Sweet Goodies

Look at what I found in my email today! Yummmmmmyyyyy!

!!! BEWARE !!!

This Email contains Cookies !!!

From Our Hearts to Yours :-)

* photos and display by my Big Brother Christopher L. Culp

Journey Toward Peace

We can achieve Peace by simply reversing the way we think:

It's Never To Late

The Peace Globe Gallery

Holiday Humor Pie

How Pumpkin Pies Are Made....

:) Thanks to my Little Sissy Sis for e-mailing me this!

Happy Early Holidays You All!

Lowcountry Women Authors Book Signing

Center for Women, What's Happening November 2009

3rd Annual Lowcountry Women Authors Holiday Book Signing

With Barnes & Noble, Mt. Pleasant:

Sunday, Nov 22 | 2:00pm - 5:00pm
$10 at the door
Mt Pleasant Towne Centre
1600 Palmetto Grande Drive
(old Tweeter space near Bed, Bath and Beyond)

Meet 50+ local authors and have your holiday gift purchases personally signed!

Anne Rivers Siddons – Sweetwater Creek, Off Season, Hill Towns

Cassandra King – Queen of Broken Hearts, The Same Sweet Girls, The Sunday Wife, Making Waves

Sue Monk Kidd & Ann Kidd Taylor – Traveling with Pomegranates, The Mermaid Chair, The Secret Life of Bees

Mary Alice Monroe – Time is a River, Turtle Summer, Last Light over Carolina

Nathalie Dupree & Marion Sullivan – Nathalie Dupree’s Shrimp and Grits

Nicole Seitz – The Spirit of Sweetgrass, Trouble the Water, Saving Cicadas

Marjory Wentworth – Shackles, Noticing Eden, Despite Gravity

Click Here to see all of the participating authors and their books.

Age Up

Being myself 40-eke-ish and having under went a coronary catheterization earlier this year, I still refused to succumb to those jokes that 'you know you're getting old when'.... Well now I have to say, Yes 'you know you're getting old' when you find out the hard way that your eyes are starting to fail you. Scene: Front entrance of an important job interview, turning into a parking place and suddenly you accidentally tap a parked vehicle bumper to bumper. You sit there stunned by your misjudgment, while the afflicted auto almost jumps the yellow parking curb, bounces back, then proceeds to rock on its' two right side wheels as if shockingly possessed. A simple one mile an hour minor bump I tell you, that fortunately neither car suffered any damage from. With your already frazzled nerves re-calmed, you proceed into the job interview - embarrassed, hoping no one saw you. As you fill out the job application, you again realize 'you are getting old when' asked, "only fill in your birth date info if you are 40 or younger"! A sneaky way, if you ask me; to weed out us older folks. The job interview continued to thrust reality in my face as a young 20ish Woman approached to interview me. Finally arriving safely home, here I now sit typing this post with 6 eyes. Two that don't work, a new pair of glasses sat aside for driving, and an additional pair now worn on my 40-eke-ish eyes to read with. Oh yes, you know your getting old when....Please feel free to fill-in-accordingly!

Happy Birthday US Marine Corps!

John Philip Sousa's Semper Fidelis March; the official march of the U.S. Marine Corps

Born November 10, 1775 - 234 years Strong!

^{U.S. MARINE CORPS:} During the American Revolution, many important political discussions took place in the inns and taverns of Philadelphia, including the founding of the Marine Corps.

A committee of the Continental Congress met at Tun Tavern to draft a resolution calling for two battalions of Marines able to fight for independence at sea and on shore.

The resolution was approved on November 10, 1775, officially forming the Continental Marines. click to read more

"The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James T. Conway delivers the 234th Marine Corps Birthday message. " Carrying On A Legacy Of Valor " It honors all Marines past and present."


^Wikipedia: The United States Marine Corps includes just over 203,000 (as of October 2009) active duty Marines and just under 40,000 reserve Marines.

Fort Hood Prayers

On this day during the blogosphere event to BlogBlast for Peace; the need to 'Unite for Peace' is thrust into the realms of reality as News about the Fort Hood, Texas U.S. Army post shootings pierce the hearts of humanity. With an onset of minimal data released to the public, some people fear the worse. 12 people dead, 31 or more wounded.

^NowPublic: ...The alleged gunman killed^wounded on the scene was identified as Major Nidal Malik Hasan.

The shooting took place at the Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers enter and leave the base to go to and come home from war, and a Theatre Field Complex on the base.

President Obama held a news conference on the shooting saying that "my immediate thought and prayers are with the wounded and the fallen" and he asks all Americans "to keep the men and women of Fort Hood in your prayers".

