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Our Daily Thread 7-14-15

Good Morning!

Today’s flowers are from Cheryl. 

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On this day in 1789 French Revolution began with Parisians stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside.

In 1798 Congress passed the Sedition Act. The act made it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government.

In 1911 Harry N. Atwood landed an airplane on the lawn of the White House to accept an award from U.S. President William Taft.

In 1945 American battleships and cruisers bombarded the Japanese home islands for the first time.

And in 1965 the American space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, and sent back photographs of the planet.

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Quote of the Day

“I’ve never really been one to try to be politically correct. I just feel truth is truth, and sometimes I probably offend some people.”

Franklin Graham

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 Readers choice in the music dept. today, so what’ll it be? 🙂

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Anyone have a QoD?

65 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-14-15”

  2. Morning Chas.

    In everyone’s defense, I didn’t post the thread until about 10 minutes ago. 🙂

    I didn’t sleep well at all (again), so I hit the snooze button a couple times this morning. 😦

    OK, it was like 5 times.

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  3. Today is a bleak day in literary history. Atticus Finch will be exposed as a racist and a member of the KKK. I guess with everything else that has gone on the past month or so it was bound to happen. I can only be thankful that my by marriage Aunt Delores didn’t live to see this day. She read TKAM at least once a year. I found myself with tears in my eyes last night as I was trying to explain to Mr. P why this saddens me as much as it has. HE HAS NEVER READ THE BOOK, which led to a mild panic attach because I then couldn’t find my signed by Harper Lee Anniversary Edition of the book (well technically it was a baby gift to BG, but she still hasn’t reached an age to appreciate that so we keep it a secret). then I remembered it was packed up and I know which box it is in even if I can’t get to it right now.
    I can’t decided if I want to buy a copy of Go Set a Watchman or not. On the one hand it will be a first edition of the book that has caused such a stir, but on the other I don’t want to support such a traitorous work. I just thought of all those people who rushed out and bought “Scarlett” many years ago. You don’t see many copies of that being passed around. Maybe that is what will happen to this one.

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  5. Which reminded me that even though my relationship with my father wasn’t exactly like this it was somewhat similar. He was of that generation who just assumed you knew he loved you.

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  6. And then I thought of the song that I listened to a whole lot after my own father did die. It seems to express most of my thoughts and captured a few of my actions. I have told you the sun makes me happy.

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  7. Now that I have spent 15 or so minutes trying not to cry off all of my make up I will go finish getting dressed and leave the rest of it to all of you.

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  8. Kim, when I read of the second book that the publisher didn’t change anything from the way she wrote it, I said, “Bad idea. Good publicity stunt, but stupid idea.” The book wasn’t good enough to publish 50 years ago, but now it’s good enough that it doesn’t need editing?

    And really, it’s impossible not to consider the possibility that they didn’t just “find” the book at all, but that someone else wrote it, and they wrote it to bring controversy. I did see Harper Lee quoted as saying this was the original book–but no mention of the existence of this book for, what, 70 years, and now suddenly someone “finds” it and it’s good enough to publish?

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  11. kBells – Good point.

    Back when there was such a big controversy in Christian circles over The Shack, one of the things some people didn’t like was that Father God was presented as a black woman. But the point of that was that the man “He” appeared to had had an awful relationship with his own father, & couldn’t relate to a father figure.

    After the man forgave his father, God then appeared as a man, not a woman anymore.

    (I’m not writing this to defend the whole book, just commenting on that particular complaint about it.)

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  13. In August, it will be 30 years since Lee put an engagement ring on my finger. (We were married in March of the following year.) Throughout the years, I have kept my wedding rings on, even while doing dishes or taking a shower. So, as I have gained weight through the years, my rings became impossible to get off even if I wanted to take them off.

    Every now & then, I’d feel a little irritation under my rings, from them getting caught on something & jamming into my skin, which I couldn’t “treat”, since I couldn’t take them off. I’d be concerned that someday I might get an infection under there.

    A few months ago, I saw a video of how to get off a ring that is jammed on a finger. But my rings had created a crevice in my flesh, so I thought they just couldn’t get out of that crevice.

    But last evening, I finally decided to have Chrissy help me do what the video showed. Although I was convinced it wouldn’t really work in my case, it was worth a try.

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  15. Here’s what we did…

    Using the point of a small pair of scissors, Chrissy pushed the end of the dental floss under my rings, toward my palm. Then she wrapped the dental floss tightly around my finger, up to past the first knuckle. Quite frankly, it hurt, & my finger ended up turning a not-so-lovely shade of dark purple.

