Proms, graduations and teen crashes: The worst season for police official and father ( and kids)

MoonHowler

A Pro-Life Message from Moonhowlings.net

Every year about this time, at least one carload of kids is needlessly snuffed out.  If calling attention to this killing time saves one kid, then our “ink” has been well-spent.  Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles!  Please become involved.

The Washington Post article “Proms, graduations and teen crashes: The worst season for police official and father” is a must read by everyone. It features Captain Tom Didone and his efforts to save young lives.  Three years ago Capt. Didone lived every parent’s worst nightmare–his own child was senselessly killed in a crash. He was called to the scene.     If you have never been close to this situation, you are fortunate.  I have been and I remain scarred.  My child lived.  Someone else’s didn’t.   Now I fear it for my grandchildren.

This time of year seems to bring about more crashes and more deaths than any other time of year.  Young folks think they are immortal.  Their youth and exuberance reinforces this misconception.  Proms and graduations bring about the spirit of celebration.  The kids have their entire lives before them….or do they?

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What is the Tea Party Fund?

MoonHowler

What is the Tea Party Fund?  According to their website:

The Tea Party Fund is a SUPER PAC working to develop a grassroots army to fight the left in 2012. Our core goals include the defeat of Barack Obama and success in 7 out of 10 targeted Senate seats.

Why do we care?   This fellow had a profile spot on the website. 

From insidenova.com:

The FBI took down an alleged white supremacist in the parking lot of the Bull Run Plaza shopping center Tuesday after they say he paid an undercover agent to illegally modify his AK-47 assault rifle.

Douglas Howard Story, 48, of Manassas is charged with making a firearm in violation of the National Firearms Act and is accused of making threats online to the president and others, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Peter Carr said.

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Republicans attempt to ban sex selection abortions on Thursday

MoonHowler

Politico.com:

A vote Thursday on a bill to outlaw sex-selective abortion is the latest step in an awkward dance between the House Republican leadership and the large faction of passionate abortion opponents in the caucus.

Anti-abortion bills percolate constantly in committee, but leadership has not been pushing to get them to the floor as they attempt to stay focused on an economic message, say sources close to anti-abortion Republican members. But for this bill, anti-abortion advocates say sponsor Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) got a vote scheduled as a concession when he agreed not to try to attach the measure to the Violence Against Women Act, which has been bogging down Republicans on a divisive social issue.

Are you people nuts?  How do you control something like that?  Why are Republicans continuing to bring up social issues and scuttling attempts to bring up ideas that help the economy?  In the first place, how many abortions a year are performed for the purpose of sex selection?  Unknown.  (and likely to stay that way)  Why would anyone say they were going to have an abortion because they were pregnant with a boy and they wanted a girl?  Insanity. 

Republicans–you bloviate and carried on before the mid-term elections that you were going to solve the economy.  You haven’t.  Get busy and live up to your promise.  Stop screwing around with this kind of absurd, ridiculous stuff.  Any congressman or woman voting yes on this kind of

legislation should be dunked in the Potomac.  

 We have a tax crisis coming up at the end of the year.  Work on that for a while.  Do something.  Democrats, don’t go running scared rabbit on this stupid legislation.  Vote NO.

No good deed goes unpunished…..

MoonHowler

From the Huffington Post:

 The White House said President Barack Obama misspoke on Tuesday when he referred to a “Polish death camp” while honoring a Polish war hero.

The president’s remark had drawn immediate complaints from Poles who said Obama should have called it a “German death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland,” to distinguish the perpetrators from the location. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called it a matter of “ignorance and incompetence.”

Obama made the comment while awarding the Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II. Karski died in 2000.

During an East Room ceremony honoring 13 Medal of Freedom recipients, Obama said that Karski “served as a courier for the Polish resistance during the darkest days of World War II. Before one trip across enemy lines, resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself. Jan took that information to President Franklin Roosevelt, giving one of the first accounts of the Holocaust and imploring to the world to take action.”

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Medal of Freedom Recipients 2012

MoonHowler

President Barack Obama will honor a diverse cross-section of political and cultural icons.  The Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor. It is presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the national interests of the United States, to world peace or to other significant endeavors.  The medal may be given posthumously.

