Month: May 2021

[This was first published in 2008. It seems fitting today.]

by Burr Deming

Last evening he reacted with amazement. “You gotta be kidding me!” I had just mentioned I was writing about him. I thought for a moment he might object. As it is, I hope he forgives me for the details I may have gotten wrong.

It was one of several encounters I had happened upon with this impressive, self-deprecating man. I often stop by the local library, and that’s where we kept bumping into each other. The first time, he was trying to recover a lost file on a library computer. I tried to help him, unsuccessfully as it turned out. We talked about the coming election. He was for McCain, I for Obama.

Then he told me a little of himself. He is a war hero from the Vietnam era. That’s my description not his. He seems hesitant as he talks about it, and he talks about it sparingly. “I just went a little crazy,” he says. His “craziness” saved others who were in mortal danger, pinned down and taking enemy fire. He was later awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. That medal is awarded for any of several acts, but when earned for bravery in combat, it is the fourth highest possible military citation given by the U.S. Armed Forces.

For years, modesty and uncertainty of how it might be regarded prompted him to keep the award stored out of view. He would not expose this symbol to derision. It was his father who changed his mind. His dad had served in the Air Force in World War Two, flying over the Empire of Japan with General Curtis Lemay. He confessed to his son that he felt just a little envious. The younger veteran was incredulous and so his father explained, it was that hidden Bronze Star. The son objected. The old man was a hero many times over. He pointed to the many ribbons, medals, and awards the elder hero had on his own wall. “But I never earned a Bronze Star,” the father stated simply.

They are everywhere, these heroes who have our lasting thanks and admiration, earned in far off lands. They are lucky to have made it back, and we are blessed in having them back. A choir director, members at church, workmates, and casual acquaintances are among them. There are many more unknowingly met in bank lines and pharmacies, the routine encounters that are part of everyday life. I have a letter from a onetime coworker, recently assigned to Afghanistan. He has my prayers until the moment he returns.

My friend in the library had a special relationship with his dad. They each shared an admiration of the other, quiet and well deserved. The last act of that regard came as the son gazed into an open casket. He placed next to his father the Bronze Star that had been awarded for an act of desperation decades ago in a land far away.

The father had chosen his son well.

A Marine holds the door as Gianna Floyd, the daughter of George Floyd, walks into the White House. pic.twitter.com/tbsavLTzcx

— Evan Vucci (@evanvucci) May 25, 2021

• Two kinds of tough on display. Tommy Christopher gathers reactions to what will become iconic photos of a United States Marine holding a door for George Floyd’s little girl Gianna Floyd as the family visits with President Joe Biden. This week was the first anniversary of Mr. Floyd’s murder.
   
• PZ Myers doesn’t exactly call it cancel culture, but there it is. Texas has outlawed racism in education.
   
  Well… not racism exactly, just any mention of racism.
   
  Move along, history students. Nothing to see here.
   
• In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson retells the story I confess to never having heard before of the courageous, dangerous, step Frederick Douglass took in 1838 to get from slavery to freedom. She includes the risk another took to help him.
   
• The rest is worth a look, but do scroll to the middle as Scotties Toy Box posts the story of former slave Mary Fields, better known as the legendary Stagecoach Mary.
   
• In MadMikesAmerica, Glenn Geist watches with sadness the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder and suggests another murder is happening: around the globe, democracies, including our own, can’t breathe.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger figures out just who wants a complete investigation of January 6.
   
• Iron Knee at Political Irony contrasts Republican disinterest in Trump insurrectionists with the anger and conservative focus on Hillary emails.
   
• Glancing through videos from just before the Trump riot, Seth Abramson notices something odd that should have only been true about White House golf carts.
   
• In the Borowitz Report, Republicans are claiming that the Jan 6 rioters were middle schoolers on a field trip.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz examines bipartisanship and finds a hidden flaw.
   
• Joe Manchin seems not to have given up on bipartisanship, or on his defense of the filibuster. Green Eagle has a one-sentence suggestion for the ever outreaching Senator, a suggestion that, mercifully, does not involve an anatomical improbability.
   
• Want to know how the founders fit the filibuster into the legislative process? Hackwhackers has a couple of paragraphs that explain the whole thing.
   
• Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson considers the current condition of the Republican party, thinks about and rejects a third party, then suggests what today’s responsible conservatives should do.

Continue reading “George Floyd, Democracy, Slavery, Stagecoach Mary, Trump Riot & Golf”

 

I’d trade my shoes to see the face of the recipient.

 
Brian Sicknick dies of two strokes after being attacked with chemical spray at the Capitol Building
 

In the same sense, I suppose that, if an assailant dropped you off a building, you'd die of natural causes:
gravity being part of nature.

And the cheers from the gathered crowd would also be natural.

— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) May 27, 2021

I suppose you could argue that there was no relationship between the Trump riot and the death of Officer Sicknick

He collapsed hours after the chemical attack.

He died from two strokes, and was therefore determined to have succumbed to natural causes.

Those who attacked him, with chemicals normally used from 30 feet away to disable aggressive or charging bears, were not charged with murder.

So, by all means, attack the grieving family.

 
Entertaining as all hell

Also good for you

(And maybe someone you know)

• Some of us born before the Eisenhower administration may remember O. Henry’s short story The Ransom of Red Chief, wherein a youngster is kidnapped for ransom, but drives the kidnappers crazy. They eventually pay the parents to take him back.
   
