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. 

Cats haven't recovered

    My wife and I took our two cats, Smoky and Ryder, to the vet Tuesday for their annual checkup.  They were also given a booster shot.  I know no animal enjoys their trip to the vet and they seemed to know exactly when you are going to catch them for the vet trip.  It doesn't matter how calm and normal one tries to be a cat just seems to know. 
   Smoky is a sweet and gentle lap kitty, a long haired Maine Coon, who not only doesn't mind being handled but often seeks out a lap to lay on.  Ryder, a short-haired tortoise shell, loves to be petted and rubbed but on her terms.  Don't ever try to pick her up and if she  chooses to sit on a chair with you,  you should be honored. 
   Smoky is my wife's cat and Ryder is mine.  Ryder outweighs Smoky by 5 pounds although by looking at the two cats together Smoky looks bigger.  Maybe that's why Ryder always seems to defer to Smoky; that and Smoky is a more take charge cat.  Ryder prefers to observe first.    Ryder even sneaks up on her food bowl.  Before this trip to the vets, the behavior of the two cats was predictable.  Now it's like we have two very different cats.
  The days we brought them home they spent hiding.  It is like they felt betrayed by the trip.  Wednesday Smoky sleep most of the day in my wife's desk chair and Ryder hid where ever she was.  Yesterday both cats slept on my wife's bed.  Finally around 7 pm Ryder did come into the living room and slept in her tunnel but she was only there because my wife ran her out of the bedroom. 
  Normally Ryder comes to bed with me around two in the morning and Smoky is in here at 4 when I get up ready to be given her morning treat.  This is the third day without Ryder in my bed and Smoky begging for her special meal.  I knew the cats weren't happy about the vet trip but I thought they would be more forgiving than they have been. 

Eleven Happy Years

     Gorgeous wives of the NFL the headline enticed.  Yea, I know, all us men want a beautiful wife.  My first wife was just that.  She was just a little thing and she looked so child like.  I was once accused of robbing the cradle even though we were the same age.  I quit taking her to nightclubs because someone would always threaten to beat me up if I ever hurt her.  When she cheated on me it was with a man half her age, literally.  She was 42 and he was 21.  That's right, she cheated on me.
    My current wife is far from a beauty queen.  She suffers from involuntary movement and curvature of the spine and is a little hefty around the middle and she doesn't make friends nearly as easily as my first wife did  as she is quieter and has higher expectations of people.  But she is an absolute joy and I wouldn't swap her for my first wife on her best day or for any beauty anywhere. 
   Would I prefer that she be better looking?  It doesn't matter to me unless if her being pretty would change who she was I'd rather her to remain as she is.  I always clean my car before I take her out.  I open the car door for her, always let her go in the house first, and always stand at the bottom of the steps before she walks down so I can catch her if she falls.  I almost lost her once but God gave her back.  His gift to me is most precious.  She may not be a beauty to you but she is a precious gem to me. 

Garden News: the good, the bad, and the ugly: picture tour

First time I've ever had 4 blooms at once.  Wow.

Gardenia is getting ready to bloom

Lilies

Loaded tomato vines

This one is loaded too

German Johnson

Another German Johnson

The bad:  Squash had been productive but went flat.  Sigh.

