Posted on 09/05/2005 8:07:31 PM PDT by The Mayor
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T.G.I.F. at the Finest |
Every Thursday at the Finest  |
Congratulations on your 51 years of marraige. Sept, 5 must be a magic number for successful and happy marraiges.
I therefore issue a 4-Star
You've probably seen the bumper sticker somewhere along the road.
It depicts an American Flag, accompanied by the words "These colors don't run."
I'm always glad to see this, because it reminds me of an incident from my confinement in North Vietnam at the Hao Lo POW Camp, or the "Hanoi Hilton," as it became known.
Then a Major in the U.S. Air Force, I had been captured and imprisoned from 1967-1973.
Our treatment had been frequently brutal. After three years, however, the beatings and torture became less frequent.
During the last year, we were allowed outside most days for a couple of minutes to bathe.
We showered by drawing water from a concrete tank with a homemade bucket.
One day as we all stood by the tank, stripped of our clothes, a young Naval pilot named Mike Christian found the remnants of a handkerchief in a gutter that ran under the prison wall.
Mike managed to sneak the grimy rag into our cell and began fashioning it into a flag.
Over time we all loaned him a little soap, and he spent days cleaning the material.
We helped by scrounging and stealing bits and pieces of anything he could use.
At night, under his mosquito net, Mike worked on the flag. He made red and blue from ground-up roof tiles and tiny amounts of ink and painted the colors onto the cloth with watery rice glue.
Using thread from his own blanket and a homemade bamboo needle, he sewed on the stars.
Early in the morning a few days later, when the guards were not alert, he whispered loudly from the back of our cell, "Hey gang, look here. "
He proudly held up this tattered piece of cloth, waving it as if in a breeze. If you used your imagination, you could tell it was supposed to be an American flag.
When he raised that smudgy fabric, we automatically stood straight and saluted, our chests puffing out, and more than a few eyes had tears.
About once a week the guards would strip us, run us outside and go through our clothing.
During one of those shakedowns, they found Mike's flag. We all knew what would happen.
That night they came for him. Night interrogations were always the worst.
They opened the cell door and pulled Mike out. We could hear the beginning of the torture before they even had him in the torture cell. They beat him most of the night.
About daylight they pushed what was left of him back through the cell door.
He was badly broken; even his voice was gone.
Within two weeks, despite the danger, Mike scrounged another piece of cloth and began another flag.
The Stars and Stripes, our national symbol, was worth the sacrifice to him.
Now whenever I see the flag, I think of Mike and the morning he first waved that tattered emblem of a nation.
It was then, thousands of miles from home in a lonely prison cell, that he showed us what it is to be truly free.
No matter what "others" do or do not do, I *always* will stand ramrod straight and place my hand over my heart, eyes always TOWARD our precious American Flag whenever the colors go by...
It is due that honor, and is a US Marine requirement.
I was aghast at a local Veterans Day Tribute at the local high school one year,
we sitting in seats of honor before the whole school's assembly.
The ROTC color guard entered through the back of the auditorium, and my husband and I were the ONLY veterans who faced the flag all the way down the aisle, past us, down to the front and until they were placed in the stands.
The other service branch veterans did not, merely briefly hand saluting/or hand over heart once, and never while in the progress down to the front or until placed at rest.
It is my privilege to fully honor my flag, and all those who fought and/or died to secure it to represent the things for which we stand.
I do it out of respect for all the American military from the Revolutionary War through now, and out of my love for America.
No doubt will, if conscious, put my hand over my heart as I leave this life,
and thank Almighty God for having been born an American.
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THE YEAR 1905
This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
The year is 1905.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1905:
The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.
The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had no college education.
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars.
Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
And I forwarded this from someone else without typing it myself, and sent it to you in a matter of seconds!
Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.
It staggers the mind.
My father was born in 1899 and mother in 1901, so this was their world!
He does however place road signs along the way.
It is up to us to stop and read them.
CT Dawson
2005
Indeed..(((((((((((((((((((LadyX))))))))))))))))
Good morning M'Lady..
