Y'all is Po"



The John Edwards Poverty Tour

Not a Peace Process But a Surrender Process

"This is Munich all over again".."We have two choices: We can find a way to be reasonable and surrender, or we can defeat them."

Newt Gingrich from a recent speech.

Hillary and Obama: They Actually Said This:

Hillary Clinton at the 7/23/07 Democratss debate/press conference.....

"I think it is a problem that Bush was elected in 2000. I actually thought somebody else was elected in that election, but" ...(Applause.)

Perhaps Mrs. Clinton does not remember...but The Treason Times (NY Times) reported on 11/12/01:

"A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward."

Another Times article that day by Richard L. Berke said that the...

"comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots solidifies George W. Bush's legal claim on the White House because it concludes that he would have won under the ground rules prescribed by the Democrats."

B. Hussein (Barry) Obama made the following extraordinary comment at the same Democrat function. The question was: "Would you be willing....to meet....during the first year of your administration....with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

"....one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses."

Coginchaug River
Cleanup July 28

From today's Hartford Courant:

MIDDLETOWN - - The Jonah Center for Earth and Art will hold a river clean up July 28 from 9 a.m. to noon along the Coginchaug River in the North End. The goal is to remove plastic bottles, tents and tarps left by campers and other debris from the site of the Jonah Center's proposed boat launch adjacent to the city's closed landfill, and from the 20 acres of newly acquired open space on the river's floodplain. Volunteers are needed at both locations. Volunteers can reach the boat-launch site via the Middletown recycling center, at North Main and Johnson streets. Go left after entering the recycling center, park near the brush piles, and follow the access road to the north. The open space location on the Coginchaug floodplain, known as the Salafia property, may be reached from the west end of Catherine Street. Guides will be at these locations to direct volunteers..... For more information, call John Hall at 860-343-3259. Link to group's web site:
http://www.thejonahcenter.org/index.php

To help volunteers find the site here is a link to a Goggle map.






This is view a of my favorite little river, the Coginchaug, as it flows near my home in Middletown's West End. The riverbed and banks are fairly clean in my neighborhood although I have noticed quite a few cans and bottles and even one abandoned shopping cart. Conditions deteriorate rapidly, I have learned, at the area known as the city's North End peninsula near the confluence of the Coginchaug and the Mattabesset. Here debris has accumulated, carelessly discarded by campers, boaters and others. Fortunately, a group called Jonah Center for Earth and Art has put forth an ambitious plan to cleanup the area and develop it as an innovative center for ecological study and community activity. A boat launch is planned. The Jonah Center's web site offers a wealth of information about the area.

The Jonah Center for Earth and Art wants to transform the neck of land at the confluence of the Mattabesett and Coginchaug Rivers (the “North End Peninsula”) in Middletown, CT into an innovative educational facility and a major tourist destination. This property, which now appears to be urban industrial blight, is rich in educational and recreational possibilities.

The Jonah Center for Earth and Art wants to teach — by means of a truly living, evolving facility — how energy from the sun is captured and then circulated through the ecosystem, from plants to microbes to complex human culture. This learning center will be integrated with the present recycling center and evolve into a multi-faceted science and cultural center that will eventually include space for performing arts, planetarium shows, and more.

Here is an aerial view of the area from the group's web pages:

Rock Around Iraq:
Dingy Harry and the Losers



More political theater from Harry Reid and the defeatists in the Senate. Reid has announced a pajama session, an all nighter to crank out meaningless resolutions against our mission in Iraq.

"The round-the-clock debate Tuesday night through Wednesday morning was intended as a way of pressuring Republican senators as well as Bush to act sooner rather than later on a change of course in Iraq."
Source:MyWay News

Ahh, Sordid Political Notes*....

Clinton / Obama - Writing in the July 23 issue of Newsweek Anna Quindlen challenges Hillary Clinton to persuade Barack Obama to be her running mate. Saying "Your Web site says help make history. Go ahead. I dare you,".....she prefaces that with:

"He would have to decide he would be willing to coexist with a strong woman. But it seems as though he already does that at home. You would have to be willing to let a charismatic man steal some of your thunder, but you do that at home, too. This would be a political marriage of convenience, sure, but one that could excite the country. The president has driven the nation into a ditch, and the American people are standing by the side of the road with their thumbs out. Everyone is poised for big change, big ideas. Do the big thing that also happens to be the right thing."

Filling the Young Skulls With Mush - At the primary school in Funafuti, children learn about climate change from the age of six. Most expect to emigrate. "Because my home island will sink under the water, and there will be no place for me to live," explains Vaimaila Teitala, aged 12. Manuao Taloka, 13, says: "Australia and America and England don't take notice of us because we're too small, and they want to keep their factories and cars."

