by

Our Daily Thread 11-4-14

Good Morning!

It’s Election Day! 🙂

Now go vote.

The header photo is the bald eagle I saw in Florida. I got another shot as he flew over, but it was from behind and you can’t see his head at all. I saw the general area of where he’d landed on an island, but couldn’t find him. Then he came up off the ground and into the tree. I wasn’t quick enough to get him. He was way off, so I just guessed where I thought he went, zoomed all the way, and shot. I didn’t even know I had him until we got home. I love surprises. 🙂

______________________________________________

On this day in 1842 Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in Springfield, IL. 

In 1952 the National Security Agency (NSA) was established. 

In 1970 former King Peter II of Yugoslavia died in Denver, CO. He was the first European king or queen to die and to be buried in the U.S.

And in 1979 Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 63 Americans hostage (90 total hostages).

______________________________________________

Quote of the Day

“Our job is only to hold up the mirror – to tell and show the public what has happened.”

Walter Cronkite

______________________________________________

 Today is Carl Tausig’s birthday.

______________________________________________

Anyone have a QoD?

Did ya’ vote yet?

 

76 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-4-14”

  1. Good morning, AJ. You posted early! I’ve been up for a while but didn’t check until now to see if the new threads were here.

    I haven’t voted yet, as it’s not yet 6:00 here, and polls don’t open until 7:00. But you can bet I will soon be headed out to do just that!

    The music looks good today. I will be listening to that now. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  3. Good morning, 6 Arrows! Becca and I just finished with our morning snuggle time. Everyone slept much better last night–I don’t think I even got up once (sometimes I walk around and eat cookies in my sleep, but there are no tell-tale signs…like crumbs or chocolate stains…).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. Good morning, Ann and Chas. Glad you all slept well, Ann.

    Two feet of snow already, Chas. Wow. How far is that from you?

    AJ, I also meant to say great header photo!

    Like

    Reply

  7. The snow was up in the Boone area, Highlands and other areas “along the Tennessee border” always get lots of snow. I haven’t read this anywhere, but I suspect the ridgeline was used to determine the state boundaries.

    Like

    Reply

  9. Oh cool, a bald eagle! That was one bird I wanted to get, but didn’t, on our anniversary trip. Last year we saw a few in a state park on our way back home. This year, with a longer zoom, I was hoping we’d see them again, but we didn’t. (My husband got a great view of a flying eagle in Turkey Run last year, too, but I didn’t see it, and neither of us saw any this year at any of the three parks we visited. I think it may be partly because it’s warmer this year and they aren’t migrating as quickly.)

    We do know a place where eagles over-winter, though, and this year, with my longer zoom, I am very much hoping to be able to get some photos that show them as more than a brown dot and a white dot. (I did get photos with dozens of such dots, but I’d like something more detailed!) We drove by that place, too, and I did get a photo of one juvenile bald eagle (probably a two-year-old). I got one photo of it sitting on a tree and one OK photo of it flying.

    Like

    Reply

  10. All we’ve had for snow so far is a light dusting once. I never want to see snow until December, so let’s keep it away! (Last year we had snow in every month from October to April. I have never yet seen a May snow, though I am told they are possible. No thanks! Though honestly, last year by the end of winter I almost figured we might as well get a May snow too.)

    Like

    Reply

  13. FYI, my husband was in bed last night when we were having most of the discussion on the Lord’s supper. I discussed it with him this morning, and his take was that substitutions for medical reasons or because nothing else is available are legitimate, as long as you can do it reverently. For preference or creativity, no. (Both of us think of youth groups that have done it with Coke and chips or pizza. Not only is a youth group not a church, but that is irreverent and wrong.) He thought that wine or juice made with something other than grapes would be preferable to Kool-Aid, but that if Kool-Aid was the only option, and could be done reverently, it’s OK. (He is an ordained PCA elder.)

    Like

    Reply

  14. Good morning. I’ll take Mrs. L. to vote after work.

    Re: the communion discussion last night: We once used zucchini bread and iced tea. It was a house church and there was a carry-in dinner every Sunday. The pastor said that Jesus just used what was served with the meal, and that Sunday, the only bread was zucchini bread and the drink was iced tea. I suppose Mr holier-than-thou that visited Roscuro’s church would have been appalled!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  15. All this talk about communion brings to mind a funny story I heard years ago (I think it was David Jeremiah, but I could be mistaken). He visited a church where they used white wine and asked if it was to symbolize being washed (white) by the blood or some other Biblically-based reason. The pastor replied, “No, it’s because it won’t stain the carpet.”

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  17. QoD: Vote, vote? What for? The municipal election was last month… 😉 😛

    Peter, your pastor made a lot of sense. I was reading several commentaries that talked about how Jesus was abolishing the Passover and instituting a memorial of His fulfillment of that Passover. They cited the more detailed account in Luke 22, where He told the disciples to divide the cup amongst themselves, saying He would not drink of the vine again until the kingdom came, and then He broke bread and took the cup after supper.

    In the OT, the ceremonials laws were very specific about the materials that could be used in worship, but there is not the same detail in NT about what should be used for communion. Paul scolded the Corinthians for turning communion into a feast for some and a famine for others, not for using the wrong food and drink. The food and drink are mere physical symbols – they don’t, in themselves, carry any spiritual power. Paul told us to examine ourselves, or God would do it for us – if we could be judged for using the wrong type of food or drink, he surely would have warned us. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, when she tried to get Him to comment on the Mount Horeb vs. Jerusalem controversy, “Neither… God is a Spirit and those that worship Him, must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  19. “The pastor said that Jesus just used what was served with the meal, and that Sunday, the only bread was zucchini bread and the drink was iced tea.” Where did he get that from Scripture? Personally, I would not have participated; I might have left and would have had a talk with the pastor later in the week to see if he really was OK with that sort of thing–and if he really meant it, I would not have gone back.

    Does it matter whether we baptize children in water, or is it OK if we just sprinkle them with confetti or sand (or dip them in milk) because that’s more fun?

    I truly don’t think it’s holier than thou to say that how we worship God matters to Him. We can differ on what is biblically required, but to say none of it matters and we can do what we want is to disregard much of Scripture. The Lord’s supper is an important part of worship, and worth planning in advance. And the fruit of the vine and bread have deep meaning in Scripture.

    And we cannot say that how we worship mattered in the Old Testament, but we’re in the New Testament now. This is New Testament (well worth reading the whole chapter, Hebrews 12): “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. Well, looks like I’ll vote before going into work today, I (finally) marked up the sample ballot (or rather the duplicate that I downloaded since I couldn’t find the one that came in the mail).

    I am grateful I don’t have to work the late election shift — especially now that our newsroom seems to have replaced the traditional election night pizza with (ugh) Chinese food. The pizza was the one perk, but now that’s even gone making an election night stint that goes until 1 a.m. or beyond so early in a work week really just a yucky experience.

    When we still offered a split tray for communion, the grape juice they used was white grape juice so people could easily differentiate. When I brought a friend one Sunday, though, she was quite impressed, she told me, that we offered both red and white wine thinking we were covering everyone’s taste preferences in wines. 😉

    Like

    Reply

  21. Nice picture. We had an eagle feeding on a deer that had been hit by a car, just about 50 feet from our driveway. He wouldn’t stick around for a photo, however. We see bald eagles often here. We have a newish bird sanctuary area not far from us and in the area my husband lived in as a boy.

    Like

    Reply

  22. Cheryl, that baptism analogy commits the logical fallacy of exaggeration – no one said we use what elements we have on hand because it is fun. I allow my fellow Christians freedom of conviction on baptism, whether they view sprinkling or immersion, infant or confessing Christian, as the proper method (I have taken, with the elders’ permission, communion in a Presbyterian church) even though I am convinced that the Bible calls for immersion on verbal confession of faith. If there can be freedom in method of baptism, then there can be freedom in the choice of bread and drink.

    To suggest that people in regions where grapes or wheat do not or are not grown cannot take communion unless they import those substances is to place a heavy burden on them. When Christ said it was necessary for us to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have eternal life, He was using the fact that we must have food and drink in order to have physical life. Communion is a solemn physical reminder of what He did so that we could live. However every region of the world has different staples on which they survive – I see nothing wrong with South Americans using cassava bread or Africans using baobab juice to symbolize the sacrifice of Christ, as those are the things that keep them physically alive and thus would carry a much deeper significance to them than a foreign food import.

