The Fourth Estate Flounders...

The NYT, which ran a recent editorial explaining that the Charles Manson family's crimes were a harbinger of the Trump era, this morning calls out the president for not acknowledging fast enough for their tastes the ongoing search and recovery efforts being conducted by the U.S. Navy after a crash. But the story notes the president's press secretary did so:

Mr. Trump had a burst of seven tweets and retweets on various topics on Wednesday morning. None of his posts mentioned the United States Navy aircraft that crashed outside of Okinawa, Japan, carrying 11 crew and passengers. Eight aboard were rescued and American and Japanese naval forces were searching for the other three. It was the fifth accident this year for the Navy’s largest overseas fleet, the Seventh Fleet.

The White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, shared the Navy’s Twitter post from two hours earlier about the rescue operation describing the efforts and noting that the eight rescued were in good condition.

#BREAKING UPDATE: Eight personnel recovered following C2-A Greyhound crash and transferred to #USSRonaldReagan for medical eval. In good condition. Search and rescue for three personnel continues. More to follow.
— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) Nov. 22, 2017

And soon enough, the president too followed up, noting the three military personnel remain unaccounted for:

Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump
Retweeted U.S. Navy
The @USNavy is conducting search and rescue following aircraft crash. We are monitoring the situation. Prayers for all involved.

U.S. Navy @USNavy
#BREAKING UPDATE: Eight personnel recovered following C2-A Greyhound crash and transferred to #USSRonaldReagan for medical eval. In good condition. Search and rescue for three personnel continues. More to follow.

Will the Times update and correct their online story?  The modern American media makes themselves look small, at best, by trying to catch the president in a "gotcha!" moment, implying that he is not sending his thoughts out quickly enough via Twitter.  They also slammed him for again addressing the NFL players who refuse to honor our national anthem and the league that seemingly supports this; and for calling out the ungrateful father who publicly took on the president after his son got special presidential treatment being released from jail in China, where he was charged with shoplifting.

At worst, the modern media appears to be rooting against our country...  Sad!
 -------------

ADDED:  The original NYT story quoted above has been updated now, but without the "Correction" or  "Update" tag appended on the end, which is traditionally used in the media to indicate a story has been altered after publication.  (Very sad!)

Mr. Trump tweeted and retweeted about a variety of topics early on Wednesday morning, but it was not until 8 a.m. [EST] that the president posted about the United States Navy aircraft that crashed outside of Okinawa, Japan, carrying 11 crew and passengers. Eight aboard were rescued and American and Japanese naval forces were searching for the other three. It was the fifth accident this year for the Navy’s largest overseas fleet, the Seventh Fleet.

Mr. Trump has been briefed on the crash and posted on Twitter that he was monitoring the situation.

The media looks even smaller now, choosing to highlight the story of the ballplayer's father's gripes, while using the military crash to try and score cheap points against the president. Our country deserves better...

(Linking the Manson murders with Trump supporters, in a nod to an upcoming Race War, was truly a new low for our liberal media.  Does the media think no one is monitoring their work too?  God help them.  We Americans are better than that.)

Mike Royko: A November Farewell.

My favorite Royko column printed in November follows...

A Bit of Background:   Mike Royko was a gruff man, no doubt. But like many of this temperament, I suspect there was more gentleness underneath than the untrained eye could see. I would bet he never cheated on his wife, or pursued other pleasures that surely were available to him later in his career.

He was married at age 22 to Carol Duckman, which lasted from Nov. 6, 1954 until her death of a cerebral aneurysm in 1979 at age 44. (He got married again, in 1986, and had two more children -- a son and a daughter -- with his wife Judy, because nature affords men that opportunity.)

Royko himself died of a brain aneurysm in 1997, aged 62. He won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and throughout his career wrote 5 columns a week, along with original books and collected columns.

He and Carol had two sons themselves, David and Robert. David, a psychologist, published Royko in Love, Mike's Letters to Carol, which is worth a read, if you like that sort of thing. (Robbie was a failed bank robber, but his father was long gone before that happened...)

Here's the column from November 1979, in which Royko buttons up the Wisconsin cottage for the last time after recalling he and Carol's many happy seasons there: A November Farewell.

Gun-Deer Opener...

means "Doe on the Go"** sales... Mal and I don't participate in either, but I do note all local holidays, whether I participate or not. 

Just a heads-up, if you haven't already jumped the gun on this one and donned blaze-orange for your walks in the woods*, today is the beginning of the traditional hunting season in Wisconsin. (today through the 26th).  True, there is the youth hunt in October, and the disability-assisted season, but if you heard gunshots while you were hiking the woods earlier, they weren't hunting deer.
-------------------
* There are plenty of places to hike on public lands where hunting is not permitted either.  Don't complain. Share the woods! (remember, the deer harvested today might be the one you would have struck driving at dusk later...)

** This is a tradition for the ladies who don't hunt, and stay home while their men are at deer camp. Lots of craft bazaars, bake sales, and the "girls" getting together for their fun. I learned about this back when I worked at the pool/community center, which sponsored a Saturday sale in the gym. The nice thing is, the women generally don't bring the kids along. Don't get me wrong, I like children, but at this time of year (all year, actually), I don't like it when parents take children shopping and let them touch everything they can get their little hands on.

