I've spent all day working on the family tree.

Found a few new Burris graves. New to me only - some of these folks have been dead for over a hundred years.

I wanted to plug them into the virtual family cemetery, and correct errors and omissions on the records. So I emailed the owner of the records and asked her if she would transfer maintenance of the records to me. I explained my family connection.

One of the many "rules" on Find a Grave is that if a family member wants to maintain records, you make the transfer if asked.

But this owner is one of the "collectors." That's what I've started calling people who have 25,000 plus entries to their names...the ones who do not pay attention to any detail except the submit button that keeps their fingers itching.

She transferred two of the records. I didn't email her again - I've seen way too many posts on the FAG message boards from people who bitch and piss and moan about someone trying to steal their "work."

So I took the long way around and got my information out there anyway. I linked to her records.

Whatever it takes.

Any Bible scholars out there?



Check out the analysis from a LiveJournal Community.

Hasn't it gone far enough?

The masses of clouds look like they could dump snow on us at any time. Last night we got temperatures that made that believable...my thermometer was at 38 when I got up this morning.

---

It seemed that all the leaves on the trees changed color on the same day.

The next day we got huge gusts of wind that blew them all to the ground.

Pissed me right off, it did.

So I only got one really decent photo of any of my Japanese maples before they were reduced to the twiggy effect they carry all winter.

---

I am about two thirds of the way through that huge ass annual report I write each year. The boss will not be pleased. I am not pleased.

But we will be displeased for different reasons, once again.

I am displeased when I remember how we dumped so many cases, and shut down a project that could have helped over 3,000 people.

She will be displeased that we have to report it, and there is no good way to spin it.

---

The whole Burris clan will be trekking up to the old Burris homestead this Saturday for an early Thanksgiving. (Expect to be bored out of your skull with the pics I will post.) All the grands are growing like weeds, and this is the first year in a couple that all of them can talk, so I am sure we are in for quite a bit of wisdom from the mouths of babes.

Kids, puppies, and oyster dressing. We do not stuff our birds here, as do our neighbors to the north and east. And the dressing is moist enough not to need any gravy, but I'll probably have some anyway.

The journey is good.

Namaste.

Brent Gobbell, a Tennessee state trooper who accidentally sent an email proclaiming white pride to 787 state employees, has been suspended for 15 days without pay and will have to attend diversity training.

Accidentally?

Accidentally, my ass...

And his should be fired. How in the hell do you train that attitude outta a guy with a gun on his hip?

Cemeteries in the middle of a city always catch my attention.

They used to be out in the middle of nowhere.

This one probably has upwards of 5,000 graves in it. I don't know for sure, because I didn't count...

Graves side by side in neat and tidy rows, granite of all shades shining in the afternoon light.

But as always, it was the lonely ones in the unkempt section that called to me...
( Cut to spare the f-list... )
The journey is good.

So says the spam email allegedly from the IRS...

From: Internal Revenue Service [mailito:refund@irs.gov]
Subject: You are eligible to receive a tax refund

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that
you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $330.50.

Submit the tax refund request and allow us 2-4 days in order to
process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

Please complete the form attached to your email to access your tax refund.

Note: For security reasons, we will record your ip-address, the date and time.
Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.


Regards,
Internal Revenue Service

Ain't that just spiffy how they send their regards?

Getting really creative, those spammers are...

Okay, so we are celebrating because we deliberately crashed into the moon's surface to see if there was water, and found there was...

Now I know there is a collective unconscious and at least part of it has lost what was left of its collective mind.

Not content to destroy our immediate surroundings?

Hasn't anyone gotten the message yet?

By about 2 or 3 centuries...





Excellent read, BTW...

Known and unknown...

Not Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or even Halloween.

I believe the little sucker may be completely bloomed by my birthday...

I've been working on a very complex case since mid-August. It looks complex on the surface, but what it really boils down to is a state agency paying a private contractor way too much money for the (lack of) service the client is getting.

Early on, I told the attorneys supervising my work that it was time for a complaint. I went to one meeting after another where the state and the contractor were present, and said (the legally based advocacy equivalent of), "I can't believe you are paying $118 grand for this shit."