    My former pastor preached verse-by-verse through the book of Hebrews. It is a wonderful and challenging epistle, but I do not see that Hebrews 13 has any bearing on the choice of elements for communion. As Paul, thought by many to be the author of Hebrews, wrote to the Colossians, “let no man judge you in meat, or in drink…” (2:15) and to the Romans, “the kingdom of God is not meat or drink” (14:17).

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  24. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” “What did he mean by “this?” Is that the terminology he used in Hebrew? Did he mean basically breaking of some form of bread and drinking some form of drink?

    Back when I prepared communion I was feeling badly on occasion if I had to get a loaf of us lice buttercrust bread thinking it should not have butter involved without even considering the leavening. The pastor made a beautiful presentation of the breaking of the loaf and people or the pastor pulled from inside the loaf to get the “flesh.” The crust was not bothered.

    I use to have to launder and iron the special coverings for the altar on which the sacraments were laid. They were then covered by white linen. It was awe inspiring to see the communion elements uncovered. It was a highly reverent presentation showing the seriousness of remembering Jesus. I think it is more about remembering Him in awe and appreciation with the reality of our need for him. It is difficult to draw lines on what is acceptable for use. God knows the hearts of those receiving and serving communion.

    Like

    Reply

  26. Above, I meant Hebrews *12, not 13.

    Peter, thank you for your kind words. If I do have any true wisdom, it is a gift from God. However, I think here that my wisdom doesn’t match the standards of James 3. It has come to me that there is something awful about Christians arguing over the communion table. The incident I related was beneficial in making me study out my own convictions, but I should not have brought it up here. I apologize and anything that I might have said that made others feel judged, I repent of saying.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  27. Roscuro, first off, I don’t mean to argue and I’m pretty sure no one else on here is, either. But are these issues important enough to discuss? I think they are. And yes, we are still likely to come to different conclusions, and that is OK.

    Personally, I wish Scripture were more clear on baptism–the mode, what exactly is symbolized, etc. I think we can say for sure that it is connected with new birth (whether the person is a new believer or whether parents can in faith baptize their babies as parents in the Old Testament circumcised theirs–and for the record, on that word I usually get the c’s and s’s wrong and have to play with the word until the wiggly underlines go away), that it should be Trinitarian, and that water is involved. Beyond that, there really is room for disagreement.

    I didn’t say either that people who live in a land without grapes or wheat must import them or that people who feel OK with using other elements in a land where wine and grain-based bread are freely available are doing so for “fun.” I’m assuming your best motives even when we disagree. My “argument” if you will was taking it a step further–if we can be casual about what we use because of what we happen to have in the house that day (“yeah, iced tea is close enough”), then what grounds do we have for making decisions on such things? What isn’t allowed? If we can used iced tea instead of juice because it happens to be more convenient (even in a land where we can easily get wine), then what’s to stop us from substituting orange juice because we happen to like it better, or milk because the children like it better . . . or chocolate milk because it’s more fun? Several years ago I saw write-ups in two different magazines about a church with an extra-fun children’s “church” room. They even had a full-sized fire truck to use for baptisms! What fun! (What gross irreverence!) And I have heard, and so has my husband, about youth groups doing the Coke-and-crackers or Coke-and-pizza communion. So the idea of doing it “for fun” isn’t as far-fetched as it might sound. So where do we draw the line?

    I once attended a church that believed in (and practiced) baptism by immersion . . . but one time the woman being baptized was one who had had a tracheotomy and who spoke by pushing a button in her throat and then talking. The pastor explained that immersing her was impossible, and thus he poured a little bit of water on her shoulders. I doubt that anyone in the room, or just about any Christian anywhere, would say that her baptism was invalid because it didn’t use enough water. (Baptism isn’t what saves us anyway!)

