July 26, 2024

It's official. The mockingbirds have 4 nestlings in the bush outside my window.

I noticed them bringing nesting material a few weeks ago. One of the parents has been chasing other birds out of the area for several days, including a couple of crows that were much, much larger. Over the last few days they have been making numerous trips in and out of the bush with insects dangling from their beaks.

I didn't want to disturb them, but I finally took a look and I could see the nest deep in the branches and when I nudged one of the twigs one slightly, 4 little heads with gaping mouths popped up out of the nest. Hooray!

May 21, 2024

Have you ever had one of those days?

May 4, 2024

"May the 4th be with you "

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1786765648560890331?t=8pu0sG3kRv0w_YYfxhw5AQ&s=19

May 3, 2024

My current earworm: Loggins & Messina "Watching The River Run".

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April 11, 2024

I have to do a little bragging today.

One of my grandsons got his ACT score today. A perfect 36. He has always been a straight A student and is very mature and responsible. He hopes to go to West Point. We are very proud.

January 19, 2024

Happy Birthday, Dolly Parton! Enjoy "Wildflowers" with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.

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December 30, 2023

Laundry advice.

https://twitter.com/ThatEricAlper/status/1741149712151961667?t=kdimA_QPAgOAqmf5Cyt2IA&s=19

December 25, 2023

The Real Origins of the Religious Right.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/
One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The tale goes something like this: Evangelicals, who had been politically quiescent for decades, were so morally outraged by Roe that they resolved to organize in order to overturn it.

This myth of origins is oft repeated by the movement’s leaders. In his 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand fundamentalist preacher, recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, “growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.

Some of these anti- Roe crusaders even went so far as to call themselves “new abolitionists,” invoking their antebellum predecessors who had fought to eradicate slavery.

But the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism.

December 22, 2023

How about a little inspiration this morning? Carole King - Beautiful.

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December 21, 2023

Lol, somebody had to do it.

https://twitter.com/jerrieskid/status/1737721756465430757?t=TDQzzG77qub9RK594orgPA&s=19