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John Maxwell

Michael McLeod

Birds of a feather.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Jack,  where did you post a video? 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Shout-out to Bon Jonas......thanks for posting this on Facebook!

God Bless America and God Bless the Ohio State Buckeyes Marching Band!

https://www.10tv.com/article/watch-ohio-state-marching-band-one-giant-leap-halftime-show-2019-oct

James Hamilton, M. D.

MM and Bonnie,

Thanks for that video of the OSU Marching Band. It is amazing how they can do such choreographed maneuvers! The are definitely the best!

Jim

James Hamilton, M. D.

Fall Is Too Short!

Autumn officially began less than 2 weeks ago today. It is my favorite season but it is way too brief! I just checked the weather on NOAA for this coming week. Our low temperature on Thursday is predicted to be 22 degrees F with snow "flurries" here in Colorado Springs; in Estes Park, 12 degrees and more snow.

On Friday I was up in the Cripple Creek/Victor mining district for my last chance to photograph the changing aspen trees. This is ~10,000 feet in elevation. It was a perfect day and the aspens there were at the peak of their color:

However, the winds were quite brisk and with every puff the leaves were falling like snowflakes:

The wind gusts were even stronger yesterday and  today and I believe that my timing was perfect since I suspect by tonight most of the trees will be bare and prepared for the oncoming winter. Timing is essential when seeking out these colors and this year I lucked out.

As a "Look Back to Autumn" I clicked off a frame that says it all: (I have shared this shot with a few of you on other venues so pardon the repetition!)

Have a great week,

Jim

Lawrence Foster

Jim - I like those new pics of yours, thanks for posting them.  

Yesterday I went through some boxes and found an item I hadn't seen in years.  And obviously I was a good little boy because you can see that I never burned the candle at both ends!   Just saying...   

Since we went to Catholic schools I thought this would be the best place to share it.  The note from 1955 is in my mother's handwriting.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Jim, beautiful photos that capture the essence of fall.  Larry, what a treasured keepsake....especially your Mom's note.

I was blessed to have spent last week at the ocean, enjoying the majesty of God's creation....Carolina blue skies, gorgeous sunrises, amazing sunsets and soft ocean breezes.  The meme below particularly resonated with me, not only because Ohio had 90 degree temps last week and this morning it was 55 degrees, but particularly because an hour into our trip with my daughter drving  just as we approached Athens and the OU exit, we noticed red, white, blue flashing lights behind us.  Apparently, the speed limits go up and down along a small stretch of highway and we missed the change from 70 mph to 55 mph.  Result.....$150 donation to Athens County!!!  

John Maxwell

Mark Schweickart

Larry – What the heck was a First Communion candle? Was that a thing? Obviously it was, since you have one, but I don't recall having one, nor can I imagine how it was used. It looks a little big to be something one would have carried during the ceremony.

Tangentally related, I do have a recollection of an ordeal concerning my first Confession. As you all probably remember, we were drilled for a few weeks prior to the event about what to expect, and it was made sure that we had memorized the Act of Contrition. The thing that threw me was the opening line where we were instructed to say, "Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee...." At that age, I was unaware of the word "heartily" and thought I was supposed to say, " Oh my God, I am hardly sorry for having offended Thee...." This just didn't seem right to me, but that is what Sister Clotine (?) had been drilling us with, so who was I to judge? However, just to be safe, before entering the confessional, I said a little pre-prayer to let God know I was in fact truly sorry, and not hardly sorry, as I was about to proclaim.

And boy, those sins of a six year-old, they must have been whoppers. I wouldn't want to be a priest on the receiving end of first Confession day. His ears must have been on fire.

David Mitchell

Not sure how good your "Buckeye memories" are, but I just saw something fun on the Monday Night football game between the 49'ers, and the Browns. 

Former OSU standout and rookie LB for San Francisco - NIck Bosa -  just sacked Browns QB Baker Mayfield, then got up, celebrating his sack and made a motion like he was waving a flag, eventually planting it in the ground  - with emphasis!