Cone flowers

The ugly

My experience with diet soda

   I just posted an article on the benefits of stopping the consumption of diet soda.  When I switched from regular soda to diet drinks I did not experience a weight gain nor a weight loss.  Diet soda did seem to quench my thirst better so I continued to drink it.  Now I find drinks with sugar in them are hard to swallow, including the Southern favorite sweet tea.  No thank you.
   I don't suffer from headaches nor do I consume alcohol so I won't comment on those supposed benefits.  I do have diabetes so I will go there.  I stopped drinking anything and everything except for coffee and water.  I experienced no weight loss.  I headed to the gym and walked three miles each morning and another 7 miles out of the gym and averaged 70 miles per week for a year and a half. 
   For the first 14 months my weight stayed the same but then my weight started dropping like a rock from a ten story building.   It wasn't from the benefits of the water, my better diet, nor the exercise.  The weight loss was caused by a A1C of 14 and the need to take insulin shots.  I took insulin for 3 months then went on a two kinds of pill routine afterwards.  My weight continued to increase until I decided to quit going to the gym and to go back to drinking diet drinks.  My weight has stabilized and I A1C has remained at 6. 8 for two straight  years now. 
     Of course I suffered from high cholesterol until I started eating two eggs everyday for breakfast.  The only malady I can't seem to control without medication is my Triglycerides. 
  As far as the taste of food, I can't tell a difference in how it taste while drinking diet soda and how it taste just drinking water.  Of course I limited my diet soda to one 12 oz can a day but I do drink zero calorie flavored water and Gatorade (when doing yard work). 
   I think this is one of those things that people will argue about and study until the cows come home and never come to a proper conclusion.  My experience certainly does not bear out and benefit to drinking soda without sugar and not drinking it. 

Benefits of Stopping consumption of Diet Soda

8 Things That Happen When You Finally Stop Drinking Diet Soda

Prevention‎June‎ ‎13‎, ‎2015

8 Things That Happen When You Finally Stop Drinking Diet Soda

Prevention‎June‎ ‎13‎, ‎2015

Ever think, “Why should I give up soda?” (Photo: Getty Images)

You’ve decided to give up diet soda—good idea! Maybe you weren’t hitting your weight-loss goals or couldn’t stomach that long list of ingredients anymore. Or perhaps you heard one too many times that it’s just not good for you.

Whatever the reason, eliminating diet soda from your diet will improve your health from head to toe. Research on diet soda is still in its infancy, but there’s enough out there to identify what you can look forward to when you put down the can and cool down with an unsweetened iced tea instead.

Migraines disappear and focus sharpens.

(Photo: Getty Images)

It turns out the headaches you expected from a diet soda withdrawal didn’t materialize. And now that you’ve quit the stuff, you probably find yourself thinking clearly for the first time in a while. That’s because the chemicals that make up the artificial sweetener aspartame may have altered brain chemicals, nerve signals, and the brain’s reward system, which leads to headaches, anxiety, and insomnia, according to a review in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And a 2013 animal study found that rats that drank diet soda had damaged cells and nerve endings in the cerebellum—the part of the brain responsible for motor skills. (If you’re still drinking diet soda, take a look at what’s happening in your body right now.) 

Taste buds are more sensitive.
It’s not your imagination: Without your usual diet soda chaser, you may find that food has more flavor. It has subtlety. It’s more enjoyable. That’s because the artificial sweeteners in your diet soda overwhelmed your taste buds with an onslaught of sweetness. Aspartame ranks 200 hundreds times sweeter than table sugar. Splenda? 600 times. In fact, brain scans show that diet soda alters sweet receptors in the brain and prolongs sugar cravings rather than satisfies them. “We often see patients change snack choices when they give up diet soda,” says Heather Bainbridge, RD, from Columbia University Medical Center Weight Control Center. “Rather than needing sugary treats or something really salty like pretzels and chips, they reach for an apple and a piece of cheese. And, when they try diet soda again, they find it intolerably sweet.”  
(Ready to eliminate harmful sugar from your diet for good—and lose weight for life? Check out the Sugar Smart Express!) 

The scale finally goes the right way.

(Photo: Getty Images)

While you may have started drinking diet soda to facilitate weight loss, quitting it may actually do the trick. A recent 9-year study found older adults who drank diet soda continued to pack on belly fat. The study piggybacks on research that found each daily diet soda increases your chance of becoming obese in the next decade by 65%, and a study published in Diabetes Care that found drinking diet soft drinks daily was associated with an increase in metabolic syndrome—obesity, high blood-pressure, high triglycerides—which leads to heart disease and diabetes.

Bones strengthen.
Putting down the soda may be the best way to improve your bone strength and reduce your risk of fractures. One 2014 study found that each daily soda increased the chance of hip fracture by 14% for postmenopausal women. And another found that older women who drank cola had lower bone mineral density in their hips. The jury is still out on why soda has this effect, but the science pretty clearly suggests that a soda habit weakens your bones. (Diet soda’s not the only sugar-free food making you miserable—check out 6 gross things that happen when you chew gum.) 

