Now, an elite branch of the U.S. Marine Corps will officially be known as Raiders.
The Marines will rename several special operations units as Marine Raiders at a ceremony Friday, resurrecting a moniker made famous by World War II units that carried out risky amphibious and guerrilla operations. The exploits of the original Marine Raiders — who pioneered tactics used by present-day special forces — were captured in books and movies including “Gung Ho!” in 1943 and “Marine Raiders” in 1944.
From PJ Media: First, let’s get the obvious out of the way. “Game of Thrones” is not art. It is “Dungeons and Dragons” crossed with Playboy magazine, with a dash of “Days of Our Lives” thrown in. The plot is meandering and often pointless, the dialogue is tedious and sometimes predictable, the acting is mostly wooden, and the only thing that keeps much of the audience from tuning out is the prospect of a shapely actress doing the Full Monty. Most of the things that make science fiction and fantasy absorbing are diminished or absent in “Game of Thrones”. If you ever wondered what would have happened if Hugh Hefner had tried to make “Lord of the Rings”, you need not wonder any longer.
Perfect, thank you. This exactly expresses my embarrassment in having actually spent money procuring (and in this instance I really think “Procuring” is the correct word) GOT over the last four years.
The article linked is actually from 2013, so then having gone two more years deeper into the pit is slightly embarrassing. The turning point for me was the vicious murder of the character Jon Snow. It was then that I realized the pattern of degrading and/or killing off the most noble and virtuous characters on the show. It is not “Heroic Fantasy” it is “Perversion of the Innocent: part two”.
Whatever warm feelings I harbored for George R.R. Martin from his 80’s series “Beauty and the Beast”, are quite, quite gone.
+Mary’s Memorial will be next Wednesday, June 17th at 4pm.
105 Center St, Pembroke, MA (781) 293-2584
On May 27th my Aunt, Mary Margaret Cahill passed away at South Shore Hospital after a short bout of heart disease at the age of eighty.
Born in 1934 in Squantum_(Quincy,_Massachusetts) to a poor Irish family, Mary suffered a brain injury at birth and was (to most peoples observation) cognitively limited. She never had a job, or got married. Brought up in a Catholic School for Girls, she was only taught to wash, iron and sweep. In the best moment of their lives, my parents took her out of that place and made a place for her in their family a year after they married. In doing so they rescued her from a cruel life alone and without love. It was not an easy decision. At first, Mary was undernourished and very frightened. My mother has told me that at first she had to be shown how to get ready for bed and to take a shower. Showers were not something that she had had access to. When I looked at Mary’s height, 5ft tall, I saw a person much shorter than anyone else in the family. I saw someone that did not get the milk and protein that a human being needs to grow to their full size. I saw a poor hungry child abandoned by her parents and judged by her guardians to be undeserving of the basic goods of life, health and strength.
But in her was a generous spirit. In her was all the generosity of the most beneficent Millionaire. Even better. If a thousand dollars to a rich person is a small portion of their wealth, then a few dollars to Mary was at times all she had and she would happily give it to you if she thought you needed it. Perhaps we who were her friends and family can claim some bit of credit for Mary’s open and generous heart, if we helped to provide for her or to give her a safe haven.
Stories of Mary’s love and friendliness abound. There is a saying, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Mary thought we all deserved her love. Blessed were those that accepted that love.
There are so many!
A few Christmases ago, Mary’s niece (my sister Kristina) and her partner brought Mary to their towns Christmas celebration at the town square. A State road ran through the center of the square and there were things to do on both sides of the road. To safely provide for the passage of revelers from one side of the road to the other a town policeman stood in the middle of the road directing traffic. Well, if you or I see a cop in the middle of the street with his arms outstretched, palms up. We understand that he is directing traffic. Mary looked at him and decided that he wanted a hug. So before either my sister or Cheryl could react, Mary was off the sidewalk and into the road. The startled Police Officer looked down and there was a little old lady attached to him, arms wrapped around him and smiling.
When (after almost fifty years) my mother and Mary could no longer live alone in the old family home in Pembroke, I brought them to Weymouth to live with me. Shortly after arriving in Weymouth, while I was at work, Mary decided to check out my bureau drawers. You see, Mary had been helping with the laundry for sixty years and particularly she had been putting away my fathers clothes in his bureau until he died. So Mary looked into my drawers and determined that this was all wrong! So she “rearranged” things to emulate my fathers bureau drawers. When I got home and some time afterwards I showered and wanted to change clothes. I opened a drawer to get some socks and . . .
I eventually give up and got used to the way Mary had arranged things. What could I do?
Did I mention that Mary liked to iron? When she got bored and didn’t have enough to do, she ironed my underwear. That was strange.
