighborhoods like pebbles flung from someone's hand. Now, almost two years into their Houston experience, this displaced population roughly the size of Beaumont longs for an identity free of Hurricane Katrina. Two years later...This is how…
This nation is so angry about Iraq that we sometimes forget what would be obvious if it was a four-alarm blaze in a nearby city. Some fires do have to burn, but leaving the scene isn't an option. - David Ignatius The "firehouse strategy" analogy would be great if it…
As I was reading my email and feeds I hit a link from Earth & Sky Blogs that led to the following video. "See" how the world is changing. Visual imagery can tell stories and truths which would be very hard to capture and communicate otherwise. Hans Rosling, Professor of…
Gray Day on Galveston Bay
I generally don't just copy someone else's full post. This one twigged on a number of levels so I'll let Jim Hightower say it himself. Jim Hightower | WHY NOT "DRINK LOCAL?" Friday, June 29, 2007 Posted by Jim Hightower Listen to this Commentary In a triumph of marketing over…
This mornings Washington Post has some interesting reading. Even David Broder is on Chaney's case this morning. If you haven't checked out the Post's series on the essential Dick Chaney you really should...Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. But then we get to George Will. I am beginning to think the…
Well after a couple of weeks of playing target practice with a ray gun the sore throat they were promising has arrived. Looks like this most expensive of diets has now kicked into it's starting phase... Checking the news this morning I see Warren Buffett is living up to the…
A great read on the "Buy Local" meme. Heavy on the economics... The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing. » Blog Archive » Guest post: Michael Shuman defends the “buy local” premise Michael Shuman, author of the books “The Small-Mart Revolution” and “Going Local,” wrote the best rebuttal by far to…
As I was perusing through the morning emails the daily forecast started me thinking. Back on our first summer trip to the mountains in August of 2003 the folk down in town of Valle Crucis were all talking about the uncommonly hot weather they were having. I want to say…
Today will be the 9th radiation treatment of 35. You could say we are about a quarter of the way through. The strange thing about these treatments is you never know from one day to the next how your voice will react. Saturday everyone said my voice was stronger, Sunday…
Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power | Cheney | washingtonpost.com Shortly after the first accused terrorists reached the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Jan. 11, 2002, a delegation from CIA headquarters arrived in the Situation Room. The agency presented a delicate problem to White House counsel Alberto…
All last week the weather prognosticators were promising us a beautiful, dry and sunny weekend to make up for the unending rain of last weekend...They blew it. The high pressure dome they were expecting to settle in decided to wander over to Phoenix. I don't think they needed it. Yesterday…
One of the blogs I like that comes from the Appalachian Mountains is: Appalachian Treks Here's another bit of advice I read somewhere that changed the way I take pictures: Find a different perspective. The vast majority of all photos are taken from a position 5'2" to 6'2" off the…
Garrison tells us that... Tonight is Midsummer Night's Eve, also called St. John's Eve. St. John is the patron saint of beekeepers. It's a time when the hives are full of honey. The full moon that occurs this month was called the Mead Moon, because honey was fermented to make…
"This is a little bit of a nonissue," Perino said at a briefing dominated by the issue. Cheney is not subject to the executive order, she said, "because the president gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should."These guys really need…
The article was about the resignation of another Assistant to Gonzales resigning. But the final paragraph reached out and grabbed me... On the same day that letter was written, however, Mercer instructed a GOP staff member to insert language into a USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill allowing federal prosecutors to…
What it is I dream of...
My short answer...If you have heard they have cancer, don't ask "How are you?" Talk about a loaded question with no real answers at the beginning of treatment. "How you feeling?" would be safer...just. "Hi!" is the best and the safest yet. My two cents thrown out into the blogosphere.…
Colin Fletcher (photograph, John Sexton/Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association) For most of us who care about ecology and the environment, there was some personal experience that brought us there. For me, it was wilderness hiking, beginning 30-plus years ago in the Grand Canyon and continuing across the American West. Two…
I had a funny thought as I lay on the...hmmm, I really don't know what to call it...the platform(?) while x-rays were taken of my throat before my radiation treatments started yesterday. I was recalling my elementary school days during the Cuban Missile Crisis when they would line us up…
So far so good. Other than a raspy voice not much to report after the first weeks radiation treatment. No news is good news I guess. The promised cooling effect of afternoon thunderstorms did not happen yesterday. So it was quite warm as I finished the yard in the late…
Verlyn Klinkenborg has a new piece out. His observations on humanity and our relationship to the natural world do not put humanity in the best of lights...Rightfully so in my humble opinion. Millions of Missing Birds, Vanishing in Plain Sight - New York Times Last week, the Audubon Society released…
With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look…
There was a break in the afternoon gully washers yesterday. I took that opportunity to play a bit of catchup on the yard work. I managed to mow about 2/3 of the yard...if I'm lucky I may get the rest mowed this afternoon. At 6am this morning we are already…
