Life Is Full Of Surprises

 Shades of the past come back to haunt us.  These photographs made me so mad! The city was so determined not to have anything go wrong with the Republican Convention that they practiced riot control for weeks...so it is not surprising that the police sprang into action even against teenagers just sitting quietly on the ground. Hey, they practiced and needed to show strength of purpose didn't they.  I look at these pictures and I am taken back to 1968 and the convention in Chicago (I lived through that). Of course, that was a combination of all sorts of factors and you had some really far out weird groups in the mix too. So that convention did get really violent on oh so many levels. Thousands were hurt, the spillover on the injured even made it to my neighborhood in Niles. Of course, as luck or Murphy's Law would have it...my little two year son climbed up on the toilet, over to the bathroom sink and into our medicine cabinet to find all the goodies! There were pills scattered everywhere...had no idea how many of what he ingested.  So in the middle of a riot I find myself heading to the hospital to have his stomach pumped! I have been in emergency rooms before but I was ill prepared for the chaos that I witnessed. The young people waiting for treatment looked like they had been through a bloody war.  Thankfully the nurses took us into the back away from it and got us out of there quickly.

Seeing these new photos, watching the video of it...just brought back such bad memories.  It's always the youth of our nation that fight injustice where they see it, they stand up against and more times than history has proven that they were correct in their fight.

It's funny Obama's speech here in St Petersburg got interrupted by several black youth holding a large banner...he asked them to sit down and that he would speak to them after his speech. And he did. 

Now, of course, I don't expect McCain to stop his acceptance speech because of someone holding up a banner against him...but what he said goes to show exactly what he thinks of the general public....he brushed it off telling folks "don't let static or background noise bother you".  Hmmmm

I hate to say this, as I love my country...but those pictures could of been taken in Beijing.  That's how they deal with protesters.

It also is very comical the way McCain is now trying to re-establish himself as a "maverick"...uhh...I don't think so.  He's older than I am and I feel older than dirt. Yes, he is a hero but that does not automatically convey the keys to the country. What about the fact that he has been part and parcel of what has gone on in the Senate and Congress for years....now he wants to be "new" again? Don't think so.

I just hope everyone votes from a good perspective on this race and do not just follow part rhetoric....for the love of our country.

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Well today's developments were not expected.  Emotionally I feel like I'm being played and I don't like it.

I really, really wanted Hillary to win...okay it didn't happen...get over it. Then I thought, okay Obama pick her as your running mate...good lord what a ticket!  Okay it didn't happen...get over it.

Now today I get up and discover that McClain has picked a woman to be his second in command! Talk about picking up leftovers at the table! Is this to appeal to all of us ladies out here in lala land who desperately wanted that glass ceiling to crash down in a testrone filled Washington?

The funny part is the news coverage I"ve seen so far is not making any big deal over the fact McClain chose a woman for the VP spot...why is that?

The powers that be that are behind McClain are pretty dam smart and determined to win.

Ironically, from what I've read about the Governor of Alaska I really like her....she sounds like one tough cookie.  Taking on the bad guys, yet managing to still keep her white hat clean.  Well, crap any woman who can manage a home, a husband, five kids, run a state - while pregnant and give birth during your term of office...has got my attention and respect.   I'm sure that is what John is counting on.  Pick up all those disgruntled Hillary backers with his female choice.

Her I would vote for....Him..not so much.  Well, anyway this whole race just got a lot more interesting...what a country!

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I've been watching the Democratic Convention for the past several nights...actually enjoying the speeches.

I think Hillary delivered an excellent speech, filled with amazing grace.  I wanted her to win the nomination in the worst way, but it was not to be.  For the life of me, I cannot understand any woman who would not of voted for her.

Eighty some odd years ago our fore-mothers knew the power of togetherness.  They fought for and won a hard battle...they gave us the right to vote.  It wasn't easy for them, some of them were put into harm's way to achieve it. It disappoints me that young women of today do not respect what has gone one before in history.

When my grandmothers were born, they had few rights, little choices and certainly not allowed to vote.  Most men were of the accord that women did not possess a brain capable of thinking in the heavy realms of political bullshit.

There were a few brave men who stood by their valiant women in their struggles to achieve their rights. I'm quite sure they were looked down upon by their brethren.

Let me tell you something, the real power players in Washington don't respect women, certainly they do not want one in the Oval office.  Oh, yes, throw Conde at me..hell, if she were that smart she should be a democrat.

We are standing on the threshold of history, right here, right now...as a nation we must make the right choice.  For our children, our grandchildren...it's their future we are risking. America has during the last eight years been reduced in stature, finding itself stuck in a quagmire of a war that is draining our resources and killing the best of us.

Now is not the time to stand on party lines. I was a Republican for over 35 years...NOT ANY MORE.  The past eight years have been awful, let us not forget that the election itself was so totally in question. Of course, all that got blown away about the same time as the World Trade Centers.  Yes, we have to be armed, yes we need an army, yes we need to be able to protect ourselves our allied.

We do need protection from terrorists and we must have the ability to go after them wherever they are.

I am going to listen to Barack Obama tomorrow night when he makes his acceptance speech.  I hope America listens too, with an open heart.

