News on the Homefront

James Clifton was born on September 28, and is the newest member of our household. It has been many, many moons since I have been around a new born, but some things you don't forget. He is the cutest little thing I have seen for a long time.

I watched him for about an hour yesterday afternoon while his mom and dad went shopping (read: escaped!). He cried for perhaps 45 minutes, and my cat Roscoe kept meowing at me, as if to say "Do something, knot-head! Somethings not right!" He finally gave up and hid somewhere. I did all the normal things, burping, checking for doo-doo, making goofy faces, rocking him, walking around with him, offering a bottle, but he wasn't having any of it. I decided he must have had colic, I guess. Hell, I didn't know, but he was sure trying to tell me something. As soon as his Dad came in and spoke to him, he magically stopped crying. "Keep talking!" I told him.























I know my own boys must have went through similar things, but I guess it felt different then. But there is something about a baby crying that really gets you hopping. Its a visceral thing, in that you must take action. You feel that something is wrong and you have to fix it. What was nice this time, is that I could hand him back to Mom and Dad when my efforts to fix the problem didn't work. That was a pleasant change.

And all of the stuff they have for babies now! I am absolutely amazed. Everything either vibrates or makes some sort of music! You don't put the baby on his stomach anymore, as we ignorant Neanderthals did...you place him on his back. This is supposed to help prevent SIDS. No one uses cloth diapers! They still make them, and they are so much more functional, no more folding, but not that many new parents use them. I remember washing two loads of diapers a day, and hanging them in the hot Florida sun to dry. Now the diapers are disposable, and have Velcro tabs....no more tape! Baby powder has become obsolete, and is no longer approved for infant butts. I think it has something to do with preventing allergies. Even the bottles are better. Of course, breast feeding is still encouraged, but for those who opt not to breast feed, you don't have to boil your bottles or nipples anymore! (I mean the nipples for the bottles. Even I didn't boil my own nipples, though I probably considered it!!)

There are swings, and car seats that convert to carriers, that convert to strollers! Some of them even make nature sounds! There are little hooded blankets, and swaddling has come back into fashion.

I sit and wonder how my two boys made it through infancy to toddlers without all of the new fangled gizmos and such. I remember the special occasions when I could use disposable diapers, (when we went on trips to visit family) and how magical it was. (But God help you if you accidentally pulled off the the tape that secured the diaper---then you used whatever you could find, duck tape, electrical tape, Scotch tape, whatever. You couldn't waste that diaper....those f**kers were expensive! Guess what? They still are...

Things sure have changed! And for the better. However, it is hard for me to put the baby down after feedinghim on his back. What if he spits up? So, I just sit and rock him. Now that is a good feeling.

I just have to get my oldest son married, so he can start producing babies. Some of the young girls he works with have a crush on him, but he says they are too young. I find myself thinking, well, shit, think of all the childbearing years they have ahead of them!...So they don't know jack....just think of all the babies!

Oh, well, I must be patient. I can still enjoy the delightful company of J.C. (James Clifton). And it is so delightful!!

New Template

Well, I thought it was time for a change, so here it is: a brand new template that also lost all my pictures. It looks like I still might have about 4 or 5 readers, but that's ok. I never was good at popularity contests...

Ok, the last debate, old news now, but I thought it was a good debate. I kept waiting for John McCain to start foaming at the mouth, but he didn't. I was a little disappointed, but then, you can't have everything...It was a pleasant change to see John McCain actually look Obama in the face. He didn't even call him dipshit, junior, him setting yonder, or anything like that.
























Somehow, don't ask me why, but Virginia has become a pivotal state, in that a lot of the people here can't make up their minds about who to vote for. Being a republican strong hold for many years, it does offer a glimpse of hope that maybe things are a changing after all. However, I did ask a local businessman what he thought about the debate, and he immediately jumped on the problems with Acorn, and how Mickey Mouse is now a registered voter....most probably an independent!
















I am so sick of hearing about Bill Ayers and Acorn, I could scream. Joe the plumber is right up, too. What's bad about good old Joe, who isn't even named Joe!!, is now he has every fact checker and his ugly ass brother digging dirt up about him!! God what a nightmare for him and his family...and remember, it was McCain who seized on the concept of Joe the Plumber to represent the hard working, trying to get ahead, "everyman".

Oh, well, not much more back-stabbing left for the candidates. I know who I'm voting for, do you?

About last night's Debate....

Personally, I would love to see the two presidential candidates just answer the questions given them directly and in as much detail as possible. We already know they don't want the other guy to win, or as McCain puts it, "that one". And very disrespectful it was. And, I did not find this amusing at all:

["BROKAW: Senator, we have one minute for a discussion here. Obviously the powers of the treasury secretary have been greatly expanded. The most powerful officer in the cabinet now. Hank Paulson says he won't stay on. Who do you have in mind to appoint to that very important post?

Senator McCain?

MCCAIN: Not you, Tom."]

It made absolutely no sense, and was totally uncalled for.

I had so much trouble just following McCain's seemingly constant movement around the stage. You could almost hear his coaches saying, "Get as close to the questioner as you possibly can." I cringed when he just assumed the man who asked the second question probably hadn't heard of Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae before.

Whoever gets in the white house will have a crap-load of problems to sort out, and that's just a fact. McCain's offer to buy up mortgages and refinance homes under current market value has a long way to go before it becomes fact. And just where do you think the money will come from for that? I mean, seriously?

You Passed High School with an B

You have the brains of a high school graduate... at least!

Could You Pass High School?




This test is harder than it seems! It is, really!

This and that...

I got this in a forward today, and I found it very intriguing. I could actually read what it says so there must be something to this. Let me know if you can read it too.

Only great minds can read this

This is weird, but interesting!
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

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I was not going to write anything about the Vice-presidential debates, but I can't seem to stop myself. I just can't understand how any reasonable, thinking, intelligent person could possibly vote the McCain-Palin ticket!! By golly, I'm not buying that down-home good old girl act for a second, don'tcha know!! And suddenly Main Street has become the hottest topic. Seems Sarah Palin also said something about how people are struggling to live on 42,000 dollars a year....damn, I wish I was one of those struggling middle class main-streeters!! There are actually people in this country struggling and somehow making it on less than 10,000 dollars a year. How they do it, I don't know, but they are.....amazing, huh?

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending soldiers out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." --Sarah Palin, on the Iraq war, speaking to students at the Wasilla Assembly of God, June 2008.

That is some pretty scary stuff to me. Not that she is asking us to pray for our troops, but that she is saying that God is approving and evidently guiding this war. I thought the idea of God starting a war was what got us where we are in the first place!! (9-11, and all that) Men are responsible for wars, and I kind of think God sets back and says, "Oh good grief, there they go again!!" Seems we want to get religion out of the government, like that separation of church and state thing?, because that gives everyone a right to worship how they please. You know, so the government can't make us all fundamentalists or something. Its all written down in some important document or something, oh gosh, what is that thing called? Damn, oh, yeah, its the Constitution, I think we still have one of those. Its hard to tell these days....

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion" or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, laws that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peaceably assemble, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

remember reading about this stuff in school, back in the day.....pretty freaky stuff, huh? Of course this does open the door to all sorts of crazy things, like should we have prayer in school, should the words "under God" be in thePledge of Allegiance, things of that nature, but it also opens the door to discussions on these topics, the freedom to disagree. And that is a marvelous thing.








*First Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia