imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Saturday, November 12, 2005
AND I'M NOT EVEN AN "ENVIRONMENTALIST"!
Click picture to enlarge.
When we moved into this house, it was fall, and the 100+-year-old maples on our property produced an unbelievable quantity of leaves. That first year I raked all one afternoon and ended up with at least 20 bags of leaves and some nasty blisters. The following year, I tried hiring some kids to do the job -- at least the front lawn; I'll do the back -- but no one wanted the job. I decided to mow over them first to break them down, and then I'd pour the remains over my gardens. Mowing over them, without the leaf catcher, wasn't nearly as bad a chore as raking them, and I didn't get any blisters. I mowed the front and the back lawns and decided to transfer the chopped leaves to my gardens the next day. However, by the next day, the leaves had almost totally disintegrated; there wasn't much there to even rake. That was 20 years ago, and I haven't raked leaves since.
Today was a beautiful day -- 60* and barely a breeze -- and the trees around our home were finally bare. So I trotted outside and began mowing the leaves, while our neighbors were raking theirs. I begin at the house and mow in one direction only with the chute blowing the leaves towards the road. I mow across the lawn and then drag it back in the same path and continue that way until I've reached the road. My neighbors were sweeping their lawns, using a riding mower with a sweeper attached, and raking, too. Our lawns are approximately the same size with approximately the same amount of leaves, and yet compare the piles. I'll never understand why people rake their leaves, to say nothing of cramming our landfills with bags of them. Makes no sense whatsoever.
*
Friday, November 11, 2005
VETERAN'S DAY
That's DogMan, long before I would meet him. It was also years before he volunteered for Vietnam. Like most soldiers who saw action, he never talked much about his years in the military. He did 2 years in Vietnam -- Big Red One. I am continually in awe of the people, men and women, who devote portions of their lives to defending our country, especially now. My late Uncle Hank was a Lt. Comdr. in the Navy; he served on the USS Minneapolis in the Pacific for ten months during WWII. His younger brother, Uncle Ed, interrupted his college education (pre-med at Syracuse U.) to join the Navy. His first wife, my late Aunt Dorothy, was an operating room nurse on Guam during WWII.
My father served first in the Royal Canadian Air Force (although he was born and raised in NY State) and then in the US Army, when The War broke out, and was shipped to France.
My maternal grandfather, who was a doctor, was sent to Washington DC during WWI and tended to the soldiers there, many of whom were sick with influenza.
To all of the courageous men and women who have served and are now serving in the US military, I thank you.
The NY Post has a great editorial today: UNCLE SAM CALLED - THEY ANSWERED
*
LEAVING?
It's like those suckers are superglued to the trees. We're having a typically dreary November so far, which provides a perfect atmosphere to snuggle under a quilt and lose yourself in a good book, but it's difficult to take a photo which clearly shows the trees. I took the Nov. 5th picture right before we had several intense storms blow through. I wanted a basis of comparison for afterwards. I would have thought the storms would have ripped the last of the leaves from the trees, yet some still cling. Most of the trees are bare, but there are still those stubborn few.I'm hearing that this fall is not peculiar to Upstate NY. Mike lives in the Detroit area and writes (Tues., Nov. 8th): Our color here really developed quickly and peaked during the past week. With the windstorm we had this past Sunday, a lot more trees are finally bare. However, even the Detroit News noted the lateness of the color development and leaf drop that we are experiencing this year.
Elsewhere ...
8 Slick still whines about being impeached.
8 No wonder, then, that “everybody lies about sex,” including Chelsea Clinton. (Note: link timed out by tomorrow.)
8 Speaking of lies, Mary “Rathergate” Mapes still believes she did nothing wrong, so Gaggle has some fun :)
*
Thursday, November 10, 2005
TASTE OF WINTER
That's my car, and the white stuff is snow. The ground is still too warm for snow to last -- it was maybe 42* today -- but it still snowed. First of the season! Very windy and raw today, too.I've taken a couple of pictures of the hillside and the coloring, which I'll post tomorrow.
*
THAT'S SOME GELT!
BEYOND LAVISH: MAZEL tov to 13-year-old Amber Ridinger, who is celebrating her bat mitzvah in a lavish style that puts the spoiled brats on MTV's "My Sweet Sixteen" to shame. Amber's parents, Internet entrepreneurs J.R. and Loren Ridinger, have hired Ja Rule, Ashanti and Omarion to perform at their daughter's party at Miami's Forge nightclub this weekend. The well-heeled Ridingers — who keep a penthouse here at the Ritz-Carlton and dock their 160-foot yacht at Chelsea Piers — also have convinced Mike Piazza to stop by and snagged Nicole Richie's boyfriend, DJ A.M., to man the turntables. We're told that Amber will wear a $27,000 Dolce & Gabbana gown and will debut her own fashion line — Gossip. We like the name. *
BARON ROBBERS OF FOGGY BOTTOM
That's right, fan the fires of class warfare and demonize big business; they're under-regulated anyway. Forget about trying to cut spending, you pigs. Besides, you can always tax us more, right? Government is such a loathesome entity >:ODeath of Reason, Again?: Of course, the oil companies have made a lot of profit lately, but so have many other businesses and industries. Although Exxon got big headlines for earning $9.92 billion in the third quarter, few analysts bothered to note that this only came to 9.8 cents per dollar of sales — well below that of many other companies. For example, Citigroup and Microsoft each made 33.2 percent profit. Among other major companies that each made at least twice as much as Exxon in percentage terms are Bank of America, Merck, Google, Eli Lilly, Coca Cola, Intel, and Yahoo.
