Friday's Odds and Ends

As the political race heats up in Texas most of the candidates are waging war on Obama or fighting to stop his war on Texas. Ahem... I will repeat what I said a few weeks ago. Tell me what you are for, not what you are against, be respectful of the office of the president, and, please, could we make this a campaign, not a war?

I am proud of my home state of Texas for many things, but ugly rhetoric is not one of them.

While you are reading this, I will be heading to Killeen, Texas for the Take 190 West Art Festival, one thing in Texas of which I am very proud. This is the fourth year I will take part, and it is always such a great opportunity to be immersed in creativity for a whole day. The annual event is part of the Killeen Salutes the Arts program and it is all about the art of painting, sculpting, writing, firing, molding, and many other artistic expressions.

Take 190 West is Killeen’s week-long salute to the arts and is a partnership between the Killeen Convention and Visitors Bureau, the City of Killeen, and the Killeen Independent School District.
Planned events for 2014 include:

• The Artists’ Preview Party - On Friday Evening
• Book signings by local, state and nationally-known authors - On Saturday, March 1
• A sculpture contest featuring professional sculptors from Texas and beyond - March 1
• The KISD student Art Show. An invitation-only preview party will be held on Friday, February 28,2014 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

The Saturday event will be open to the public free of charge.

This photo is from last year's KISD student Art Show, which is one of the best things about the fair. There are some incredibly talented young folks in the district and the work is fantastic.

One half of the exhibit hall is dedicated to the students, and the professional artists have booths set up in the other half. I am always glad that my daughter comes with me to take care of my book table, so I can go see all the wonderful art.

The Killeen Convention Center is a beautiful venue for the festival, and the authors are set up in the entry hall. There will be lots of writers there with a great variety of books for young readers, and not so young readers.

If you live close enough to Killeen to come by on Saturday, I know you would enjoy this festival, and I would love to meet you.

My other big news is that the e-book for Stalking Season, the second book in the Seasons Mystery Series is now live at Amazon. As soon as I have time, when I am not busy rehearsing for a play, I will get it up for all reading devices. I will have the good folks at Untreed Reads do that, but I have to do some formatting before sending it on to them. Meanwhile Stalking Season is available for Kindle and all Kindle apps. Thanks to Dany Russell for another wonderful cover.

Now to end on some fun. The following was taken from Great Clean Jokes. Please do click on the link to see a picture of Mildred and her friend. They are a delight.

“My memory is gone Mildred, so I changed my password to 'Incorrect.' That way when I log in with the wrong password, the computer will tell me… 'Your password is incorrect.'"

Friday's Odds and Ends

 


       Happy Valentine's Day

Do you have special plans for the day - evening? I'm glad I have play rehearsal tonight so I won't  be alone.

Today is the last day for the sale at Untreed Reads where all romance titles are discounted 30% off. All categories of romance from sweet to sexy are offered, including my romance novel, Play It Again, Sam.  One of my favorites from Laura Parker, Rose of the Mists, is also part of this sale.

Have you been watching the Olympics? What are your favorite events in the winter games? Figure skating is always high on my list, as well as the ice-dancing. I always get a bit nostalgic, remembering when I used to do a bit of figure skating, and my brother and I would dance on roller skates at the neighborhood rink.  Those were good times.

Coverage of the events has included the complaints about conditions at event venues not being optimum, especially during the slopestyle snowboarding competition. Apparetnly accomodations for the athletes have not been optimum either. The following notice was given to the Olympics volunteers and staffers in Sochi: "Due to an extreme shortage of pillows for athetes who unexpectedly arrived to Olympic Village in the mountains, there will be a transfer of pillows from all apartments to the storehouse on 2 February 2014."

Huh? They weren't expecting the athletes?  If it's not too late, I have a few pillows to share.

Photo Courtesy of Alaska Sleep Clinic

The other day I heard a comment aimed toward politicians, "Remember, you are running for something not against someone, so you don't have to get ugly."

Someone ought to make a banner out of that and send it to every campaign headquarters to be prominently displayed. Campaigning has gotten increasingly ugly year after year, and right now I am getting so tired of hearing politicians in TX talk about "how they will fight Obama." I know plenty of people don't like him, specially here in TX, but could we please stop portraying him as the enemy? At the very least you could respect the office, and contrary to what some folks might think, he is not "waging a war on Texas." So politicians need to stop saying, "I will win the war against Obama."

Please stop.

I will vote for the first candidate for any Texas office who does not include the president's name in his or her campaign ad.

Now to end on a lighter note.  "Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they’re looking for ideas." ~Paula Poundstone

Friday's Odds and Ends

It was a bit scary to watch the national news last night and see how many tornadoes formed over the last 24 hours across the country. I think the total number was 150. I don't know if we are seeing more tornado activity than in the past, or we are simply getting more news of storms because people can use their cell phones to capture images and send them to news sources.

This is the kind of wall cloud that often spawns tornadoes.

Some areas of Oklahoma were hit again last night, although not as severely as Moore, OK. That is one bit of good news. Tornadoes also touched down in Arkansas, but so far there are no reports of deaths or critical injuries from any of the storms last night. But we are not out of the woods yet, as the old cliche goes. The weather service's Storm Prediction Center is forecasting a moderate chance of severe weather in parts of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas and Missouri today. 

Also a bit scary is the extremist who is protecting his right to bear arms by sending poisoned threats to New York Mayer Bloomberg and President Obama. Right. You want people to seriously consider leaving you alone with your weapons when you don't seem to have any control over your reactions? Right after Mayor Bloomberg went public with a call for more gun control following the school shooting in Connecticut last December, people started protesting his stance, and the protests have been anything but civil. Some of the comments made were personal attacks, calling the mayor a “nanny statist fascist” and another person dared him to “come and personally take my guns.”

Wordage in the letters sent to the mayor and to a gun-control advocacy group is equally combative. “You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns,” the letters said. “What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for you.”

I support gun rights and do believe that law-abiding people in the U.S. should be able to have weapons if they so choose. What I don't support are these fringe elements that don't seem to know the right way to ensure those rights. It is not by threats and violent stand-offs.

Now for a bit of fun. A recent B.C. cartoon featured a new spring flower that pops up in the first panel saying, "I have spring action roots."

In the next panel a bee approaches with a weapon and says, "Hand over the nectar, Springie."

Then a woman pulls up the flower and starts taking off petals while saying, "He loves me, he loves me not. He Loves me."

She tosses what is left of the flower and a dinosaur comes along, sniffs the plants, then stomps on it. The flower is left thinking, "Spring is a whirlwind of emotion."

Okay, maybe it was a lot cuter when you could see the dinosaur stomping, the bee threatening, and the lady pulling off petals.

Life Lesson from the character Grady Service in Ice Hunter by Joseph Heywood, "Relationships are either going forward or backward."

Let's All Take a Break

The latest political news has Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama declining public funding for his campaign. He says because of problems with the system, but some political analysts say the reason has more to do with the fact that by declining to participate in public funding, Obama can raise double the $85 million that is the most allowed in the public funding system.

$170 million dollars on a political campaign?

Oh, wait. That is only part of the total to be spent between now and November because on the Republican side, John McCain will raise at least $85 million. So at a minimum, $255 million is going to be spent buying votes. I don't know what you think, but I think that is obscene, especially because that is on top of the millions that have already been spent on the primaries.

I briefly thought I would like to know what the total is that all candidates spent since the primaries began, but decided my blood pressure is better off not knowing.

Here's a novel idea. Why don't we all take a break from politics. Gosh, it's not like we don't know everything we need to know about these candidates after years of the primary campaign.

Okay, it was only one year, but it felt like twenty.

The candidates could take a two month break and rest up for the last big push in September and October. And instead of wasting $255 million dollars, maybe each candidate spends about $10 million in those two months on national advertising.

And in those ads, they can tell us what they are going to do about key issues like the war in Iraq, the budget, health care, global warming, and revamping the political system so it doesn't pander to special interest.

It was once said that anyone could grow up to be president of the United States. Maybe that was true in the late 1800's, but not any more. You have to grow up to be incredibly rich first.

Please Don't Do It, Mr. Obama

Dear Barack,

I hope it's not too forward of me to call you by your given name, but you seem like a friendly sort of guy, and you just might be our next president, here in these good old United States, so I'm confident the familiarity is okay.

First, let me congratulate you on you historic win this week to receive the Democratic Nomination for President. I am pleased that you were able to overcome some of the efforts to smear your name and your reputation via e-mail and the Internet, as well as inferences made because of your association with certain churches and certain pastors. Gosh, when a person throws his or her hat into the political ring all kinds of crap crops up.

Now, to the reason I'm writing. I know there is a huge - as in gargantuan - push for you to chose Hillary as your running mate, and I hope it is not too late for me to ask you please not to do that. There are a number of people who registered to vote and voted for you in the primaries because they DO NOT WANT HILLARY CLINTON OR BILL CLINTON associated with the White House again.

The Clinton Presidency was hardly a stellar one for integrity and morality and a lot of folks don't want to see them back in any position of power.

Beyond the Monica issue, there were so many other instances where they were accused of not conducting business ethically, that they have lost the trust of the American people. At least a lot of the American people I've been talking to.

They, the Clinton's, are like children who have varnished the truth so much, it's hard for a parent to believe anything they say.

Hillary is a smart, and probably very qualified person on many levels for the VP slot, but, as many political analysts are saying, she brings way too much baggage with her. So I'm asking you - pleading with you - not to cave in to the pressure from the media and the party. You have run an amazing campaign with "change" as your cornerstone, so let's really have change.

Why not ask Ron Paul to be your VP? He has a tremendous grass roots support and is a man of incredible integrity. And I think it would be a courageous move on your part to cross party lines and truly do something for the good of the people.

Just something to think about...

Sincerely,
Maryann Miller