Barack Obama probably doesn't need my endorsement, but...

Far better writers than myself have been putting out millions of words lately in support of Obama's candidacy and in explanation of the issues, but I felt compelled to add my two cents worth after receiving a panicky message last night from an individual I know who shall remain anonymous here. The panicky message, entitled "Watch this about Barak Obama before you vote!" included a link to a YouTube video chock full of misinformation about Obama and misleading footage of the WTC collapses on 9/11 and other violence intended, I assume, to instill tremendous fear into the heart of the viewer and to convince the viewer that Obama was somehow responsible for 9/11. It didn't work on me -- well, at least I wasn't filled with fear... but I was moved to reply with my own views backed up by extensive references, should this individual be interested in knowing the truth of the matter. The subsequent reply I received back indicated that my efforts were futile and the references ignored. So I thought to myself just now, why not turn my reply into a blog post? At least my hard work wouldn't go completely to waste!

I watched the video you sent the link to. I watched the whole thing. It really got me thinking...

I am a supporter of Barack Obama because I believe his platform, especially on social justice issues, is what this country needs at this time. Furthermore, Obama has the intelligence, will, and political capital to get people to work together at all levels to solve the difficult problems facing our country right now and in the near future. You can find out more at these links:

Obama on the issues

A thoughtful, brief analysis of this year's candidates and party platforms

A thorough analysis of Obama's platform in the light of Christian values

Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press

I've also compiled a list of sources for impartial, well-researched and documented information in response to the video:

On Obama being Muslim (link here or here), and about Muslim support for Obama and the American Muslim view on the election in general,

On William Ayers and Obama's connection to him, reliable info is here and here),

A general rebuttal of the views of Jerome Corsi, who appears to be the source of much of the video's misinformation.

Since I sent that reply, I have come across a couple more sites that I also like very much:

The Top Ten Reasons Conservatives Should Vote For Obama

and

"A Citizen's Guide to Voting"

hmmm...seems like there was something else, but I can't remember what. Oh well. It's time to try to get some sleep anyhow. Tomorrow Mom and I are going to drive up to the mountains in search of rain.

(If anyone wants the video URL and/or my longer, snarkier first draft of my reply, drop me an e-mail and I'll send them.)

Thinking people, part 2...

I didn't know there was a third site for the cause! It's http://www.catholicsforobama.org/ and it looks at least as good as the other two. (My source tells me that this one was linked to an article in the NCR.)

Wish I had more energy to write about all this, but I'm beat. Even too tired to watch my Netflix movies, which are gathering a thick layer of dust....

Calling all thinking Catholics...

Today these two links came to my attention, and I want to share them with my readers (on the off chance they haven't already found them...)

Roman Catholics for Obama/Biden

Catholics for Obama/Biden

My hope is that before folks succumb to the rhetoric of McCain and Palin on the abortion issue and on Obama in general, they will consider examining the analysis of the issues on these excellent sites.

Political post

Just wanted to post a link to the L.A. Times' lead editorial this a.m. It is one of the better editorials I have ever read.

Another day trip!

Saturday held another opportunity for Mom to have a break from me for the day! My Aunt Carrie and some of Mom's neighbors and a window washer and his wife kept things exciting here at Braemer* while I drove off into the mountains in search of St. Andrew's Abbey. It's a Benedictine community about 60 miles or so northwest of Redlands, on the north side of the San Gabriel Mountains in the high desert. The views on the drive over the mountains were spectacular.
This photo was taken on CA 2 right before the Grassy Hollow Visitor's Center, facing, I think, about SSE.

I didn't know if I would like being in the desert, but it was beautiful, the air was cool, and it was so very peaceful and quiet. Just what I needed. I arrived at about 11:30 and almost didn't make it past the bookstore/gift shop in the welcome center -- I could easily have stayed there all day, reading and browsing among my friends, the books -- but they close for a couple hours in the middle of the day for Mass and lunch, so I was forced to move on :) (Thank goodness!) It was a wonderful afternoon of rest, peace, and meditation.

On the drive back I took a few photos of the desert, which had these wonderful joshua trees everywhere.

Also, on the approach to I-15 on CA 138, there were these enormous white rocks that I just had to stop and take a few photos of. The photos don't really do them justice, however.