Nowadays, with more and more children being put in daycare with all the other little ones***, they are germ carriers, and the hands go from the mouths to ... whatever they are touching. I don't want to sit on a chair at a cafe where some little one has planted her feet for height minutes earlier, I don't want to browse and shop for products a child has already handled, and I certainly don't want to have to dodge them because the parent (or guardian) decides to take them out of the house, but indoors to exercise/get their energy out in an adult space. When children are well behaved, and understand they are in an adult space, great! Hands to yourself, no mouths on the tabletops, no spilling on the floor for the workers to clean up. No standing on the chairs, and no running around exploring and touching everything in the adult environment.

Ditto the library. Bring them directly to the children's area, and have them use the plastic-covered library books to browse through and read. But it's sad, when the bottom two or three shelves of the adults sections have to remain bare, because otherwise an ill-supervised child will be touching, touching, touching... even if the hands appear to be clean.

I guess, for me nowadays, the hunting season kicks off the winter season, where you shop sparingly, and leave your cheap, clean mittens on (not the pair the dog played with) in pushing the cart, and picking up your products. You cook your own food, because you hate to eat out when the rooms are warm and somebody is sick, and you stay healthy by drinking more water, sleeping well, and staying around healthy people. (I understand children self-immunize by "sharing" their germs, but I'm not a kid anymore, and I don't like to be exposed and have other people's conveniences and choices imposed on me.) PSA over. ;-)


*** I will never, for the life of me, understand waking children early to place them in daycare/schools, so they can learn how to take communal naptime on the floor with mats surrounded by other children, all of the same age.**** Don't get me wrong: I understand it is an economic necessity for single parents, perhaps, and others struggling to put food on the table. By by choice? Isn't a child best developing healthy habits at home, including sleeping, eating, playing and learning the basics? If you can afford it, why check them into a learning warehouse, years before they are publicly mandated, so that other people can be minimally paid to enter in and out of their social circle, teaching them what is traditionally learned at home? There are story hours at libraries, and other social activities for toddlers and the pre-school set, but more and more these days, nannies attend these things I hear, not mothers or fathers raising daily their own little ones. Sad.

**** The best teacher, other than parents, can be siblings of older ages. Do you need to be there on the childrens' playground to push the little one forever on the swing, when a child a few years more experienced can show him how to "pump" on the swingset? (Hold on tight, and lean your body forward when the swing is going backwards with your legs tucked at the knee, then shift backwards when the swing changes direction with your legs fully extended, pointing at the sky...) I don't remember the big kid that taught me this (I am one of the oldest in my family), but I know it wasn't an adult, but another child. Once you get good at pumping, and confident that you won't fall off if the child initially has a cautious streak, the sky is literally the limit! Fun! They get to master the limits, and possibilities, of their own bodies. That's worth teaching, no?

I hope one day as a collective society we raise more independent children, brought up in a more healthy natural and traditional way (nuclear families!), and there are less adults imposing themselves. Sure, be an adult: don't let the little ones out without the jacket zipped up, the boots on the right feet, and the mittens clipped to the sleeves, if they are the losing type. You're the adult in the situation, afterall. But it seems just the opposite: the children are allowed to decide how to dress, no one corrects them (even if they are not your own), and they get praised for trying, even if other adults wonder why you're playing with a kid with no coat, who has her shoes on the wrong feet...

Northwest Indiana News.

Valpo Law School declines to admit a class for next fall, after finding the school to be financially unsustainable. A decision about the long-term prospects are expected in the next six to eight months.

Northwest Indiana's only law school will have a different look next August after Valparaiso University's board of directors voted not to enroll first-year law students.

The decision, announced Thursday after a Wednesday board meeting, comes despite the fact that a year-long censure by the American Bar Association recently was lifted, and focuses on the school's declining enrollment, which has made the school financially unsustainable, officials said.

Currently enrolled students will be able to complete their education at the 138-year-old school, and officials expect to maintain the current faculty and staff.

"We made a promise to (the students) when we admitted them to provide them a legal education at a fully accredited American Bar Association law school," Mark Heckler, the university's president, said during an interview Thursday, adding the students will be provided the resources to pass the bar, career services to find jobs, and access to alumni networks. "We intend to honor that promise."

The decision was a difficult one, board chairman Frederick G. Kraegel said in a prepared statement. "As the need for legal education continues to be challenged, we have taken numerous actions during the last several years to try to stabilize the law school's financial situation."

Those actions, he said, included reducing employment levels last year in attempt to align the school's faculty and staff with its decreased student population.
...
The law school had 575 students in 2010 but that number dropped to 237 students this year, according to information provided by Niemi.

A year ago, university officials announced that the ABA had censured the law school because it was not in compliance with the association's admissions standards. The ABA notified university officials on Monday that the censure had been lifted.

The censure was not a factor in the board's decision to hold off on admitting new students, Heckler said.

"They all agreed we needed to work on lifting that censure," he said, adding the environment for law schools nationwide, with declining enrollment, was the determining factor.
...
Third-party projections and the likelihood of declining enrollment helped make the determination that the law school is financially unsustainable for the foreseeable future and its continued operation could significantly impede the university's ability to achieve its mission, vision and goals, officials said.

The board has directed the university's administration to continue exploring alternative possibilities given the law school's financial challenges. Those could include affiliating the law school with another law school, or relocating the school to another geographic market with a greater demand for legal education.
...
Not accepting students next fall allows the administration to take a pause and look at alternatives for the school's future without the extended commitment of another class, he added.

In the meantime, the university's administration will coordinate with its accrediting organizations so currently enrolled students can complete their legal educations.

Second-year students will advance next year, as will this year's class of first-year students, if they choose to remain at the law school.

