Friday Night Miscellany

Happy Fourth of July, Everyone!

(Image from The New York Times July 4, 2008: The Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks display in New York, with the Empire State Building lit in red, white and blue.)

This is America's Independence Day and across the land everyone is out today with picnics, barbecues, beer, brats, baseball games, and tonight, the glorious fireworks!

I watched fireworks shot off at local parks from my second story bedroom window tonight, and I've got the Boston Pops on the t.v. right now - even on t.v. it's a quite impressive display from Boston and the music accompanying the fireworks display is wonderful! A few weeks from now dondelion and I will watch the great fireworks display from the local St. John's Catholic Church Festival which is across the block from my house. We have a front-row seat (practically) from my back yard deck. So I don't feel I'm missing out on anything tonight by not being onsite, so to speak :)

A few things to chew on:

As Gas Prices Soar, the Elderly Face Cut-backs in Needed Services: meals on wheels and in-home nurse visits suffer as the price of gasoline soars

A town in Italy takes a unique approach to the population implosion in "No Babies?"

Ohmygoddess! A report of a yellowish-green fireball from Southern California. Normally I don't report such things but I am haunted, positively haunted, by a close encounter with a green and gold fireball that I saw close up and personal as I walked home from the bus one night; it was dark at 6 p.m. so it was October or November, and it was either 2001 or 2002, I don't remember the exact date. But I remember seeing this thing zoom over my head - dead silent and so close I felt I could reach up and touch it - headed east toward the lake. It seemed so low in the sky I felt sure it would crash just a few blocks away, and so I turned and watched it disappear over the horizon, waiting to hear the "boom" of the explosion. But after a few minutes I didn't hear anything, or see a gigantic flash in the sky, and so I turned back and finished the half-block walk to my house. Okay, so call me hokey, but at the time I thought it was a sign from the Goddess that the Packers would win and go all the way to the Super Bowl. Didn't happen, I remember that much! Now there are 'rumors' about Brett Favre wanting to play again, and it's all Ted Thompson's fault that he felt he had to retire, he felt he was "forced out." Yeah, right. Brett, get a life already, heh?

The Ten Worst Moments of the Bush Presidency. Only ten??? Oh - I see - these are THE TEN MOST AWESOMELY BAD Moments of the Bush Presidency. Lol!

The spirits made me do it...the paintings of Augustin Lesage.