William E. “Bill” Young
Nov 16, 1930 - Nov 10, 2008

As long as I can remember, he was there. If not physically, then in spirit. My daddy. The big strong tough man who could do anything, fix anything, without even having to look up how to do it.

With him, I wasn’t afraid to ride the ferris wheel at the county fair. My daddy wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. He loved me.

He wasn’t one for saying it, but I knew he did.

Son of a migrant farmer/coal miner, Marine Infantryman in the Korean Conflict (Frozen Chosin, et al), cement contractor, truck driver, dad, grandpa, husband, great-grandpa. He wasn’t perfect, but he was MINE, and he loved me.

In 1976, he had a stroke, and we would have lost him then, except that the stroke happened as he was on the operating table to have an aneurysm repaired, so the surgeon was able to contain it quickly.

I’ve always said that the remaining years with him were “gravy time.” Time we shouldn’t have had, but through the grace of God, we did.

I’m still finding out the details, but it seems he passed quietly in his sleep this afternoon, on the birthday of his beloved Marine Corps.

He’s in a better place, and pain-free, but I wish he was still here. I was going to surprise him with a visit on 11/20, after I sold my house. I mailed his birthday card this morning - he would have been 78 on this coming Sunday.

I had the best daddy in the world (for all his flaws), and I feel like the ground has disappeared from beneath my feet. He was the one I leaned on at family funerals. Who will I lean on now?

No matter who you’re voting for, or what you think of the candidates, please take a moment to reflect on the frailty of life.

HONOLULU (AP) — Barack Obama’s grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, has died, Obama announced Monday, one day before the election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86.

Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N.C. The joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng said Dunham died peacefully late Sunday night after a battle with cancer.

Senator, I offer you and your family my deepest condolences for your loss. I’ll be praying that God gives you peace and comfort.

source

Yep, I believe in following at least half of that old political adage: Vote early & vote often. So today I found my way to the local board of elections and cast my ballot. I am now free to ignore all the political hype that will be inundating us in the next 3 weeks.

HOORAY!!!!! (I hate the political hype)

You know, when it comes to early voting, I think Texas does it best (well, out of Texas and Georgia, the only 2 places I’ve ever experienced it). In Texas, I could go to any of the early polling places they set up in San Antonio and cast my ballot. I’ve voted at a Wal-Mart near my office, 20 miles from where I lived, in a grocery store entryway, and in the hallway of a north-side shopping mall. I’ve even voted at my precinct, once, when I was out of town during the early voting time-frame.

In Georgia, at least in my current county, I had to find my local board of elections office. That’s actually not too hard to find from where I live - it’s about 20 minutes away, maybe, and easy to get to, although parking was almost non-existent. There were quite a few folks there at lunchtime today. Had I waited until the last week in October, I could have driven 3 miles to my local library and voted there. But I’ll be out of state the next 2 weeks, and busy on election day, so this was my best chance.

Last night during the debate, Senator Obama said:

The third thing we have to do is we’ve got to make sure that we’re competing in education. We’ve got to invest in science and technology. China had a space launch and a space walk. We’ve got to make sure that our children are keeping pace in math and in science.

And one of the things I think we have to do is make sure that college is affordable for every young person in America.

While I agree that we need to keep pace in Math & Science (or even, to move ahead in both), and while I think that affordable college is a worthy goal, not every job requires a college degree. Nor is every person a good fit for college.

So, Senator, my question is this. What about the young people who have no interest in, or desire for college? What about the ones who want to be plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, cabinet-makers, and the like? What will you do for them?

Will you be as generous in providing funding/financing for those who want to attend a trade school, or a 2-year college? What about grad school, for those whose chosen careers require post-graduate work?

And what about Americans who are NOT young, but finally have the opportunity to pursue a degree? Should it be affordable for them as well, or does your largesse only extend to YOUNG Americans? Which begs the question: at what point does a person stop being “young”?

I suppose, as long as I’m asking questions, I should also ask what you’re going to do about the young Americans who don’t qualify for college. Affordable college is great, but only if folks meet the entrance requirements. We can’t continue to dumb down the entrance requirements just to ensure that everyone can attend.

