Feed The Birds

We’re up visiting family in Taunton, Massachusetts for New Year’s. In typical New England winter style, we received a blanket of 8″ of snow. The birds are regular diners on the patio and flew non-stop throughout the day. How many birds can you identify? Click on the title to see all of the photographs.

Happy New Year 2009!

The Christmas Lights Of La Salette Shrine

Ever heard of the Marian apparitions at La Salette in the French Alps? I hadn’t until we visited the National Shrine of La Salette in Attleboro, Massachusetts for the holiday Christmas celebration. The order of Missionaries of La Salette have seven shrines in the United States commemorating our Lady’s visit to two little shepherd children, Maximin Giraud and Melanie Mathieu. The outdoor shrine under cathedral tall pine trees is carved and built into the rocky slopes with stairways up to an altar. Catholics make their way up the hillside on their knees saying the mysteries of the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross.

The Catholic shrine, built in 1953, hosts a Christmas Light festival that is breath-taking and from the crowds, a family tradition for thousands. During the festival, you are treated to Christmas concerts, beautiful outdoor scenery, a museum of 500 creches from around the world, and a magnificent 1500-figure display of houses, churches, windmills, villagers, and a Portuguese Nativity scene, called a “Presepio,” from the Azores.

If you’re in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York, don’t miss this meditative holy site. It’s a wonderful way to inspire a Catholic Christmas tradition with your children.

Merry Christmas

This time of year at Christmas, I become filled with admiration and love for my dear friends and family and realize how much they mean to me. My wish for them is to know how much I love them and to have a healthy, worry-free, filled with love, new year.

Enjoy the following two songs. Straight No Chaser are a brilliant a cappello choral group that first performed in college ten years ago. They moved on with their lives and careers until last year when one of the group put a tape of one of their songs on Youtube where it immediately received 6,000,000 hits. A recording company executive saw the video and brought the young men back together last year. This is my favorite 12 Days of Christmas.

Casting Crowns is a Christian modern/rock band. I never knew the poignant story of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day” until seeing Casting Crowns perform a modern version of the carol. The timeliness of this Civil War song is so needed in these still violent days. The song touches my heart and it’s my favorite song of this season. It inspires me so much that I can’t play it enough. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Must see’s for Christmas:

Midnight Mass Libretto at the Vatican

Pope Celebrates Midnight Mass At Vatican

Barney Cam – A Red, White, and Blue Christmas

Track Santa on Christmas Eve via NORAD (one way to get the kids in bed on Christmas Eve!)

God is not dead. He does not sleep.

May Jesus Christ keep you and your loved ones in his arms this year.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Rod Blagoyevich – Liberal Government At It’s Core

As a lifelong resident of Illinois, let me say that any Illinoisan pretending to be shocked or outraged at what our latest sleazy governor got caught doing is either a bald faced liar or about 4 years old. This state, including both political parties, runs on corruption. Politics is about power and the accumulation of wealth, period.

The Democrats (and occasional liberal Republicans like convict and ex-governor George Ryan) trade jobs and contracts for “political contributions” and the occasional bag of cash. Illinois is not more corrupt than liberalism in general, we just stopped even pretending that integrity matters. Our local newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times, regularly endorse the most liberal, power hungry, and openly greedy candidates, then pillory them when they get caught doing what everyone knew they were going to do in the first place. The papers get to pretend to be bi-partisan in this endeavor because there are enough crooked liberal Republican politicians to allow them to endorse members of both parties.

Rod Blagoyevich did nothing that the governors, mayors, secretaries of state, and dog catchers of this state don’t do on a regular basis. He was just stupid enough to do it on the telephone.

The liberals running the educational systems in Chicago, East St. Louis, Peoria, Rockford, and others are all busy keeping black children uneducated and in poverty, to preserve the liberal voting block that will keep this state blue for decades. Meanwhile, the Reverend Wrights, Jesse Jacksons (Sr. and Jr.) and Barack Obamas get rich, famous and powerful, all while screaming how racist and otherwise horrible this country is.

The best part of this Soprano’s style soap opera is that Blagoyevich’s stupidity in getting caught on tape has created a feeding frenzy that, if special prosecutor Fitzgerald keeps his eyes open, will make Blago’s attempt to sell a senate seat look like small change.

First we have what appears to be the completely un-vetted president-elect knee deep in this current controversy. Rahm Emmanuel, another Illinois liberal hack and Obama’s chief of staff, is suddenly nowhere to be found, so that he does not have to lie outright about his involvement with the Ebaying of one of Illinois’ senate seats until the lawyers can get a common script for all the future defendants…I mean White House staff. Next, Lisa Madigan, one of the most inexperienced attorneys general in state history (whose father just happens to be a long time power broker/Illinois Senate president) is trying to shred the Illinois constitution to get rid of Blago faster than an impeachment would work; while at the same time convincing our lieutenant governor Pat Quinn to appoint himself senator, leaving the governorship open for…surprise…Lisa Madigan.

The real victim here is Jesse Jackson, Jr. who was apparently already willing to pay Blago the requested million dollars for the senate seat. But with the wire taps, Jesse Jr. will probably have to settle for his current house seat, and his share of the profits from the beer distributorship daddy extorted from Budweiser so long ago.

You want to know what this country is going to look like after the federal government takes control of businesses and industries under the guise of all the current “bailouts?” Just look to the pathetic state of Illinois. Schools that don’t teach, roads that fall apart, soaring crime rates, and politicians getting richer and more powerful , until it’s their turn to go before the grand jury. All, of course, for the sake of the children.

Child’s Body Found Near Casey Anthony’s Home

Update: Local radio news reports that Casey Anthony is heavily medicated after experiencing an anxiety attack when told of the discovery of a child’s bones found.

Her trial was moved to a March date today.

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Will the little Caylee Anthony finally be at rest? This is not a false alarm. The police have the size of the body, the age, and the sex of the child found in a plastic bag three tenths of a mile from her mother, Casey Anthony’s home. Casey Anthony, pathological liar and murder suspect, is incarcerated in the Orlando jail awaiting a January 5th trial date.

Previous posts on Caylee Anthony’s disappearance.

Yes, Kensley There Is A Santa Claus

Who says toddlers don’t know that their parents are gone? Kensley Penny had been a good little girl since her Daddy left for duty in Afghanistan and missed him. She asked Santa for only one thing this year. Watching the video of the little 3 year old’s cries at seeing her Daddy, given special permission from the Pentagon to return home for the holidays, just breaks my heart.

God bless Mr. Penny for his service to our country and for being such a special person to his daughter.