Undersea sculpture

The artist sculpts cement life size models and submerges them into a South American body of water where they will become coral encrusted and provide hiding places for fish and other sea creatures. This picture is one of many. Check them all out and read the small piece that comes with it. I find it eerie, beautiful, and shows the artists ingenuity and talent.

What has happened to us?

Read Jack Cafferty's commentary and better yet read the feedback from his listeners. Read Ken from California, I think he is spot on, it distresses me to say.


November 29, 2010
Black Friday stampedes, arrests and fights; what's happened to us?
Posted: 05:00 PM ET



FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

The holiday season is upon us - and by the looks of things, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

Some of the behavior on display as Americans hit the stores for Black Friday deals was downright disgusting, including stampedes, arrests and fights. And it’s all in the name of buying holiday gifts for our loved ones.

Here are some reports from what happened at stores around the country:

In Georgia, a Marine reservist was stabbed when he tried to help stop a suspected shoplifter. The Marine was one of four servicemen stationed outside a Best Buy collecting Toys for Tots.
In Los Angeles, California, the Sheriff's Department had to temporarily put part of one shopping mall on lockdown after a fight in the food court.
An Indiana woman was arrested after fighting with other shoppers at a Walmart checkout. Police say customers were fighting about a person accused of cutting in line.
Another woman was arrested in Wisconsin. Police say she threatened other shoppers while waiting in line at a Toys R Us store. They say she tried to cut pass several hundred shoppers waiting in line. When she was confronted, the woman threatened to get a gun and shoot the other shoppers.
At yet another Wisconsin Toys R Us, thousands of people waiting in line rushed the doors when they opened. The store's employees had to lock the doors and call police. Customers waiting for hours reportedly chanted "end of line" to those just showing up.
Merry Christmas!

Here’s my question to you: In light of stampedes, arrests, and fights on Black Friday, what has happened to us?

Interested to know which ones made it on air?


Ken in California writes:
The great experiment called the United States seems to be failing. We are not the American family capable of tolerating our neighbors' race, religion, language and, culture. The fact is, Jack: we don't like each other, starting with the halls of Congress whose members are from Blue states and Red states. There is a foreboding of disaster, a sinking feeling about our nation as those who represent us drive wedges between us. If we can't fix our government, let the chaos begin. It is already showing up in it the stores.

Will in Mississippi writes:
Department stores are jam-packed with people willing to wait hours just to purchase that very special gift for a family member or loved one. But if another shopper intrudes in any way, it's time to pull out the boxing gloves and exhibit the Christmas spirit.

Ken in New Jersey writes:
Welcome to America. We are rude, obnoxious, and violent. Just ask the countries we bully and attack every day. Shoppers are no different than our elected officials. WikiLeaks proves that.

Rahn in Minnesota writes:
What has happened is that our country has gone from "the greatest generation" to the "worst generation" in my lifetime. I have a feeling that if my grandparents' generation had an idea what has become of the country they sacrificed so hard for, they just MIGHT have NOT made those sacrifices in the first place. And our world would have been that much worse of for it.

Jerry in Silver Spring, Maryland writes:
Whatever it is it applies to only a small segment of the U.S. population. Contrary to what the media claim, the majority of Americans avoided stores last Friday.

Al in New Jersey writes:
We did better than last year; nobody was killed. That's movement in the right direction.

Ralph in Corpus Christi, Texas writes:
Sounds more like a Black and Blue Friday.

Filed under: Holidays •Spending

A little scientific fun

The result of your experiment reminds me of kaleidoscopes that were toy's in my generation.

Pearl Harbor

In just about a week it will once again be the anniversary of the day which will live in infamy, as FDR said in his declaration of war. This film by National Geographic tries to figure out why Japan did what they did.

Watch more free documentaries

A very short motivational film, take a look.

Times Change

In the fifties our children were dressed as miniature adults complete with ties and suits. It changed though in the next decade, the sixties big time.




A birthday party for David Eisenhower, grandson of President Dwight Eisenhower. In attendance were movie and television stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
By Abbey Rowe, Washington, DC, March 31, 1956
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, National Archives and Records Administration
(62-187) [VENDOR # 123]

the stuffing now, and then the gravy,

Save Room

As meals go, Thanksgiving dinner
Is always a feast--a five star winner.
Here comes the salad, dressed just right,
The golden brown turkey--a savory delight;

The stuffing now, and then the gravy,
The jello mold, all wiggly and wavy.
Take some cranberry sauce and candied yams;
Is there room for fresh made rolls and jams?

More dishes tempt me; ah, but I
Must save some room for pumpkin pie!

By Joanna Fuchs

The rich get richer and some don't

As you can plainly see by the looks of that uniform, a whole lot of money wasn't spent on the world champion Cleveland Indians. Not much has changed in ninety years. There was an awful lot of money made by the owners until free agency came about. Even now there is not a lot of money spent on product in some franchises. Picture courtesy of JIGGSY.



Smoky Joe Wood, Cleveland Indians professional baseball player wearing a Worlds Champions uniform, 1920. Wood was an outfielder and sometime pitcher for the Indians when they won the World Series in 1920. Bain News Service, publisher. LOC original medium: glass negative.

Baseball Disgust

It occurs to me that back in the fifties the Milwaukee team was municipally owned. Perhaps it was expansion time, I'm not sure and am too lazy to check it out. But the point I want to make is what can be done if a owner of a MLB team does not have, or refuses to shell out any money to field a competive team?

The Cleveland team has one of the lowest payrolls in all of baseball and recently the GM stated that the team could not enter into the free agency market because they did not have any money to do just that. In other words the team does not intend now or in the future to spend any of the owner Dolan's money to improve the baseball team. I read in one of the forum's that if that was the case then the Indians fortunes would rely exclusively on luck.

The bottom line then is the team is making a profit even though they are the lowest in attendance. They are making a bundle from their television station and merchandizing the Indians brand. So it seems that two facts are sure things, one they will not improve the team, and two they will not sell the franschise.

Since the Dolan's are a member of the owner's club albeit the really cheap wing of same that follows the motto, Keep your nose out of my business, it does not look good at any time in the near future that Cleveland fandom will get their dearest dream, a new owner.

To compound the dreary outlook, the commisioner of baseball, stays out of the way of his owners in order to retain his job. Obviously in the commisioner job description there is no standard of performance that each team must maintain. Cleveland is the prime example of that. It is a baseball joke and pretty much a truism that they have become a feeder and developer of young talent to be made available to other clubs through free agency or one sided trades.

It is also obvious that nothing is going to be done short of a nudge from those people in Washington that businesses that represent municipalities must be maintained up to some level of competiveness among other like businesses.

But now we've brought politicians into the fray. Now Cleveland Indian fans plight if that happened would be in the hands of big business, politicians, and big baseball. Things are not looking good.

Here endith the most recent fairy tale from a battle weary, and a little battle scarred in the head Cleveland Indian fan.

McSorley's

Ah, it looks like the Buckeyes have come from behind and will win again. This time over Penn State. It's time for a cold brew. So says most of the population. But for me I just don't much like the taste of beer. After one, I'm done. But McSorley's Bar is known for hospitality, a sort of early day Cheers.

Memories can make her anyone's grandmother

Memories are wonderful things. Photographs can evoke moments in our far past. This photo is from 1x.com. The memory it evokes is of Hazel's grandmother, an immigrant from Switzerland. The family lived in New Jersey and through time several family members broke off and moved to Ohio. Grandmother was one of them. On occasions she would take a trip back to New Jersey to visit her relatives. On one such time Grandma was put on the train by her son at the local railroad station. She found her seat and started to put her coat on the overhead rack and settle in with her luggage and such. She became so engrossed in the exercise she was completely oblivious to the fact that the train had started moving and the family was standing and waving and yelling goodbye as the train moved farther and farther down the tracks. Hazel remembered this all her life in good humor. She wondered how far toward New Jersey she got before she realized that the family had left to return home. Speculation is fun, but memories mixed with love is sublime.

