ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090721

Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable



"Daily Motivations"

The most important things in life aren't things. -- Anthony D'Angelo



"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)

"Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life has gone; a new life has begun!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

A businessman was selling a warehouse property that had been empty for months. Vandals had smashed the windows, damaged the doors, and strewn trash around the inside. As he showed the property to a prospective buyer, he explained that he would replace the broken windows, correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.

"Forget about the repairs," the buyer said. "When I buy this place, I'm going to build something completely different. I don't want the building; I want the site."

It is the same with our loving Father. God is not simply sweeping a warehouse slated for the wrecking ball. He is building something completely new. All He wants is the site and the permission to build.

When you became a Christian, you became a new person. The core of who you are is no longer the same. All your sins---past, present, and future---are forgiven, and Christ has clothed you in His righteousness.

Jesus exchanged our rags for His righteousness---and we will be clothed in His righteous garments for all eternity. Our old nature no longer has power over us because we have a completely new identity.



"The Patriot Post"

"The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" -- Patrick Henry

"Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." -- Leviticus 25:10 Inscription on the Liberty Bell



"NRA"

Joint Statement On Judge Sotomayor's Nomination To The U.S. Supreme Court

By NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, and NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=5060

Other than declaring war, neither house of Congress has a more solemn responsibility than the Senate's role in confirming justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. As the Senate considers the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Americans have been watching to see whether this nominee – if confirmed – would respect the Second Amendment or side with those who have declared war on the rights of America's 80 million gun owners.

From the outset, the National Rifle Association has respected the confirmation process and hoped for mainstream answers to bedrock questions. Unfortunately, Judge Sotomayor's judicial record and testimony clearly demonstrate a hostile view of the Second Amendment and the fundamental right of self-defense guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

It is only by ignoring history that any judge can say that the Second Amendment is not a fundamental right and does not apply to the states. The one part of the Bill of Rights that Congress clearly intended to apply to all Americans in passing the Fourteenth Amendment was the Second Amendment. History and congressional debate are clear on this point.

Yet Judge Sotomayor seems to believe that the Second Amendment is limited only to the residents of federal enclaves such as Washington, D.C. and does not protect all Americans living in every corner of this nation. In her Maloney opinion and during the confirmation hearings, she deliberately misread Supreme Court precedent to support her incorrect view.

In last year's historic Heller decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual's right to own firearms and recognizes the inherent right of self-defense. In addition, the Court required lower courts to apply the Twentieth Century cases it has used to incorporate a majority of the Bill of Rights to the States. Yet in her Maloney opinion, Judge Sotomayor dismissed that requirement, mistakenly relying instead on 19th century jurisprudence to hold that the Second Amendment does not apply to the States.

This nation was founded on a set of fundamental freedoms. Our Constitution does not give us those freedoms – it guarantees and protects them. The right to defend our loved ones and ourselves is one of those. The individual right to keep and bear arms is another. These truths are what define us as Americans. Yet, Judge Sotomayor takes an opposite view, contrary to the views of our Founding Fathers, the Supreme Court, and the vast majority of the American people.

We believe any individual who does not agree that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right and who does not respect our God-given right of self-defense should not serve on any court, much less the highest court in the land. Therefore, the National Rifle Association of America opposes the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.



"The Web"

A lot of church members who are singing 'Standing on the Promises' are just sitting on the premises.



We were called to be witnesses, not lawyers or judges.



Elvis Presley: A Tribute to our Flag

http://home.comcast.net/~nw-fla/tribute_flag_B_thompson.htm



Obama Care in 60 seconds or less

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/obama_care_in_60_seconds_or_le.html



Update from Oklahoma!

http://www.examiner.com/x-3678-Baltimore-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m5d5-Update-from-Oklahoma

I received this from a friend in Oklahoma, I added the laws after I confirmed them all, Maybe I'll move to Oklahoma!

