globalnook

Where's Pelosi, Reid and Murtha Now?

    Now that Saddam Hussein--the most destabilizing figure in the Middle East--is six feet under, Iraq has a Democratic government and talks are underway to withdraw American troops, where are all the leading Democrats who opposed the war and the troop surge which engendered the current situation.

    To wit….where are Sens. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and John Murtha?

    If we had listened to them, Iraq would still be involved in civil war and the gains we see today would not have been achieved.

    It appears that they were either mistaken in their judgement OR they didn’t have the best interests of the American people at heart OR they were media pawns who took those positions for flashy sound bites and headlines.

    If they made a mistake, why haven’t they come forward and honestly said: “I’m sorry, I misjudged the situation. I'm glad America is winning in Iraq now.”

    But I guess that would be expecting too much decency from a critter called a politician.

    I suspect that the true motivation behind their positions against the war was that they didn’t truly have the best interests of the American people at heart.

    They opposed the war because it was being sponsored and promoted by a Republican administration.

    It was more important for them to promote the Democratic party--by taking the side opposite the Republicans--than it was to stay the course and call for an American victory in Iraq.

    What a sad state American politics has come to.

    Sad! Sad! Sad!

Gen. Wesley Clark Bow-Wows!

Gen. Wesley Clark is anybody’s dog that will feed him

He’ll even go that extra “Bow-wow” if the feeder is a Democrat.

Apparently, because he is a military man, he thinks he can credibly help Barack Obama overcome his lack of military experience by belittling John Cain's military service.

In a recent interview, Clark stated:

"The experience that he (McCain) had as a fighter pilot isn't the same as having been at the highest levels of the military and having to make ... life or death decisions about national, strategic issues.”

“Bow wow-wow!”

Asked whether he felt he owed McCain an apology, Clark responded, "I'm very sorry that this has distracted from the message of patriotism that Sen. Obama wants to put out."

Bow wow-wow!

In 2004, when Sen. John Kerry was the Democratic presidential candidate, Clark was barking for the Democratic candidate again when he said Kerry had "heard the thump of enemy mortars. He's seen the flash of tracers" and could lead in a time of war.

Bow-wow-wow!

"I think that you can always cite a candidate's (McCain's) service in the armed forces as a testimony to his character and his courage,” Clark added, “but I don’t think early service justifies moving away from looking at a candidate's judgment.”

And the dog barks on.

Down deep, Clark is a wanna-be politician.   

He doesn't have the charisma or eloquence to be a major political candidate so he hangs hungrily on the periphery and plays suck-egg dog to those who do have those qualifications.

“Bow wow-wow!!

More Favorite quotes.....

Blogmaster Comments: I just love GREAT quotes! Don't you?
OK, boys and girls, let's get very serious now. Ok..... Here  we go:

“Death is in the order of things.”
  Marcus Aurelius

 “I love you not for who you are, but for the person I become when I am with you.”
  Anonymous

“The human mind makes a great slave, but a terrible master….”
Carlos Castaneda

“I dreamed I was a butterfly. I wasn’t sure if I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I was a man.
Lao- Tse

“The pump don’t work because the vandals took the handle…”
Bob Dylan

"... if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiances here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag,... we have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Teddy Roosevelt – 1907

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for some have entertained angels unaware.”                              
The Book of Luke

“If you don’t understand my silence, you can’t appreciate my words.”
Anonymous

"All happiness depends on courage and work. I have had many periods of wretchedness, but with energy and above all with illusions, I pulled through them all."
Honore de Balzac

          

Ramblings I

                                                                             ****

      Basically there are only two things in life, the things you should be doing and the things you want to be doing.

     All human endeavors fall within those two categories.

     You can't REALLY enjoy the things you want to do unless you are doing the things you should be doing.

     By the same token, you do the things you should be doing because it enables the things you want to do.

    Doing the things you want to be doing is the reward you get for doing the things you should do.

    There is a delicate balance between the two.

                                                                          ****

    With women, there is always the intellectual fit and the sexual fit.

    You'll meet women where there is a seamless intellectual fit, but the physical fit will be less than satisfactory.

    Then you will meet women who are a perfect body match, but intellectuality has become virtually lost. 

   When you find one that's a good mind AND body match, she's a keeper.

                                                                            ****

       "Sophocles long ago heard it on the Aegean....."

                                                                                       Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"

                                                                           ****

       "They dined on mince and slices of quince which they ate with the runcible spoon and hand in hand, at the edge of the sand they danced by the light of the moon".