"That group we'll work through their individual circumstances and what they want to do," whether that's staying at VU or transferring to another law school, with individual plans for each student, Heckler said. "That's where the anxiety was, 'Are we going to earn our degree at Valpo?' And we made it clear to them we have a commitment to them."

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

Story Update.

November 9, 2017

Chesterton police are investigating the apparent remains of human childbirth found in a portable toilet Wednesday, and said part of that investigation includes determining whether the discovery is related to a newborn girl left in a baby box at a fire station near Michigan City earlier this week.

"I cannot confirm whether it is or is not related, but it is being pursued as part of our investigation," said Chesterton Police Chief David Cincoski.

Police are treating the incident as an active case, he said, though it is not being investigated for criminal charges.

Cincoski said EMS personnel confirmed it was human.

Members of the Coolspring Township Volunteer Fire Department were called to the station around 10:24 p.m. Tuesday because someone left a newborn girl, an hour old, in the Safe Haven Baby Box. Officials said the baby girl, who was in good health and was transported to Franciscan St. Anthony Health-Michigan City, was turned over to the custody of the Indiana Department of Child Services.

Around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Chesterton police responded to the area of the Prairie Duneland bicycle rail, specifically the parking lot off of Babcock Road adjacent to the Golfview subdivision.

At approximately 1 p.m., a passerby saw in the portable toilet at that location what appeared to be the remains of a newborn human birthing process, a release from the Chesterton police said. The apparent remains were removed and a thorough search of the remainder of the contents of the tank did not reveal any other human materials, the release said.

"Don't Spew That Stuff On Me."

Never been prouder of Orrin Hatch for responding passionately, and pushing back on the notion that only today's Democrats care about the non-wealthy:

In an absolutely vicious back-and-forth, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) straight up lit into each other as emotions ran high over the highly criticized and largely unpopular tax proposal.

Hatch got things going by disputing that Republicans’ tax reform legislation was nothing more than a giveaway to the wealthy and corporations, highlighting that he comes from working-class stock.

“I come from the poor people, and I’ve been here working my whole stinking career for people who don’t have a chance,” Hatch shouted at Brown. “And I really resent anybody saying that I’m just doing this for the rich. Give me a break. I think you guys over play that all the time, and it gets old. And frankly, you ought to quit it.”

Hatch continued to tell the Ohio lawmaker he was “sick and tired of it. True it’s a nice political play.” Brown shot back that he was sick of seeing the wealthiest get “richer and richer” while the middle-class doesn’t benefit.

“How many times do we do this before you learn this?!” Brown exclaimed.

The Utah Republican countered, "Listen, I’ve honored you by allowing you to spout off here and what you said was not right. That’s all I’m saying. I come from the lower middle class originally. We didn’t have anything. So don’t spew that stuff on me. I get a little tired of that crap. And let me just say something. If you didn’t — if we [came] together, we could pull this country out of every mess it’s in and we could do a lot of the things that you’re talking about too. And I think I have a reputation of having worked..."

Hatch went on to say that he has a reputation of having worked on both sides of the aisle to get legislation passed, leading Brown to ask why they couldn’t start with CHIP. (The federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program expired on Sept. 30.)

“I’m not starting with CHIP,” Hatch responded. “I’ve done it for years. I’ve got more bills passed than everybody on this committee put together. And they’ve been passed for the benefit of people in this country.”

Hatch continued, “Now, all I can say is I like you personally very much, but I’m telling you, this bullcrap that you guys throw out here really gets old after a while and do it right at the end of this is just not right.”

 Orrin Hatch is 83 years old , and he is representing what many people in this country think.

Stifling On-Line Interactions...

Before we begin silencing people by criticizing free expression, read this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

So Much Red...

Do we really want to keep pretending that the Russians caused all that red, county by county, in the 2016 presidential race?  That doesn't bode well, moving forward as a country...

It was an Early Morning Yesterday...

I Was Up Before the Dawn...*
~ Goodbye, Stranger.  Breakfast in America. SuperTramp.

Wow, how quickly things change.  Just yesterday, the libs were trying to pass off a yearbook with obviously forged numbers in it, but they pushed too far.  Now, they are facing some rough justice themselves.  You can only cheat your way to "success" for so long before the truth comes out.  Handwriting experts or no.
-------------

And I really have enjoyed my stay...
But I must be moving on...

In the News of the Day:
Sly Stallone Goes Down, as The Daily Mail foreign newspaper unearths damning documents, and...
a Seventh Woman Comes Forward to Claim Ex-Prez Bush Pinched Her Bottom to Get His Jollies...

Something has shifted in recent days...

Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World) ...

Priceless !  (that is: $400 million in worldly currency/ $$450,312,500 with fees added)

Worth every penny.

The picture, of a serene-looking Christ dressed in blue and holding an orb, is one of fewer than 20 works by Leonardo still in existence, and was one of only 10 in history to be sold at auction.
...
Art dealer Philip Mould said, "“This is a very secular image of Christ. There’s no cross, there’s no halo, and also there’s something quite ambiguous about his appearance, a slightly gender fluid aspect to it that makes it very zeitgeisty."

“It is the face of today.”

------------------
ADDED:  Best, is the backstory...

By Julia Zorthian ~ October 12, 2017

The final privately owned Leonardo da Vinci painting is captivating the art world ahead of its auction next month — but before people knew the artist, the portrait of Jesus was nearly lost.

