Blog Fest 2011

When you've been part of a community of bloggers for better than five years you see just about everything in the way of disparate personalities.  Such is the case here in Coeur d'Alene where 'family squabbles' have been plenty throughout the years.  Yet once a year most of us put those differences aside and gather at the annual blog fest to greet old friends and make new ones.

Why, some have even gotten to the point where they dress alike, or is it that blogger Herb Huseland so admires Huckleberries blog host Dave Oliveria he wants to emulate him in every way!  This wasn't Dave's choice for the photo of the festivities but it certainly is mine!

There were a lot of new faces this year, and names I was unfamiliar with, because as in all things, the format is an ever evolving one.  There are those of us who mostly blog.  There are those that both blog and comment on Dave's blog and there are those who mostly just comment.  Yet we all have the one thing in common that binds us together, Huckleberries Online .  It has been quite a ride over the years.  I've met people and been involved in so many things that would not have been possible without Huckleberries and Dave opening doors.

I hope his success and longevity continue, because whether or not I comment, his site is like the barbecue offered up for the feed.  Once you get a taste of it, it's hard to stay away.

Far better photos can be found through links on Huckleberries but here a few of my own.

Photos

I think I have the only video however.  You want to know what a blogger is?  Take a look then describe what you saw!  Good luck with that!

Politicians And That Pesky Old Religion

Michele Bachmann is a headache!  Maybe even a migraine.  She certainly creates, in me, as per possible side effects of a migraine,  a degree of nausea and (a) disturbed vision!

Now, it seems she has left her church.  She is ~ was ~ Lutheran. After having belonged to the church for at least ten years even if she hasn't attended, in favor of another, for the last two.  It seems, after all those years, she finds herself questioning the Lutherans stand on the Pope and the Catholic view of how one attains salvation.

I left the church when I was in college for a number of reasons, not the least being witness to this doctrine being preached from the pulpit to numerous in the congregation from other countries and religions. I thought it showed an insensitivity to those exploring various religions, including Catholicism.  And, personally, I never bought into the idea that an old man chosen by a group of his peers is truly God's representative on earth and the only way to salvation is through the Catholic church.  I am also not Lutheran.

This, however, is beside the point.  Did Ms. Bachmann not know what Lutheran doctrine was when she joined the church?  Or is she just another politician saying, "Oops."   Can't offend another religion by dissing the Pope.  I wonder if her actions will really bring her more  Catholic votes than if she had said and done nothing.  And can that vote win her the election?

It's Friday, so I'm going to let my snarky side out.  I'm wondering if her husband suggested she leave her church, or if God told her to leave her church, maybe through her husband, or what?  If He instructed her as to who she should marry and what education she should pursue, certainly He had some say about this!

Is this not a good reason to leave religion out of politics?  What it shows to me is someone so insecure about how they 'believe' they'll flee at the first sign of controversy.  Come on.  A politician can't be all things to all people.  They need to understand that and so should the rest of us.  Leaving one's church isn't the best way to show you have convictions and are willing to stand by them!

On that note, Jon Huntsman is beginning to look interesting.  That he is a Mormon is of no matter to me.  In fact,  I've read that it's becoming cool to be Mormon since 'The Book of Mormon' opened on Broadway.  What does that have to do with politics?  Absolutely nothing.  And that's the point.

Government Intelligence As An Oxymoron

Much has been written lately about the TSA overstepping the bounds of human decency in their near strip searches of the elderly and the very young, not to mention everyone in between!  Sometimes I have to chuckle when I picture them trying to implant a bomb in an elderly person that they would set off themselves.  And a rug rat still in diapers couldn't do it at all.  I know kids are smarter younger, but there are also limits!

 Do you ever wonder how big that bomb would have to be to actually take down a plane? Is there really technology that such a powerful bomb can be implanted without showing at least a bump under the skin?  And where would they put it to make access easy without some noticeable contortions? By  the time it blows granny to smithereens would there be not so much damage but rather a mess and a bunch very of irate passengers?

Okay, you can see where my head is today, but now for the serious side.  The justification for TSA procedures comes from "chatter".  We can't take the chance that no one has been corrupted.  Meanwhile the terrorists know the buzz words to use, keep us in a tizzy and no doubt are enjoying our jumping through hoops immensely!

On the flip side, there is a real danger of something going boom and it isn't the diaper set.  It's the nuc Tehran is getting closer and closer to being able to build yet we refuse to acknowledge that possibility.  Let's face it, when they get the bomb a whole lot more than one airplane is at risk.  Try a city.  Or a country.  Maybe even ours!

Why are we in denial this is happening while the rest of the world including our allies and the U.N. are watching with grave concern?  The last assessment made by our intelligence was in 2007.  When Fred Fleitz tried to expose those doing the assessment, or the lack thereof, his criticisms were censored by the CIA and the Office of the Director of Intelligence. Fleitz recently retired after a twenty five year career with the CIA, DIA,  the State Department and the House Intelligence Committee staff.  I would think he knows his way around the subject and that his findings and concerns mesh with those of our allies and the U.N.

It seems to me if our government can tie itself up in knots over chatter, they just might not want to keep their heads in the sand when it comes to truth.  When the Iranian Revolutionary Guard posts on its website that the day after an Iranian nuclear test would be a normal day, one might be led to believe they are planning such a test.

What, me worry?  Nah.  After all, I didn't hear it on the grapevine!

No More Pencils, No More Books... Makes Nostalgia

Borders will be gone by the end of September.  It makes me sadder than you can imagine.  The demise of the book store chain, and the only one in our locale, is one more example of how much my reality of living is giving way to a future that confounds and confuses me.

How long will it be before kids ask, "What's a book?"  It's already a question being asked about newspapers.  When a book like Emus Loose in Egnar by Judy Muller, is reviewed in  The Wall Street Journal, you know the written word is in trouble.  It touts the the value of small town journalism as a mirror of our communities, something missing from the urban dailies these days.  It also is a hint to me that they are a fast disappearing part of Americana.  Like the book.

More and more you see pushes for more online classes.  That means fewer teachers and certainly, in this age of electronics, fewer pencils.

I find myself longing for my own version of a reality show.  Life as it was when I was growing up.  Those things that we took for granted that the youth of the future will know nothing about.  The soda fountain.  The land line telephone.  The party line!  Remember that?

A time when you didn't lock your house and weren't wary of walking through a parking lot alone.  Or down your street at night.

Family dinners on Sundays after church.  The family at the dining room table every night for dinner.  When families actually knew one another and had time for one another.

When we talked to one another rather than tweet.  I've  often commented  about how my Mom would talk of having lived in the good old days.  Well, there was some good and some not so but it surely was different.

I suppose if it weren't for phenomenons like Facebook and Twitter people like me wouldn't be rambling about things that were and are no more.  Nothing now but memories. Nostalgia.

I can't help but wonder what those memories will be like in the future.  There was something warm and tangible about the time in which I grew up.  I don't see it now.  Less and less human contact.  I don't want to follow the Presidential campaign on Twitter or Facebook.  I want to be able to look a person in the eye and get a sense of who they really are beyond a manufactured image.

What will be will be I suppose.  I think this modern age is dismissive and cold and uncomfortable.  I'm feeling disenfranchised.  I'm understanding how my Mom felt.  That's a red flag for sure.  I'm old.

I try to keep up with the times. I expect more than is to be given so I no longer expect much.  The one thing I will ask, however, is please don't take away my newspaper or my books.  There is a lot of life to be lived through them you can't get anywhere else!

Debt Versus Deficit

Politics.  That's what we've been witnessing.  The politics of re-election, not what's good for the country regardless  of what either the Republicans or Democrats would have you believe. In all it's self serving ugliness.

Blame is owned by both.  The Democrats for not having passed a budget for two years.  To use their term, continuing resolutions are no more than 'kicking the can down the road.'

The Republicans, on the other hand, are trying to tie two different problems together.  Let's look at debt first. We all carry debt.  Credit cards, car payments, mortgages, etc.  Anything you owe on is debt.  The same holds true for government.  It isn't just social security and medicare and military salaries.  It's everything from Boeing to the companies who make bullets for the troops.  The debt ceiling is how much we can afford to charge.

Deficit then is obviously when we spend more money than we've budgeted.  Of course actually having a budget helps.  But how many of us do and what happens when the bank sends you an insufficient funds notice?  Pay up.  What if you can't?  Default?  Bankruptcy?

So as I see the issues, Congress ought to raise the debt limit the absolute minimum amount needed to run the government for a year.  Then write a budget cutting what is feasible from the morass of programs out there and/or the programs themselves.  But in an orderly manner.

They keep talking about a Constitutional amendment to balance the budget.  That isn't likely to happen.  They should, however, make passing an annual budget mandatory.  Before spending dime one!

Both sides have muddied the water so much it's hard to sort it all out.  There have been cries for there to be adults in the room.  Don't be fooled by exasperated sighs and head shaking.  They are all acting like spoiled children.  My way or the highway.  The President has not put forward concrete ideas.  The Republicans, lead by the tea party caucus, are being bull headed over the tax part of the issues.  Closing loopholes should not be considered tax hikes. It's an exploitation of poorly written laws and should be eliminated.  Laws, by the way, written by Congress.

Congress can point fingers at the President all they want, but it shouldn't be forgotten they are the ones who voted to spend beyond our limits in the first place.  Both parties.  Over years.

What goes around comes around.  Now they've been hoisted on their own petard - of greed.

Is there anyone out there who will really put country first?  Oh, yes.  The young men and women who are still being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They understand the concept.  They have no lobbyists nor unions to bloat their salaries or benefits.  They just love their country - enough to  be willing to sacrifice their lives for it.

Politicians - take note.