                                                                                      Edward Lear, The Owl and the Pussycat

                                                                           *****

      "He not busy being born is busy dying."

                                                                                      Mr. Dylan

                                                                           ****

Scott McClellan's 15 Minutes

    Andy Warhol said all of us get our 15 minutes on the world stage at one time or another.

    Scott McClellan, author and former White House press secretary who wrote the Bush-bashing best-seller “What Happened:Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” is getting his, even as we speak.

    In the twinkling of an eye, McClellan transformed himself from being a staunch, long-time Bush ally into a lapdog for the left-loving American media.

   Essentially,  he verbalized all the propaganda the left-loving American press has been trying to shove down the throats of the Americans since the invasion of  Iraq.

   In McClellan, they found a stooge for their political agenda,

   After doing what he did, he has to gall to say that he was seeking “truth”.

   That “truth” was spun to match the Bush-bashing tastes of  America’s liberal-loving media.

    And for what? Money! Dinero! Geetus! Bread!

    In the Bible, there is the story of a guy named Judas. He was a man who followed his benefactor to the top of his profession. Hanging on to the benefactor’s coattails, he rode to personal heights he could never have achieved on his own. He believed in his leader’s teachings and supported him vociferously in all of the leader’s life endeavors. Then, one day when he was bored and was in need of monetary enrichment, he turned his back on his benefactor and betrayed him to his crucifiers.

    Like a true gentleman, George Bush wished McClellan well when he resigned from his White House post and even reminisced about their future rocking chair days when they would fondly recall their days in the Oval office.

   McClellan shook his hand and offered a faint smile.

   Little did Bush know he was shaking the hand of his Judas.

   Scott McClellan collected his 30 shekels just as surely as the guy in the Bible.

   The guy in the Bible handed his benefactor over to the Romans.

  Scott McClellan handed his benefactor over to the left-loving American press.

  Crucifixion has changed over the years.

Is Obama another JFK?

  The Democrats are doing everything in their power to make another JKF out of Barack Obama.

  First there is the thing with Teddy.

  Now Caroline is being pulled into the mix.

  It’s going to take a lot of doing to transform Barack Obama into another JFK.

  Is Obama's father the founder of one of America's most famous and powerful families.  A long-standing scion in American business and ecnomics?  A clever mover and shaker in international politics?

   Has Obama ever won a Pulitzer?

   Did Obama graduate cum laude from Harvard?

   Has Obama ever written a “Profiles in Courage”?

   How are they going to get him a PT-109?

   And his wife Michelle, is she REALLY another Jackie?

  The Dems have really go their work cut out from them.

  Let the transformations begin....

 

Just Another Walter Mitty......

     For a year, I was close to this woman from Gautemala. She was married, but we started meeting secretly on Friday mornings and Sunday afternoons while her husband was at work. We became very close and we shared our hearts, minds, spirits and bodies. We exchanged Christmas gifts and birthday cards and purchased love momentos for one another.

     Once when she was on vacation with her family up in Tennessee, she brought back a set of wind chimes. When she gave them to me, she said: ”From now on, whenever you hear these chimes, you’ll think of me……” 

   With sincere gratitude, I thanked her and hung the chimes from the wall light on my patio.

    Now, two later, I am involved with a different woman. I’m madly in love with this woman and, like with the Latin woman, we share your hearts, minds etc.

    Some hot summer nights when I’m lying in bed with her and can't sleep, I’ll get out of bed and go out to the patio with a cold green tea to feel the night air.

   Very softly, I will hear the wild chimes and I will hear the Latin woman's voice calling my name.  And my innermost soul will start to sob. It is the wail of a demon lover and,  for a moment I will imagine that I am with her and we are bathing in one another's souls again. Great dark atomic clouds of sadness will begin to accumulate in my intrinsic soul. It’s the part of me that recognizes just how fleeting life is and how that ultimately, all living things are nothing more than dust in the wind. No matter how great or small, all things come from this earth and all things return to this earth.

    Poets have called it ”that exquisite melancholy....”

   Moments later,  the new woman will appear at the patio door, drowsy and naked, and ask me: “Why aren’t you in bed?”

   Startled from my reveries, I will snap back.

   “Oh, I was just thinking,” I will reply innocently. “Just thinking…..,” I will say again as if the repetition added credibility to the first statement.

   “Come back to bed!” she will bark with simulated anger.

    Then she will turn and retreat back to our bed.

    For a moment, I will continue to ponder the impending mortality of all living things, then I will get up and go back to bed.

    Once back in bed, I will snuggle up behind her sleeping body and softly stroke her tummy.

