Showing posts with label Tom Coburn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Coburn. Show all posts

Saturday, September 14, 2013

WEEKEND PICK & MIX

(For bigger versions of photographs, just apply a click)

I tend to use punctuation as I see fit when I'm the one doing the writing, so articles like these are only sources of amusement, and surprise that anybody would care enough about where and when to type any kind of a dash (who knew there was more than one?)... or a row of dots.

For the passing pedant dottily dashing around:

Why everyone and your mother started using ellipses ... everywhere.
by Matthew J.X. Malady.

&

You're using that dash wrong
by James Harbeck

Erm...wrongly? (Wink - I can do pedant too).




 From husband's vintage photograph collection


"There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres."
-Pythagoras



Yesterday at Huffington Post

Tom Coburn Wants Federal Employees To Turn Off The Lights Before Leaving The Office

Sometimes I'm flabbergasted to find that the USA is literally decades behind the UK in stuff like this. In every government office where I worked, from the 1960s onward (quite a few), there was a notice posted prominently demanding that all lights must be switched off when leaving any office or other room empty.

As we might say, back in t'old country: "Mr Coburn, did you know that Queen Anne's dead?"



My grandmother used to describe a person who was vastly overweight as being "fat as Fanny Watson". I'd always assumed that Fanny Watson was someone Gran had known locally. I accidentally stumbled upon evidence to the contrary the other day. See Yesteryear Once More, here:

New York City. — Too fat? Lots of people are — but not many have the thrilling experience of Fanny Watson, who awoke one morning to find herself getting thinner and getting paid for it.

Fanny does a stunt with her sister in vaudeville, and of course she’s always adding new quirks and turns to her act. The other day she — but let her tell it.

“Of course I knew I was too fat,” she admits frankly, “but I was lazy — like a lot of women. I hated exercise and I loathed dieting. So I went on my sugary, near-obese way until that glad morning when my dress bands began to overlap and I had the merry whim to get weighed. Maybe you won’t believe it, but as near as I could figure I had lost ten pounds in two weeks!"

How on earth my Gran, in a tiny East Yorkshire village, had heard about Fanny Watson in New York is a mystery.





On the topic of of weight watching, how about this for a test of will set by Weight Watchers? How cruel was that? The smell of that fudge alone could drive a gal to sin.


 Spotted  by husband, somewhere in Texas




During research into my family's history I discovered a family(or branch of a family) of the same surname as my paternal grandfather, Scott (or Skott), in the same general area of Suffolk where he was born. This family, who may or may not be linked to mine further down the line, emigrated to The New World in 1634 on a ship called The Elizabeth. One of their relative's also appears on the list of tradesmen and bankers financing the trip. I found this article interesting anyway, it relates to
The Great Migration........Snip:

There were a few key factors that caused so many of our ancestors to leave East Anglia. The region had been the economic power house of England but it was hard hit by an economic depression in the first half of the 1600s. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Puritan movement developed deep roots in East Anglia and its bordering counties. Dedham, Essex, for example, was considered a "hot bed" of Puritan agitation. The Church of England eventually tired of this and helped drive the militants to the new world.

Most were from the East Anglia region northeast of London which was then known as the Eastern Association. This pattern is consistent with what is known of the more general immigration patterns of the "Great Migration."


The Elizabeth left Ipswich, Suffolk, England on April 10, 1634. The ship's "master" was William Andrews (Andrewes) (Andres), arriving in Massachusetts Bay. The date of record,in this case, is some six months after the ship departed. The ship arrived safe at Massachusetts Bay. Both the master and ship are known to have made subsequent trips although no record (other than departure) of this particular voyage remains.

Typically, ships making this voyage weighed between 10 and 100 tons (the Mayflower was quite big at 180 tons) and traveled at 7 - 10 knots with a passenger load of around one hundred. Interestingly, Master William Andrews was known to be an Ipswich (Suffolk) man and he eventually settled in New England, on or after 1635.





William Stafford was such a comfortable poet, that's the way his work affects me anyway. He, other of his poems, and his astrology, are mentioned in two archived posts
HERE and HERE

One of his:

Allegiances

It is time for all the heroes to go home
if they have any, time for all of us common ones
to locate ourselves by the real things
we live by.

Far to the north, or indeed in any direction,
strange mountains and creatures have always lurked-
elves, goblins, trolls, and spiders:-we
encounter them in dread and wonder,

But once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold,
found some limit beyond the waterfall,
a season changes, and we come back, changed
but safe, quiet, grateful.

Suppose an insane wind holds all the hills
while strange beliefs whine at the traveler's ears,
we ordinary beings can cling to the earth and love
where we are, sturdy for common things.


***********************


Just the first verse of another of his poems,
At Cove on the Crooked River

At Cove at our camp in the open canyon
it was the kind of place
where one might look out
some evening and see trouble
walking away.


I love: "...and see trouble walking away."


 Husband took this one winter morning at sunrise from our kitchen window

Saturday, August 29, 2009

THE WEEK THAT WAS

This week made me angry - very angry. The lovely and peaceful state of Oklahoma, where I've lived for the past 5 years has two of the most despicable senators in Washington. Yes, they are both Republicans, and espouse the opposite ideology to my own, but that's not the problem. There are a few Republicans and conservatives who I respect, and who conduct themselves with dignity and intelligence. Not these two!



(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images: Tom Coburn on far left, James Inhofe on far right of photo.)

Senator Tom Coburn and Senator James Inhofe: it's past time that Oklahomans opened their eyes to see these two men for what they are. Why do they vote them into office, giving them power over their lives, when they patently do not give a damn about the people of their state? There are over 700,000 Oklahomans without health insurance, do these senators care? Do they?

This week brought two clear examples of the kind of men these are, and where their loyalties lie.

My blogger buddy, R.J. Adams at his blog Sparrow Chat has said things I want to say myself about Tom Coburn's actions this week. At a town hall meeting on health care reform a woman, in tears, told him of her husband's plight. RJ's two posts of 25 and 27 August relate:
"I'm Just Nipping across the Road to take Out My Neighbour's Appendix" and
"Health Care Reform? Don't let the Wealthy Suffer"

RJ has a much better turn of phrase than I can muster while feeling this angry.

Next, watch Senator James Inhofe declare that he'll vote against health care reform without reading the bill.

These men are public servants, it's time they started serving the public. They quite obviously have not the slightest inclination to do anything but serve their corporate masters, while undermining anything and everything the current administration is trying to do for the good of the people of this country.

Here are 12 noon natal charts for these two charmers. I'm going to point out one thing common to both - it's the key to the problem.





Look at the planets traditionally known as "malefics" Mars, Saturn, and in modern times, Pluto. (Malefic = having or exerting a malignant influence.)

In Coburn's chart Mars, Saturn and Pluto are conjoined at 12, 16, 19 Leo - a stellium of malefics, triple strength malefic energy!

In Inhofe's chart Mars, Pluto and Saturn form a Yod (Finger of Fate). Saturn is at its apex with a sextile between Mars and Pluto at its base. Astrologers say that the energies of the two sextiled planets are blended and chanelled through the planet at the apex.
Different pattern, same malefic blend!

I rest my case.

On a much calmer note, another blogger whose posts I sincerely respect and enjoy is Peter Clothier at The Buddha Diaries. Peter is encouraging his readers to join in a letter-writing and show of solidarity on behalf of the health care reform movement. He writes:

"So I'm asking the more than 70 percent of us who say we believe in significant health care reform to be "solid" with our friends, our neighbors, our families, ourselves--and yes, our online contacts. I'm looking for access to bigger platforms, more active support... Facebook (follow the link to the PO/PO facebook group), Twitter, big circulation blogs and political sites. Can you do this?

AND I want us all to show up at our local Post Office, letters or cards (expressing the hope that our senators will support reform) in hand, at HIGH NOON ON 09/01/09.

Will you help me? Will you broadcast this? Will you be there? Will you shake my hand? "
Yes, indeed - I'll be there physically at our local post office, and in spirit will stand with others elsewhere. I'm pretty sure that I'll be the only one at our post office. I encourage anyone who feels strongly that health care in the USA is in dire need of reform to write a letter to their senators and post it at 12 noon on the first of September. The letters, hopefully a lot of them, will arrive together - a show of solidarity, and proof that one person, even in isolation, can feel in tune with many other like-minded folk throughout this nation.