A memory of a bad night a few years ago in the "shoe" with Oklahoma. 

David Mitchell

Note: I wrote a much more offensive post than this and pulled it - cleaned it up          - A LOT

But I just cannot let this one go.

Tonight, I am sad for my country.

As a Conservative who loves to disagree with Conservatives, and a Christian who loves to call out "Christians", I would normally be the last person on earth to agree with Pat Roberston.

But we are about to sell the brave, loyal Kurdish people's down the river into a certain genocide at the hands of another one of our great leader's buddies - Mr. Erdogan.

And at least Robertson is speaking out about it. I may not be down with his "mandate from heaven" nonsense, but my God - isn't this enough to finally draw out some of the cowardly Republicans who have been trembling in fear, and hiding behind the water cooler all this time?

The ring of toilet scum is really floating to the top now. This is the height of cowardice and betrayal.  

There will be blood.

The Kurds will be anihilated!  Or driven onto al-Assad's camp - amazing!

And we will all still have to face our grandchildren.  

sorry - but it really hurts

David Mitchell

Maybe there is some light in the darkness.

The Pope is actually discussing married priests with a gathering of South American bishops.

Shortages of priests in the Amazon regions are critical. Reality runs deep.

Michael McLeod

I'm with you on abandoning allies, Dave.

This isn't the first time we've done it, either.

War sucks, always.

It sucks in a whole different way without honor.

John Jackson

Building on Dave’s and Mike’s posts, here’s a really good article from The Atlantic about what the generals think about Trump.  The author has been The Atlantic’s chief military correspondent for more than 30 years.  The tagline for the article is “The Commander-in-Chief is impulsive, disdains expertise, and gets his intelligence briefings from Fox News.  What does this mean for those on the front lines?”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/military-officers-trump/598360/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20191007&silverid-ref=NTkxOTM2Nzg4MTQzS0

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

John J .

In reference to this sentence quoted from the article, "In 20 years of writing about the military, I have never heard officrs in high positions express such alarm about a president."   

 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/obama-vs-the-generals-099379

I have read the Atlantic article.  I also read an article from the editors of the National Review who also disagree with Trump's decision to begin withdrawing troops from Syria.  I then read an article with a differing point of view. 

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/10/08/critics-aghast-as-trump-keeps-word-about-no-more-wars-n2554328

The author of the article, a retired Army infantry colonel with a degree from the Army War College,writes;

"Conservatives like me still think of ourselves as hawks, but after hard experience we have learned to be hawkish only where America's interests are directly at stake."......."Fighting for the Kurds would not be immoral.  It's a good cause, but we can't intervene every time there's a good cause.  Iraq was a good cause, and a disaster.  Our troops will do everything we ask of them and more.  They will lay down their lives for this cause if we send them.  And that's the point.  We owe our men and women in uniform the moral courage to make the hard decision not to fight, even when we see a grievous wrong unfolding, where there is no compelling national interest and no clear objective.  We can't garrison Syria forever.  We can't right every wrong around the globe."

The questions for me are:  Is there a compelling national interest to remain in Syria?  And what obectives are we attempting to achieve and for how long?

James Hamilton, M. D.

I have been trying to stay out of political discussions but where the military is involved I find that hard to do. Having worked as a civilian for over 30 years (and still do as a volunteer) for the Army, I developed some strong feelings on what kinds of operations should involve placing our military in combat situations.

Yes, I read both John's and MM's articles and my views aligned with what were MM's questions at the end of her post. To commit our military to harm's way we do need to consider American interests, defined objectives and some measure of length of time. Also if we have binding treaties with involved nations and the cost (financial, human life and destruction).

But what I would mostly like to see, if we are to enter into battle, is a Declaration of War. The last time the US declared  war was WWII. And we won that one. Since then we have gotten involved in many "wars", "conflicts", "actions" and other fights which have resulted in many American deaths and casualties but with little or no significant help to our country or even the world. FDR, a Democrat, felt it was wrong to send troops to war without such a declaration. Declaration of War implies and demands true commitment on the part of our government. I do belive war should have been declared against the terrorists and those who harbored them after 9-11 but it never was.