When experts believed “Salvator Mundi” was painted by a da Vinci follower, it sold for only $60 at a Christie’s auction in 1958. But in 2007, conservator Dianne Dwyer Modestini removed layers of paint that had been added over the centuries and scholars confirmed that the work was actually a da Vinci original.

The renowned Renaissance master painted “Salvator Mundi,” which translates to “savior of the world,” around 1500 A.D., in the same era that he completed “The Mona Lisa.”

The painting once belonged to King Charles I of England, and later his son, Charles II in the 17th century. But after that, there were no record of its whereabouts between 1763 and 1900, according to Christie’s. The auction house called the painting’s discovery and restoration “the greatest artistic rediscovery of the 21st century.”

----------------------------------
Another:

Its inclusion in the National Gallery’s landmark exhibition of 2011-12 — the most complete display of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings ever held — came after more than six years of painstaking research and inquiry to document the painting’s authenticity. This process began shortly after the painting was discovered — heavily veiled with overpaints, long mistaken for a copy — in a small, regional auction in the United States.

The painting’s new owners moved forward with admirable care and deliberation in cleaning and restoring the painting, researching and thoroughly documenting it, and cautiously vetting its authenticity with the world’s leading authorities on the works and career of the Milanese master. Dianne Dwyer Modestini, the conservator who restored the work in 2007, recalls her excitement after removing the first layers of overpaint, when she began to recognise that the painting was by the master himself. ‘My hands were shaking,’ she says. ‘I went home and didn’t know if I was crazy.’ 

--------------------

One of the most enduring and iconic images of Christ is the Salvator Mundi, or 'Savior of the World.' It depicts Christ with his right hand raised with crossed fingers while he holds an orb or globe in his left. The globe represents Earth, with Christ offering a benediction over it.

Salvator Mundi has been a great topic of discussion in recent years due to the re-discovery of a circa 1490 example by Leonardo da Vinci that had been lost.  The earliest documented owner of the painting was King Charles I of England.  After Charles's execution in 1649, however, records became muddled and the masterpiece's whereabouts unknown. That is, until it resurfaced just over a decade ago here in the United States.

After being examined by numerous art historians and specialists here in America, the work was sent to London, to be compared against Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks in the National Gallery. The world's leading experts and scholars were invited for further study the work, including Martin Kemp of Oxford University. 

Kemp said of the work "It had that kind of presence that Leonardos have ... that uncanny strangeness that the later Leonardo paintings manifest."

----------------------

Classy !

Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump
14 hours ago

To the three UCLA basketball players I say: You're welcome, go out and give a big Thank You to President Xi Jinping of China who made.....

Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump
14 hours ago

....your release possible and, HAVE A GREAT LIFE! Be careful, there are many pitfalls on the long and winding road of life!

-----------------------
Everybody plays the fool sometime.
There's no exception to the rule.
Listen, baby, it may be factual, it may be cruel, 
(I ain't lyin') everybody plays the fool...

~ Songwriters: J.R. Bailey / K. Williams / R. Clark

Poorly Written !

Wow. It appears the NYT has published Sarah Vowell's first draft here...

Bozeman, Mont. — Just as citizens suspected of conspiring with foreign governments should be investigated and prosecuted in the present, those who committed treason in the past need not be glorified. What could be more logical than taxpayers’ patriotic plea that their federal, state and municipal governments consider removing, from public property, tributes to traitors loyal to the Confederate States of America who took up arms against the United States to perpetuate the institution of slavery?

I have no qualms about tearing down bronze Confederates on government land. and I descend from one of those men.
...
I have fantasized about sawing the Confederates off my family tree, thereby whittling the branches down to Swedish Baptists who would frown upon my godless, low-key life.* But it’s worth noting that my Confederate relatives were not American traitors. They were volunteers from another sovereign state.

I'm no stranger to run-on sentences, and clearly this woman has her "name" and her PC attitude in her pocket, but I would question why this thing was ever published in the state it is.

Shall we count the errors? Is it me, or is this hard to stumble through?

Remember: Readers are our friends.
--------------

* Aren't the secular Swedes known for leading "godless, low-key lives"?
Get your stereotypes straight before spewing on paper.

If Being the President...

means you have to pre-emptively practice and master the "traditional" group handshake*, whereby each man crosses his arms in front of himself and reaches out to the men next to him -- despite their size -- in a gesture of togetherness and humanity, then I am glad our president made this appear as uncomfortable as it looks.

Why not just hold hands -- your right hand in my left hand, my right hand in the left hand of the next guy standing next to me -- without having to make it look like an international game of Twister?

If this is the only thing the media can complain that President Trump got wrong today, then we are... in good hands!

The president first crossed his hands in front of him, and then, after glancing at the leaders on either side, made a second attempt, this time lifting his arms outward, according to an Associated Press report.

Finally, Trump alighted on the correct pose: He strained to reach the hand of the far shorter Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on his left and completed the maneuver with a wincing grimace.

(The Russian guy on the left appears to me to be the smartest and most comfortable one in the pack...)
-----------------------------

* Wait, don't tell me... the liberals see this, and really miss Obama.

Say, now that the Cook County jury-duty stunt is over (did anyone really expect him to get picked?), has anyone heard when Barry O. will be appearing on Dancing with the Stars? He'll rack up another win there, surely!

Sixth Woman Accuses H.W. Bush of Groping.

She also reports the ass-grab occurred when she was taking a photo with the ex-president. She was 16; he was not in a wheelchair then.

By Aric Jenkins 6:00 AM EST
TIME magazine

Roslyn Corrigan was sixteen years old when she got a chance to meet George H.W. Bush, excited to be introduced to a former president having grown up dreaming of going into politics.

