Evidence recovered

Police have fingerprints and DNA evidence in the break in at Mom's Tuesday night.  Today the Newton-Conover police recovered her ID and check book cover.  The thieves have written several checks and had their pictures taken in the process.  The suspect are know to the police.  It's just their whereabouts that remain to be discovered.  That will come in due time. 

Mom Bularized

Last night someone broke into Mom's house while she was sleeping.  Mom is 90 years old, deft, and legally blind and didn't know someone had broke in until the security company called her and asked her to let the police in.  Someone broke into the converted carport through a small window Dad had built when he enclosed the carport.  Fortunately for Mom and the police Dad was a smart man. 
    When he designed the window he put up burglary bars, two screens and a sheet of glass.  What made this window special was Dad had driven nails all around the window frame  with the points facing the open part of the window.  The screens hide the nails but when the man crawled through the window opening the nails ripped his arms and probably his back.  He stole Mom's pocketbook with $28.00  and her checkbook and her lipstick.  She had no credit cards or debit cards.  The worst thing he got was her house keys.
   Mom had  three fives and thirteen ones but he dropped one in the yard.  He left plenty of blood and some fingerprints at the scene.  Mom was able to identify a potential suspect: a man just released from prison who borrowed $20.00 from her last week and who lives in the neighborhood. 

No **** allowed

When an institution sets out to ban something, more often than not the thing they choose to ban simply reflects back on that institution’s way of thinking.
So what does it tell us about the Oxford University Press that they are banning authors from using words that refer to pigs?

Yes, you read that correctly. Oxford UP is prohibiting authors from using the words pig, pork, sausage, or other pig-related words because they are afraid of offending Jewish or Muslim readers who consider pigs and pork to be off-limits for religious reason.
Now, I can understand how Oxford UP would perhaps consider editing out a photo of someone stuffing their face with bacon in a manuscript where another photo could equally serve a purpose, but to eliminate all references to pigs is absurd.
Cutting out references to an entire species of animal isn’t an example of careful editorializing to avoid offending a particular group of people who don’t believe in eating that animal. What it is, however, is an example of removing language, information, and accuracy from a book to cater to the beliefs of another.

While freedom of press and speech may be a uniquely American ideal, it is absolutely wrong to impose a ban on a subset of information. No matter how hard Muslims or Jews try to imagine it, pigs are a species that exist on planet Earth. Not talking or writing about them isn’t going to make them disappear.
Furthermore, the issue begs the question whether any Muslim or Jew was actually offended by references to pigs and pork in works published by Oxford UP. Was the publishing house receiving an inordinate number or complaints due to depictions and references to a species of animal?
If that was the case, I suspect that Oxford UP would have used those complaints to give their editorial stance some weight. As it is, however, they simply said that they want their material to appeal to the widest possible audience so they don’t want to risk offending anyone—I paraphrase.

Some zoo pictures

The zoo in Omaha, Nebraska is a magnificent zoo and it's getting better.  There is an I-Mark theater, a train, a chair lift, and even camel rides.  Trinity's favorite was Stingray Beach where one can actually pet live stingrays as they swim by. 

                                                   Siberian Tiger

                                                    Eel

                                                           Stingray beach

                                                                Peacock

                                             Bubble( one can climb in and get a closer look

Gun ownership and the Marines

I'm sure after what happened today at the military base in Tennessee there will be more outcries for more gun control and then there will be the gun owners who will push back and of course we will have the obligatory hero who would have dropped the bad guy with one shot had he been there.  I haven't read any accounts of the shooting and how or who killed the shooter but having served in the military for 4 years, 36 months overseas and with two tours of Vietnam, I know that sailors and soldiers don't walk around the base carrying weapons. 
  The fact that only four marines were killed speaks volumes about their training.  Had a like incident happened at a civilian facility casualties would most likely be much higher.   To kill 4 in a crowd of unarmed people when none are expecting   anything is not a great feat but one an untrained civilian taken by surprise would have been unable to prevent. 
  This isn't an argument against any form of gun ownership but just a wakeup call to all the braggarts out there looking for that opportunity to shoot someone legally.  Your dream of being the hero is a fantasy, most likely.  To be honest with you, I would just as soon you left your weapon in your car when you go out to eat or out shopping.  I really don't need you to be my hero. 

I'm Back

My wife and I went to Iowa to visit her sons, one who lives in Ames and the other in Boone.  The weather was nice and the youngest son and his family were sweet and very kind to us.  The oldest son is an oddball but I really like his daughter.  Went to Nebraska Tuesday to the zoo which was really
nice.  Flew United going and Delta coming back.  Delta planes were nicer but having to go to Atlanta sucked. 
  Had a lot of work to do when we got back.  Glad I went but more glad I'm back home. 