Your attitude towards food changes.
Since diet sodas have no calories, people drinking them often feel it’s okay to indulge elsewhere, finds Bainbridge. Often she sees her diet soda-drinking patients make poor food choices, like a burger and fries, a piece of cake, or potato chips, because they think they can afford those extra calories. Plus, soda often accompanies unhealthy foods. “Sometimes those poor choices are built up habits,” she says. “You’re conditioned to have soda with chips, fries, or something sweet. When you eliminate the soft drink, you also break the junk food habit.”

You handle booze better

(Photo: Getty Images)

It’s a fact: Diet soda gets you drunk faster. When you mix it with alcohol, your stomach empties out faster than if you used regular soda, causing a drastic increase in blood alcohol concentrations, according to an Australian study in the American Journal of Medicine. And when you add caffeine, look out. Another study in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research found that bar patrons who mixed drinks with diet colas were intoxicated much more easily and frequently. Your best bet for a mixer? Club soda, which is naturally sugar- and calorie-free. (Try these slimming Sassy Water recipes to stay hydrated and make your taste buds happy.) 

Fat storage and diabetes risk decreases.
Our hormones may explain the great paradox of why people gain weight when they switch to diet soda. A study in Diabetes Care found that drinking two-thirds of a diet soda before eating primed the pancreas to release a lot of the fat-storing hormone insulin. When the pancreas is overworked from creating insulin to control blood-sugar levels, diabetes rears its ugly head. And a recent study in Japan found that middle-aged men who drank 1 or more diet sodas daily were much more likely to develop type 2 diabetes over a 7-year period.

Kidney function improves.
Now that your body no longer has to make sense of the unpronounceable ingredients in diet soda, your kidneys can get back to clearing toxins, stabilizing blood pressure, and absorbing minerals. One study looked at 11 years of data and found that women who drank 2 or more servings of diet soda doubled their chances of declining kidney function.

By Jordan Davidson

Finerprinted Drunk

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Police say a Pennsylvania man showed up drunk to be fingerprinted for a previous drunken driving charge and earned himself another one in the process.
Online court records don't list an attorney for 41-year-old Kevin Kroll, of Dunbar Township. He faces a preliminary hearing June 30 on charges of drunken driving and public drunkenness for the Feb. 20 incident.
That's when Uniontown police say Kroll walked in smelling of alcohol when he arrived to be fingerprinted for a Jan. 9 drunken driving incident.
The officer smelled alcohol and gave Kroll a breath test — and later a blood test — both of which showed he was legally intoxicated.
Uniontown Lt. Tom Kolencik says, "To come in intoxicated is disrespectful to the judicial system and disrespectful to the police."

  When I was researching "Queen of Southgate" I offered to take a women to court in Raleigh on a trespassing charge that was several years old.  While waiting for her to get ready she smoked three crack rocks and on the ride to court she downed a quart of rose wine.  She was dressed like a clown in raggedy clothes and shoes 4 sizes to large.  She was three hours late for court, stoned and drunk, and was given a new court date and dismissed.  I thought for sure she would get locked up but I guess the judge knew that it really would not do the woman any good. 

Pictures: Late Blooms and vegegarden Pictures

Stubborn people who think that the only person who can be right is themselves

     I have volunteered to take care of the heating/cooling system at the church,  I make sure it is turned on and off to save money yet have a comfortable atmosphere for services.  I went over to the church yesterday morning to turn everything on and the units in both buildings were running. 
I mentioned to my wife t would have been nice if who ever turned it on would have called or texted me so I wouldn't have wasted y and money to check on the church. 
   Being the sweet heart but sometimes disobedient wife she is, she mentioned to Charles and his reaction was "Well if Dale doesn't want to do it, I will".   Of course his attitude upset her.
   "Now you know why I don't talk things over with him," I told her after she related the incident to me.  He never listens or tries to understand another's viewpoint.