    Then she took the portion of the floss that was sticking out toward my palm, & started to unravel the floss, theoretically causing the rings to move up the finger as the floss unwound up my finger. (This part hurt really bad, but I was determined to see it through.)

    To my relief & amazement, it actually worked!

    Now, of course, my left ring finger has a funny-looking crevice in it. 🙂 I’ll have to get some kind of cheap, diamondy-looking ring to wear for a time. 🙂

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  16. Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but Kim sure cheered me up this morning. 🙄 😉

    I’m with Cheryl, this whole thing seems odd to me (“finding” the book, publishing it without editing). And it seems like Harper Lee isn’t in a position to really speak for herself these days. It all sounds like a big publicity stunt.

    Today should be interesting. Moonlighting plumber is supposed to come by and then I’ll see if he can do the work today. Meanwhile, the dead TV receiver box started making weird noises so that’s unplugged for now.

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  20. Comment from a resident of Monroeville on one of the threads

    I grew up in Monroeville, AL. My great aunt graduated from Monroe Co High School with Harper Lee in 1944. They have known each other since they were little girls going to church together at the United Methodist Church in Monroeville. I had the privilege of having brunch with my great aunt and Nelle Lee about 25 years ago, and spoke to her a couple other times at the Methodist church. Last Thanksgiving I saw my great aunt a couple days after she had attended the funeral of Alice Lee. I asked her about it, and she said “Nelle did not know me. I sat beside her for a few minutes, held her hand and spoke pretty loudly in her ear and she could not see who I was or hear what I was trying to say to her.” I find this to be very telling information.

    With that background, I would like to clarify some things regarding “Go Set A Watchman.” It has been known for many years that Harper Lee originally had a draft of stories which she planned to pull together into a novel. The first working title was “Atticus.” She later submitted a manuscript entitled “Go Set a Watchman” to Tay Hohoff and Lippincott. Two of the main themes of “To Kill A Mockingbird” were present in Watchman – depicting the prejudice and racism of the south as it existed then, and thru a character similar to her, conveying a strong objection to it, combined with feeling out of place and like she didn’t belong because of her social and political views and because she had nothing in common with typical white southern ladies.

    Hohoff and the editors saw something special in the making, but wanted her to drastically change the concept. This was a long effort with lots of chapter rewrites by Harper Lee and lots of back and forth. But there were 2 main concept changes: (1) depict the racist underlying values of the south through others, and make Atticus a hero who stepped forward and did the right thing. A great novel needs a hero, not a man who had the same tired views as most other southerners then. (2) Depict the differences and out of place feeling of the protagonist through the eyes and words of a brash, precocious little girl who looked up to and learned from her hero of a father, and who was indeed very different than other girls of that day. They felt the story would be much more compelling that way, and indeed they were correct.

    So the Atticus character which exists in Go Set A Watchman was NEVER intended to be the same character as the beloved Atticus from TKAM some 30 years later. The Watchman Atticus was an early draft concept that got thrown on the scrap heap as Harper Lee wrote what ultimately became To Kill A Mockingbird. This draft would have made a wonderful addition to what we know about the creation of a classic novel, and should have been studied in literature courses. But it should NOT have been presented as a 2nd novel, and certainly not as a TKAM sequel. Ms Tonya Carter and the management of Harper Publishing are to blame for that misleading narrative. They did it for ONE reason – to make money.

    I do not know if Harper and Alice Lee knew the Watchman manuscript still existed, but given it was in their safe deposit box and given that plans to publish and release it as a 2nd novel were not announced until after the death of Alice, I tend to think they did know and were not interested in publishing if for the very reasons discussed above. The reviews I have read are based on a premise that is not only flawed, but which does not exist. Watchman was not intended to be a published work in addition to TKAM, and the Atticus in Watchman was never intended to be the Atticus from TKAM, 30 years later. If the author who gave us the wonderful, extraordinary book that is To Kill A Mockingbird still had her cognitive abilities in place and if she could see and hear, she would never have agreed to this foolish plan to publish Watchman as a second novel.

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  22. Sad. I’d read something similar, that someone was taking advantage of the situation. 😦

    So moonlighting plumber is here, unfortunately his estimate isn’t a whole lot cheaper than Roto-Rooter (but somewhat cheaper). Doesn’t matter right now, I’m desperate and need to get this resolved today. He said the pipes appear to be original, no sign that they’d ever been replaced, so considering the house was built in the early 1920s … I guess it’s time.