 _Madeleine Albright,  former Secretary of State

_John Glenn, astronaut

_Pat Summitt ,basketball coach

_ Bob Dylan ,rock legend

_Toni Morrison, author of such novels as “Song of Solomon” and “Beloved.”

_John Paul Stevens, former Supreme Court Justice.

_Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts.

_Shimon Peres, former president of Israel.

_John Doar, who handled civil rights cases as assistant attorney general in the 1960s.

_William Foege, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who helped lead the effort to eradicate smallpox.

_Gordon Hirabayashi, who fought the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

_Jan Karski, a resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II.

_Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America.

Do you have a favorite on this list?  I have several.  I call 3 of them.

Addendum:
video platform video management video solutions video player

 Who would have ever thunk it?  Do you think this ruins Dylans reputation as Mr. Anti-Establishment?  I never thought I would see the day.  Dylan reminded me of a cross between Sgt. Pepper and captain Kangaroo.

Richard Leakey predicts the end of the evolution debate–soon

MoonHowler
 

Richard Leakey, son of world renown anthropologists Louis and  Mary Leaky,  tells us that fairly soon, the topic of evolution will be indisputable, even to its strongest critics.  Discoveries in anthropology and science are progressing along at such a clip that soon sceptics will have no choice but to accept.

huffingtonpost.com:

Sometime in the next 15 to 30 years, the Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist expects scientific discoveries will have accelerated to the point that “even the skeptics can accept it.”

“If you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence, that it’s solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive,” Leakey says, “then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges.”

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Open Thread………………………………………….Friday, May 25

MoonHowler

Name that National Park!!  Oooops, the answer is on the picture.  Zion National Park.  Zion is stately, white/gray, and dignified, unlike Bryce Canyon that is pink and full of hoodoos.

Zion is right outside the town of Springdale, Utah which is just delightful and has many neat little places to stay.  finding a good place to eat is a little more challenging. My favorite spot is Majestic View Lodge.  Zion is not off the radar for Christmas time because of its desert location.  Utah has to be the most beautiful of all the states, unless you have an affinity for green.

Captain George S. Harris: Flags In–Memorial Day 2012

MoonHowler

FLAGS IN

MEMORIAL DAY 2012

When Mrs. Moon asked me if I would write a piece for Memorial Day, I was at a loss for words and then I remembered that this weekend, the members of the Third U.S. Infantry Regiment (the Old Guard, will be joined by service members from the U.S. Marine Corps Ceremonial and Guard Company, U.S. Navy Ceremonial Guard, U.S. Air Force Honor Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard Ceremonial Honor Guard in placing more than 260,000 grave decorating flags in front of the gravestones and another 7,300 flags at the niches in the columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery.  In addition, 13,500 flags will be placed at the Soldier’s and Airmen’s Cemetery near the Soldier’s and Airmen’s Home in Washington, DC.  These 280,800 flags represent about one-fourth of all the men and women who have died in the service of their nation.  Not all died on active duty, some died many years later, but they all have one thing in common—they were all willing to lay down their life for their nation and many have done just that.

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Tim McGraw gives back

MoonHowler

Tim McGraw plans on giving back…to our veterans who are returning home from war.  He just announced that he will  give away 25 mortgage fromm homes to vets at each of his concerts this summer.  Wow!  That is really putting your money where your mouth is!

Tasteofcountry.com stated:

Tim McGraw is giving back to wounded warriors and service members by launching the nationwide HomeFront initiative, a goodwill effort that will award 25 deserving families with a mortgage-free home at each of his summer concert stops.

“My sister’s a veteran of the first Gulf War. My uncle was a Vietnam veteran and my grandfather was a World War II veteran. I’ve always felt a deep sense of respect and obligation to our troops,” says McGraw, speaking on his incentive to give houses to those in need (quote via Green Room PR). “Being able to reward them for their dedicated work with a new home will be even more rewarding for us. It feels so good to give back to them, and to have the opportunity to entertain them on Memorial Day is something I’m honored to do.”

McGraw has partnered was Chase Bank and Operations HomeFront to launch the new program. ACM Lifting Lives — the charitable arm of the Academy of Country Music — and the Premier Group (on behalf of the North Carolina Furniture Manufacturers) have also made substantial contributions to support the program throughout McGraw’s string of summer concert dates.

