Offsite Comments

Just got here, but it looks like the thread has been superceded. And not by an open thread. Politics! Not ready! What will I do now?

I could... skip AoSHQ this morning...?

In any case, Morning, such Glories as are still around.

Greetings, PoliNationals.

This seems to be the default “open” thread, since Pete only phoned in a comment today, so I’ll leave this here.

Pete, hung up by tech guy. Yeah, sure, Pete. Pete’s out there carousing and cavorting instead of doing due diligence on posting links for us people too lazy to go looking for the news ourselves.

I just wanted to check in, is all.

Tomorrow, we drive over to the church by the lake for the family farewell ceremony for my cousin who died last month. She was a few years older than I am. We were always close. I loved my funny cousin.

She fought to overcome her gawky, awkward body and different mindedness, all her life. Our seeming shortcomings can be our spiritual gifts. She was a mother, a teacher, an artist, and a woman who enjoyed life. She loved Christ.

She twice married scoundrels. Why God lets his purest souls get seduced by the demons I don’t know. Sometimes, it’s like this. Despite hard times, my cousin triumphed in faith.

Her eldest of two daughters went through hard phases but ended up rock-solid, serving in Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan. A bit… controlling. But rock-solid.

The younger daughter replicated her mother’s genetic problems, adding some maybe from her goofy and sinister sire (long divorced and best forgotten). This younger daughter survived her own wars against physical and mental problems. Thanks mostly to the perseverance of her mother, but also the support of my cousin’s parents, the younger daughter, who folks thought would never be anything but “retarded” as we used to say, was mainstreamed, graduated, and turned out to be, among other things, a brilliant musician. Right now she is setting up to play drums for a (paying!) gig with my daughter’s musical trio at the Price Tower bar. Her older sister, the warrior, is in town from Oregon, to see them. It’s a poignant weekend.

A fighter to the end, an artist who died too soon, with so many paintings and children’s stories I know she had in her heart and mind, yet to be told, but not in this life.

It’s okay. Let this world go. You did good, cousin! Real good.

Milady was her main support through the terrible six months of her decline. We at first expected her recovery. Although she spent weeks bouncing between nursing home and hospital, we expected her to return to her apartment. That wasn’t to be. We’ve spent the last month cleaning up after her life. I’m scanning and printing photos for the service tomorrow. (Milady on an errand run is getting more ink and photo paper.) Pictures of my cousin as a baby, in grade school, at the other end of her magnificent life. Brown-stained black-and-whites out of focus, sharp as a knife in spirit. Her father in WW2 uniform. Her mother’s ID from Lockheed in Dallas during the war. A family now gone but for her sister, but which family spirit lives on in the hearts of so many.

Some emotions have no definition. Nostalgia, grief, joy, hope, all blended with feelings inillucidatable.

Chupacabras: Every painting hides a sniper and/or kitteh.

Or both.

Then Waldo took the bullet for the kitteh.

John Kasich: I went to a wedding where the couple just happened to be gay, but I was drunk.

I know the punchline to this one!

But in the morning, I was sober, and they were still gay.

Right?

MMmmmm

Clearly, with the art posted here, what is seen is in the eye of the beholding commenters.

So, why do y'all keep seeing the same dang thing in every painting?

As if every landscape had a sniper! (He's behind the twisted tree on the left.)

Caught up to #200, reloaded, see I have some to go.

No Vic, though. sad-face icon

Before the emt gets dumped on, and since I have to go throw food at the feral beasts lest they eat me, thought I'd just pop in and say,

Morning, Glories!

I didn't watch the debates. Who won, Kennedy or Nixon?

Cruzinator: Concentrate on passing the test.

No math, right?

Posted by: mindful webworker - theo logician at August 06, 2015 10:32 AM (v6tPi)

Thanks for your witness, MWW. I agree with you about stretching of souls. I think one purpose of God is to make us more like Christ which can hurt like hell but if we abandon ourselves to God completely but it brings us out of hell-metaphorically and Literally.

Insomniac: God and I are not on friendly terms.

Spirits of the Creator don't generally provide us with earthly path-easing, but rather strive to cultivate strong souls. Reasonably multiplied difficulties generate character-building decisions. So, not friendly, but wise, like the Dad in Calvin & Hobbes, y'know?

That said, just personally, I could do with a little more "reasonably multiplied difficulties" and a little less "catastrophic landslide of fail." On most levels.

* tips hat, falls off soapbox *

Siwash, the Duck Who Fought With the Marines

Honored "for courageous action and wounds received on Tarawa," in battle with Japanese rooster, no less. Died in Lincoln Park Zoo, 11 years after joining the Marines.

Paul, Weird Universe
http://bit.ly/siwash-duck

Moderate Salami: ...the mullahs might be less deterred than the Russkies by the threat of mutual destruction.

How can you suggest such a thing about the relijinn of piece?

--quote--
An apparent Islamic State recruitment document found in Pakistan's lawless tribal lands reveals that the extremist group has grand ambitions of building a new terrorist army in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and triggering a war in India to provoke an Armageddon-like "end of the world."
--/quote--

War News Updates
http://bit.ly/wants2endworld

"Chanting 'Death to America' is an act of loove."
-Jeb Kerry

Hey! That's the view I get when I step out the door each morning. Most mornings, anyway.

(looks at my own last comment, mumbles to self)

Valleys is pluralized without y-to-an-i-and-add-e-s.

I've known this for six decades, yet it never hit me before until I noticed that it passed the spill-chorker. I even typed "vallies" to see if the browser's dictionary thought it was a variant spelling, even tho I knew better.

When we were home-schooling our little autodidacts, we told them, the main rule of English is that the exception is the rule.

Whew. Just ran through the morning and dump threads and boy are my... er... toes covered with gunk! (whatev)

---

AllenG: ...illegal to take my firearm into State parks...

Because, when seconds count, police are minutes away park rangers are two valleys over.

I get through reading the content and what do I see?

(Jump to bottom of page)
(Jump to top of page)

I woulda been firstests if I'd not just woke up. Reely.

Oregon Muse cheated

We're not out of the woods yet?

"The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can't negotiate with us, that we will screw them," Kerry said. "This"--a congressional rejection--"will be the ultimate screwing."

Doesn't it just make your heart break that we didn't elect this patriot and master negotiator as President when we had the chance? Maybe he'll still jump into the 2016 race!

Do I really need to add /sarc?

----

wow. Suddenly it's become real dark. Wonder if we gets rain?

Because it's still funny (mugshot)

http://bit.ly/sprized

Those splayed out hairs were tight little balls before she swallowed the crack.

Seems like this belongs here.

Jim Henson vs Stan Lee. Epic Rap Battles of History
seems to end nicely before it takes an unexpected turn

https://youtu.be/PXBJIZ1NXFU