This is an opinion that I have had for many years and is all I will say on this topic. You all may choose to agree or disagree and may quote whatever literature you want. I doubt I will change anyone's mind nor will anyone change mine. ​​​​​​

We have debated many hot topics on this Forum  and I don't think we have come to much agreement on any of them. But, go ahead and discuss them as I always enjoy reading all of your thoughts and arguments. By the way, were any of you who opine on these topics on our high school debate team? Some of you should have been. 

Jim 

​​​​

John Jackson

I’m sympathetic to the argument that we can’t intervene everywhere all the time.  But rather than making blanket statements, I think you have to look at each situation on its own merits.  

First let’s consider the cost –  we only deployed about 1000 troops to Syria, small in comparison to the 14,000 currently in Afghanistan (down from a high of more than 100,000), and miniscule compared to the 130,000 who invaded Iraq in 2003. 

Then let’s look at the benefits - the Kurds, not the U.S military, are the force that actually defeated ISIS (mostly in bloody house-to-house combat), losing 10,000 of their fighters in comparison to U.S casualties of less than 10.  And today the Kurds are guarding roughly 10,000 captured ISIS fighters who likely will escape and regroup if the Turks, who have always turned a blind eye to ISIS, move into Syria and slaughter the Kurds. 

Counting up the costs and benefits, I'd say our alliance with the Kurds has given us a lot more bang for our buck than just about anything else we’ve done - our alliance with the Kurds has yielded the most unambiguous win for American foreign policy in a long, long time.  And now we're going to throw them, and their families, to the wolves.

For Trump apologists, the near-universal condemnation Trump has received from members of his own party (from what I can tell Rand Paul is the only outlier) ought to be another indication of how flippant and ill-considered this decision was.   The only thing that has prevented a near unanimous Senate resolution of disapproval is that Congress is not in session this week.

But this is the most important point – if, as you say, your goal is truly to minimize deployment of our own troops overseas, we need to form effective coalitions with others, like the Kurds, who share our interests and values.  By stabbing the Kurds in the back, Trump is showing the world that the U.S. is a fickle and completely unreliable partner, and his (and probably our) future success in getting others to help us (and do some or even all of the heavy lifting as the Kurds did) is toast.

Anyone who wants to should of course respond, but I’ll say no more in the interest of preventing the Forum from being monopolized by political topics.

Michael McLeod

I'm afraid I don't have time to read over all the articles mentioned but I hope they noted - and please bear this in mind if they did not - the methodical and at this point well-documented torture and execution campaign Bashar al-Assad's henchmen have been conducting for years. I'll not post any stories about it but if there is one place in the world where we as a country and as human beings owe a debt to our own conscience to intervene, it's Syria.  I'm not necessarily talking about military intervention or taking sides with one nation or the other here, by the way. 

It may strike some as idealistic, the notion that it is our responsibility as a nation to intervene when inhumane activities elsewhere are apparent. But I grew up thinking that's who we were.  

Michael McLeod

In line with Jim's concern that we're going to turn into debate club gone wild, I'll also post what I came here to post.

I had another weird dream last night. I think I may have posted a while back that I dreamed that Warren Zevon turned up at the writing class I teach.

This one was just as bizarre:

I dreamed I had a great girlfriend and Dave Mitchell stole her.

I kid you not.

I have teased Dave in the past about how many girls he went out with in high school and yes I am a little jealous -- but I had not thought about it for weeks and it's just fun to needle him a bit about it; I don't take it seriously at all and I certainly hope that he doesn't -- so why on earth that was in my sleeping brain I'll never know.

As for details of the dream: there was a mansion involved which I can't describe (I don't have details like that in my dreams). I went to that mansion which I guess was Dave's to confront him about stealing my lady away, and left in despair, knowing it was over. Whoever she was, I really liked her - that emotion was vivid in me when I awoke.

