Sunday, June 18, 2017
Happy Father's Day
If you've been with me for a while, you know that I had three older brothers. My youngest brother Terry died suddenly ten years ago.
But it is my middle brother, Forrest, that comes to mind every day, but especially on this day that we honor and celebrate fathers.
Forrest is ten years older than me and more than anyone, he has been the father figure in my life.
Our father was there, in the house, working every day and providing for the family, but he was absent in every other way. I know now that he was doing the best he could. The best he knew how.
So it was Forrest who stepped up and filled that void.
He started working at a tender age making sure we had food to eat, as Daddy took care of his liquor bill before the grocery bill.
He made sure Mom was OK from the onslaught of abuse, mostly verbal.
He convinced Mom to let me go away to college to his alma mater, which was one of the most important decisions of my life, setting me on course for my lifelong journey.
He paid for my college tuition when the scholarships ran out.
He taught me about relationships, and although my father was around, it was he who walked me down the aisle when I got married.
He is the one who helped me to recognize my worth when my marriage came to an end.
He is the one that I called when I needed help raising Ben and Frankie, especially so after my divorce.
He is the one I still call almost every day, no only to share what's happening, but to get the unvarnished truth.
Everyone needs a Forrest in their life.
I am forever grateful he's in mine.
Happy Father's Day Forrest.
But it is my middle brother, Forrest, that comes to mind every day, but especially on this day that we honor and celebrate fathers.
Forrest is ten years older than me and more than anyone, he has been the father figure in my life.
Our father was there, in the house, working every day and providing for the family, but he was absent in every other way. I know now that he was doing the best he could. The best he knew how.
So it was Forrest who stepped up and filled that void.
He started working at a tender age making sure we had food to eat, as Daddy took care of his liquor bill before the grocery bill.
He made sure Mom was OK from the onslaught of abuse, mostly verbal.
He convinced Mom to let me go away to college to his alma mater, which was one of the most important decisions of my life, setting me on course for my lifelong journey.
He paid for my college tuition when the scholarships ran out.
He taught me about relationships, and although my father was around, it was he who walked me down the aisle when I got married.
He is the one who helped me to recognize my worth when my marriage came to an end.
He is the one that I called when I needed help raising Ben and Frankie, especially so after my divorce.
He is the one I still call almost every day, no only to share what's happening, but to get the unvarnished truth.
Everyone needs a Forrest in their life.
I am forever grateful he's in mine.
Happy Father's Day Forrest.
In Celebration of Juneteenth
From the NY Times RACE RELATED -
Monday is the 152nd anniversary of Juneteenth, the day slavery in the United States effectively ended.
More than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, an Army ship arrived on June 19, 1865 in Galveston, Tex. with this news: The Civil War had ended and the South had surrendered two months earlier.
Texas was the last state to learn of the outcome. A Union general announced that “all slaves are free.” Those former slaves, numbering 250,000 in Texas, began celebrating the day.
To help you commemorate the holiday, we worked with Will Shortz, the crossword editor of The Times, to create a word search puzzle that recognizes a small slice of the African-American experience.
To play along, you’ll need to answer the clues to get the last names of 22 famous African Americans. Then find and circle them in the grid. The names may read horizontally, vertically or diagonally in any direction.
Here’s a sampling of clues:
-- With a racket, she crossed a color line.
-- Harlem Renaissance poet, via Joplin, Mo.
-- “This is CNN,” he intones.
When you're done, 10 letters will be left over. Reading line by line, from left to right and top to bottom, these will spell a quotation by Muhammad Ali.
http://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/2017/06/18/race-related?nlid=38867499
https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/crossword/juneteenth-wordsearch.pdf
Monday is the 152nd anniversary of Juneteenth, the day slavery in the United States effectively ended.
More than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, an Army ship arrived on June 19, 1865 in Galveston, Tex. with this news: The Civil War had ended and the South had surrendered two months earlier.
Texas was the last state to learn of the outcome. A Union general announced that “all slaves are free.” Those former slaves, numbering 250,000 in Texas, began celebrating the day.
To help you commemorate the holiday, we worked with Will Shortz, the crossword editor of The Times, to create a word search puzzle that recognizes a small slice of the African-American experience.
To play along, you’ll need to answer the clues to get the last names of 22 famous African Americans. Then find and circle them in the grid. The names may read horizontally, vertically or diagonally in any direction.
Here’s a sampling of clues:
-- With a racket, she crossed a color line.
-- Harlem Renaissance poet, via Joplin, Mo.
-- “This is CNN,” he intones.
When you're done, 10 letters will be left over. Reading line by line, from left to right and top to bottom, these will spell a quotation by Muhammad Ali.
http://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/2017/06/18/race-related?nlid=38867499
https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/crossword/juneteenth-wordsearch.pdf
Saturday, June 17, 2017
It's Not What You Think
From the NY Times -
Only Mass Deportation Can Save America
By Bret Stephens
In the matter of immigration, mark this conservative columnist down as strongly pro-deportation. The United States has too many people who don’t work hard, don’t believe in God, don’t contribute much to society and don’t appreciate the greatness of the American system.