Well done daughter

A public word of praise for my daughter. A bit of background is necessary. She and her husband have one son two years old. They now also have a newborn second son. The husband has landed a new job in Washington D.C. that keeps him there most of the time and my daughter is at home in New York to care for the little people, and try as well as she can to prepare for the move in just a few weeks. Her mother-in-law helps out when she can, and her mother and I spent several days there recently helping to do the mundane things that have to be handled in the home, while she handled the newborn and the two year old. Motherhood does not come natural to every woman, but I must tell her that her mother and I were impressed with her patience and ability to slow time down when she has to attend to a another dirty diaper which seemed to me, the grandpa, to being generated at a record setting clip.


She is not able yet, which is normal, to know that one day when she has time to reflect back that these next years will be remembered as the happiest time of her life.

Try to remember daughter when Ewan generates another one of those dirty diapers he is just adding one more happy memory for mama to smile about in twenty years or so.

When our parents wish to end their life

Getting old is not for sissies was a buzz line a while back for bumper stickers, it was funny but it ended there. Although when you reach a certain age it takes on a whole different slant, it becomes very serious. This article from the New York Times is about a mother who asked her daughters to assist her in ending her life. Many older people entertain this thought when a life ending illness becomes too painful to endure.

My mother when she was getting older and her health was going south just mentioned it in passing. I think just to see what my feelings were about the subject. I think a goodly amount of old folks at least think about ending it on their terms. I was not a sympathetic ear and told her to not ask me to assist to that end. My mother liked to say shocking things from time to time, and maybe this was just one of those times.

Getting older seems to add articles like this one from the Times in our required reading. Time moves unrelentedly on and how we wish to end our life here on earth is certainly important.

The COLA law needs to be rewritten

Senior citizens or in a more militant time they were called Gray Panthers, listen up. For those who don't remember, the Panthers were a pressure group of seniors who united and lobbied their congressmen and senators to help get legislation passed that would be beneficial to older folks.

Sound familiar? The Tea Party of current fame in unseating a few congressmen, and making a bunch more very uncomfortable in their plush seats on Capitol Hill is leading the way in showing how effective a grass roots organization can be. I think it also shows that perhaps the Gray Panthers should start showing their strength through numbers. There are an awful lot of us seniors out here with computers, and there are an awful lot of congressmen, and congresswomen (we don't want to forget them), who seem not to care much that the COLA law is depriving seniors of a little help to offset blazing inflation and medical cost increases. It will probably take a law change to reinstate a cost of living amendment. Do you think our good people in Washington will take it upon themselves to correct something that should be corrected without a threat to vote as a bloc in the next election. It worked this time for the Tea Party, why not the Gray Panthers next time.

I write the Public Reader, my name is Jim Kittelberger, and I approve of the above message. Isn't that what all politicians good and bad say on the boob tube?

A good team is better than a bad team

It's amazing how a little success can get you some press time. The Cleveland Browns have been laboring through a lot of unsuccessful seasons mostly anonymously, even the hometown press couldn't find much good to write about. But this year, one of those wait until next year years that has finally arrived, they have gotten out their chemistry sets and conjured up a team to be taken seriously. This morning in the New York Times they have a story on Rob Ryan, a Cleveland assistant coach and a son of Buddy Ryan, and his brother on a competing team, the New York Jets, having fun preparing to face off against each other this coming Sunday. So that is how you get in the New York Times, you have to be at least a little successful. But it might be that the Browns will be playing a New York team. Oh well let's get on with it.

Red Umbrella shots

I'm a sucker for red umbrella shots.





Photo Credit-Sahir ABACI

Wing walker Gladys

Gladys Ingle you were one courageous woman. I hope you retired from the wing walking business and went home to rock on your porch. You earned a long life.