How will you make college affordable? Are you going to mandate tuition prices? I don’t understand how the federal gov’t has the right to mandate tuition fees for non-federal schools. Oh, you’re probably NOT going to mandate tuition - you’ll provide subsidies instead. But it’s an interesting fact that as federal aid increases, so do tuition prices, so increasing subsidies will have no real effect on the cost of attending college.

Notice I’m not asking you where the money’s going to come from - I know the answer to that. You’ll raise my taxes and make me pay for it. I suppose I should be grateful for having the opportunity to help others succeed, but somehow, gratitude isn’t the emotion that pops up when I think about this.

Paul Newman has passed away at age 83. Cancer.

Not only will we remember him for those deep blue eyes that any red-blooded woman could get lost in forever, but for his faithfulness to Joanne Woodward, his wife since 1958. Playboy magazine asked him one time if he was ever tempted to stray. His reply: “I have steak at home- why go out for hamburger?”

Newman’s Own Foundation has issued a statement.

“Paul Newman’s craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all.

Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in one’s life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.

We will miss you, sir.

Click on the cartoon for more details….

My mom spent my entire lifetime taking family pictures. And we have photo album after photo album filled with pictures of people missing either their heads or their feet.

Finally, in the early 90s, my mom invested a couple hundred dollars in a 35mm point & shoot camera (most money she ever spent on a camera). Oddly enough, the new, fancy camera still cut off people’s heads or feet in the pictures she took. Mom blamed the camera.

We laugh, of course, because it was obviously Mom who was cutting off the heads or feet of the folks in the picture, not the camera. It was all in how she framed her shots.

Reader’s Digest had a story once, in one of their humor sections… a famous photographer had some folks over for a slide-show presentation of his trip to somewhere exotic (Alaska, Antarctica, wherever). As the guests were leaving, someone’s wife said to him - “Those are wonderful photographs. You must have a very expensive camera.” He smiled and thanked her. A while later, he was invited to a dinner party at that family’s house. He attended, and enjoyed a delicious meal. As he was leaving, he said to the hostess: “That was a delicious dinner. You must have very expensive cookware.”

It’s absurd to think that fancy cookware is all that’s needed to make an excellent dinner. Why then, do folks think a fancy camera is all that’s needed for good photos? It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer. A skilled photographer can take excellent photos with a crappy camera. Granted, good photos are easier with a good camera, but it’s ultimately the skill of the photographer that counts.

Case in point… for years, I had a 2.1mp digital camera. Folks would talk about how important it was to have higher megapixels, and faster shutter speeds, less lag between the time you click the shutter button and when the picture is actually taken. People would talk about how they missed shots because their camera wasn’t fast enough. And they needed more megapixels so they could print bigger pictures, because a 2.1mp camera just can’t give you a good 8×10 picture.

Now, I’m not against better cameras, don’t get me wrong. But I printed many good quality 8×10 photos from my 2.1mp camera. And I got many good action shots (in bright light) from my impossibly slow camera.

Because I knew how to take pictures. I had learned over the years, by practice and by reading everything I could get my hands on about the art of picture-making.

If you want an action shot, you don’t wait until the last minute to try and get it. You anticipate it. If your camera is slow, then not only do you anticipate where the action will be, you half-press the shutter button to set the focus, and keep it there until the action happens.

For instance, each of these photos was taken with my very old, very slow, 2.1mp camera, using the method I just mentioned:

Every time I’m on a message board and I see someone post “Wow, great pictures! What kind of camera do you have?” I cringe, because asking that question implies that the CAMERA is the reason the photos are so good, not the photographer. If they’re asking me, I smile politely and answer the question. Maybe they’re in the market for a new camera, after all.

But I know for a fact that there are people in this world who think that if they can only buy the correct camera, all their picture taking problems will be solved. And it’s NOT true. A camera is only a tool, not a miracle-machine. It’s up to the person using the tool to create the good picture.