The state law passed today, 37 to 9, had a few liberals in the mix, an amendment to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. Hey this is a conservative state, based on Christian values...! Guess what..........We did it anyway. HB 1330

We recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants, and ship them back to where they came from, unless they want to get a green card and/or become an American citizen. They all scattered. Hope we didn't send any of them to your state. This was against the advice of the Federal Government, and the ACLU, they said it would be a mistake. Guess what..........we did it anyway. HB 1804

Yesterday we passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegals to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. Pelosi said it was unconstitutional. Guess what........We did it anyway. SB 1102

Several weeks ago, we passed a law, declaring Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. That, for your information, makes Oklahoma and Texas the only states to do so. Guess what.........More states are likely to follow. Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, both Carolina's, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, just to name a few. Should Mississippi act, so will Florida. Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again. HJR 1003

The federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns. Oklahoma, a week ago, passed a law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. I'm sure that was a set back for the Kennedys and Ms Pelosi.

Guess what..........We did it anyway. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling 3-0

By the way, Obama does not like any of this.

Guess what....who cares...were doing it anyway.



Justice Isn’t Blind for the President or His Supreme Court Nominee

http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/legislative_issues/federal_issues/hot_issues_in_congress/confirmation_watch/Justice-Isnt-Blind-for-the-President-or-His-Supreme-Court-Nominee.htm

The Memorial Day weekend was barely over when President Barack Obama announced his choice of who would get his Supreme Court nomination. While most Americans were just beginning their holiday-shortened work week, we learned that the “empathetic” nominee the President had been looking for was Judge Sonia Sotomayor, on the bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

What we didn’t hear, however, was that both the President and his nominee believe more in the rule of a judge’s personal “experiences” and “perspectives” than in the rule of law.

Sure, that wasn’t what either explicitly stated in their remarks delivered from the White House on Tuesday morning. But that was what was perfectly clear if you listened carefully to what both meant, not to mention what both had said in the past.

To be fair, what Americans did hear if they tuned in to the carefully choreographed and scripted nomination announcement was that President Obama believes a Supreme Court justice must “[f]irst and foremost” possess “a rigorous intellect — a mastery of the law, an ability to hone in on the key legal issues and provide clear answers to complex legal questions,” and “[s]econd” recognize “the limits of the judicial role, an understanding that a judge’s job is to interpret, not make, law.”

Okay, that’s the typical boilerplate language — the perfectly obvious and universally accepted prerequisites to being confirmed to the singular Court that has the final word on what is, and what isn’t, “the supreme Law of the Land.”

But the President didn’t limit himself to that pair of requirements. According to President Obama, “We need something more” from our next Supreme Court justice because “th[o]se qualities alone are insufficient.”

Then it came, the President’s subtle acknowledgement that — in spite of his just stated and publicly acceptable criteria — “a necessary ingredient in the kind of justice we need on the Supreme Court” is “experience that can give a person a common touch and a sense of compassion; an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live.” Or, in words President Obama had previously used to describe what he would look for in a justice, “the critical ingredient” of a fair jurist “is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart.”

Think about that for a moment. The President of the United States — the man whose constitutional duty and solemn oath is to “faithfully execute” the laws of the United States and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — believes that “the critical ingredient” necessary in a Supreme Court justice is not to faithfully interpret and apply the laws and Constitution of the United States as written and enacted, but rather “is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart.”

That’s why the rest of the President’s introduction of his Supreme Court nominee focused not on Judge Sotomayor’s legal acumen or her judicial restraint, but instead on her “breadth of perspective that will be invaluable” because, according to the President, she has “a practical understanding of how the law works in the everyday lives of the American people.”

This was President Obama’s publicly acceptable way of saying now what he had argued more forcefully in the past — that a justice should make her rulings “on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.” In other words, a judge should “bring in … her own perspectives, … her own ethics, … her own moral bearings” in deciding cases — even when none of those have any relation to, and may even conflict with the law actually enacted by the political branches elected by “We the People.”

This is why the President thought it relevant to observe that Judge Sotomayor “will bring to the Court … not only the knowledge and experience acquired over [the] course of a brilliant legal career, but [also] the wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life’s journey.”

Like the President, Judge Sotomayor used subtle, publicly acceptable language at the ceremony to hint at her willingness to apply her personal preferences from the bench.

Specifically, Judge Sotomayor explained that she always “strive[d] never to forget the real-world consequences of [her] decisions” – that was the nice and disguised way acknowledging that she allows her personal sympathies to play a role in her judicial decision-making process. In other words, for Judge Sotomayor, justice isn’t blind.

In past statements, Judge Sotomayor has been far more blunt. In fact, a little less than two weeks before President Obama nominated her, Judge Sotomayor was the subject of a New York Times story that strung together a number of the Judge’s previous speeches and statements that demonstrate just how activist she believes a jurist is entitled to be.

