respublica

Long she waves because of those who sacrificed their lives

What began as Decoration Day when families whose loved one died fighting with the Union Army during the Civil War became what we know as Memorial Day.

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo'
No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few;
On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread;
But Glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.

Theodore O'Hara's poem is found in many military cemeteries and oddly, he fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War.

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

John McCrae-Canadian physician serving with the medical corps in France during WWI when he contracted pneumonia and died in 1918.

 

Day is done...
Gone the sun
From the lake...
From the hills...
From the sky.
All is well...
Safely rest
God is nigh.

Fading light....
Dims the sight
And a star....
Gems the sky....
Gleaming bright
From afar....
Drawing nigh
Falls the night.

Major General Daniel Butterfield

Could it be any smaller?

On major holidays or on anniversary of famous people's birthdays/deaths, google's home page often commemorate's the event with a big banner. Today is Memorial Day and Google once again adds to its home page, but take a look-how small can they make the flag?

It'll be gone by tomorrow.

A day at Splash City

Christian, Connor and their parents came over to Collinsville today and spent 4 hours, yes 4 hours, at the water park. It has been a very hot day, we gave them an hour at best, never imagining they'd love it so much they'd stay that long. Let it be said that Dale and I did not go along, we spent the time in the yard and in front of a baseball game on tv.

At first there was a lot of testing the waters so to speak.

Then a bit of boyish silliness

This pretty much sums up Connor

Then it was on to the big slides and water falls. Christian had to drag Connor the first time.

See, it's like this Connor, Christian told him, you get in the tube and slide down into the water.

Christian went first

Then Connor

Then repeat and repeat and repeat. Sort of looks like Drew B in the background. But no.

But, there's more than this to do.

All in all fun.

 

Drew's first Memorial Day weekend

First his Daddy went to play golf and Drew met him on the 18th hole.

The next Tiger Woods

Then he got himself involved in a playhouse somewhere.

His pants are way too big these days.

Last evening a trip to the annual Rockville Town Square fest

And this morning he put a blueberry in his ear.

What's up for today, Drew?

 

 

 

In Vatican News...

The Butler Did It.

He really did.

Words to avoid online

Because a news outlet submitted a Freedom of Information Act, we now know that the Department of Homeland Security had to release a list of keywords it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S.

Some words are what you might expect, others, well, if you were a blogger and used the words tornado, lightning, interstate...well you may have been monitored. Uh oh. I use the word interstate a lot while whining about road construction and traffic jams.

This is quite unbelieveable. The lists of words according to category are found at the end of the linked story. And, it took a British news outlet to publish this.

Field Day for Captain School

This is a big day for everyone involved in Captain elementary school-kids, teachers, parents. This is a day-long outdoor event on the northeast corner of the campus of Concordia Seminary, featuring many activity stations for the K-5th graders.

All stations involved physical activity and every 20 to 30 minutes teams were rotated to a new station. There was a break for lunch and then back at it, playing while fun rock music played continually, music made really loud through the use of huge speakers.

One of the areas was the parachute lift

Once in a while all kinds of stuff was tossed in to the middle.

There was tug of war

Someone always climbs a tree

Hula Hoops

Pass water scoop to scoop

A father swinging his daughter

A relay featuring two teams who had to soak a sponge with water, run it down to a teammate sitting with a bottle on his/her head, and wring the water out into the bottle. First team to fill the bottle wins.

Ferdie was there

Bringing a bit of comfort to a girl in the first aid tent.

Here's the DJ, Mr. Mayer the vocal teacher

Then a break for lunch

Everyone picked up their lunch and each team found a spot in the park.

After lunch the event rotation continued until each team had done every one of them. Then it was time for the annual 5th grade against the teachers in tug of war. The rest of the classes sat on the slope of the grass behind signs with their teachers names.

They watched the tug of war

The kids tried hard but it was formidable competition

The last tug was all 3 5th grade classes against the teachers

As you can see by the reaction of the students, this time the kids won.

And, to end the day, everyone gave the principal, Dr. Doherty, a rousing version of happy birthday as tomorrow is his birthday.

 He gave the kids a big hand when it was over.

As the multitude filed back into the school class by class they were given a rice crispy treat to help celebrate the birthday and made by the seminary food cooks.

Aw, Ferdie was first in line but he did not get one.

Here's Gayle telling Dr. Doherty the seminary provided the treats.

Youngest first

And then all the rest.

Guess what? The school has its annual picnic with parents tonight! These kids are going to be exhausted.

 

 

 

Political irony

Seems the Senate Democrats who are so outspoken on the equality of women are paying their own female staffers less than they do men.  This is hilariously ironic. And Illinois Dick Durbin is amongst them, paying his women staffers 23 percent less than his men. 

And, they hire more men than women as staff people by almost 50 percent.

Trying to rein in Big Brother

The House recently passed an amendment which would cut off funds to the American Community Survey, another term for the Census Bureau. This proposal would save taxpayers 2.4 billion dollars a year and put an end to the intrusive questionaires sent out by the Census people prying into every aspect of our lives. 

The House also passed a measure which would put an end to the Federal Government fining people who refused to answer all those questions. As the story about this states, the constitution directs the government to count the people in the United States every ten years. Period! Not probe into our finances, living conditions, health coverage, education level, number of tv's we own, etc.

Streaking across Busch Stadium

Just when we thought streakers were a thing of the past, along comes this guy.

Now before debating the merits of this sort of behavior, my first thought was, "Wow, finally, a physically fit streaker!" And what was the police officer pointing at him? A taser? A gun? A camera? And how would you like to be the Cardinal's employee who had to tackle him? Ick.  

Photo by Bill Greenblatt via Tweet by Michael Calhoun of KMOX.

Great photo by the way, nice composition