Lovely Day

Miswording from mickey

The term above in Bonnie's caption (quoting me) that the march Chris was leading was a "meaningless exertion" was a mistake on my part. We had both recently read Styron's The Long March, and the gist of it for me was that the person who had commanded a 36-mile hike at a time when there was no war, was simply being cruel to his men, and hence the exertion was "meaningless". 

Chris's 9-mile hike was in no sense meaningless, and he told me he was glad to do it, and especially proud to be leading it. Mea culpa mea culpa

love,

mickey

Chris and Beth

Here are some rare pictures from Chris and Beth, including some of their recent attendance at the Marine Corps Ball. Mickey gave them wide distribution but I thought they certainly deserved residence on the Sink.

The last two, according to Mickey, are the inspiration of Chris while reading "William Styron's The Long March when he was asked to lead his group on a 9-mile meaningless exertion."

Our TV Stars

We are not sure what they will be showing but there is a new episode on Greensburg that will be showing on Discovery's Science Channel this November 22 and 23. They will be covering work on the Engelken home, one of the green homes Janek has designed. The episode is called Green Hits Home.

Here's a direct link to information for Dirty Jobs, the show Misia will soon be on.  I'll keep you posted on the upcoming schedule as soon as I know.

Well, That Was Fun!

Ike's recent post elicited all sorts of reactions, comments, back and forth emails--the works! Due to the firm and kind family guidance he has since received he has acknowledged that the Sink was not the proper forum for cut and paste diatribes.

I know where he's coming from in a sense. Some time ago, I engaged in trying to educate my family in my strongly held beliefs but I ended up feeling like I was taking advantage of the family forum for my own devices.  That led me to create my own blog for such emotional outbursts and perhaps that is something Ike can consider. 

As "authors" to your own posts on this family blog, you have the right to have second thoughts about what you have written and can delete what you've posted.  As ultimate administrator of the Sink, and in the spirit of my ongoing desire to promote participation from one and all, I choose not to delete this little chapter in our family's history. Yesterday's events were monumental, the discussion important, and, I suspect, even the comment posted by ANONYMOUS (in caps) was someone in the family, or very close to it, wanting to speak without being identified (note the frequent reference to "Morgans" although we are much more than that).  And, after all, the whole thing has been rather entertaining, no?

Notice that any family websites I am aware of are posted in the sidebar as "interesting" other links for anyone to peruse if they are so inclined. Let me know if you want something listed. I even shamelessly list my own business website! And will freely list any of yours!  More links the better!

So in the spirit of Obama, I remain as admin for "red" and "blue" but more dedicated to one somewhat united family. 

I cannot imagine having this conversation from one side of the country to the other without the Sink, can you?

Please! please! please!.. read this before voting.

Sorry, But Obama Scares Me
Jonah Goldberg
Tuesday, November 04, 2008

The prospect of a Barack Obama presidency makes me very nervous.
Obama's entire campaign has been based on the need for radical, transformational change, which implies there is something very wrong with America.

It's hardly surprising, then, that he has painted the bleakest picture of America instead of acknowledging, as a starting point, that we are still the greatest nation in the world.

For the past eight years, Democrats have slandered America as an imperialistic country that always prefers force to diplomacy; that attacks nations without provocation to enrich itself and to project its power; that intentionally targets civilian lives; that encourages sadistic torture of enemy prisoners, as opposed to tough interrogation techniques to extract information to save the lives of its people; that eavesdrops on private conversations among its citizens rather than monitoring terrorist communications into its borders; and that abuses rather than goes out of its way to accommodate the savages in Guantanamo's prison.
None of it is true.

For eight years, Democrats have poor-mouthed the mostly growing economy. They've lied that Bush's tax cuts for all income groups were only for the wealthy and that the cuts reduced revenues. They pretend to be deficit hawks, when Obama's new spending plans alone will make Bush look like Scrooge. They said Bush wanted to destroy Social Security, when he's the only one in the past 20 years who had the courage to try to reform it.
All lies.

They've preached bipartisanship while exhibiting the nastiest partisanship in my lifetime, calling Bush "King George III," "Hitler," a "murderer," a "war criminal," a "reckless cowboy," a "moron" and a "Christian throwback." They've caricatured Bush as an unbending partisan who wouldn't reach across the aisle, in the face of his countless and mostly rebuffed bipartisan overtures and legislation.
More disinformation.

They've deliberately divided this nation on the basis of race, class, gender and religion while telling us, falsely, that conservatives are racists, greedy, sexists, homophobes and religious bigots.

The propaganda triumvirate -- Democrats, the liberal media and leftist bloggers -- have portrayed President Bush, Vice President Cheney and America as dark and evil forces and have whipped the country into a frenzy of desperation, setting the table for a charismatic leader to deliver us from the despair they've manufactured with relentless precision.

Barack Obama, with his mysterious past and messianic aura, then burst upon the scene with the focused purpose of capitalizing on the public's perceived woes by offering dramatic change and unspecified hope. As if the script had been written just for him, he stepped right into his role, expanding on this theme of despair. He stressed how bleak conditions are, how unfair America is to the less fortunate and middle class, how ugly America is in foreign affairs, how the values of average Americans are warped (bitter clingers), how hardworking producers who oppose confiscatory tax rates but who contribute more to charity than Obama and his running mate even contemplate are selfish, and how America is a global environmental menace.

With all respect, almost everything about Obama's campaign is fraudulent. He masquerades as a uniter while dividing, polarizing and alienating us. He denies he's liberal, when objective sources score him as the most liberal senator. He says he barely knows militants and radicals with whom he has spent his lifetime cavorting and whose worldviews -- horrifyingly -- he shares. He brazenly disguises welfare redistributions as tax cuts. He and his surrogates keep changing his tax plan.

With his ideas about spreading the wealth, entrepreneurial selfishness, the ongoing "original sin" in our Constitution, the inherent evil of corporations, nationalized health care, and the civil rights movement not doing enough to bring about "economic justice" -- a euphemism for "Marxism" used by radicals, such as Bill Ayers, who still hate America -- are you not concerned at just how far Obama might go if he's got a nearly veto-proof Democratic majority at his back?

With his known discomfort with American exceptionalism, his naive mindset about good and evil in the world, his reckless underestimation of threats to America, his stated intention to disarm our nuclear weapons unilaterally, his open-borders extremism, his willingness to relax our intelligence monitoring, and his misguided concern for terrorists' rights, how can America be as secure under his watch?

With his sordid background in "community organizing" and his symbiotic relationship with an organization that is engaged in a systematic effort to steal this election, his thug tactics to investigate and silence his critics, and his Democratic colleagues' willingness to use government to shut down conservative talk radio, are you not worried about our liberties under an Obama administration?

Before our very eyes, America stands poised to elect as president the most radical man ever to run for this office credibly.

Don't say we didn't warn you.

Misia's 15 Minutes of Fame?

Misia will be on the Dirty Jobs show late November or early December. Read Jef's nice writeup on Jef and Sara's blog.