Same-Sex marriage

     Same sex marriage is constitutional as ruled by the Supreme court.  It seems those that have supported that proposition thinks that all those who were opposed to the idea are haters.  I agree there are some misguided people who are going to hate what you believe or stand for or do or don't do or think no matter what it is.  But honestly, two people can disagree without either being a hater. 
   There are many people who supported same-sex marriages who probable find the idea of a homosexual relation repulsive.  There are many of us who opposed same-sex marriage yet have no negative feelings towards a homosexual at all.  I love my wife dearly but we don't always agree but I certainly don't hate her.  "That's not the same thing" you argue.  Why, yes it is.  I agree there is more at stake on the marriage issue but it all boils down to one thing.  We disagree. 

Rebel Flag

    When I was in High School we had great football teams.   Hickory High won their conference 22 times in 25 years and won state 11 or 12 times.  After every touchdown the band would play "Dixieland".  I associated the song with great football but the year after I graduated the school integrated.   Actual, everyone was excited about that because the other local high school, Ridgeview,
had won their games by an average score of 70-0 for several years running.  With them on our side Hickory would be unstoppable. 
    The first sign that everything wasn't going to be as hoped is when the song was changed.  I was home from college and decided to take in a football game and when Hickory scored a touchdown I was expecting Dixieland to play.  I don't know what it was but it certainly wasn't the spirit raising fields of cotton.  When I discovered the song had been changed over prejudice against the song for being prejudicial, I went home. 
  I just didn't understand: no body from Ridgeview high nor their parents, had ever picked cotton on a plantation.  The song wasn't about that but about being proud of who we were and where we were from.  The kid from Ridgeview was just as southern as I was.  I have never been to a reunion or a Hickory High football game since. 
   Now before some of you start accusing me of racial attitudes you better discovery the entire story.  I once flew from Atlanta to San Diego with a black female seatmate.  She was a student at UCLA and she thought I had to be the worst kind of WASP.  At flights end she said she would never forget me and would always consider me a friend. 
   When the schools merged many white families moved so their children could attend the all-white St. Stephens school and someone wrote  a scathing letter against forced bussing and how it was unsafe for the kids.  I wrote a reply informing the people that for six years I walked a mile to school and for three years I then had to catch a bus to take me across town but no one objected then.  The trip was especially grievous since  there was a perfectly good school closer to my home than either the Junior High I walked to or the High School I was bussed to.  I just didn't buy into the argument that the objections to bussing was for the safety of the black kids because they were never concerned about the safety of their own.
   Not long after the football game thing I went to the community center on a Friday night only to discover it was now a private club for the sole purpose of denying entrance to people of African ancestry.  I thought the price of membership way to high for a one time or even an occasional visit.  Funny thing is they had a membership available for me but none for the black kid that wanted to buy one.  So I purchased a membership card and gave it to the rejected fellow. 
  No, that doesn't make me a saint nor an activist.  I just have a keen sense of what is right and what is wrong.  That is something someone who is yielded to the Holy Spirit has. 
    I have never owned a Rebel Flag (not even a toy).  Most people I see displaying that flag  are trailer-trash rednecks whose only way of bringing themselves up in this world is by bringing everyone else down.   The war between the states ended over one hundred and fifty years ago and the south lost.  The southern slogan is "the south shall rise again" but I certainly don't think reverting back to plantations, cotton fields and slavery, is much of a come-up pence.  The South cannot fully recover and live up to our potential on the backs of the minorities. 
    Oh there are plenty of good descent people that want everyone to believe that the Stars and Bars is just a piece of cloth and only represents Sothern Pride and in no way represents 'White Pride" or southern traditions of slavery  and oppression.  That's a load of crap.  The confederate flag represents more than the fierce and stubborn independence of the southern spirit but a longing for what many perceive as the ole glory days of the gentle' southern way of life. 
    I have a flag which represents what I believe in and I fly in proudly at various and appropriate times in my yard at home.  I willingly offered up my life to defend what that flag represents and I believe whole heartedly in the ideals that flag represents.  That flag is the Stars and Strips of the United States of America.  I'm not a white American, just an American.  I'm not a Southern American but just an American. 
   If the South is every to rise again it needs to put behind us what those that flew Confederate flag
hoped to accomplish and strive to embody the ideals that our nations flag purport to represent.