The reason Bush and buddies are so clueless is that they are eaten up with corporate arrogance and avarice. They possess a stunning sense of entitlement, leading them to treat our government as their private plaything. What they need is to have a good kindergarten teacher assigned to refresh each…
The weather the past two days was...to be nice...wet. Occasional heavy thunderstorms interspersed with steady rain. Short periods of local street flooding. One of the changes I have seen in my half century in SE Texas (particularly the flat coastal plain) is the change in road building styles and flood…
I was sitting here checking out some WP plugins when I noticed the time. Poured my first cup of the morning muse and turned on "Sunday Morning". I was late for the preamble but caught most of the first story. Even Sunday Morning is on the sugar story and what…
The Ethicurean Blog always has some intriguing posts about the food we eat and how it is raised or shows up at our table. Maybe I've been reading them too much, 'cause this whole dependence on corn is beginning to remind me of something else. Are we planning to trade…
To judge by his latest columns my answer would have to be yes. It looks like I'm not the only one who thins so either. Marbo is Guest Posting over at The Carpetbagger Report this weekend and has a systematic rebuttal to George Will's latest column telling us how good…
American Agriculture - Do you trust a CEO to decide what you eat? It may just be my inherent distrust of corporations or the complete lack of values most corporations have shown in the course of this country's history, but, I really do not trust my food quality and safety…
From My PhotoBlog at Gary-Boyd.com I just learned an interesting fact. If you ever had a Blogger Blog that you posted photo's to, you seem to also have a Picas Web Album for that blog. You can go to your Web Album and create a slideshow like the one above…
Charles Krauthammer has a long piece on the Immigration Bill and building fences. This whole fence argument comes with a timing that I find full of synchronicity. What with all of the air play Ronald Reagan's Berlin speech has gotten on the anniversary of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.…
Currently: 72° Dewpoint: 68° Wind: Calm Humidity: 85% Pressure: 29.85 in Hg Average: High 91° Low 72° Record: High 100° (1936) Low 58° (1933) Today's Sunrise: 6:20AM Today's Sunset: 8:24PM (14:04 hours of sunlight) The afternoon thunder is becoming a summertime pattern, with street flooding and power outages becoming a…
Currently: 73° Dewpoint: 72° Wind: Calm Humidity: 97% Pressure: 29.87 in Hg Average: High 91° Low 72° Record: High 102° (1998) Low 62° (1995) Today's Sunrise: 6:20AM Today's Sunset: 8:23PM (14:03 hours of sunlight) I am still working on a repeatable format for this blog, so bear with me. If…
Gaian Tarot Oracle: an Online Reading I was reading Cate's post Four of Earth which led me to Joanna's Gaian Tarot While looking at her art I saw the link to the Oracle...Go try asking a question.
5:52am Currently: 75° Dewpoint: 73° Wind: Calm Humidity: 94% Pressure: 29.92 in Hg Average: High 90° Low 72° Record: High 100° (2006) Low 61° (1955) Today's Sunrise: 6:20AM Today's Sunset: 8:23PM (14:03 hours of sunlight) Yesterday on the drive to work the weather prognosticator was saying something about a heat…
Spotted this in my feed reader and thought I'd pass it along for all of you southerners out there slapping yourselves silly. OakStump Farms Mosquito Trap Eliminates populations of skeeters When I saw this cheap trap at Logan's Trading Post three years ago, I figured what the heck, but we've…
Currently: 73° Dewpoint: 72° Wind: NE 3 MPH Humidity: 97% Pressure: 29.98 in Hg Average: High 90° Low 72° Record: High 101° (1978) Low 60° (1955) Today's Sunrise: 6:20AM Today's Sunset: 8:23PM (14:03 hours of sunlight) The forecast is calling for seasonal highs and lows for the day so life…
When I first started blogging I posted some photos from my North Carolina trips over my Photo Blog. One of the photos has consistently pulled in search engine hits. This is that photo..Brinegar Cabin on the Blue Ridge Parkway Built circa 1875 by Martin Brinegar. He and his wife, Caroline, raised…
Current Weather: 73° Dewpoint: 72° Wind: Calm Humidity: 97% Pressure: 29.94 in Hg Average: High 90° Low 71° Record: High 96° (1953) Low 57° (1955) Today's Sunrise: 6:20AM Today's Sunset: 8:22PM Well, this is the first weekday post on this site. I am not sure where it's going but it'll…
Ok, after a long hiatus on this site my liberal rantiness has returned. All it took was a return to the 1980's and the Republican definition of "Law and Order". I found this statement from Robert Novak intriguing. Just when it seemed George W. Bush's sinking prestige with his Republican…
My morning email brought me message from Amazon.com about a new release from Adrian Young. It seems if I enjoy Alison Krause (which I do) then Amazon thinks I’ll enjoy Adrienne’s music also…I guess their code works pretty well, cause she sound real nice… Adrienne Young From the chorus of…
I hope Charles Osgood doesn't get upset with me for borrowing his date format. I have liked the way it sounds ever since he started using in, I think it was Twenty O'One...Sorry for the sparsity of posts. I have been playing with WordPress for a few days now, first…
My email brought me the latest "News From Vermont" a regular newsletter put out by Burr Morse from the Morse Farm Sugarworks. I stumbled upon a copy of one of his email missives a while back and I enjoyed it so much I was moved to subscribe. I have been…
This mornings muse was interrupted by intermittent outages of my wireless connection to my dsl. I ended up having to leave the house without posting or finishing my daily email read. I'll try to post an evening wine muse instead this evening. Until then wander over to The Ladybug Letter…