U.S. hands over Najaf base to Iraqis
AP ^ | 9/6/05 | SLOBODAN LEKIC
NAJAF, Iraq - The U.S. Army handed over its base in Najaf on Tuesday, giving Iraqis full control of the city as a first step in transferring security across the country so multinational forces can begin to go home someday. Lt. Col. James Oliver, the U.S. commander of Forward Operating Base Hotel, handed the ceremonial keys to the installation to the new Iraqi commander, Col. Saadi Salih al-Maliky. About 1,500 Iraqi soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 8th Division marched by. Before the ceremony, the Iraqi soldiers, all Shiites, chanted "long live Sistani," referring to top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and "Saddam is a coward."
U.S. forces have relocated to another base farther outside the city so they would be available to assist in a major security crisis. Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, is the holiest city in Iraq for Shiite Muslims and was the scene of heavy fighting last year between the U.S. Army and the militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The fighting ended following a truce mediated by the city's Shiite clerical hierarchy, which wields considerable power behind the scenes in the current Shiite-dominated national government.
The U.S.-led coalition plans to hand over control of other cities to the Iraqis, gradually reducing its security profile. If all goes according to plan, this would enable the United States and its international partners to begin drawing down their troops next year and focusing on the insurgency-ridden Sunni Arab areas to the north. "This is indeed a very important day for the province of Najaf," said Brig. Gen. Augustus L. Collins, commander of the 155th Brigade Combat Team. "It gives me great pleasure to say the Iraqi army in Najaf can control the area. Although we are transferring authority at this FOB (forward operating base), we will still be here to help the people of Najaf."
Oliver said the transfer was a "visible sign that the people of Najaf have rejected violence and have trust in their elected government." "This is only the beginning for Najaf," he said. "The Iraqi army is operating successfully throughout the region. They are fully independent and capable of responding to all security needs. We are now here in a strictly advisory mode."
Gov. Asaad Sultan Attai thanked the American people "and its army" for ousting Saddam Hussein and for "their assistance since then."
It's a most beautiful one here in South Carolina - in the 60's overnight - clean, dry air with nice breeze.
Up at 5 (not by choice..:), I opened windows all over the house to enjoy it, and let trapped, stale air out.
In a few minutes, I am heading outside to do some tidying of God's Beautiful World...wield my truty lightweight weed eater - my favorite toy!
Will surface again later.
Hold down Fort Finest in your usual very capable manner!!
[[[ Public Hugs ]]] for Da Mayor..:))
Not the letter thief this time - haste maketh waste excuse applies...
http://www.washtimes.com/national/pruden.htm
Great article by Wesley Pruden titled,
Not much traction with the abuse
George W. finally gets it -- in more ways than one. The tardy president was back on the Gulf Coast yesterday, bucking up the spirits of the damned and stiffening the resolve of the slackers.
He's getting it as well from his critics, many of whom can't believe their great good luck, that a hurricane, of all things, finally gives them the opening they've been waiting for to heap calumny and scorn on him for something that might get a little traction. Cindy Sheehan is yesterday's news; she couldn't attract a camera crew this morning if she stripped down to her step-ins for a march on Prairie Chapel Ranch.
The vultures of the venomous left are attacking on two fronts, first that the president didn't do what the incompetent mayor of New Orleans and the pouty governor of Louisiana should have done, and didn't, in the early hours after Katrina loosed the deluge on the city that care and good judgment forgot. Ray Nagin, the mayor, ordered a "mandatory" evacuation a day late, but kept the city's 2,000 school buses parked and locked in neat rows when there was still time to take the refugees to higher ground. The bright-yellow buses sit ruined now in four feet of dirty water. Then the governor, Kathleen Blanco, resisted early pleas to declare martial law, and her dithering opened the way for looters, rapists and killers to make New Orleans an unholy hell. Gov. Haley Barbour did not hesitate in neighboring Mississippi, and looters, rapists and killers have not turned the streets of Gulfport and Biloxi into killing fields.
It continues....
Thank you Sir, I love that story..
Thank you Tulip for the link.
I wish we knew what was wrong with her.
Hi Meg, so much truth in these messages lately.
Good morning Tom!
Nice day here too. Sunny and in the 70's starting to get cool at night.
Comfortable weather.
This week is the last week before the primary and lots to do.
I am responding top a bunch of questionaires from the media, league of wome voters etc...
All due today or the 9th. Big night tomorrow, debate with all the major candidates.
Looking forward to it.
I will be in and out all day.
Hi cuz..
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