Gleaning Facebook: Which foundation is a scam?

The Trump "Foundation" is a sham, the Clinton Foundation is doing God's work.

Comments

J. Chris Lawler

I couldn't even find Clinton foundation listed on charity watch's website.

Bob Doster
Type charity watch in a google search. Its the first on under charitywatch.org

Terrell Shaw
Here's the exact page:
http://charitywatch.org/.../bill-hillary-chelsea.../478

This Time It's Not Just Politics

From my Facebook page --

[Later note: The photo that went with this Facebook post is gone! Wonder what fellow I was talking about?]

This fellow and I have voted in opposite ways in national elections since 1968. I hope that if our Democratic nominee were ever to be as crude, ignorant, cruel, and unAmerican as Donald Trump that I would have the moral courage to hold my nose and vote for a Bush, a Reagan, or even a Nixon.

There are plenty of positive reasons to support Hillary Clinton from my progressive point of view, but in this election the other choice is so repulsive that, in absolute seriousness, I could no more vote for Trump than vote for a fascist or a communist. If we had, as I wish we did, an automatic run-off system I'd record a second place vote for Johnson or Stein, or given a million more choices, still never choose Trump.

I was so sad in 1976 when some of my most admired loved ones opposed our beloved Jimmy Carter whom I was working so hard to elect. But I understood. When they rejoiced in 1980 while I grieved, I was disappointed but I understood. We have some disageement over where the proper balance of liberty and common good resudes. Still we all revere the goals of the Preamble.

That loved ones and friends who would ever consider a vote for Trump is the most profoundly disappointing political fact of my lifetime. I cannot understand that. I cannot reconcile the Preamble with a vote for Trump.

Georgia is a battleground state in 2016. Please register. Please vote. Please do your part to save America from the most divisive major candidate in at least 150 years.

Gleaning Facebook: It's Hillary!

Two posts from my Facebook account today:

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I am so happy to be a Democrat tonight. I believe we have our nominee, and she will make a wonderful president. But I am also thankful that my party includes outstanding mavericks like Bernie Sanders who push us to be all we can be. So I am pleased to also wear that Bernie button with the Hillary button. (Thanks to Andy Offutt Irwin for the Bernie button!)

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Thank you to Brannon Shaw & Lillian Shaw who honored me on my birthday by making a donation to Hillary’s campaign and ordered me a nice collection of Hillary political items for my collection!

(All that despite the fact that my youngest has a Bernie poster in her yard and my eldest is engaged to a Bernie guy.)

Over my right shoulder are my Hillary socks! I also have other buttons and posters.

Gleaning Facebook: Democratic Convention

 Paraphrasing Bernie:

This election is not about Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders, or gossip, or campaign tactics, (or e-mails, or whatever the media wants to talk about). It's about which candidate understands the problems and has real programs to solve them. Leadership that brings us together rather than dividing us up. Hillary Clinton will make a great president and I am proud to stand with her tonight.

Comments

Terrell

Whoops, posted before I finished... but I'm just gonna let it stand.

I love the way he talked about specific proposal after specific proposal, on and on noting that Hillary will work for that --- and that Trump won't.

CeCe Baker

Bernie gets it right.

Melissa Pyle Hamilton

Me, too!

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Steve Schmit: "Michelle Obama's speech was so good we may hear it at the next Republican convention."

Comments

Howard Smith FoxNews has not even reported anything about it online. I guess they won't until it is delivered at that next GOP convention.
Laura L Adams Hahahaha!
Ruth Baird Shaw Howard Smith...you are mistaken. I listened to First Lady Michele Obama's speech on Fox News!
Howard Smith Reread my most....I said "online".., it has finally been mentioned on their website.... which has gone out of its way to distort yesterday's coverage of the DNC

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Nicholas Kristof: "Michelle Obama gave a powerful, moving speech tonight at the Democratic Convention. "I wake up every morning in a house built by slaves," she said, referring to an arc of moral progress over the centuries. Michelle Obama came across as the anti-Trump: optimistic, positive, inclusive, upbeat, a powerful role model for all society. Whatever disagreements one may have with Barack and Michelle Obama about policies, it is hard to deny that they have been personally above reproach, fine parents, terrific role models. As Michelle put it: "When they go low, we go high"--and that marks another opposite from Trump." ------------- We have a beautiful, classy, articulate, inspiring First Lady.
Comments

John Carlin
Very inspiring.

George Barton
She was good

Melanie Collette Babb
Her speech was wonderful. Proud to call her my First Lady.

Ruth Demeter
I will have to listen to it again when I am not subbing. It was so awesome to be in the room with her.