An Internet search turned up no evidence that Sen. Gregg or any of the other dimwits calling for windfall profits taxes on the oil industry have also called for windfall profits taxes on the banking, pharmaceutical, software, or hotel industries that have earned much more per dollar than the oil and gas industry in recent periods.
h/t RightWingNews
*
PIRRO OUT, WARNER IN?
Poor photogenic Pirro has some major hurdles in her bid to unseat Her Royal C.
SURPRISE THREAT TO PIRRO BID: JEANINE PIRRO'S little-known opponent for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate is close to winning crucial backing from the small but influential Conservative Party, insiders say. Such a success by former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer would deny Pirro a vital endorsement in what would already be — if she is the GOP nominee — an uphill battle against incumbent Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Uh-oh. Looks like a new kid on the block may give Her Royal Clydesdale a run for the roses
HILL A MARKED GAL: DEMOCRATS get to gloat about President Bush and the 2005 elections, but Sen. Hillary Clinton can't gloat too much because a rival Dem 2008 star was born in the person of Virginia Gov. Mark Warner. Warner's amazing 78 percent popularity was enough to help elect another Democrat, Tim Kaine, as Virginia's next governor.
*
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
$TONE GET$ IT DONE
Cindy Adams on Oliver Stone’s 9/11 movie: OLIVER Stone and his Paramount movie about 9/11 is moving ahead. Slowly. Carefully. Gingerly. But you got to hand it to Oliver. Despite the city fathers and their basic antipathy to Hollywood's coining money from New York's stunning tragedy, he very cleverly is tiptoeing forward. Here's how it's worked: The project hired New York-savvy p.r. folk. Selected with a tweezer were certain handpicked media types who'd possibly write what the project hoped they'd write. And Community Board One, initially hostile to this movie, has, in part, become co-opted. How? Because some clever brain somewhere dredged up an idea to hire some of these dissenters somehow. Make them "consultants." This automatically opens their pockets and shuts their mouths.*
MUSLIMS STILL REVOLTING
Cartoon by Sean Delonas
8 Riots losing steam? I suppose all things are relative.
French Rioting Appears to Lose Strength: The extraordinary 12-day state of emergency went into effect Tuesday at midnight, giving special powers to authorities in Paris, its suburbs and more than 30 other cities from the Mediterranean to the German border _ an indication of how widespread arson, riots and other unrest have become in nearly two weeks of violence. … Overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, youths torched 617 vehicles, down from 1,173 a night earlier, police said.
88 Map of France on fire.
8 And to think that the French sneered at America and called us racist!
PARIS' HARVEST OF SOCIALISM: For a North African or Middle East immigrant in France, there are few avenues that offer a prospect of upward mobility — in stark contrast to the plethora of choices available to immigrants in the United States. Instead of gearing itself to job creation and upward mobility — as the American system does — the French economy, society, labor regulations, tax laws and social structure are all designed to provide a high-quality life to the traditional, white population without allowing the growth and expansion so necessary for the swelling ranks of immigrants. While the United States was built to absorb people from other lands, France was never designed to accommodate immigrants. Its system was built only for the French.
8 The Vichy Solution: French habits of appeasement and its commitment to secularism now cut against each other: the Vichy-style, power-sharing solution to which French pols are drawn will cost them their secularist state but could perhaps give them just enough peace to pursue their secularist pleasures. French politicians had arrogantly assumed they could delay this choice by secularizing Islam. Hence their desperate project to form and spread "French Islam." But the hopelessness of the project is obvious; instead of soothing tensions, it inflamed them, clear in the contempt Muslim rioters feel for the Imams Chirac has been trotting out as peacekeepers.
*
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
CH'IRAQ IMPOTENT AS PARIS BURNS
(Getty Images)I find myself morbidly fascinated with the Paris riots, which are quickly spreading like wildfire to other countries. While I have long despised France's arrogance, I do empathize with the people who are affected by this violence, especially since their leaders seem to be totally impotent to protect them. Feh feh feh on Ch'Iraq !
FRENCH TOAST?: [W]hat appeared at first glance to be a spontaneous outburst has now moved to a more organized and deliberate level. Growing Internet chatter is inciting violence across France. And while there's no evidence as yet that the riots were a pre-planned and coordinated attack, do not be surprised if al Qaeda or similar groups quickly attempt to capitalize on the unrest.