*Braemer is the name of the apartment complex my Mom lives in.

nothing like world travel to broaden the mind...

Here's an interesting suggestion for changing the requirements in the Constitution for the post of Pres. and VP....

current events

The Blessing of the Waves happened at Huntington Beach on Sunday a.m.... I wasn't there but Father Christian was! Father Chris went body-surfing after the ceremony... He also told us that for his part of the prayer service, he used a cleaned-up version of the prayer from this column by Dana Parsons.

I was in HB Sunday for the Sts. Simon and Jude Parish Festival. It was unlike any I have ever been to: they had an actual midway with about a dozen rides!





It was great to be there with Fr. Dan; he was really working the crowd!

Fr. Michael made a big "splash" by allowing the parishioners and other festival-goers to attempt to flush him... [check with me to see a photo of Fr. Michael - I removed it from here after seeing a story on the ever-present, ever-vigilant CNN about people stealing photos from blogs and photo sites for commercial use.]

A sane voice, a breath of fresh air!

This is the most cogent piece I have read yet on how/why a Catholic can, with good conscience, vote for Obama. My mind was already made up already, this just adds fuel to the fire.
I know we're all supposed to be obsessing about how to rescue Wall Street, but once in awhile perhaps it's good to take a break and get back to the business of living. I'm going to go work on the quilt top I'm putting together for Aunt C.'s quilting group...it feels good to be doing something totally unrelated to what my day-to-day is, and something that will benefit someone in need besides!

note: posting times on this blog are EDT -- I'm not up in the wee hours posting, I promise!

Anger, Peace...

Just a quick post to alert my readers to a column that I think is very important, with a message that resonates on several different levels. Let me know what you think.

a week of respite

During this week off from medical appointments and other medically-related time constraints, Mom and I are relaxing a bit and catching up on things that we've gotten behind on in the past month or so of Mom's intense cancer treatments. So, I've been catching up on looking stuff up on the web. This morning I came across this article which gives me a lot of hope, not so much for the immediate future but for the long term. A breath of fresh air amidst the mainstream media glut of campaign "news", dire predictions of financial disaster, people hanging upside-down, and so on....

Farewell, Beijing...

Well, I suspect my readers have been as caught up in the Olympics as I have, more or less. In addition to watching the various events (some of them over and over and over again) and getting my Mom's take on them (like her comment on the water polo: "If they are going to have Water Polo, they ought to have to use horses!"), it's been fun to hear the back stories of the athletes and the Games, and to read about them as well.

I'm going to miss the daily special "Beijing 2008" section in the LA Times devoted to the Games, with its chatty columns and terrific photographs, even though I didn't have time to read most of them...yet. (Almost all of them are in a stack in my room, with the exception of a couple that I donated to the box-packing effort when I forgot and took all the other newspapers out prematurely to the recycling center...)

Anyhow, there were a couple columns today that I thought would be of interest to other Olympics aficionados. There was one with a different take on the medals stats, and another with lots of questions (my readers mostly know how I love questions!)

A day or two ago there was also this one about how the Chinese handled the Games and their population's involvement in them.

Oh, and one more link from this morning's Calendar section, this one to a little known historical aspect of the Games: the artistic medals!
Well, I'm off to reconstruct my pre-Games life... but I'd love to hear my readers' take on the Games. It might help us all through the withdrawal...

New feet!

First pedicure ever!

once a mother, always a mother

It seems to me that the never-ending job of a mother is to help her children to find worthwhile activities, suited to their interests, for them to participate in. Hence my reason for posting the link above! (Be sure to read the "About" part of the page...)

Hey -- after all, it was listed under "Kids & Family" in the newspaper!!

today has been a good day...

...with a lot of help from a cousin and a friend, and I'm sure others' prayers and loving thoughts figured in there heavily, as usual! Thanks all! I feel very much peace this evening.

Click here (or on the title above) for a visual treat! I haven't had time to go to this great website for a few days, so I was glad to have a few minutes just now and find this photo.

just a couple of links for Star Wars fans, waiters, and foodies...

I found these two articles in the L.A. Times today really interesting, and I thought some of my readers might, too.

