The Daily Brief

Timmer’s upset at the media attacks on Gov. Palin. So am I.

As a fairly strong, successful woman, I took offense every time Hillary played the victim card during the primaries (”you’re picking on me because I’m a woman”). Either you’re strong enough to run this country, or you’re not. The presidency is not a place for thin-skinned victim-mongers.

Sarah Palin got to where she is without playing the victim card, so far as I can tell. And I respect that.

I’m not a politician (nor do I want to be), but I am my own person, who got where I am without playing any victim cards. The most common phrase I heard when I was growing up was “girls don’t do that.” Girls don’t play drums (pre-Karen Carpenter). Girls don’t work on cars. Girls don’t drive tractors. Girls don’t take shop class. Girls don’t take vocational agriculture, but we have a very nice home-ec program if you’d like, or maybe the horticulture class? So I don’t play drums, but I learned how to change my own oil, I helped my dad bush-hog the fields, I took wood-shop in summer school. Today, I can build or repair computers, recently built my own rain-barrels, swapped out regular light-switches for motion-sensor light switches, swapped out ceiling light fixtures, and all kinds of other things that “girls don’t do,” according to my early childhood.

My grandfathers were coal-miners. One was also a share-cropper. I have no idea about their fathers/grandfathers — none of us know anything much about our families before the most recent generations. Although I do know that on my mother’s side, the family was split during the civil war – one brother wore blue, one wore gray.

Neither of my parents graduated high school. Mom dropped out after her junior year so she could get a job and help out at home. Dad dropped out because he didn’t like school. My dad joined the Marines at 17 so he could stay out of the coal mines. Mom got married at 18 to get away from home. Her first husband thought she’d make a good punching bag, so she left him. She and my dad were together for 2 years before they married, and she was 3-4 months pregnant with my brother when she married my dad (in 1954). She hid that for 20 years because she was so embarrassed about it. When she died in 2003, they’d been married 50 years.

I’m the youngest in my immediate family, and I was the first one to go to college. When I wanted a college degree, I found financial aid, and joined the National Guard (dad was handicapped and folks had no money). When I needed to pay off college loans, and figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, I joined the Air Force. When that stopped being fun, I got out and figured out what I really wanted to be when I grew up, and started pursuing those types of jobs.

I survived two years of unemployment while living alone, 500 miles away from my family and 1000 miles away from my best support system.

I have spent the last 25 years working in career fields that are mostly male-dominated (military, IT), and have never needed to play any kind of victim card, or gender card. All I’ve needed to do is learn my job, do my job, and be a grown up. I learned early on that whining at work was NOT the way to get ahead.

Gov. Palin is a grown up. She has my vote. And yeah, like Timmer says, they’re not just attacking Gov. Palin. They’re attacking me. I’m not a politician, or a former beauty queen, or a wife & mother, but I’m an independent, strong-minded, successful, conservative woman, who comes from “fly-over country.” Like Gov. Palin. Like Sgt Mom. Like my best friend in Texas, and most of the women that I know.

The media has no idea who we are. They may never know. But we know who we are. And we know who Sarah Palin is. She’s one of us.

Jerry Reed passes away at 71.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol’ boy actor in car chase movies like “Smokey and the Bandit,” has died of complications from emphysema at 71.

His longtime booking agent, Carrie Moore-Reed, no relation to the star, said Reed died early Monday.

“He’s one of the greatest entertainers in the world. That’s the way I feel about him,” Moore-Reed said.

Sony BMG Nashville Chairman Joe Galante called Reed a larger-than-life personality.

The article goes on to name some of Jerry’s songs, which are now playing in my head. I grew up listening to country music, and his songs were quite popular during my teenage years. “She got the goldmine (I got the shaft),” “When you’re hot you’re hot,” “Amos Moses”… these are some of the songs of my adolescence. He wasn’t a favorite of mine, but the songs stayed with me, apparently.

In the mid-1970s, he began acting in movies such as “Smokey and the Bandit” with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol’ boy. But he was an ornery heavy in “Gator,” directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998’s “The Waterboy,” starring Adam Sandler.

