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Our Daily Thread 3-26-15

Good Morning!

On this day in 1804 the U.S. Congress ordered the removal of Indians east of the Mississippi to Louisiana.  

In 1885 Eastman Kodak (Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co.) produced the first commercial motion picture film in Rochester, NY. 

In 1937 spinach growers in Crystal City, TX, erected a statue of Popeye. 

In 1951 the U.S. Air Force flag was approved. The flag included the coat of arms, 13 white stars and the Air Force seal on a blue background. 

And in 1982 ground breaking ceremonies were held in Washington, DC, for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 

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Quote of the Day

“The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.”

William Westmoreland

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 Today is Diana Ross’ birthday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD99c3otHDA&feature=player_detailpage

And it’s Richard Tandy’s too.

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Anyone have a QoD?

34 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-26-15”

  1. Good morning everyone.
    TSWITW called last night.
    She is SO twentieth century. I keep trying to get her into the twenty first, but it isn’t working.
    I went to church, then I went out to dinner.
    When I returned there was a msg on my machine.
    She said she would call later. She did. I told her she could have looked at the phone and it would tell her I wasn’t home.
    I I asked her about their trip to Brookgreen Gardens, and lunch at the cafeteria.
    She is always amazed that I know that.
    I just saw where they were going, not what they were doing.
    I missed their trip to the ocean front, but I wasn’t following all the time. Just checking in occasionally.

    She could have called me on the cellphone, but I knew she wouldn’t do that.

    How can I be first at 7:45?

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  3. Good morning, Chas. Good morning, A.J. And good morning to all others.

    I saw that history above about spinach growers doing the Popeye statue. I am wondering if anyone here has seen it? When I was young my brother always had canned spinach and hotdogs for his Sat. lunch. I wouldn’t have either for my lunch. I don’t remember what I had, but I remeber thinking how disgusting his lunch was. We also fought in the afternoons because he wanted to watch The Popeye Club and I wanted to watch Sea Hunt on the other station. Now surely you can understand how Popeye was a hero to him since our dad was in the Navy, but I did not think too highly of Olive Oyl or whatever her name was.

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  4. Just about to finish up on Financial Peace. Mr. P wasn’t able to attend last night. It was about real estate and purchasing a home. Good information. Next week will be our last class. I wish I had actually gotten some financial peace by taking the class, but I didn’t.

    Chas, I had to laugh and share the comment about what lengths some women will go to to get chocolate. It made me smile.

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  5. I loved Popeye (my dad also was in the Navy) and, therefore, I talked myself into loving canned spinach. Just goes to show you how powerful the mind is in determining our tastes in food.

    Now I only buy it raw — or sometimes frozen if needed for a recipe. I don’t think I’d ever eat canned spinach again, though. 😉

    I liked Sea Hunt, too. I liked it so much I started practicing ducking under water in the bathtub, which drove my mom crazy with worry and had her dashing in every so often to make sure I hadn’t drowned.

    Long day yesterday, I had to cover a 2 1/2 hour meeting at the end of the day, so I didn’t get home until almost 9 p.m.

    The discussion was about the increase in homeless people in the downtown/waterfront areas and there was the usual back-and-forth between those who want to provide services near the parks where they’re staying (which one LAPD officer attending confirmed when pressed that doing that would increase the numbers) and those who have long been frustrated in trying to make the waterfront and downtown a tourist destination.

    There was a man there from the local Calvary Chapel saying how they would come in and help by providing material help & other resources, but also with the gospel message. Yeah, you could almost feel the chill in the air in response to that suggestion. 😉

    Homelessness is such a difficult problem, in part because it’s really only a symptom of an array of other issues in people’s lives. Some want and can be helped, others — at least for the time being — are somewhat resistant to offers of assistance, rehab and other resources to get off the streets. They’ve adapted and, for now, prefer to live with no rules.

    Are there more homeless lately in your communities? It was a big issue, I know, in the 1980s-90s, then it seemed to recede for a while (or at least it became less visible). But now we have pup tents being set up in local parks, overflowing shopping carts parked along the sidewalks & people sitting with signs in virtually every shopping center and grocery store parking lot in town.

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  7. It always amazes me that we can have any homelessness, but I am told we do. Technically, we could have fit that moniker at one time. We gave up our apartment and lived in a house shell with no water or electricity and then with family, until we could get basement fixed enough to move into. My husband’s work place went on strike just after we bought the land and home and we could no longer afford the apartment rent.

    Since we often have -20 F. temperatures, it is amazing to me that anyone can live outside. Also, there is so much social aid and shelters available. I am sure there are reasons, people cannot or do not take advantage.

