RIP: Bill Buckley

William F. Buckely, Jr., the conservative founder of the National Review has died. While I seldom agreed with him, his clarity of thought and lack of hyperbole in writing made his conservative opinions understandable and grounded.

There was one thing I agreed with him about and that was on teen pregnancy and absent fathers. It was agreement enough to inspire me to write to him and say so. Now I've written such letters to other writers before and have learned not to expect a response other than a form letter, so it was a thrill to receive a personal reply from him a few weeks later. He didn't let a lot of time lapse between my letter and his reply either which astounded me. I still have that letter somewhere in my papers.

The place that I really shared common ground with Mr. Buckley was in the love of words. Lexicography, if you will. Once I learned to read, dictionaries became part of my main reading diet for years. I still love word challenges so his Word of The Day in the National Review Online was fun for me and it was fun to see how many days I could go before a word's meaning tripped me up.

So I'd just like to remember Buckley well and wish his soul a happy entry to his Catholic heaven.

There's Something Really Wrong With You, Mister!

Hey you in Phillie with the gun! You're cursed, man!

For a man who will go away, get a gun, return and shoot a 16 year old kid in the face at point blank range AFTER the kid already apologized repeatedly for accidentally hitting you with badly thrown snowball, I can only think you've got a really small pair. Kinda goes with being a cursed man, though. You are. You're messed up in the head. You're cursed. And I'm probably not the only one cursing you either.

There's something really wrong with you, mister. Wrong, for thinking you're SO damned important that Teven Rutledge Wilson's bad aim was worth killing him over. I'm over here in NM and don't know you, but I think you're a pathetic waste of a man. There's something wrong with your thinking. There's something wrong with the way you feel and it showed when you shot Tavin. As my husband says, "A snowball is not equal to a gun."

You're cursed man! I really gotta hope you haven't sired any offspring yet. I really do, because I want you to die childless. No woman wanting children should get involved with you. I think when they know what you did to Teven, they should run for their lives because you're the kind of bastard who'd hurt them and any kid they may have or produce! The black community doesn't need guys like you; you're nothing but destroyers. You don't build anything of value. In fact no community needs guys like you; the fewer of you there are, the better off everyone else is.

More selfishly, I want Teven's family to remember him with love and to pass that legacy of love down through their descendants unto the 7th generation and longer. But I don't want that for you. You don't deserve it. You're already dead in that gun-hardened heart. Your life is cursed. You can profess any religion you like, but I reckon it'll be just a sham to get a little sympathy. You shall not have any safe haven that lasts save your own grave. If people remember you at all it should be with revulsion and contempt. You're an evil hearted man and people should make signs warding against that evil when your name comes up.

There's something way wrong with you, mister. You can suck air til' you're an old, old man in some prison. You can die there cursed and alone. You've earned it.

Damn You Ralph!

Cheezits! Nader has thrown his hat into the Presidential ring again... and all he ever is is a spoiler. He did it the last election too and look what we ended up with!

:::shriek:::

Snow Moon

Last night a few of us friends got together and held a slightly belated full moon circle. This full moon, even with it's eclipse, was the last moon of winter so we wanted to make note of it as our hearts, minds and bodies yearn toward spring and warming weather. The projects of maintenance over the winter are just about done and spring chores have already begun for us as well.

We started in a circle that was dark and cold. The joyous one hosting had turned off the heat & lights hours and thrown open the doors for a time. When DH & I arrived, I'd asked if her electricity had been cut off somehow. "No," she said, then lit a candle while I put our potluck dish in the kitchen. DH who catches the chill easily due to his lack of body fat then asked if she was going to close the doors. It was raining out. She said, "Soon." Our other participant, Tree, arrived shortly after I'd settled down to a bit of knitting while the joyous one and DH chatted. Finally the door was closed.

After the other potluck food was put in the kitchen as well, the candle was put out and we made our circle, just four of us around a tiny altar, in the now darkened room lit only by lights from the street filtering through the windows. "Tonight," the joyous one intoned softly, "is the Snow Moon, the last moon of winter. Some have called it the Hungry Moon, when winter stores of food have been eaten through and little is left to feed and nourish the people, where the cut pads of peat and chopped logs are almost gone so what's left is carefully tended and used only when needed. So, in this era where we have so much, I've put out the lights and turned off the heat for a time so we can be reminded of what our ancestors knew every year."

We invoked blessings on sprouts of garlic another friend had planted and started in her green house -- garlic with it's history of protecting people's health through it's antiseptic properties and ritual properties of protecting against evil. It's an organic connection really, as in the past disease was often connected to evil spirits and such. We will plant them in our own gardens soon and nourish them through the summer. We finished by sharing from a small loaf of lovely handmade wheat bread and a cup of warming coffee and unmade our circle.

How easy it was then to light a small fire, turn on the lights, turn up the heat and follow with dining on our potluck dishes fueling our bodies and warming our spirits.

Halle-freakin'-lulia!

1. Obama won three more -- DC, Maryland and Virginia primaries! I really like this trend. Winning Maine Sunday was all good too!

2. The writers signed an agreement ending their strike, so re-run season will be ending shortly. I've missed my guilty pleasures -- especially the original CSI.

3. My old friend Alley and I finished laying down 12 yards of landscaping crusher fine. That is -- shoveling it from where it was dumped into wheelbarrows, moving it by the barrow load to where it was being put in, dumping, raking and repeating. The job took us 4 short days. If someone had told me that's 1 ton per yard, I'd have wavered about helping. On the other hand, there is something satisfying knowing that I can work that hard at my age, not wreck my back and say "It didn't feel like 12 tons!"

