Wyatt Earp married Urilla 'Rilla' Sutherland on this day in 1870 in Lamar, Missouri.  She lived exactly one year, dying of typhoid, perhaps in childbirth.  From the newly discovered photos of Rilla and those of Josie Marcus when she was young and even a youthful photo of Mattie Blaylock shows us how much the three women resembled one another.  It is so sad and so tragically romantic.  Wyatt Earp spent the next twelve years looking for Rilla in other women. 

 

Did anyone catch the Duncan Hunter Dog and Pony Show this AM on FOX?  He lied about the Congressional Research Service being biased.  I love the way he mangled statistics.  This man wants to be POTUS?  Then contrast it to the magnificent, “I’m coming and hell’s coming with me,” speech the President made this evening.  Remember ‘the buck never got here’ – isn’t refreshing to hear ‘the buck stops here’? We are in the midst of greatness with this man.  Then the Dems step in and pander to the treason lobby.   

 

I’ve had a very long day, running around like a hamster in a treadmill in Roswell. FYI – never eat at Portofino, an alleged Italian restaurant with the nastiest Italian food I have had the misfortune to consume in my entire life!  I think I had maybe 3 hrs sleep last night. Mommy kitty has lost her mind!  She’s nut.  Since October I’ve been wondering what is going on with the cats.  Last night I was treated to her abject insanity.  She was attacking everything.  She just plain old beat up on Rumsfeld.  I was going to find a home for the Little Buddy, her brother/father of her children, only to discover she is the crazy one.  I don’t now what I am going to do.  She was out of her feline mind last night with the babies which were upstairs.  I finally put them in a box and carried them back to the nursery, where they are now up under the bed.  Things were so bad, I took Doc, Rums, Little Buddy, and Redford and just plain locked them in my bedroom last night.  The minute I separated Little Buddy he mellowed out into the nicest cat.  I can’t believe I was going to get rid of him.  I would love to find a good home for him.  He needs to be a one cat companion.  I think if he were pumped full of enough ovaban he would mellow out into a very nice cat.  Now to catch him, get him fixed and de-clawed. 

 

So I am exhausted.  All I’m posting today is an abbreviated commentary I wrote very early this morning. 

 

Oh, Rachel’s dog, part lab and part African bush hound came in last night.  My sister picked her up at the airport.  Evidently she went from Nairobi to Holland, to Atlanta, taking about 2 days.  She’s in great shape, a little shocked and doesn’t know English!  Rachel had been learning Swahili, and used only that language with the dog.  My sister said she now knows one word in English, “No.”  Evidently the pup and Pig, the pug have experienced love at first sight.  Cathy said the dog just lays there with her chin on her paws, just looking at Pig like he is the greatest thing there ever was.  Now to get Rachel home in one piece.

 

More tomorrow. 

 

An all too true observation by Brendan Miniter in the Opinion Journal today.

 

“…In The Atlantic last year, Ryan Sager, author of the book "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party," noted that Republicans were suddenly finding themselves losing elections in the Rocky Mountain states. Today Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming all have Democratic governors. Mr. Sager attributes the sudden Democratic surge in the "Purple Mountains" to religious conservatives gaining control of the policy debate within the Republican Party. In Mr. Sager's view, the GOP has lost the libertarian-leaning conservative voters whose politics tend to mirror the rugged individualism of those he suspects inhabit the region…Mr. Sager might be observing the outcome of an influx of former Californians who have found that the virtual economy allows them to telecommute from Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Bozeman, Mont., or who have found work in Denver's thriving city center and suburbs. But if he's right and religious conservatives are costing the GOP mountain conservatives, then it's hard to see how the Republican Party avoids a pitched battle for its soul. Values voters lay claim to the last electoral victory for the party--President Bush's re-election in 2004--and Christian conservatives have long had a strong hand in judicial politics on the right. Economic conservatives lay claim to the victories of Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan..”

 

I think the problem is more the fact that Californians are leaving the state like rats jumping off a sinking ship, and moving to western states, thereby bringing with them their Democratic ways.  Here in NM, I think Gary Johnson, our previous governor was a GOP fluke.  The GOP is a mess in this state.  If it weren’t for large concentrations of Republicans in Lincoln County and down through to Roswell, the state would be bright blue.  This points out the problem with observations such as Miniter makes.  If a person doesn’t intimately know the ins and outs of a state, making blanket statements about the politics of the state just don’t hold up in the wash. 

 

Colorado has some serious problems within the GOP.  Anyone who reads my favorite liberal blog, the Colorado Confidential ought to realize the GOP in Colorado is in serious problem for several reasons.  First is that influx of California liberals.  Secondly, Tom Tancredo has made such an ass of himself he has turned off ‘swing’ voters.  If he were in any other district, he would be sitting home nursing his bigoted wounds.  But the most important thing going on in Colorado is what may be some serious ethical problems within the GOP.  It is the same thing with Ohio.  GWB didn’t lose Ohio, the Taft corruption machine did.  To blame the GOP loss there on anything else is ludicrous.  Colorado can also be a very bigoted state when it comes to Hispanics.

 

Texas is another problem.  Tom Delay did not help matters there in the state.  Fact is, not only are the Republicans in Congress suffering from a Delayed hang over, but so is the GOP in Texas.  So what if he was conservative, he rail-roaded everything and everyone with his blind ambition.  We are all now paying the price for it.  There is also a huge backlash in Texas over the anti-Hispanic bigotry that is seething in conservative RIGHT ranks.  Never underestimate that backlash.

 

Arizona is suffering from a California influx.  The state is getting more and more annoying just to visit.  People in the cities are becoming rude, obnoxious, and definitely a pain.  I like Cochise County, and consider it a home away from home.  Bisbee is the perfect example of California influx weirdness going whacko. 

 

As for Montana, wasn’t Conrad Burns considered the most corrupt person in the Senate?  Why the H-E-double- toothpick did the GOP even support him? 

 

The libertarian influence is something all-together.  Don’t make the mistake of considering this the gentle bumbling libertarian idealism of limited government.  These libertarians who have caused all the problems here are so ultra conservative and so far RIGHT they have begun embracing the tenants of socialism and Big Brother interference in every aspect of our lives.  It is amazing how intrusive and socialistic their brand of anarchism can be.  These people are a danger to themselves and to the country.

 

The greatest difficult for the Republican Party in general is the fact that we are now paying the piper for well over a decade of hard-handed RIGHT conservative rule.  When we swept into power in 1994 we were idealistic and going to change the world.  Instead, absolute power corrupted absolutely.  Let’s face that fact that the power brokers that ‘were’ in the GOP became as corrupt and manipulative as those they replaced.   The more the GOP is swept into the extremism of the anti-immigration and Hispanophobia crowd the worse things are going to be.

 

Which brings me to the final problem:  Illegal immigration.  It wasn’t the GOP or the conservatives who started the whole mess we now find ourselves in today.  I just wish you could get these RIGHT minded people to comprehend the whole things is a manipulation of racism and bigotry concocted within the seriously disturbed minds of John Gilchrist and Chris Simcox and seized upon by the intense bigotry and ambition of Tom Tancredo.  If Connie Hair had not been such good friends with Sean Hannity where would the minutemen, et. al be today?  I suspect they would be unknowns.  It is also interesting that many of the Libertarians, Greens, and Constitutional Party members who whole-heartedly embraced the Gilchrist-Simcox BS are not Republicans but masquerade as such and have infiltrated our ranks.  You also need to know among those people are some very nasty bigoted individuals who can be documented as trying to usurp the GOP.  Also, both Simcox and Gilchrist arrived at their extreme positions after documented breakdowns following 9/11. 

 

Add to this perfect storm the mix of Richard Vaguerie (Christian Coalition) and his smarmy little partner, William Greene, who has created this web of entangled organizations that do nothing but suck money out of unsuspecting rubes and we have a serious mess.  They are the ones who are making the GOP look bad.  The funny thing is, they aren’t Republicans at all. 

 

 

Thirteen excuses for not having taken down my Christmas tree – already yet!

  1.  I like looking at it

  2.  I still haven’t had my after Christmas Christmas Party

  3.  I don’t have time to take it down

  4.  My poorly healed elbow doesn’t work well enough to remove it

  5.  Am still suffering from vertigo

  6.  Need to get a new plastic storage container - maybe

  7.  How many days have passed since Christmas, don’t I have 12 days?

  8.  Isn’t it still Epiphany?

  9.  It’s just too much trouble

10.  It’s artificial, so what’s the problem?

11.  Will give it up for Lent

12.  Several weeks ago I had my washer/dryer removed from the closet where I now want to store my       ornaments.  I cannot get shelving in until the handy-man has a non-custody week. 

13. I’m too durn lazy to take it down!

 

Last, but very much not least, is Wednesday's Hero.  

This came to me today from a friend, Rick Timberline in Valdosta, Georgia.  I think it is perfect.

 

A picture worth sharing. This is reality. This is something you will never see in the news.  Here's a tough, butheartwarming story and a picture of John Gebhardt in Iraq .  His wife, Mindy, related that this little girl's entire family was executed.  They intended to execute her also and shot her in the head, but they failed to kill her. She was cared for by John's hospital and is healing, but has been crying and moaning. The nurses said John is the only one she seems to calm down with, so John has spent the last four nights holding her while they both sleep in that chair. The girl is coming along with her healing. He is a real Star of the war and is representative of what America is trying to do. James Gates U.S. Navy.