Family Pride

Bruce has a video on the Mainstream Baptist blog of a debate he was in on the resolve: The U.S. Constitution is not a Christian document. The video is of excellent clearness and volume, depending on your speakers. Warning: It is a full debate and takes over an hour to watch all of it.

He has six posts under the video writing out his introduction, questions, conclusion and answers to questions asked.

Overall it's an enlightening video and series of posts. Naturally I side with Bruce's position. Debates never change minds, if anything they reinforce the beliefs each person holds before it begins. Curmudgeons and other readers who want to weigh in on the topic I welcome your comments.

We teach revolutions

The wingnuts have bullied America for years. They've attacked the poor and the oppressed calling them wellfare queens and have gotten away with it because the poor don't vote. They've nearly killed all trade unions by sending those jobs overseas.
I could go on and on about what's happened for the last thirty years, but now they've stepped over the line.
Education has been under attack since 1986. They've badmouthed teachers and their unions (there are two AFT and NEA) and finally thought they could outlaw public employee unions. The last bastion of unionism left. Finally someone has decided to stand up and protest the impoverishment of America by our politicians and corporations.
The governor of Wisconsin wants to keep the unions from collective bargaining except for salaries claiming it's a way to ballance the budget. Collective bargaining on salaries is the only part of the negotiation process that impacts the budget. Benefits like health care and retirement are part and parcel to salaries and are taxed as such by the IRS. Other aspects of collective bargaining have to do with non budget items like hours, working conditions, grievance proceedures, hiring and firing, stuff like that. So why do they not want public employees, not just teachers, but state and city workers, firefighters and police, to negotiate these items. They want to hire and fire without due process. Mainly to fire anyone who belongs to the union.
Protesting in the streets will only do so much, but it is getting the attention of voters to see what's really happening and at the next election things might change, for a couple of years at least.

Back to normal

Starting to recover from long drives on the trip. 2,000 miles in four days took alot out of us, but we needed to get away from home, enjoy the beautiful scenery of Northern New Mexico and Colorado, spend time with friends. We got to pet and spend time with Anne and Daryl's horses, dogs and cats. Everything was white with snow, but the roads were clear. I took her a carepackage of green chile and more copies of Friends Forever, her children's book I desktop publish for her. We had good food and pleasant conversation ending way too soon. They're wanting us to go back up this summer to go horseback riding. There's still a lot of water under the bridge between now and then, but it would be nice, if not this summer then the next. Driving up to Denver from Gunnison was spectacular. Anne said it started snowing right after we left, but it stayed on the other side of Monarch Pass. It was nice and clear on the side we were on.

In Nebraska we visited Linda's brother and mom. Time is getting short for Rose so the little time we spent was important. She's in an excellent nursing home; Bob and Glenda check on her and she's eating three good meals a day and at the last check-up with the doctor her heart is still strong and lungs are clear. She can't wait for it to warm up and spend time outdoors. Driving home across Kansas was rather dreary after the snow topped mountains of Colorado. Between Clayton, NM and Springer we stopped at Gladstone general store. Talk about in the middle of nowhere! It had nice tourist type stuff with horses on everything and different types of homemade flavored honey and jam.

We had planned on staying home in our jammies Saturday to recover and it was a good thing. We had up to 77mph winds all day long. A real good day to stay inside.
I spent yesterday getting malware cleaned off my computer. I cost a hundred bucks through McAfee and three hours for one of their online technicians to go through everything and clean it up, but that's a lot cheaper than the tech companies around here that want $200 just to look at it.

On The Road

Going up to see Anne, if the roads are clear, then over to Nebraska to spend some time with Mother-in-Law.

Tragic Actresses

On Christmas day 1970 we went to see the movie Paint Your Wagon at the Sunshine theater. Mom and Dad had the broadway play album and we grew up listening to the songs: Wandering Star, I Still See Elisa, They Call the Wind Mariah, Hand Me Down Them Can of Beans. Mom couldn't wait to see the movie. To an extent she was disappointed. Her favorite song on the broadway album was What's Going On Here, and they left it out of the movie. Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin mangled their songs something awful. Harve Presnell did a fantastic rendition of They Call the Wind Mariah. In the movie's story a Mormon comes into an all male gold mining camp with two wives. They auction off one wife and Lee Marvin's character Ben Rumpson bids the highest.

The movie does have some great lines and one of the best is when the auction proposal has been made someone says, "You can't buy a woman for money."

Ray Weston's character, Mad Jack says, "You just try to get one without it."

There's an interesting legal point that the marriage is based on mining law, and that she is Ben's legal claim entitled to all her mineral rights. After a humorous marriage ceremony sung to Ben's Wedding Day the couple enter a tent. Ben rips open Elizabeth's boddice exposing only the top half of her ample bosom. I was 16 and that was the most exposed woman flesh I'd seen in a movie up to that time. My eyes nearly popped out. Even today this scene is erotic. Jean Seberg is that beautiful.

The movie grows on you and I enjoy it on both Video and DVD.

When googled wikipedia lists quite a few movies that Jean Seberg starred in from 1957 to her death in 1979. Married three times, none happily, she overdosed on pills right before delivering a daughter that died two days after birth. She tried to commit suicide every year on the anniversary of her daughters death until she succeeded.

I don't know that there's a moral to these posts. I've just seem to have come across a number of actresses in movies that I have recently watched or are my favorites lately.

So Sad

Huffpo sold out to AOL. Most of her readers and I'm sure contributors are a little miffed.
I'm hoping that at least for a while it'll stay on the progressive side since there's not alot of voices out there, but it will eventually be made bland.
Daily Beast is talking about how the Huffpo followers are upset, but they sold out to Newsweek, talk about pot calling the kettle black!

Verboten

Huffpo has an article about fashion designers Duckie Brown denigrating Steve McQueen.
I grew up with the adage that you don't speak ill of the dead.
The designers are a little miffed by the perception in fashion that McQueen is concidered a real man. Then they start a character assassination. There no need for that thirty years after the man's dead. It riles up his fans and causes pain to his family for no reason at all.
Compared to celebrities today, whatever human failings McQueen had they are miniscule by comparison.
I have problems with Jane Fonda's politics, but she's a fantastic actress and I watch her movies like 9 to 5, Julia, Klute, Coming Home and Barbarella.
The same goes for Shirley McClain, Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, Robert Downy Jr., Mel Gibson and others. When I watch a movie I enjoy it or hate it based on the performances and if it had a good story. Their personal lives don't bother me.
Steve McQueen was a great actor. He could communicate more with a look than most actors with a soliloquy. His movies still stand up, Pappillon, The Great Escape, Bullet, Junior Bonner, and many others. If he has a reputatin as being a real man these movies are proof. Would any other actor today shoot a chase scene at over 120 mph over the hills of San Fransisco and still be in one piece after the brakes failed?

Scripts

Watched a Real Time with Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago. He had a Republican from Georgia on his panel. After watching the show I was puzzled. For most of the panel discussion he was open, friendly, seemed human, even made sense, but when certain issues (evolution, climate change) came up his face closed up and he went into the party line.
Now I know those are the issues he uses to get votes, then it dawned on me, he didn't really believe what he was saying, he was reading from a script and it's just an act.

I wish just once when there's a debate on evolution that both sides knew what they were talking about. The argument is over MACRO evolution. The creationists are against all evolution which shows how silly they are over a stupid word. MICRO evolution is present all around us. Look at the different varieties of dogs and cats, mules, bacteria that become disease resistent. Micro is changes within a species. Macro is where a species develop into a new species.
If both sides understood that maybe the arguments wouldn't seem so silly.

Denial of climate change is just plain stupid.There is more than enough imperical evidence showing the melting of the ice caps to prove it exists. The argument should be what we can or cannot do about, not whether or not it exists. Then again there are people who still believe the world is flat, but their belief doesn't change reality.

Cold Snap

The sun is shining, but the flags are still standing straight out. The wind kept the snow clouds away from town last night, but black ice makes driving deadly. It's been nice to stay inside and look out at the weather. Son has to work and is driving in the mess.
It'll take a few days for everything to warm up around here, the rest of the country will take a little longer. In about a week or ten days I'll be back out on the golf course. There are some good things about living in a desert.

Classic Movies

Being retired I get to watch a bunch of classic movies. With AMC, TCM and Encore that's quite a few. Hollywood has always had an eye for beautiful women. I don't care that many of them when the movies were made were my grandmother's or mother's age. They're still great eye candy.

Watched Clint Eastwood's Hang 'Em High yesterday. Inger Stevens played a woman looking for the men who killed her husband and raped her. Naturally she heals Eastwood when he's shot and they fall in love. She had such a captivating look in this movie. Sometimes it's better not to know about their personal lives. She committed suicide in 1970 at age 36. So sad.

Snow

In December when grandson was flying in we had snow. Friday mother-in-law is flying in. We have snow. I guess it's not good to be a family member flying in to see us.