Hilda Atkins Moore
She was indeed phenomenal...

CeCe Baker
Absolutely.

Stuart Bennett
Amen. A speech for the Ages!

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Senator Tim Kaine just made his debut as Hillary Clinton's running mate. I was struck by his warmth: His genial skewering of Donald Trump, invoking humor and optimism, was a marked contrast to Trump's own bombast. That ability to destroy opponents pleasantly is a rare political art.

Gleaning Facebook: Dragonfly

Facebook friend and amazing dragonfly photographer, Marion Dobbs, has posted her BDF (Best Dragonfly Forever) photo from her trip to Utah to attend the annual Drangonfly Society of America shindig.

Who knew?

From Marion Dobbs Facebook:

My current BDF (Best Dragonfly Forever). This shot of the aptly named Bleached Skimmer (Libellula composita) was taken in Tooele County, Utah, at this year's annual DSA (Dragonfly Society of the Americas) meeting. We spend a day doing the society's business and listening to scientific paper presentations (This year's were excellent), but we flank that day with days in the field gathering data and having fun! The meeting is in a different location each year, so we always get the chance to see new species and scenes.

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Marion Dobbs There are other contenders for the title and may be still more after today. George Barton Wow!

Gleaning Facebook: Splurging!

What a concert! John McCutcheon is amazing.

Woody Guthrie Birthday Show 

With John Mccutcheon 

Live At Red Clay Music Foundry

With my favorite companion splurging on some delicious pizza while we wait to cross the street to the Red Clay Theater and a couple of hours listening to one of our favorite storyteller/musicians, John McCutcheon!

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David Martin Rains

TS, King of the Cheap Date

Shelia: Maybe we could go out dinner tonight? TS: Nonsense, your homemade meatloaf is da best. 

Terrell Shaw
Sheila and I were splurging on calories, not moolah! 

When Our President Speaks

Dallas Chief of Police, David Brown, embraces President Obama after the president's historic and challenging speech today. The speech commemorated the five heroic Dallas police officers who were murdered while protecting those protesting police killings of two black men the week before.

I am thankful to both of these men for their candor and leadership this week.

This was far from the first time the president has comforted the nation with speeches after such horrible events. My friend Howard Smith expressed my view of what our president has so gracefully and forcefully done in each instance.

Independence Day 2016

 

Lillian sings the National Anthem

I'm so glad the city filmed Lillian's singing of our National Anthem at the 2016 Salute to America celebration at Ridge Ferry Park. Directly across the river in our back yard we and our guests listened and then continued the celebration watching the fireworks from the levee. 

Gleaning Facebook: Three Quotations About Conservation

 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

From Jerry Hightower, one of Georgia's premier environmentalists:

 “The preservation of parks, wilderness, and wildlife has also aided liberty by keeping alive the 19th century sense of adventure and awe with which our forefathers greeted the American West. Many laws protecting environmental quality have promoted liberty by securing property against the destructive trespass of pollution. In our own time, the nearly universal appreciation of these preserved landscapes, restored waters, and cleaner air through outdoor recreation is a modern expression of our freedom and leisure to enjoy the wonderful life that generations past have built for us.” — Ronald Reagan

“Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation.” — Theodore Roosevelt

“Today, across our land, the National Park System represents America at its best. Each park contributes to a deeper understanding of the history of the United States and our way of life; of the natural processes which have given form to our land, and to the enrichment of the environment in which we live.” — George B Hartzog, Jr.

Jermey Salter for District Attorney

 Well, I do believe Jeremy Salter is a good guy. But as importantly Jeremy wants to make some much needed reforms to our jurisprudence in Floyd County. Special courts to deal with non-violent drug offenses have been shown to greatly reduce recidivism and to reduce the human and financial costs of unnecessary incarceration.

So don't vote for Jeremy because I say he's OK. Vote for him to help create better, fairer, and more effective courts.

This is important, my friends. And your vote and support are so important and so effective in local races like this. Please help if you can. Even very small donations are a big help.

Gleaning Facebook: Rose of Sharon

I remember Rose of Sharon (Althea) from my childhood. We have several in our yard. I did not know that Althea and Okra are cousins but, as John writes below, look at the flower and fruit!

From John Schulz's Facebook:

Flower for the day--white althea. I have found that it takes quite a bit of practice to get a good picture of a white flower. This is after several tries. The althea is a tree form plant related to the hibiscus. Hibiscus and althea are in the same family as okra. I refer to althea as "fancy okra." If you don't believe me, check out the leaf and the fruit.