    Lots of drilling going on under the house. The cat has vanished. The dogs are locked up in the kitchen/backyard and very frustrated. My boss is wondering when I’ll be in today.

    All I want is a shower.

    At least I had a can of some of that dry shampoo in the house.

    On another topic, a friend who’s on the way home from a family vacation to the Bahamas had a stop-over in New Orleans where she told me last night that they’d taken a Hurricane Katrina tour.

    You’ve gotta love Americans and our ingenuity. We can figure out how to make money off of just about anything. 🙂

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  23. I’m afraid you guys have me around a lot today.
    It’s raining and I can’t do the things had planned.
    But I am thankful for the rain. I wish it would really rain instead of this messy drizzle we’re getting.

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  26. Good Afternoon, Y’all!
    Been a long time! I have missed talking to y’all!
    I don’t think I will waste my time on the “new” book…

    AJ…no great music choices, but ever since reading your post I keep hearing Geddy Lee in my head…”There’s no bread, let ’em eat cake…”

    I have decided to be more faithful about checking in at WV…see y’all soon!

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  27. I’m here too, waiting on the plumber (who had to make a run to Home Depot).

    Apparently (I see from our newspaper website) there was a wild, 80 mph car chase with police through town late last night after I’d gone to bed.

    Guy drove all the way to the end of the road and — vroom — sailed right out over the edge of the ocean cliff, landing on the rocks below. Amazingly, he survived.

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    SAN PEDRO — A man in his 30s drove his Toyota Prius off a San Pedro clifftop during a high-speed pursuit, police said today.

    The pursuit, which reached speeds of 80 miles per hour in downtown San Pedro, occurred after the suspect aimed his vehicle at Los Angeles Port Police officers (at a traffic stop). ….

    Firefighters at the scene estimated the vehicle landed 250-300 feet down, a port spokesman said.

    The driver was rescued from the vehicle with broken bones and was hospitalized. …

    The suspect will be booked for assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, with further charges pending as a result of the pursuit.
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  30. Kim, thanks for those posts. My stepdaughter who’s a writer and I had talked about the book some months back, and both of us looked forward to reading it. But I just forwarded her a couple of the things you posted. I now have no interest in reading the book, and I’m disappointed in HarperCollins. Really, they’re a better publisher than that . . . or at least they sure used to be!

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  31. I know, not the kind of vehicle you’d expect to be fleeing police.

    Just talked to someone from the port who told me the police & fire department walked down to the bottom of the cliff and pulled the suspect from the car, applied first aid and then … (almost unbelievably if you could see these cliffs, though there are pathways people have established) they all, suspect included, walked back up to the top where the suspect was put on a gurney.

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  32. They walked the suspect up a cliff trail with broken bones? Wow…
    Btw…how is he a suspect if they watched him do it?

    And I was laughing about the Prius thing too…I guess even criminals want to reduce their carbon footprint…

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  33. Karen, I never take off my wedding ring, but I take off my engagement ring multiple times a day–to wash dishes, to work with anything messy like meat, to sleep, etc. Well, I was a bit underweight when we married, and not anymore . . . and it had gotten tricky to put the ring on in the morning (I was waiting till afternoon to do so) and taking it off was a bit uncomfortable. We ended up getting both my rings resized a half-size.

    My parents never took off their rings, and for their 25th anniversary they had them remade, for Mom’s ring making it just one single ring. (I inherited that ring, and wear the same diamond she had. But she had the diamond set very low in the ring because she wore it all the time, but I have it set high.) Well, when they went to the jeweler to get new rings made, the jeweler was amused by two things: one, Mom and dad both had to get their rings cut off, and two, Mom and Dad both wore the same size rings.

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  34. Everyone is a “suspect” and “alleged” until a jury finds him guilty.
    You may have seen a “suspect” commit a crime, but he is not a criminal until a jury or judge says so.

    That is what “presumed innocent” means.

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  35. Cheryl,
    I am afraid that eventually I will break down and someone will have a copy of The Abomination and I will read it. I will regret it when I do, because it will change things forever in my mind, but I will console myself that I borrowed the book and did not add to the coffers of those who have taken advantage of Miss Lee.