   As I doze off to sleep, I'll start humming Bob Dylan's: "Oh, where are you tonight?"

   I guess I’m  just another Walter Mitty.

   One of those poor souls who will never reconcile his fantasies and his realities.

   What’s the Thoreau quote: ”The masses of men live lives of quiet desperation.”

 

 

Mother's Day

(The following short story is a reprint from Globalnook's Mother's Day edition of last year. It was written to honor mothers throughout the world on their special day.)

                                                               **************

        Robert Allman, dressed in his best Sunday suit, sat quietly in the front seat of the family car while his wife drove.
    “Now Bob, I’m going to drop you off at the corner,” the wife instructed. “Go to Waldrop's Drugs and get three roses…Two red and one white.”
      “Yes, dear,” Robert replied.
      “What’s the difference, mama?” little Johnny asked from the back seat.
    “On Mother’s Day, you wear a red rose to church if your mother is alive,” the wife continued. “If your mother is dead, you wear a white one…. You and I will wear red. Your father will wear white.”
       “Oh,” little Johnny replied thoughtfully.
       The car stopped at the corner down from the drug store.
       Robert started to get out.
       “Dad!” little Johnny said. “Get me some jawbreakers. Two sour grape and three lemon. OK?”
       The child’s father nodded then started to get out again.
       “Dad!” the son called again.
       The father stopped again.
     “Don’t let her tell you she doesn’t have any lemon,” the son said. ”I was in there Friday morning. The lemons are in the front corner of the big candy case.”
       “Ok.” the father said.
       Robert started to get out again.
       “Bob!” the wife summoned.
       The husband stopped again.
       “Tell Alma I said “Hi!”
       The husband nodded and started to get out again.
       “Don’t forget!” Johnny called from the back seat. “Two sour grape and three lemon… OK?”
      “Ok. Ok.” The father said. “Can I get out now?”
    “Yeah… Get out! Go on!” the wife said impatiently, urging her husband out of car, “And hurry up. We don’t want to be late for church on Mother’s Day.
      Robert got out of the car and slammed the door.
      Then, after watching the car move down the street, he turned and started walking the half-block to the drug store.
      “Good morning, Bob,” the clerk greeted.
      “Morning, Alma,” Robert started, “I need three roses. Two reds and one white.”
      “Let me see what I have,” she said moving to the flower cooler. “The white is for you?”
      Robert nodded.
      “My mother is passed on too” the woman said. “I miss her so much.”
      He watched as the woman searched through the bunches of roses.
      “Yeah, I lost my mother nine years ago,” he replied sadly. “I’d give anything on this earth to see her again”.
      “I’m sorry,” the woman said finally, “But I’m out of whites.”
      He pondered for a second.
    “Well…” he sighed indecisively. “Give me a red. I’ve got to wear something…. And I want some jawbreakers. Two sour grape and three lemon.”
      The clerk gathered the jawbreakers and roses and handed them to her customer.
      “That’ll be $3.50” she said.
      Robert Allman paid the clerk.
      “Thanks, Alma,” he said.
    Outside on the street again, he looked at the three red roses. They were rich, fully-petaled flowers. For a moment, he wondered what his wife would think, then he started walking back down the street.
      “Robert!” a voice called nearby.
      He stopped and turned to the sound of the voice. Before him stood a small, elderly woman with a warm smile.
      “Oh my God!” he said, jumping back in fright and staring in disbelief.
      For a moment, he couldn’t speak
      “Mother!? Mom?” he gasped finally, “Is that you??!!”
      “It’s me, Robert”, the woman replied quietly. “Stay calm now. I‘m just here for a little visit.”
      Robert Allman still couldn’t believe what he is seeing.
      “Mama, we buried you down at Fellowship Baptist nine years ago.
    “Well, I’m here now. And I’m talking to my son,” the woman said calmly, taking his arm. “Come on and walk with me a ways. I don’t have long.”
      For a moment, he hesitated. He still couldn’t believe his eyes.
      “Come on!” the woman said, tugging on his arm. “Don’t be afraid. I AM your mother.”
      For a brief moment, he burst out in giddy laughter. Then, just as suddenly, he stopped.
      “I can’t believe it mom,” he said. “I just can’t believe it,” he said again. “Oh, God! I’m so glad to see you.”
      “It’s good to see you too,” she said with a loving smile. “Now come on and walk with me."
    Calmer now, forty-two-year-old Robert Allman, holding the three roses and the sack of jawbreakers, started walking down the street with the elderly woman holding his arm.
      “How you been doing?” she asked. “How’s little Johnny and Clara. I’ll bet Johnny is a big boy now.”
    “He’s 12.” Robert replied. “He wants everything he sees. When I growing up, I was lucky to get one jawbreaker. He has to have five, two sour grape and three lemon, no less.”
      “Yeah, that’s the way you were when you were his age. I remember how you worked cutting lawns all summer to get that catcher’s mitt when you were his age.”
      He looked at the woman and smiled.
     “That glove was burned up in the old clubhouse we had down in the woods,” he laughed. "Me and Billy Herman had a built a fire in an old stove and went down to the creek. When we smelled the smoke, we went running back up the hill. I tried to save the mitt, but the clubhouse and the glove were already gone.”
     Robert laughed out loud at the memory.
     “I hadn’t thought about that for a long time,” he said.
     “And Clara? Are you and her getting along?”
   “Yeah,” he said finally. “We are doing okay, I guess. She’s just so bossy.  She orders me around like I’m a puppy dog. But she’s a good mother to our son, so I don’t say anything.”
     “How’s she doing with the diabetes?”
