Planting Pansies

My daughter brought me three flats of pansies this morning at church and I spent the afternoon planting them in the front of my house and took these pictures.

The service went fine. Since the theme today was Plea for Peace, I talked about the recent Peace Colloquy I attended with my friends. Everyone seemed to be interested.

My son and his girlfriend left this morning. Her daughter called last evening and said she had the flu and couldn't take care of her two little boys, age six and three so he took her back to his house, a three hour drive, where she will leave him and then drive three more hours back to her home in Ricker,Arkansaw. He is pressing her to either move in with him or marry and they have only dated a month. She is resisting rushing into something and I don't blame her. He needs to be patient. It won't happen though and she will run away as fast as she can. he scares them all off.

Blog Mess Up

For some reason my blog has messed up big time and even though I have gone back and tried to rearrange my elements, it still has them all down the left of the page. Does anyone have a clue how to get the page back the way I had it with the page elements on the right?

I went to the layout area and redid it in hopes of getting it back the way it was with the pictures and the page elements on the right side instead of below the posts on the blog. But even though I saved it correctly, it still only shows up correctly when I hit "search blog"

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Scott and His Friend

Last night, Scott and his new girl friend came to visit. She is really a nice woman. We both like her a lot but he is ready for a permanent relationship and she is very cautious. She wants him to slow down and take some time. He, on the other hand is tired of being alone and wants more.

They stayed up late with us last night and visited and visited. I fixed breakfast for all of us this morning and later, fixed lunch. Now they have gone out to see his sister, Leslie, and will have dinner at John's Kitchen in Independence this evening with them. Bob and I have Bob's 60th class reunion this evening so this will give John and Leslie a chance to see what they think of her.

She lives three hours from Scott so he is concerned that constant travel every weekend to date will ruin both their cars. I told him that months ago...that he needed to find girls to date nearer to where he lives. But although these young people want your advice, they seldom take it.

This will be interesting.

Brooksley Born was Right

"More than a decade ago, a woman you're likely never to have heard of, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission-- a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading--was the oracle whose warnings about the dangerous boom in derivatives trading just might have averted the calamitous bust now engulfing the US and global markets. Instead she was met with scorn, condescension and outright anger by former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his deputy Lawrence Summers. In fact, Greenspan, the man some affectionately called "The Oracle," spent his political capital cheerleading these disastrous financial instruments."

I had always been a fan of Greenspan before this catastrophe happened. I even bought and read his book. But it has become apparent now that Greenspan, Summers and Rubin, whom I also admired, embraced the policies that got us into this present mess.

Read the complete story here.

Brookley Born a woman whose wisdom was derided and scorned seemed to be right on all along.

As The Nation said," "Break the Glass" was the code-name high-level Treasury Department figures gave the $700 billion bailout; it was to be used only as a last- resort measure.

Now millions have been sprayed and damaged by broken glass."

Another New Deal

How about "health security"--free health care for all, administered by the government, paid for from our Treasury, bypassing the insurance companies and the other privateers of the health industry. All that will take more than $700 billion. But the money is there: in the $600 billion for the military budget, once we decide we will not be a war making nation anymore, and in the bloated bank accounts of the super rich, once we bring them down to ordinary-rich size by taxing vigorously their income and their wealth. Other Nations do it. In fact, all other first world nations have free health care for their citizens. All but us.

As far as big government helping with these huge projects is concerned...government has helped out big business for years. Thank of the Saving and Loan bailout. Now think of Chrysler's huge bailout. Those are just two of dozens and dozens that we taxpayers have had to bail out over the years. If you want more examples, I can give them. Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a free market. We have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry.

What we need now is another New Deal jobs program to get our roads, bridges and infrastructure back in first rate condition again. Now that jobs are dropping like flies, why not start up another WPA and CCC and let those who want to work go back to work. Then they can make their mortgage payments.

The Debate..Two Days Later

I don't believe McCain did well with the town hall debate. He was full of platitudes and misinformation. FactCheck will be sending out lots of e-mails to correct his claims. The only thing he came up with that was new and interesting was the refinancing of mortgages for ordinary folks and that idea came from two or three Republican economists this week.

Obama , on the other hand, had some well thought out answers with very few platitudes. The balance in the past five days has tipped to Senator Obama and this debate cinched it. Unless the country's unspoken but still very present racism manages to defeat him, he has this election won.