But Corrigan was crushed by her encounter: Bush, then 79 years old, groped her buttocks at a November 2003 event in The Woodlands, Texas, office of the Central Intelligence Agency where Corrigan’s father gathered with fellow intelligence officers and family members to meet Bush, Corrigan said. Corrigan is the sixth woman since Oct. 24 to accuse Bush publicly of grabbing her buttocks without consent.

“My initial action was absolute horror. I was really, really confused,” Corrigan told TIME, speaking publicly for the first time about the encounter. “The first thing I did was look at my mom and, while he was still standing there, I didn’t say anything. What does a teenager say to the ex-president of the United States? Like, ‘Hey dude, you shouldn’t have touched me like that?’”

Corrigan said the incident happened while she was being photographed standing next to Bush. Five other women have made similar claims against Bush in recent weeks. Seven people, including family members and friends, confirmed to TIME that they had been told about alleged groping by Bush of Corrigan prior to the other recent allegations.

“George Bush simply does not have it in his heart to knowingly cause anyone harm or distress, and he again apologizes to anyone he may have offended during a photo op,” Bush spokesperson Jim McGrath said in a statement to TIME.

Previously, McGrath said Bush “has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner,” additionally attributing the act to his diminished height after being confined to a wheelchair since 2012.

Bush was standing upright in 2003 when he met Corrigan.
...
“As soon as the picture was being snapped on the one-two-three he dropped his hands from my waist down to my buttocks and gave it a nice, ripe squeeze, which would account for the fact that in the photograph my mouth is hanging wide open,” Corrigan said...

Her mother, Sari, said Corrigan told her about the encounter as soon as Bush stepped away.

“When he left, my daughter Rozi said, ‘He grabbed me on the rear end.’ And I said, ‘What, what?'” Sari said. “And she said, ‘Yes, he grabbed me when they were taking the picture. He grabbed me on my butt.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god, are you kidding me?’

“I was really, really upset — she was very upset, she was really, really mad,” she added. Sari said she would have tried to take action “had it been just some Joe Blow or something. I’d probably chase him down and yell at him.”

“But, you know, it’s the president. What are you supposed to do?” she said in a Oct. 28 interview. “And you’ve got your husband’s job that could be in jeopardy. I mean, you just didn’t then. You should—you should have always spoken up, always—but we didn’t.”

Within the next few days, Corrigan told her childhood friend Chelsea Wellman about the alleged groping as well, Wellman told TIME on Oct. 27.

Christopher Yarbrough, who was married to Corrigan from 2010 until their divorce the following year, said on Oct. 27 he learned about the incident about a month after they started dating in 2005. One day, the two were going through scrapbooks at Sari’s house, he said, when they flipped to a page revealing the photo with Bush. He said that Corrigan then told him about the encounter with the former president.

Tristan Voskuhl, who went to Sam Houston State University with Corrigan, said Corrigan first told her about the incident in 2006 when they were 19 years old. Bob Unseld, a family friend, said Sari first told him of the incident in 2013. “She didn’t say it just once. She told me this several times that he had done this to Rozi. It made her very mad.” Paul Weins, Unseld’s husband, also said he heard Sari’s account of the incident in 2013.

H.W. was 79 at the time of the alleged incident and an ex-president of the United States; the young woman was 16.

Will the legacy hold?
 --------------------------------------
In Other News:
Last week, Charlie Sheen was named as the older actor who allegedly introduced Corey Haim to sex raped Corey Haim in Chicago, on the set of the 1986 film Lucas.*

Haim, now dead, was 13 when he starred in the film.  Sheen, now HIV+, was 19.  The rumors in Hollywood have long circulated...

Sheen, and Haim's mother, deny the accusations.
---------
* From Ebert's review:
"The film centers on the character of Lucas, a skinny kid with glasses and a shock of unruly hair and a gift for trying to talk himself into situations where he doesn't belong.

Lucas is played by Corey Haim, who was Sally Field's son in Murphy's Romance, and he does not give one of those cute little boy performances that get on your nerves.

He creates one of the most three-dimensional, complicated, interesting characters of any age in any recent movie. If he can continue to act this well, he will never become a half-forgotten child star, but will continue to grow into an important actor. He is that good."

"Lucas was written and directed by David Seltzer, who obviously has put his heart into the film. He also has used an enormous amount of sensitivity. In a world where Hollywood has cheapened the teenage years into predictable vulgarity, he has remembered how urgent, how innocent and how idealistic those years can be. He has put values into this movie.

It is about teenagers who are learning how to be good to each other, to care, and not simply to be filled with egotism, lust and selfishness, which is all most Hollywood movies think teenagers can experience. Lucas is one of the year's best films, and although its three stars are all teenagers, I doubt if anyone of any age will give more sensitive and effective performances this year."

~ Roger Ebert.

Big News in Minneapolis

Two men stabbed yesterday at the Mall of America. Much publicity going into the holiday season, many police respond with scared shoppers taking cover:

MINNEAPOLIS -- Authorities say one person is in custody and two people were hurt after a stabbing at the Macy's store at the Mall of America Sunday night.

Bloomington police responded to Macy's at the Mall of America at about 6:44 p.m. on a report of a stabbing. When officers arrived, they learned the incident started after a theft was interrupted.

Police identified the suspect as 20-year-old Mahad Abdiaziz Abdirahaman of Minneapolis, CBS Minnesota reports. He's being held on two counts of first-degree assault.