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GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! Email from me-spreading the nasty

MoonHowler

Someone slipped my email account that I use on the blog (the yahoo one) a nasty.  I don’t know if it is a worm/trojanhorse or what.  Just don’t open anything from my yahoo account.  It will say it is from Moon and the subject is just re:

If  it  is opened, the email is about making 17k at home per month.  It didn’t look suspicious when I first got it because of who sent it.  Anyway….Don’t open it.  It is a nasty.

If you know how to knock out these things, please leave me a message.  I am putting up a different account to use to contact me….see contact us.  gmail account.

 

Thanks and sorry.  I hope I haven’t spread the nasty.

MH

Saluting Captain George Harris, Moonhowlings Poet Laureate

MoonHowler

 

Sometimes I am just subtle as a train wreck. Every year I ask our friend George Harris to please write the official Moonhowlings Memorial Day Dedication. Each year George comes through, and his Memorial Day piece seems a little bit better each year. He has every right to tell me to go pound sand because I don’t think I have ever given him enough of a warning. Memorial Day always sneaks up on me.

Since I use and abuse poor George every year at this time, I want to salute and pay tribute to George just so you all know what an outstanding guy is writing the Memorial Day Dedication. So I sneaked and asked him for bio information. Subtle, M-H.

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Rolling Thunder

MoonHowler

Rolling Thunder was born out of the Vietnam War, more like a vengeful, loud phoenix arising from the ashes of what was never going to be shame. They would not allow it.

A lone marine pays respect to those earlier fallen buddies and to those who ride in memory and honor.

This year is the 25th anniversary of Rolling Thunder.  One does not have to be a veteran to be a member of Rolling thunder.  All members are united in the cause to bring full accountability for Prisoners Of War (POW) and Missing In Action (MIA) of all wars, reminding the government, the media and the public by our watchwords: “We Will Not Forget.”  (from RT website)

Some Rolling thunder History

Rolling Thunder participants  will assemble at the Pentagon and ride their motorcycles across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, down Constitution Avenue towards the Capitol Building, turn at 3rd Street and again at Independence Avenue proceeding around the National Mall and ending near the Lincoln Memorial.   Best view sites are on Memorial Bridge and along Constitution Avenue.  Rolling thunder leaves the Pentagon at noon.

 

 

Some Gave All

MoonHowler

Remember those who gave all.

My special salute goes out to Charlie Milton, an old high school buddy.  He was just a kid the last I saw of Charlie and I feel certain he was just a kid when he was killed in Vietnam 3 days before his 20th birthday.  He should have been in college with the rest of us instead of in the Marines.

Special salutes for anyone in particular?

Walt’s “Buddies”

MoonHowler

 

Happy Memorial Day weekend. I usually overdo it with my rememberances so please just bear with me.  I love Memorial Day.  I love the sound of Rolling Thunder and I love to grab hold of that American feeling and hold it as tightly as I can.  I love a weekend that forces us to say thank you to those who are dead and gone and were it not for this national day of thanksgiving, might be forgotten.  I love the PBS Memorial Day tribute on Sunday nights each Memorial Day weekend.  I like that Memorial Day forces me to think and yes, shed a few tears.  I owe it to my country.

 People sometimes confuse Veterans Day with Memorial Day. I think that is a forgivable sin, actually. Memorial Day grew out of Decoration Day, which started during the Civil War to honor those who had fallen. Many boys were buried in far off states and the good people of the towns where they lay cleaned up the graves and decorated with flowers on Decoration Day.

In Virginia, perhaps they weren’t as charitable at northern grave sites except they thought of their own sons, husbands brothers, fathers and uncles lying in some distant land and suddenly, it didn’t matter whose side the soldier had been fighting for.

I would like to thank my dad, a vet who made it home from WWII, for teaching me to remember those who have fallen, not just on Memorial Day, but every day. It’s hard to go through Virginia without passing one of the many cemeteries lined with Civil War dead. There is a particular one, on route 250 as you head into Staunton where I first learned about recognition- Staunton National Cemetery.

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