No the grand flourish is not always the thing. Often a good cup of coffee and a long satisfying draw off a good stogy is just the thing. A fine morning under a blue sky with a bit of a crisp breeze and an allowance to simply look out at calm streets shaded with Maple like trees that don’t seem to lose their leaves in winter. I‘m not much of an arborist. There’s some kind of tree in our neighbor’s yard that has gone dormant, not a leaf on the thing, but these small finch like birds, and this one humming bird, and one lark (I think) are there just about every morning. Small things.

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Certainly Governor Romney took no small task upon himself, and he and his family shouldered that task nobly and graciously. He brought verve, intelligence and passion to our national dialog and for that we should thank him, and I for one do. Thank you Governor Romney.

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Moving as we all know is a large thing, on a personal scale anyway. Boxes here boxes there boxes boxes everywhere. And dust for some reason comes with the boxes. Cats don’t like moving. Initially anyway. But there are unearthed gems in every move. Did I mention I found my Horace. Yes, it’s true, I admit, I expected to find him. Would have been disappointed if I hadn’t, actually. So after a day of putting stuff here, dusting there and so forth I reclined on our two seater and opened up Horace where we had left off; he writes an ode To Maecenas (a patron of his I believe--among other things) and weaves a reassuring thought with the pay-off being this:

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Did you know that nephews are different than nieces. It’s true. Oh sure we could talk about the Wolffian duct system and such, but really no such discussion is necessary to acknowledge the Tabula Rasa stuff of Hume as twiddle twaddle. Yes I know, since at least the 60’s feminists and other progressives have hinged too much of their social policy on just such idiocy, what to do? As if the purpose of form begins and ends with the sex organs.

Anyway, nieces quietly ask aunty if uncle Jon is awake? Nephews see stirring and decide now is the time to attack and tackle. Nephews show off their bike riding prowess by relentlessly being on the precipice of disaster. Actually sometimes not on the precipice--that’s where the skinned knees come from.

Yes, this past summer while traveling through parts of the heartland--Kansas to Ohio, with Southern Illinois, Indiana, a trip to the Mammoth caves of Kentucky thrown in for good measure--we had (that would be me, Mrs. J, and Mrs. J’s father, my friend) the opportunity to visit with in-laws here and there on warm summer nights following, yes, hot and humid days. Good conversations ranging from the this of cooking to the that of politics: amiable and stimulating all. And the food was very good.

Oh and of course I played army with the boys with those plastic soldiers (they still make them). I lost. Too, we played star wars. I lost that also.

Gorgeous country. If you haven’t been there--well, you must.

Blessings. That summer trip was a blessing. Nephews and nieces are blessings. I’m thinking now about a couple of nephews who are in good health, one a graduate from college and the other in high school. Strapping good natured young men.

And cousins. Adult and young. And the young like nephews and nieces are wonderful, delightful, charming, and occasional trouble makers, aren’t all children? But now I’m thinking of one whom we are blessed to have with us. At a very tender age she had cancer. Prayers, medicine and love is what her parents provided, and we who knew them gave what we could.

Blessed.

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by Laura Ingram. And if you find things when unpacking, well, you lose things while packing. But thankfully I didn’t loose my copy permanently, and so I thought I would share a passage that I found particularly disturbing:

“the United Nations Children’s Fund (‘UNICEF’) has promoted its ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child,’ which would give children countless rights vis-à-vis their parents, including the right to receive ‘information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice’”

And you ask, “what could be wrong with that? Free expression and all that. Aren’t you hammering away at that all the time,” you ask.

Well of course there is nothing wrong with that except the absolute violation and negation of Free Association! Which is to say it is an absolute violation of Human Rights.

Of such a notion we can say that the UN does not recognize parents as such, but rather as wardens who are contracted to see to the clothing, feeding, and such of the State’s wards--its children not ours. Of such a notion we accurately say, abomination.

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It says here: “The state proposes to accomplish the improvement of accident insurance, the betterment and extension of maternity insurance, the establishment of insurance against occupational illnesses, the elaboration of a system of general insurance against illness, and the extension of unemployment insurance.”

Yes, well, I did slap my knees and thrust my desk chair back when I read that. Why? Because as eerily familiar as that sounds it is actually from an old party platform, Mussolini’s and his Fascists.

I came across that little gem in another book I didn’t know I owned. True, I’m one of those people who buys books knowing I’ll get to them at some point or another. I’m quick to accept other people’s unwanted volumes, and yes I do rescue books put out by the dumpster--some I return to the dumpster, and some go to the local used book store--always one of my favorite places to visit. But I digress, “really?” I heard that.

So anyway, Mussolini is said to have developed a ruling plan that was “an honest attempt to advance in constitutional legislation along lines best calculated to promote smooth collaboration of all classes of society for the good of the village” --whoops, I meant state. Now the above was written by F. Lee Benns in his book EUROPE SINCE 1914, which when published meant all of 16 years. I peeked at his section on Germany, which is where I learned about such things as majority socialists, and I found, ironically enough, he concludes Germany with a hopeful coda.

I like his style. I think I’ll give his book a thorough read rather than a cursory glance--what can I say? that’s all I had time for.

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Is it just me or do you get a little nervous by someone who excites passions but says nothing. You know who I’m speaking of, of course I’m speaking of Barack Obama. Grandiloquent, purple prose, bathos excites people into fainting, and I’m supposed to do what? Say what? Geez here we go again.

Really, someone who excites people only in passion is someone who is cultivating a cult of personality. Who else or what else is he referring to but himself? What ideas? What larger meaning? What in fact does he give allegiance to as that something that is larger than himself, and how or why does that something move him to informed solutions that he can articulate? And if he knows what they are then why is he not telling us? Why aren’t his ideas forcefully present in his speeches? Or is belief in Obama his campaign? His issue? Yes, I believe so.

I’m afraid to say more often then not such men prove to be very dangerous.

We must all come together is an Obama theme, whose corollary is “today, among the things for which there is no room, must be included the opposition.”

Make of that what you will, but Mussolini said that.

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Troubles will come and they will pass, Lynard Skynard said that in the tune Simple Man. A good thing to keep in mind I think. And with that I think I’ll resist my loquacious tendencies here and not do a double LP.

What’s that? “What about McCain, you didn’t say anything about McCain,” you say. Well that’s true. I’m listening, and honestly, I respect those who are getting on board, and I respect those who are in no such hurry. I’m in the latter group. And in any case, to borrow from another song “This Time, This time will be the last time, if this time is anything like the last time.” Or something to that affect, anyway.

And remember the risk we take with “ the deformity of any government that does not grow out of the nature of things and the character of the people.” Hawthorne said that (the Gray Champion).