My humble and sincere thanks to all veterans who have served to keep my country and my liberties safe. My heart goes out to all of you, especially to those who have made serious sacrifices. While I go about my daily business and snuggle down safe and sound in my bed, many of you are guarding a wall, battling with the enemy, or rescuing people off rooftops during a natural disaster. Some of you are tipping your last-call glasses of beer down in the halls of the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Your time of service has passed, yet a part of you lives always in the men and women who now serve. Some of you are praying, alone or in groups, that all sons and daughters, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, and parents are home by the next Veterans Day. You know He can grant your prayers, but it's unlikely given the evil in the world.
Many of you will march in parades -- some of you will be escorted in your wheelchairs -- and be either encouraged by the numbers of people who gather and wave flags along the parade route or disappointed by the numbers, which seem to dwindle more each year. But you should know that the intensity of pride and sincerity of gratitude from just a few who gather are much richer, fuller, and sweeter than all the speeches, blog posts,and five-minute clips on the late news hours.
Some of you are homeless. We can argue about whether you are crazy or on drugs or a victim of the recession or whatever it is that makes you chronically without shelter, but I am at a loss as to how this could happen in my country. With the billions of dollars we borrowed from the Chinese to give to banks and companies who turned around and thumbed their noses at us while they got massages and played golf at an exotic resort, we couldn't spare a couple or three to shelter people who, conscientiously or not, went and stood in the way of bullets when others did not? I apologize to you, for both looking the other way and not being sincere enough to promise you I will not do it again. But I know that you sacrifice to this day for what you did for your country and I live in the grace of your sacrifice.
Some of you are recuperating in a hospital, trying to recover physically, mentally, or spiritually. Some of you are being taken care of by people who care about you, and some of you were forced to endure deplorable conditions at a military hospital, where people were supposed to care for you and try to make you whole as possible, in the name of the American people whom you served. I cannot understand this breach of faith and I'm angered by it, as I believe other Americans were, but like other government-run horror shows it appears to have been easy to sweep under the rug.
I am one of those people who get a lump in their throat when they see an American flag backlit by the sun's rays. A sucker for icons, I get it when anyone plays the national anthem, even though I love "America the Beautiful" a thousand times better, or a color guard comes out onto a baseball field, or some jets fly over a memorial. The arresting sight of a string of motorcycle guards heading to a funeral to protect a grieving family from a bunch of evil nutcase protesters from a Topeka church makes me want to pull in line and follow them to their destination.
But I get downright weepy when I walk through the tombstones of Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, whether they mark the graves of Civil War soldiers, entire crews of planes shot down in World War II, or soldiers from other conflicts. And, even though some of the graves are for World War II and Vietnam vets from my own family, the the saddest to me are the newer graves of people who have died in recent wars.
I mourn those men and women who kept the wolf at bay.
And thank those who today still keep it from my door.
Hi, friends and neighbors. I am going to "leave" Vox in that I'm going to not post anything anymore, but I'm keeping the account to be able to comment.
I had fun in the beginning, but the community has become as polarized as the rest of the nation: good vs. bad. Trouble is, everyone thinks he or she is good and everyone who disagrees with him or her is bad.
I am a Christian, patriotic, and somewhat conservative. But that doesn't mean I think the rest of you are bound for Hell, America hating, or Socialist. I have some liberal views, and I have some conservative views; that makes me a moderate. But there doesn't appear to be any moderate discussion here. I have become increasingly frustrated and sometimes offended by remarks made against former President Bush, current President Obama, and recent Presidential candidate John McCain. I think some of the posts about McCain were especially worrisome to me, because both liberals and conservatives alike thought him too extreme. Odd.
I think perhaps my frustration with the idiocy reached its peak after reading a post comparing McCain's treatment at the hands of his torturers in Hanoi to the treatment he would receive at the hands of Obama during a Presidential debate.
If you post often enough, you pick up neighbors. I know this because, when I post, I get comments from people I don't know, and I get an e-mail that says they have added me to their neighborhood. It appears that some of you are collecting neighbors like Pepsi points. Seriously, do you win a prize at some point?
I just may not be Vox material. Although I'm not wearing a virtual trenchcoat and sunglasses, I don't post my picture or my family's names, or even my dog's name, and I don't use my full name. I don't post on my life, and I don't have a topic worth building a blog around it. So it leaves little to post about except sports (not a lot of you sports fans here) and politics (and I just mentioned the problem with that).
Plus, I'm not good about posting on a regular basis.
So.
Good luck with all your lives and loves. God bless you all.
See the rest of you in the Comments.
I have rarely been so happy over a non-St. Louis team winning a game.
The people who know about these things said it couldn't happen.
Boy, you gotta hand it to the Penguins. They've taken the Red Wings to seven games, but...they aren't gonna beat them at home.
Actually, they did.
They beat them at home.