Ohhh, the mean, selfish industrialized nations want to keep their factories and cars! Yes, let's ban factories and cars and level the global playing field. Everyone should be poor and live a meter or two above the level of the sea.

The quoted passage above is from an article titled " S.O.S.: Pacific islanders battle to save what is left of their country from rising seas" in The Independent (U.K.)


* h/t Paul Krassner (btw, where is he now?)

Tags: climate crisis anna quindlen paul krassner

Middletown Born Artist William Ranney
Featured in New Exhibition




Self Portrait (1839)

The current issue of Antiques and The Arts Weekly (Newtown CT) contains a featured article on Middletown born painter William Tylee Ranney (1813-1857). Currently thru August 19 an exhibition of some 60 of the artist's paintings is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Titled "Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney", this exhibition was organized by Sarah E. Boehme at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody WY where its tour began.

Some 60 works comprise "Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney," on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through August 19. It was organized by Sarah E. Boehme, formerly of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo. (where it began its tour) and now director of the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas. She notes that new information about the painter and recently discovered paintings by him offer "new insights" in this "unparalleled gathering of the artist's most significant paintings."

Born in Middletown, Conn., the son of a sea captain, Ranney moved at age 13 to Fayetteville, N.C., where he lived with an uncle and trained as a tinsmith. His experiences in this bustling gateway to the West filled his imagination with a grand sense of the American character and landscape.

Moving to Brooklyn around 1833, Ranney began studying drawing and painting. Three years later, inspired by news of the siege of the Alamo, he volunteered to serve in the war for Texas independence. During his brief sojourn in Texas, he absorbed a wealth of observations about the culture, mores and landscape of the American West that would inspire his most famous paintings. His wife Margaret later observed that her husband was "so charmed by everything he saw…the wild enchanting prairies, the splendid horses," that he never would have returned East "but for the strong love he had for his mother."

The painting "Portrait of Margaret Ranney", the artist's wife is at the Cromwell (CT) Historical Society. Some additional biographical information and images follow:

RANNEY, William, artist, born in Middletown, Connecticut, 9 May, 1813; died in West Hoboken, New Jersey, 18 November, 1857. Tile name that was given him at baptism was William Tylee, but he never used the latter. At the age of thirteen he was taken to Fayetteville, North Carolina, by his uncle, where he was apprenticed to a tinsmith, but seven years later he was studying drawing in Brooklyn. When the Texan struggle began, Ranney enlisted, and during the campaign became acquainted with many trappers and guides of the west. After his return home he devoted himself mainly to portraying their life and habits. Among his works are" Boone's First View of Kentucky," " On the Wing," " Washington on his Mission to the Indians" (1847), " Duck-Shooting," which is in the Corcoran gallery, Washington, "The Sleigh-Ride," and "The Trapper's Last Shot." Many of these have been engraved. He was a frequent exhibitor at the National academy, of which he was elected an associate in 1850.
Source: Virtualology.com

William Ranney Veterans of 1776 Returning from the War

William Ranney Duck Shooters (1849)

William Ranney Advice on the Prairie (1853)

In this, his late "Self-portrait,” circa 1856–1857, Ranney presented himself as a thoughtful, intense, mature figure, whose profession is indicated by the barely visible end of a paint brush at the bottom of the picture. Private collection.

Chertoff and Gut Feelings:
Summer of Risk?

Gut Feeling, Summer of Risk....
I believe we're entering a period this summer of increased risk. We've seen a lot more public statements from Al Qaeda. There are a lot of reasons to speculate about that but one reason that occurs to me is that they're feeling more comfortable and raising expectations. In the last August, and in prior summers, we've had attacks against the West, which suggests that summer seems to be appealing to them. I think we do see increased activity in South Asia, so we do worry about whether they are rebuilding their capabilities. We've struck at them and degraded them, but they rebuild. All these things have given me kind of a gut feeling that we are in a period of increased vulnerability.
Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Director (Chicago Tribune 7/10/07)


On Voters' Gut Feelings....
But this is a democracy. You vote, you do the best you can with the choices presented, and you show the appropriate opposition to the guy who seems most likely to bring trouble. (I think that is one reason for the polarity and division of politics now. No one knows in his gut that the guy he supports will do any good. But at least you can oppose with enthusiasm and passion the guy you feel in your gut will cause more trouble than is needed! This is what happens when the pickings are slim: The greatest passion gets funneled into opposition.)
Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal 7/13/07)