I had a lovely date last night with my significant other and that is the one thing that I know influenced the dream - my affection for her. She's really amazing, by the way. I lucked out. Boy did I ever.

Now maybe Jim can weigh in if he wants for a scientific view of why we dream what we dream but my laymen view is that it's like our neurons are all drunk and slurring their words as they stagger around at a party that is a little bit out of control, telling stories and making up stuff that they wouldn't dare to conceive of or talk about if they weren't all a little tipsy.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Mike, I am definitely not an expert on dreams, especially on their content.

That being said, from my limited Psychiatry experience in medicine, dreaming occurs during Phase IV sleep (also known as REM or Rapid Eye Movement sleep) which is the deepest and most restorative level. So Mike, you were sleeping well and that is good. Some people seldom reach that depth. REM's sleep is someting that happens in cycles during our sleep so it comes and goes several times during the night - or day if one chooses. What is interesting is that we may dream during each REM episode but we will only recall the latest dream when we awaken.​​​​​

Isn't this more fun than discussing politics??!!

Sweet dreams, classmates, 

Jim  

Michael McLeod

Thanks Jim.

In the meantime it's too bad these people in northeastern Syria can't weigh in on our discussion. And should we return to debate club mode, these sites are very important:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/true-5-factchecking-websites/

Rights groups and anti-war activists warned of a looming "humanitarian catastrophe" Wednesday as Turkish forces invaded northeastern Syria and launched airstrikes against Kurdish targets, forcing civilians to flee in panic.

The attack comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump gave his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a green light to begin the operation by announcing the abrupt withdrawal of American forces from northeastern Syria.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) warned in a statement Wednesday that Turkey's assault "will spill the blood of thousands of innocent civilians because our border areas are overcrowded."

On Twitter, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali accused Turkey of deliberately targeting "civilian areas."

Janie Albright (Blank)

A note and reminder to be civil to our friends and classmates. :)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ellen-degeneres-defends-george-w-bush-friendship-cowboys-game-tweets-monologue-2019-10-08/
 

David Mitchell

I had a few days of internet issues and could not join in to this duscussion. Maybe best I didn't.

Some excellent comments but I am baffled by the insertion of the long article about Obama's "ambivelance" and the disagreements with the military. When has that NOT been so?  And you left out the part about Bush Jr's collossal bumbling of the First Afghan incursion, and the whole Iraqui mess (based as we now know, on a totally fabricated "Letter" that Colin Powell was forced to read before the UN). I really don't fault Bush Jr.on that ons so much as his "3 (devious) Amigos" - Messers Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove. 

And who would argue with your concern about trying to be the world's policeman and getting into these "forever wars". 

But what do those arguements have to do with my main point, (and so glad to have John add some pertinent info on ths one.)

I can't argue with your concern about getting into these messes, or even which ones we pick, and which ones we don't.

But we are already in this one! - - Those questions are for some other situation now.

We asked for their help. They gave it in spades. Not not only gave it, they threw themselves into it and have carried most of the burden, and born most of the cost in lives - (did I read somewhere they have lost 11,000 of their own in this?).

And as Mike mentiond, this isn't the first time we hung the Kurds out to dry (after the first Gulf War) 

This has nothing whatsoever to do with evaluations of whether or not we should or should not have gootten into this one.

WE ARE ALREADY IN IT!

John's point about the Kurds currently holding 10,000 captured ISIS fighters may be the single most frightening aspect at the moment. Think about that - letting go of 10,00 ISIS fighters while they fight for their own lives!

But we also just hung out a sign saying "So Long Suckers - any of you stupid countries thinking our word was good and our pedges will be kept - you go on with your bad selves!"

(this is an old record I hear playing - Vietnam - Iraq ,,,,,)

To summarize my first post again - the word is B E T R A Y A L  

David Mitchell

BTW Mike, 

What did you say your lady friend's name was - and when can I meet her? 

She sounds quite attractive.

p.s. Janie, I like Ellen too.