Many thanks, Rob; excellent idea!  As a matter of fact, we're in Pensacola with our youngest son, Bobby, a recent VMI graduate and now an ensign in the Navy who's in training to become a pilot in the near future.  Incidentally, Bobby was very proud to have voted absentee for Jim Webb while he was in Roanoke a few weeks ago. 

We're preparing a big Thanksgiving dinner for later this afternoon with him and a number of his military friends and some of their relatives.  When it's all said and done, there will be 15 of us gathered together on this festive occasion, and the weather ain't bad down here, either. 

We're most thankful for our children and families and friends and all that we have here in the best nation in the world, which is now getting better all the time.

Wishing the best to everyone here at Raising Kaine - thanks again!

Steve

Prayers for the innocent dead and wounded in Iraq, and all wars; today is an especially horrible day there.

Prayers for those which the Bush Administration now calls "those with very low food security." 

In an age of both euphemism and abundance, it's odd, but not too surprising, that the federal government has decided to change the nomenclature in its annual report enumerating the many Americans who don't get enough to eat. Somehow we doubt that altering the vocabulary will make much difference for those who make the list.** According to this year's Department of Agriculture report about Americans' access to food, 35 million people chronically lack the means to acquire enough food to ward off hunger. Thus, in the department's bizarre lingo, they have "low food security."A second group -- 10.8 million -- faces a more serious deficit: "very low food security," which means that sometimes they don't eat at all. But in either case, the government doesn't call them hungry any more.

http://www.sacbee.co...

Thanks for a big family gathering today, including my brother in from Afghanistan, and a dinner which we don't have to cook.

while in New Orleans recently, right after the November elections. It was depressing. Miles and miles of abandoned homes, so messed up it would cost more to repair and restore them than their original value, and with an Administration run by corporate bottom line-thinking this is a killer... but those houses in, for example the 9th Ward, were over 80 percent owned by their occupants, in the good American tradition. Shopping center after shopping center, abandoned; schools empty and mud clogged; only one small wing of a downtown hospital trying to remain open, where there used to be three great hospitals in the center city. The Army Corps of Engineers is doggedly replacing the broken flood walls (it was flood walls, not the levees which broke, by the way) but doing nothing better than it was done before--- so why would refugees want to return without some assurance it would not happen to them again, leaving them abandoned once more?

We asked about those yellow school busses: why didn't Mayor Nagin use them to evacuate his City? Answer: he asked, but was refused. There are miles of FEMA trailers, thousands of them, each costing $75-100K, and they are supposedly being withdrawn on the first of the year. We saw examples of replacement permanent homes, easily constructed, designed by architects, which would have cost $35-50K to build on the lots owned by a refugees, but FEMA refused to build them because they were permanent, and FEMA only did temporary housing. We passed large, sour areas of dead cypress forests, which used to help form the buffer against tidal surge, but were destroyed by the oil and gas industry and their drilling and pipelines, and not replaced.

When archaeologists look at, say the ruins of Mohenjo-daro, or the Mayan kingdoms, we ask, how could such a vibrant, large human society just seemingly disappear overnight? Well, here is your answer. We (through our misanthropic President) have turned our backs on a major American port; with no outside support system and help, nothing will be done because the domestic resources are not there (all that oil money does NOT flow into Louisiana's coffers, you know, unlike, say, Alaska). Eventually, Big Money will move in and create a Disney-landscape new town, leaving the original owners still suffering. That, I think, is the plan. Should teach blacks and Louisianans everywhere to vote Republican, right?

I am about to go eat some turkey in a few hours, wine, and later some pumpkin pie. Enjoy this day with family, friends, and the best to all of our family on Raising Kaine.

This may be a North American holiday (Canadians had theirs a week ago, I think), but lots of people in Europe are aware of it and I got several e-cards. Thought to share one of them, because the music sounded... fmiliar :)

http://www.jacquiela...

yours, stuffed

I must show that to the kids and have them guess what's going to happen

We just arrived home from an interesting TG in Richmond.  Our last stop was spent with Mark (Heartland of Va), JC (Richmond Democrat) and Jaime and Thad (West of Shockoe).  What a great bunch of folks!!!

After Thadd, JC, and I stuffed oursleves on Thursday and consumed large quantities of beer and wine, we were fortunate to be able to get together with Mark, Kathy, and Reen yesterday evening. We had a great time, with lots of laughs and chatter.  I have to say-if you haven't yet met up with some Virginia bloggers, I highly suggest doing so.  To meet the faces behind the words and screen names is a great thing.  :)

On the way home Reen said you know, they are younger than my daughters, but I like them anyway :)

There was a cartoon in the New Yorker a month or two ago.  The caption was "When Moms Dance."  The mom was boogying, and the teenage daughter was slumped down on the couch saying, "Stop, you're hurting me." 

It could have been worse.. something like "When Farmer Wannabees Go to Town."  Yeehahhh. I need some red cowgirl boots or something.

Today we went up to the cabin for the first time in a good while.  On the way we saw where some guys had set up a couple of Allen signs for target practice. 

I haven't even looked at my phone pix yet - have to check them out now...

And remember, don't touch Mark's face:|