Before her heart disease became an issue, Mary liked to walk in the park next to the house. I had given her a key to the house because she didn’t always let us know when she was going out for a walk. If we had to go out and lock up, we wanted her to be able to get back in. I was stunned to find out that Mary had never had a key to the house that she lived in. In Pembroke I don’t think the doors were ever locked. But the problem remained, Mary didn’t know how to use a house key. So I gave her her own key, with a wrist bracelet to put it on. Then there was getting her used to taking it with her whenever she went out. Plus she had to learn how to use it. For a few weeks, whenever Mary left the house and I saw she had not taken her key but she had left the door unlocked. I locked the door and waited for her to return. She tried the door, walking around the porch and trying each door in turn until she would have to ring the doorbell. Then she and I would have a “little discussion” on taking her key whenever she went outside. One day she left the house and I saw that she HAD taken her key. I immediately locked the doors and waited. Mary returned and found the door locked. I was waiting on the other side of the door and listened as she tried the door latch then a short pause as she procured her key and fumbled with the lock for a minute until she was successful in unlocking the door. I retreated out of sight before she came in. But I was so proud of her.
One day on one of her walks in the park, two well-meaning women encountered Mary. She loved to approach people walking their dogs and if she thought that the dog would be friendly she ask the owner if she could pet them. But these women became alarmed for some reason tried to question Mary. But Mary could become agitated if questioned and become unable to answer any question. So, while in sight of our house, they called 911 and Mary was transported to the local hospital to be examined. An hour later as I began to wonder where she was at, having called some of her friends in the neighborhood and not locating her, a Weymouth Police Officer came to the door. I went up the ER and found her sitting happily on a gurney with a can of ginger ale and watching the coming and goings of everyone with great interest. That little excursion cost MassHealth about two thousand dollars. Afterwards I made up a ID badge for her to wear when she went out. She loved it.
One story that my mother still remembers, vividly, is from when all us kids were very young and so was Mary. Two or three families went down to Cape Cod in the summer and rented one house into which all the mothers and the kids were stuffed in together. The fathers worked in the city and came out on the weekend. We kids thought it was funny that the daddies had to share a narrow bed with the mommies, we were unfamiliar with vertical stacking. But everyone was young, especially the young couples and the mommies and the daddies had been separated all week. The first weekend came around and the men arrived, there was BBQ and softball and swimming at the nearby beach. Then that first night after everyone went to bed it was discovered that it was a mistake to give Mary a bedroom on the first floor, directly under the bedroom of one of the young married couples. Around midnight, the whole house was awoken by poor, innocent Mary. She had gone upstairs and was pounding on the door of their bedroom and yelling in alarm “Are you alright S****? I could hear you crying and screaming downstairs, are you sick?”. Immediate changes were made in the room assignments and at no time for the duration of the summer was Mary’s room located underneath any married couples bedroom.
Mary always took a great interest in everything, especially the people around her.
I may add to this but what I would really like would be for the people who knew her to have an opportunity to read what I’ve put down so far and comment. Especially I’d like them to add to this in the comments about what they remember about Mary. Update: Disappointing lack of response, tomorrow I need to give the minister doing her eulogy what we want to be remembered about her.
Mary’s Memorial will be next Wednesday, June 17th at 4pm.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. , are either eliminating or considering paring back a service once seen as essential to bank workers as calculators and business cards, said people familiar with the banks.
Bank executives said that, in a world dominated by email and instant messaging, phone messages are an expensive and unnecessary legacy from a bygone era when sensitive documents were sent via fax and offices buzzed with young workers chatting on their headsets.
My judgement on the sparse likelihood of finding another job in “Legacy” Telephone System seems to have been correct. Add another item to the “I never thought I’d see the day” column.
So Texting (which I hate) is the winner. I refuse to text, or to receive texts. Which infuriates some people I know, such as my sister (which is a plus :-) . Voice Mail, containing the actual voice of the sending party can not just deliver the message but the emotional state and attitude of the sender. I used to get voice mails from my wife inquiring about when I’d be home, then I’d get the voice mail that (had that tone of voice) that would induce me to head for home, quick. I look at a future that replaces phonic conversation and voice mail with Texting as one more nail in the coffin of human interaction.
I think a lot of working mothers will hate it when their voice mail box is banished. Then they will have to either talk to their kids, interrupting the workday, or rely on the text messages that will not, as reliably, trigger the mothers instinct that their little darling is up to something.
Then I remember a little problem that an office manager called me about from Buffalo. Seems that one of the secretary’s had been let go and the manager was clearing out her mailbox and so discovered that the girl had been running another business using her (direct dial) company voice mailbox. The office manager was encountering one message after another from different gentlemen who were requesting various services from the departed employee. Some of the messages were quite descriptive in their requests. She wanted to know how to delete all the messages without listening to them. I told her how, but I (and my team) offered to screen those messages for her.
So another piece of human interaction is going away. Making it easier for the Robot Takeover to replace us human beings without anyone being the wiser.
Good luck with that!
PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING!
Red Fridays.
Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the ‘silent majority.’ We are no longer silent, and are voicing our lovefor God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.
by Kent Nerburn
Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living. One time I arrived in the middle of the night for a pick up at a building that was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window.
Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, then drive away. But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself. So I walked to the door and knocked.
“Just a minute,” answered a frail, elderly voice.
I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase.
The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.
“Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness.