Reynolds gave him a shiny black 1980 Trans Am like the one they used in “Smokey and the Bandit.”

Hmmm… sure am glad that the AP is “real” media, and has all them fancy fact-checkers and everything. It would be a shame if they was to type sumthin’ stoopid like the yokels who sit around in their pajamas at their keyboards, wouldn’t it?

Smokey & The Bandit came out while I was in high school. I graduated high school in 1978. It would be kind of hard to have a 1980 Trans Am two or more years before 1980, wouldn’t it? Out of curiosity, I checked IMDB.com – 30 seconds of my time yielded the information that Smokey was made in 1977. But I’m not real media, so my fact-checking doesn’t count. I’m just one of those part-time bloggers, sitting here at my keyboard in my pj’s (literally – I’m only 20 minutes out of bed at this point).

Ah, well. It’s just a washed-up entertainer who passed away. Accuracy doesn’t matter that much in that case, I guess. After all, it’s not like it was a memo from a National Guard commander, denigrating a presidential candidate, right? They would fact-check that, I’m sure.

edited to add: The AP article I link to is 13 hours old at this point. I guess no one has bothered to tell the reporter(s) about their little time paradox, and the link I found doesn’t have a space for comments.

While I’m not a fan of watching political conventions on TV (roughly the same to me, as watching golf, or paint dry, or grass grow), the Democratic convention just gets curiouser and curiouser.

Most recent development: Her once-inevitableness will be ON the ballot.

WASHINGTON – Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name will be placed in nomination along with nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama at the Democratic convention in Denver, an emblematic move intended to unite the party after a divisive primary fight.

Democrats will officially nominate Obama at the convention but the state delegations will do a traditional roll call for his vanquished opponent as well.

If I were a schemer, I’d be scheming for ways to use that roll call to upset the apple cart.

These are interesting times for the Democratic party, my friends. Interesting times….

How are these things different from each other?

1. President Bush provides a $600 “tax rebate stimulus check” to most Americans.

2. Senator Obama proposes a $1000 check to most Americans, taken from the oil companies via a windfall profits tax.

I seem to recall a ton of criticism and ridicule regarding both of Bush’s stimulus payments. Does that mean I’ll also read/hear a ton of criticism and ridicule for Obama’s idea?

Just curious…..

Source

MOSCOW – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin’s slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.

Stepan Solzhenitsyn told The Associated Press his father died late Sunday at his home near Moscow, but declined further comment.

Through unflinching accounts of the years he spent in the Soviet gulag, Solzhenitsyn’s novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.

And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person’s courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.

Beginning with the 1962 short novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” Solzhenitsyn (sohl-zheh-NEETS’-ihn) devoted himself to describing what he called the human “meat grinder” that had caught him along with millions of other Soviet citizens: capricious arrests, often for trifling and seemingly absurd reasons, followed by sentences to slave labor camps where cold, starvation and punishing work crushed inmates physically and spiritually.

His non-fiction “Gulag Archipelago” trilogy of the 1970s shocked readers by describing the savagery of the Soviet state under Stalin. It helped erase lingering sympathy for the Soviet Union among many leftist intellectuals, especially in Europe.

But his account of that secret system of prison camps was also inspiring in its description of how one person — Solzhenitsyn himself — survived, physically and spiritually, in a penal system of soul-crushing hardship and injustice.

The world is a better place because this man lived in it, and is a poorer place for his passing. Rest in Peace, sir, and thank you for your fidelity to truth.

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Click the image to try it for yourself. There’s a trick, though. It’s VERY particular about the names. For instance, it took me 3 tries to get it to take the USA. It didn’t like USA, or America. It wanted “united states.” Oh, and don’t try to give it continents or island groups – it only wants countries

h/t: Blonde Sagacity

I’ve recently discovered a hilarious site called “Not Always Right” where folks share stories of their interactions with customers, in which the customer was most definitely NOT right.

I’m rationing myself to a few pages a day (although I did read the first 35 pages the night I found the site). Today I came across this gem on page 67.

Fun Things To Do On Your Last Day
Call Center | San Antonio, TX, USA

(My friend worked in the phone service department of an undergarment company. One day he got a call from an unhappy woman. We’ll call him David.)

