Birches: Monday Morning Friends Report, August 4, 2008

What a fine summer it has turned into here in mid Michigan. Sandy has canned a number of things and the Woodses are planning on it. A friend of many of us has received cancer treatments and everyone is pulling for him to get better fast, and we're taking this as good news. Keep us informed.
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BRENDA - has planned a bachlorette gathering at a lakeside villa.

SCOT - threw a golf outing and party for STEVE in honor of his bachelorhood's end. A good time and lots of foul comments were enjoyed by all. (See pictures below.)

MARSHA - says it's too hot in Carolina.

FELIX - has gotten engaged. Congratulations! -- and everyone who has followed some of his exploits on BIRCHES, can add your advice and congrats and wisdom in the comments here.

PAT W - is in the mood to reveal past secrets. Seems when she was in college, she almost joined the Women's Army Corps, and in fact went to Forth Wayne to get the physical. Why? Wanted to see the world.

ALICE - has received some more very good and welcomed news. This time, it comes with a dollar sign attached. After a run of bad luck, July has been a 'winner.'

SANDY - has quit her part time job because it was turning into a full time job. This is what happens when you do excellent work.

STEVE - unmercifully attacked by chiggers. It's all in the nature of his job, of course, but this was a bad episode. He says the thing about chiggers is that you don't know you've been bitten a hunded times until it's too late to stop it.

SKUZZA and DASHMANN - took friends to a bluegrass concert in Ann Arbor. Great musicianship.
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What some folks are smiling about
JERRY:

click may enlarge pic

What some friends are reading and talking about

VARIOUS FRIENDS; Have received an email claiming that Mars and Earth are coming very close to each other in August. This is not true. It was true five years ago.

DASHMANN - 1. Detroit's 'closing pitcher' Fernando Rodney, doesn't deserve NO respect.

2. Cogent review of the movie BATMAN:DARK KNIGHT:
Heath Ledger was a great Joker. Other than that, good effects etc. About a half hour too long for me and I like long movies. I have my limitations on watching stuff get blown up since 9-11 I guess.

BILL FROM WNNCO:
He has devised a LAW OF HUMAN DYNAMICS which says, "All social interactions can be explained by one - or both - of these 2 principles:
1. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
2. It's just part of the human condition."

DIG S - reading this article from SLATE CLICK referring to the tendency of media and politicians to confuse that which is fictional with that which is true, in this case, respecting our torture "policy":

John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who produced the so-called torture memos—simultaneously redefining both the laws of torture and logic—cites Bauer in his book War by Other Means. "What if, as the popular Fox television program '24' recently portrayed, a high-level terrorist leader is caught who knows the location of a nuclear weapon?" Even Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking in Canada last summer, shows a gift for this casual toggling between television and the Constitution. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Scalia said. "Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?"

Pretty bone chilling when one of the justices of the US Supreme court uses a fictitious character from a TV show to justify torture. Earth to justice Scalia and John Yoo. Lets base our legal judgement on reality. What's next? Other justices randomly picking other fictional characters for their legal judgements.

Reminds us of the days when Reagan used to use quotations from movies and treat them as actual statements.

IRENE -

The problem now is that the country is in massive debt, so where’s the money going to come from for the infrastructure and health care investments under the New “New Deal”? Think of the billions that have been squandered in Iraq, money going to private contractors and mercenaries with no accountability, and it makes you want to scream.

I read an interesting book recently that linked the rise of overzealous patriotism with the growing inequality and poverty. Probably not an earth-shattering proposition, but sadly some people are so powerless that they cling to what they can put their faith in – that is the mantra that they are free and live in the greatest country in the world. To suggest otherwise, ie to suggest that they are getting a raw deal, shatters that belief. So they go on voting for the conservatives even though they are being screwed by them.

In most countries in the developed world, universal health care is considered a right of citizens. The US has a much stronger tradition of self-reliance, which makes selling social programs more difficult than in other countries.

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Some snapshots

A minnow removed from the spring
Palm Book State Park, Michigan