Police say the stabbing happened in a dressing room at the Macy's store. Authorities say a suspect was trying to steal belongings from another person in the fitting room, was confronted by the person and then stabbed the person.

A second person was also stabbed trying to stop the initial theft and stabbing. Police say both stabbing victims suffered non-life threatening injuries.

While the Macy's store closed early, the Mall of America stayed open and was not placed on lockdown.

Nice Feature.

I like how Google email provides the reader with the first 6 or 7 words of an email message to let you know if it's worth opening or not. Saves time, and helps keep the blood pressure low, knowing whether or not the sender is communicating in good faith, or merely playing online games, trying to irritate you...

Click, click, click, click, click, click....
Sent to Trash.

"Your Health is your Wealth."
I wonder how many people understand that making a nutritious meal daily, and getting outside moving your body and breathing fresh air, is how you stay healthy. Not paying into the industrial medical complex, waiting for that "magic" cure, and getting diagnosed with whatever is currently trendy.

Not my business, which is why I refuse to subsidize it with direct payments to the insurance companies, nevermind the tax dollars they take from me annually...

God bless, readers.
Live and learn.

ADDED: The dog has been limping for the past few days... He can bear weight, but something was wrong with one of the front paws. I contacted his vet (made an appointment for a teeth cleaning, but for another week out) and told them I'd bring him in for an "emergency" appointment, if he wasn't better after the weekend. Today, I found one of his nails from a paw in his bedding, and having shed this, he was back to his old doggy self -- running great outside in the dusting of snow we got overnight.

Finally, the cold spell broke -- we've been below average for the past 15 days, but got above freezing at 40 degrees in sunshine today, and my boy romped! I wear cheap gloves, and we love to play the game where he takes off, drops it, grabs it when I get close, shakes that thing like a critter!, and takes off again... He's 20 pounds of terrier, almost 10(?) years old, and a healthy eater with a muscular body.

I wish everyone could have a dog like him... Buddy boy is the best.

Consider: Elvis Courted 14-year-olds...

and he's still considered America's "King".
Moral distaste doesn't always win the day, sadly.

There are many reasons Alabamians might not want to elect Roy Moore as their senator. Most people who have done their homework know of these, and it doesn't take 39-year-old accusations that suddenly appear on the eve of an important national election to convince them.*

Odd that the woman never found her voice until the WaPo reporters came a-calling, soliciting sources for their story. Too bad they didn't publish it when Luther Strange was running... or during the height of Moore's popularity in the George W. Bush years.
------------
* If I were a gambling woman, I would consider the ultimate non-impact on last year's election results of the Access Hollywood tape/story that appeared only on the eve of the presidential election last year. Similar situations: Facts are facts, but voters understand when they are being manipulated. Sometimes, you really can sit on a story for too long...

UPDATE: If you read the above, and think I support rape, silence or Roy Moore, read it again.

I won't be surprised if Alabama elects this man as a senator from their state, and I only wish the national media would have broken the story back when the state Supreme Court justice was refusing to uphold the law in his courtrooms, with the gay marriage decision and the 10 Commandments one too, which reinforced the importance of the American First Amendment. (Clearly, Roy Moore does not share this belief.) In fact, I think the two issues go together: people in America should have their private religious beliefs, but I have always thought -- it's the reason I applied to law school! -- that those who do not find acceptance in their religious communities should be assured equal rights in the civil courts. Gay marriage does that: offers those who come up in religious environments the necessary security in knowing that under America's civil system of law, they can form legal and healthy relationships in our shared country.

Too bad the woman who was a minor when the alleged molestation activity occurred was unable to find her voice, in the many years after she became an adult, until only on the eve of that national election, after Moore won the Republican primary election. I suspect the delay will prove costly, and there is a good chance that Moore will be elected a senator by the people of Alabama.

(Hope this helps clarify... Try and think about complexity before you spew anger, please. And if you still don't understand my thoughts here, try reading it again... with a more open mind.)

Rice Lake Warriors...

heading to State!
Div.3 plays at 10am Friday in Camp Randall.
#Team #HolySpirit #BednarekFan

To Each His Own...

Sammy Sosa fully transitions into a white man.

Louis siCK.

That is all.

ADDED: Tig Notaro called it.

Do the Right Thing...

Who doesn't love a happy ending beginning?

The silent alarm on the Safe Haven Baby Box at the Coolspring Township Volunteer Fire Department in Michigan City, Indiana has been tripped before, fire officials there said, mostly by people curious about the box on the east side of the building.

So when Chief Mick Pawlik's pager went off Tuesday night, he assumed it was another false alarm. He hoped it wasn't a baby, he said, because he was in his pajamas.

When he saw something in the box after getting the page at 10:24 p.m. and arriving at the station, he thought it was a dog or a raccoon. That's not what he found.

"I can see this sweatshirt. I can see this little baby arm," he said during a Wednesday news conference at the fire station.

Fire officials lauded the decision to put the baby girl, who they said was about one hour old, wrapped in a gray hoodie and with a few inches of her umbilical cord still attached, in the box, a move that likely saved the infant's life.

"I would really like to thank the mother who did this, for doing the right thing," said Assistant Chief Warren Smith, who lobbied the department for the box, which was installed April 28, 2016. "This just happens to be a story that turned out really well."

Fire officials said Tuesday night marked the first time an infant has been left in one of the boxes.