    Every culture has a bread staple. And I’m fairly sure every culture has some access to some sort of fruit that can be made into juice or wine. For cultures that have grapes, it makes sense to use them (and for cultures that can grow grapes but haven’t done so, or don’t grow grapes but can readily import wine, why not? we import Bibles for those who don’t have them, and teach literacy, or “import” a Christian understanding that marriage is for only one wife–in other words, some aspects of Christianity may well initially feel “foreign”). Jewish unleavened bread was probably made with barley or other grains as often as with wheat (I’m guessing); I doubt there is anything sacred about wheat. But fruit cake or pizza aren’t a reasonable substitution (esp. in a culture that can get bread with no hassle at all). In other words, essential substitutions, yes. Casual ones, no.

    Like

    Reply

  29. Kare at 8:03, that does say 6 inches of snow, doesn’t it, and not 6 feet? 😉 The two lines of the ” (inches sign) look so close together when it posts that it almost appears to be a single line, ‘ (feet sign).

    Like

    Reply

  31. That’s weird that this: ” looks different when it’s not next to something than it does when it’s next to a number, like this: 6″.

    Anyway, I’m guessing six inches instead of six feet. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  32. Good news! That interview I had with the prospective piano student and his dad last week, getting to know them, going over my lesson policy, inviting the boy to play piano for me if he wished (he did), and giving the boy a free mini-lesson, has yielded great results — the family has officially signed him up!

    I met the boy’s mom today when she dropped off the necessary paperwork and payment for this month’s lessons. I have now ordered his music books, they should be in later this week, and he starts lessons a week from tomorrow!

    They are such a nice family! So cheerful and encouraging! Both parents and their son are really excited about his starting lessons, and so am I! The mom said today that she would be passing along my name to others, as well.

    Can’t wait! Thank you for all who have prayed for me in this regard. I truly appreciate it. 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  33. 😯 Shannon Bream has long hair!
    Yesterday, it was cut is a nice bob style. Today, it’s about her shoulder..
    Could it have been in a bob yesterday so that it looked short?
    Could those women be wearing wigs?
    Shannon doesn’t have to do that. She looks great with whatever style she has.

    Like

    Reply

  34. Is it because I turned seventy or because I moved South?
    Both happened at about the same time.
    The young girls, (waitresses, etc.) call me “darling” or some such.
    That never happened in Virginia.

    No, I don’t mind.

    🙂

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  38. I should have known. I did a Bing search and found out Shannon Bream is a Fox News personality. So when Chas mentions someone we don’t know, it is probably another Fox News reporter.

    Like

    Reply

  39. Went in my sweaty gym clothes, UCLA blue hoodie pulled over my head so maybe I looked like a student at the local high school where I vote? 🙂 They said so many vote by absentee ballot, they only had about 200 ballots between 2 precincts.

    I showed my military ID.

    “We don’t need that.”

    I smiled. “It’s the principle.”

    I heard an awful story today I couldn’t wait to share with you but it has now slipped my mind . . .

    In other news, I’m having a raffle for my Christmas novella. Check out my website for details. http://www.michelleule.com

    Like

    Reply

  40. 🙂 I thought maybe she was a TV weather personality. They are always wearing something attention getting, changing hairstyles, etc.. Maybe they do that to take attention away from getting their report wrong so often. It’s as if their chipper looks are a consolation prize for the viewers.

    Like

    Reply

  42. I am one ty erd girl. I got up at 2:45am to put the 20lb turkey in the oven. I had already cooked the ham and made the cornbread dressing. We had over 60 people eat today and had lots and lot of good food. I am just now getting the last of it cleaned up, thrown out, and put away in the fridge.
    Tomorrow I get to be the guest for the same thing at our Coastal Division.

    I do not foresee myself having much trouble sleeping tonight.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  45. This was a good read, a rebuttal of a recent National Geographic article which alleged that birdwatching is racist.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/10/national_geographic_alleges_that_birdwatching_is_racist_an_urban_birdwatcher_responds.html

    On September 23, 2014, National Geographic published an article by Martha Hamilton titled “Colorful World of Birding Has Conspicuous Lack of People of Color.” The gist: birdwatching is racist. Non-racist people must intervene to ensure that birding and birders become “inclusive.”

    …

    Let’s look at the unstated assumptions of the National Geographic piece.