Computer problems and funny news

   My computer crashed from a hardware failure so I had to hook up my old desktop so I can take my laptop in to be fixed.  There was an article on the web a few days ago that said it listed the fourteen  worse things we can do to our bodies.  It listed things like smoking and lack of proper sleep.  I'll admit most of the things listed were not good behaviors but worse than anything listed are things like sticks sharp objects into vital objects, shooting projectiles into our head, or detonating bomb vest we have strapped around our waist. 
   Seriously, wouldn't you rather have that third drink rather than ride a 500 pound bomb to glory?  I think the writer needs to rethink his article. 

Local News

     No one was murdered, Randleman High won their ballgame and move on to the State finals, I lost my cell phone, the air conditioner broke at the church, and we have visitors stealing soft drinks from the church. 
   

General News

    I visited my Mom Thursday.  I took her to lunch at I-Hop then grocery shopping.  She is blind, deft, lives alone and will be ninety in a few short weeks.  She's a sweet lady.
    My recovery from my cataract surgery is going slower than expected.  While the cloudy part of my vision is gone, when I close my left eye everything seems just a little darker and out of focus.  My regular glasses keeps me off balance somewhat but my reading glasses are sunglasses which are fine for outside but not much good inside.  I'm running out of time and hope for a proper recovery.
   The garden is doing good.  I have tomatoes on the vine as well as yellow squash and zucchini.  The cucumbers and cantaloupe plants have blooms.  Lettuce will be ready next week  and there are wax beans on the plants.  The regular green beans have flowered out.
   The blackberry bushes are loaded and I do have blueberries for the first time ever.  The peach trees are loaded and I've had to cull them several times picking over 300 off one tree.  I'm disappointed in my apple trees  as they continue to be plagued with cedar rust, well, all but one tree.  It is as big as all the other trees combined but only has one small apple on it.  The pear tree is tall but the top want to bend towards the ground.
   My flower gardens are changing from their spring blooming plants of daffodils and Iris to roses. lilies,  pickerel,   and a host of other flowers.
   I hope you will join me in Sunday school tomorrow. 
  

Thanks Robert

Robert 2 hours ago

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As a veteran I'm kind of tired of being compared to this group or that. I served my country because three words meant more to me than anything else...duty, honor and country. For those that want to truly memorialize and honor the fallen veterans or to give tribute to those that are still with us, here is my list of things you can do that would mean more to a veteran than your words:
1) Vote- liberal, conservative, moderate...it doesn't matter. They gave their lives to allow us this right.
2) Fly a flag and put it at half-mast on Memorial Day (and all others). If you don't have a flag pole, get a smaller one you can mount on your home. If all else those simple smaller flags are appropriate.
3) When you're at a ballgame (or other event) actually sing the National Anthem. Take your hat off and put your hand over your heart. Take the time to make sure that little one you took to the game knows what to do also. Sing it with pride.
4) Volunteer at a VA hospital and spend time just talking to them. If you don't have a VA hospital close, find a local nursing home. The odds of finding a veteran there are pretty good.
5) Say the Pledge of Allegiance in your home. Teach it to the next generation. It does mean something.
6) When you get that notice of jury duty, go there with pride that you are doing your civic duty...not remorse or looking for a way out.
7) Respect the Constitution. Read it, understand it...and most important, teach it to others. Respect those with opposing views but never allow it to be compromised.
8) Love our country. Our country is more than a place but our home. It is where we live and raise our children. Speak about it with pride, ensure it is kept clean and most important...know that is is for ALL Americans.
9) Be kind to your neighbors. Black, white, Asian, Irish, Native American, Christian, Jewish, Catholic...I don't seem to remember the bullets of our enemies showing any regard to a fallen soldier's race, creed, color or sex...why should we? Let them know you and they are both Americans. If they're not Americans, let them know you would want them to become US citizens. If they are only here for a short period of time, let them go back to their country thinking how wonderful their USA neighbors treated them.
10) Say 'please', 'thank you', 'yes ma'am', 'no sir', 'you're welcome'. Funny how simple words of politeness have gone away. It seems like we have become a country who same four letter words faster than we say 'thank you'. Even when we disagree...do it with politeness.