When Democrats tried to make a big deal about Mitt Romney going on vacation with the family dog in a carrier on the roof of the car, right wing talk show hosts countered with Obama’s story from his autobiography about eating dog meat.
Gross? Maybe, but not that unusual in many places worldwide. In fact, the Lewis and Clark expedition used dog as a staple on their journey.
We’ll be out of the house today and tonight as our tile floors are redone.
They patched the spots that were dug up by the house leveling crew yesterday. Today they will stain grout and seal the the whole thing - once they do, we can’t walk on it for 24 hours.
Hopefully, our world will be back to what passes for normal sometime tomorrow.
The Texas primary election - postponed by wrangling in the courts over redistricting – will finally be held today.
If it doesn't accomplish anything else, it will put Mitt Romney over the top as the Republican candidate for President. That won’t make much difference in November; Texas will go to Romney, but the election will be won or lost in the Electoral College, and in a few “battleground” states, notably Florida, Virginia and Ohio.
Don’t even try to make sense of the electoral college. As one American articulated the problem: "The present rule of voting for president ... is so great a departure from the Republican principle of numerical equality ... and is so pregnant also with a mischievous tendency in practice, that an amendment of the Constitution on this point is justly called for by all its considerate and best friends."
The speaker’s name was James Madison.
I didn’t take this picture – it has been knocking around on the internet for a while – but I thought it was appropriate for today.
Just across the state line, on either side of Alabama, are the cities of Columbus, Georgia and Columbus, Mississippi. Both (along with several other cities) claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day.
“I have a good friend from Columbus, Georgia, and we go around and around on this,” said Ken P’Pool, the deputy state historic preservation officer in Mississippi. “This goes back a long, long time.”
Columbus, Miss., was a hospital town, and in many cases a burial site, for both Union and Confederate casualties of Shiloh, brought in by the trainload. And it was in that Columbus where, at the initiation of four women who met in a 12-gabled house on North Fourth Street, a solemn procession was made to Friendship Cemetery on April 25, 1866.
As the story goes, one of the women spontaneously suggested that they decorate the graves of the Union as well as the Confederate dead, as each grave contained someone’s father, brother or son.
A lawyer in Ithaca, N.Y., named Francis Miles Finch read about this reconciliatory gesture and wrote a poem about the ceremony in Columbus, “The Blue and the Gray,” which The Atlantic Monthly published in 1867.
“My view is it’s really the poem that inspired the nation,” said retired district attorney, Rufus Ward.
The Georgians dispute little of this. But they argue that the procession in the other Columbus was actually inspired by the events in their Columbus.
Either town can make a strong case for its claim, and most historians agree the decoration of graves of soldiers from both sides of the conflict was started by ladies from the Old South, but somehow Lyndon Johnson designated Waterloo, New York the official birthplace of Memorial Day by presidential proclamation in 1966.
Our driveway here at the Boggy Thicket isn’t exactly paved.
We started out with a layer of crushed concrete, and a year or so later added ground asphalt – the stuff those big machines chew off of the highway before repaving.
You would think that would provide an uninviting, if not downright inhospitable, home for plant life, but out by the road the Bermuda grass has covered all but the tracks where we normally drive.
And in some seldom used turn-around areas, we have wildflowers blooming.
They are small – the bloom is about as big around as a quarter – but there are several growing out of the asphalt.
This morning, about halfway to the street, I saw this:
No idea what it is, but the beautiful, delicate lavender of the blossom made me go grab my camera.
"We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, the winding streams with tangled growth, as 'wild'. Only to the white man was nature a 'wilderness' and only to him was it 'infested' with 'wild' animals and 'savage' people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery."
"If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the... present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitatingly set that child's feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian!"
"Praise, flattery, exaggerated manners and fine, high-sounding words were no part of Lakota politeness. Excessive manners were put down as insincere, and the constant talker was considered rude and thoughtless. Conversation was never begun at once, or in a hurried manner.
"No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation."
"From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things -- the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals -- and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery.
"Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue.
"The animals had rights -- the right of man's protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, the right to freedom, and the right to man's indebtedness -- and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved an animal and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing. For the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them."
"This concept of life and its relations was humanizing and gave to the Lakota an abiding love. It filled his being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave him reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all."
"The Lakota could despise no creature, for all were of one blood, made by the same hand, and filled with the essence of the Great Mystery. In spirit, the Lakota were humble and meek. 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth' -- this was true for the Lakota, and from the earth they inherited secrets long since forgotten. Their religion was sane, natural, and human."
"The old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man's heart away from Nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon lead to a lack of respect for humans too."
"The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power."