    I think I may have told this story before: I remember my siblings and I pestering my mom for canned spinach. She insisted we would not like it and we insisted we would. After all, Popeye loved it and look at the strength it gave him! She finally caved in and bought a can. We took one look, one smell and refused to eat it. For one thing, it was GREEN! On our television spinach was BROWN! We had a black and white television, but it had a brownish shade. This would have been in the 1950’s. The power of television to sell something was shown, but even that couldn’t make us eat it. 🙂

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  8. Since our weather is so mild, it’s certainly easier to survive living outdoors in LA than in many other places. We do have “cold weather” shelters open when it dips below certain temperatures at night or is raining. And there are full-time shelters as well (not in our specific community, but in those next door to us).

    And on top of the relatively easy weather, you can’t really beat the views. We’ve had homeless people set up their cardboard lean-to’s on the cliff rocks hanging right over the ocean and rocky shoreline. Seems so dangerous to me, but they scramble up and down those cliffs and seem to make it work (until they’re chased out by authorities).

    There have been a couple guys in the bushes with makeshift structures on the other side of the RR tracks that run alongside the dog park as well. They stay pretty well hidden but you can tell people live there.

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  9. Your daily dose of humor.
    Mama Ruth demanded chocolate yesterday so her daughter went to the hospital gift shop and bought some. Last night she refused her dinner and wanted more chocolate. R left and went home. I don’t know if she got more chocolate or not.
    I guess for some people we do go out of this world like we came in. I suppose she is the at petulant child stage where she will starve until she gets what she wants.

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  10. Maybe I don’t frequent areas where they are, but I don’t see many homeless here.

    Only because of faith in God do I not worry too much about finances. I have to put on blinders and keep rose tinted glasses available for times when I take off the blinders. Many worries are available for the picking in my life, but what good is worry. It can’t add one hair to my head, and even if it could, I don’t need another frizzy humidity detector.

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  11. I watched a video someone linked on facebook the other day showing that Houston has officers who patrol on bikes seeking to help the homeless. It works to build a relationship with them and then you can work to get them off the street.
    We have missionaries from our church who minister to the homeless in Portland. They say it can take five years to build a relationship of trust to get someone off the street. They minister to the older folks and to vets. But it is all about relationship.

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  12. I grew up eating canned spinach, and I still eat it occasionally. I am far more likely to buy raw these days, though.

    We had a family supper that somehow just needed canned spinach, and I still eat it with the same three foods when I make it: fried eggs, fried corned-beef hash, and canned spinach. Now, I hate fried eggs for breakfast, but somehow that combination works. I finally figured out (just in the last couple of years) that one reason it works is that the smell of the hash overpowers the smell of the eggs; since I don’t smell the eggs frying, they don’t turn my stomach as they sometimes do if fried by themselves.

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  13. Our community has just begun a “quality-of-life” patrol that teams an LAPD officer with a county homeless worker in a car to do more outreach with the homeless. (We used to have LAPD bike patrols but I haven’t seen them in some time now.)

    There seem to be a lot of resources out there for those ready to get help — but it’s that last part that is the key and keeps so many on the streets. They’ve adapted to street life and don’t really want the rules & regulations that so many rehab programs or even overnight shelters impose, such as no drinking or drugs.

    Many suffer from mental illness as well — which may have come as a result of substance abuse or has brought about substance abuse, so there are several layers of problems.

    The gospel, of course, is the real answer, and many churches are actively engaged in homeless ministries. But I’m afraid that faith-based programs have seriously fallen out of favor with society at large these days and is probably not a particularly welcome partner in what is mostly a government-led fight.

    A number of programs advocate providing small, modest apartments or homes for the homeless, which may work for some but not for all. Again, without some kind of management/supervision, an apartment building could quickly go bad & become a just another source of trouble for residents and the community alike.

    What is bothersome to me is an attitude by some in the liberal community that if you raise some of these problems you’re somehow “anti-” homeless and heartless.

    I just think the problem (and some solutions) wind up being presented and argued in a very superficial way. If there were a quick, easy, government solution, we wouldn’t still have so many homeless.

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  14. A huge percentage of homeless people are mentally ill and/or on drugs. My college had a couple of alumni murdered by homeless people they had taken into their home. It is a very dangerous ministry, and people really need to know what they’re doing, because the naive can easily be manipulated or hurt by those they seek to help.

    When I was in Chicago, I saw homeless people all the time. I was asked for money all the time. When the CTA used to take tokens, I kept a roll of tokens in my purse, and when someone would tell me they needed money to take the bus somewhere, I’d give them a token. I’ve also given McDonald’s gift cards. But in general I figure this particular issue is out of my league. A lot of homeless people make an extremely good living by begging; I’ve seen the numbers. I won’t give cash. But I’ve never seen a homeless person or a beggar where I live now.

