So, what's on your mind?
Here is your chance to opine within the parameters listed below.
A political cartoon to get this thread started (from Powerline Blog, December 28, 2019):
And a non-political cartoon — because man cannot live by politics alone (from Powerline Blog, December 28, 2019):
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How redundant... to be "killed to death".
ReplyDeleteI saw "Little Women" yesterday in the theatre. Unlike every other person at this blog, it was my "first contact" with Louisa May Alcott's story. All I can say is that those hippies from the 1960's were very much akin to their 1860's counterparts. Concord, MA has always been a hotbed of do-gooding free-thinkers.
....and you are our Hawthorne.
DeleteDuck! Are you finished with cardio rehab?
DeleteFJ,
DeleteI saw "Little Women" yesterday in the theatre. Unlike every other person at this blog, it was my "first contact" with Louisa May Alcott's story.
However did you manage not to have contact with Little Women?
I read somewhere the other day that Louisa May Alcott despised the book she wrote. Apparently, she wrote it for the bucks and fudged on truth and reality. Or so that essay I read stated.
I avoided reading it, like the plague. It was considered a "girl's book", after all.
DeleteAnd yes, the movie covers the controversy over the ending... for ALL novels for girls MUST end in a wedding (and not a BOSTON Marriage)...
As for Hawthorne, he could have chosen to rest in better company...
+1 for trivia buffs: Hawthorne and his family also lived for many years in a house they called the Wayside; the Alcotts lived there from 1845 to 1852, just before the Hawthornes. And children’s author Harriett Lothrop (pen name Margaret Sidney), known for the popular Five Little Peppers series, later resided there.
DeleteMore on "The Wayside/ Hillside"
Delete...and on the "hippies aka Alcotts"
DeleteUNASKD FOR ADVICE:
DeleteREAD the B_O_O_K_S
AVOID the C_R_I_T_I_C_S
LISTEN to the M_U_S_I_C.
DeleteDON'T LISTEN to those who A_N_A_L_Y_Z_E the MUSIC.
If Books, Music, Poetry, Art, Architecture, Drama, Dance, Horticulture, Antiques and Historic Preservation don't automatically INTRIGUE and INTOXICATE you, no amount of "CRITICAL ANALYSIS" would be able to persuade you to LOVE, ENJOY, and DESIRE to UNDERSTAND this exalted things.
It's like SEX. You must DO It to ENJOY it. TALKING ABOUT IT is ABSURD.
That's what the "ACADEMIC" approach really is. It substitutes TALKING ABOUT Great Things for EXPERIENCNG them.
Absurd? Start @ 0:40ish...
DeleteI guess you'd have to BE a true musician to understand.
DeleteLIFE –– as portrayed in the ENEMEDIA and POOP KULTCHAH–– is nothing more than the THEATER of the ABSURD.
ReplyDeleteOur allowing ourselves to be engulfed in a nation-wide TSUNAMI of SCHIFFARRHEA is all we need to prove the assertion.
Because of our ungodly Attraction and atrendant ADDICtION to PERVERSE, BOORISH, GROTESQUE SENSATIONALISTIC PHENOMENA we have transformed ourselves and our blessed nation not a vast DUMPING GROUND filled with ROTTING, STINKING GARBAGE.
Fortunately REAL LIFE is NOT what the POOPAGANDISTS want us to believe it is. ALL we need to do to find Salvation is to IGNORE the POISON IVY LEAGUE, the ENEDMEDIA and the putrid products of the POOPULAR KULTCHAH.
Bla, bla, bla...
DeletePerhaps thIS will stimlate some friendly cinverstion. Hope springs eternal.
ReplyDeleteA POSSIBLY USEFUL MAXIM:
Halitosis is better than no breath at all.
I mean wouldn't you rather have them stand a a leaning angle a bit green around the gills when forced to face you, than to have them weeping over your coffin telling each other how wonderful you were, and how much they're going to miss you?
];^}>
:)
DeleteGOOD NEWS FROM WALL STREET:
ReplyDeleteDOW-JONES KNDUSTRIAL AVERAGE UP 330 points today, 1/2/2020
28,868.80
We're well on our way to DOW 30.)00.00 any day now barring any further antics from the DemonRats , the RINO's and nasty, naysaying Never-Trump nudniks.
Praise TRUMP from whom these blessings flow.
HO HO HO!
Franco, everyone knows this is barry soetoro's economy ! /sarc.
Delete};^)>
DeleteThe DOW aside, to praise Trump is to praise evil in the flesh.
ReplyDeleteJust who's side are YOU on?
Delete@TRDM... Not Trump's that is for damn sure.
Delete@ RN,
DeleteYou clearly need to start taking your meds again... You also need to wipe the foam off your mouth.
Warren: It's not foam.
DeleteTerrorist general with the blood of THOUSANDS on his hands: Qassem Soleimani masterminded the killing of hundreds of US troops in IED attacks, helped Assad slaughter his people in Syria, was an ally of Hezbollah...
DeleteAnother terrorist crosses the River Styx
Unfortunately the DemonRats like Mr.Rational Nation USA
Deletehate Donald Trump more than they Love America, and our Troops.
You have to wonder which side the Libs who are now complaining are really on.. I find it to be very disturbing, to say the least, how any Veterans can possibly support the democrats. Those are Veterans with no honor!
Delete@Warren... You clearly need to start taking your meds again...
DeletePolly, want a cracker?
DeleteYour echolalia showing.
@ Warren: LOL
DeleteGame is over terrorism is asymmetrical warfare. Hezbollah is controlled and run by Iran. The state sponsors are legitimate targets. The left plays this games with terrorists and plausible denial.
DeleteLet Iran start and drop a Moab dead center in Qom. Its time for them to keep their insanity at home. FYI there are plenty of indigenous groups in Iran more deserving than Palestinians of a homeland. Start arming them and give them a taste of their own medicine.
Bravo Mr President Bravo all Patriots!
ReplyDeleteQassem Soleimani, the evil Pig and the head of Iran’s Quds Force, was killed in an airstrike at Baghdad International Airport, Iraqi TV and three Iraqi officials officials said Friday
The officials said the strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces
This puts the evil leadership in Iran on notice that there’s a New Sheriff in town. I hope that North Korea is watching!
My only criticism is "what about the other 81 million Iranians that need to die?" Trump is barely even trying.
DeleteBeheading the beast ain't exactly gonna stop the endless insolent martyrs who just so happened to have thought quite highly of that beast.
DeleteBut another $20 trillion and 100,000 lives over the next 100 years of aggression and occupation will at least gain us, well, nothing.
Goose,
DeleteYou should learn to identify a strawman argument. "Threat to the American homeland" was never a stated pretext for greasing the terror general.
BTW, rawstory is a leftwing sewer.
SF, Goose is a troll also known as "this one" and a few other screen names. I delete its comments as soon as I become aware of them.
DeleteI think he is Uptown Steve.
DeleteMake the rubble bounce!
ReplyDeleteWaPo Headline:
ReplyDeleteElderly Iranian gentleman dies in fireworks accident at international airport
ReplyDeleteI remember when Democrats used to care about America, now they only care about their own political power.
Correction...I remember when conservatives and republicans cared about the national debt, budget deficits, and effective diplomacy. Those days are LONG gone. We now have conservatives and Republicans acting like tyrants who want to control the ENTIRE globe.
DeleteTrump said in his New Year’s Eve comments, that if a war with Iran did erupt, it “would go very quickly.” That is also what Bush’s secretary of defense Rumsfeld, blithely predicted about the war in Iraq. “Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that,” he said a few months before the invasion. It is worth noting that Iran is three times larger than Iraq, with nearly three times the population. Iran's military power is ranked No. 13 in the world out of 136 countries.
ReplyDeletePrepare for either a very long protracted military campaign with many deaths (both American and Iranian), or a nuclear event. In EITHER case both LOSE.
DeleteBut take it away Trump and sycophants.
Why are all the Democrats rushing to war talk?
DeleteIran has been conducting asymmetrical warfare against us and our allies for 40 years.
Precisely why I advocate exterminating Iran. Four decades of chanting Death to America has achieved one thing: You could round up every Iranian in Iran and turn the flamethrowers on every single one of them and you'd absolutely fail to singe anyone that deserves to live.
Delete...because everyone that would not be cowed into loyalty to that evil regime is already dead.
DeleteI have to disagree fiercely with Rational Nation. We could nuke every square inch of Iran into glass and the only thing tragic about it would be we don't have enough audio recording crews to capture all the death wailing to make an awesome heavy metal song.
DeleteI drove through an anti-war with Iran protest in St. Louis today. Unfortunately they stepped out of the way.
DeleteTC: I see ANSWER has crawled back out of the sewer now that Drone Assassin Obama's finger is no longer on the trigger.
DeleteMe and my better half began our New Years resolution quest to "Eat the World" - dining at a different ethnic restaurant every weekend drawn randomly from a hat (this week was Peru). Anyway we were downtown St. Louis, near the courthouse when we came upon the disheveled band of roughly 50 people with "No War With Iran" sign starting to spread themselves across all 4 lanes of the intersection. I gripped the wheel and revved my engine and the group parted and let me pass. Many of them jogged over to the sidewalks. I don't know if they were just getting started but I'd assess they weren't ready to debate with traffic just yet. My lady wouldn't let me circle back and disperse them from behind (my arm still hurts lol)
DeleteFood update... Lomo Saltado is amazing (Peruvian-Chinese fusion dish), stir fried beef tenderloin with potatoes
DeleteTC: Good story!
DeleteIran killing Americans in Beirut was an act of war
ReplyDeleteIran killing Americans in Saudi Arabia was an act of war
Iran killing Americans in Iraq was an act of war
Iran using a militia mob to invade the US embassy in Baghdad (sovereign US territory, by UN protocols and international law) was an act of war.
As far as I'm concerned, and any impartial, rational, analysis will confirm that we have been at war with Iran for the past forty-odd years. Breaching an American embassy in Tehran is no different than Iranian operatives breaching an American embassy in Baghdad. This is deja vu for me. I'm just grateful that we are no longer led by the peanut picking poltroon from Plains. Had we responded in similar fashion 4 decades ago, we might be looking at a different reality. Who can say? IDK, but it undoubtedly wouldn't be the same.
DeleteViburnum,
Deleteany impartial, rational, analysis will confirm that we have been at war with Iran for the past forty-odd years
Agreed!
Have any of our so-called leaders so stated recently?
No, as that would require them to actually recognize reality, and call into question a generation or more of the BS that they have been feeding us. There can be no reconciliation, no accommodation, and no "detente" with people whose fundamental beliefs are completely antithetical to our ideas of freedom. This struggle is as old as Thermopylae. It predates both Christianity and Islam. Think what you want, or think what you're told. That is, was, and will always be the dividing line.
DeleteWinston Churchill once remarked that "the best reason to avoid war was it's terrible expense". IMNHO our problems in the region derive not from winning the wars, but from trying to win the peace. With all do respect to the bleeding hearts, attempting to rebuild countries that we were fully justified in destroying, simply prevents them from learning the lessons that their behavior has warranted.
ReplyDeleteIran may choose to escalate it's provocations, and if and when they do they should be made to not only suffer, but endure, the consequences.
Provoking war against the US should never be viewed as an advantageous option, but such has been the case for most of my lifetime. Those of you near or about my age will remember "The Mouse that Roared" We have enabled, and been suckered by such thinking for decades.
The consequences of attacking our country, our people, our embassies our installations and our troops should be real, immediate,and irretrievable.
When we are willing to apply some misguided effort to redeem your misbehavior, why should you rethink your position?
When we are willing to stand by and watch, if not enjoy, the consequences of your foolishness, you may actually learn something.
Viburnum,
Deleteattempting to rebuild countries that we were fully justified in destroying, simply prevents them from learning the lessons that their behavior has warranted
As I think back to the debates between Gore and GWB, the latter said that he was opposed to nation building. But once in office, what did GWB do? Engage in nation building. **sigh**
Hi Vib!
DeleteYour reference to "The Mouse that Roared" is apt. The Taliban and every other criminal gang in and around Afghanistan have raked in billions in US taxpayer money from our futile and stupid efforts there.
Yes they have. And so have dozens of American companies, making our taxpayer dollars more swill for the Federal trough.
ReplyDeletePrevious post deleted to correct a typo. :-)
Hi, Vi!
DeleteHAPPY NEW YEAR to YOU!
I'm your old friend FreeThinke, the classical musician, remember?
Do you still have my email address?
Yours has changed. I'd love to resume commnication with you.
If you sent SilverFiddle your latest email address, I'm sure he'd forward it to me.
Do you ever hear from Fintann?
I miss the old gang at Western Hero.
Cheers, bro!
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This Thread Has Now Been Officially Designanted for the SAD SACK AWARD of 2019