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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 22:19:26 GMT -5
Twice! So far.
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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 22:18:57 GMT -5
Oh! That's cool! How many times did they beat them?
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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 22:18:13 GMT -5
It was the Boston Red Sox.
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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 22:17:53 GMT -5
What team was that they just beat?
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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 20:41:50 GMT -5
12 in a row!
The last two against some team from out east there somewhere.
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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 20:39:09 GMT -5
WOLVES WIN!
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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 9:53:05 GMT -5
No.
But, I did have a turtle named Todd.
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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 9:33:41 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on May 4, 2024 9:27:37 GMT -5
Morning.
In my life, I've had one pet crow and two pet magpies. No jays.
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Post by epaul on May 3, 2024 17:41:55 GMT -5
Not a bad gig writing for the fringes. Identify a set of fears, find a set of examples half-real and embellished to taste to feed them, and then write, write, write as much as you can sell. Easy money.
I sometimes fear one of these crafters will dig up a bunch of my writings on the Maki Boys. He will use them to establish such fear that the Federal government will be compelled to send troops and tanks to seal off every road into and out of Newfolden until they can build a Trumpian Wall around the place to safely contain the Maki Malady.
Every morning, a dozen cases of Grain Belt will be tossed over the wall along with cartons of fried pork rinds, pickled eggs, and deer sausage. Not a bad life, all in all, but all based on a fiction.
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Post by epaul on May 3, 2024 14:34:00 GMT -5
Charlene took a post-college job as the educational/activities director of the Pine to Prairie chapter of the Audubon Society (we managed a 600 acre wildlife preserve). I was the editor of the "Snowy Owl", the chapter's award-winning and nationally acclaimed newsletter. I interviewed Charlene for the newsletter. I brought my golden retriever, Woody, along with me. Woody won the day. I came with the dog.
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Post by epaul on May 3, 2024 14:20:29 GMT -5
... He also designed the wrap-around dust cover for John Gardner's Life and Times of Chaucer. The figure at the bottom holding a paintbrush is a self-portrait, while John looks out from the middle window on the left. Is that John Gardner as in the author of "Grendel" John Gardner?
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Post by epaul on May 3, 2024 12:37:50 GMT -5
And if Democrats are pro Israel, then how do the Republicans "make hay" By misrepresenting, exaggerating, simplifying, distorting, lying. Politicians and pundits have their means. You don't need a straight rake to make hay
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Post by epaul on May 3, 2024 12:24:36 GMT -5
[Rational actor does not mean that many/most within Hamas have haven't become crazy and are blinded by hate...]
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Post by epaul on May 3, 2024 11:23:50 GMT -5
Terrorists is a word that covers a lot of territory.
Is Hamas a lone wolf loony who plants bombs out of a crazed addiction to chaos and fear? Or is Hamas an organized entity with a political/territorial agenda? An entity that represents a group of people and believes it is acting, however desperately, on their behalf?
There is quite a difference twix the two. You can't punish the lone wolf as the lone wolf represents nothing and cares for none. But you can punish an entity that represents a group of people and has an agenda and hopes for that group.
And whatever else you might think Hamas is, and be right, Hamas is a rational actor. They have an agenda that represents something greater than themselves, a future country called Palestine. And they are willing to sacrifice greatly to achieve it. Rational actor does not mean that many/most within Hamas haven't become crazy and are blinded by hate, rational actor means as a group they have a plan and a goal for their people, however ill-defined at the moment. A better future than the present. A homeland. They are not a lone wolf crazy bent only on anarchy and chaos and some kind of strange emotional fix.
It is a mistake to assume Hamas does not care about the people they believe they are acting on behalf of. They are willing to make great sacrifices, but they carry a hope for a future for those they believe they represent. Hamas accepted that there would be a terrible cost for the attack they made on the Israelis living in what they believed to be stolen Palestinian land. If many in Israel now believe that in response they need to make that cost far greater than any Hamas imagined, I don't blame them.
(we bombed the bejesus out of two countries, one of which had nothing to do with it, in response to an attack that, per capita, was small in all regards compared the attack Israel suffered... and while there is much to be said about our response, there haven't been any more attacks from that quarter on our homeland for the last 20 some years)
If many in Israel believe they need to make the cost to Hamas and to the people Hamas represents and acts for so great that none with a living memory will consider such an attack on Israeli soil again, I don't blame them. A "measured response" was the cost factored by Hamas to support the attack. If Israel decides that this time a "non-measured response" is called for, I will not condemn them from safely over here far away from the shoes they walk in.
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Post by epaul on May 3, 2024 9:39:00 GMT -5
I will note that if I were a young Palestinian protester, I would not be trashing libraries, I would be attending peaceful candlelit vigils while looking for a pretty Jewish girl to hold hands with and sing Kumbaya.
(which is pretty much what I did as a Vietnam war protester in college. Fertile grounds for romance.)
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Post by epaul on May 3, 2024 9:12:45 GMT -5
But, it's Republican time to make hay. I've tried to come up with a way to express how perverse I think this is. I can't. "If Israel is equally evil, I'm not on board with that. Our leadership seems to." Where does stuff like this come from? Who would insinuate that our current president thinks Israel is as evil as Hamas? In an election year, no less. "They knew going in that our government would turn on Israel." Where does stuff like this come from? Who would state that the leader of our government, Joe Biden, has turned on Israel? A president who pushed a no strings attached 95 billion dollar military aid package for Israel through congress and signed it just last week. And why would someone say that folks like Cornflake who have expressed concerned over civilian casualties "are "conflicted" over Israel itself and therefore are supporting (or sympathetic for) Hamas and are certainly NOT concerned about the survival of democracy?" Where does that come from? The quotes are yours, but I am hearing similar from Republicans right and left, Republican politicians and pundits doing all they can to portray Biden as anti-Israel and, by word and deed, a weak softie on Hamas, which they translate to being a Hamas equater/supporter. In this election year, Republicans are most certainly trying to make quick political hay over this enduring conflict by misrepresenting and distorting Biden's words and actions for all they are worth. A Biden who just signed a 95 billion, no strings attached, military aid package to Israel, a Biden who has sent American navel carriers to Gulf, a Biden who is fighting a Putin their Trump would love to jump in bed with (ok, so I switched gears)
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Post by epaul on May 2, 2024 20:36:10 GMT -5
I did change it. To protect our language.
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Post by epaul on May 2, 2024 20:24:32 GMT -5
Crap. And now it's too late to change it. I'm screwed.
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Post by epaul on May 2, 2024 19:54:30 GMT -5
That's what I think and that's where I stand (safe and far away).
But, I also know, deep inside, that if I were a young Palestinian in this country, I would be saddened and outraged and saddened again all beyond words... and I would be protesting my ass off! I wouldn't know what else to do.
I know what side I'm on, and I'm on it warts and all. But I also know there are other sides. Some understandable, some not. But they are there. And they all depend on what shoes your feet are in and where they've trod.
But I know what shoes my feet are in.
And I know Biden's feet are in really big shoes, and he is screwed on this no matter what he does. And what he has done by deed, if not by every ear-filtered speech, is support Israel fully by every metric that counts. But, man, is he screwed on this, and he has nothing to do with any of it. But, it's Republican time to make hay.
But, if I'm asked (I won't be) I say, finish the damn job. Invade the south, blow all the tunnels, and flush every den of Hamas rats you can. Then shoot them.
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