For some time now, we have known that our government has been hiring mercenaries to supplement our Military Forces abroad. Not much about this activity appears on the normal broadcast media (Especially for those who generally get their news from FOX Television or from Rush Limbaugh. The LA Times published another article about this issue on January 25th.
Official records of the casualties and behavior of our private armies are not generally known, or if the information on this is publicly available or even exists.
One may wonder where King George the Bush is going to get all the extra troops he wants to send to Iraq (and the other countries to which he wants "bring democracy" since our Military Forces are already over-extended and facing depletion.
This is what Mom thinks: They will come from the private military contractors such as Blackwater, Dyncorp, and many others.
It is frightening to consider just how many companies exist who provide these "services" in order to make profit at the taxpayers expense, without the general oversight of any governmental agency. The questions we must now ask ourselves as citizens of the Untied States of America is; Are we willing to do anything about it? If so, what do we do, and how do we go about changing the state of affairs?
Welcome to the twenty-second century!
Four Important Events that happened on January 27
1785 - The First public university in the US is founded. (University Of Georgia)
1880 - Thomas Edison files a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
1888 - In Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Society is founded.
1983 - World's longest subaqueous tunnel (53.90 km) opens in Japan connecting the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido.
Four Famous Births
1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer (d. 1791)
1832 - Lewis Carroll, English author (d. 1898)
1850 - Samuel Gompers, American labor leader (d. 1924)
1969 - Matthew Asher Pusateri was born in Harbor City, California
Just around the corner from M and M,
a family is pioneering something old
... which is new again.
Thanks again to the LA Times who featured the Dervaes Urban Homestead in today's paper.
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You can find more about this at Pathtofreedom.com.
Of course, a quick check on YouTube
featured a video you can watch at your leisure.
So ... Meet the Dervaes Family
One
Give a hand to Judson Laipply
The Evolution of Dance?
Two
Speaking about Dancing...
Check out Where The Hell Is Matt?
And Three
Our New Public Library will open on February 1st!
It will be filled with real books and is so close that we can walk to it.
Yeah!!!
One. I think he would have made a wonderful President. Check out Johnkerry.com and watch the video "Late Edition".
Two. I worry about the people of Iraq and want to do whatever we can to avoid the bloodbath that I fear may be coming. I still have hopes that the people of the world can, together, bring about peace in the Middle East and elsewhere. We just have to have the will.
Three. Speaking of Iraq, I ask all five of my loyal readers to keep our wonderful mailman, Danny, and the fifty men under his command, in your hearts and prayers. Tomorrow they leave for Fort Riley Kansas and will soon deploy to Iraq on a search and destroy mission.
A word about Danny... Danny has been our mailman for many years, He is a gentle soul with a beautiful heart who has been a Reservist for many years. Danny served in Viet Nam as a Marine, then joined the Army Reserves. Not too long ago, he was deployed to Kosovo as a peace keeper.
For the last couple of years, Danny has been called up several times, for a month or more at a time, to train new recruits. He sees it as a way to help these young people protect themselves as they are sent into danger.
I may have strong feelings about this war, and the direction we have been lead ... but that does not prevent those of us who dissent from caring about our fellow citizens serving in our military.
I respect them and I respect those men like Ehren K. Watada who have refused to participate in this war. That action takes a special kind of courage and strength. (Of course, there a women in this fight too.)
ON A LIGHTER NOTE...
I have been out of commission lately, and have more or less living on my couch until my back gets better. My dear husband (when he was away) conspired with our son, Mike, to buy me a new Mac laptop so that i could, once again, enjoy my YouTube dramas and connect to the world. I LOVE MY MACBOOK!!! It is sparkling white, light and EASY to use.
Mike just added some more of my favorite links and I am learning new things every day, which I have read, is good for the aging brain... :-)
SPEAKING ABOUT MACS...
Christine at Happy Slip has something to say about her MacBook and her romance with Apple...
Back to Mike. I was laughing out loud at something he linked to the other day. Watch Steve Jobs Is A Witch. Oh My. YouTube is back, but someone pulled this very funny video. Is a new scandal brewing???
I miss and think of Dieter every day when I look at his Orange Chaos painting ... which now adorns our Family Room wall. It is beautiful. Everyone who stops by is blown away by it.
It sure was a lucky day when i happened upon his blog while trying to learn something about MOVABLETYPE with out bothering either of my two sons.
Dieter. Where are you now???
I don't read German.
OK. Enough for now; :-)
Just following my son's direction...
1. Go to Wikipedia
2. In the Search box, type your birth month and day (but not year).
3. List three events that happened on your birthday.
4. List two important birthdays and one interesting death.
5. List any holidays
6. Post it.
Three Events:
October 25, 1415 - The army of Henry V of England defeats the French at the Battle of Agincourt.
October 25, 1760 - George III becomes King of Great Britain
October 25, 2001 - Windows XP is officially released.
Four Births, One Death
1881 - Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor (d. 1973)
1928 - Marion Ross, American actress
1941 - Helen Reddy
1944 - Jon Anderson, English singer (Yes)
OK. Shoot me. I included Marian Ross because I like her, Helen Reddy because she wrote "I AM WOMAN", and Jon Anderson because he is a friend and I like him.
1400 Author Geoffrey Chaucer died in London.
Holidays
Saints Crispin and Crispian Day
YOUR TURN. :-)
...Just passing on a story which had Pete and I rolling with laughter. Hope it gives you a chuckle too.
I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second-grade classroom a few years back.
When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk abou> it, they're welcome.
Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.
She holds up a snapshot of an infant. "This is Luke my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday."
"First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ! ate for nine months through an umbrella cord."
She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.
"Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. "She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh,oh!' Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.
"My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this." Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.
"And then, pop! My Mom had ! this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!"
This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much! "Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden,out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom's play-center, so there must be a lot of toys inside there."
Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another "Middle Wife" comes along.
Now you have two choices...
laugh and close this page
or pass this along to someone else to spread the laughs.
I know what I did!!!