Overwhelmed with all the incoming matters with which to deal: end-of-the-school-term matters, yet another sacroiliac joint injection, various doctors' appointments for both Mr. AOW and myself — and on and on.
I'll return when things calm down here.
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Wishing you both God's blessing and the best of luck in getting through this recent spate of trials and tribulations.
ReplyDeleteRemember these words of St. Teresa of Avila:
Let nothing disturb thee,
___ nothing affright thee
All things are passing.
___ God never changeth.
Whom God possessth
___ in nothing is lacking.
Alone God sufficeth,
~ Lines written un her breviary as translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Best of wishes for your respite.. I will miss your posts.. :)
ReplyDeleteKawanio che Keeteru!
ReplyDelete_____ On St. Tammany's Birthday _____
DeleteA shame the name of Tammany’s been linked
With the vilest of politicos named Tweed,
Who ran New York in manner quite distinct
Eschewing never any dirty deed.
The entity still known as Tammany Hall
Shall live in infamy, and so obscures
The truth about its namesake, overall ––
A noble savage, whose good name endures
Only in the writings of The Sachem,
Neddy, who on Tammany heaped praise.
But kind words today are scarce. We rarely watch ‘em,
Because none restores these days, instead they raze.
Of Tammany, himself, we should think kindly,
Not follow false associations blindly.
~ FreeThinke (2014)
SONG FOR ST. TAMMANY'S DAY
DeleteOf Andrew, of Patrick, of David, and George,
What mighty achievements we hear!
While no one relates great Tammany's feats,
Although more heroic by far, my brave boys,
Although more heroic by far.
These heroes fought only as fancy inspired,
As by their own stories we find;
Whilst Tammany, he fought only to free
From cruel oppression mankind, my brave boys,
From cruel oppression mankind.
When our country was young and our numbers were few
To our fathers his friendship was shown,
(For he e'er would oppose whom he took for his foes,)
And he made our misfortunes his own, my brave boys,
And he made our misfortunes his own.
At length, growing old and quite worn out with years,
As history doth truly proclaim,
His wigwam was fired, he nobly expired,
And flew to the skies in a flame, my brave boys,
And flew to the skies in a flame.
When struggling long, at last with pain
DeleteYou break a cruel tyrant’s chain,
That never shall be joined again,
When half your foes are homeward fled,
And hosts on hosts in triumph led,
And hundreds maimed and thousands dead,
A sordid race will then succeed,
To slight the virtues of the firmer race,
That brought your tyrant to disgrace,
Shall give your honours to an odious train,
Who shunned all conflicts on the main
And dared no battles on the bloody plain,
Whose little souls sunk in the gloomy day
When virtue only could support the fray
And sunshine friends kept off—or ran away.
-Philip Morin Freneau
FJ,
DeleteKawanio che keeteru!
:)
DeletePOSTED in HONOR ot TODAY, the FIRST of MAY:
ReplyDelete_________ Maytime Flowers _________
Merry, mild and sweet the month of May
Attests that faith and hope are justified
Yearnings for a time that's bright with play
trap us in a sense of trust belied
In April, which we long to leave behind.
May fulfills the hopes of early spring
Embracing life anew, the weather kind
Frees us. Soon, we feel that everything
Leaps and shouts and dances just for joy.
Our gardens bloom again with scented flowers.
We sail our boats, and shout things like "Ahoy!"
Enraptured, crazed we kiss in leafy bowers.
Refreshed, yet daft, we love again to live.
Springtime is the best that God can give.
~ FreeThinke
Now I wish I could find a video of Imogene Coca performing a number on Your Show of Shows, c. 1950-51, called Did I Walk Away from the Maywalk, or Did the Maywalk Walk Away from Me?
DeleteI couldn't have been more than ten at the time, but her performance has stayed in my memory as one of the most delghtfully funny things I've ever seen on television.
__ x-:) !TELEVISION! (:-x __
It started wonderfully well, and was heralded with HURRAHS and HOSANNAS, then quickly degenerated. Today it's little more than a SNARL, a SNEER, and a LOUD BRONX CHEER.
Whenever I think of the Great Influuence for Good television COULD and SHOULD have been, I could honestly CRY.
As TV has gone, so went the nation –– or is it the other way 'round?
take it easy, AOW...very good idea. xxx
ReplyDeleteRecupe.
ReplyDeleteHave you a RECIPE for RECUPE, Ed?
DeleteIf so, please share it.
};^)>
Prayers for some rest and restoration.
ReplyDelete______ Indifference ______
ReplyDeleteBeautiful bland indifference
____ enveloped me one day
Hurrah! thought I. My tears are dry.
____ How comforting the gray!
I knew no biting agony ––
____ no gnawing sense of loss.
I soon did find I did not mind
____ the ignorant and gross.
Then, Love one day was offered me.
____ I felt I should rejoice.
I rose to shout acceptance,
____ but found I had no voice!
~ FreeThinke (1982)
I Sang My Song Deep in the Shaded Wood
ReplyDeleteI sang my song deep in the shaded wood
Only the birds, the squirrels, the deer –– and God ––
Were there to hear, and learn just where I stood.
Not one of them gave me the smallest nod.
It didn't matter in the least to me.
I sing because I want to sing, that's all.
I'm grateful to be able to be me.
The forest's fine. I don't need a great hall.
I noticed long ago the goddess Fame
Was in fact a Sham –– a great Deceiver ––
A Lure –– a Siren Call leading to Shame
For one who'd hoped tk be a great Achiever.
God's voice they say voice is rarely ever heard
And yet I'm sure He hears our every word.
~ FreeThinke (5/3/18)
before you thought of spring,
ReplyDeleteExcept as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.
With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
This piece is autobiographical . The event described really happened.
ReplyDelete_________ A Happy Accident _________
A happy accident is something rare.
How could a car wreck work to produce good?
An opportunity to show great care,
Promote good will and understanding could.
Preferably such things we would avoid,
Yet when events unwanted help us meet
A lovely family, we can’t feel annoyed.
Contrition with forgiveness we must greet.
Could anything be better than to find,
In spite of damaged metal and expense,
Decency and comprehension kind
Enhanced by lack of guile or vain pretense?
No mishap could take place in better fashion
Than courtesy, contrition and compassion.
~ FreeThinke
Make channels for the streams of love,
ReplyDeleteThat they may freely run;
For Love has overflowing streams
To fill them every one.
But if at any time we cease
Such channels to provide,
The very founts of love for us
Will soon be parched and dried.
For we must share, if we would keep,
That blessing from Above:
If we cease to give, we cease to live;
Such is the law of Love.
~ Richard Chenevix French (emended by FT)
PLEASE CONTRIBUTE to MIKE FLYNN'S LEGAL DEFENSE FUND
ReplyDeleteThe ot-of-control over-zealoust Robert Mueller has virtually BANKRUPTED General Michael T. Flynn –– and turned him and his family out of their home –- and all because General Flynn, who serveed our country honorably and with distinction for more than 35 years in the military, had the unmitigated gall to accept an appointment from our then-new, duly-elected president Donald Trump for whom the D.C. Establishment and their myrmidons harbor an unethical, unprincipled, frankly pathological animus.
PLEASE CONTRIBUTE to MIKE FLYNN'S LEGAL DEFENSE FUND. IT'S A WORTHY CAUSE.
Instructions may be found at the following link:
https://mikeflynndefensefund.org/
EVEN A SINGLE DOLLAR WOULD BE WELCOME.
But realize from the get-go that if you contribute, your data may be collected so that you become a target of the Deep State.
DeleteLook at what's happening to Michael Caputo:
...In Caputo’s closing statement obtained by the Washington Examiner, he said the panel's investigation “forced” his family out of their home and “crushed” his children due to mounting legal costs associated with the inquiry.
"Today, I can’t possibly pay the attendant legal costs and live near my aging father, raising my kids where I grew up,” Caputo said. “Your investigation and others into the allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia are costing my family a great deal of money — more than $125,000 — and making a visceral impact on my children."...
[...]
Caputo called for an “investigation of the investigators” and said he wanted to know who was “coordinating this attack on President Donald Trump.”
“Forget about all the death threats against my family. I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election,” Caputo said. “I want to know because God damn you to hell."...
It amazes me, AOW, that you of all people, –– since you've made numerous sacrifices regarding financial security in your own highly principled teaching career –– would recommend a pusillanimous, self-serving approach in the desperate struggle against encroaching TYRANNY in which we are engaged right now –– whether we realize it or not.
DeleteI have already sent General Flynn a thousand dollars –– not because i believe that could even BEGIN to compensate him for the vicious, unprincipled Stalineque drubbing he's received at the hands of an over-zealous, out-of-control, agenda-driven Special Prosector, but because i puts me in the unassailable position of having stood up for what I KNOW to be right.
Remember the all-too-famous words of Dietrich Binhoeffer, who paud the ultumate price for havung stod up t the Nazies:
"First they came for _____" Just fill in the blank.
The POINT of course, is that NO ONE will be there to STAND UP for ANYBODY, if we let this coup d'état by the Deep State and the Oligarchs to SUCCEED.
FT,
DeleteAll I'm saying is that people should go into this with eyes wide open.
I think that you know me better than to berate me for advocating a pusillanimous, self-serving approach in the face of what's transpiring before our very eyes.