What a difference a day makes...Yesterday morning I was in Medical Mode and not hurrying out the door, so I drew my first cup and glanced up at the "Weather Station". The outside temperature was 68 and the humidity was lower than normal, just in the 80% vicinity, so I…
Looks like the same old game for the Bush administration. Give a big speech taking the oppositions side away from them, do some back office finagling to ensure what you just promised doesn't happen, and then just assume no one will notice. WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is drastically scaling…
March 27, 2006I have decided that trying to keep up with multiple blogs requires more time than I want to devote. So I am now keeping my political musing on my main blog. If you wish to wander over you can follow this link...Political MusesYou will have to read through…
There is a firestorm brewing in Washington DC. It is a storm fueled by scandal...Scandals based on the perception of dishonesty. At this moment, it is only the perception of dishonesty that is fueling this firestorm of scandals. But each days news cycle brings more reports of lost documents, lost…
Leave it to the Senator to put his finger on the "New" policy for Iraq. One innovation of the new strategy is closing markets to vehicles, thereby precluding car bombs that kill so many and garner so much media attention. Petraeus understandably wanted us to see this development. How far…
On Easter Sunday the Iraq prognosis could be better. A political breakthrough in Washington already happened, Hamre (John J. Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary) said, when November's elections turned into a referendum on the war. "The American people have been waiting to hear how we were going to win in…
1992 was the year I became a Democrat. That was the year I got the opportunity to attend every session of the Republican National Convention. I was in the building before the delegates and I left each evening after they went off to their parties. The thing that turned me…
You know, either politicians are getting really stupid or they think we are. It really doesn't matter a whole lot if they are being paid off any more, the appearance that they are being paid off is something they should have avoided. The smell of this mandate by the Gov…
OK, maybe I'm dense...I know all of you on the right are sure of it, but...That big unanswered question...But, when exactly will the war in Iraq be over? We keep being told it will be over when we win. Who is going to decide that we have? Or haven't? Why…
I didn't look to see how the op-ed pages tried to spin their own survey, but the data looks pretty bad for the gang in the White House. Nearly half of Americans don't trust President Bush to reform the nation's health-care system, a new Wall Street Journal Online/Harris health-care poll…
Jim Wright says it all right here... It would help immensely if the president can remember that every senator and representative considers him- and herself chosen and charged by the public and instructed by the Constitution to be a "decider," too. Source: Will the 'decider' branch out? | Chron.com -…
This was in the newsfeed from the Houston Chronicle today. In the new spirit of media disclosure, I should tell you that I own several Dixie Chicks CDs. But I'm not writing this as an adoring bluegrass fan. I'm writing this as a shame and empathy researcher. That was how Brene'…
The take away paragraph tells the story of this President's term in office. Bush has always supported a faith-based initiative, but his recitation of beliefs in the East Room yesterday -- he listed no fewer than 18 principles he holds to be true -- sounded less like a question-and-answer session than…
Tony Snow had this to say about his boss and his environmental policies... Mr. Bush had in fact been “keenly committed both to environmentalism and conservationism from the start.” Must be something in the Kool-Aide up there in the White House. As the NY Times points out in an editorial...…
Somehow, after four years, the debate on Iraq is still animated by wishful thinking. The White House talks as if a surge of 20,000 troops is going to stop a civil war. Democrats argue that when America withdraws its troops, Iraqis will finally take responsibility for their own security. But…
Charles Krauthammer takes us to task for those blaming America for the deaths in Iraq... We have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq. But when Arabs kill Arabs and Shiites kill Shiites and Sunnis kill all in a spasm of violence that is blind and furious and has roots…
Another tribute to a life lived large... Remembering Molly Ivins Source: Remembering Molly Ivins
Molly Ivins, the liberal newspaper columnist who delighted in skewering politicians and interpreting, and mocking, her Texas culture, died today at her home in Austin. She was 62. Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press Molly Ivins in 2006. Her death, after a long fight with breast cancer, was confirmed by…
I don't know about you but to me it looks to me like Bush and Cheney have seen to many police shows on TV. I mean come on guys, good cop bad cop is so lame... We often wonder whether there is a limit to the Bush administration’s obsession with…
You have to wonder what they are putting in the Kool-Aid at the Cheney manse. Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the administration has achieved "enormous successes" in Iraq but complained that critics and the media "are so eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure" that…
Some day we will be able to put the DeLay era behind us. I feel sorry for Virginia... AUSTIN — A part of the criminal case that helped drive former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay from public life is hanging on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which will…
All it took was for the ruling party to be kicked out of power. Now we have legislators actually legislating. Perish the thought, the Republican minority may have to prove that government can actually can work for the American people contrary to anything they may have espoused in the past.…
