I feel like the person who only goes to church on Easter Sunday

If you read my post from 10/23 you know that I had given up on baseball and was ignoring the World Series. But...then the greatest game in modern baseball history happened, I missed it and had only the highlights to watch the day after. That's what I get for giving up and not having faith. Baseball I am soooo sorry. I am here watching the last game of the 2011 World Series but it will serve me right if the Cardinals bomb. It's okay if they do I'm back. Though I do feel like I am back with Bobby Cox and his ridiculous habit of keeping pitchers in until it was too late, but the Cards have just hit a home run and are ahead. Carpenter recovered and is doing well.
I am for the Cards because there is no way I would be for any team from Texas. Texas has given us Rick Perry and George W Bush, and they killed JFK. They are always threatening to secede from the union...go, I say, and do not come back. The Cardinals' fans are loyal and enthusiastic and part of the history of baseball.

I watched every minute and realized how much I enjoy the deliberate pace of the game; the concentration needed to know what is going on. The things I grew weary with about the game are still there, but I just need to do what my pal Harriett does and ignore them and focus on the experience.

Can't wait for Spring training..tsk, tsk.

Can these people not hear themselves?

George W Bush issued 291 executive orders while he was President. Any complaints by Republicans in the Congress? Don't think so. The Constitution must apply to only some people.

Herman Cain is quite delusional...the people who are taking him seriously are deluded.

The Republicans will nominate Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan. You heard it here. After listening to these absolute fools (Perry, Cain, Bachmann, Paul, Santorum, Palin, Romney, et al) for a couple of  months Newt will sound like the savior.

Be aware of these very dangerous situations and threats to our system!

One of our major cities, Boston, has suffered greatly in the past five years. Manufacturing jobs have recently moved to New York and New Hampshire. Unemployment has risen sharply, warehouses are empty, and every tenth person is homeless. This is obviously a major problem and an explosive situation is developing. Resentment for the elite, whose fortunes have risen dramatically while others have declined, has led to blame being placed on government officials. It appears that an effigy of an official has been hung in a tree as a threat, and a building owned by this official has been demolished by a group that calls itself the Loyal Nine. In addition, his home has been destroyed, furniture smashed, even the paneling has been removed and stolen. The official has been forced to resign his position.

Private property has been destroyed. This is an unacceptable situation. It has also been reported that a large global company that these demonstrators have grievances with has also been threatened. Cargo was brought into Boston and remains unloaded due to a strike by dockworkers. Several very wealthy supporters of the resistance have been attempting to get the company to remove the ships to no avail. Five thousand demonstrators have gathered to protest and have moved to destroy the cargo of this privately owned property!!! What right do these people have to destroy private property!? 

Sounds outrageous doesn't it? It is difficult to disguise the Stamp Act resistance and the Boston Tea Party. Imagine Bank of America headquarters being bombed and executives threatened...imagine demonstrators dumping barrels of oil into the water in Boston Harbor. Imagine Warren Buffet as John Hancock.

The real issue in these pivotal events leading to the American Revolution was not the tax, Stamp Tax, Tea Tax, any tax for that matter; the real issue was being taxed without being represented in the legislative body that imposed the tax..."No taxation without representation". The real issue that led to The Boston Tea Party was the monopoly granted to the East India Company, that the British Parliament was trying to keep from bankruptcy, to sell tea in North America not the tax. The tax had been dramatically decreased and British tea was much cheaper than any other tea. Colonials suspected that the Parliament was trying to trick them into abandoning the cry of no taxation without representation.

Drugs maybe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NomX7j8qYrE

WHAT?

Please Mister Postman...

...look and see, if there's a letter in your bag for me. (think Marvelettes not Beatles OR the Carpenters!)

Article I, section 8, clause 7 of the United States Constitution calls for the establishment of Post Offices. It was the original intent of the Founders for the national government to ensure that all Americans would have access to mail delivery no matter where they live. The Postal System was not created by FDR or LBJ or a socialist cabal. Ben Franklin was the one who felt that without the means of communicating we could not develop into a viable democracy. So why all of a sudden have those on the right put the postal service on the chopping block along with every other thing in government meant to help the Americans who do not reside on the Upper East Side. PROFIT for UPS and FedEx perhaps. It might surprise people that FedEx and the Postal Service have a relationship. The USPS will deliver FedEx stuff to places where FedEx will not go (because it costs too much) and the USPS will bring to FedEx stuff from places only serviced by the USPS. Bet you didn't know that. A workable relationship between the government and the private sector that works for both AND serves the public.

