The Message Forum is an ongoing dialogue among classmates. The goal is to encourage friendly interaction, including interaction among classmates who really didn't know each other. Experience on the site has revealed that certain topics tend to cause friction and hard feelings, especially politics and religion. 

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Wayne Gary

David,

I todays Dallas Morning News it is reported the great unifier,Biden, is now comparing Sen Cruz to Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Great way to try to heal by comparing  a US Senator to a Nazi.

Bob Davidson

Lance and Wayne,

My dad was in on the tail end of the Pacific war -- he was a radioman on a command ship during Okinawa but didn't go ashore until his general went in after the battle was won.  Then he was an MP in Japan during the occupation.  He went with MacArthur to Hiroshima when the ground was still hot.

I've always been a WWII buff.  My son became one early.  We recorded the TV version of Patton without the cussing and he must have watched it hundreds of times starting when he was two.  I reread the books it was based on and we talked about them.  Then I read the newer biographies of him, Bradley's second memoir, everything I could find on Ike, Monty, Truscott, Clark, Alexander, and the other interesting military leaders of the time.  It was really fun.

My son found it fascinating to learn that a lot of his friend's grandfathers were in the war and loved to ask them questions about what they did.  When he was very young, they'd say things like I flew in an airplane.  He'd start questioning them, where they'd be surprised that he knew the planes, histories, positions, units, battles, etc.  A number of times the parents would hear him talking to grandpa and tell me that they'd never heard about what their fathers did in the war.

My favorite air museum is the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola.  They have all of the planes the Navy has flown.  The Smithsonian air museum is fun, too.

One of the eye-openers to me was the difference between the USS Alabama and the Texas.  The Texas was built in 1912; the Bama in the early 40s.  They are like artifacts from different worlds. 

Wayne Gary

Holly,

If you are close I will be glad to bring you a bowl of my homemade chicken noodle soop. good for soothing the soul and keeping out of padded rooms.

Wayne Gary

David and all,

Last night I remembered hearing a rebroadcast radio report about the liberation of Buchenwald by Edward R Murrow.  Today I found it on "Old Time Radio" and listened to i. Very hard to imagine. Here is the link to to it

CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow, who reported extensively from Europe during World War II, was the first reporter on scene following the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 12, 1945. Three days later, Murrow described the scene at Buchenwald when he entered the camp:

David Cordell

Bob D.,

Good to know that Silber had a good side. Is it possible to have two sides in which one side is really, really big and the other is really, really small?

When I was a young professor at LSU, I would get my hair cut at the barber shop ar the student union. I typically strike up conversations with just about anyone, which is not always a good idea if you're having your hair cut, or having surgery. Anyway, I started asking the barber questions after I saw a tattoo on his forearm. Well, he got it when he was in the service. When was were you in the service? During World War II. Did you see any action? Yes. Where? In Europe. Eventually, he revealed that he had hit the beach at Normandy. He said he waded in and soldiers were going down all around him. He stepped over the bodies of fallen soldiers on the beach. Then my barber suddenly stopped cutting my hair and went silent. I looked in the mirror and could see tears welling up in his eyes, one of which rolled down his cheek. I apologized for my intrusion. He responded, "That's OK. I haven't talked about it in a long time." 

Steve Keene

Wayne

I guess you did not understand my response to your earlier offer to meet with me, drink bubbly and shoot guns at Liberal targets.    Let me reiterate.   I am not going to meet up with anyone or place myself at risk until I receive the vaccine which should be available for 70 year olds with additional risk factors like I have, in the next month. 

Lance,

I wish you would read your posts before you submit them, because your mind must be telling you that you are a good guy, while your fingers tell us that you aren't.

Bob D. and David and Holly and Sandra,

I took a tour of the U.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides} in Boston.  Now that is a different era battle boat.  I visited the Holocaust museum in Washington.  No Sandra, I did not break down the doors or smash the windows.  I was struck by the piles of old shoes.  It brought to mind the wandering in the Wilderness for 40 years where their shoes did not wear out and Holly, God provided them with cleaness of teeth.  No floss necessary.

Steve Keene

All,

Millions of Conservatives are going to remember the Republican Swamp Rats jumping ship from Trump when the primary elections come up in two years.  We are making a list so we can oppose them twice or three times since the Democrats have demonstrated to us how the voting machines work.

David Cordell

Can anyone recommend a site that has extensive photos of the vandalism at the Capitol? I have seen broken glass and furniture, but not much in the way of permanent damage or paint.

Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

David:  Some links showing photos:

CNN - This is the damage rioters caused to the Captial Building

ABC News Channel 10 New York (Slide Show on page)

Today:  Photos show damage to Captial Building first breach since 1812

Other than the FBI, which probably has the most extensive photo archive of the damage, it is pretty easy to do an internet search.  The building was equipped with close circuit cameras so there is probably lots of documented photos and videos.  Since it is a crime scene, and evidence for numerous felony charges not all photos are public.  You will notice lots of repeats.  It was enough for me to be sick at heart.  The worse was watching the police officer get crushed by the crowd and bleed from his mouth.  

Steve Keene

Sandra

First breach and vandalism since 1812, huh?     How convenient that you have forgotten the breach of the Congressional gallery by Code Pink protestors in September of 2014, which evidence later showed they were secretly admitted by the Democrats.   How convenient that you have forgotten the vandalism and the damage to computers and office equipment perpetrated by Bill and Hillary Clinton after their loss to George W. Bush in January of 2009.  How convenient that you have forgotten the bombs set in the Capitol bombings of 1998, 1983 and 1971 by unstable individuals.  How convenient that you have forgotten the 1954 breach of the Congresssional galleries by armed Puerto Rican Nationalists who opened fire and wounded 5 Congressmen after firing indiscriminately into the gallery..  How convenient you have forgotten the march on the Capitol and the breach of the building by World War 1 veterans demanding their benefits in 1932 blocking entrance and exit of Capitol so that business could not be conducted.  The date 1812 is the name of the war, not the date of the burning and looting of the Capitol which occurred in 1814.

David Cordell

Sandra,

I have seen those photos and that video clip. I thought there might be much more extensive damage.

Of course, anyone who vandalized or injured anyone should be prosecuted. Perhaps if rioters across the country had been prosecuted to a greater extent, it would have served as a deterrent. I am saddened that a policeman was killed, and that a policeman killed a woman. I understand that two or three other protester died, but appparently from medical conditions.

I just scanned the transcript of Trump's speech that supposedly incited violence at the Capitol. It was vintage Trump -- obnoxious, ill-advised, and fact-challenged. It was at least as insulting to Republicans as to Democrats. Pelosi and Schumer weren't even mentioned. Here's a link:

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6

I keep hearing that Trump should be impeached for inciting a riot. No one in a sane world would be convicted of "high crimes and misdemeanors" for ramblings like Trump's. Further, he actually specifically used the word "peacefully." See below.

Pelosi must know that she's got nuthin' with regard to that speech, so she is building a case for Trump's mental state -- that he is likely to start a nuclear war. Huh? Give it up. Trump has.

If Biden were the uniter he claims to be, he would tell Congress to lay off. He could even evoke Gerald Ford, "Our long national nightmare is (almost) over." He could be a hero, but he is taking the low road.

I found nothing in Trump's speech that could remotely be considered as inciting a riot. Below are a couple of snippets.

I welcome anyone's disagreement with my comments as long as they are fact-based and not simply "orange man bad" polemic.

Donald Trump: (16:25)

.....Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.

Donald Trump: (01:12:43)
So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… The Democrats are hopeless. They’re never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.

Donald Trump: (01:13:19)
So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you all for being here, this is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

We agree to disagree once again, Mr. Cordell.  I see it what Trump has done is long term lying, incitement and division.  Yes, he is guilty of an attempted coup.  This says it all for me.

An Essay in the New York Times today says it all.  The American Abyss- A historian of facism and political atrocity Trump, the mob and what comes next.

Bob Davidson

Lance -- Bill O'Reilly's book Killing Patton petty much sets out the oddities of Patton's death. I have no idea what really happened.  Typically, small people do their best to destroy giants among them.  That is really the essence of the sin of envy -- not appreciating one's own gifts from God,

There is a book of Patton's letters (the one edited by Martin Blumenthal) that made me really like the guy as a human.  I see him as an absolutely brilliant military commander (he was the only one of the senior allied generals who understood that in modern warfare air power could protect the flanks of an advancing army (the German blitzkrieg theory)) -- who was totally frustrated by the dumbasses above him, particularly Omar Bradley, a high IQ totally conventional thinker who fought Patton on that constantly, reining him in by cutting off his gasoline supplies to keep him from advancing -- Ike probably got it (he and Patton were close friends before the war and wrote a monograph together on tank warfare in 1920), but Ike didn't have time to be interested in actual military tactics on the ground, he had a much bigger picture to deal with -- holding a fragile alliance together while being viciously sabotaged by that stupid monster Montgomery.  I see Patton as at heart a gentle, sensitive soul who felt he had to put on a persona, his "command face," to do what had to be done in war.  At West Point, his evaluation as Cadet Captain was that he was "too damn military."  Not too many cadets are too military for West Point.

My son and I watched A Bridge Too Far the same weekend recently.  We both had the same reaction:  if Patton had been in command, the Marketbasket operation would have been a resounding success.  Instead of running things from headquarters back across the channel, Patton would have been at the front, jumping on those arsehole (they should get their native spelling) British tank commanders to move once the American paratroopers cleared the bridges -- I picture him climbing on the lead tank, banging on the hatch with his riding crop, and tearing that arrogant Englishman a new one.  In in his army, failing to move was the sin, not failing to wait for orders from headquarters and the sanfu with the radios in combat would have been the crime, not having one's superiors find out that things weren't going to go well -- the chickenshit Brit radio people were more scared of reporting to the incompetents above them that the radios didn't work than of sending them out to battle and getting brave men killed for no reason. 

Wayne -- have you watched A Band of Brothers?  The scene where they liberate Kaufering is one of the most disturbing things I've every seen.  I think it is pretty realistic since the actual GIs were advisors on the film.

Bob Davidson

Also that stupid sequel Patton movie was obviously an attempt to cut the general down to size -- the first movie made him too much of a hero for those Hollywood vipers.

Holly Hobby

Wayne,

Forgot:  no, I haven't retired. I’ll never retire. At least not voluntarily. It’s not for money that I work instead because every day is a new Rubric cube, an intellectual puzzle waiting to be solved. More important it's a calling of such. 

When someone says "you saved my life" (meaning helped prove his/her innocence) or "you gave me my life back again (meaning helped save them from financial devasation d/t predatory healthcare provider and/or hospital billing) or "finally we have closure" (meaning helped prove his/her child did not commit suicide, instead was murdered) the feeling compelled is not what one might think. Never for an instant am I presumptuous to believe it was I alone who helped moved that mountain. Always is automatic reflex" explaining it wasn't I. It was God and the Holy Spirit using me as a conduit.

I truly believe that. Throughout the years has been too many close calls. Too many near misses. Enough death threats to wall paper at least two walls of a small-average size dining room. If I can help someone two-legged or four, it's my privilege.

I truly believe that too. I'm as imperfect as they come. By now everyone knows I seethe at witness or credible knowledge of cruelty, injustice, any form abuse.   But I pick my battles. Only with with viable reason to believe I might make a difference do I come out swinging. 

Your a good soul Wayne. Sandra and David have my email. Would love to keep in touch. Be safe. And stay well. 

Holly Hobby

Sandra,

Redundant, because you already know, but have to say it again,  I love you.  So very much. Thank you for your presence in my life.  So proud of you.   We'll talk soon.  Love you to the moon and back.

Lowell Tuttle

Jeez, this sounds good some 50 years after release.   Dallas Houston talent merger recorded in Tyler...

Album missed initially, but a close UT friend of mine played it about 1000 times, so it was a hit to me.   Made me miss a lot of stuff..

Trying to remember what year, but they played a small concert festival in Nacogdoches where Lightning Hopkings played along with some other talent at their football stadium  70 or 71 or 72?  Can't remember...Drove from Austin..

Memories.

Lowell Tuttle

My favorite picture from the ruckus was the guy walking across the plaza behind the CBS (I think) newswoman and he was wearing a Macleod Clan kilt.

My Canadian (maternal) side of the family must be flippin out.

El Trumpo's mom was a Macleod Scottish immigrant.

Whoops...just tried to look up the photo for posting and saw that those guys are The Proud Boys...So, I will cease and desist liking the photo....

Also, not sure they're Macleod plaids....

Wayne Gary

Holly,

Thank you for your kind words.

Bob D. Lance, David,

I remember when the movie "Patton" came out while visisting my Mothers brother who was in the Signal Corp and asignet to Pattons Army in N. Africa, Sisaly and France.  He did not want to see the movie because he felt it would "sugar coat" Patton.  He finally saw the movie and said it was a good portrial of him. He said one time in N. africa he was assigned to go beyond the front line to a point and istall a field phone in preparitan for a push the next day.  There was a push and he thought it was funny when the Col got the the phone and calld Patton and said the push was uscessful.  Ther was not any Germans between the previous line and the phone.  There were times when he was in a fox hole checking all of the lines into and out of Patton's HQ and got to listen to a lot of Patton's conversations so he had an inside look of Patton's dealings

He wa such a great field commander the Geerman high command felt he would lead the invasion of France which made Operation Fortitude a succdess of keeping the German forces away from Normandy.

Anouther example of his field leadership comes at the Battle of the Buldge when called to a conference to formulate a rescue of the 101st at Bastogne.  Other commanders wanted 2 -3 weeks to pull out of battle and develope a plan to make the rescue.  Patton said his troops can do it in 3 days.  He got the job, pulled his troops out of a winter battle pivoted and moved 100 miles attacked and rescued the 101st.

Kurt Fischer

Sandra:

I read the article you posted from the NYT which you suggested clearly laid out the basis for why Trump should be impeached.  I regret to tell you I did not find it persuasive.  Perhaps it is because we come at the issue from two very different perspectives, but my take-aways from the article were;

• "Trump never took electoral democracy seriously nor accepted the legitimaticy of its American version"
• Trump disagreed with the results of both his election and with the 2020 election
• Trump claimed he won and worked to prove it, while disagreeing with those who said he lost
• Trump did a wonderful job of misleading a great many people:  "People believed him, which is not at all surprising. It takes a tremendous amount of work to educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make sense of their own previous choices."
• The Republicans who backed Trump were either out to game the system to gain power or wanted to break the system and have power without democracy.
• Trump spoke through social media to put forth his points and not through the "lying press";  this was just like the Nazis
• Trump told repeated lies
• His big lie was that he had won the election
• The areas with Trump's greatest focus about voter fraud were cities and they had a greater proportion of Black people;  therefore, Trump was practising white supremacy and was racist
• Trump was pre-facist and was kept from establishing a true facist state because he did not have military backing
• Trump's urging of protesters to go to the Capitol Building was a coup attempt.
• What is required now is a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good.

I'm not sure what I read in the article which served as cause to impeach Trump due to high crimes and misdemeanors.  The author does not even go so far as to say Trump asked the protesters to march down and invade the Capitol Building.  What I read in the article was either about dislike of personal behaviors, innuendo, or allying Trump and his supporters with dictators in the past.  Where's the beef?  

Personally, the article offended me, both because it belittled my ability to make intelligent choices and its ad hominem arguments.  However, as I started out, it appears we seem to see this issue very differently through very different political and social prisms.

Thanks for your feedback to David.

David Cordell

I'm a bit sad.

Several months ago, while Becky the Dog took me for our morning walk, we passed a house just as an elderly man with a walker very slowly stooped down to pick up his newspaper at the intersection of his sidewalk and the public sidewalk.

From then on, Becky and I picked up the gentleman's newspaper and set it on the privit hedge that lined his sidewalk. We always put it in the same place and always with the open part of the bag pointed toward the walk to make it easy to grab.

After a couple of months, the old man happened to exit his house just as I finished placing the newspaper on the hedge. As I was walking away he shouted, "I wondered who had been putting my paper up there." I just smiled and waved and kept walking.

As the weeks passed and it started getting cold, we began taking the newspaper up to the porch. We stood it up in a corner with the opening of the bag facing upward so it was easy to reach.

I should note that this small task doesn't count as a good deed. Our morning walk is over 5,000 steps, and taking the newspaper just adds a few steps and a few seconds.

Close to Christmas, there were a couple of cars parked in front of his house, which I assumed were owned by family visitors. Sometimes the newspaper would still be by the curb as Becky and I passed, and sometimes it had already been retrieved.

The cars didn't disappear after Christmas. One morning when we walked near the old man's house, a car drove slowly past the house and made a U-turn in the nearby intersection. It again drove past the house. On the third pass, I waved the car down and asked the driver if she was lost. She said she was looking for a particular address. I knew the address she mentioned would be on that block and on the old man's side of the street.

I thought of the old man and blurted out, "Are you a home health care person?" She affirmed. I knew that she must be looking for the old man's house, and told her, "It's probably this house. I'll check"

Becky and I walked up the sidwalk until I could see the brass plate with the address that the lady sought. I nodded at her while pointing to the old man's house.

Although I don't know the old man, and have never even spoken to him, I feel very sad that he may be in his last days of life. Of course, maybe he is experiencing some temporary issue. Or maybe the health care worker is there for the old man's wife rather than for the old man. I don't know. I just know that it makes me very sad.

Holly Hobby

Wayne,

 Posted the (above or below) last night but didn’t see it today, so trying to reconstruct.

Holly Hobby

Wayne,

You too, have had an interesting life.  Along the way, your love, loyalty, courage and resilience tested, proving there is nothing that can happen that you and God together cannot handle.

It couldn’t have been easy watching the woman you love slowly succumb to an often ruthless autoimmune disease, her body and mind increasingly under siege, yours with it, by virtue of your love for her.

Corrie ten Boom, (1892-1983) was a Dutch Christian watchmaker, later a prolific writer. Reportedly Corrie believed she was called by God to stand in the gap for those powerless.  Along with her father and sister, Corrie hid Jews, intellectuals and Dutch underground in a tiny, unvented room to protect them from arrest and deportation during the German occupation in the Netherlands.

Upon detection, Corrie was imprisoned, locked in solitary confinement, later interned in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Compounding her devastation was news her father and sister died while in German custody.  It was in internment, the darkest, most shattering period of her life that ten Boon wrote her most famous book, the award winning “The Hiding Place;”  the story of finding hope when there is none.

In 1962, Queen Julia of the Netherlands made ten Boon a knight in recognition of her humanity.  In December 1967, The Yad Vashem Remembrance Authority recognized her as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.   In 1976 Gordon College in U.S. awarded her an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters.   Also in the U.S. Kings College, NYC,  built a new women’s house in her honor.

Among ten Boon’s quotes, one of my favorites is: “Hold all things you love loosely in your hand so it won’t hurt so much when God pries your fingers open."  Another is: Don't bother giving God instructions. Just show up."

I could only hope do as well as you, Wayne.  I’m  thankful you found a wonderful woman, a friend a life partner, with whom you can share the rest of your journey.  Blessings always.

Holly Hobby

David, 

Listen to me. Remember what I said. "In another life you and I would have made a great  Queen and Prime Minister.   

Until then, do not feel sad. Of course, your elderly neighbor knew it was you who made it easier to reach down and pick up his newspaper.   Because of you, he knew someone cared about him.

 Apart from those known to him, because of you, he knew he mattered.  Because of you, he knew he wasn't invisible.

Because of you he knew someone was watching over him. And you did.  You figured out something wasn't right. Knowing you, you'd have kept watch, watching for sign of him or some activity signaling he was okay.

It's cold, dark and gloomy today, that only makes it harder.  But this too shall pass. Do not feel sad, David.  Thank God for the privilege of having helped a total stranger.

Celebrate the wonderous privilege of having made a difference.  Do not be sad. Instead, smile. Smile that same smile prompted by his question, “I wonder who’s been putting my paper on the porch?” Every time you and Becky walk by his house, smile.  And keep a look out for God’s next privilege.

As always, until  our next cabinet meeting, you are loved.

Steve Keene

Lance,

Nice post!