According to the Safe Haven Baby Boxes website, there are two such boxes in Indiana. The second box is at the fire department in Woodburn; no other locations are listed on the website. Under the state's Save Haven Law a person can anonymously give up an unwanted infant less than 30 days old at a police station, fire department or hospital without fear of arrest or prosecution.

Smith pressed for the box after several babies were found abandoned in LaPorte County over several years, though Pawlik said the department initially faced criticism for installing the box.

Having the box is an option, Pawlik said, adding law enforcement officials will never know the number of babies abandoned in the county.

"I can't express how happy I am for this call," he said, adding of the baby's mother, "it's the hardest decision she'll ever make and it was a wise one."
...
"It makes me feel like it's part of something special and it is something special. We saved a life last night," he said.

Firefighter Nick Fekete, who also was at the station when the infant was found, said he had the utmost praise for the baby's mother.

"I don't know what she was going through. It was just a great decision," he said.
...
Under Indiana's Safe Haven Law, a person can give up an unwanted infant anonymously without fear of prosecution, according to the DCS website.

As long as there are no signs of intentional abuse on the baby, no information is required of the person leaving the baby. Once the baby is examined and given medical treatment, if needed, DCS will take the baby into custody through Child Protective services, where it will be placed with a caregiver, according to the website.

The Safe Haven Baby Box is heated, Pawlik said, and once the door is opened, it locks when it shuts. An interior door to the box is located in his office inside the fire station.

Pawlik said he left the infant in the box until medics arrived so she would stay warm, though his instinct was to pick her up. The baby, he added, was calm, certainly calmer than he was.

"It's very rewarding," he said. "I don't look at it like we're heroes or nothing. We're serving the public here."

Indeed!

Must Be a Wisconsin Kid...

Photo Credit:  Mom via Mal.

"No Parking !"

Action Photos are the Best !

"Where There's a Will..."

.

53 years...

and still going Strong!

Dad and Mom...

...and "Papa" and my grandmother,
who was in heaven before I was born.
(plus, some woman who apparently did not approve
of Public Displays of Affections ;-)

St. Felicitas, October 1964.
(Sr. Kathleen, Aunt Kathleen, Joe Hession and Uncle Joe)
with little Debbie serving as the flower girl

Oh, the things you find on other people's Facebooks...
Thank you for sharing!

.

Personal Record.

She P.R'd, placing 33rd in Illinois Division 3A -- running 3 miles in 17:37.

 
“….I firmly believe that any person’s finest hours – her greatest fulfillment of all that she holds dear – is that moment when she has worked her heart out in good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”

“The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel --- these are the things what will endure and these are the qualities that are so much more important than any of the events themselves.”

~ Vince Lombardi, on Excellence

2 Runners and 3 Coaches.

“They call it coaching but it is teaching. You do not just tell them…you show them the reasons.”








“After all the cheers have died down and the stadium is empty, after the headlines have been written, and after you are back in the quiet of your room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser and after all the pomp and fanfare have faded, the enduring thing that is left is the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.”
----------------------

ADDED: I truly believe that the way women are progressing from generation to generation is in teaching them the potential of their physical strength, and helping them to learn how to work as teammates in life.



Good work, all around !

Life Is Good.

-----------------------
Meanwhile, my eldest niece -- in her senior season -- qualified for State in cross-country this year, and is running today in the final race of her high-school career.

She put in the work, and went from Most Improved runner her freshman year, kept dropping her times throughout her varsity career, and was one of two from her team to qualify. (and did this proud auntie mention she scored a 1600 on the SAT's as well?)

Hard work pays off. They show us that, everyday...

Go 'Cats!

It's Too Soon, Really...

Bush 41 and Bush 43 Worry Trump Is Blowing Up the G.O.P.

A new book on the two Bushes who served in the White House provides a glance at their apprehension over Mr. Trump’s rise to power and what it means for the country. The first book ever written with their cooperation about their relationship, it also opens a window into the only father-and-son tandem to hold the presidency since John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

In “The Last Republicans,” Mark K. Updegrove chronicles an era that feels almost dated in today’s reality-show politics, when the Republican establishment controlled the party and Washington, and when a single family could occupy the presidency and vice presidency for a combined 20 years.

Neither of the two Republican former presidents voted for Mr. Trump — the father voted for Hillary Clinton and the son voted for “none of the above,” as he told Mr. Updegrove.

Sorry, George Jr.
America is still paying the price for the Bush-era mistakes, from the hanging chads to the purple-finger promises; open borders to a wrecked economy...

You broke it; Trump bought it -- fair and square.
Go home and paint your toes in the bathtub.  It's too soon to think that the young people coming up have no sense of history, and that we've forgotten what your reign really cost us. #NeverForget

(The trouble with George W. is that he is a perpetual boy.  Trump is a man, for all his perceived faults.  Therein lies the difference...)

Barbara Bush told Mr. Updegrove that she believed Mr. Cheney changed because of his health troubles, including a heart attack followed by a stent operation shortly after the 2000 election. “I do think he was different,” she said. “I think his heart operation made a difference. I always liked him, but I didn’t like him so much for a while because I thought he hurt George. I wasn’t that fond of him. I think he pushed things a little too far right.”

The younger Mr. Bush resented the implication that anyone was steering him. “The fact that there was any doubt in anyone’s mind about who the president was blows my mind,” he said. He added that Mr. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, his defense secretary, “didn’t make one fucking decision.”

So quoted in the NYTimes, talking tough...
Go home already, son.

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Egan: Quit Yer Bitchin'...