There used to be a Post Office Department with a Post Master General who was a member of the President's Cabinet. During Nixon's term the Postal Service was created and became an independent agency under the auspices of the government. A Republican controlled Congress passed legislation requiring the USPS to prefund all retiree benefits. Think about what this means...UPS does not have to do this, nor does anyone else. This is the major reason the Postal Services is operating in the red.

I like the Post Office. My Dad worked for the Post Office when I was a little kid. Today I went to the post office in Chapel Hill to get stamps from the machine and it was not working correctly. A really nice postal employee came out to help everybody and stayed (even though his workday was over) until everything was fixed.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

As a child I had a love affair with baseball. Perhaps just about everyone my age loved the game as much as I did. It was our national pastime. In elementary school we always got to listen to the World Series games on the radio. The games were played during the day because most (if not all) stadiums did not have lights. Everyone had their team...mine was the LA Dodgers because my brother's Little League team was the Dodgers. My Grandfather (Papa) played some kind of baseball but I have never been sure what kind. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory it was a NY Yankee farm team in Richmond, have no idea if that is true. I do remember going to baseball games at the old Parker Field in Richmond as a small child. We played baseball, I collected baseball cards, everyone had their favorite heroes. I read a biography of Lou Gehrig in the 4th grade and loved it.

In the summer of 1959 we lived in Napa, California and the highlight of our short stay there was going in to San Francisco to watch the Giants play the Milwaukee Braves!! A real major league baseball game!! The Giants were in a race with the Dodgers to go to the World Series so it was a big game. I remember that Lew Burdette pitched for the Braves and Hank Aaron played. The Braves had won the World Series in 1957 so they were a big deal. But the stars were on the Giants... Willie Mays! Orlando Cepada! Felipe Alou! Willie McCovey! (I think it was his first year) I do not remember who won, but I was in heaven. My Mom kept asking where Casey Stengle was and we kept telling her New York. She was very disappointed.

The game was played in Seals stadium, Candlestick Park was being built and they were trying to hurry and complete it because they were sure the Giants were going to play in the World Series...didn't happen, the World Series that is. My team the Dodgers played.

We then moved on to Japan. We were really into baseball! I guess it was because we were so far away and it was like being in the States. We would have to wake up and listen to the World Series at 3 in the morning...everyone did. The Woman who worked for us, Shizeko, and her husband took us to an exhibition game in Tokyo at Korakuen Stadium. The San Francisco Giants against maybe the Tokyo Giants. During the 1960 Election/World Series it seemed that everyone was either for Kennedy and the Yankees or Nixon and the Pirates.

When I grew up and moved to Atlanta there the Braves were Hank Aaron and all. We would get the cheap seats out in center field in the old Fulton County/Atlanta Stadium to watch Hank up close. I have a card somewhere that says I was there when Hank hit his 712th home run, or some number, I need to dig that thing out.

But baseball heaven came in 1991 when the Atlanta Braves went from worst to first and went on to play in the World Series! Pat went to the stadium at some bizarre hour with cash to buy 4 tickets. I was going to go to the World Series!! Baseball was reborn in my heart, The Braves did not win, but it did not matter...Atlanta had been treated to a wild and fantastic ride. Then there was 1992! We went to the great game when Atlanta beat the Pirates to win the pennant with Sid Bream sliding into home. The place went wild and the "chant" went on forever as everyone left the stadium; it was great! The decade of the Braves was well under way. By 1995 World Series victory was at hand and the names of Tommy Glavin, Greg Maddox, Steve Avery (who lived very close to us), Fred McGriff, Chipper Jones, David Justice, John Smoltz, Javy Lopez, and others were household names and everyone suffered from sleep deprivation and elbow dislocation from doing the chop. Ted Turner and Jane Fonda were always at the games and provided something to watch when the game was boring.

I really do not know what happened to me and baseball. The ridiculous salaries, the strike, Tom Glavin becoming a butt head...I don't know. I divorced the game, it was not the game I used to be so enamored with. We are in the middle of the present World Series and I did not even know who was playing. If it had not been for Brinkley's friend Reagan putting stuff on facebook about the Rangers I would not have known they were playing in the venerable Series. I miss it, but there is college basketball and the Heels are ranked , you guessed it, number 1!

There are no words left for Congressional Republicans...

...and some Democrats. Somewhere in the hallowed halls of the United States Capital there has to be an individual who has the guts to come forward in a dramatic way and challenge the Republican leadership. The really troubling thing here is that the fox fans never question what these so called leaders say. The hatred for Obama is unnatural; every single thing that he does cannot be absolutely wrong...there has to be at least ONE thing that might be right. The latest illicit tour de force is the denial that the President had anything to do with the ultimate undoing of Khaddafy (Qadaffi). These small minded trolls are actually touting the line that the British are the ones who should get all the credit. They cannot bring themselves to give this President credit for anything! Talk about patriotism.

