Are we extinct yet?

TRexField9591

Well, this has been a fun week.  Some idiot tried to poison the president and some senators.  Some guy was arrested on the Capitol grounds with a loaded gun.  The big hero Congress chickened out on even the meekest little bit of gun control. Instapundit called Gabrielle Giffords – yes, the congresswoman who got shot in the head by some lunatic – a bully.   A radio host told the Newtown parents they were victimizing him, and they should go to hell. A London paper reported that an unpublished US government study predicts a violent global food crisis due to climate change, starting any day now. A fertilizer factory in Texas,  full of volatile chemicals, utterly lacking in safety systems and set in the middle of a residential neighborhood, blew up, killing dozens (11 of them firefighters) and leveling most of the town. (Two of the town’s three schools had been across the street from the plant – nice!)  And I almost forgot – an American city got bombed.

Could we please just go on to the next thing? The part where we put aside our differences  (sourly, happily, I don’t care, whatever) and work together to, you know, ensure our survival?

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Wordless Wednesday: Pink elephant, Livingston, Illinois

PinkElephant9591A

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Not afraid. Determined.

OldIllinoisStatehouse

We are just back from a road trip that rolled us around a bunch of the Midwest, including here, the original Illinois capitol building in Springfield. In 1858 in this rough-looking statehouse, Lincoln first delivered his House Divided speech – an unambiguous anti-slavery speech that remains one of the keystones of who we are. Continue reading

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You kids get off Panic Button Monday’s lawn

YouKidsGetOffMyPanicButtonMonday

Every time I push the panic button, this shows up.

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Wordless Wednesday: Hard Hitters, Fort Wayne, Indiana

HardHittersCropped_WordlessWednesday

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Panic Button Monday says victory is ours

BowlingTrophiesPanicButtonVictory

Every time I push the panic button, this shows up.

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Wordless Wednesday: Red, red, red, red, red – 5 reds, Rochester, New York

RedSquare

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Panic Button Monday says now pull – pull

HandsPullingRope9591

Every time I push the Panic Button, this shows up.

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What Robespierre said

ForeignKing9591

Here’s that foreign king again.  Say it, Robespierre:

“The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.”

By the way, this comes from his speech “Sur la guerre,” of January 1792.

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Otherworld

FieldZaparoHeaddress9591

Sometimes all I can think about is getting something beautiful to put on myself.  Of course my idea of something beautiful might not be the same as everyone’s.  I recently wore a new pair of shoes to work.  They are laceups, kind of beige, and have a deliberately worn, darkened look around the toes, and a thick wooden sole.  When I write that, I see how elderly they sound, but to me they are wicked and racy. Every woman at the office gushes over them.  Not one man has said anything about them. They all stare at my new shoes with indirection, letting their faces go flat and wary, then ducking their heads down and watching my shoes out of the corners of their eyes.  It is all wonderful. Continue reading

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