    I take my rings off all of the time. When I walk in from work I got to my closet, take off my shoes and all jewelry. The way rings fit, whether tight or loose is one of my signs that perhaps I need to back away from the table or lay off the sodium.

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  36. Understood, Chas…however the language always amuses me…no one there suspects that he may have driven off of the cliff…it’s fairly obvious…lol

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  37. Perhaps “suspect” was on some mighty fine drugs? 😉 Anyway, pretty remarkable that they were able to hike back up that cliff in the dark, although I imagine the law enforcement folks had lights with them. Prius has been hauled away, I’m told.

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  39. Donna – Could you take a “bird bath” (washing up at the sink), & wash your hair in either your bathroom or kitchen sink?

    My finger is sore & tender to the touch today, feeling like it’s seriously bruised, although no bruises are visible. That crevice in my finger is going to be a good reminder to be more careful in my eating.

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  40. Another half a day or so and I would have had to take the neighbor up on their offer to use their shower — and while I could have washed my hair in a sink here, it was just on the edge of really absolutely needing to do that.

    But now the plumber is done, the shower runs perfectly (and drains! no more ankle-deep water when I get out).

    I haven’t enjoyed a hot shower that much in a long time. 🙂

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  41. Interesting to read about rings today. Instead of the video I posted above, Shall We Gather At the River, I almost posted a song that was running through my head before that — Du Ring an meinem Finger. It was a song I sang in college — one of my favorites I ever studied — and was part of a collection of songs by Robert Schumann (Woman’s Life and Love, Opus 42), which my voice professor gave me as a gift when I was about to graduate, as I was getting married just a few weeks later.

    I don’t know who this singer is, but she does a lovely job.

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  44. Donna, don’t come back until after you’ve showered!
    I never took my rings off either until I was in a car accident in 2008 and they had to be cut off in the trauma center. The nurse didn’t have the strength to do it so my hubby helped her. He and I were both very distressed about it and she said it was the saddest ring she ever cut off. I replaced them with one ring that has three diamonds in it, which I actually like better than the originals (although it doesn’t match his) and I never take it off.

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  45. Kim, I’ve heard it said that Schumann damaged his fingers or hands with some contraption he’s said to have invented to strengthen weak fingers. Some sources dispute that, though. I can’t verify the accuracy of those stories, but he was at one time pursuing a career as a concert pianist, and later (because of injuries?, some say) gave it up and began composing instead.

    However things happened, I’m glad we have music by him to this day. 🙂

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  46. My wedding band has no diamonds, but the engagement band has five — a medium-sized diamond in the middle with two tiny diamonds on either side of the central one. However, the outermost diamond on each side has fallen out who-knows-where, and I have not replaced them in the many years since I lost them.

    Somehow, the engagement band got a little bent on the side closest to my pinkie, but the two rings have not come apart from each other.

    I’ve never had the rings re-sized; they have been and still are about the perfect size — I can get them off without trouble (though I never need to), but they’re not too loose that the diamond part slips to the side or underneath of my finger.

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  48. Perhaps “suspect” was on some mighty fine drugs? I would say the Prius was on drugs. Really? 80 mph in a Prius? 😉

    As for the ‘book’, I don’t think I’ll read it. I would think Ms Lee would say to burn all the copies.

    And if this is Bastille Day, shouldn’t we have the Marseillaises?

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  49. Safely in Brisbane,but missed Tuesday. all checked in for my flight to Port Moresby
    I’m tired!
    The screaming child kicking my seat made for a long night. But I had an empty seat next to me.
    God is good, all the time

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  53. Cheryl, thankfully I am at the office where I can see the beautiful flower pictures. You are such a good photographer.

    I think I forgot to wish Nancy Jill a Happy Birthday yesterday, so I wish a belated one today. Don’t feel bad though since I did not get a card in the mail to our son. I have a belated one to send to him. Seems he has set the new pace for getting cards to people. I told him I had not yet sent his card and he said not to worry because he still has a Father’s Day card to send. 🙂

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  60. Storm warning radio is on. Makes me not want to get on the road to go home. But poor Bosley. She still has not recouperated from the
    4th of July. We have new rules on allowing fireworks so a lot of animals were badly affected this year. Many animals got loose and were picked up by the pound. Recently when we had a thunderstorm there was a big boom and Bosley jumped up so quickly from her nap that she dug her claws into my leg and left a gash.

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  62. Janice – Those kinds of emails are now posted on Facebook instead. 🙂 I am amazed at the stories some people will make up, & others will believe.

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