    One unstated assumption is that white people are something close to omnipotent, and are, therefore, responsible for anything that happens that is perceived as negative. The American Birding Association’s Nathan Swick was one of the commentators on the article. Posting as a private citizen expressing his own opinion (not as a representative of the American Birding Association), Swick wrote, “There are those who are interested in a subject, but are unable to pursue it because of societal pressures… Our own white privilege allows for the free expression of our interests in a way that our friends who are people of color are not able to experience.” African Americans “may not want to deal with the hassle… it would be nice if that was not a barrier… this crap won’t cease.”

    Is this assumption accurate? Are whites producing “societal pressures” “barriers” and “crap” that prevent non-whites from birdwatching? Are whites able to bird-watch thanks to “white privilege”?

    Like

    Reply

  46. Sorry about leaving in that one certain word that appeared twice. I meant to edit it to “cr*p”, but forgot and can’t change it now.

    Like

    Reply

  47. Chas, so are you throwing Megyn over for Shannon?

    I thought about bringing my dogs to the polling place but decided against it since I didn’t get up early enough to walk them over there. I used to ask how the turnout was (especially when I’d go after work or later in the day), but now that most folks vote by mail, I don’t bother.

    Like

    Reply

  48. Speaking of “can’t change it now…” (in some cases):

    Here’s another interesting article, exploring the idea of “the right to be forgotten” if, for example, you want a negative online critique of you scrubbed from the internet.

    http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2014/11/04/dejan-lazic-right-forgotten

    In the pre-Internet era, getting a bad review was no fun — but then the next day’s newspaper would come out, and everyone would move on. Today, though, that negative review lives on forever — and it might be one of the first results when someone searches for you online. It’s understandable that you might want to make that review disappear. Should you be able to?

    Some European governments are beginning to believe you should — which is one reason why Croatian pianist Dejan Lazic felt empowered to ask the Washington Post to unpublish a negative review of one of his performances. That’s unlikely to happen, but Lazic’s demand has stirred up a conversation about what some call “the right to be forgotten.”

    …

    The attention given by a major publication to what might be seen as a patently absurd request reflects journalists’ growing unease over the emerging “right to be forgotten.” Though it doesn’t apply in this case, the policy has had real bite in Europe, where Google has approved the majority of requests for links to be removed. Journalists around the world — whether they’re reporting on classical music or on politics — are concerned that the power of the press will be undermined if individuals are allowed to determine what links will appear in search engine results, which have heretofore been taken to be objective and unbiased.

    Like

    Reply

  50. 6 arrows – that’s marvellous. Yes, 6 inches of snow.
    Chas, you are a darling! 🙂
    Michelle “It’s the principle” 🙂 We have to show our id to vote here in Canada – it’s not a big deal
    Phos – you do have wisdom and I appreciate your insight
    AJ – I always look forward with great anticipation for the header photo each morning – thank you!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  54. Chas, we did have a few snow flurries during a Fourth of July parade one year. My daughters happened to be marching. It was freezing cold out. That is certainly not the norm. No snow stuck, of course.

    Like

    Reply

  56. 6 Arrows, re “the right to be forgotten.” When I’d occasionally google my maiden name, there were several people by my name, and at least one was in a similar enough profession (English teacher) that some hits that were her could have been me . . . someone who didn’t know me wouldn’t have been able to tell. (I wasn’t sure if there was one or two such people, actually, for about the same reason. She’d either changed jobs slightly or it was two people.)

    Anyway, one of the hits that really was me was a negative review from some speaking engagement I did. Somebody wrote that the teacher “didn’t even show up” and that was me. Except it was far more complicated than that. The instructions on how to get to the venue were a little bit wrong. (It was something like take Street A, then Street B, then Street C . . . but Street A changed its name and became Street B. So if you didn’t realize they had done it, you’d still be looking for Street B when you should have been looking for Street C. That was before mapquest, or before I knew of it anyway, and I was driving somewhere about an hour and a half away, not an area I drove regularly!) This was my second year of speaking for them, and the first year I had figured it out in time to start looking for the correct street. But it had been a year and I had forgotten that detail. The second year I had left the house plenty early but I was quite sick and barely competent. As I recall I figured I wasn’t contagious (I was at the end of being sick but just very weak from having been sick) and I thought I was well enough to go and I had committed to go, so I went. But I didn’t have enough mental alertness to figure out the routing error, I drove miles out of my way before I figured out the error, and I was in a town I didn’t know. I had no idea how to get where I was going from where I was, and I tried unsuccessfully to ask for directions. The brochure didn’t list a phone number, and I didn’t have a cell phone anyway, so I figured I just needed to keep driving and get there when I got there. So instead of arriving 45 minutes to an hour early as I had planned, I showed up maybe 20 minutes late, completely worn out, and frustrated. My students had, of course, all given up and gone to a different session. But one of them took time to fill out a review that the instructor “didn’t bother to show up,” and though that was about 15 years ago, as far as I know that review is still online.

    Another bad review didn’t show up online, though. I showed up in plenty of time for my second session. When I started it, I told them, “Normally I’d stand up when teaching, but I’m getting over being sick and I need to conserve my energy, so if it’s OK with you all I’m going to sit down.” I made sure I was sitting so that everyone could see me (I might have been on a stool), but I sat. And one person actually had the gall to write something like “Teacher didn’t seem all that animated.” No, actually I wasn’t animated, but I explained that right up front if you were listening! But at least that one didn’t show up in my permanent record.

    Like

    Reply

  58. Cheryl, I don’t know what I’d find online if I looked up my name. My maiden name wasn’t common, but my married name is a bit more, and I know there is one person in my area (at least she was a few years ago) who has the same first and last name as I do, though we are not related. Her husband has a different first name than my husband, I know.

    I have not met this woman, but I’ve received one mailing and two phone calls that were intended for her. At one point, we were going to the same dentist, and the office called me to confirm an appointment, and I told them I didn’t think I had an appointment coming up. Then the receptionist laughed and said, “Oh, I called the wrong ____ ____ [my first and last name]!”

    That was the first I knew of someone else in the area with my same name. Another time I got a mailing from a different dentist office, one no one in our family had ever gone to, and the envelope was addressed to me. I opened it up, and inside was a treatment plan for a child of this woman’s (a child with a different first name than any of my children).

    I took the form back to the office and told them I’d received it by mistake. Then I asked the receptionist how they got my name and address, as I’d never done business there, and she said, “Oh, I just looked it up in the phone book.” Huh?

    I hope there is never a medical care mix-up where we get our health care, because I also learned that this person has records at the same clinic/hospital system I do. Furthermore, there is a third woman (who seeks care at that same institution) who also shares our last name, and her first name is spelled exactly the same as our first name except there are two additional letters added to the end, making a name that is only very slightly different than ours.

    I hope we don’t all wind up in the hospital at the same time. 😉

    Like

    Reply

  59. We had a number of Libertarians on our ballot. Also, there were two people from the Constitution Party who ran for state offices. I voted for those two, and Republicans in the other races.

    Like

    Reply

  60. Something I wrote on Facebook this morning…

    “Lots of people are putting out the message to ‘Get out & vote!’

    “Well, I’m not going to say that. If you don’t really care all that much, or would only be voting for someone because a friend or an ad told you that if you care about such-&-such, you should vote for So-&-so, then please don’t bother.

    “If you have read up on the issues & the candidates, & can make an informed decision, then please do get out & vote.

    “Quite frankly, I do wish we as a nation had a higher percentage of people voting, but only if the voters care enough to be informed about who & what they are voting for.”

    Later, I commented on the post of a friend who wrote that everyone should “absolutely” go vote, even if they have to learn about the candidates while reading a voter guide in line…

    “…I think that people should only vote if they actually care & know what’s going on. It often seems that the push to ‘get out the vote’ is trying to push people to vote even if they don’t really care or know what they’re voting on. The right to vote is a great thing, & we should all respect it, but I don’t think merely voting for voting’s sake is helpful.

    “If people don’t care enough to know what’s going on & want to vote, let’s not guilt them into it.”

    Like

    Reply

  61. Michelle Obama says to just vote Democrat without worrying about what any Dem has said or done.

    http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/04/michelle-obamas-closing-argument-to-black-voters-dont-think-vote-for-democrats/

    First lady Michelle Obama has a message to black voters: Don’t worry about what candidates have done or said– just vote for the Democrats.

