Our leaders!

[DALederle]

I was watching the HBO series The Pacific yesterday. I got it through netflix. At the end they showed you the real people and video interviews with the vets and their families. Also the dates of their deaths. Most of them are gone now.
Thinking about it I wished there were more of these types of men still alive and in shape to help lead us out of the albsolute morass that our country (USA) and the world has gotten into. Without taking a side, I think we are caught in a no win situation by cowards whose only thoughts are to get re-elected. They are not out to make things right or to help save anyone but themselves.
The old vets fought for their country and the rest of the world because they felt it was job that needed to be done. They didn't claim to be heros (and because of that fact they really were heros). They just went out, as young men, barely teenagers, most of them, and did what they had to.
But today we have men and women getting elected who lie aout everything in their lives and we accept that. Or rather our craven media accepts that.
Only years later did we learn that the media covered up for JFK while he was in office. How much are they covering up right now/
Does anyone know the truth anymore.
If you think the loss of our space program is bad wait until the rest of their ideas come out!
God, help my children and grandchildren.
I enjoyed a basical good life thanks to those men from WWII. But there's no one like them now!

(30)
Dennis A. Lederle
Live Long and Perspire!

[phathack]

Things in History are often looked upon with fondness.

As you pointed out the media covered up for JFK, Though at the time it was not considered a coverup, they simply chose to not report about a persons personal life. Some of what to day is considered scandalous was a common practice back them and
people just looked the other way when things happened that today could get you arrested and might even get you forced out of office.

Those leaders of the WWII generation had their problems we have simply chosen to ignore their faults because we admired their leadership in a difficult time.

I don't see any true leaders in politics today.
I'm not sure the system would allow a true leader to lead if one were elected.

[Mugs-n-such]

I don't see any true leaders in politics today.
I'm not sure the system would allow a true leader to lead if one were elected.

Amen to that. I'd like to say a lot more on this subject but I was thinking politics is taboo?

[Kirbstone]

Good to see you back, Mugs-an'-such. On this side of the Pond we have a somewhat more distant view of your leaders, but they are in our news daily anyway, so Global reporting has become. We did, however get a closer look at your vote-catching President's convoy of three identical helicopters one famous Monday in May this year as they flew quite low directly over our domicile on a straight line between the American Embassy in Phoenix Park, Dublin to a certain pub in Moneygall and back!

O'Bama drinks pint in Moneygall, Co. Ofally. May 23rd 2011.jpg

Here in our Isle of Saints & Scholars we had the opportunity to kick all our leaders out last March, and that we did. The problems they left behind for our newly elected lot are mind blowing, and they have a severe task on hand to turn things round so we can begin to enjoy ourselves again.

They are new boys on the block and the playground bullies are German and French,(in the European School of Hard Knocks). Our national psyche is overall pragmatic, however, so we won't be having rioting in the streets or a revolution anytime soon. We'll just get on with it.

Tom K.

[DALederle]

I didn't mean for this post to get into a big political discussion. I only meant it as a sad fact that the men I grew up admiring and respecting are now passing away.
I don't care for parties or politics.
So let's not get a heated debate on that going here.
This was about our cultural loss of some real heros!
(30)

Dennis A. Lederle

[phathack]

Agreed,

We are here to support the adoption of Skirts as Menswear in the Western World not to discuss politics.

[Mugs-n-such]

Sorry I haven't been on here more often Kirbstone. I've been busy with TONS of stuff, including trying to brush up on my flute and guitar. I'll try and make it back a little more often...
As a silly aside, I'm sitting in a coffee shop wearing a kilt like skirt. I haven't been wearing it in public too much lately, I've got to get a regular kilt...I think I would wear a REAL kilt almost all the time...maybe even to church?I'd like to wear it all the time anyway.
Peace!

[Kirbstone]

Nice to see yer oul' Mug again, Mugs-and-such. I thought we'd lost you! Glad to hear you're still annoying everybody within earshot with your flute & guitar. I do likewise with my piano & tin-whistles, but I enjoy myself, which is the main thing. I do tend, however, to have some presentable stuff ready for parties & gatherings.

As regards skirt wearing it's far too windy & cold here now for serious shirted outings. We're planning a 'twelfth night' party next Jan. 6th, at which paticipants will be encouraged to dress up as some characters from the 'Twelve Days of Christmas'. I had a piper (....Eleven pipers piping) in mind. That would be an excuse to put on a kilted ensemble, but I would have to get that one past the Wife's Dress-Code censorship first. No doubt several people will turn up as 'Five Golden Rings', as 2012 is an Olympic year!

Tom

[Kirbstone]

Back to 'Our Leaders'. Here we've just elected a new President.

For the last 20-odd years we've had two lady presidents who were indeed a hard act to follow, and no less than seven names came forward for the Irish presidential race in 2011. Of these, when they appeared on TV for an interview/debate only one needed a box to stand on, so his head appeared more-or-less level with the others...Michael D. Higgins, Septuagenarian, built like a jockey, and a poet, to boot.

He won by a serious landslide, so when any of you come to present your credentials as US Ambassador or whatever to him, you won't have to look up!

Tom K.

[Mugs-n-such]

Thanks for the welcome back Kirbstone! Nice to hear you're a musician, too (pun partly intended)!
I've been having fun with my Miata but it needs some (mainly cosmetic) work done.
Mentioning lady presidents, I think Michelle Bachman would be good, but a lot of my friends think a woman would be too weak or somehow they're against a woman as president. Personally, I don't think the Israelis had any problem with Golda Meir, or the British with Margaret Thatcher, but I'm just an ignorant hick I guess so what the hey.
I'll try to come here more often, Kirbstone, especially with true blue friends like you with whom to chat.
Peace, Gummug (Gary)

[DALederle]

Next years, you know, 2012 when the world ends, we in the USA will be electing the president again. I hope that sometime, between now an election day, there comes along a person worthy of voting FOR. Most of my life I've been forced to vote for the lesser of two evils.
I can't see the current one returning to office. Not and the USA surviving his second term!
But right now, NO ONE seems to be the man I want to vote fo!
To bad, really.
No any good political Jokes, besides the ones in office?


Dennis A. Lederle
Live Long and Perspire!

[Kirbstone]

Ah, I see we have a staunch Republican in our midst. However, History will attest that an incumbent President is difficult to oust when he(she?) runs for a second term.

Today at work I was handed an amazing expression apparently attributed to Sir Winston Churchill which may not fall easily on ears Stateside: 'One can always rely on the Americans to do the Right Thing, but not until after they have exhausted all the other possibilities first'.

Tom K.

[Kirbstone]

Gary,
I spotted this mint Miata (Marketed here as an MX5) in expensive coupe company in the very pretty port town of Dartmouth in S. Devon, England. I immediately thought of you and snapped it.

Rs Mazda Miata Dsartmouth Devon UK.jpg

The 'MGF' registration is what the English sell as a 'cherished plate', and can cost serious money.
The white VW Camper behind is what we arrived in. Not any fun to drive, but can cart several dogs & large volumes of junk around.

Tom

[crfriend]

Today at work I was handed an amazing expression apparently attributed to Sir Winston Churchill which may not fall easily on ears Stateside:

My dear Sir, you may underestimate us Yanks. One of the most poignant comments ever made about the place was, "Nobody has ever lost money betting on the stupidity of the American electorate." This may have been Mark Twain or Will Rogers. Either would work -- and be as devastating.

To this day I still vividly recall the last time that the American electorate "went to the polls mad", and my blood still runs cold from the memory. It was in 1980: I was a young thing, desperately trying to make a place for myself in the professional world of computing; I was also 19 -- USDA Grade A prime beef: cannon-fodder, if you will -- and I viscerally remember watching the election returns streaming into the conference-room where a bunch of us were watching with interest. I was shivering in terror with a cold sweat. Fortunately, perhaps, for me, Reagan decided to declare war on the US of A rather than on the rest of the planet; however, for my country, and, in the long term for me, the end result is close. Disaster. And here we go again.

Our brethren "across the water" had a similar experience with Margaret Thatcher. Kindred souls those two, Reagan and Thatcher; I hope they both rot in whatever Hell they most feared.

'One can always rely on the Americans to do the Right Thing, but not until after they have exhausted all the other possibilities first'.

I do not share that confidence. There's not the time for the "process of elimination" any longer. The stakes are just too high.

[crfriend]

I spotted this mint Miata (Marketed here as an MX5) in expensive coupe company in the very pretty port town of Dartmouth in S. Devon, England.

I've had the fun of driving a Miata once, and it was fun, mind, save that if I sat up straight in the driver's seat my head was rather handily above the windscreen. Sadly, I do not have any photographs of the situation for they'd surely be a hoot.

The white VW Camper behind is what we arrived in. Not any fun to drive, but can cart several dogs & large volumes of junk around.

I drove minivans for about 20 years, and despite all the sarcasm that gets heaped atop blokes that drive them can positively state that that they (1) make superb "road cars" for tall blokes and can (2) carry enormous quantities of stuff that would otherwise require hiring a proper lorry for. Too, good ones can do most things that only the most macho types in the USA dare to do with four wheel drive.

If I could find another 1984 or 1990 Mopar minivan in good condition I'd jump on it in a heartbeat,