Egan, a drop-in op-ed writer at the NYT, bemoans the fact that white 1%'ers like himself are being asked to pay (gasp!) $70 per carload, per week, to access the national parks that he is so fond of...

Do the math:  with 2 grown children*, and a wife, in tow... his family of four would pay only $2.50 per person, per day to enter America's greatest treasures.  Less if you buy the annual pass. And he is bitching and moaning here, why exactly?

About

I am currently one of the many insignificant bipeds systematically trying to create my own slice of nirvana here on earth. My personal idea of nirvana may be different from yours, but all in all we are equally yearning for the same aspirations in life – the avoidance of pain and an increase in pleasure – whatever that means to you and how you accomplish it is within your own personal agenda.

Some would say I seem to be in the throes of modern human angst. Quite the contrary. But, haven’t we all been there at one time or another? If you haven’t, well, I am totally worried for you. You are either in complete denial, delusional, or perhaps happy with your own personal ignorance. Today, possibly moreso than at any other time, there are just too many challenges going on in the world. If you’re not aware of this fact you should become aware, very quickly.

That aside, I am mostly happy with my life. I have all the food I could ever need, reasonably clean drinking water, my income is in the top 1% of the world’s population, I live in a nice home, I have personal transport that will take me anywhere and at anytime I so choose. In general, life is good. Of course, and as mentioned above, those pesky little issues going on in this country and throughout the world need to be nipped in the bud, pruned down to a more manageable state, and most important, some type of organic bug spray must be applied. I will get to those uncared for rosebushes in time, one by one providing my opinion on the topic at hand. Perhaps even some solutions. For what is an opinion without solutions? Nothing of importance.


I find writing behind a monitor can be such a solemn act. It’s interesting in this day and age, we have taken human interaction out of the cafes, the coffee shops, and such, and it has now become digital, virtual so to speak. We read and dream in pixels for the most part. We are all here, living in a virtual reality, everything tangible around us set aside and ignored, and in many ways we are more distant than ever before, yet so close in proximity we could touch atoms.  I suppose  living as we do now in this modern world is better than having no communication whatsoever, but I still feel a sort of disconnect from the human community out there. I’m sure I will get over it. Just like time, mainstream culture continues to move forward, unabated, regardless of my personal view. I sometimes wonder: ‘May I remove myself from this speeding train?’ I think not even if I tried.
Timothy Egan

I suspect that was written before (gasp!) America elected Donald Trump as president.  The world is going to hell in a handbasket now, you know, and it's all Trump's fault!  (Maybe Egan could start a GoFundMe begging fund, so he could afford the long-overdue national park price increases to take his fresh air ?)

{T}he Trump administration has proposed nearly tripling the entrance fees to select national parks, to $70.

The man who loves nothing so much as his gold-plated bathroom fixtures wants to gouge people who want to experience something that all of Donald Trump’s minions could never create. It’s a teardrop in the federal budget, but is emblematic of the ocean of wrong coming from this president.

First, we already own these parks — Glacier, Olympic, Mount Rainier, Zion, Yellowstone, the names themselves music to lovers of magic in the natural world. They are a birthright of citizenship.

---------------------------------
*  If my internet research is correct, he's got one at Medill in the graduate masters' degree program, and one already a published author.  Coming up in their father's footsteps like that, you'd hope they have a better sense of the maths to accompany the entitlement mentality...

"The Only Winning Move is Not to Play..."

Heard Ron Chernow on NPR/WPR this morning, plugging his new book, Grant.*  He assumes that John Kelly does not know his country's history: the many compromises on slavery that took place before the Civil War. Why does everyone ass-u/me that Kelly meant the North should have continued compromising by allowing slavery to exist?  That's a bit too simplistic, no?

Sam Houston: Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win southern independence, but I doubt it. The north is determined to preserve this union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates, but when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche.

Was the bloody civil war really unavoidable? Could the North have -- in time -- convinced the Southern economy to free their slaves, but to continue a share-cropping economy, as happened to many of the freed people during and after Reconstruction?

Those who insist that we accept the bloody war as the only means possible of going forward as one nation are guilty of limited thinking. In my mind, they are willing us into another. You can't read about Andersonville, and the butchery, and the living conditions after the war, without wondering if slavery might have been abolished without such a bloody toll for so many.

Today, we should be addressing national issues such as affirmative action, and considering whether reparations and discrimination based on a person's skin color are the only ways our country can heal and move forward. Sometimes, looking back, the price paid by so many is not in saying the goal was not worth achieving, but in wondering if America might have been able to achieve the same ends without paying such a costly price...

Honest minds indeed can disagree.
And as a military man, John Kelly knows the price ultimately paid.

Let's not assume that violence, and such deadly ends, are the only way -- or the best way -- to achieve our country's goals. (Didn't we learn anything in the past decade-plus of America's war years? Do those who assume John Kelly does not know his history really understand the price paid? Have we really not evolved at all as a People in the last century and a half, and do we still hold force and violence as the ultimate method of persuasion?)

Maybe it's the Irish in me, but there can be better ways of achieving change other than warring for progress...
-----------------

* If you haven't already, read the General's memoirs first, before investing in Chernow's latest biography.

Glad I'm Out of that Business...

Journalists debate if profitability is a necessary industry requirement, or if they are entitled to be subsidized.

ADDED: Joe Ricketts is not your enemy.
Read and consider the complexities?

(Focus on those last two paragraphs...)

Athletes Too.

The future of the WNBA, Breanna Stewart, tells her story here.

I believe her.