Free Republic

Yes - beheading on Youtube is proper treatment. And though it will never happen, showings of this on network TV here. That will stop the conspiracy theorists dead in their tracks!

Unfortunately, most people seem to not CARE, or EVEN REMEMBER Sept 11th!!! Thanks to media's "we don't want to agonize the masses with repeated video of the attacks" (and, oh, let's also shelve Bush's & Giulliani's valiant remarks), said "masses" are mostly amnesiac about that horrific event. They've swallowed it up as just another part of someone else's history - because they weren't THERE when it happened, it is as distract from them as any TV thriller show, and feel, in any case, it's not likely to happen again...............how can anyone expect THEM to feel any queasiness about the first Koran-swearing Congressman (Keith Ellison), or wonder if indeed the camel has its nose under the tent?

So cute how Barney hops up the stairs!!!

These kitty pics are great!

How come no more Kitty Caption pics on Mondays? Sorry to seem so dense............

And who put the "TURD" in SATURDAY???

I believe that was Valmeyer, that was actually moved up onto a high bank, and there are some diehards living on the banks of the river still.

The Gov't did offer to buy out the plots of people living in Niota, and some agreed to that.

At the time of the flood, some inmates from Stateville in Joliet (what I call the Charm School) were trucked down to help shore up the levy at Niota in early July. Everyone in town was impressed by the industry and friendliness to the townspeople of these inmates (I'm sure they only let out the most sociable ones!) They worked very hard on this project, and the townspeople were very encouraging, giving them snacks of homemade pies, cookies, sandwiches, etc.

But on my birthday, July 10, 1993, the levy, despite all the hard work of everyone involved, finally gave way under the force of all the water in the river (thank Army Corp of Engineers for that blunder - they ordained NO dredging that year of the Mississippi around Illinois) and the town of Niota was flooded. My grandparents' place was flooded as well, water over 6 feet deep in the basement, but not as bad as the folks in town who had water up into the first floors.

When my brother and I went there to video the damage, we found, besides the flooded basement damage, and the killed tulip trees, strange plants growing in all the lawn and over much of the cultivated fields - must have been seeds carried along with the flood. These were plants we'd never seen before: strange feathery weeds, odd low-leafed plants, and all of them WEBBED WITH WHITE FUNGUS. It was really icky, and such a sad thing to see on my grandparents' old farm! My cousin Linda, on an earlier visit, opened a cabinet door near the garage exit and found a huge blacksnake (harmless, but it totally creeped out her daughter!).


My grandparents' name was Baxter. They started out with an orchard (apples, plums, and peaches) 1920s-1930s and also grew strawberries. There were a couple of cherry trees and a small vinyard - those were for family use. Grandpa was a descendant of Emil Baxter who founded the Baxter vinyards in Nauvoo, IL, and it is still in existance today.

In the late 1970s, they decided to pull out the orchard and plant corn, wheat, and soybeans (I was sad when that happened, an end of an era) but it was probably more economical for them. Better stop now, or I'll bore you with the whole debacle of family bickering after their deaths AND the flood!!!

Before the flood of 1993 (Mississippi River), the little town of Niota, IL, (pop. about 350), had a bar called the WYE KNOT. My grandparents had a farm at the edge of this tiny town, and visiting them often from age 0 to well into my 30s, we'd drive past this bar, and I thought it such a clever name - (!)

All gone now, however, like many buildings and houses there after the flood, which happened after my grandparents passed on.

It is sad to know you can't visit a place with the same features you've known about and anticipated seeing. (Glen Canyon is a good example - it was flooded in the 1960s to create Glen Canyon Dam, and created Lake Powell, causing countless landforms to be covered in water, and wildlife to cease existence in their former home.) I'm not an Enviro-Nazi - I just think that this was unnecessary.