UPDATE: The camera I used for the above pics, as well as my current camera both have a “fully manual” mode. My original digicam was an Olympus C2100-UZ (ultra zoom). Lens by Canon, 10x Optical zoom, 2.1mp. And yet I printed some very nice 8×10 pics (and 11×17, as well) with it. A lot of the print quality rests in the processing of the photo before sending it off to print, in my opinion.

My current is a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ20. Leica lens, 5mp, 10x optical zoom (maybe 12x? Don’t remember off-hand). It supports additional lenses/filters, has a hot-shoe for external flash, costs 1/2 to 1/3 what a dSLR would have cost me at the time, and I don’t have to lug around a bunch of lenses. My back loves it. Yeah, I’d love to have the newer FZ-whatever, with slightly shorter lag-times, and more ISO equivalencies (mine sucks at low-light shooting), but this one is good enough for now.

I have another Panasonic that I take on business trips - it fits in my backpack or my pocket, and does what I need. It’s their Lumix TZ-1. Lens by Leica, 10x optical zoom, 5mp.

I won’t invest in a dSLR until I’m ready to go back to the world of manual shooting, and I’ve really enjoyed using the auto feature and letting my camera do the thinking for me. But my FZ20 supports fully manual mode, so as long as it’s doing what I need, why change it?

Looks like the cartoonist should have added another wolf named “Air America.” Or maybe a coyote/jackal would have been a better critter choice for that.

h/t Baldilocks for the cartoon, Hot Air for the additional wolf name.

No, my friends… thank YOU.

For running in when others were running out.

For heading up when others were heading down.

We can never repay you for your dedication, and your sacrifice, but we can resolve to always remember, and to always honor your memory.

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cartoon by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Citizen
photos copyright mvy 2002

Timmer’s upset at the media attacks on Gov. Palin. So am I.

As a fairly strong, successful woman, I took offense every time Hillary played the victim card during the primaries (”you’re picking on me because I’m a woman”). Either you’re strong enough to run this country, or you’re not. The presidency is not a place for thin-skinned victim-mongers.

Sarah Palin got to where she is without playing the victim card, so far as I can tell. And I respect that.

I’m not a politician (nor do I want to be), but I am my own person, who got where I am without playing any victim cards. The most common phrase I heard when I was growing up was “girls don’t do that.” Girls don’t play drums (pre-Karen Carpenter). Girls don’t work on cars. Girls don’t drive tractors. Girls don’t take shop class. Girls don’t take vocational agriculture, but we have a very nice home-ec program if you’d like, or maybe the horticulture class? So I don’t play drums, but I learned how to change my own oil, I helped my dad bush-hog the fields, I took wood-shop in summer school. Today, I can build or repair computers, recently built my own rain-barrels, swapped out regular light-switches for motion-sensor light switches, swapped out ceiling light fixtures, and all kinds of other things that “girls don’t do,” according to my early childhood.

My grandfathers were coal-miners. One was also a share-cropper. I have no idea about their fathers/grandfathers — none of us know anything much about our families before the most recent generations. Although I do know that on my mother’s side, the family was split during the civil war - one brother wore blue, one wore gray.

Neither of my parents graduated high school. Mom dropped out after her junior year so she could get a job and help out at home. Dad dropped out because he didn’t like school. My dad joined the Marines at 17 so he could stay out of the coal mines. Mom got married at 18 to get away from home. Her first husband thought she’d make a good punching bag, so she left him. She and my dad were together for 2 years before they married, and she was 3-4 months pregnant with my brother when she married my dad (in 1954). She hid that for 20 years because she was so embarrassed about it. When she died in 2003, they’d been married 50 years.

I’m the youngest in my immediate family, and I was the first one to go to college. When I wanted a college degree, I found financial aid, and joined the National Guard (dad was handicapped and folks had no money). When I needed to pay off college loans, and figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, I joined the Air Force. When that stopped being fun, I got out and figured out what I really wanted to be when I grew up, and started pursuing those types of jobs.

I survived two years of unemployment while living alone, 500 miles away from my family and 1000 miles away from my best support system.