Anyone out there that says they will not vote for him because they wanted Hillary is not thinking straight.  What Hillary said was so true....did you vote for her because who she was? Or did you vote because you knew she could bring change?   Obama will bring change.  Please vote.

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Well, it seems that Faye is not done with us yet.  Since early this morning we have been hit with one feeder band of rain after another. I can only imagine what the upper panhandle of Florida is going through right now.

This rain came down heavier than any rain I have ever been through, and that's saying a lot because I have lived through many a hurricane and cyclone too. 

The sky can't seem to make up it's mind weather to let the sun peek through or send us back into the deluge mode. Living in Florida yuck....

Anyway, ducks, frogs - wading birds looking for frogs...are going to be extremely happy. 

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Time marches on.  You can rant at it, try to hold back the clock,
till it makes a monkey out of you or you can flip it the bird and go about your business.

Eventually, it all come to nil anyway. No one has ever come out a winner against father time.

With reference to TIME....wow, it has been five great years since AOL started journal land. It has been a wonderful ride and I have met such great people along the way.  People who have shared their lives, their wants & needs...baring their souls for all to see.  I have stood and cheered their triumphs, especially when they overcome terrible odds, and have cried many a tear at the thought of their pain & anguish.  Even though some of the memories are painful, I still am glad that I had a chance to meet these wonderful people and that they thought enough of all of us to share their lives with us.

When I was a young girl I used to write in an old notebook making it sort of a journal, little did I know that I would be doing the same so many years later. I never saved the old journals, but my Mom saved my poetry that I had written when I was a teenager...some of it is posted in my poetry journal.

I've always felt that the written word is man's greatest creation, nothing else compares to it.  All learning comes from it, new growth emanates from it.

Happy Anniversary J Land....

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 Well, we seem to be losing more and more entertainers this week.  I can't believe Bernie Mack left so early, he had so many more years it would of seemed. Maybe the good lord needed a truly funny man so he called him home early. Then I sit back down at the computer and I see that the king of wail...Shaft gone too.  Great entertainers, wonderful talents.  I guess you just never know, when the time is, it just is......

I've been watching a little of the Olympics and am very impressed with the way China has pulled it all together. Oh, I know they have a terrible record on human rights...but it's easier to change someone when you are standing next them then to try to do it beyond an iron wall.  The little girls who do the gymnastics are so fabulous, it's amazing the moves they can do. Just watching makes my bones ache...lol.

We have so many hot spots all around the world, now we get to add Georgia and Russia into the mix. It appears to me that it's the ordinary people who get caught up in the fighting and lose everything, sometimes their lives...hope it stops soon.

I also read that Iraq wants us to make a date that we exit their country...errr...sure...how about tomorrow at noon? sounds good to me.

Well, got to go eat a very late dinner....

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Standing at the kitchen counter trying to open this darn old bottle of cured grape leaves I flash back about forty-five years ago and it almost seems like yesterday.  My Grandpa was from the isle of Crete, coming from a village high in the mountains...as tough as nails and yet the gentlest man I've ever met.

"Nick" came to this country at age 16..and when war broke out he joined the army at 17...of course, he was sent back to Europe with the cassons.  He never spoke greatly about the war years, just kept everything in.  He met and married my grandmom, a South Carolina belle, started a family and enjoyed an American way of life.

He was an excellent chef....no one ever went hungry in his house.  My grandparents house was the focal point of the family, all our vacations, holidays were spent there, drawing all fractions of the family like a magnet every year.

For some reason Grandpa decided to teach me how to cook and I will forever be grateful that he did.  One of my first lessons was making "grape leaves" filled with chopmeat, rice & cumin..rolled just so - so, add water, lemon juice and wait for the aroma to fill the kitchen.  Forty-five years later my husband is grateful that I'm a good cook and it's all due to someone that he never had a chance to meet.

It's funny, standing and rolling the leaves makes me feel a compelling connection to my past, I can hear "Nick" say "Don't forget to pinch the stem off if it looks tough" followed by "that's right..you are doing a good job".  Anyway I know that I learned the right things sitting at his kitchen table.

My Grandad & Grandmom used to "battle" with one another, playfully it would seem.  Grans would say "Nick!" What is that man doing now?"  Grandpa would counter with"Lee! What are you going on about?" "I'm just cooking"...then either side would enlist myself or one of my sisters to "tell" Nick this and he would do the same, as if they couldn't hear what each other was saying.  It was hilarious.

Oh, boy when everyone came for dinner the dinning room table creaked & groaned under the weight of the repast that Papoo would present to us mere mortals.  Grandma was allowed to set the table, with us helping, fix real ice tea and help bring the food in.....everything else was pure Grandpa.

Every time we would be leaving..they would be on the porch waving goodbye and Grandma saying "You'all come on back now yahear".

