Leaving Rhode Island

After spending two years in Rhode Island, I'm down to my last hour of internet access. I will return in about 7 to 14 days from the great state of Louisiana.

For my last RI post, I wanted to talk about what I will always remember as my best memory of my time here. We've had a lot of great memories here of course, and have many great friends as well, but one event will always stand out for me.

Though I had been raised in a christian home all my life, I had never been baptised. At the time we moved here I had been thinking about this quite a bit and had started doing research about whether or not it was really 'required'. Of course I found great controversy over this particular point and started feeling guilty about looking for the answer at all. Because I did know that Jesus commanded us all to be baptised and here I was trying to see if I could get off on a technicallity.

A few months later, sitting in church, they announced that the next week there would be an opportunity to be baptised; I decided at that moment that I would participate. And boy, am I glad I did! The ceremony was held on a beautiful lake. Around thirty people were being baptised on a beautiful summer day and it was incredible to watch all the people take their turn. Whole families waded into the water together to be dunked. It was the most perfect setting. We all had an opportunity to say whatever we wanted before being dipped. It was an incredibly moving and memorable moment made all the sweeter by having my husband and two sons there to watch. That one memory makes it all worth it.

I would also like to take a moment and thank my colleagues and friends at work: Maggie, Celia and Kristy - Thanks for all the wonderful mentoring and friendship - I'll never forget you guys.

Big shout out to Rocco for all the blogging opportunities and for treating my family to a great Saturday and many other outstanding dinners. Other blogging pals that I've met in Rhode Island include Justin Katz and Andrew Morse. You've all been great and it was a pleasure to be able to meet you in person.

Our most favorite place to visit in RI is Newport. I highly recommend it if you can get there. We went this past Sunday for Father's Day. Here are some pics:

View from the CliffWalk:


Ok, Ok...I really like the flowers:

Father's Day Pic of the Day:

My boys after a long afternoon:


I'll be seeing everyone on the other side. Pray for a safe, smooth move!

Chaos

Well folks, after two long years of waiting the packers are here. I'm sitting in the middle of a tornado and my things are being boxed away faster than a democrat can compare our troops to nazis.

I think I'll have internet access to Monday. After that things will be touch and go. My boys and I fly out of Providence on Thursday and my hubby will follow a week later. He'll have the laptop. :(

Be good while I'm away and No Pilfering!!

SeanO you're in charge.

Gitmo Attacker

Rocco DiPippo has published a revealing column at FrontPageMag on the person behind the attack on Gitmo. Here's a sample:

As the wreckage of the Twin Towers was still smoldering, Michael Ratner began planning his attack on America’s post-9/11 defense strategy. Realizing that it would take major legal clout to seriously subvert the War on Terror, Ratner began taking steps to attract major U.S law firms to his cause. First, he adopted a high public profile against the Bush administration’s reaction to 9/11 by savaging every facet of its plan to protect the U.S. from future attack. Working the “civil liberties” angle for all its worth, Ratner raged at the Patriot Act, railed against profiling techniques designed to ferret out Islamic terrorists in our midst, and opposed invading Afghanistan to hunt down and capture Osama bin Laden and his Taliban henchmen.

The mainstream press assisted Ratner by promoting him as a champion of civil rights while carefully hiding his lifelong radicalims from the American public (see below). When the Islamists’ battleground changed, Ratner took a prominent role in antiwar movement by opposing Operation Iraqi Freedom. Ratner became a staple of antiwar, anti-Bush events. More importantly, he filed a series of high-profile nuisance suits against the Bush administration, one of which attempted to have Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld arrested and tried for “war crimes” by German courts.

You're gonna want to read the whole thing. Rocco also has more on his site at the The Autonomist, of which I am an occoasional contributor. Rocco has obviously put a lot of time and research into this most important and timely issue.

Don't Mess with the South

This story comes out of the city I'm about to move to.

A would-be robber got a hard lesson at a beauty school in Shreveport today: Don't mess with a class of aspiring hair stylists.

The man went into Blalock's Professional Beauty College in the 5400 block of Mansfield Road around noon intending to rob it.

Instead, he would up on the receiving end of fists, a curling iron, a table leg and a 2-by-4 when the 18 women and two men in the class fought back and held him until police arrived.

"He walked into a hornet's nest," Police Officer E.J. Swartout said.

The students said the man had ordered everyone to lie on the floor. But instructor Dianne Mitchell tripped him when he came out of a back room. He fell onto a chair and the students went after him.

"I was getting up and saying, 'Get him! Get him!' And everybody started charging him," Mitchell said.

"I've been out on the streets eight years and this is one of those deals when he walked into the wrong place at the wrong time," Officer Swartout said.

Police said the would-be robber, identified as Jared Gipson, 24, was carrying an unloaded gun.

Three people at the school suffered cuts and bruises. Gipson was taken to LSU Hospital to get stitches.

Roberts' mother, Verline Norris, waited outside the school while police investigated.

"They should have whipped him," she said of what happened inside. "That will stop a lot of this robbery that is going on in Shreveport."

Too funny! Imagine the scene when he has to face his fellow criminals - whipped by a bunch of student beauticians. LOL!!!

Go Spurs, Go!!

It's all about the Spurs, baby!!

Freaky Katie

Never let it be said that I've not made an effort to help in a bizarre mind-washing abduction that has occurred before our very eyes. With Oprah's blessing no less. To find out more on how you can help Free Katie click the link. Here's some background info for those of you living under a dark, cold boulder:

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Katie Holmes, who was raised Catholic, is delving into Scientology, her boyfriend Tom Cruise's religion.

"I'm really excited about it," she tells the AP while promoting her latest film "Batman Begins" in London on Monday, June 13. Holmes, 26, has reportedly been taking lessons in the Church of Scientology, the religion founded by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard.

In a June 17 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cruise, 42, says that Holmes "digs" the religion, which has won numerous high-profile Hollywood followers such as John Travolta.

The controversial religion, which promotes the use of vitamins over psychotropic drugs, landed Cruise in hot water recently when he criticized Brooke Shields for using Paxil to treat her postpartum depression.

A campaign, complete with T-shirts, hopes to "Free Katie" from the media coverage and the clutches of Tom Cruise, who has reportedly influenced her to change agents, consider converting to Scientology and drop the lead role of Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick in the upcoming film "Factory Girl."

"I don't even know what 'Factory Girl' is," insists Cruise from the Tokyo premiere of "War of the Worlds" on Monday (June 13). "Listen, the thing you've got to know about Katie is that she's an incredibly bright and self-determined woman. She makes her own decisions."

Yeah, sure she does. Where are her parents? Has someone called the police yet?

Dripping with Pride

My husband and I attended a little dinner last night. Not just any usual dinner, but his graduation from his fellowship. The reason why we're here in Rhode Island was for his training as a Pediatric Surgeon, a lifelong goal of his.

The enormity of the accomplishment is palpable. Two years of going to work at 5 a.m. and returning home around 11 p.m. or midnight. Many, many nights saw no sleep for my hubby. He persevered through the many hills and valleys. It takes a very special person and mentality to make it through something like this.

Though he certainly wasn't the only one to sacrifice for this goal. Two little boys have missed their Daddy an awful lot. They of course have no idea what we were doing here anyway; all they knew was that their daddy was not home.

The speech my husband gave last night was very moving and set the tone for the rest of the evening which was what a very special priviledge it is for parents to allow you to take their most precious gifts from God and operate on them. It is an awesome responsibility which he takes very seriously.

So at the age of 36 my husband just attended his last graduation for himself. The road to get here was pre-med and medical school, 5 years of general surgery training, 2 years in the research lab, 4 years in the Air Force, and 2 years of Fellowship. And what do you get at the end of this road?
This year, in the U.S. and Canada, only about 28 people will receive a similar piece of paper.

I thank my husband for his kind words towards me last night during his speech and thank God for the gift that he is to me and my boys and to the many, many families he has already touched and will touch in the next 30-35 years to come.

Waters and Floyd

Being a HUGE Pink Floyd fan, the news that Roger Waters is coming back for a reunion concert has me just plain giddy!

Pink Floyd - one of the biggest UK bands of all time - are reuniting for next month's Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park.
Fans will be delighted to hear that Roger Waters, Pink Floyd's bass player and main lyricist, will be rejoining the band he co-founded after an absence of more than 20 years.

Pink Floyd's most successful line-up - Roger Waters, David Gilmour on guitar, Rick Wright on keyboards and Nick Mason on drums - have not played together since the days of their last hit, the 1979 double concept album The Wall.

Since then, they have performed in depleted formations, following an acrimonious break-up and legal wrangling.

Of course all of this is in conjunction with the G8 summit and Gilmour is spouting off political crap, but I don't care. I'm in for the music, baby.

If you want to listen to any of their songs and/or watch the videos, go here. It is a very cool Floyd site.

Hat tip to Nate, a very good friend who got me hooked on Floyd about 15 years ago driving in a RX-7 on narrow, winding, foggy roads with Learning to Fly screaming from the speakers - the perfect study break. Many thanks, Nate.

Motives of Deep Throat

Co-contributor SeanO sent me a report the other day from this group on "The Motives of Deep Throat" by George Friedman. It is a fascinating read, however I am unable to find a link directly to the article but after calling upon the magic of Google I have found a blog that did post the entire column. Here's a taste to get you over there:

One can debate the nature of the FBI. Felt himself admitted he was a disgruntled employee. We can infer his loyalty to Hoover. What we have, therefore, is a disgruntled FBI employee -- bitter at being passed over for promotion, angry at having the legacy of his patron dismantled and running a covert operation against the White House. Within days of the Watergate Hotel break-in, Deep Throat -- Felt -- was telling Woodward of the role of E. Howard Hunt. That meant that Felt knew what had happened. He could not have known what had happened had he not inherited Hoover's mechanisms for monitoring the White House. It is clear that Gray was not given that mechanism, and it is clear that Gray didn't know about it -- since Nixon didn't know about it. But Felt did know about it. What the mechanism was, whether electronic eavesdropping or informants in the White House or some other means, is unclear, so we will refer to it as "the mechanism." What is clear is that Felt, without the knowledge of his director, was running an operation that had to precede the break-in. Hoover died in May 1972; the Watergate break-in occurred in August 1972. Felt did not have time to set up his own operation in the White House. He had clearly taken over Hoover's.

Felt could not admit that he had penetrated the White House. The No. 2 man at the FBI could have forced a grand jury investigation, but he did not force one because to do so, he would have had to reveal his covert mechanism in the White House. Felt didn't go to a grand jury not because he was boxed in, but because he could not reveal the means whereby he knew precisely what Nixon and his henchmen were up to. It is fascinating that in all the discussion of Felt as Deep Throat, so little attention has been paid to how Felt would have acquired -- and continued to acquire -- such precise intelligence. It has been pointed out that Felt could not have been the only Deep Throat because he could not personally have known all the things he revealed. That is true, unless we assume that Felt was the beneficiary of an intelligence operation run by Hoover for years deep into successive White Houses. If that is the case, then it makes perfect sense that Felt was the one and only Deep Throat.

There is a lot of history here, and if you're like me you were in diapers when all of these things were underway. Go get it all - It'll make your brain bigger for it.

Things are a Changing

The pictures are all down, shelves have been removed and I am in the final stretch getting ready for the moving truck to pull up outside. I found this pic the other day trolling around and think it perfectly depicts my life right now:A smile on the outside and a tornado is right in front of me! Almost all the details are taken care of, I just have to hope that everyone shows up and does what they're suppose to do! It's kind've like your wedding: It's much more important to you than everyone else involved and it is obvious that everyone else cares much less about things going just right!

I was hoping to write about some reflections of my two years here in New England. Hopefully, this will come to pass....just know that things are CRAZY! We have dinners/parties nearly every night and I'm trying to prepare my kids for all the changes along the way.

Life is good though!

RI Politics: Voter Initiative

Regular commenter and tipster KinRI has written the following to help inform the people of Rhode Island about a recent referendum put before the people:

This past November, voters in Rhode Island overwhelmingly approved a referendum question approving Separation of Powers (78% vs. 22%). The Constitution of the state of Rhode Island was flawed , allowing legislators to execute the laws they enact. So at least now, our Constitution is on par with the rest of the other 49 states and the US Constitution…finally!

With this momentum, hopefully, Voter Initiative in Rhode Island will become possible. Voter Initiative (also called Initiative and Referendum) is a lengthy process that allows citizens to place referendum questions on a ballot for a statutory change, constitutional amendment, or both.

Operation Clean Government’s Voter Initiative bill has been introduced every year since 1994 by Senator Marc Cote (D) and has failed to make it to the floor of the General Assembly every year. This despite the fact that 19 municipal governments in Rhode Island and two other New England states (Massachusetts and Maine) have voter initiative!

The Voter Initiative bill written by OCG addresses potential problems experienced by states like California by: protecting civil rights and liberties, having fiscal restrictions, and having one of the highest voter signature requirements in the country. In fact, the California Commission of Campaign Financing considers the OCG Voter Initiative to be model legislation!

Let’s help Operation Clean Government give the citizens of Rhode Island a voice--especially with all the shenanigans that continue to occur in our General Assembly…

UPDATE: Links fixed...Sorry.