Category → Family
Happy Easter – Rebirth
Easter falls during Passover week, an effort by the early Church to compete with the parent faith. While Passover marks human liberty, Easter marks birth and rebirth, a compelling concept for a world that too often focuses on simple physical comforts and novelties. Humans obsessed with physical luxuries have an opportunity to reflect more, to contemplate better ways of living.
How meaningful, then, that the showdown on the Bundy ranch in Arizona happened on the eve of Passover and Easter. A rebirth of freedom has followed that showdown. Growing numbers of American citizens are realizing how empowered they are, how many kindred spirits there are in the quest for keeping government power limited, how united they are in their commitment to liberty.
How the Bundy facedown will ultimately play out is anyone’s guess, but one thing is for sure: It will not be another Waco (21 years ago today) or Ruby Ridge. And that’s a great thing. We can thank our Judeo-Christian Biblical heritage for that.
Happy Easter, America.
Happy Passover: Freedom for Everyone
Happy Passover to those who observe the holiday. It is the holiday of freedom, and liberty.
Is it any surprise that the Bundy ranch was liberated on the eve of Passover? While no shots were fired, the standoff at the Bundy ranch had all the ingredients of another Waco or Ruby Ridge. Except that today, millions of Americans are ready to leap to their fellow citizens’ defense. Many patriots who joined the Bundy family made the point that another civil war could start over the standoff. While later news reports indicate that the desert tortoise had zero to do with the BLM removing the Bundy’s cattle, and rather US senator Harry Reid’s son wanted the land for a solar project, the bigger specter of an over-reaching, unnecessarily aggressive, thuggish government mixing it up with armed citizens, and then backing down, was not lost on most watchers.
America regained a shred of liberty this week. Whether you are sitting down to a Seder tonight, or not, you should give thinks for the liberty we have and that which we just won back.
Proof that bigotry is moronic, cowardly
A Jewish Community Center in Kansas City is attacked by a Ku Klux Klan guy. He shoots several innocent, unarmed, unprepared people there while yelling about how great Adolph Hitler was. Three people are dead, two of whom are confirmed to be Methodists, the third Catholic.
Not Jewish.
The murderer’s target group wasn’t there. Their Christian friends and neighbors were.
This attack also demonstrates how integrated America is: Christians celebrating at a Jewish run facility; how religious and skin color differences are easily bridged, much more often than not.
My deepest condolences to the families of the victims. My request to bigots: Wake the hell up, knock it off.
Pickled eggs
Pickled eggs are a regional treat unappreciated by many otherwise redeemable connoisseurs from the flatlands. My wife and I relish them, our kids turn up their noses, and many other people ask “What?”
So here we go:
Using a gallon-size empty large glass pickle jar, I put in a can of sliced beets (plain, unsalted, if it can be found) with the red juice, 2-4 sliced onions of any color, thinly sliced rounds from 2-3 large carrots, and a dozen hard boiled, peeled eggs. Pickling solution is made to taste, usually a teaspoon of white sugar and a teaspoon of salt dissolved in a few ounces of warm water, dill, basil, and garlic to taste, about 8-12 ounces of apple vinegar, 1-2 ounces red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar, and top it off with warm water. Turn the sealed jar upside down and shake it for a minute.
Set it out on the kitchen counter for a few hours, and then refrigerate (or in the winter, put it in your cold mud room or outside enclosed porch, good natural refrigerators).
After a couple days, everything in that jar is begging to be eaten. After a week, it is a delicacy. We eat the eggs whole with the vegetables on the side, or I slice them up into salads that Viv and I eat for lunch.
Three cheers for Central Pennsylvania’s traditional foods!
Take a kid fishing
Tomorrow marks the beginning of trout season in Pennsylvania. It’s a big deal. Half the population is associated with it, either fishing, eating the fish, or cheering on the mighty hunters who bring home the bacon.
Our next generation needs a helping hand. Too many gadgets, electronics, virtual nothingness and digital pretend friends are separating kids from the beautiful reality surrounding them. They might grow up to think that water comes from the tap, heat from the wall thingy, and food from the grocery store. Fishing teaches crucial lessons about being a real human being, not the least of which is self reliance, a trait once quintessentially American and now considered quaint.
Fishing also teaches the importance of conserving natural resources for the future kids.
So take a kid fishing. You’ll be doing everyone a big favor, now and later.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye…step back in time
Last Sunday was the Maple Festival at Fort Hunter, here in Harrisburg. Today and tomorrow is the Honorable Company of Horners at the US Army Heritage Center in Carlisle, PA. If you enjoy mingling with people dressed as if they just emerged from a 1770s time machine, this is the event to go to this weekend. Flintlock rifles, lots of modern and antique powder horns and various accoutrements like knives, tomahawks, etc. I find this sort of diversion from politics, work, and politicking refreshing. Maybe you will, too.
Michele Bachmann – say it, sister
Michele Bachmann said it loud and proud, and it’s not just Israel getting sold out, it’s thousands of years of tradition getting flushed, too, a cornerstone of Western Civilization. Michele, you have my greatest appreciation and respect for saying what must be said.
Last day of Great American Outdoor Show
If you have not yet gone to the new Great American Outdoor Show, today’s the day.
Even if you’re not a hunter, there’s still much to see and do. The Farm Show complex is enormous and every hall is packed. RVs, campers, boats, fishing everything, mapping, GPS technology, clothing. Etc.
One thing I noticed last week was a booth full of furs also selling turtle shells. Whether or not these shells are from wild native turtles, illegal, or from some farmed non-native species, it disturbed me to see them. Turtles take a good ten years to reach maturity, when they can begin breeding. Their nests are subject to raids by raccoons, skunks, snakes, possums, and bears. ATVs and dirt bikes often are ridden over the soft soils turtles choose to lay their eggs. Collectors grab them for illegal sales, dads take them home for their kids to see, etc.
You get the picture. Turtles don’t have it easy.
If there’s one thing missing from the GAOS, it’s an emphasis on land, water, and wildlife conservation. Plenty of emphasis on the taking part, not much on the conserving part. Maybe that’ll change at next year’s show.