Just the Facts Please, Cut the Gut Feelings....
The other day, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said he has “kind of a gut feeling that we are in a period of increased vulnerability.”
Let me say this in the vernacular of my youth in New York: Gut feelings I can get from the very nice lady who takes in my shirts at the cleaners. From the Secretary of Homeland Security I expect facts.
From Luke Skywalker I expect to hear there may be a “disturbance in the force.” From Michael Chertoff I expect oversight of the Transportation Safety Administration.
Rich Galen, Mullings (7/13/07)

Big Al: The Goracle and His Lies

Thanks to Paul Atroshenko , an Australian artist for the above image of the all knowing, all seeing Albert Gore. The always controversial, but mostly liberal, Camille Paglia had this to say about the image in a recent posting:

"This is wonderful! I burst out laughing at the self-divinizing apotheosis of that egregiously pulpit-pounding, wannabe preacher, the Rev. Al Gore."


She opines further in answer to a reader's take on human caused climate crisis:

"Bravo for your invigorating deconstruction of current propaganda! I too am very concerned about the potential damage to Democrat credibility coming from the grab-bag Gore crusade, with its wild exaggerations and hypocritical sanctimony. It does make liberals look like ditzes -- the last thing the party needs in a presidential campaign where no-crap national security issues will be paramount. Environmentalism is of vital importance to our future, but it cannot be based on lies."

Bob Parks: To Our Americans Serving in Iraq

This is a "must watch" 10 minute video which sticks it to Pelosi, Reid, the Clintons et al!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Yc3wYJOtI

Also visit Bob Parks at: http://blackandright.mensnewsdaily.com/

My country, 'tis of Thee,
Sweet Land of Liberty
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain side
Let Freedom ring.

Samuel F. Smith 1832

Kaziah Hancock, Extraordinary American

This extraordinary woman has painted 100's of portraits of fallen U.S. soldiers and sent them home to their families. Unable to have children of her own these fallen heroes become part of Kaziah Hancock via her paintings of them.She lives on a goat ranch in Utah.These portraits are given to the families; she does not accept any money for them although she is an accomplished artist who has sold works for thousands of dollars.

Tagged: kaziah hancock

S 1639 is Dead!

Thanks to the hundreds of thousands who responded in opposition to this ghastly bill which would have bankrupted our nation. A special thanks to Dan Sargis for his forceful writings about this hastily prepared and secretly drawn legislation. Ted Kennedy, who has been wrong on immigration for over 40 years, is proven wrong again. Too bad Joe Lieberman voted to let this fiasco continue!

Bush's Betrayal.....How a President desperate for a legacy pushes all the wrong buttons and totally succumbs to "amnesty dementia".

In the harshest possible words Connecticut writer Dan Sargis dismisses President George W. Bush as a hypocrite and a liar who, in collaboration with Ted Kennedy, Mel Martinez, and John McCain, stubbornly persists in the pursuit of comprehensive immigration reform which would spell ruin for our nation. Some excerpts from the Dan Sargis June 21, 2007 column:

How is W going to secure our borders when he can’t even secure Walter Reed Hospital which is less than 5 miles from the White House? ....

But W may be the all-time best hypocritical liar...or the dumbest.

He frames himself as a Conservative and then stabs Conservatives in the back. He says he loves America and is currently trying to give it its biggest screwing in history with his Amnesty bill. He says he is a man of God and then uses God like a Beltway lobbyist. ....

He frames himself as a Conservative and then stabs Conservatives in the back. He says he loves America and is currently trying to give it its biggest screwing in history with his Amnesty bill. He says he is a man of God and then uses God like a Beltway lobbyist.

The only real friends or support that W ever had came from the Conservative base that took him at his word and now...he has decided to eat his own.

In the 2004 election, a Pew Hispanic Center analysis indicated that Bush received 40% of the Hispanic vote. I wonder how many Conservatives voted for Kerry that year?

In the 2006 midterm election, national exit polls for the House of Representatives and Senate showed that 69% of Latinos voted for Democrats and 30% for Republicans.

How many Conservatives voted for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in 2006?

Yet Bush is eager to drown his base in the Rio Grande for the love of his illegal immigrant “supporters”....and Teddy Kennedy. ....

If he ever recovers from his Amnesty dementia and looks around...well, maybe his mommy will still love him.

And that goes for every RINO Senator riding his coattails across the border.

Obama's Speech at UCC in Hartford (Update-Read It Here pdf)





Above are five important paragraphs from Barack Obama's speech yesterday at the United Church of Christ Synod. His main points:

As Americans....we know....we cannot have....more than 2000 people cross our borders illegally every day....we have a right and a duty to protect our borders

Our conscience cannot rest until we.... secure our borders (and) give the 12 million undocumented immigrants....a chance to earn their citizenship by paying a fine and waiting in line behind all those who came here legally.