Old School

What's Your Political Philosophy? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Old School Democrat Old school Democrats emphasize economic justice and opportunity. The Democratic ideal is best summarized by the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Old School Democrat 95% Libertarian 95% New Democrat 75% Green 70% Foreign Policy Hawk 40% Pro Business Republican 35% Socially Conservative Republican 10%

Aw, Puckernuts

Mood: I got a headache, honeys.

They're doing a recount here! I can't believe it! Even Alaska as big and remote as it is had their returns done and certified before us! And they're 2 hours behind us in NM (1 a.m. Friday is 11 p.m. Thursday or AKST; GMT−9; Zone V)!

:::bangs head on desk:::

Aw, Puckernuts

Well, counting is done here in NM and Ms. Clinton holds a 1123 vote lead over Obama. Finally all 184 precincts have reported in. Still, it wasn't a runaway vote. I'm going to wait to see how Obama fares in the remaining Democratic caucuses and primaries.

And I see Romney has joined the throngs of American drop-outs.

Voting Thanks

Wow! I am so, so impressed with the voter turn out in my state for the Democratic caucus. There have been some delays in the vote counting and it isn't all in for us - but it's a real squeaker so far, let me tell you! Both Clinton and Obama have 48% of the vote, with Clinton having a slight lead.

The current breakdown as of 11:37 a.m. today is: Clinton with 65,845 votes, Obama with 65,728 with 181 of 184 districts reporting. That's a 117 vote difference, folks! Bill Richardson, John Edwards, Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich also got some votes even though they'd already dropped out of the race. The ballots had already been printed, so their names hadn't been removed.

So we need to hear from 3 districts as well as have absentee ballots counted to get the final tally. It is so exciting to have an election this close! We did have some problems with polling places running out of ballots which resulted in long waits in places. Amazing! That doesn't happen much because of how few people (based on our census of people eligible to vote) actually vote anymore. So running out and needing new ballots printed was actually great news to hear.

The school on our street hosted a polling station -- but not the one for me and Jim (that would've been too convenient). Wouldn't you know the dividing line was the side of the street we're on? We had to drive to our polling place and through traffic already thronging our street with people looking for places to park and a line snaking out of the building by 12:05. We got to our polling place early. The parking lots were full and people were starting to park on the street. The line inside was moving fairly quickly so we had our votes cast shortly before 12:30 p.m. Once home, we estimated a couple thousand people made it to our street's polling station to vote there just based on the amount of traffic. The flow of people continued as we headed over to Willow and Kenn's to watch the returns on CNN about half an hour before the polls closed.

My feelings were of joy and pride to see that people are believing how much this upcoming Presidential election matters for all of us and acting on that belief.

I want to thank everyone who went out and voted yesterday. You rock! And that includes everyone in the other states as well -- Democrats and Republicans!

Early Notes On Votes

Well, DH went out early to vote only to find the polls didn't open til' noon here. After cooling our heels for a few hours back at de casa, him reading and me knitting, we went back to our polling place and found a full parking lot, so we parked on the street. Inside, the line was already long and getting longer as people from three different precincts were showing up.

The school on our street is a polling place for a few other districts (our street is the dividing line and we're on the side where we have to travel a little to go vote) and the traffic on the street is misery for all the cars on it. Much worse than the after school pick up. Today I'm glad of it, because I know those people are going to vote and it makes me feel good and proud!

Oh... and I did vote for Obama!

Super Tuesday

Oh wow! Tomorrow is gonna be an even bigger day that yesterday was! I plan to be at the polls early! The race between Obama and Clinton will be a tight one, I think. My crystal ball is all clouded up, but I have a hunch though that Obama is going to have a strong, early lead.

My Fellow Americans: Go Forth And VOTE !

It Takes Cowards....

It takes some real cowards to dress mentally retarded women up with bombs and send them into market places and then detonate the bombs by remote control. Let's add this to the examples of moral & ideological bankruptcy characterizing Islamist extremism. I don't think there will be any virgins in heaven for the men who came up with that scheme! I wish I could throw my sandals in their faces! Yes, I know it's insulting.

But how contemptuous of life is it to use the weakest amongst us as tools for death? These people, mentally disabled as they are not normally a part of any culture's ideologues, theologians, firebrands or haters. I can't believe that the simplest of us us (regardless of culture) are capable of giving fully informed, knowledgeable consent as to all the ramifications of going as a living bomb into a market place: consenting to cause terror to the survivors, to bring death to a community's most common life activities because one tribe hates another and asserts the ascendancy of their sect's beliefs over the others. I doubt these women could fully know that they would leave behind grieving parents, widows, widowers who may not thank them for their loved one's deaths in their heart of hearts much less form the desire for that kind of havoc and destruction.

It's cowards who use these unknowing ones as their tools. What right thinking person anywhere in the world would say it was anything less than appalling? What? Me want to value and emulate that level of wanton uncaring? Not a chance! Not my soul!

Super Bowl Sunday

All right. I'm getting real excited now. Sunday is coming hard up on us. My prediction is that the Patriots are gonna win by at least 3 points. It's gonna be a hair puller in a few places, but overall my Pats are going to prevail and have the conclusion to a truly perfect season.

My blustery buddy in San Francisco and fellow blogger from another place, Kofla are rooting for the Giants. But my blustery buddy really floored me last night saying if it had been a match-up between the Cowboys and Patriots, he'd be 'reluctantly' rooting for the Cowboys (since he is the worlds biggest A.B.C. fan).

GO PATRIOTS!!!