Good Point

This is something I have been saying for YEARS....only he says it better and less passionately* than I ever could.

*passion is my husband's euphemism for the intense emotional response I have to life's absurdities...most people would just call it anger.

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Hijacked planes as missiles is something that would only work once. Previously, hijacked passengers and crew had a sort of assurance that if they cooperated, they wouldn't get hurt. Hijackers were after some other kind of demands, not killing everyone on board. Once the 9/11 guys blew up that bargain, it changes the likelihood of passenger cooperation dramatically, and radically reduces the odds of another success. If people know that they're going to die if the hijacker succeeds, they're better off trying to fight off the hijacker, it can't be any worse and it might be better.

All the security stuff is pointless compared to that behavioral shift by passengers and crew.

~John Alexnder Thacker

Security???

“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" ~ Benjamin Franklin

I think it's time for a collaborative effort on our part to shame the TSA and their agents. What if every person in line watching this kind of atrocity were to hold up their cell phones to record the procedure? Let's make it OBVIOUS that they are being recorded....ALL THE TIME. Instead of laying the burden of civil disobedience on the shoulders of just the selected individuals who are singled out for searching, we all can participate in letting the government know that this must END. Even those people who are just dropping off a loved one are usually within site of the security measures. Take out your phone, hold it up, and let them know you are doing it...stand up for your rights before you have none.

Potatoes

In the spot recently vacated by the sweet potatoes go our newly sprouted russet, reds, and yukon golds. We have planted potatoes from Nov. thru Feb. here and had good luck with all of them.

This year I had them hanging in our bedroom window in the 'solar dehydrator' for a month while they 'chitted' (fancy term for forcing them to sprout).

We plant them deep but don't cover with more than an inch or two of soil until they get to be about 6 inches tall. It's easier to 'hill them up' this way than to try and build up the soil above ground level. If you don't cover emerging potatoes they can be exposed to sunlight, turn green, and become toxic.

The final touch are the ever attractive 'cat guards'....doing double duty this year as protection for passers-by to keep them from falling into the holes. In other words....a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Or they could just be shade for the cat :)

More info on growing potatoes in California here.

We Can Never Thank Them Enough

Having been raised in a Military home, Dad was a Naval pilot for 28 years, and having lived thru my brother's deployment to Kuwait as a Marine...it should not have come as a big surprise that a child of ours would decide to join the United States Army. But it did...and the feelings that go with it continue to overwhelm me.

Not a day goes by that I am not incredibly proud of our son's decision to serve this country. But I am astonished by how much emotion I feel every time I see a uniform in the mall or in a video, or in a movie...a really good commercial can bring tears to my eyes. A dear friend of ours, whose own son recently returned from Afghanistan, told me that joining this 'club' would change everything for us.....and it has.

We are so proud of our son Sam. We are so thankful for his service to this country. And we pray every day for his safety and the safety of his fellow soldiers.

Thank a Veteran today.

Sweet Success

We dug up the sweet potatoes last week ...

...and got a little more that we had bargained for weight-wise. I couldn't help but think of the 'Gilligan's Island' episode where they eat vegetables grown from radioactive seeds...because of course Gilligan had thrown away the top to the box which was clearly labeled DANGER (Gilligan did things like that....alot).

Anyhoo, we ended up with some rather large specimens and over 100lbs. total. We're not huge sweet potato eaters (no pun intended) so we're giving away probably half of these. But we will be enjoying sweet potato fries for the next couple of months, as well as my famous (to me) 'Roasted Sweet Potatoes in Lime Syrup with Chives' for Thanksgiving...yum.