   “Oh, she’s fine,” he answered. “If she takes her insulin, she’s fine. We always keep orange juice in the fridge in case of emergencies.”
     “You look good, Robert,” the woman said. “You look healthy and happy with yourself."
     “Oh, I feel good, mama. I love my job at the plumbing supply. I’ve been doing it a while.”
      “Are you saving any of it?”
     “I’m trying, mama.  I’ve got a retirement plan at work, we own the house on Chestnut Street now and Clara is talking about opening a savings bond account at her work.”
    “That’s good,” the woman said. “No matter what they say about money, in times of trouble it can’t be beat. Money gives you freedom. You don’t want to be broke in this day and age.”
       The two walked quietly.
       “When was the last time you were at the old house down at Oakwood?”
     “Oh, it’s been a while, mama," he replied. “You know the gas company bought that land six or seven years ago. Right where the old house used to stand there is a big tank that holds natural gas.
       “Me and your daddy built that house when you were five," she replied. "I remember my cousin Alvin came over to help us dig out of the tree roots so we could lay the foundation. I handed the concrete blocks up to your daddy one at a time," she said with a sigh. "I guess nothing stays the same...."
       The two walked quietly.
       “What about your sister Edna? Is she OK?”
       “I don’t know, mama,” he replied. “ I don't know where she is. After the estate was settled, she met up with a lawyer over in Reedsville and she said they were going up to St. Louis. I haven’t heard from her in five, maybe six years…. She never wrote… she never called....”
       The mother didn't reply at first.
       “I hope that wherever she is she’s happy, healthy and at peace with herself…,” she said finally.
       Robert Allman looked at his mother and said nothing.
       The two walked quietly. They were nearing the corner where he was due to meet his wife.
       “When was the last time you cleaned off your daddy’s grave?”
       He stopped and drew a deep breath.
    “Now mama, you know me and daddy never got along,” he said. “He never had time for me. He was always busy with work and his friends and everything else but me. You know that.”
      “That doesn’t matter,” he said. "He’s still your father.”
       He turned quickly to his mother.
    “Mom! You know that YOU were the one I loved. It was your arms I ran to. It was your bosom that I clung to. It was your voice that soothed me in  times on trouble. It was you I went to when I was hurting or hungry or needed support. It was YOUR arms where I felt warmth and comfort and support and love….”
       He stopped for a moment.
      The woman looked at her son sympathetically, saying nothing.
      “Then, as I grew older,” the son continued, “Other arms reached out to hold me…….”
      Suddenly, realizing what he had said, he stopped, overcome with emotion.
      He looked as his mother and his eyes began to fill with tears.
      They stopped walking. The mother turned to face her son.
    “It’s OK, Robert,” the mother said consolingly, reaching up and taking the much larger man into her small arms. "It's okay, baby.... It's okay, baby... it's ok."
      For a brief moment, the two hugged one another tightly.
      "Mama..... I've missed you so much...," he said, clinging tightly to the woman.
      "I know, baby.... I know," she replied.
      Finally, the son broke the embrace.
      “I’m so glad to see you, mom,” he said tearfully. “I love you so much.”
      “And I love you too....” she replied.
      Then she stepped back from her son.
      “Well...," she said. "I’ve got to go now.”
      “Go!!??...” he asked, a frantic tone in his voice. “Where are you going?”
      “Oh, I’ve got to go back...,” she said. “They only let me come for a visit.”
       “But…but…” he said….
       “Bye, Robert…” the woman said sadly. “I love you.”
     Then, as Robert Allman watched helplessly, the woman walked quickly to the building at the corner and turned up the street.
       “Mom! Mother!” he yelled frantically. “Mom! Mom!” he yelled again.
       Desperately, he ran to the corner and looked up the street.
       The street was empty.
     He looked around frantically. He looked across the street and back down the street toward the drug store. The woman was nowhere to be seen. Then,  holding the sack of candy in one hand and the roses in the other, he put his hands to his face and began sobbing. Then he fell to his knees and sobbed uncontrollably for several seconds. Then he suddenly realized where he was. Instantly, he stood up. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He straightened his tie. He looked down at his dress pants. There was gravel and dirt at the knees. He dusted them off hastily. He inspected the roses. They were fine. Then he took a deep breath and looked up the street. He could see the family car approaching.
      The car stopped. The son already had the car’s back window rolled down and was reaching for the candy. Robert handed the bag to his son then got into the car.
      “Oh, no!!” the wife said disappointedly upon seeing the roses.
       "Alma didn’t have any more whites...,” he explained.
      “So what are we going to do?” the wife asked.
      “We’ll just have to play like daddy’s mama is alive today,” little Johnny suggested.
      “What?!” the mother asked.
      “Let dad wear the red rose like his mother is alive….,” the son said. “What’s wrong with that?”
    “Well, it IS kind of tacky…” she said thoughtfully. “But since that’s all we’ve got…. Ok,” she said finally, “I guess the red will have to do….”
      In the back seat, Johnny opened the bag of jawbreakers.
      “Wow, Dad!” the son said excitedly, looking inside. “That’s exactly what I wanted. You did great!”
       “Yeah” the father said with a smile, “I DID do pretty good!”
       With that, the father looked back at his son and laughed out loud.
      “Ok, you two,” the woman said sternly, “Y’all hush up so I can drive… “We don’t want to be late for church on Mother’s day.”