It's kind of ironic, too. You know the Red Wings' fans -- not all of them, thank God -- like to throw octopus on the ice during games. There's a freaking tradition for you.
If the Blues ever make it the finals again, maybe we should thorw Mississippi River gar...
Or Clydesdale poop.
That's one reason I'm savoring the Penguins' win is because it gives me hope. If they can beat the f'ing Wings at home, there's hope for everyone. Even the Blues. The other reason is that I hate the Red Wings.
Love y'all in Detroit (especially you Tiger fans), but I hate the Wings.
So congratulations, you young Penguins, on winning the Stanley Cup.
This website has definitions and examples of malapropisms, mondegreens, oronyms and homophones, words and phrases that can confuse and can be created by confusion. It also has the classic fairy tale, Litttle Red Riding Hood, translated into Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, consisting of only homophones (words that sound like other words).
Another website, Anquish Lanquish, specializes in homophonic tales and songs by H. L. Chace, including the aforementioned Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
Here's the background on the tale straight from fun-with-words, and then the tale itself. Remember, it's better if you read it outloud and with a (really strong) southern accent because that's the accent he had in mind when he wrote it. It would contain different words if he wrote it using a Northeastern accent or a Midwestern accent, so don't all you Southerners get your undies in an uproar. (I mean, goodness, I still pronounce mostaccioli wrong, like every other St. Louisan.)
An Oronym Story – Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
...It is the tale of Little Red Riding Hood... but not the famous version; this one is constructed entirely from homophones: Ladle Rat Rotten Hut. This curious version was written in 1940 by a professor of French named H. L. Chace. He wanted to show his students that intonation is an integral part of the meaning of language. Try reading it out loud (best in the accent of Southern/Central USA)!
Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge, dock, florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry putty ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
Wan moaning, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut's murder colder inset, "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking tutor cordage offer groinmurder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! Dun stopper peck floors! Dun daily-doily inner florist, an yonder nor sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers!"
"Hoe-cake, murder," resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, an tickle ladle basking an stuttered oft. Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof. "Wail, wail, wail!" set disk wicket woof, "Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?"
"Armor goring tumor groin-murder's," reprisal ladle gull. "Grammar's seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles."
"O hoe! Heifer gnats woke," setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, "Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den - O bore!"
Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinney retched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner windrow, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. En inner flesh, disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet, paunched honor pore oil worming, an garbled erupt. Den disk ratchet ammonol pot honor groin-murder's nut cup an gnat-gun, any curdled ope inner bet.
Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough ball. "Comb ink, sweat hard," setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut entity betrum an stud buyer groin~murder's bet.
"O Grammar!" crater ladle gull historically, "Water bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!"
"Battered lucky chew whiff, sweat hard," setter bloat-Thursday woof, wetter wicket small honors phase.
"O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomolous prognosis!"
"Battered small your whiff, doling," whiskered dole woof, ants mouse worse waddling.
"O Grammar, water bag mouser gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse!"
Daze worry on-forger-nut ladle gull's lest warts. Oil offer sodden, caking offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disk hoard hoarded woof lipped own pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut an garbled erupt.
Mural: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers.
Tea And
It's a lovely story. The first time I read it out loud, I had to stop midway (about where Rat Rotten Hut tells the woof water bag ice he gut, because I was crayon and mat cheese were freezing from laughing so hard.
There is a lady who walks around the office humming all the time. She has a very pleasant voice, a nice timbre to it. If I had to guess, I would say she is a contralto, mezzo-soprano maybe. Not classically trained, of course, or she wouldn't be walking around our office, but she can carry a tune without a bucket.
If I'm in an area with her and she's humming, I often ask her what it is.
And she'll say, "oh, that's Brahm's Ein deutsches Requiem" or "a little piano sonata no. 5000 by Loodvig" or "the leitmotif for Senta in Der fliegende Hollander". Ha ha. Not really, but she will identify it rather clearly, and I nod and smile.
Today I was leaning against a wall, getting ready to go in to a meeting that was pretty important, and she stopped next to me.
She said, "what's that you're humming?", obviously returning the favor.
I had to think for a moment, and then I answered her.
"The tune from the Mr. Happy ice cream truck."
Move on, people. Nothing to see here.
This is absolutely amazing.
Well, this is one way...
Courtesy of Bookmole, I re-blogged this because (1) it's a beautiful song and the artists are so talented, and (2) I'm hoping that there is someone in the neighborhood who can identify most or all of them. I was pathetically unable to identify many.
C'mon Voxers, there's some music geek out there who can do it.
Like millions of other people, I am fascinated by pandas. They resemble humans in their movements and actions. Here is video of baby pandas playing together. Watch how they push each other like toddlers!
This is a repeat of a panda baby sneezing and startling her mother:
I truly think I could watch them forever. Give me a chair near their area and you go see the rest of the zoo. I'll be here when you get back.
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