I've more than proven myself in that I've sacrificed a great deal by, over and over again, standing up for what I believe and what I know to be right. I'm not complaining that I threw the money down a rat-hole, but I indeed did do so.
Also, it is not only Michael Flynn who is in need of funds. Not Michael Caputo's Go Fund Me Page. It is heartening to see this there:
$258,992 of $125,000 goal
Raised by 5,267 people in 12 days!
What is happening to those who oppose "The Deep State" is beyond alarming. We are losing our republic!
DeleteThere is no "Deep State." Just lawbreakers wanting priviledge.
DeleteMichael Flynn should hit up his handlers in Russia for his legal fees.
There is no "Deep State." Just lawbreakers wanting priviledge.
DeleteThere you go, pushing back against the scripted narrative.
This place is more interactive than the Sean Hannity show. ;)
DeleteHannity's getting paid to pretend to be stupid. I'm not.
YOU don't have to PRETEND!
Delete];^}>
TC - Hannity though, is the perfect sock puppet to shill for this Administration.
DeleteThere's no jouissance in bureaucracy (deep state)? Who knew?
DeleteMichael Flynn is brought to Mueller's interrogation room...
DeleteFreeThinke, you're trying to raise money for a guy worth over $7 Million that plead guilty to felonies.
DeleteTrump didn't tell Comey that Flynn was sqeaky clean innocent. He asked that Comey go easy on the guilty as hell bastard.
Is that too subtle?
FJ - weren't Page and Flynn under investigation when Trump was still admitting to be a Democrat?
Delete@tc - You should ask Hillary. It was her NSA/FBI funded oppo research program.
DeleteOf course, now it's Muellers Title 1 investigation...
DeleteOrdinarily, under U.S. Title-3 criminal statute the investigative body, U.S. Attorney or Special Counsel, would need to go before a judge to swear out the reasoning for a search warrant and prove probable cause. Because the special counsel took Title-1 investigative authority (counterintelligence operation), they subverted domestic search and seizure protections applicable toward U.S. persons having nothing to do with foreign intelligence.
Mueller's been bugging Trump and everyone 2 degree's of separation from him throughout his entire presidency.
Mueller needs to figure out whether he's pursuing foreign spies, or domestic criminals. Doing both cancels out any results he might try and obtain, against Flynn, or anyone else.
DeleteOf course we may not have to wait very long before they all get fired. Lisa Page resigned from DOJ, and James Baker from FBI... indicating that the IG report's about to break exposing the entire conspiracy.
Delete...or Robert Mueller will have Megyn Kelly interview Trump so they can get a urine sample off the chair.
DeleteFJ,
DeleteWhen is the IG report due to be released?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAmerica-hating far left blowhards like FreeThinke have to go to other blogs to praise the free speech she doesn't allow at her own blog.
Delete@AoW - Don't know...it's been broken into pieces... but I epect indictments will likely follow each release ala Andy McCabe.
Delete_____ COMBATTING TDD _____
ReplyDeleteThe secret to combatting TDD
Lies in taking one thing you adore
Into splendid isolation where no sounds
Or sights assault the senses with distractions
Concentrate on learning to ignore
Stray thoughts and wayward influences crude
Self-discipline becomes its own reward
Examine only one thing at a time
Pop Culture we must come to recognize
As the enemy of Reason and good work.
Learn to cherish silence so you can
Listen to your heart and see within.
Monasticism may seem too austere,
But retreating from the world pays dividends
It deepens your perceptions as it hones
Improvement in your character and views,
Adding substance to your inmost thoughts,
And aids in helping you learn to eschew
The tawdriness that saps your strength, and then
Impoverishes every part of you.
~ FreeThinke
Just on the off chance that anyone's the least bit curious
DeleteTDD = Trump Derangement Disorder
My best to you both ... hope to see you blogging again real soon.
ReplyDeleteMustang,
DeleteI intend to return when home-front matters and my health permit my doing so.
______ BIRCHES _____
ReplyDeleteWhen I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
~ Robert Frost (1874-1963)
FT,
DeleteOne of my favorite Robert Frost poems.
"Everybody want to go to heaven, / Nobody want to die."
DeleteThe true value of the blogosphere lies in its astonishing capacity to make it easy for sour-mouthed, ill-tempered political and phiiosophical enemies to reveal thenselves in all their perfidious absurdity for all the world to see.
ReplyDeleteToo often visiting blogs is tantamount to taking an excursion to a Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Facility.
P_________H_________E_________W_________!
The stench may be vile, but witnessing imbeciles and enemies stripped virtually naked romping and ranting in mountains of manure flinging fistfuls of poo-poo at each other with reckless abandon truly is a sight for sore eyes –– and a GREAT help in bolstering SELF-ESTEEM in onlookers.
I'm not mad. I'm not sad.
I'm just be glad I'm not THAT bad!