I have spent the last 25 years working in career fields that are mostly male-dominated (military, IT), and have never needed to play any kind of victim card, or gender card. All I’ve needed to do is learn my job, do my job, and be a grown up. I learned early on that whining at work was NOT the way to get ahead.

Gov. Palin is a grown up. She has my vote. And yeah, like Timmer says, they’re not just attacking Gov. Palin. They’re attacking me. I’m not a politician, or a former beauty queen, or a wife & mother, but I’m an independent, strong-minded, successful, conservative woman, who comes from “fly-over country.” Like Gov. Palin. Like Sgt Mom. Like my best friend in Texas, and most of the women that I know.

The media has no idea who we are. They may never know. But we know who we are. And we know who Sarah Palin is. She’s one of us.

Ran across this on OpinionJournal.com yesterday…

Notable & Quotable
September 9, 2008

Howard Fineman writing in Newsweek on the Republican vice-presidential candidate:

Democrats dare not issue [Sarah] Palin a pass—she’s too dangerous a foe. Normally vice presidential candidates fade into the background. Nobody is expecting that with Palin; indeed, her newfound celebrity has made even Obama look dull.

The usual rule is that voters don’t trust attacks from people they don’t know, but Palin is turning the adage on its head. Democrats are determined to attack her credibility, even if it gives her more visibility. “We’ve got to go after her, and fast,” a top Democratic strategist, who asked for anonymity when discussing strategy, told me.

Read me. NOW.

I’ve never watched any of the Godfather movies, but even I recognize the brilliance in The Anchoress’ latest piece.

She titled it: The Humbling: “The One” goes to Don Clinton, and not only is it hilarious, it’s replete with sources for each of her points. Funny & factual - who can ask for more?

So, it appears that “The One” is going begging to Don Clinton, hat in hand:

The One strides in confidently and extends his hand to The Don. The Don looks up, contemplates the proffered hand, and watches The One’s smile fade as it is not shaken. The One retracts his hand, and tilts his head, comprehending, but not liking it. Still, he needs this meeting.

Don Clinton nods slightly, and with a silky hand motions The One to take a seat. Don Clinton’s blue eyes are grave, but there is a noticeable twitching about his mouth, as though he is suppressing a smile, or sucking on a peeled grape. He remains silent. The One looks about the room in discomfort, waiting for an opening. Don Clinton makes a point of playing with his pinky ring, and gives him none. Finally, clearing his throat and assuming a cavalier affect, The One speaks:

The One: Uh, thank you, Mr. President, for seeing me in your beautiful offices.

Don Clinton nods, but says nothing. More praise is due.

The One: I, um, think it’s er…a wonderful, a wonderful testament to your, eh, your um, unquestionable commitment to em, the uh, your solidarity with the black community.

Don Clinton, remembering when The One played the race card on him, narrows his eyes and does not smile. He leans back in his chair and waits, squinting through the smoke, his cigar tilting upward in his mouth, ala FDR. More praise is due.

The One: It - it was a masterstroke of erm, brilliant racist-baiting, erm…a stroke of masterburbating, uhhhh, stroking, ermmm…a master…stroke…of getting back at the Republican jerks who impeached you and foreplaying, I mean forestalling any future innuendo or scandals intern erm…in turn.

Don Clinton’s eyes are ablaze with anger. The One, too cool to cower, crosses his legs and wishes for a teleprompter.

Jerry Reed passes away at 71.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol’ boy actor in car chase movies like “Smokey and the Bandit,” has died of complications from emphysema at 71.

His longtime booking agent, Carrie Moore-Reed, no relation to the star, said Reed died early Monday.

“He’s one of the greatest entertainers in the world. That’s the way I feel about him,” Moore-Reed said.

Sony BMG Nashville Chairman Joe Galante called Reed a larger-than-life personality.

The article goes on to name some of Jerry’s songs, which are now playing in my head. I grew up listening to country music, and his songs were quite popular during my teenage years. “She got the goldmine (I got the shaft),” “When you’re hot you’re hot,” “Amos Moses”… these are some of the songs of my adolescence. He wasn’t a favorite of mine, but the songs stayed with me, apparently.