Indeed, they may already be players.
Were all this happening in the United States, French officials would no doubt be at their most insufferable in lecturing Americans on their intolerance for immigrants from a different culture.
And yet French leaders, from President Jacques Chirac on down, seem almost paralyzed by the growing intifada.
Ralph Peters said it best: FRANCE has cancer and insists it's just a rash.
8 OOPS! I didn't catch this line in Peters' column,
Meanwhile, every American who believes in racial equality and human dignity should sympathize with the rioters, not with the effete bigots on the Seine.
but John Hawkins did, and he's right.
Ralph Peters Should Know Better: Even if you care little for the French, their government, or their way of life, they are preferable to Molotov-cocktail-throwing thugs who spend their nights randomly destroying property for kicks.
*
Monday, November 07, 2005
IS PARIS BURNING?
Oui! As well as Dijon, Seine-Saint-Denis, Clichy-sous-Bois, Le Bourget, Les Mureaux, Grigny, Aulnay-sous-Bois, Argenteuil, Toulouse and countless others before long.About twenty-five years ago, Nurse G had a good friend in grade school named Heather whose father was a VIP with Corning, Inc. The family was transferred to Paris for several years (Corning had facilities there). I would have thought that her family would have felt right at home in Paris as they were very liberal. Yet they quickly became bitter over how they were treated and complained that the French were cold, arrogant and despicable. Heather's complaints were slightly more mundane: icky school lunch entrees of organ meats (which they had to eat) and cliquey classmates. The family's only pleasant experience in Paris were the pastries. So, instead of spending 3 - 4 years of joie de vivre in Paris, they packed up and returned within a few months vowing neverever to return.
Not that that anecdote has anything to do with Paris burning now, mind you. But I can't help but derive a soupçon of schadenfraude these days while watching the French's sense of superiority go up in flames.
8 Pam has a roundup (w/pictures) of Paris links posted in her Proof that Multiculturalism Doesn't Work.
8 Mark Steyn nailed yet another reason why France refused to join the war on terrorism in Wake up, Europe, you've a war on your hands: If you had millions of seething unassimilated Muslim youths in lawless suburbs ringing every major city, would you be so eager to send your troops into an Arab country fighting alongside the Americans? For half a decade, French Arabs have been carrying on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent the spread of these attacks to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have lost that battle. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness.
8 AnkleBitingPundits asks, And Democrats Wanted The French To Help Us In Iraq?: Hell, they're more impotent than Eunuch's in their own country, what made anyone think they would have done a damned thing for us somewhere else?
8 Speaking of the Dems,ChicagoBoyz point out, Paris Burns, The Second Leftist Utopia Burns With It: In addition to thousands of cars, lots of buildings, and at least one elderly old lady doused with gasoline by the rioting “youths” of Paris, the American Left is also watching its default Utopia – their dream of the European welfare state -- going up in smoke. (Of course they may not realize it yet. But I think these riots cannot be buried on page 8 of the newspaper forever.)
*
Sunday, November 06, 2005
BLEECKER STREET BATTLEGROUND
Oh goody, Oliver Stone is doing a movie about 9/11. That alone is an abomination. He's been filming on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, and the merchants there are up in arms. Normal business (picture left) has ceased and become "so hellish, they may as well be in a Stone movie."STONE FLICK RATTLING VILLAGE
(Note: Link will be timed out by tomorrow.)
"We don't have any business today because they have closed the roads," Boris Stein, owner of cafe Village Delight, fumed to PAGE SIX's Beth Landman. "I'm so angry, I am calling my lawyer."
"I may be a lesbian, but I have three kids to feed," wailed Aprile Gardner, owner of furniture store Davis & Gardner. "I'm bitching because Oliver Stone and Nicolas Cage are disrupting the West Village. They blocked all of our businesses, they are kicking over mailboxes and they are loud.
"They have taken over the neighborhood. I'm p- - - -d. They all live in L.A., and they are taking advantage of New Yorkers. Oliver Stone - I'm not impressed. Billy Bob Thornton is coming down to shoot [a different movie] next week, but he has warned us ahead of time and is compensating us."
David Shebiro, owner of music store Rebel, Rebel, held the phone away from his ear so we could hear the whirring motor of a bus being used on the Stone set. "Listen to that," he said. "It's like a [bleep]ing airplane. The police would ticket someone else. The city gets compensated, but city people suffer. I'm sitting here idle. There's nobody in my shop."
...
A spokesman for the production said Stone was unaware of any unhappiness. "The makers of this film have gone to extraordinary lengths to be sensitive to New Yorkers in both the scheduling and locations for the local production," the flack said.
"Thanks to PAGE SIX for bringing this to our attention. The production staff is now reaching out to the store owners to apologize and make satisfactory arrangements for possible loss of business."
*