I spent almost every summer with them in Norfolk, loving the southern night air, humming birds and pink trees...but most of all them

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 Oh, I found this on the net thought it was hysterical, because we are going through this crap right now. Somehow my husband opened up something and infected his laptop.  Nothing I could do to clear it up, it was beyond me...ran every program I could think of to get rid of the "bug".  I gave up.  We have a talented friend named Angie who was up for the task.  She managed to get rid of it, but she had to wipe his computer clean...so anything that was on there is gone.  I'm just glad that our computers were not linked, that all the family pictures are on my computer..grateful for small things. In the interim doing a search for cures I came across something funny and I want to share it with you....I just had to laugh....

OPRAH WINFREY VIRUS: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands back to 200MB.

AT&T VIRUS: Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.

MCI VIRUS: Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying too much for the AT&T virus.

PAUL REVERE VIRUS: This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack---once if by LAN, twice if by C:>.

POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS: Never calls itself a "virus", but instead refers to itself as an "electronic microorganism."

RIGHT TO LIFE VIRUS: Won't allow you to delete a file, regardless of how old it is. If you attempt to erase a file, it requires you to first see a counselor about possible alternatives.

ROSS PEROT VIRUS: Activates every component in your system, just before the whole darn thing quits.

MARIO CUOMO VIRUS: It would be a great virus, but it refuses to run.

TED TURNER VIRUS: Colorizes your monochrome monitor.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER VIRUS: Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back.

DAN QUAYLE VIRUS #2: Their is sumthing rong wit your komputer, ewe jsut cant figyour out watt!

GOVERNMENT ECONOMIST VIRUS: Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.

NEW WORLD ORDER VIRUS: Probably harmless, but it makes a lot of people really mad just thinking about it.

FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT VIRUS: Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer.

GALLUP VIRUS: Sixty percent of the PCs infected will lose 38 percent of their data 14 percent of the time. (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of error.)

TERRY RANDALL VIRUS: Prints "Oh no you don't" whenever you choose "Abort" from the "Abort" "Retry" "Fail" message.

TEXAS VIRUS: Makes sure that it's bigger than any other file.

ADAM AND EVE VIRUS: Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple.

CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS: The computer locks up, screen splits erratically with a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem.

AIRLINE VIRUS: You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.

FREUDIAN VIRUS: Your computer becomes obsessed with marrying its own motherboard.

PBS VIRUS: Your programs stop every few minutes to ask for money.

ELVIS VIRUS: Your computer gets fat, slow and lazy, then self destructs; only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across rural America.

OLLIE NORTH VIRUS: Causes your printer to become a paper shredder.

NIKE VIRUS: Just does it.

SEARS VIRUS: Your data won't appear unless you buy new cables, power supply and a set of shocks.

JIMMY HOFFA VIRUS: Your programs can never be found again.

CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS #2: Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously, but doesn't allow the user to accomplish anything.

KEVORKIAN VIRUS: Helps your computer shut down as an act of mercy.

IMELDA MARCOS VIRUS: Sings you a song (slightly off key) on boot up, then subtracts money from your Quicken account and spends it all on expensive shoes it purchases through Prodigy.

STAR TREK VIRUS: Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before.

HEALTH CARE VIRUS: Tests your system for a day, finds nothing wrong, and sends you a bill for $4,500.

GEORGE BUSH VIRUS: It starts by boldly stating, "Read my docs....No new files!" on the screen. It proceeds to fill up all the free space on your hard drive with new files, then blames it on the Congressional Virus.

CLEVELAND INDIANS VIRUS: Makes your 486/50 machine perform like a 286/AT.

LAPD VIRUS: It claims it feels threatened by the other files on your PC and erases them in "self defense".

CHICAGO CUBS VIRUS: Your PC makes frequent mistakes and comes in last in the reviews, but you still love it.

ORAL ROBERTS VIRUS: Claims that if you don't send it a million dollars, it's programmer will take it back.

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I'm still trying to assimilate what I just read on AOL's news clips.  It seems that there is a company that is producing little bracelets that have the capacity to record where you are, follow you wherever and then if you act up...knock you on your assets.  Seriously folks, Big Brother has definitely arrived!

These bracelets would be fitted on every passenger flying, from babies on up to your 90 year old Grandma....that way it's fair to the swarthy, beady-eyed nervous gentleman who keeps clutching his briefcase. Unbelievable.   I'm sorry if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck...dam it - it could definitely be a duck.  Do you walk up and say...Oh, are you a duck? I don't think so, just grab the sucker and look for feathers.

I can't imagine a world where little babies, children are subjected to wearing something like this. There has to be some reason for all this insanity.  I know the world is not safe, it hasn't been safe since it was created folks.  The tragedy that was 911 brought home to us just how unsafe we all are. 

When people of ill will, evil men plot to do dastardly deeds it shocks us at our core.  That's the reason they do it. To shock us, to make a statement...they don't care about life, theirs or ours. So why would we care how they are treated once caught? We do care because of the fact that we are human. 

The Federal Aviation Board is studying this bracelet to see if it would work onboard. Of course, it will.  It's main purpose is that it is a mini taser and can take down a 230 pound man in a heartbeat...disarming whatever he had in mind. Actually, that's a good thing....see they have me thinking about it too.  But, you have people with pacemakers, heart conditions, breathing problems what if it goes off by accident?

 Can you imagine all this, the future is coming... 

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