    On TV One, a network operating under the motto “Where Black Life Unfolds,” the first lady told “News One Daily” host Roland Martin, “And that’s my message to voters, this isn’t about Barack, it’s not about person on that ballot– its about you. And for most of the people we are talking to, a Democratic ticket is the clear ticket that we should be voting on, regardless of who said what or did this– that shouldn’t even come into the equation.”

    Sorry I didn’t post that before the polls closed. 😛

    Like

    Reply

  62. I voted for one Libertarian, for state auditor. The incumbent is a Republican, but, according to a friend who works in the office, not a vary good one. Besides, he plans to run for governor in two years. So I figured I’s vote for someone who will stay put for the full term. That said, I could not bring myself to vote for a Democrat.

    Like

    Reply

  64. I didn’t vote. 🙂

    There are literally thousands of people with my name, including 2 in my immediate family. (My husband’s sister and his sister-in-law)

    Like

    Reply

  67. My father-in-law, when I first met him, was probably the fastest talker I’d ever heard, except for maybe an auctioneer or two. 😉

    He has slowed down quite a bit now, being 30 years older now than when I’d met him.

    Like

    Reply

  68. I don’t think we had any libertarians on the ballot, though we have had in the past — we are California, after all. 😉 We had the usual Dems and some other 3rd party folks, though. I skipped voting in one race where the choice was between a liberal Democrat or a Peace & Freedom candidate. 😦

    We’ll elect all Dems, of course, but that’s what we do in California anymore.

    Should be interesting to see how the next 2 years unfold. I still think conservatives, Repubs & conservative-leaning Libertarians together, need to stand FOR something and it seems like everyone’s rather lost when it comes to any unity of how things ought to be done differently.

    Either way, though, it may just be too little too late at this stage, I’m afraid.

    Like

    Reply

  69. When I was editor of my college yearbook, we had two male students with the same first and last name (same year in school, too). As I recall, they had different middle initials, but making sure they had separate index entries and that they weren’t otherwise confused was a bit of a pain, particularly since (as I recall) neither one was inclined to use his middle initial.

    I also had a co-worker who had the same name as her mother, and so she (the daughter) went by her middle name. I don’t know if her mother had the same middle name or not, but I think she had the same middle initial at least. Well, “Junior” in a man is not unusual, but no one looks for it in women, and the daughter was past 50 and had never married, they lived in the same town and went to the same doctor(s), so she was always having to tell doctors’ offices “No, my birthdate is such-and-such. That one is my mother.”

    Like

    Reply

  70. Here in Indiana, most of the ballot was Republicans running unopposed.

    Re fast talking: I suppose maybe with seven children, you have to talk fast to get a word in edgewise, and I had never really thought of it, but in some cultures it’s acceptable to have two people talking at the same time, and so we’d do it without even realizing we were doing so, two of us both talking and listening.

    When I was 20, my sister and I had a roommate who had worked at McDonald’s with us. I remember one time we were all three sitting in the living room, J being fairly quiet but showing more and more amazement. Finally she blurted out, “How can the two of you understand each other when you both talk at once? I can barely even understand you when just one of you talks!” Up to that point, I hadn’t even realized we talked fast, nor had I realized that we both talked at the same time. It was simply “normal” to me. I made a deliberate effort to slow down my speech, though even today our family gatherings can get pretty rambunctious. (However, my stepdaughters went to our family reunion this year, though they had barely met my family and hadn’t met all of them, and absolutely loved it, so we must not be too scary! But we do talk more than most families do, and there often is a lot of debate involved.)

    Like

    Reply

  71. I slowed down my speech after learning to enunciate more clearly when I joined the speech team in high school. Actually, even before then, because my speech teacher (all sophomores were required to take speech) was also the forensics coach, and she was a real stickler on pronunciation. If you said “an” instead of “and”, or “ta” instead of “to”, you’d be sure to get marked off. 😉

    Like

    Reply

  74. Today was journal writing in kinder. One girl asked me how to spell ‘gonna’ I explained to her that she wanted to say ‘going to’ This is hard to learn when English is your second language

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment