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The annual Memorial Day post is below the fold, as opposed to posting the link to the article in the Backyard&#153.

Also check out Denizen & fellow blogger Alan K. Henderson’s Memorial Day post here.

If you’re a veteran – either of a war long past or of one more recently waged – know that I and about 300,000,000 Americans are eternally in your debt.&#160 Mere words cannot express the degree of gratitude which we possess for what you have done – and are now doing – for us here at home.&#160 Therefore, two words alone will have to suffice:

Thank you.

What Is Memorial Day?
by LT Bobby Ross bobbyros@nashville.net

Reproduced with permission of the author

My years whirl past me. Swirling. Dry, broken grass hovering in a spring breeze. Can I remember my experiences in war? Hardly. Fighting for my country, my youth invested, seems such a long time ago, and so unimportant. The calendar this year marks Memorial Day on the 29th of May, 2000. Have I lost something? The traditional Memorial Day, also known as Decoration Day, is on the 30th of May. This observed Memorial Day on May 29th coincidentally allows for a national three day holiday. Such is commercialism’s capitalistic American display. But why do I feel so stricken, like I have abandoned old friends from long ago? Their ghosts consort with my floating years, and their spirits coast around my presence.

Another three day holiday! Memorial Day! Maybe me and the kids can go camping? Or, to the beach? Memorial Day is fun! This is the inconsiderate, thoughtless approach to this meaningful, and consecrated moment representing one three hundred and sixty-fifth of our year. What is the meaning of Memorial Day? Is it merely a three day escape from our worldly duties? Or, is it the official beginning of summer? Is selling more hot dogs at the ballpark the overriding clarification?

Many souls, sacrificed in war, in duty to America, are wandering. They drift in a heavenly place, minus their future here upon earth. Tomorrows were forfeited. Given up so our nation would invigorate free souls, aspire them to freedom, and justly allow their lives lived as they prefer. Raising offspring above restrictions, as they desire. Those lost lives giving we, the living, what we want freely. Those are the souls we respect on Memorial Day. This means it is a sacred day.

Without retrospect, sacrifice is mute. Old Glory does not wave by accident. It flutters in the spring air revealing honor. The color red represents the blood bloom from those who fell, those who clawed, those who cried in horrible pain. Those who died fast. And, those who died ever so slowly. They did their duty. When I see Old Glory waving on a sunny, end of May day, the pigment red gushes from millions of souls, floating, not with us, anymore. They are amongst our heroes, cajoling with angels with their champions, conquerors and commanders. Friends and loved ones gather, over the grave, witness to those who gave more than anyone should be required to relinquish. They did not want to yield. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and when the moment harshly struck them their fatal blow, they cried for their mother, or their friend. Then there were those, many of those, who knew exactly what they were giving. They moved forward knowingly. They lost their lives so their mission would be accomplished.

Fools! Some intellects can say that. One would have to be an imbecile to give up life, no matter what the cause. For a flag? Futile! For a country! More pointless! For freedom! What freedom is there in mortality? Yes, fools they may have been, but their numbers add up in an awesome display of American loss! Veterans’ Cemeteries, white badges sailing row after row after row upon green grass, almost never ending, creeping onto the horizon. Constant reminders of the devastation of our human treasure. Mothers’ tears, enough to fill an ocean to overflow. Sweethearts, broken hearted, reading telegrams. Sons and daughters, many unborn, wakening at birth to a devastated family suffering from a victim of war there no more. And what does all this macabre math equal? Memorial Day is the correct answer.

Few Americans know a person who died in war. Their family trees have lost some leaves, falling as they fought in one of America’s wars, or discarded in the peacetime military. We are a busy people. We have business to capture. Our kids are in school. We have chores. Mundane, or surrealistic. We are a spirited society, seeking applications to improve ourselves and our communities. We are a helpful populace, always there when the going gets tough to help those who have suffered the tragedies of nature, whether a hurricane or a famine. Americans are always the first on the scene worldwide bearing their gifts of human spirit and abundance. This is why it is so puzzling that the meaning of Memorial Day seems to lack substance to many of our own people. Even with the day itself. Put back to accommodate a holiday schedule fixed by some organism no one knows, yet powerful enough to do so, the day itself lacks consequence to too many. Many who never knew a person who died in service to America are wrought with the invisible pain of not feeling for those who do.

Americans take things for granted. We have so much. So very much. Endless choices. These options are not available worldwide. Our shelves are full. Unlike many in other nations of the world. So many are empty or offer very limited selections. Those American fighting men and women killed in battle whose souls are floating actually made available these wondrous choices we have every day of our American lives. Yet, most of our youngsters have no idea whatsoever what this means. They don’t learn this in school. We must teach them. For without knowledge, they may end up thinking, or believing, all these marvelous selections came without circumstance. Minus anything. Equaling no meaning.

Our nation needs to halt and perceive the flags and flowers on our Veterans graves on this consecrated holiday. We need to lift a common voice of adoration to those floating spirits of our onetime American Warriors, and extol them with a salutation. We have not come that far with our technological miracles of this millennium to become crass. We still need respect. Our backs can not turn from formality. Our eyes can not look away from custom. Our voices must not resonate in silence against honor and glory. To do so will leave us hollow, only to fill us with that which is desolate and lacking potential. This is not the true meaning of Memorial Day.

The heartfelt significance requires reminding. Story telling. Wisdom being passed on from our Veterans to our younger generations. An interpretation certified by those who remember the horrors of war. Without this core, our society can not remain genuine. It becomes contemptible. It rots from within. These floating souls of our lost American Warriors are a powerful force, for they live within our hearts. They constantly seek justification for their contributions, and they are real within us. Such is what our American substance stands for, where character is developed, individually is guaranteed, and a community, a nation, survives.

America enters the 21th Century as the most powerful entity humankind has ever experienced. America permeates this next century with vast responsibilities. Our children must bear this promise. We can not turn our backs on these bygone descendants, nor can we do so upon ourselves. Memorial Day offers us the opportunity to express a moment of solitude where each of us can personify in our own way what we feel. I only speak for my myself, as one who has bared his soul to the dread of war. So my father did, and his father’s father before him, and their souls float amongst the multitudes. My mother and her mother held their Veterans after they returned from war, tears streaming down their cheeks in gratitude for their safe return. And there were those in my ancestry who did not return from war. And their mothers’ tears soaked the pillows on beds for generations to sleep upon. Their souls are the dreams that drift amongst the floating, gathering at the end of May in the breeze of summer’s coming, in the cool glass of lemonade at the child’s street side stand, in the cheers at the ball game from the crowd rooting their team to victory and enjoying the best hot dogs in the world.

Let us all stop for a moment, whether it is on the traditional day, or the observed Memorial Day, or even at the end of May, and reach for those floating souls. Let us reveal to them how much we cherish their sacrifice for our free people. Let these memories harvest our recognition of the meaning of Memorial Day in a very simple wordy. And let that word, simply stated be: Thanks.

(copyrighted 2000)

(Permission to reproduce granted freely and unconditionally)

PEACE,
Bobby Ross

bobbyros@nashville.net
http://www.nashville.net/~bobbyros/webtv.html
medallion.webzine.cc
http://community-2.webtv.net/lanebrody/VETERANSDAYSPECIAL/

A-TRACKMUSIC.COM
11 Music Square East
Suite #501
Nashville, TN 37203

A Proud Supporter of FARM AID!
Office 615 244-8725
SPLASH 2000!

SALUTE TO AMERICAN VETERANS, THEIR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS ON
MEMORIAL DAY AND VETERANS DAY

SPLASH 2000!
AMERICAN VETERANS
OUR FREEDOM..OUR HISTORY..OUR FUTURE
AMERICA’S WAY OF LIFE!

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In other news this weekend, we find that actor/director Dennis Hopper has died of prostate cancer.

Don’t know whether the Realm&#153 is prepared to mourn or not.&#160 Hopper was known to be a Reagan Republican, having voted with the GOP since 1980 – but the beautiful & talented Michelle (actually, her guest blogger Doug Powers) reports that Hopper voted for Bambi in 2008.

Hopper also voted for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and was a very early supporter of GOP candidate John McCain for president in 2005. Ultimately, however, he ended up voting for Barack Obama saying Sarah Palin swung him away from McCain.

I will not mourn any son-of-a-bitch who helped sell this country down the fucking river by voting for Jugears McHopenchange, the Kenyan Ayatollah.

Knowing what he represented and voting for him anyway?&#160 To me, that’s tantamount to treason.

So I’ll note that Dennis Hopper died, and leave it at that.

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Take a look at this Sarah McLachlan ASPCA video:

Let’s not misunderstand here.&#160 I’m very much against animal abuse, and in fact did pluck one of my two puppies from the Dallas Animal Shelter four years ago.

But AFAIC, until & unless Sarah McLachlan – the very same bimbo who co-founded the fuck-brained “Lilith Fair” tour (Google it yourselves; they’re not worthy of my linkage) – comes out against the murder of 4,000 babies per day at the hands of baby-butchering abortion whores like the late, not-terribly-lamented Georgie Tiller…well, sorry, ASPCA – but you have the wrong spokestrollop, and I’m not much interested in what she has to say.

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Gary “Watchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis” Coleman has passed of a brain hemorrhage.&#160 He was 42.

Coleman, with his sparkling eyes and perfect comic timing, became a star after “Diff’rent Strokes” debuted in 1978. He played the younger brother in a pair of African-American siblings adopted by a wealthy white man.

His popularity faded when the show ended after six seasons on NBC and two on ABC.

And he traded on that role the rest of his life, even going so far as to cut a John Cena WWE promo off of it…

The Realm&#153 mourns his passing.

(And the lack of a byline does mean that, yes, Denizens – I’m back at Realm Headquartes&#153.&#160 Not that anyone gives two flying effs at rolling donuts or anything…)

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Amazingly enough, I have found myself defending the current occupant of the White House.

The American people, with their usual short sightedness, have begun to ask why Obama hasn’t stopped the flow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The answer is simple. Obama is by training and experience a lawyer, a community organizer, a law school lecturer, and (very limited) a politician. None of these skills have given him the necessary knowledge or abilities to go 5,000 feet under the ocean and stop the flow of oil from a blown out well.

I have no doubt that those who have this expertise are working their little butts off trying to fix the porblem in the Gulf. The best thing we can do is to leave them alone and allow them to get on with busuness.

Whether it be by choice, or indecision, Obama has done just that. He has stayed out of the way, and should be commended for doing so.

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SAN DIEGO – Quick tip for those of you flying into Denver:

Get in, sit down, shut up and hang on.

Mrs. Venomous & I went the cheapy econo-route, hitting up Frontier Airlines to take us to sunny San Diego, Californication CA, with a quick stop in Denver along the way.

The leg to DEN wasn’t too bad – until we went to land.&#160 Caught a crosswind (they called it wind shear, but I swear to Cthulu the plane was coming in at a diagonal) and had to abort, power back up and go around.&#160 (Second attempt wasn’t a breeze, either, but they got the thing down in one piece, at least.)&#160 One half-hour layover, one bone-rattling takeoff and two-plus hours later, we were in SD picking up a 2010 Mustang convertible and tooling about.

Climate here is bad-assed.&#160 Remember the old saying – “if it’s good, it’s ‘climate’; if it’s bad, it’s ‘weather'”? Well, we got hellacious climate out here – sunny skies and mid-60s the week before Memorial Day, fer crying out loud.&#160 By comparison, Realm&#153 headquarters is baking with 90s and 40,000% humidity.