};^D>
The hostages in NK are on their way home and will arrive at Andrews at 2:00 AM, and President Trump will be there to meet them!
ReplyDeleteHURRAY and HALLELUJAH!
DeleteThe hostages who were arrested during the Trump administration?
DeleteKim got what he wanted and we can look forward to him further playing Trump absent reasonable council.
Pompeo and Bolton don't maximize confidence.
I'm glad they've been released, and I give full credit to this Administration.......but I'm hard pressed to understand why we refer to them as 'hostages'.
DeleteCI,
DeleteApparently some are theorizing that NK took them to hold them as bargaining chips for easing the sanctions on NK.
Duck,
DeleteI think that one was taken during the Obama administration and two during the Trump administration.
What I'm unclear about: why were they in NK in the first place?
What difference could it possibly make WHEN they were "taken," Canardo?
DeleteThe POINT is they WERE taken by a vicious, thuggish , possibly insane,tyrant for no good reason and to no good purpose.
Your usual tactics of eternal DISTRATCTION and DIGRESSION don't work with me –– and ought NOT to with anyone else of reasonable intelligence, good heart, and good conscience..
You and all your rancid kind are BOMB THROWERS –– NOISEMAKERS –– and WASTERS of LIFE'S precious time to the nth degree.
I'll tell you what difference it makes, FT.
DeleteAs a people we should try to be objective about Trump's foreign policy. While the media is cheering the release and everyone is cheering Trump there is no mention that a dozen detainees were released from NK during the Obama administration.
Just like the clamor over the "record budget surplus" which is really just an accounting curiosity due to the change in the corporate tax reporting date.
We have lost an ability to be at all objective about this administration due to the inability of the doctrinaire to exercise common sense.
The hostages who were arrested during the Trump administration?
DeleteI think your point was that Trump blamed Obama for not being able to free the 3 men....when two of them were apprehended during the current Administration, no?
Joey -- start with Merrill Newman, Laura Ling, Kenneth Bae, Aijolon Gomes and go from there.
DeleteCI - That's partially the point. His ego compels him to magnify his achievement and present himself as singular. If he goes into these talks with the idea that the great Trump is going to preside over the denuclearization of the peninsula through the brunt of his personality it will squander the progress made (much of it by Moon Jae-in).
It is interesting that so few are aware of those held captive during the Obama administration being freed under the Obama administration. IMO, Obama didn't much publicize those events because he was all about promoting the idea that Americans shouldn't feel good about their nation.
DeleteDoes President Trump's ego lead him to magnify his achievement and present himself as singular? Probably. But, IMO, another element is that of promoting national pride; yet another element is part of the "deal making" with North Korea.
BTW, Obama bragged all over the place about the ACA, which has turned out not to be so wonderful after all.
Up the crag in the screaming wind
ReplyDeleteNaked and bleeding I fought blind,
Then I moved towards the Eye of the Sun
Past the Cromlech I found a gun.
Then, I strayed in t,e ciies of men
In the home of my Love –– I found a pen.
~ Elizabeth Cohen (1956)
Today at Bunkerville's blog...
ReplyDeleteTrump’s total now: Brings home a total of 14 wrongly detained Americans so far.
Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life;
ReplyDeleteAnd even when you find them,
It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind
And look for the virtue behind them.
For the cloudiest night has a hint of light
Somewhere in its shadows hiding;
It is better by far to hunt for a star,
Than the spots on the sun abiding.
The current of life runs ever away
To the bosom of God’s great ocean.
Don’t set your force ‘gainst the river’s course
And think to alter its motion.
Don’t waste a curse on the universe –
Remember it lived before you.
Don’t butt at the storm with your puny form,
But bend and let it go o’er you.
The world will never adjust itself
To suit your whims to the letter.
Some things must go wrong your whole life long,
And the sooner you know it the better.
It is folly to fight with the Infinite,
And go under at last in the wrestle;
The wiser man shapes into God’s plan
As water shapes into a vessel.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
FT is correct with this statement:
ReplyDeleteWhat difference could it possibly make WHEN they were "taken"?
None. Somebody tell that to POTUS.
DeleteWhen Trump is boasting that Obama couldn't negotiate the release of persons taken prisoner during the Trump administration it gives insight into Trump's knowledge of current affairs.
DeleteIndeed. Any analysis that does not account for the fact that Donald Trump is retarded is going to fall short.
DeleteThe sad thimg is, the Democrats have no viable alternative to retarded.
"...The ungodly are not so, but are like he chaff whch the wind driveth way ..".
ReplyDeleteGo forth inti the workd i[n peace
Be of good courage
Strengthen that which is good
Render not evil for evil
Honor all men.
And the blessing of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ shall be upon you, and remain with you
AMEN!