Back home

The operation went well. From check-in to check-out about four hours. The daughter is resting and I am standing by to see to her needs (whims?)

Hospi-blogging this morning.

The youngest daughter is in surgery. They're doing an exploritory laparoscopy to see what might be causing her chronic pain. At twenty two, she should be too young for stuff like that. It has always amazed me how some people can go through life with little or no problems, and some others seem to be plauged with one thing after another. This is the third time she has been in surgery (not to mention three broken bones) while I'm 59 and have never been an inpatient.

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Back to LunchBlogging.

I am getting so disgusted with people spouting their particular political views without backing them up with facts. Even more disgusting is that so many other people are willing to swallow that crud at face value. i'd love to make Mein Kampf required reading in High School. Way back in the prehistoric age of 1969, I attended S.E.R.E. school prior to arriving in Vietnam. The first assignment we had was to study Chairman Mao's Red Book. The idea was that the best way to defeat your enemy was to understand his thoughts and methods. Our increasingly leftist educators will never teach about the great propagandist's methods, because to do so would reveal themselves to their students. I have no problems with people who have leftist leanings (heck, I've got some socialist tendancies myself.) What gets my goat is presenting your views in a dishonest fashion. My Liberal friends (and I do have many--in this town, its unavoidable unless you want to be a hermit) will invariably cut straight to the "Double D" treatment of anyone in the Administration--demonization and derision, rather than honestly debate the underlying philosophy of the issue at hand. It seems to me that most of them think at their political beliefs are "proven" rather than just another point of view. That said, I have to admit that any number of right-leaning people are just as guilty of the same behavior. Too many people seem to be afraid of exposing their assumptions to scrutiny.

Well, lunch is over, so I must crawl back into my hole.

/rant

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Just So You'll Know Where I Stand

Flag Burning Amendment
I'll support this ammendment the day I can listen to a Senator or Congressman make a speach and have a reasonable expectation that he or she is telling the un-spun truth. In otherwords, not bloody likely!

KELO
Fifth Amendment? What Fith Amendment? How can these people interpret "public use" to mean facilities that will eventually be owned by private concerns?

You know, I sometimes wish that the U.S. had retained dueling as a way to settle disagreements. It might cut way down on the number of asshats in public office. As Glenn Reynolds noted yesterday, at least we'd be more polite.

Tagged Again

Gee Chap, you keep blessing me with these things. Either you have a very small circle of friends, or you must be trying to establish some sort of Chain of Command.

It took me a while to discover that you had given me a tasker. For some reason, comments don't seem to be forwarding to my email like they are supposed to so I just discovered your comment from the 21st. last night. I thought you had my email address Chap?

Anyway, This particular travelling Q and A has four questions. Answering the first one might be tricky for me. You see, I'm sort of in the same spot as Bill Clinton: it depends on your definition of "port visit." If I define port visit as a place that a typical fleet unit (tin can, submarine, carrier, etc.) is liable to go to, you have one answer. If you define port visit as any place that I spent some time ashore while being a crewman aboard something in the vicinity that floats and is owned by Uncle Sam's Navy, then you get a much larger number (and frankly I didn't keep a log of a lot of those places.) That said, here goes.

1. Number of ports I've visited: about 60 in the conventional way, and well over 100 by my alternative definition.

2. Most recent port I've visited: Subic Bay (well, that dates me doesn't it.)

3. Port I never want to see again: Actually, there has never been a place that I didn't enjoy going to on one level or another, as I've never visited any of the real hell-holes like Karichi or Djbouti. My brother Randy pulled some duty there and is pretty much in agreement with The Yankee Sailor about that place.

4. Three ports that were most memorable: I actually partially answered this on in Chaps comments back on the 18th.
Freemantle/Perth, Australia The first time I went there was in 1980 after spending several months in the Arabian Sea during the Iranian Hostage Crisis. I was absolutly captivated by the place.
Sydney, Australia a few days later. Boy, talk about a two-fer.
Subic Bay, Philippines. It was hot, damp, dirty, and loud: but there has never been anyplace like it. Nirvana for the Screamin' Seaman. Disneyland for the disipated.

Hmm, why not ask some Marines this question. They get to go play on the big grey things too. I'll see if Mike, Major Mike, and Grim will nibble the bait.

Oh, and Chap - when you gonna get trackbacks?

Update - I got double-teamed! Skippy-San got me too!

No, I didn't fall off the edge of the Earth

Unlikely as it seems, I actually have a couple of readers that check in here on a regular basis. One of them has even voiced concerns as to my whereabouts. My "blogus interruptus" was caused by combination of factors including a heavy load at work and a huge backlog of yard-work. Mostly though, it is the time if year when I go through my annual allergy attack. I have never in the past been a sufferer of hay fever. Then I moved to the Willamette Vally. There is something that grows here in profusion that hits me like a ton of bricks for about six-eight weeks a year; then I'm fine. During that time, though, I can rarely force myself to do anything that isn't essential--and as much as I like to blog...it just wasn't in me.