In the mid-1970s, he began acting in movies such as “Smokey and the Bandit” with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol’ boy. But he was an ornery heavy in “Gator,” directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998’s “The Waterboy,” starring Adam Sandler.

Reynolds gave him a shiny black 1980 Trans Am like the one they used in “Smokey and the Bandit.”

Hmmm… sure am glad that the AP is “real” media, and has all them fancy fact-checkers and everything. It would be a shame if they was to type sumthin’ stoopid like the yokels who sit around in their pajamas at their keyboards, wouldn’t it?

Smokey & The Bandit came out while I was in high school. I graduated high school in 1978. It would be kind of hard to have a 1980 Trans Am two or more years before 1980, wouldn’t it? Out of curiosity, I checked IMDB.com - 30 seconds of my time yielded the information that Smokey was made in 1977. But I’m not real media, so my fact-checking doesn’t count. I’m just one of those part-time bloggers, sitting here at my keyboard in my pj’s (literally - I’m only 20 minutes out of bed at this point).

Ah, well. It’s just a washed-up entertainer who passed away. Accuracy doesn’t matter that much in that case, I guess. After all, it’s not like it was a memo from a National Guard commander, denigrating a presidential candidate, right? They would fact-check that, I’m sure.

edited to add: The AP article I link to is 13 hours old at this point. I guess no one has bothered to tell the reporter(s) about their little time paradox, and the link I found doesn’t have a space for comments.

While I’m not a fan of watching political conventions on TV (roughly the same to me, as watching golf, or paint dry, or grass grow), the Democratic convention just gets curiouser and curiouser.

Most recent development: Her once-inevitableness will be ON the ballot.

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name will be placed in nomination along with nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama at the Democratic convention in Denver, an emblematic move intended to unite the party after a divisive primary fight.

Democrats will officially nominate Obama at the convention but the state delegations will do a traditional roll call for his vanquished opponent as well.

If I were a schemer, I’d be scheming for ways to use that roll call to upset the apple cart.

These are interesting times for the Democratic party, my friends. Interesting times….

How are these things different from each other?

1. President Bush provides a $600 “tax rebate stimulus check” to most Americans.

2. Senator Obama proposes a $1000 check to most Americans, taken from the oil companies via a windfall profits tax.

I seem to recall a ton of criticism and ridicule regarding both of Bush’s stimulus payments. Does that mean I’ll also read/hear a ton of criticism and ridicule for Obama’s idea?

Just curious…..

Source

MOSCOW - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin’s slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.

Stepan Solzhenitsyn told The Associated Press his father died late Sunday at his home near Moscow, but declined further comment.

Through unflinching accounts of the years he spent in the Soviet gulag, Solzhenitsyn’s novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.

And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person’s courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.

Beginning with the 1962 short novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” Solzhenitsyn (sohl-zheh-NEETS’-ihn) devoted himself to describing what he called the human “meat grinder” that had caught him along with millions of other Soviet citizens: capricious arrests, often for trifling and seemingly absurd reasons, followed by sentences to slave labor camps where cold, starvation and punishing work crushed inmates physically and spiritually.

His non-fiction “Gulag Archipelago” trilogy of the 1970s shocked readers by describing the savagery of the Soviet state under Stalin. It helped erase lingering sympathy for the Soviet Union among many leftist intellectuals, especially in Europe.

But his account of that secret system of prison camps was also inspiring in its description of how one person — Solzhenitsyn himself — survived, physically and spiritually, in a penal system of soul-crushing hardship and injustice.

The world is a better place because this man lived in it, and is a poorer place for his passing. Rest in Peace, sir, and thank you for your fidelity to truth.

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Click the image to try it for yourself. There’s a trick, though. It’s VERY particular about the names. For instance, it took me 3 tries to get it to take the USA. It didn’t like USA, or America. It wanted “united states.” Oh, and don’t try to give it continents or island groups - it only wants countries

h/t: Blonde Sagacity

I’ve recently discovered a hilarious site called “Not Always Right” where folks share stories of their interactions with customers, in which the customer was most definitely NOT right.

I’m rationing myself to a few pages a day (although I did read the first 35 pages the night I found the site). Today I came across this gem on page 67.

Fun Things To Do On Your Last Day
Call Center | San Antonio, TX, USA

(My friend worked in the phone service department of an undergarment company. One day he got a call from an unhappy woman. We’ll call him David.)

Customer: “Yes, I’m calling to see why my order hasn’t arrived yet.”

David: “Could you please give me some information about your order?”

(The customer then goes on to inform him that her gargantuan pair of panties designated by untold numbers of X’s have yet to arrive and she’s very upset.)

David: “Well you see ma’am, the cargo plane that your panties were on lost power and the pilot had to use them to parachute to safety.”

(The customer did not have a sense of humor. David was promptly fired. True Story.)

h/t Randy Cassingham

Baldilocks has a new project underway. Seems that once upon a time (clear back in 2006), a certain senator of Kenyan descent made a promise to a Kenyan village. The village school needed help, and the Senator, while visiting there, promised that help would come - He would make it happen. Oddly enough, the village interpreted that as financial help, since the Senator was a wealthy man. They renamed their school in his honor: it’s now the Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School.

But alas, the good Senator got distracted by life and political campaigns, and the Kenyan village got thrown under the bus (a very crowded place, the underside of that bus — but I digress).

Baldilocks also has a Kenyan father, who came to the States via the same program that brought the Senator’s father to the States. Baldilocks is not a fan of the Senator or his political/philosophical beliefs, but she does believe in helping those who need help, and in keeping promises. You can read more about it here and here.

She wants to help that Kenyan village with their school. But she can’t do it alone. As Sgt Mom and Timmer can attest, military retirement paychecks don’t exactly give one a lot of discretionary income. She needs knowledge and expertise about fund-raising, among other things.

What the Obama School needs:
• Water
• Sanitation
• Electricity
• Remodeling
• Security
• Maintenance
to bring water to the school by sinking a borehole and building a water tank, erect a perimeter fence, complete the science laboratory and add much needed new classrooms, additional latrines, and a school dining hall

For the things that are in constant demand–e.g. school supplies, wages for security guards, spare parts–I’d say that a two year funding is enough.

The school’s principal suggested a minimum of 8.2 million Kenyan shillings which is equal to roughly $129,220 at today’s rate. That shouldn’t be too tough.

So here’s what we have:

• Domain name: obamaschool.org
• Email address: obamaschool@gmail.com

What we need:

Someone to assist in setting up the website … And someone here in the states who knows about the logistics of these things.

If you can help Juliette help the school, regardless of what name it bears, please do.

So I get an email from a former classmate today. That, in itself, is not unusual. This classmate periodically forwards emails to me, thinking that I agree with political viewpoint and will enjoy them. She’s usually fairly correct in that assumption. Unfortunately, she also seems to be one of those people who automatically assume that anything she reads on the internet or that gets forwarded to her from a friend is incontrovertibly true.

On that, we disagree. I’m a big fan of Snopes.com, and a firm believer in checking the flotsam and jetsam of my inbox before sending it on to others. And it irritates me that others don’t do the same.

Usually, I can simply ignore the bazillion forwarded items, but sometimes I just get an itch to do a public service and let folks know that no matter how much they want it to be true, Barack Obama is not the child of the anti-christ (or the devil himself), and the little boy in the UK is not still on his deathbed and trying to set a guinness world record for number of greeting cards received (if, indeed, he ever was). When this itch strikes, it’s usually not enough for me to simply reply to the individual who forwarded the email to me and her 5000 closest friends.

Not this time. Maybe it’s because I had a bad day at work today, or maybe it’s exhaustion, or the summer heat/humidity affecting my brain, but this time, I chose to “reply all” and let the entire recipient list of that email know that snopes calls it false.

Oh, maybe I should describe today’s email in more detail? Sure. (more…)