As far as the $700,000,000,000 that we spend on foreign oil is concerned that McCain insists funds terrorism, that is baloney. Canada and Mexico are our major sources of oil and neither of those countries are terrorist countries. McCain tries to play the fear card every chance he gets. He probably thinks it worked for Bush so in desperation he will give it the last ditch try.

On the question about the fastest way out of our economic mess is concerned, Obama put his finger right on the problem...deregulation, deregulation, deregulation. And, unfortunately for McCain, he has called himself the deregulator. The only way the country will get back on track economically is for some regulation to be re instituted. Capitalism is greed driven and this economic crisis has proven that for sure. The recent investigations this week have proven that if there was any doubt beforehand. As soon as AIG was bailed out with that $85,000,000,000,000 bailout, their CEO's took a $400,000 junket vacation. Talk about irresponsibility! We should demand the money be returned!

Obama made a good point when he said when Bush came into the presidency eight years ago, the country had a balanced budget with a huge surplus. Now we have a ten trillion dollar deficit for the next president and our grandchildren to face.

McCain sounded very ignorant when he said he could tackle all three other huge problems the country is facing now at the same time....the entitlements (social security and Medicare) and the energy crisis, as well as health insurance. McCain said it would not be that hard to fix social security. He didn't say how he would do that easy task. He did admit that fixing Medicare would be harder.

Obama sounded very cool when he said he would tackle the energy crisis first, then health care and last of all the entitlement programs. He admitted he could not get it all done in his first term.

When both candidates were asked what sacrifices they would ask of the American people, McCain dropped the ball altogether. He suggested he would freeze all unnecessary government spending, (except veterans affairs) eliminate earmarks and cut unnecessary defense spending. Is that asking for sacrifices from the American people? Doesn't the man know what sacrifice is? During the second world war, we were rationed for gasoline, sugar, rubber of all kinds, ...we actually did sacrifice for the war effort. The American people anymore just want everything they see advertised and are not interested in personal sacrifice. They'd rather let others do the sacrificing. ..like those young men and women in the flag covered caskets that the Bush administration won't allow to be filmed.

Obama , on the other hand, said we would all have to watch how we used energy and stop being wasteful. He would provide incentives for folks to use green efficient energy, buy battery driven autos, use wind, solar and clean coal for energy. I felt neither really rose to the occasion. Possibly they remembered what happened when Jimmy Carter suggested that we should become a more frugal people and make personal sacrifices.

McCain often repeats the Reagan philosophy in stating that the government is the problem, not the solution. He ignores the fact that Reagan increased the size of the federal government more than any of his predecessors and instituted the largest tax increase in history.

McCain was snapish and rude and referred to Obama as "that one" on one occasion. Probably he couldn't remember Obama's name. I am 72 and I certainly know how that feels. But people don't like McCain, don't trust him, and when the guy no one likes attacks, they like him even less. The snap polls prove Obama came out way ahead with this debate.

Wednesday-Another of Those Days

This has been another of those days. This morning I went to Independence and got my hair done then went to eat breakfast with my friend, Juanita (the one who recently lost her daughter). After that, I went to the Hallmark Shop and got her a birthday card. She will be 87 on Saturday. I went to Nanny La Rose (a local clothing store ) and bought a gift certificate to put in her card.

After that, I went to Ministerial Association meeting at the Mercy Hospital conference room. I got out at 1:00 and drove back to Coffeyville where I attended a class reunion planning meeting. I left there at 3:30 and came home to type up my notes and make some calls to arrange for some tours for my classmates who will be here October 17 - 18. After that, we drove over to Caney, Kansas to eat dinner. I was too tired to cook.

After dinner I came home and proceeded to do my "we missed you at church on Sunday" notes. It's 7:30 and I just finished those. Now I am blogging and after I finish here, I will go take my bath and put my PJs on.

I have nothing on the schedule tomorrow.

Friday, our son and his girlfriend will be coming in and we will meet this latest one. He thinks she may become "Mrs. Miller" soon. We will see. Saturday evening we have a class reunion banquet for my husband's class and our son and his friend will go visit his sister that evening.

Sunday, we will all go to church and later that evening all of us will go to the "Living the Questions" group They are having a dinner that night before the group meeting.

Next week will be a zoo so I had better enjoy a quiet day or two while I can.

Update:

Instead of watching "nothing" TV, I stayed up until 11:00 and worked on my sermon for this Sunday. My daughter traded Sunday sermon dates with me. She will take the 19th, the weekend of my class reunion.