Happy Thanksgiving!

Even if you’re not in the US, today is a good day to count your blessings.

I’m thankful for:
Michael
Grandmom
My Aunt & Uncle
Julliene
Chocolate
Employment
Health Insurance
Pie

92 years ago today The Great War, the War to End All Wars, official ended.

Twenty one years later, the second World War started, and horrors even greater were seen and experienced by soldiers and civilians alike.

On May 26, 1954, President Eisenhower officially changed Armistice Day–a day to honor those who fought in WWI–to Veterans Day, to honor all veterans.

Five years later, the Vietnam War would begin, and the American view of military service would change profoundly.

Of all the war memorials in the US (not including Arlington Memorial Cemetery) I believe that the Vietnam War Memorial is the most profoundly affecting.

Because the war was so controversial, and because so many veterans were treated shamefully upon their return home, that I find The Wall so affecting. It is if, as a country, we suddenly woke up to the wrongness of our actions. To me, the Wall, and the listing of the names of those who died, is in part an apology to each soldier listed there, it makes them individuals remembered for their service that was so unappreciated at the time.

For the current wars, we have digital memorials that are updated daily, remembering those who have died with more than just names. And these memorials are deeply affecting. But nothing compares to standing at the wall and seeing name after name listed. The sheer magnitude of the loss is almost overwhelming.

On Veterans’ Day, we should remember the individuals who have served, but in remembering the individual losses, we should not lose sight of the vast number who have given their lives in their service. We should remember not just those individuals who served and the sacrifices they made, but also the loss to the country of so many of our sons and daughters.

American Military Service from the Civil War to the First Gulf War
U.S. Military Service During War 41,891,368
Battle Deaths 651,030
Other Deaths (In Theater) 308,800
Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater) 230,279
Non-mortal Woundings 1,431,290

To those who serve, past and present, thank you for your sacrifices so that we may remain free.

Inter Arma Silent Leges
-Cicero

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
– Pentagon official, on why US military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

It is well that war is so terrible; else we would grow too fond of it
– Robert E. Lee

A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
– George William Curtis

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
– Thomas Jefferson

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
– Benjamin Franklin

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
– William Faulkner

The Day of the Dead isn’t Halloween, it’s about remembering the dead and celebrating their lives, some of the activities are Grave cleaning, grave decorating, and remembering and honoring the dead.

I can’t believe it! We had a trick-or-treater this year who was NOT the offspring of a friend! That is the first ever since we moved here 9 years ago.

But of course we also had our expected trick-or-treater:

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ADDENDUM the First:

This is my 10/10/10 10:10 picture.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

My pirate name is: Black Ethel Bonney

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate’s life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Here be a very nice English t’ Pirate translator page

Labor Day in the United States exists to celebrate the rights that workers in the United States have achieved in the past century, and to give us time to allow those who keep the power on and the trains running and all those other jobs that require you to get your hands dirty, a day to be recognized for their work.

We must remember the past, and some of the incidents that made labor unions so critical, and continue to make them important today.

Health and safety have improved vastly across the board in the past century. We hope never to have another incident like The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where 146 men, women and girls died when the exits were barred and a fire broke out.

However, some industries seem hardly to have changed in the past century. Farmworkers struggle to live on less money than most Americans make in a year.

The median personal income from farm work and other work sources combined was between $5,000 and $7,500.

And the modern meatpacking industry seems in some ways hardly to have moved beyond conditions described by Upton Sinclair in “The Jungle.”

…the reported injury and illness rate for meatpacking was a staggering 20 per hundred full-time workers in 2001…

…OSHA administrators and independent researchers have found a common corporate practice [in the meatpacking industry] of underreporting injuries of all kinds. One recent estimate puts the undercount of nonfatal occupational injuries across industrial sectors as high as 69 percent.“

And then there is the industry of my home state, the coal industry. From the Mine Wars in the US of over a century ago, to modern mine disasters, such as the Upper Big Branch Mine and the Sago Mine men die while trying to make a living digging coal.

[Massey Energy] amassed more than 1,100 violations in the past three years, many of them serious. Federal regulators even ordered parts of the mine closed 60 times over the past year.

…two Massey Energy Co. officials who spent four unsupervised hours underground immediately after the deadly April 5 explosion.

[Coal companies including ICG and Massey Energy] …hope to use newly loosened campaign-finance laws to pool their money and defeat Democratic congressional candidates they consider “anti-coal,” …” they want to “”create a politically active nonprofit under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, so they won’t have to publicly disclose their activities — such as advertising — until they file a tax return next year…

Today is the day to remember those who have lost their lives and their health doing nothing more than trying to make living.

Happy birthday Michael!

My most favorite husband EVER!

Really!

Right now–AS I TYPE THIS–members of the UCF (besides myself) are sitting in my living room.

Here are some pictures from our adventures so far.

Jeri and the Very Small House
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The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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As I mentioned to my friend Erin on twitter, I think it is fitting that the death of Senator Byrd has created an extra long Independence Day weekend to West Virginians.

Most who have never lived here do not understand precisely what Senator Robert C. Byrd meant to the state and its residents. They know he was was a member of Congress longer than anyone else ever. They know he was called the King of Pork. They may even know he had been majority leader, minority leader, and President Pro Tem of the Senate. What they don’t understand–can’t understand really–is what all this meant to those of us who lived here.

Senator Byrd had a checkered past in some ways. He was born in a time when racism was accepted and spent the first part of his life believing in those principles. However, he came to discover that outside differences mean nothing, and he came to profoundly regret his earlier beliefs and apologized for his earlier beliefs and actions.

Senator Byrd was the first person in his family to go to school past the second grade. While he was in Washington D.C. representing West Virginia, he got his law degree by taking night classes. But his education was far greater than that. He was a musician, a lover of poetry and verse, and he revered the Constitution and this country.

He went to Washington DC with one objective–to represent his state and to do everything in his power to improve the lives of its citizens. The “King of Pork” wasn’t an insult to him, or to those of us who lived here. He didn’t want to build a bridge to nowhere, he wanted to bring in money to improve the state and its population. He helped us build roads. He helped us build infrastructure. He helped drive government agencies and projects to the state. And he helped build the educational system in the state.

The building in which I work is officially called the Robert C Byrd Health Sciences Center, and within that complex of structures we have one of the top Rural Health programs in the country. The money he brought in did far more than provide jobs–it helped to create an educational system dedicated not just to educating future health professionals but to improve the health of all the citizens of the state by sending its students throughout the state to help provide health care in isolated and impoverished areas.

This is the legacy he left us.

He helped create systems that do more than create a handful of jobs, these systems support and improve the entire state and all its citizens. These systems attempt to reach out to those in isolation and poverty and provide them with the things that most people take for granted: Roads. Education. Health care.

He was a great man, and his like will not be seen again.

Also, Happy Birthday to Cathy, and to Phiala as well.