Category Archives: All The News You Need

May 30, 2015 · 0:00

A Phila — A Philan — A Good Deed Doer

A week or two back, on Gibber Jabber, I responded to a question (because that’s what happens over at Gibber Jabber, she asks questions and you answer them.) I said that my dream job would be to be a philanthropist. A good deed doer.

They’re called … phila — philan — “Good Deed Doers” (Google, natch)

And of course, if I could, I would give the world a whole lot of good stuff.

But this week I’ve found myself to be the benefactor of a good deed doer! Yup, Me!

A very generous, very wealthy man gave me, John and mostly Duncan a lovely hunk of land in Maine on Mount Dessert Island where we are right now.

For many years, we’ve been coming to this island with our various dogs. Acadia National Park takes up much of the island, and it is an amazingly beautiful place to hike or just sit and watch the sea from a pink mountaintop. Acadia is magical.

But there are leash laws in Acadia, as it is a National Park. And while we haven’t always been strict adherents to that particular rule, well, the park is full of people, some of whom don’t really want to meet my dogs (imagine!).

Last year, we found out about Little Long Pond. It is a family preserve, owned by the Rockefellers, with hiking trails, carriage roads and a lovely, well, long pond. Dogs were allowed to run free there. In all 1,000 acres of the place.

And this month, David Rockefeller celebrated his 100th birthday by giving this piece of land to Duncan! Well, and me. And John. And you!

FREEDOM!

To celebrate his 100th birthday, he donated the land which abuts Acadia National Park (much of which his family had also donated) to the nonprofit Land and Garden Preserve, so that they will keep and preserve it AND CONTINUE TO LET DOGS RUN FREE!

Thank you, Mr. Rockefeller!

Thanks, Mr. Rockefeller. We wish you many happy returns. We know we will have many happy returns to Little Long Pond; and we will think of you and thank you each time we do.

* * *

I am not a particularly good photographer, but I have a camera shy dog.

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Filed under All The News You Need, All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance, Dogs, Duncan, Good Deed Doers, Health, Holidays, Humor, Maine, Pets, Taking Care of Each Other

Tagged as Dogs, Duncan, Family, Health, Holidays

May 29, 2015 · 0:00

Do I Hear Five?

On May 29, 2011, I was fifty-four and a half years old. And I was seriously irritated at the GOP in Congress. You see, they had announced that they were going to take away Medicare from those then under 55 years old. And that meant me. I spouted off about it to anyone who would listen.

They’re gonna take Medicare from ME! I’m 54-1/2! That’s where they’re gonna start!

After the first 528 times I mentioned this fact to each and every person I could corner, I still felt unsated. I wanted to tell more people of my irritation. Whether or not I knew them.

And so I heard a voice inside my head (something I rarely admit to):

Go forth, it said, and start a blog.

Oh and give it a stupid name to keep yourself humble.

And so I did. Both of those things. FiftyFourAndAHalf was born with this post.

Blogging has been a completely different experience than I expected.

My original plan was to do a political/humor blog. But in spite of a never-ending source of fodder, I found that I wanted to write about other things, too. That part didn’t really surprise me.

What surprised me was that blogging, and Word Press, became a place where I met new friends, discussed topics important to me. Where I laughed and cried along with folks I will probably never meet.

Thanks, everybody. And while I’ve been writing less than usual and reading less than usual, I love the special place that is the ‘sphere. So, yeah, thanks for being out there, for reading, and for giving me stuff to read too.

From Daily Kos.com

53 Comments

Filed under All The News You Need, Bat-shit crazy, Bloggin' Buddies, Campaigning, Climate Change, Crazy family members, Crazy Folks Running, Crohn's Disease, Disgustology, Dogs, Driving, Duncan, Elections, Family, Farts, Flatulence, Freshly Pegged, Freshly Pressed, Friends, Global Warming, Goliath Stories, GOP, Gun control, Health, Health and Medicine, Hey Doc?, History, Holidays, Huh?, Humor, Hypocrisy, laughter, Mom, Music, Peace, Stupidity, Taking Care of Each Other, Toilets, Travel Stories, Voting, Wild Beasts, Word Press, Writing, WTF?

Tagged as Awards, Boomerism, Campaigning, Crap, Crazy people, Elections, Family, GOP, Gun control, Health, Humor, Politics, Pushing Buttons, Tea Party, Word Press, Writing

April 22, 2015 · 0:00

Earth Day/Birthday — Recycled Recycled Post

Today, April 22, is Earth Day! It’s the 45^th Anniversary of the very first Earth Day. Here is Walter Cronkite’s report on the first Earth Day, 1970:

It would also be my late sister Judy’s 63rd birthday.

Whoever made the decision to turn Judy’s birthday into Earth Day chose wisely. Judy was a born environmentalist and recycler.

On the first Earth Day, Judy was a new, very young mother who believed in saving the planet. She was the first “environmentalist” I ever knew personally, and well, I thought she was nuts. There was a recycling bin in her kitchen for as long as I can remember. And this was back when recycling took effort. She believed in gardens, not garbage, and she made life bloom wherever she was.