If it weren’t for the fucking socialists running this state, a girlie-man Governator&#153 who lets ’em have they they want and the whole place Going To Hell In A Handbasket&#153, I’d be sorely tempted to stay.

As it is, the concrete slab that the Ramada has for a bed out here will likely force me back in a couple days or so.&#160 See y’all then.

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This is an interesting video, enjoy.

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DFW AIRPORT – Item:&#160 Continuing an outrageous trend of only enforcing the laws it wants, against only whom they want (basically, wanting to make an example of them), Al-Obambi’s immigration department says it’s under no obligation to process any pendejos illegales&#160 it receives from the rebellious&#160 state of Arizona:

A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.

John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports.

“I don’t think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution,” Morton told the newspaper.

How dare&#160 they enforce the laws the American government won’t, after all. The nerve.

Item:&#160 Jill over at Pundit & Pundette asks the question:

But Judge Andrew Napolitano says ICE has discretion:

Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said ICE is not obligated to process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.

“ICE has the legal discretion to accept or not to accept persons delivered to it by non-federal personnel,” Napolitano said. “It also has the discretion to deport or not to deport persons delivered to it by any government agents, even its own.”

In that case, what will happen to the illegal aliens that Arizona apprehends?

Reaction:&#160 Something involving brass, lead pellets and a shovel, I’d hope.&#160 Y’know?

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Those of you who have read me for any&#160 length of time – well, you probably knew it was coming all along, didn’t you? – but you know damned well what this is.

(Go ahead.&#160 Click it.&#160 I effin’ dare&#160 you.

And turn it up.&#160 Waaaaaay&#160 up.&#160 &#160 )

That’s right, sportz fanz:&#160 It’s vacation time for His Rudeness&#153.&#160 And this&#160 time, said vacation is not&#160 going to be spent packing & moving.

Mrs. Venomous & I are going to take a trip.&#160 And if you’re lucky, I’ll tell you where.&#160 When I get there.&#160 Maybe.

Vicar, General – you guys have the conn.&#160 Y’all post, dammit!&#160

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One.

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Item:&#160 A rat upstaged the Ayatollah Obambi the other day:

Obama had just begun an afternoon statement to reporters lauding the end of a Senate filibuster on his financial overhaul plan when some kind of rodent — opinions differ on which — dashed out of the bushes to his right, just outside the Oval Office.

[…]

In fact, this wasn’t the first time a rodent’s been spied in the White House, or even the Rose Garden.

Just last week, as camera crews set up for an Obama statement on the Gulf oil spill, what’s believed to have been the same rodent made a dash across the famous garden.

Item:&#160 A commenter in this thread, philometh, had the line of the day:

“…what’s believed to have been the same rodent made a dash across the famous garden.”

Give me a break. They can track the exact rodents but not find the illegals??

This would be so damned hellaciously funny…if it wasn’t true.&#160

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Two.

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(Hat tip (again) to Allahpundit.)

Item:&#160 The unconstitutional healthcare boondoggle passed despite Scott Brown’s promise to be “the 41st vote” against it.

Item:&#160 The Demoscum’s guaranteed economy-killer bill passed the Senate today, thanks – in very large part – to Scott Brown.

Actually, four Republicans voted yes — Collins, Snowe, and Chuck Grassley were the others — but it was Scotty B who flipped today to make it happen.

[…]

Democrats succeeded in breaking through the Republican block by winning Brown’s backing.

Reaction:&#160 Tell me again – what was the point of having him there?

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If I lived in ‘Bama, I’d join the chorus that Smurf Turf State can’t win shit&#160 playing straight-up football…

KORRIOTH:&#160 Ahem.

VENOMOUS:&#160 ???

KORRIOTH:&#160 Little early for that.

…uh, wait.&#160 Wrong post.

If I lived in ‘Bama, I’d vote for this guy:

(Hat tip to Allahpundit, via a “buzzworthy” link from Michelle.)

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Three.

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