AND, the jobs bill.

Is this a joke?

I know many Republicans whom I respect and who are intelligent people. They must be embarrassed. Never have I witnessed such a ridiculous group of political candidates being taken seriously. After the so called Republican "debate" last night I am shocked. Who could possibly think that any of these people could be the President of the United States? 999? Apples and Oranges? Wake up! Yard work? Obama's aunt and uncle? Petty bickering! There are serious problems facing our society and they need to be addressed in a serious way.

A Great Weekend in Oxford with Emily

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/travel/faulkner-and-football-in-oxford-miss.html

Pat, Kristy, and I ventured to Mississippi to visit Emily and go to the Georgia Ole Miss football game. It was the ultimate tailgate experience. Kristy and I interviewed many people who had set up outstanding tents, and they all invited us in for food and drinks!

Great visit with Em and her MTC friends.

I am not sure how the NYT missed us there.

Father's Day (an earlier post that refused publication)

Because we miss our babies desperately we journeyed half way across the country and back to spend the weekend with Em & Brink. It was to be a bit of a vaycay, but did not turn out that way. Our plan was to go to Asheville on Thursday, spend the day exploring, find an interesting hotel and leisurely explore the roads to Oxford Mississippi. Nope, didn't happen...we left Chapel Hill at 7:00 PM instead of AM and got to Asheville in the dark. Not much exploring. The two girls at the desk of the interesting hotel we selected suggested that we go to Southern, a place that had a late night menu. Okay, we thought that sounded good so off we went. Asheville at night is not a place that sees many people our age out on the street. We were not smoking pot and we did not have tattoos. Southern was interesting, but I can tell you that the girls that sent us were more than likely laughing. Little did they know that we fit in where ever we go, at least in our minds.

While in the lobby the next morning having coffee I met Amy Laura Hall, a divinity professor at Duke. I am not going into the details of our conversation (her life story) but she wants to start a church in a brewery in Durham...sounded interesting to me.

Off we went to Oxford a new way...I thought we were taking I40 through Knoxville and then follow the Natchez Trace, but NOOOOO. Pat suggested that we go another way through Nantahala and all the winding roads where you can go about 35 MPH. So sometime around 1 or 2 we were in CHATTANOOGA! that was not my plan. Look at a map, that's a long way from Oxford. Attempting to avoid Tupelo we got lost and drove through about a dozen little towns that no one in their right mind would ever go to. (sorry about ending the sentence with a preposition). A sign pointing the way to the Coon Dog Cemetery tells you alot about just where we were.  We did arrive and it was great to see Em and hear all the news. Shopping, meeting all the MTC people, having dinner, and getting to know Paul filled the day. Sunday we had breakfast at Big Bad Breakfast with Em to celebrate Fathers Day and then headed to Atlanta to have dinner with Brink. Pat was in heaven. Both girls in one day.

"pittiful" of late

Life in the "Pitt" has all but disappeared of late, but real life has not. Google in all its wisdom did something to blogger that I was not aware of and each time I wrote an earth shacking post it would not publish. I assumed the geeks at Best Buy, while performing an exorcism to rid my computer of  a virus, had altered my posting capabilities. They must have figured that enough had been said about deer, Sarah Palin, and the Tar Heels. I just sighed and moved on to Gawker. Finally I decided that my brain would explode if I did not figure out why this no post situation existed, after all, there was so much to be said. Alas! The "Pitt" is back.

My life's work...

...is under attack. Somewhere back in the bowels of high school I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. I am not sure why. I have distinct memories of the many classrooms I frequented from September 1962 to June 1965 and the day to day presence of adults who were charged with the very difficult duty of "teaching". Some were interesting, some were "cool", some should not have been there, several were cruel, and a few were inspiring. All of them taught me something, but the ones that I still remember were the ones who had passion...passion for their subject, and they were always engaged; they were part of the class, not directing the class. I wanted to avoid the ways of the worst and perfect the ways of the best. For 33 years the classroom was my world away from home. There was laughter, frustration, anger, enlightenment, and every other human emotion. It was hard every day. Futures were at stake.

Who are these people who have decided to "go after" teachers? Why have they put the profession at risk? Yes, there are those who should never darken the door of a school...but they CAN be gotten rid of. And, it's the public schools they are after not the private schools. Do they actually think all teachers in private schools are wonderful? Are they trying to rid our democracy of the great equalizer? Are they opening the way for private companies to make huge profits by bestowing grades? Well...maybe.