At every meeting, the state bureaucrats - there were three of them - would walk in the door, almost identical in their business suits and matching name tags. They sat, side by side, heads swiveling in unison at the heated discussion between the advocate (me) and the contractor.

And even though it was in their power to do so, they never did a damned thing. So we (finally) filed that complaint and began the process of waiting through the timelines inherent with administrative complaints.

The ass-hattery continued until I just couldn't take it any more. So last night, I was texting with my attorney and suggested the solution to her.

Voila!

Fixed. In about three hours this morning.

Turns out the bureaucrats really didn't want to watch themselves tonight on the teevee...

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a female acquaintance. She, like I, is a prolific reader. She had a book she wanted to re-home, because she didn't agree with the author on several points, although she agree on others.

I thought that an interesting reason to thin a personal library. If the author doesn't parrot your own personal beliefs, get rid of it...

Over the years, I've read a lot of books by pagan authors. Inevitably, I disagree with some of what they say.

Take Margot Adler, for example. I loved Drawing Down the Moon, originally published in 1979 and subsequently revised in 1985. In my opinion, it was a seminal work on paganism and was widely read, even by members of Abrahamic faiths, whose witch-hunting instincts had to have been tempered by truth that was so far afield from what they had been taught in churches, mosques and temples.

But I also disagree with Ms. Adler on part of her definition of contemporary paganism. On the one hand, I can go with a loose definition of paganism as an earth-based spirituality. However, I cannot equate paganism with polytheism alone, as she does in this interview.

Because where does that leave the panentheists, like me?

Nonetheless, Drawing Down the Moon contains (at least for me) validation of what I know to be true - that the polarity of nature is also found in the spiritual and physical essence of this human journey...that cycles are found everywhere in creation. Despite my personal disagreement with the author on some points, there are many pieces of wisdom in the book. So it's a keeper.

Jamie Sams wrote a book called Earth Medicine: Ancestors' Ways of Harmony for Many Moons. This well-thumbed (and highlighted) little gem has been part of my library now for five years. I use the author's suggested method of reading - from new moon to new moon - and am constantly delighted that my daily readings dovetail so nicely with my daily needs.

According to her her bio, Ms. Sams is half French and half Indian, descended from Cherokee, Seneca, Mohawk and Choctaw Indians. The inspiration for Earth Medicine came from the lessons she learned from the thirteen original clan mothers, passed down to her by two of her great-grandmothers.

There's where I intellectually start having problems...according to at least one interview about the thirteen original clan mothers, Ms. Sams received her inspiration from her Kiowa great grandmothers.

Huh?

Now, don't I think it's neat that there are 13 clan mothers...and correspondingly, 13 moon cycles in a lunar year?

You betcha...

But do I believe there were 13 original clan mothers from any of the (at least) five tribes in Ms Sams' heritage?

What I do know is that the book is full of wisdom.

And as to the source of the wisdom in either case, I also know that I have never been in the dreamtime with either author...so, who am I to say?

The journey is good.

Indecisiveness is one way that people try to prevent or hide their mistakes until there is no way to correct them. This inability to commit to taking action is ultimately an act of cowardice.

Jamie Sams, in Earth Medicine, Eleventh Moon, #22

I had heard of them, but this interview with author Jeff Sharlet was quite informative.

Now, I'll probably have to get the book.

And for the pagans and aetheists on my f-list, if you watch feeds, the_wildhunt is one you might want to add.

see more dog and puppy pictures

I've been whipping along through the Toomeys tonight...thanks to my neighboring southern state directly to the east. Tennessee has a bang-up marriage database, so there are not many MNUs in the tree for this branch.

I did stumble a bit on one of the kiddos...Gaspard.

You poor child. Your mama must have had a really hard labor with you...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more dog and puppy pictures

Because it's not the economy.

It's not crime, or homelessness, or poverty.

It's not domestic violence, or the erosion of personal freedoms and rights.

It's not even healthcare.

No, the single most important issue of the day -

( At least according to the headline in MY newspaper... )