They need to return whence they came.
I speak of Americans whose families have been in this country for a few generations. Complacent, entitled and often shockingly ignorant on basic points of American law and history, they are the stagnant pool in which our national prospects risk drowning.
On point after point, America’s nonimmigrants are failing our country. Crime? A study by the Cato Institute notes that nonimmigrants are incarcerated at nearly twice the rate of illegal immigrants, and at more than three times the rate of legal ones.
Educational achievement? Just 17 percent of the finalists in the 2016 Intel Science Talent Search — often called the “Junior Nobel Prize” — were the children of United States-born parents. At the Rochester Institute of Technology, just 9.5 percent of graduate students in electrical engineering were nonimmigrants.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/opinion/only-mass-deportation-can-save-america.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top-stories
Only Mass Deportation Can Save America
By Bret Stephens
In the matter of immigration, mark this conservative columnist down as strongly pro-deportation. The United States has too many people who don’t work hard, don’t believe in God, don’t contribute much to society and don’t appreciate the greatness of the American system.
They need to return whence they came.
I speak of Americans whose families have been in this country for a few generations. Complacent, entitled and often shockingly ignorant on basic points of American law and history, they are the stagnant pool in which our national prospects risk drowning.
On point after point, America’s nonimmigrants are failing our country. Crime? A study by the Cato Institute notes that nonimmigrants are incarcerated at nearly twice the rate of illegal immigrants, and at more than three times the rate of legal ones.
Educational achievement? Just 17 percent of the finalists in the 2016 Intel Science Talent Search — often called the “Junior Nobel Prize” — were the children of United States-born parents. At the Rochester Institute of Technology, just 9.5 percent of graduate students in electrical engineering were nonimmigrants.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/opinion/only-mass-deportation-can-save-america.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top-stories
He's Preparing for Something
From Salon -
Is Mike Pence pulling a Gerald Ford or a Spiro Agnew?
Pence is either getting ready to become an incoming president or an outgoing vice president
MATTHEW ROZSA
Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to hire his own lawyer for the special counsel investigation into alleged ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government can mean one of two things — or perhaps even both things at the same time.
Either Pence is concerned that he may face charges of his own, or — believing that he is innocent — he wants to separate his own legal fate from that of a president whose innocence he (for good reason) doubts.
http://www.salon.com/2017/06/16/is-mike-pence-pulling-a-gerald-ford-or-a-spiro-agnew/?source=newsletter
Is Mike Pence pulling a Gerald Ford or a Spiro Agnew?
Pence is either getting ready to become an incoming president or an outgoing vice president
MATTHEW ROZSA
Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to hire his own lawyer for the special counsel investigation into alleged ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government can mean one of two things — or perhaps even both things at the same time.
Either Pence is concerned that he may face charges of his own, or — believing that he is innocent — he wants to separate his own legal fate from that of a president whose innocence he (for good reason) doubts.
http://www.salon.com/2017/06/16/is-mike-pence-pulling-a-gerald-ford-or-a-spiro-agnew/?source=newsletter
Dear Lord
From the Huffington Post -
18 Of The Most Profound Tweets In Reaction To The Philando Castile Verdict
We’re. Just. Tired.
By Zahara Hill
A Minnesota jury found police officer Jeronimo Yanez not guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Philando Castile on Friday.
The July 2016 killing, which was streamed on Facebook Live by Castile’s girlfriend Diamond Reynolds, is just one of a serial string of fatal cop shootings that allowed officers to walk away scot-free and many times, with their jobs intact.
For Twitter users that could muster a reaction to the news, many echoed sentiments that have been growing on our hearts since the acquittal of George Zimmerman in 2013: exhaustion, anger and most of all, hurt.
We’ve rounded up 18 of the most profound reactions below:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/18-of-the-most-profound-tweets-in-reaction-to-the-philando-castile-verdict_us_59444aede4b0f15cd5bb61a9
18 Of The Most Profound Tweets In Reaction To The Philando Castile Verdict
We’re. Just. Tired.
By Zahara Hill
A Minnesota jury found police officer Jeronimo Yanez not guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Philando Castile on Friday.
The July 2016 killing, which was streamed on Facebook Live by Castile’s girlfriend Diamond Reynolds, is just one of a serial string of fatal cop shootings that allowed officers to walk away scot-free and many times, with their jobs intact.
For Twitter users that could muster a reaction to the news, many echoed sentiments that have been growing on our hearts since the acquittal of George Zimmerman in 2013: exhaustion, anger and most of all, hurt.
We’ve rounded up 18 of the most profound reactions below:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/18-of-the-most-profound-tweets-in-reaction-to-the-philando-castile-verdict_us_59444aede4b0f15cd5bb61a9
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