Unfortunately; some associate the "alleged gunman's" last name with a possible National threat:

^{The Huffington Post:} It was not immediately clear whether Nidal Malik Hasan was, in fact, a Muslim, though reports surfaced that he had converted to the religion late in life.

^msnbc: 'Islamic groups were also quick to condemn the killing after it became clear that the suspected shooter was Muslim. The Council of American-Islamic Relations issued a statement calling it a "cowardly" attack.'

It clearly appears though that Hasan, born in Arlington, Virginia; was upset about being deployed to Iraq:

^NPR: Hasan was a psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for six years before being sent to Texas in July. He was apparently upset about being scheduled to deploy overseas, according to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, who told Fox News that she was told he may have been targeting specific individuals.

Let our thoughts and Prayers beckon to all during this sorrowful occurrence. May we continue to stress, to post, to educate about the need for Peace in hopes of one day achieving such.

November 5, 2009

The Peace Globe Gallery

Related Post: Unite For Peace

Unite For Peace

From the Bible Ecclesiastes 3:

For every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.

Let's Unite In Peace To End the War Timeline
Timeline : Wars

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Wikipedia

"That's all we've got"

Related Posts:
Mini Writes
The Byrds Turn! Turn! Turn!
Artificial Happiness
Spark 4 Peace On The Dot
Butterflies Upon the Will of Power
Bacon Peace
Journey Toward Peace

November 5, 2009

The Peace Globe GalleryRecent Comments:

Marilyn:
I could listen to that over and over. I love Carl.

Peace to you and yours.

Anndi:
In all the vastness there is just us... We view the world as a vast place, full of strangers... countless nameless faceless strangers...
But we are all we have. Each other. Every one is important. Every one matters.
Let us work for Peace.

Bond :
Thank you for participating in the BlogBlast For PEACE!

Wonderful Words...
VinnyBond

secret agent woman:

All we've got indeed. Like the Sagan essay. Peace to you today!

2 Balloons 1 Missing Boy FOUND!

Who says lightning can't strike more than once. Sadly; twice in less than a few days there has been two air balloon incidences. One fatal and one pending lost little boy, each having only been in the air a few hours:

^{BBC NEWS:} A hot air balloon has exploded and crashed in southern China, killing four Dutch tourists and injuring three other people, state media say.

The balloon had only been in the air for about an hour, and was descending when it erupted into flames, the reports said.

^{BBC NEWS:} Police are searching for a six-year-old boy missing after he reportedly floated away in a helium balloon that later came down with no sign of him aboard.

The drama was played out on TV, with US networks devoting their airtime to live footage of the balloon over Colorado.

Two hours later it came down in fields and was surrounded by rescue vehicles.

^CNN: The boys' parents, science enthusiasts Richard and Mayumi Heene, were featured on the 100th episode of ABC's prime-time program "Wife Swap"

According to the network's Web site, the Heene family "devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm."

Lets keep them all in our Prayers especially for the safe return of the little boy.

Update:

^{BBC NEWS:} A six-year-old boy thought to have been carried away by a helium balloon in Colorado was in fact hiding in a box in an attic at home, an official has said.

Prayers do get answered!

^NPR: October 18, 2009
A sheriff said he was pursuing criminal charges in Colorado's "balloon boy" saga, which first sparked fear for the child, then relief that he was OK and now suspicions of a hoax.

The miracle in the consensus 'that such excites awe', a sigh of relief; still exists that the boy is fortunately okay; having been found safely at home in the attic. Unfortunately; if in fact this is deemed a hoax, how sad. To many children are genuinely Missing, Exploited; and in need of a true miracle.

Twin Towers Bow Sails

In honor of the U.S. Navy ship USS NEW YORK (LPD-21) (*the bow stem contains 7.5 tons of NY Twin Towers steel) leaving southern Louisiana where it was built - sailing for New York where the United States Navy will officially commission it on November 7, 2009:

The caterpillar dies so the butterfly could be born.
And, yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and
they are but one. So, when I die, it will be that I
have been transformed from the caterpillar of earth to
the butterfly of the universe.
-- John Harricharan

 

 

 

* photos and display by my Brother Christopher L. Culp

^{Google News:} Two other ships, the Arlington and Somerset are being built in honor of the victims of the attacks on the Pentagon and United Flight 93 and are also incorporating materials salvaged from those sites.

^USSNY.org: USS NEW YORK will be in New York City for the period November 2 through 12. There are several days when the ship will be open for visiting. There is no charge, and visitors are accommodated on a first come, first served basis. Please visit http://www.ussny.org/commissioning.php for more information.

USS NEW YORK commissioning ceremony is a ticketed event Because of severe space limitations, tickets are no longer available and all the tickets have been fully allocated. We urge you to take advantage of ship visiting hours.

A number of tickets have been reserved for the 9/11 community. If you are a member of the 9/11 community or First Responder group, tickets to view the commissioning ceremony will be distributed by random lottery through October 14. Please click the following link to apply. http://www.national911memorial.org/ussnewyork

This is the 234th anniversary of the establishment of the U.S. Navy

13 October 1775-2009

Navy Birthday Ball

Columbus Condemnation or Commendation

In great appreciation for ‘our’ Military, ‘our’ Freedom, and in recognition/honor of America that won its Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain to become The United States of America and with high regard/recognition for the United States Constitution:

^Wikipedia We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

I am proud on this Federal Holiday to present my oldest Nephew Dirk singing the U.S.A. National anthem:

Dirk Parker, National Anthem,

Fall Concert for Lejeune High School, 2009

In regards to Columbus Day:

What is now known as the United States of America began with a basic question, 'Is the world flat or round'? Ironically; there is a continuous revolving issue surrounding the ultimate results to that inquiry and that is, ‘did Christopher Columbus discover America’? Take into consideration the ‘fact’ that the Native People were already inhabiting the land. Also:

^Wikipedia In 1964, the United States Congress authorized and requested the President to proclaim October 9 of each year as "Leif Erikson Day". This date honors Leif Ericson (Leifr Eiríksson), as the "first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland) 492 years before Christopher Columbus".

Additionally; it is alleged that:

^{Walter White Jr.} "The story of the slaves in America begins with Christopher Columbus".

^factbook.org Columbus oversaw the establishment of the encomienda (trusteeship) system, by which Spaniards were granted exclusive use of Indian labor in return for converting them to Christianity; this policy amounted to enslavement of the local population.

^Wikipedia Requerimiento was used to justify the assertion that God, through Saint Peter and his Papal successors, held authority as ruler over the entire Earth, and that the Inter Caetera conferred title over the Americas to the Spanish monarchs.

See Laws of Burgos

^{Wilcomb Washburn} Columbus informed the natives of the terms: "We shall take you and your wives, and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault ." - Christopher Columbus

^{Voyages of Christopher Columbus} Rounding up the slaves resulted in the first major battle between the Spanish and the Indians in the new world.

In regards to Christopher Columbus's national origin - there are serious doubts. In the mainstream culture he is assumed to be Italian (Genoese). If this is true, it is sadly coincidental that his nationality Genoese consists of the first 4 letters in the word genocide, which is basically what Christopher Columbus initiated and participated in. 

^{Indian Country Today} For the second year in a row, the Senate has voted to apologize to Native Americans for historical injustices. The apology, known as the Native American Apology Resolution, was attached to a defense appropriations bill, which the congressional body voted on Oct. 6.

Despite the massacre, massive loss of life, and eventually land; the Indians are to be commended because two centuries later without the influence from the forced Requerimiento, without prejudice, or harvesting revenge; simply ‘in the spirit of’ what most Western society deems Christianity - the Indians gave the Pilgrims bounty:

^{The first Thanksgiving} In the culture of the Wampanoag Indians, who inhabited the area around Cape Cod, "thanksgiving" was an everyday activity.

"We as native people [traditionally] have thanksgivings as a daily, ongoing thing," says Linda Coombs, associate director of the Wampanoag program at Plimoth Plantation. "Every time anybody went hunting or fishing or picked a plant, they would offer a prayer or acknowledgment."

But for the 52 colonists - who had experienced a year of disease, hunger, and diminishing hopes - their bountiful harvest was cause for a special celebration to give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

In conclusion; to be politically correct, 'Columbus Day was established mainly as the anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas, NOT discovering America. Whereas Christopher Columbus and Spain used the international law principle called the Discovery Doctrine to claim the New World now known as The United States of America.

Therefore the revolving question remains; should Columbus be honored for 'discovering' America or merely 'accredited' for bringing the attention to the Western civilization that the Native Peoples populated it at the time?

Make your Vote count! See poll on sidebarThank You For Voting! (This Poll has ended, here are the results): 

 

An Open Letter From the AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT of Colorado and Our Allies

When the Taino Indians saved Christopher Columbus from certain death on the fateful morning of October 12, 1492, a glorious opportunity presented itself for the cultures of both Europe and the Americas to flourish.

What occurred was neither glorious nor heroic. Just as Columbus could not, and did not, "discover" a hemisphere already inhabited by nearly 100 million people, his arrival cannot, and will not, be recognized by indigenous peoples as a heroic and festive event.

From a Native perspective, Columbus' arrival was a disaster from the beginning. Although his own diaries reveal that he was greeted by the Tainos with the most generous hospitality he had ever known, he immediately began the enslavement and slaughter of the Indian peoples of the Caribbean. click to read more

Please visit: Operation Morning Star

Of Interest: My Nephews