Rev. Wright Sabotaging Obama Campaign

    Rev. Jeremiah Wright is sabotaging Barack Obama’s campaign.
    Everything this man says reeks of an underlying racial theme.
    His latest attempt to defend himself in front of the NAACP only sunk him further into the dark hole of racism.
   As long as Obama is associated with Rev. Wright, he is being put in the same category as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters, blacks whose agenda white voters see as little more than a tired rehash of the 1960s civil rights movement.
   The white voters that Obama needs to get elected are turned off by these old-fashioned “white folks are out to get blacks” attitudes.
   They want a candidate who has put the sad history of America's racial injustice to rest.   
   Obama has all of the necessary credentials to get elected.
   He is smart, well-spoken, looks good on television and has a confident, self-assured manner about him. While his experience may be somewhat lacking compared to his opponents, he has done an admirable job as a senator.  The fact that he is black is purely incidental.
   It’s a shame that a man who is trying to bring a true sense of change to American politics is being besmirched by members of his own race who wants to jump on the bandwagon.
   If Obama is smart, he will distance himself as far as possible from this blatant racism.
   To win, it’s going to have to rise above the likes of Sharpton, Jackson and Waters.

 

Designer Children Next?

    Looks like the geneticists have created something new for you to spend your money on. It’s called designer pets.
    Check it out!

http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/89/how-much-is-the-kitty-in-the-window-22000

    They have cross-bred the African serval and Asian leopard cat with a domestic cat to come up with a once-in-a life critter that will make your neighbors green with envy. Price tag is $22,000. It looks like a small leopard and its called the “Ashera”. It comes complete with its own microchip identifier and an animal psychologist to ensure that the new pet adjusts well—both psychologically and emotionally-to its new environment.
    You won’t see photos of this animal in your zoology book because nature hadn’t thought of it yet. But the geneticist have.
    From all indications, the geneticists can now mix and match chromosomes and DNA patterns just like they were baking a batch of corn bread.
    My favorite designer critter is the see-through frogs which Japanese geneticists came up. Squeamish high school students don’t have to dissect them, they can just look inside the frog’s body to see how the heart, lungs and digestive system all work together. No formaldehyde, bloody, dissecting utensils and nauseating grimaces.
     At this rate, you’ll soon be able to design your offspring.
     Give me a couple of blue-eyed, fair-skinned, curly-haired males that are 6 feet tall with peasant dispositions and an IQ over 140. As a side-order, I’ll have a dark-haired, petite female with a quiet smile and a penchant for painting.
     It is absolutely impossible to not expect designer children next.
     If you’re got the money, you can get it.