Comments

George Barton

Remember rubbing the pollen on the girls noses at recess in grade school?

Hallie Plitman Marker
One of my favorites. As I know you know, some people call it Rose of Sharon, which is what Steinbeck named a character from The Grapes of Wrath, and which is a reference to The Song of Solomon, though biblical scholars disagree on both the translation to Rose of Sharon from Hebrew and the type of flower referenced. But I never knew that hibiscus was related to okra!

John Paul Schulz
So, Hallie, you got your information from reading and I added the other part purely from observation.

But, Hallie, you did give us an excellent insight into the name of the plant and its history. Thank you.

Hallie Plitman Marker
First I loved the plant; Then I read. 

Hallie Plitman Marker
And your picture is worth 1,000 words.

Bill Barker
Thanks John

Michelle Mazzucco
Well, you certainly nailed THIS photo of a white flower!

My Grandfather named me for this flower...my first name is Sharon. And now I have a daughter whose middle name is Rose.....she is the Rose of Sharon!

Claudia Kennedy
It looks like it's related to the cotton plant too. Is it?

Carol Young
Loving this! ... (love okra too)... wish I could smell it !

Jim Tighe
I believe you. Beautiful flower, as is the hibiscus.

Gleaning Facebook: Clinton Foundation Rated

There's been a lot of junk out there about the Clinton Foundation. Here's the rating from Charity Watch, a fiercely independent group that rates every major charity group on the percentage of their donations that actually go toward their stated goals. Charity Watch rates all sorts of groups from Planned Parenthood to the NRA to you name it.

Gleaning Facebook: Arrowhead in June

A Sweetgum tree fell across our gravel road near the beaver pond, so a took the opportunity to snap some pics of the immature fruit.

 

Don't know which black-eyed suzie-Q this is, but she's lovely. Richard Ware says it is probably Rudbeckia hirta, the other species here (such as R. fulgida) bloom later in the summer.

The Red Buckeye trees are beginning to bear fruit.

The boardwalk from our new lakeside trail.

The Hophornbeams are beautiful right now with their unusualnfruit? Ostrya virginiana (American hophornbeam)

Some entomological porn on Queen Anne's Lace.

Today we cleaned the absolutely yuckified tank of our three very aggressive, if diminutive, gators. I thought I'd expire from the olfactory assault.

Just when a few blackberries are ripening someone decides to do some major herbicide spraying --- not sure of the target --- so our blackberries should not be eaten. Grrrrr...

From Richard Ware: "This is either Cornus stricta (Southern Swamp Dogwood) or Cornus amomum (Silky Dogwood). According to Weakley C. stricta has 3-4 veins per leaf side and C. amomum has 5 or more. So, you probably need to look at several leaves to make a good id, but it's probably C. stricta, which seems to be more common here in Floyd Co."

A big clump of Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Dumplin’, a very young Box Turtle, is a messy eater.

Thea and I model our Greek Fisherman hats…

Our four Gopher Tortoises enjoy some strawberries.

Gleaning Facebook: Ridin' On the River

Brannon posted this today:

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I don't want you to take my word for it. I want you to look at the evidence. And there is no surer evidence (if you are a kid-detective in the 90's) than old newspaper clippings.  Terrell Shaw is my father. Happy Dad's Day, Pops! Thanks for using your Chamber of Commerce member status to take me and my Cabbage Patch on pontoon boats!

Gleaning Facebook: Turn Your Back On Hate

We got soaked tonight with a couple of hundred other folks out in the deluge to stand in support of the survivors of hate and to remember those lost to hate in Orlando a few days ago.

 

We got soaked tonight with a couple of hundred other folks out in the deluge to stand in support of the survivors of hate and to remember those lost to hate in Orlando a few days ago. This is from my iPhone. Andi Beyer got a much better pic.

From Andy Beyer's Facebook: 

Good to see the Shaw family tonight!

Gleaning Facebook: Our President

From Hillary Clinton's Facebook:

You may have noticed a letter that went viral on the internet this week. The letter is from George H.W. Bush’s presidential library. I hadn’t read it in a long time, until yesterday. It moved me to tears, just like it did all those years ago. It’s the letter that President Bush left in the Oval Office for my husband, back in January of 1993. They had just fought a fierce campaign. Bill won, President Bush lost. In a democracy, that’s how it goes.

But when Bill walked into that office for the very first time as President, that note was waiting for him. It had some good advice about staying focused on what mattered, despite the critics. It wished him happiness. And it concluded with these words:

“You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success is now our country’s success. And I am rooting hard for you. George.”

That’s the America we love. That is what we cherish and expect.