“It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.”
“Oh, you’re such a good boy,” she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, “Could you drive through downtown?”
“It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.”
I looked in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were glistening.
“I don’t have any family left,” she continued. “The doctor says I don’t have very long.”
I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. “What route would you like me to take?” I asked.
For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.
As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, “I’m tired. Let’s go now.”
We drove in silence to the address she had given me.
It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.
“How much do I owe you?” she asked, reaching into her purse.
“Nothing,” I said.
“You have to make a living,” she answered.
“There are other passengers.”
Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.
“You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,” she said. “Thank you.”
I squeezed her hand, then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.
I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly, lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?
On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life. We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware – beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.
US vets risk all to fight ISIS with Kurdish forces
“There’s evil in this world that needs to be dealt with,”
– Kurt, US volunteer fighting alongside Kurdish PeshPmerga
Pity that man isn’t running for President.
While the help from Western volunteers is welcomed by the Kurds, many more Westerners have chosen to fight with ISIS, an irony not lost of Kurdish Brig. Gen. Aris Kadhr of the 9th Brigade.
“Most of the people from your countries who have come to volunteer with the Peshmerga have come to fight the people from your countries who have joined ISIS,” Kadhr told FoxNews.com.
It’s been very obvious that Obama and his people running our government, don’t understand …EVIL.
Only two of the approximately 600 Western girls and young women who have joined extremists in Syria are known to have made it out of the war zone. By comparison, as many as 30 percent of the male foreign fighters have left or are on their way out, according to figures from European governments that monitor the returns.
In interviews, court documents and public records, The Associated Press has compiled a detailed picture of European girls and young women who join extremists such as the Islamic State group — a decision that is far more final than most may realize.
The girls are married off almost immediately, either in Turkey or just after crossing into Syria. With an estimated 20,000 foreign fighters — among them 5,000 Europeans — in Syria, there is no shortage of men looking for wives. Once among the jihadis, the women are not permitted to travel without a male chaperone or a group of other women and must remain fully covered outside, according to material published by Islamic State and researchers who follow the group. Otherwise, they risk a lashing or worse.
The 26-page UN report, which found that the Islamic State has committed “gross human rights abuses and acts of violence of an increasingly sectarian nature,” in Iraq and Syria, noted that ISIS also has been selling young teenage boys in its slave markets.
The report found that the group was operating two sex slave markets, one based in Mosul in Iraq and another in Raqqa, Syria.
Besides the Yazidis, the report claimed that it had confirmed information that a large majority of captives sold in the slave markets also comprised of women and children from Christian, Turkmen and Shabak Shi’a communities.
EVIL is as evil does…
As the Daily Surge notes, recent reports by human rights groups reveal brutal sexual assaults and unlivable conditions for slaves under ISIS. Some Yazidi women actually prefer suicide to slavery, leading the jihadis to confiscate the head scarves that the young women use to hang themselves.
The Dabiq columnist argues that the real human rights atrocities are prostitutes working in the West:
“A prostitute in your lands comes and goes, openly committing sin. She lives by selling her honor, within the sight and hearing of the deviant scholars from whom we don’t hear even a faint sound.
As for the slave-girl that was taken by the swords of men following the cheerful warrior… then her enslavement is in opposition to human rights and copulation with her is rape?! What is wrong with you?”
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska — Staff Sgt. David Cornell is taking full advantage of a new congressional bill which passed last week, officially ending the military’s ban on nudists serving openly in the ranks. The bill was passed with the full support of both parties and enthusiastically signed by President Obama, although a similar bill allowing […]
National improvements in the crime rate, slow and difficult improvement made over the last twenty years, gone in six months. The coordinated attacks on Law Enforcement and abandonment of the successful programs that reduced urban crime and violence have had this effect.
And worse, much worse is to come.
A 2014 California voter initiative has retroactively downgraded a range of property and drug felonies to misdemeanors, including forcible theft of guns, purses and laptops. More than 3,000 felons have already been released from California prisons, according to the Association of Deputy District Attorneys in Los Angeles County. Burglary, larceny and car theft have surged in the county, the association reports.
“There are no real consequences for committing property crimes anymore,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Armando Munoz told Downtown News earlier this month, “and the criminals know this.” The Milwaukee district attorney, John Chisholm, is diverting many property and drug criminals to rehabilitation programs to reduce the number of blacks in Wisconsin prisons; critics see the rise in Milwaukee crime as one result.
The Department of Justice is concentrating on “far-right” groups in a new study of social media usage aimed at combating violent extremism.
The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded Michigan State University $585,719 for the study, which was praised by Eric Holder, the former attorney general, earlier this year.
Well, hello there! I should wear a tie, it seems I’m being watched. I think I’m beginning to understand how the Jews felt in Nazi Germany in the thirties.
Incidentally, “Far Right” equals “Traditional American Values”. Or didn’t you know that?
Marine Beaches in Massachusetts
“The energy needed to refute BS is of an order of magnitude greater than the effort needed to produce the BS in the first place. ”
Brandolini’s law
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