Customer: “Yes, I’m calling to see why my order hasn’t arrived yet.”

David: “Could you please give me some information about your order?”

(The customer then goes on to inform him that her gargantuan pair of panties designated by untold numbers of X’s have yet to arrive and she’s very upset.)

David: “Well you see ma’am, the cargo plane that your panties were on lost power and the pilot had to use them to parachute to safety.”

(The customer did not have a sense of humor. David was promptly fired. True Story.)

h/t Randy Cassingham

PFC Joseph Dwyer passed away recently. If the name means nothing, the picture might – remember this one?

He enlisted in the Army on 9/13/2001, and was in the 3rd Inf Div during the early days of the war. The wounds he received there, while never visible, resulted in his death on June 28, at the age of 31. It was a sad end for a brave man.

“He loved the picture, don’t get me wrong, but he just couldn’t get over the war,” his mother, Maureen Dwyer, said by telephone from her home in Sunset Beach, N.C. “He wasn’t Joseph anymore. Joseph never came home.”

Godspeed, PFC Dwyer. I hope that you have found peace at last.

h/t Kim DuToit

I don’t follow sports, so I hadn’t heard about this until a friend posted about it today on a message board.

Becky Hammon, a WNBA player for the San Antonio Silver Stars, has dreamed all her life of playing basketball in the Olympics. This year, that dream might come true. When the WNBA goes on their summer hiatus, she’ll be trying out for an Olympic spot on a national team, along with 2 other WNBA players.

Thing is, if she’s selected, she won’t be playing playing for the USA. She’ll be playing on the Russian team. Last year, when the USA Team released their list of prospects, Becky’s name wasn’t on it.

She subsequently signed a lucrative contract with club team CSKA Moscow.

Hammon has no ancestral ties to Russia, and under Russian league rules, she was eligible for a Russian passport and to become a naturalized citizen. She received her passport in March. As part of her CSKA contract, her agent Mike Cound says, she agreed to participate in the training camp for Russia’s Olympic team.

According to FIBA rules, “A national team participating in an international competition of FIBA may have only one player who has acquired the legal nationality of that country by naturalization or by any other means.” Hammon says that, barring injury, she has the lone spot all but wrapped up.

Meanwhile, J.R. Holden, a former Bucknell point guard who plays for CSKA Moscow, is expected to play for Russia’s Olympic men’s team.

Hammon has been called unpatriotic by Anne Donovan, who coaches the US team. The article I read didn’t say whether anyone has called J.R. Holden, Deanna Nolan (WNBA – Detroit) and Kelly Miller (WNBA – Phoenix) unpatriotic. If Becky’s unpatriotic, doesn’t it follow that the other 3 are, as well?

One of the folks on the message board said that Hammon was being selfish, that she should just understand that you don’t always get everything you want in life, and suck it up.

I’m curious as to what y’all think. Personally, I wouldn’t give up my citizenship for anything. But I’m ignorant about law – if Hammon is a naturalized Russian citizen, does that mean she surrendered her US citizenship?

Is she a selfish, unpatriotic person who puts her own desires above everything else, or is she a dedicated athlete relentlessly pursuing a childhood dream? Would there be such a fuss if she were playing for any country other than Russia?

source

They’re saying it was a heart attack. I don’t watch the Sunday morning news shows, but I liked Tim Russert whenever I saw him. I’m sorry he’s gone.

Thoughts and prayers to his family and co-workers.

I ran across this on a message board I frequent. The original topic was whether Hillary would concede and it evolved from there into one of those “beating a dead horse” kind of conversations where everyone wanted to list their own views but no one wanted to listen to anyone else’s views.

As commonly happens when politics come up in conversation, it didn’t take long before one side was accusing the other side of only dealing with emotions, not with facts.

Someone finally said: You guys are entitled to your opinion, I’m entitled to mine. (At least for now).
That’s what makes this country great.

To which one of those who had stated that the other side needed to deal with facts, replied: Agreed. Viva l’opinion! I just wish fellow Americans would do their research and all would be as it should be.

Ummm…. was this person really saying that if we all did our research we’d have the same opinion that she does? Cause that’s certainly what it sounded like to me.

I just wish that folks could respect the reality that even if we all examine the same facts, we can come up with different opinions. That doesn’t mean we’re crazy or evil or wrong, it means we’re human.

This granite wall may startle you
with its listing of our dead,
but if you’ll let your heart respond,
the wall speaks life, instead.
Unlike our walls that keep things out,
this wall serves as a bridge
linking hearts and memories
from the dead to we who live.

with tears for loved ones gone ahead,
while we somehow still live.
And we marvel at the message
this black wall has to give,
that Love stops not for death nor time,
but is guaranteed to last,
and healing is within our reach
once we accept our past.
–mvy 1991 —

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

and how it came to be:

A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae’s dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l’Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. “His face was very tired but calm as we wrote,” Allinson recalled. “He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer’s grave.”

With somber gratitude for all who have given their lives in service to their countries, and heartfelt prayers for the safety of those currently serving.

Thank you all, and may God bless and keep you.

I don’t remember EVER seeing a news article about caucuses in Guam before. Then again, I’ve never paid much attention to Democratic primary seasons in the past – they used to be really boring, for me.

HAGATNA, Guam – With 12 out of 20 districts reporting in Democratic presidential caucuses on Guam, delegates for Barack Obama were ahead with 899 votes to 769 for those pledged to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

More than 3,000 votes were expected in heavy turnout at caucuses in the U.S. territory, where neither candidate campaigned.

Four pledged delegate votes were at stake on the island 8,000 miles from Washington. Guam also has five superdelegates and some of those are being determined in the caucus voting as well.
(snip)
U.S. citizens in Guam have no vote in the November presidential election, but the close Clinton-Obama race is giving them an unaccustomed role in the nomination process.

Both candidates have used television ads and long-distance interviews, rather than traveling to Guam to make their case. Guam will have 8 delegates at the convention, each of whom gets 1/2 vote. I guess because they’re a territory instead of a state, they don’t get a complete vote? What about the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Marianas Islands? Do they also participate in the nomination process? And if so, do they also count as less than a complete vote? I don’t remember ever hearing anything about this in my high school Civics class, but my high school Civics class was second-semester Senior year, so my attention span was at an all-time low.

So. How DO the U.S. Territories impact U.S. elections? What are their rights and privileges? Is this laid out in the Constitution, or somewhere else?

The last line of the linked article says: Hillary Clinton also has called for Guamanians to be able to vote in presidential elections. Can that be done without a Constitutional amendment? And again, what about Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Marianas Islands?

Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here. — attributed to Capt John Parker, Lexington Militia Apr 19, 1775

Patriots Day… the day we all take time to remember and celebrate the heroic action taken by a few farmers and townsmen over two centuries ago – what’s that? You’ve never heard of Patriots Day? Doesn’t surprise me. While it SHOULD be a date recognized nationwide, not unlike Independence Day, it seems to be limited to the New England area, where those farmers and townsmen shed their blood that April morning.

If you don’t know what happened on the morning of April 19, you might at least be familiar with the night that preceded it…

Listen, my children, and you shall hear,
of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
‘Twas the 18th of April, in seventy-five,
hardly a man is left alive
who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
—H.W.Longfellow

Ordinary people. Citizens, fed up with tyranny, reached their breaking point on that April morning. The king had no true understanding of the colonial mindset, nor their determination. His soldiers and generals were equally clueless, and thus the bucolic sounds of a springtime morning in a small country-town were shattered by the sound of gunfire. “The shot heard ’round the world,” they call it.

The shot that changed everything, and led to “the world turn’d upside down” at Yorktowne, a little over six years later.

Spend a moment, today, in gratitude to those ordinary citizens, farmers and townsmen alike, who stood up for their rights to be a free people.

Patriots Day – it’s not just for Maine and Massachusetts – it’s for all of us.

h/t instapundit, by way of day by day

Delta and Northwest have almost finished their merger negotiations. I really don’t care for NW, and have not enjoyed the few flights I’ve taken with them.

Continental, here I come!