Religious Hijacking..........

A.P. Photo


HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right-wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.

``But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart. Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us,'' the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before a national meeting of the United Church of Christ. (emphasis added)
Source: AP via WTIC

Exactly who is sowing division here? Barack Hussein Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ was recently interviewed on radio and television about his church's 12 point vision shown below; (since removed from the church web site)

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.

The above 12 points have apparently been withdrawn from the web site and have been replaced by the following statements:

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community. (emphasis added)

The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:

1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.

Unexpected Lightning...........

New advisory issued to protect you from lightning strikes: At the first rumble of distant thunder scurry indoors and hide under your bed!

A recent tragic story of a lightning death in Florida prompted this advice from Dan Dixon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami:

''They (thunderstorms) are very unpredictable and very dangerous. We urge people to stay indoors even if you hear thunder only faintly in the distance,'' Dixon said. ``If you're close enough to hear thunder, you're close enough to be struck by lightning.''

The alarmists strike again, providing us with yet another reason to be afraid. Chalk it up to "Man Made Global Warming"

Bernstein: Clintons Would Operate Joint Presidency

To which WSJ's Best of the Web Today added this tag line:
But Only She Would Inhale

Anyway, the above mentioned Bernstein is Karl Bernstein who is quoted in The Sun via The Daily Telegraph with these observations on a possible Clinton co-presidency:

If Americans elect Senator Clinton as president next year, they will also be re-electing her husband, according to the author of a new biography of the former first lady.

Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters who broke the Watergate scandal which brought down President Nixon, told the Daily Telegraph that the couple would operate a joint presidency in which President Clinton would advise on policy and tactics as well as act as troubleshooter.

"There is no question in my mind it would be a co-presidency because he has better judgment than she does on most political matters. He would be a constant presence," Mr. Bernstein said.

On the campaign trail to win the Democrat Party's nomination, Mrs. Clinton has said she would use her husband as a global ambassador for America. But his real role would go much further, Mr. Bernstein believes.
Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/56928

Father's Day 2007.........
The posting below is reprinted from Steady Habits of 8/31/06. I return to this subject reluctantly but wish to keep interested folks updated and encourage others in similar situations to never give up hope. "A" this day coincidentally, entered a detox facility for the umpteenth time; this time as a means to get a spot in a long term residential program. She has been waiting several months for a spot to open up without any luck. However, by entering through a detox program she anticipates being able to go within a few days to a long term facility. "A" was in a residential program for several weeks last year but yielded to temptation during a short out of house trip and left with another woman to get high. She was dismissed from the program. Since then she has remained clean, as far as I can tell, been living with friends and going regularly to meetings. Her mother and I are somewhat buoyed by her attitude that it's now or never; that she can finally beat this demon. This Father's Day finds me encouraged and tentatively hopeful.

THE SCOURGE OF HEROIN:
A DAUGHTER'S STRUGGLE,
A FATHER'S DILEMMA

---

My 30 year old daughter has been a heroin addict for around 10 years. Of course, she's had some periods of time when she was clean. I think she started mainlining in Seattle (no surprise, bad heroin scene there) and got badly strung out there. We, her mom and I, got her back to Massachusetts where she did really well for a while, had a good job etc. She's been in de-tox several times and until recently was in a program with weekly meetings and medical help with a heroin antagonist (not methadone but a newer one, bupenephrine (sp?)I think). But the last 2 years she has been sliding back into the abyss; was arrested a couple of times for possession and, most recently, was last week arrested for violation of probation. (she had tested dirty). Anyway, now she is jailed without bail with her first court appearance on 9/18. Her public defender thinks she will probably get a mandatory 30 day drug treatment program plus assignment to a halfway house deal. But, she could also get a prison sentence.

Special Glasses for Jodi and Joe:
Not Too Rosy We Hope

The Governor and Senator appeared at a rally at Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford to support the company in its competition to build the engines for the Boeing 767, an aerial refueling tanker aircraft. The airplane can also be used as a cargo, passenger, and medical facility aircraft.

Senator Lieberman used the occasion to repeat his call "for the United States to use “limited military action” against Iranian camps suspected of being used to train and equip terrorists who are killing coalition troops in Iraq." He continued:

"Military action should be limited to halting Iranian training of terrorism, not to eliminate possible nuclear sites, though force could also stem Iran's nuclear ambitions, he said."
Source: The Day

In the photograph above Gov. M. Jodi Rell, left, and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., both wearing special glasses, try out controls Friday in a flight simulator that duplicates air-to-air refueling controls of the proposed Boeing KC-767 Advanced Tanker Aircraft at the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft jet engine plant in East Hartford.