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  15. In listening to speakers at the Religious Freedom Restoration Act subcommittee meeting here in GA several interesting stories came up. For one, a college student Christian group was being kicked off campus because a footwashing ceremony was being considered hazing. An African American PhD man who qualified and was hired for a top level position in Public Health could no longer be considered for the position, even though they had upped the salary to get such a qualified person, because someone dragged up some sermons he had preached some years back. And a young man, an Emory law school grad, did research and found that in another state a woman who was a Jehovah’s Witness could not have surgery in her state without a transfusion. A liver became available in another state where she would not have to submit to a transfusion, but she had to go to court in her state before they would let her go get surgery in the other state. As you can imagine, court processing took too long and by the time she had won the case, her body had deteriorated so much that she was no longer a candidate for the transplant and she died. So this young man argued it can be the difference between life and death. 31 states and the Federal government have the RFRA on the books. It was put in place 18 years ago at the Federal level. The state law trumps the federal law, so if your state does not have it, you need to work on getting it. I think all the famous well known libs voted yes on it either at the Fed. level or on state level. It expedites decisions that normally drag through courts and cost lots of money just to settle cases seeking the basic religious feedoms we all should have already.

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  16. A (non-believing, liberal) friend said to me recently that people “don’t want to deal” with the homeless, which may be true — but she said it like there’s an easy, obvious solution and that those who question that or raise some of the challenges are merely cold-hearted.

    People tend not to want to deal with homelessness because it’s a multi-faceted problem without an easy “fix” — as I said earlier, homelessness really is just a symptom. You can treat the symptom (which sometimes helps to get to the root cause). But it’s still the symptom and there are a multitude of stories/causes/reasons that have brought the person to this point.

    The “easiest” cases to address involve temporary or sudden financial ruin — but I suspect it’s a minority of cases in which finances alone are the cause of homelessness (without drugs, alcohol or mental illness on top of it).

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  18. Begging has become very commonplace in all our shopping areas. Some appear with children (one couple had an infant), others with dogs, along with cardboard signs (often with a cross or other religious symbol). Not sure this is true, but I heard where the dogs had become such a sure way to get donations that some animals are actually passed around & shared among the homeless who stake out street corners or freeway off-ramps.

    It is sad and tragic, the whole thing. And there, but for the grace of God, could be any of us. And such is the plight of fallen man in a fallen world. It’s easy to become immune to it all when it becomes so prevalent. 😦

    I do think giving fast-food coupons or offering to buy a sandwich (or just doing so and handing it off when you leave the store) — or a bus token, as Cheryl has done — is a much better way to go that giving money.

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  19. I also pass the same one or two or three homeless women on my way to the freeway every morning, they stand several feet apart, almost in a line near the curb (where there is a long traffic light) with signs and sometimes dogs in tow. The other day I saw a new woman, but she was just screaming at no one … 😦

    When I get off the freeway (I use different off ramps depending on traffic) there are sometimes encampments, almost always someone with a “homeless veteran” cardboard sign walking along the stopped cars waiting for the light to change.

    So many …

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  20. Kim, we have a difficult time getting my mom to eat much of anything. She will even order a meal at a restaurant and not take a bite. Those meals are taken home for lunch the next day. Usually very little is eaten. She has a stash of chocolate bars, however, and never misses a day without at least one. This is a woman who does not believe in eating between meals at all.

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  21. My yard is quite a place to watch birds these days. First we have the 15 or 20 species or so coming to the bird feeders regularly, especially when we have suet out (as we still do).

    For a week (up to two days ago) we had vultures coming to a carcass next door–probably a groundhog my husband threw out there a couple of months ago after the other neighbor shot it. We had up to five turkey vultures at a time (only one eating, the others waiting for a chance, since it’s a small carcass) and also at least one crow and a pair of red-tailed hawks expressed interest. I got some decent photos of a vulture spreading its wings and apparently claiming the meat, and a few photos of fights.

    Yesterday we had a thousand grackles coming and going, showing up repeatedly in our yard for a few minutes.

    Today we have eight mature tom turkeys (not last year’s yearling toms) going back and forth across the field behind our house. They’re some distance back, but a zoom brings them in.

    Still waiting for hints of spring among the flora, but it’s nice to see the birds.

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  24. I don’t know about you, but I especially hate commercials that start off with “I don’t know about you but I hate to pay for all the things I get”.
    etc.
    It isn’t just in commercials. I don’t know about you, but I never use that phrase to start a comment. Except for now.
    I don’t know about you, but picky people really irritate me. Always finding fault.

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  27. I see by the phone that Elvera has taken the sisters to the Sea Captain’s House to celebrate Argeree’s BD. (It was earlier in March.)
    It’s a nice sea food restaurant.

    It’s always on our agenda. Elvera likes to do everything according to custom. She says it will give us something to reminisce about when we get old.

    😆

    She really said that.

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  28. my email is having a hard time because I can’t get rid of the email with a 5mb picture attached that I sent with the wrong sending address. It automatically comes up that I am sending from PNG and I forgot to change it that time. Now I have important documents to send to PNG for my visa and everything is getting hung up.
    Any ideas? I have tried numerous times to delete the file.

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  33. We’re finally seeing the snow pack melt. There is still snow in most of our yard, but we can see a lot of the ground now. It was very foggy this evening.

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