The statement that has gotten the most attention is her comment at a Duke Law School panel discussion for students interested in becoming federal law clerks, where, in touting the advantages of an appeals (rather than a trial court clerkship), Judge Sotomayor explained her belief that “the court of appeals is where policy is made.”

But even more frightening than Judge Sotomayor’s belief that it is entirely proper for unelected judges — rather than the American people’s elected representatives — to make policy is her belief that judges who make policy can do so on the basis of their own personal moral, political and policy preferences.

Indeed, as noted in that New York Times story — no bastion of conservative sentiment – “Judge Sotomayor [has] questioned whether achieving [judicial] impartiality ‘is possible at all, or even, in most, cases.” And, in that speech, Judge Sotomayor went on to add, “I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.”

Those comments came in a revealing speech Judge Sotomayor gave at the University of California-Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in 2001, and the excerpts quoted in the New York Times piece were just the tip of the iceberg.

Later in the lecture, Judge Sotomayor stated unequivocally that “[t]he aspiration to impartiality is just that — it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.” As a result, Judge Sotomayor agreed with one of her former law school classmates, Harvard Law School Professor Martha Minnow, quoting her belief that “there is no objective [judicial] stance but only a series of perspectives — no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging.”

As a result, Judge Sotomayor not only stated her belief that “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging,” going on to make the even more incendiary remark that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Indeed, if it wasn’t clear from those comments, Judge Sotomayor went on to explicitly state her belief that it is entirely appropriate for her to impose her own personal moral, political and policy preference through her seat on the federal bench, explaining, “I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt … continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.”

All of this is, of course, more than troubling for a country that was founded on the principle of the rule of law and not of men.

As former U.S. Solicitor General and federal appeals court Judge Kenneth Starr told Fox News: “It’s not [a judge’s] job at all to make policy. It rather is for the Congress [or for the President] or for the governor or the legislature to make policy, and for [a judge] to interpret the law as given to [her].”

But that’s only if you truly and deeply believe that, under the rule of law, justice is and should be blind. The nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Court has made it clear that neither President Obama, nor the nominee he chose, believe that to be true. Instead, they believe justice isn’t blind and so America’s rule of law must yield to the rule of men, and in this case, women. That should trouble all Americans.



Confessions of a gov junketeer

By Jeanette Colville

This week's dust-up over a mere $700,000 federal employees "group-hug" at the ritzy Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix made me chuckle. Ah, the memories that story brought back from my twenty-five years as an authentic, although sometimes reluctant, gov junketeer.

Oh yes, ask any retired federal government employee and they'll tell you that the "motivational" management conference has always been the norm, rather than the exception, regardless of the dark winds of ObamaNomics. ABC Reporter Josh Bernstein provides an update on the Phoenix gov junketeers who had the misfortune to be observed by the media.

What a naïve young woman I was when I raised my hand in front of the American flag and took the oath of a government civil service employee. Silly me, I had the naïve impression that civil service meant that I would be serving American citizens -- our agency's customers. My mindset was: What can I do to serve the public? Watching those around me, it didn't take long to catch on that the mindset among the more experienced government employees was a little different; it went like this: What can the government do to serve me?

For a civil service novice, this mindset becomes all too visible in the unfolding of the endless stream of agency "conferences," both regional and national, orchestrated under the themes of motivational enhancement, stress management, time management, total quality management, and team building -- you name it, the government sponsored it, and you, the taxpayer, paid for it.

Gov junketeers were offered a wide range of "conference" settings -- the Colorado Rockies, the Arizona desert, the ski slopes of Utah, Alaska snowscapes, the beaches of Hawaii, and the big city nightlife in D.C. and New Orleans. My last all-expense-paid weeklong group hug was at the lavish Phoenix Camelback Inn - perfect for golf lovers

For those Alaska gov junketeers feeling a touch of the long dark winter blues, we hosted an employee management team conference in sunny Hawaii at the beachfront Kona Village Resort. Hula dancing and luau all part of the team building.

For fans of urban shopping and river walking, we gathered at the Portland Marriott Residence Inn. Fine dining and motivational bonding in a trendy setting.