“I’ve got kids,” she’d say. “It’s their planet too!”

But years later, Judy took recycling to a whole different level when she helped people recycle themselves. In the 1990s, Jude, who was then living in Florida, began working with the Homeless, assisting at shelters. Then she actively began trying to help homeless vets find food, shelter and work — to enable them to jump-start their lives.

When she died in early 2000, the American Legion awarded her honorary membership for her services to homeless vets. A homeless shelter was named in her honor. So she’s still doing good works, my sister is. That would make her wildly happy.

Jude also gave me the Beatles. So it is very appropriate that they wrote a song for her.

You see, the night the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, it was MY turn to choose what we were going to watch. And we were going to watch the second part of The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh starring Patrick McGoohan on the Wonderful Wide World of Disney. My four (all older and MUCH cooler) siblings were furious with me. But I was quite insistent. You might even say that I threw a Class I temper tantrum over it, but I wouldn’t admit to that. But hey, I was seven. And it was my turn to choose. Fair is fair, especially in a big family with only one TV.

Somehow, Judy talked me out of my turn. She was always very persuasive. Thanks Jude.

Hey Jude, Happy Earth Day-Birthday.

* * *

If this looks/sounds familiar, it’s because I recycled this post from last year. Because you should never use fresh when you can reuse something already written. And you can never get enough of “Hey Jude.”

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Filed under Adult Traumas, All The News You Need, All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance, Beatles, Birthday, Childhood Traumas, Climate Change, Conspicuous consumption, Crazy family members, Family, Farts, Global Warming, Holidays, Huh?, Humor, laughter, Love, Politics, Science, Taking Care of Each Other, Wild Beasts

Tagged as Crazy people, Elections, Family, Health, Humor, Love, Sisters

April 19, 2015 · 0:00

Dog in a Box?

If you know anything about me, you know that I’m a dog lover. Even when I want to throttle my own dog, Duncan, I love him. So I don’t. Throttle him, that is.

If you know anything about dogs, you know that they are bursting with personality. Each and every one of them. But until you get to know a dog, you don’t often get to know what they’re all about.

So Guinnevere Shuster, a photographer who works for an animal adoption organization in Utah, found a creative way to capture the personalities of several dogs who were up for adoption. She put them in a photo booth.

Here are my favorite photo groups:

I need someone with a good sense of humor to humor me

And this one:

Seriously. You can’t go wrong with a guy like me

There are more photo series at this article. Thanks for this one go to my son Jacob who sent it on to me. Thanks, kiddo.

And since I can’t do a dog post without a new picture of Duncan, here you go:

Camera Shy Duncan 4-19-15

67 Comments

Filed under All The News You Need, Conspicuous consumption, Crazy family members, Dogs, Family, Health, Huh?, Humor, laughter, Love, Pets, Taking Care of Each Other, Wild Beasts

Tagged as Awards, Crazy people, Dogs, Family, Health, Humor

April 13, 2015 · 0:00

A Is For Algorithm

You will be surprised to learn that I didn’t plan on posting about this.

I figured that anybody who has ever read my blog knows precisely where I stand on this issue. So I left it in that barren wasteland where all unused posts go — DRAFTS.

But then tonight I read a blog post that broke my heart.

Most of you know my bloggin’ buddy, TwinDaddy of Finding Twindaddy. He has a new job doing tech-ie stuff at a school, and he wrote about ALICE at his school in a post called “A Sad State of Affairs.”

Alice? Who’s ALICE?

Alice is an acronym that stands for: Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. The drills that students, teachers and administrators of our American — Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition — schools must perform periodically so that everybody is ready in the event that an active shooter comes to their school.

High School Students, Teachers and Administrators

Junior High School Students, Teachers and Administrators

Elementary School Students, Teachers and Administrators

Somehow, I don’t think this has gone down to the nursery school level. Give it time.

Anyway, deleted what I had drafted because it was lame. But after reading Twin Daddy’s post, I thought I’d show you the algorithm that one school in Michigan came up with. It’s quite creative.

Because, you see, not only do they (and folks in other states) have to worry about some nutcase coming through the door blasting, but they have to worry about other nutcases. Yup, folks in many states need to figure out how to deal with potential crisis situations because of the folks who have been dubbed “ammosexuals.” Ammosexuals are those particular nutcases who believe that their right to openly carry any fucking gun they please, and to waive it around, proclaiming their god-given/NRAsponsored right to bear arms, trumps your kids’ rights to, well, you know, breathe.

Because, of course, in states where it is legal to “open carry” guns, how can you tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys.” So they had to come up with a decision tree:

Credit: Americans for Responsible Solutions

(Click to Enlarge)

Of course, by the time any school administrator could figure out that, well, that’s a bad guy, they’re probably dead. Not a whole lot of help, then, is it? Oh well, what’s a few more gun deaths in America? It’s what we’re becoming famous for worldwide. Once folks thought our streets were paved with gold — now they are paved with blood and bullet casings.

* * *

We really need to figure out, as a society, how to get a handle back on our brains, so that we can protect, at a minimum, our kids.