The first one brings back such memories of Joseph and Hank playing with Hank's Star Wars spaceships (I know I'm not saying that correctly, but cut me some slack, I am really beat...)

The other reminded me of conversations with Hank about waiting tables, and with certain family members and others about food...

Banana Peach Bread

Just wanted to post this link -- I had ripe bananas and some fresh peaches, nectarines, and a few leftover blueberries, and found the recipe linked above. So far it seems to be turning out great! I substituted yogurt for the sour cream and used the fruit listed above instead of using canned peaches. Will add an addendum about how it tastes later...I just pulled it out of the oven and have to leave in a bit for pilates class...

Update: Delicious and moist!

I can't remember what I was going to blog about...

So, I can't recall what were the earthshaking things (oops, not literally!) I was going to blog about...it was one of those falling-asleep moments when everything becomes crystal clear... So I'll just say that it's morning here and it looks deceptively cool and inviting out the front windows of my mom's apartment.

The pictures I take just don't convey what I'm really seeing. So just take my word for it -- bright blue sky, big trees, lots of shady lawn, flowers, quiet, quiet...

Here are some other views of Redlands and the surrounding mountains, in a different season...

The title of this post links to one of the prettiest buildings in Redlands, the Morey Mansion. But there are lots of other really great houses here, too -- I mean, the architecture is unusual and the house are really well preserved. Almost everybody has a garden, and the town is awash in roses, crepe myrtle, and other beautiful and exotic flowers that I don't know the name of. Outside mom's back door there is a lemon tree which is covered in lemons (mostly green at the moment) and several rose bushes, and further on there are some large bushes behind someone else's patio that are sometimes covered in morning glory vines with huge purple blossoms -- they were recently cut back but they still persist, as morning glories will! (I know they look blue, but they are really purple!)


My exciting outing of the weekend, since I managed to miss the dance performance Friday night at the Redlands Bowl (I am very sad about this!), was a little nostalgia trip to what is commonly known as "the Fifth Avenue Pool". I went there as a child with my aunt and her children, among them my cousin Mary. This time it was Mary and her 20-year-old son Luke and his girlfriend and me. I remember the pool, an old reservoir, as being huge, so big you can barely swim across it... well, like many places of my youth, it has shrunk down quite a bit! But the water is still cool, if not cold, and there are lovely old trees to shade the lounge chairs and patio tables. Even a slide, if i could only have worked up the nerve to go down it -- no fear of the sliding part, just embarrassment about being about 45 years older than the other kids using it!) Anyway, I came home refreshed from the good company and a dip in the pool.

My missing paternal grandfather -- found!

Today while my Mom was going through some photos, she came across one that had special significance for me. It was a photo of my paternal grandparents, and though I knew my paternal grandmother, I had never in all my 55 years seen (that I can remember) a photo of my father's father, who died in a car accident in 1926 when my Dad was two years old. For those of you who may be interested, here they are, Bill and Bess Lackie:

My Mom thinks this was probably taken at Bess' parents' house, though Mom never went there herself.
On the back of the photo, it reads:

Pet. if you will send this
picture back to me I will
send you some more
that you can keep
Ever your brother
W Lackie
this is Bess and Bill

(I'm not sure of the "W" -- it could be "H".)

Earthquake!

Yes, we felt it here in Redlands! It lasted from 5-7 seconds or so... It felt to me like some huge piece of furniture or maybe a grand piano was being moved upstairs, causing a lot of rumbling and the building to shake... actually, that's what I thought it was at first, until I realized what a dumb idea that was... We are all fine here. Mom didn't even notice the quake, though her sister, Carrie, did. Of course now it's all over the news.

If you click on the link above, and move your cursor to just below the "R" in San Bernardino, you will see where we are.

long time gone...

This post is just to say a brief hello before I fall into bed... The days are long and the nights very interrupted lately. But I am glad to be with my mom. Her condition at the moment is complicated, but her mobility is improving, that's one good thing. Also, she is not in much pain at all from the hip now.
Mostly I am doing well, just haven't had much sleep in recent days. But I do nap almost every afternoon and hope to get back to swimming & exercising tomorrow!
I miss all of you and hope to be back in more frequent contact at some point. Maybe just posting here will be all I can do for awhile, though.