  Here is a story of young heroism that is hilarious but could, at any moment along the way, have easily become deadly tragic.
   
  It starts with the hijacking of a school bus, kids and driver taken hostage.
  Heroism goes to work.
   
  
  Bus driver keeps hijacker calm, kids safe.
  Kindergarten kids drive hijacker crazy with questions:
  • Is he a soldier?
  • Why is he doing this?
  • Is he going to hurt them?
  • Is he going to hurt their bus driver?
     

  Hijacker tries to answer, gets frustrated.
  Within 6 minutes, hijacker demands the kids and driver all get off the bus safely.

• I looked it up. There is documentation. Scotties Toy Box is right. Ulysses S. Grant did predict the current state of contemporary American conservatism.
   
• Author, executive, conservative public figure J. D. Vance warns that we, you and I, will be hunted down. He explains that when anyone attacks the inherently conservative values of the great American nation state, conservatives can and should and will attack and destroy. Yikes.
   
  Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez only takes a few words to destroy the underlying idea:
   

  I suppose he’ll be on the must destroy list, along with the rest of us.

• So how do you expose the insulting lie that the January 6 Trump riot was just an innocent tour group exploring the Capitol Building? Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged suggests showing photos of the liar himself screaming in terror while building an impromptu barricade to keep away from the deadly innocent tourists.
   
• Hackwhackers reviews two of the latest Trump-riot arrests. One Son-of-a-Bircher told people on social media that pushing a female officer down a flight of stairs was the coolest thing he had ever done. The other was caught after bragging to his dentist. As in it-was-just-the-ether-talking.
   
  Kind of glad they don’t video the actual arrests. The fun might never end. Patriots could run out of popcorn, ignore the hunger, and die laughing while binge watching.

Continue reading “US Grant, Trump Riot Arrests, Lies,
Vaccine Dating, Israel, Faith Schools, AZ”

 
A. Maceo Smith New Tech High School, Dallas – Uptown Funk Dance
 

I never had a teacher like this

Teacher Scot Pankey and his students …

 

Sometimes things work themselves out pic.twitter.com/ukWuhAqUUS

— Andrea Matranga (@andreamatranga) May 15, 2021

 

• In this uncertain world, some things are always predictable.
   
  In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was informed that the Republican National Committee had adopted a resolution
  “saying you were pretty much of a failure.”
   
  Laughter filled the room as Kennedy responded:
  I’m sure it was passed unanimously.
   

   
  In spite of what us lefties who drink the commie koolaid might think, my long time friend Darrell, at Unabashedly American, and other real Americans know that Biden wants to allow immigrant Democrats to cross the southern border legally, that the administration has caused gas shortages, that the President has emboldened evil regimes around the world – authoritarians that very tough Trump had kept under control, including Putin, and the list goes on and on and on until, because of Democrats, everything has generally gone to hell.
   
  It’s almost as if Darrell couldn’t come up with anything convincing, so he throws every conceivable accusation his imagination can contrive, in case anything might take hold.
   
  Finally, he wonders how long before our flag consists of
  a white hammer and cycle.
   
  Yup. White hammer and cycle.
  Kind of like the label on a box of Harley Davidson Baking Soda.
   
  If he had thought of it, he might have added that since Biden had taken office, my friend had lost his car keys.
   
  So, in his mind’s eye, the failure passes unanimously.
   

• Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged, is irritated by Republican lying liars and the lies they tell (I know. I stole that from Al Franken). But she advises Democrats generally and Biden specifically on the best way to deal with the lies, and the lying liars who repeat them.
   
• Prominent conservatives never tire of making accusations, but this one has some validity. Andy Borowitz reports on Republican claims that President Biden is artificially inflating his job-approval rating by displaying competence.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz explains why we don’t see a ton of Biden flags, Biden decals, or Biden bumper stickers on big wheel pickups. Has something to do with having more need for building thoughtful, intelligent government than building altars to a golden Trump idol.
   
• In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson looks to the polls and finds that President Biden is gaining traction. Once-upon-a-president Trump is gliding downward, while Republicans don’t just shoot themselves in their feet, they go all nuclear from knee to toe. In Maricopa County, Arizona, they go on snipe hunts for bamboo slivers.
   
• Americans have been pessimists about the direction of the country for years. Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger looks at the trends and discovers a bit of what might be a reversal, with those thinking the country is on the right track edging up above those saying we’re on the wrong track …by a margin of Holy Mother of Mercy!
   
• Iron Knee at Political Irony asks whether vaccines actually work, and answers his own question with well, Duh.
   
• Michigan rolls back mask requirements for fully vaccinated people, and @momwino98 reacts:
  

  @momwino98

  ##greenscreensticker ##provaccine ##proscience ##tiktokmom ##foryourpage

  ♬ How You Like That – BLACKPINK

• The Black Death in fourteenth century Europe was ghastly. Infidel753 says those times carry lessons beyond our current pandemic, a lesson on how workers may gain a new economic advantage and a lesson on how the Democratic Party may rediscover its soul.
   
• Hackwhackers reminds us of the horrible humanitarian tragedy still going on in India.

Continue reading “Biden, Democrats, GOP Lies, Flags,
India, COVID, Fraud , Light My Pickle”