I visited New York City twice in the 1970s. A lifelong resident of the Chicago area, and very familiar and enamored with our Gem On The Lake with all its architectural glory, old, modern, and brand-new, I had no feelings that New York would be all so wonderful. My first flight in, I looked out the porthole window at late dusk in October and my first impression of lower Manhattan as we curved by it, lowering our altitude, on the way to LaGuardia, was my surprise that it looked like a very elegant, tall, lit-up cake from some high-society party! It was a big statement of a big city. I was very impressed. Among those building were the Trade Towers, and I must admit they looked rather plain to me at the time, and not much more than tall cracker boxes all lit up!

I never gave them another thought, and unfortunately, my college friend whom I visited never thought to take me there to see them. They signified big money and industry, and we were still hippy-like, anti-mainstream people who disdained big business! (OH, THE MISTAKES OF BEING IN YOUR TWENTIES WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING!)

That first visit to New York was in the middle of the Garbage strike, and mountains of garbage were along all the streets! Yecch! (As Alfred E. Neuman would say.) Unfortunately I never got to see New York after Rudy Giuliani cleaned up the town - of garbage and punks.

I don't know about my friend anymore - we had a falling-out in the late 70s, and I think we'd both be astounded by our differences these days - haven't seen her in 30 years, and I'm sure we'd disagree with a lot of things. I do know that she left NYC for Pennsylvania and got married to a lawyer.

In any case, I'm glad that New York is "New York" and not "New Amsterdam", which was one of the town names attached to the settlement early on.

There may be many stories out there, as you nention, and some of them are foiled by not knowing married names to go along with maiden names. This has been my bugaboo in trying to search for past schoolmates over the years.

Well, hope you have a peaceful evening, though watching the ABC program will likely stir up things a bit, but it NEEDS to be, in the majority of our population according to recent polls.

Not a close friend, but a friendly person, Gerard "Rod" Coppolla, whom I knew by telephone, through my frequent calls in the past to the shortwave radio program he produced, "The Right Perspective" which was on WBCQ. Once he said his mother had the same first name as mine - Sarah. When I tuned in the show on Friday, Sept 15, and it was announced that Mr. Coppolla had perished in the North Tower, it added more shock, anger, and sadness to what I was already feeling. Those thoughts and feelings are always just under the surface, but this weekend they occupy my mind vividly.

Thank you for posting that photo. That, and others like it will always appear as a temporary memorial for a friendly person I once knew.

My statement is my byline -
NEVER FORGIVE - NEVER FORGET!!! Ever so, until further notice!

One of my most sublime exprinces as a an undergraduate was to spluge on buying fois gras and some suitable crackers, Club or Ritz, back in the 70s. I'd eat this delictable item in my room, using a stolen knife from the dining hall, with some of my Grandfather's homemade wine, and listen to Renaissance music. This is one of my favorite memories of college years circa 1973,

When was it not ever thus?++

...and well he should be - the British when in control of India, made it be known that the bullets they fired upon Muslim invaders, were stored in lard. This was enough to intimidate them for some time, so I learned from past posters...True?

Didn't have to spend any time pondering whether to be roasted/choked to death, or jumping out of a high window to escape being burned to death on a beautiful Tuesday morning, just because he came to work that day.....

I don't buy it.

It is so very sad for Art to have this worst thing happen. I've been a long-time listener to his program, lots of it rather silly, but also entertaining, and some of it quite engrossing, esp. the interviews he did with the late Fr. Malachi Martin. Of course I always loved hearing about his beloved cats, and how they came to be a part of his and Ramona's household, and the stories he'd tell about them.

There is no reason we can understand why such a harmless man should have to suffer the troubles he has had to endure, but my prayers go out to him - may he find some peace and solace in the days ahead.

My tagline is the silver ink on black paper sign I made that has been taped to the wall by my desk at home since the evening of 9/11/01.

NEVER FORGIVE! - NEVER FORGET!

In memory of Gerard "Rod" Coppola............

Sometimes I come downstairs to the stuffed armchair to sleep (I hate my mattress!) and my special kitty friend Frank comes over to me around 5:00am and pops up by the chair and goes MEOW loud, almost a bark(!), and will do it over and over until I feed him. He loves to be petted then, but what he really wants is his breakfast, which I must get up to fix. After that, he usually sprawls on the carpet in a fit of hedonistic luxury! What a guy!