Do you like to ski? Where else than Park City, Utah for a grand interagency gathering to watch ethnic dancers and feast at a motivational banquet. Accommodations included cozy suites with working fireplaces.

A true gov junketeer learns how to take advantage of much more than just the all expense paid fine dining, luxury accommodations, airfare, and cash reimbursement for miscellaneous expenses. If one watches veteran gov junketeers closely, one learns the fine art of advanced vacation junketeering.

While attending a week-long government employee "retirement training" conference at a resort in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains, I noticed that a coworker attended the first session on the first day, and then disappeared for the rest of the week, reappearing on the morning of the final day. Where had he been? Hiking in the mountains, he said, laughing.

When attending a gov junketeer conference in Albuquerque, a coworker attending the first morning of the first day of the week-long conference disappeared for the next four days, arriving back just in time for the closing session. Where had he been? Bird watching all over New Mexico, he said, thanks to having access to a government-paid rental car and gas card.

Other popular gov junketeer motivational conference sites I attended included the luxury Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage overlooking the Cook Inlet. Motivational activities included trips to view glaciers and watch Sockeye salmon runs.

Tired of mountains and deserts? How about a gov junket to the rugged Oregon Coast? The Shalishan Resort is a popular "retreat" for serious team building, in between golf, tennis, and treatments at the spa.

Skilled gov junketeers learn the ropes quickly and never head to the airport without a handful of official government forms giving them tax-free status on all charges and on personal travel allowance reimbursements.

I estimate the cumulative costs to the hard working American taxpayer for my gov junkets over twenty-five years of civil service employment at a minimum of $35,000 -- and for that investment, whether I was in D.C., Denver, Anchorage, Phoenix, Las Vegas, or Reno, I learned how to stretch my arms behind my back (a motivational training exercise), why America is an evil place because of the income gap (motivational banquet keynote speaker at Ft. Collins, Colorado), and how to play a game with five other people called: Stranded on a Desert Island (a motivational team building exercise).

I was but one tiny cog in but one federal agency. If you think AIG spent a lot of money on entertaining its executives in style, they were pikers compared to Uncle Sam.



Islamic Supremacist Group Holds First U.S. Conference

Diane Macedo

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533525,00.html

YouTube

The Khilafah Conference 2009 is scheduled to be held July 19, 2009 at the Hilton Oak Lawn hotel.

A group committed to establishing an international Islamic empire and reportedly linked to Al Qaeda is stepping up its Western recruitment efforts by holding its first official conference in the U.S.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq's onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It has operated discreetly in the U.S. for decades.

Now, it is coming out of the shadows and openly hosting a July 19 conference entitled, "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam," at a posh Hilton hotel in a suburb of Chicago.

Hizb ut-Tahrir insists that it does not engage in terrorism, and it is not recognized by the State Department as a known terror group.

But some terrorism experts say it may be even more dangerous than many groups that are on the terror list.

"Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the oldest, largest indoctrinating organizations for the ideology known as jihadism," Walid Phares, director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told FOXNews.com.

Phares said that Hizb ut-Tahrir, rather than training members to carry out terrorist acts like Al Qaeda, focuses instead on indoctrinating youths between ages of 9 and 18 to absorb the ideology that calls for the formation of an empire — or "khilafah" — that will rule according to Islamic law and condones any means to achieve it, including militant jihad.

Hizb ut-Tahrir often says that its indoctrination "prepares the infantry" that groups like Al Qaeda take into battle, Phares said.
"It's like a middle school that prepares them to be recruited by the high school, which is Al Qaeda," he said. "One would compare them to Hitler youth. ... It's an extremely dangerous organization."

Phares said Hizb ut-Tahrir has strongholds in Western countries, including Britain, France and Spain, and clearly is looking to strengthen its base in the U.S.

"The aim of this conference is to recruit within the Muslim community in America," he said. "The Middle East governments go after them, but in the U.S. they are protected, so having a base here is going to help their cells around the world."

Representatives of Hizb ut-Tahrir declined to comment when contacted by FOXNews.com.

Oren Segal, director of Islamic Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League, said the conference is cause for concern.

"While they're not, for the most part, engaging in violent activities, and they publicly say that they're against violence, there have been examples around the world where people who have spun off of this group have engaged in violent activity," Segal told FOXNews.com. "That's why they're banned in several Arab and Central Asian countries, as well as Germany and Russia."

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of the group's most famous alumni, New Statesman journalist Shiv Malik reported, citing intelligence sources. In addition to plotting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he also is implicated in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the Bali nightclub bombings and the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Malik's report, the public policy institute the Nixon Center and the counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation agree that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq until he was killed in June 2006, was also once a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

They say other former members include Asif Muhammad Hanif, a British man who blew himself up outside a bar in Tel Aviv, killing four people (including himself) and wounding more than 50; and Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric currently banned from Britain who praised the 9/11 attacks, raised funds for Hezbollah and Hamas and called for attacks on the Dublin airport because U.S. troops transferred there on their way to Iraq.

Segal said Hizb ut-Tahrir is becoming more active online in the U.S. — particularly on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace — and now it may be able to add a significant number of Americans to its ranks.

But one place the group will likely not be recruiting is a local Islamic school that backed out of hosting the conference.

The non-profit Aqsa school in Bridgeview said Hizb ut-Tahrir had deceptively portrayed the conference as a bazaar-type event where traditional food and clothing would be sold.

"They misrepresented themselves and the event. We don't want to be in the middle of something like that," the school's business manager Rana Jaber, told CBS News.

The conference's new venue doesn't seem to mind.

Hilton Oak Lawn General Manager Rick Harmon said Hizb ut-Tahrir used its own name and was open about the nature of the event, which includes lectures entitled "Capitalism is Doomed to Fail," "The Global Rise of Islam," and the "Role of Muslims in America," when it reserved the room for the conference.

"We're United States citizens and an American business — if it's legal, we're able to host it, as long as it's nothing that disrupts our other guests' privacy and security," Harmon told FOXNews.com.

According to the Khilafah Conference 2009 Web site, the group aims to do neither.

"Hizb-ut-Tahrir is convinced that change must start in the minds of people, and therefore does not accept for people, or societies, to be forced to change by means of violence and terror," it reads.

The site, which includes a promotional YouTube video, says the group "does not work in the West to change the system of government, but works to project a positive image of Islam to Western society."

Click here to see the conference video.

But former member Ishtiaq Hussain said Hizb ut-Tahrir is repackaging itself as a moderate organization as a tactic, while in reality it is "extremist."

"They don't recognize countries like Israel, for example; they don’t believe Israel should exist," Hussain, now a trainer for the Quilliam Foundation, told FOXNews.com. "Some of their leaders have denied the Holocaust, and they believe homosexuals should be thrown off the highest building. ... It's actually a very dangerous group."

Hizb ut-Tahrir itself has also published writings that seem to contradict its tenet of non-violence.

In his book, "How the Khilafah Was Destroyed," Sheikh Abdul Qadeem Zalloom, the former global leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, says anyone who rules by a non-Islamic system should "either retract or be killed ... even if this led to several years of fighting and even if it led to the killing of millions of Muslims and to the martyrdom of millions of believers."

Click here to read the full excerpt.

Hizb ut-Tahrir's official ruling on the permissibility of hijacking planes says, "If the plane belongs to a country at war with Muslims, like Israel, it is allowed to hijack it, for there is no sanctity for Israel nor for the Jews in it."

Click here to read the full ruling (pdf).

And one of the organization's more recent leaflets, published in March, calls for the declaration of "a state of war against America."

Click here to read the leaflet.

But, despite these threats and calls to action, Hizb ut-Tahrir remains off the State Department's terror watch list, and it is free to host the Khilafah Conference and any other event like it.

"In other parts of the world where they're really very active, they've drawn tens of thousands of people to some of their events," Segal said.

"It'll be interesting to see to what degree they'll be welcomed here."



These contractors are installing the steel pillars in concrete to stop vehicles from parking...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x7372208
...on the pavement outside a Sports Bar downtown. They are now in the process of cleaning up at the end of the day and anxious to go home. How long do you think it will be before they realize where *their* vehicle is parked?




LIFE IN THE 1500'S

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying. It's raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all
sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a ....dead ringer.

And that's the truth. Now, whoever said history was boring?

Educate someone. Share these facts with a friend.



"The e-mail Bag"

TO ALL MY AMAZING FRIENDS!!!!

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement ornament that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon, before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60's &70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being older. It has set me free. I like the person I have become I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it).

MAY OUR FRIENDSHIP NEVER COME APART, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART!