America's Battalion

The Marine's 2d Battalion, 8th Regiment is fighting in Afghanistan as a part of the "surge" into Helmand province. The 2/8 is called "America's Battalion" and has a storied history, having served at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Okinawa in World War II as well as service in Iraq and other places around the world. Now they're in Afghanistan, doing what Marines do best, taking the fight to the enemy. Check out the 2/8's Official Website for some great information about "America's Battalion."

Although for some reason the "mainstream media" seems to think it more important to report on the death of and memorial services for a suspected pedophile and confirmed strange, weird, sad man, there are some excellent reports on "America's Battalion" and the "surge" in Afghanistan on the internet. National Public Radio has been following the 2/8's deployment into Afghanistan and has been reporting on the 2/8's efforts, as well as the impact of the deployment on families and loved ones. Unlike some of NPR's reporting, this series seems to be pretty balanced. Check out the series articles on NPR's website. Pat Dollard also has a post about the 2/8 Marines on his excellent website.

Happy Birthday, Buddy

I have two younger sisters. Once upon a time, my middle sister categorized us as "the smart one, the athletic one, and the pretty one." She called me the smart one. Well, I'm not so sure about that most times; but I do know that our youngest sister (I'll call her Buddy) was the athletic one. In High School, many-many moons ago, Buddy played basketball, softball, and ran track. As a Senior, she was named the athlete of the year for her High School. She's stayed active in sports, particularly softball, while raising three great kids. She coaches and she referees. She's most definitely still the athletic one. But you know, she also is a pretty smart cookie. It takes smarts to raise three kids, particularly after a divorce. It takes smarts to realize what you need in your life in order to be happy and then courage to go for it. It takes smarts to learn what you need to learn to have a good career and a wonderful future. I think Buddy is really the smart one. (Maybe that makes me the pretty one....well maybe not....)

Anyway, today is Buddy's birthday. I want to tell her how much I love and admire her; for her compassion, for her intelligence, and for her beauty. She is another strong woman in this family of mine that contains so many strong women, and I'm very proud to be her sister.

Happy Birthday, Buddy! Have a wonderful day today, and a fantastic year....you deserve it because it's never to late for happily ever after!

Amazing Nature

I live in "Flyover Country." It's beautiful here where the Earth's wonders are displayed in all their glory. Within 30 miles, you can be in the midst of Alpine splendor or deep in the awesome grandeur of desert country. You can see nature's sandstone sculptures and marvel at the vastness of open spaces. I live close to one National Park, a National Monument, and two National Forests. It's marvelous to be surrounded by such natural beauty. But even with all this beauty, the Earth can be treacherous. Yesterday, we had an example of just how quickly all this beauty can become dangerous. It rained. Flyover Country needs the rain, but this was a RAIN. It came down hard and fast. Then it quit. But, as happens in there was too much water, coming down too fast. The ground just couldn't absorb it fast enough. So we had a little flash flood. Fortunately, most of the flash flood was contained to the river that runs through Flyover Country, but it still demonstrated just how furious, and how dangerous, Nature can be. A friend of mine, Torrybob, took videos of the river (at a place where the river goes down a little fall) before and during the flood.

Here's how the river normally looks at the falls:



Here's how the river looks during a flash flood:



Awesome, isn't it!

Happy 4th of July!

I love Independence Day! Maybe it's because Independence Day comes in the summer...you know those days when you were a kid when you wore a bathing suit all day long and played outside from the time you went to swimming lessons in the morning until the street lights came on in the evening and you had to come in the house. Maybe it's because Independence Day is a day you can make things explode and sparkle...remember waiting for dark then lighting sparklers and using them to write your name in the air or the thrill of watching a wonderful fireworks display? Maybe it's because of the celebratory picnics and BBQs with friends and family eating tasty burgers, hot dogs, and watermelon. Maybe it's because of all those things and because Independence Day is a day for remembering and celebrating just how wonderful our National experiment is and how blessed we are to live in the United States. I love this Country. I'm glad that I've been able to use my talents in her service. I'm proud that my children have chosen to do the same. I guess one of the reasons I love Independence Day is because it's the birthday of this great Nation. So have a safe, happy and fun-filled Independence Day, and take time to remember and say a prayer for those who celebrate this day while serving overseas.

Breaking the Barrier

Now this is a really cool picture of an F-22 breaking the sound barrier! GO AIR FORCE! According to FoxNews (where I saw the picture, although it's going around the internet), here's what scientists think happens:

"A layer of water droplets gets trapped between two high-pressure surfaces of air. In humid conditions, condensation can gather in the trough between two crests of the sound waves produced by the jet."

Whatever it is that produces the vapor cone, or shock collar, or whatever it is they call it....the picture is really cool!

Suddenly.....

Have you ever had one of those moments when something that you've done, over and over again, suddenly strikes you in a different way? Maybe this something strikes you as suddenly funny, or suddenly scary, or suddenly poignant. Well, that happened to me today. There I was, in Church (a gorgeous, brand-new chapel, by the way), singing a beautiful song that I've sung a hundred times before, when the words of the song struck me right in the heart with suddenly poignant meaning. It was the third verse of "America the Beautiful." You know the verse that goes,

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!

Maybe it was the spirit found in that beautiful, new chapel amongst the congregation was so strong; maybe it was that I love this Country; or maybe it was because two of my three children have chosen to serve "America the Beautiful" by risking their lives in foreign lands to protect her and her citizens; what ever it was, I lost it. The poignant words of that verse in that beautiful song touched me. Hard. It was so sudden that I managed to control the tears running from my eyes, but only barely. I couldn't sing; I was too choked up. I couldn't do anything but send a silent prayer to my Heavenly Father for all those heroes, including my two children, who "more than self their country love" and who serve in her Armed Forces. My God bless them all and bring them home safely.

Sevilla

Sevilla, my beautiful and brilliant daughter, leaves this weekend for a year-long deployment. She is my firstborn; the miracle with the eyes so big it seemed they were all you could see of her newborn face. For me, she is still the two-year-old who could carry on an fascinating conversation with adults or the gifted 5th grader who didn't think she needed to do her homework, because she got 100s on all the tests. For me, she is still the teenager who loved to dance and the young woman who could write an essay in less than an hour that was so impressive her instructor posted it for everyone to read.

For me, she will always be that baby, that little girl, and that teenager; yet I know that she has grown-up and has developed into a complex, fascinating woman. She is a wonderful mother to another gorgeous and talented little girl. She is a strong young woman with a poet's soul. She's my daughter and she's also my friend and I love her on so many different levels. I'm proud of her; what she's done with her life and what she's chosen to do with her future. Of course, I'd love to keep her home and safe, she is my child after all; but it is her choice to serve and I will support her in any way I can.

Sevilla, I love you. Stay safe. Mom

A Pig is a Pig is a Pig!

If it looks like a pig, smells like a pig, and sounds like a pig....is it a pig? I think ABC News' plan to promote the President's health care agenda, without offering any opposing views, looks, smells, and sounds like a pig....or in this case, a biased media outlet. Check out the story on the Drudge Report.

On June 24th, ABC News will air from the White House, and will later broadcast a "primetime special" on health care reform from the East Room of the White House. They also plan to air segments supporting health care reform on various other ABC programs. However, ABC News will not allow any opposing views on the health care debate on any of these programs. Why not?

In my view, ABC News relinquished any claim to objectivity or bias-free reporting during the election, but this move has "sealed the deal." By refusing to allow opposing views during an all-out blitz in favor of President Obama's health care proposals, ABC News is nothing less than a mouthpiece for the Democrats and liberal special interest groups. Ken McKay, the Republican National Committee's Chief of Staff, in a letter to ABC said that he finds

"it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party's opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers. In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers."

Great suggestion! If the news is no longer objective reporting of facts, and objective analysis of those facts, it should be made clear to the public watching or listening to that news. Call a pig a pig and an infomercial an infomercial! Mr McKay goes on to make an excellent point,

"President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime."

Absolutely! If, as it appears, ABC is using it's programming as an infomercial to "sell" the President's health care reform package to it's viewers, then the President's party should pay for the airtime and it should be made clear to the viewers that the programming is a "paid political announcement." After all, if its a pig, it should be called a pig!

Have a Great Flag

Happy Flag Day!

Love Story meets Viva La Vida!

I have a cousin who lives on a 1/2 acre of happiness. Although she's my cousin, she's really the age of my kids and I didn't grow up playing with her, like I did some of my other cousins; but I love her nonetheless. She's a great person, a wonderful mom, and a really cool lady. Anyway, I hope she doesn't mind but I committed a bit of petty theft this morning. She had a post on her blog introducing this wonderful video found on YouTube. The video was produced by a person named Jon Schmidt, who arranged an absolutely wonderful song. He combined Taylor Swift's Love Story with Coldplay's Viva La Vida. The result is fantastic. Now I must admit, I love Taylor Swift's songs. I haven't heard a single one that I don't like. I also like some of Coldplay's music. But this arrangement combines the best of both. You gotta watch the video. Here it is:

Criminal or Terrorist?

According to this article on FoxNEWS, persons, non-citizens, who are detained on the battlefield (or other places...since who can determine where a battlefield really is in these times), are now read Miranda rights; just like they were US citizens. Not only is this just wrong, but it is extremely stupid, too! I agree with those who criticize this practice (according to the story, Republicans and terrorism experts); this is evidence of a shift a shift in how we see and define terrorism. At issue here is whether terrorism is an act of war or is it a criminal act.

Now this is not just a question of semantics. How we, as a Nation, define a particular act and person who has committed that act drives how we respond to that act. For example, if a citizen of another country shoots a soldier guarding the entrance to a US base overseas, is that person a terrorist or a criminal? If that person is captured immediately, should we interrogate that non-citizen to determine if there are additional threats to US personnel or US interests or should we interrogate her with an eye toward prosecution in a US criminal court for the crime she committed while giving her all the rights a US citizen would enjoy? I understand that it would be nice if we could do both. I believe that's what the Bush administration was trying to do, by labeling someone involved in aggressive actions towards the US as an unlawful detainee and giving them limited rights. The detainees were interrogated to see if they knew something that might stop future attacks or if they had information of value to intelligence; but they were also interrogated to see if they had evidence that would be useful in prosecuting others or themselves.

According to the article "Terrorism analyst Neil Livingstone called the move a 'dramatic shift' in policy." Mr Livingstone said, "[We're] going back to the bad old days that gave rise to 9/11 when we treated terrorism as though it were a criminal problem, not as a war or not as an attack on the United States. We don't want to have to make a legal determination every time we go after a terrorist whether we've got a good case or not, we should go after them as enemy combatants of the United States."

I agree with Mr Livingstone. Except for certain jobs, most of the members of our Armed Forces are not law enforcement specialists. They are warriors. They fight. They should not be made to collect evidence or investigate. I also agree with Representative Pete Hoekstra, a Republican representative from Michigan and the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, when he expressed concern about going backwards to treating terrorism with a law enforcement mentality. He was right on the money when he said, "I think it's a really lousy way to fight a war. ... This dramatically changes the way that our frontline forces work."

This dangerous shift in the underlying philosophy of how we treat and deal with terrorists is a regression to the Clinton-era policies that lead to the "firewall" between intelligence-gathering and criminal investigation that contributed to the failures that led to the successful terrorist attack on 9/11. Much of what this new administration has done concerns me....but this shift from prosecuting a war to prosecuting criminals represents a mistaken view that will make protecting this Nation so much more difficult. It's not just semantics!

Obama is "sort of God"

I wonder how anyone could believe there isn't any bias in the mainstream media, what with some reporters feeling "tingly" in their legs at the mention of President Obama and other reporters so effusive with their praise of the President, his policies, and his administration that it seems any objective reporting from those reporters has gone by the wayside. Anyone who has doubts that there is a "cult of personality" around President Obama, and that many in the mainstream press are card-carrying members, should check out this video of Newsweek Editor Evan Thomas: