Attention

I've met several extras or as they prefer, background actors.  They are the people you see in certain scenes, walking past, around eating at other tables etc while the principles are engaged in action/dialog. 

Often, especially in restaurant scenes, background actors can be scene to be quite mobile.  They make gestures and talk animatedly.  A smart director narrows focus.  A smart extra keeps it toned down.

Look everywhere and so many in show biz, politics everywhere, are clamoring for attention.

Some are worth it, most are nt.  I avoid a lot of it, personally and professionally, unless I have something to say and/or I won't mention names nor circumstances, there is enough 'attention' -s-.  Decide for yourself what's is worthy of yours.

Chitchat is ok, but it should be brief and lead to other things.

Attention can be gotten without stripping or yelling. Some people have 'it' or they don't.  Some people think position is enough.  Nope.  Content of character and message count.

So be subjective and don't bust a gasket

October is rolling in.  The TROLLS are coming...

Lincoln Or Churchill

There was some flap about ridding the Oval Office of a bust of Churchill and replacing it with one of Lincoln.  Don't make it more than it is.  The bust was on loan and returned.  There is a bust of Churchill in the White House.  Lincoln did take residence in the OO.

Got me to thinking of who would I rather be looking at while doing the People's work, Lincoln or Churchill?

Examine them both and you will find human beings.  Flawed people make mistakes.  I'm also cautioned to beware the cult of personality.  It's results that count.  As Scripture says, 'By their fruits ye shall know them'.

Heads of state in times of war.  Rough decisions and sacrifice.

Lincoln had a fanboy named Karl Marx.  I have theories re Marxism at the time.  I believe they backed Lincoln and the Union.  A strong state would be easier to compromise and bring to world communism.  The Confederacy in spite of the outgoing slavery angle, was the Constitutional state.  Such independence would be a tough nut for the commies to crack.

Churchill played footsie with Stalin.  FDR was of course, much worse.

However, Sir Winston played a longer game.  He was effective and decisive during the war, but he was discarded til the 50s, for his expertise were brought to bear during the Cold War.

A collectivist in the Oval Office might like to have Marx's working class hero (who instituted a state which increasingly became compromised as it absorbed more and more power) as a reminder of the Goal.  It has slid to socialism and worse in the US.

Churchill is a reminder that there is an indomitable spirit of Freedom afoot, whereas Lincoln created a nest of tyranny.  There could be arguments otherwise perhaps, but these are my analyses.

Lincoln seemed to balk his masters and banking became an issue.  Did he want to reform and btw help the South?  We will never know.  The country was fractured and his death assured division that lasts in some forms to this day.

It is easier to control people divided.

Churchill, in spite of compromise, could be a wild card.

England has sunk into abysmal socialism and worse now with jihadist incursion.

I bet a leader like Churchill would have put the kibosh on the evil threatening our whole world.

A red diaper baby in the Oval Office would not want someone even symbolically like that around.

If I were President (no aspirations lol), gazing at the bust of a wild card who warned the world of what was coming would inspire me as I went about my job serving my people.

Small gestures can have significant sublevel meaning.  But I suggest we keep our eyes on the prize, ie, Restoring the Republic.

Civilization Vs Humanity

Actually both words have been misappropriated and used to equate collectivism.  The old switcheroo that if we are civilized we don't need guns for instance.  For the sake of humanity disarm ad nauseum.  I'd like to look at these words head to head.

Responsibility, another twisted word comes to mind.  Well, anything can be turned around to fit the collectivist matrix.  Don't let that stop you from truthfully using words. 

Civilization seems to mean a structured state with people answerable to whomever is in charge.  It has gotten away from accumulated culture, law and morals in favor of whatever the state says cultural, historical or moral.

Humanity is a tearjerker bleeding heart word meant to trigger thoughtless emotion.  We are meant to have conscience.  But we must see things as they truly are.  Evil hides in good intentions. 

Real civilization balances what we've learned with what we need/want to do.  Learning from mistakes, we strive to seek Freedom and Restore the Republic.  THAT'S civilization.

Real humanity indeed is heart.  Loving , caring and a willingness to fight for what's good and decent.

Head vs heart?  Or do we balance these?   Do we turn around hijacked terms and hold (not cling) to light?

It can be cold state versus decency, tyranny opposed to Liberty.

Or they can comprise a double edged sword which cuts through the red tape, the miasma of doubt and fear.

It is an opportunity to face ourselves and others.

Psycho Rising

I'm reminded of opportunities watching The Walking Dead.  The scenario lends itself to some elemental situations where one has to **** or get off the pot.  Figure those out for yourselves -s-.

I'm particularly thinking of 'triggers' or circumstances which allow the veneer to be stripped away, presenting what lies underneath.

A lot of people plod hrough life uneventfully.  Nothing is particularly significant.  They may never reach a potential.  Until, until events align that throw them into action.

The Governor on TWD is a negative example.  He had a middling job, wife and daughter.  He complained of the college boy genius who was his superior.

Now I will say sometimes there are those 'supervisors' who do not meet expectations/potential.  Or those ho assume the reins who screw up what was established.

That aside, The Governor was prezombie holocaust a psychopath in check.  The opportunity never upped him as it were. 

Then devastation and deprivation rose.  His psychopathy rose.  So it may go in real life.

I'm not fretting about below the surface loons champing at the bit to wreak havoc.  There will always be opportunists waiting in the wings.  Need I say look at Congress, Oval Office or Chicago mayors office?

THEY need to worry.  Indeed the monsters actions to stifle Freedom speak for themselves.

The tide turns.  The opportunity presents itself.

As psychos rise ie Stalin Hitler the current occupier of the Oval Office, so too rise opposition.

Heroes, though they never declare themselves such, meet the challenge, into the fray.

It could be the most unlikely.

Let's Go

What the guys said who rushed the jihadi on the French train.  It says a lot.

It's not reckless nor is it heedless.  Quite the contrary.  There is a time to do, for if we wait or hesitate, we are dead. 

Again, go to the net and find all the variations of the story.  It amounts to the same thing in my mind; ie, some Americans save the day.

There comes a time in the affairs of men-and women, where we act or we do not.  If your life is on the line, the risk is surprisingly simple. 

There us no time to think.  Action is required. 

There is a lot of hesitation in the world.  Sometimes it's merited.  One needs to weigh the fors and agins in some cases.  But down to the wire, that is gone.

What these guys di was indeed American.  We are a country built on decisive action.  It is an attribute of /freedom.

In the larger world, it is American to act, and it is universal.

Brushfires lit, finally the whole world will be able to act. 

Freedom is not exclusive to Americans.  But we should light the way,.

Let's go.

Serenity

Nope.  Not the Joss Whedon movie that was a conclusion to the short lived Firefly.

It is the name of a restaurant in Zionsville, the hometown of a major part of my family.  The major surprise is where it's at.

I was indeed surprised, even shocked to find out my GreatGrandmother's home had been converted into said restaurant. 

I spent a great deal of time with Grandma (pronounced Gramma) Hiland over my early life.  She was a great positive influence who has never flagged, even all these years later.  What she taught me has lived within me and guided me, in spite of any detour.  I have always gotten back on course.

The revelation of this development has caused me to reflect, even beyond my normal memories.  I am not living in the past, mind you.  I am remembering.  All the good and bad of those years has coalesced in warm reflections.

Grandma Hiland, Rose Belle StClair Hiland, was a moral compass for me, my Dad and so many more. 

She was a lifelong Democrat and a suffragette.  What a difference between her and the monster that has morphed into a collectivist miasma now.  Her moral compass never flagged.  She was loyal, dedicated and American. 

She treated people equally, content of character uppermost, long before MLK. 

Her love was unconditional.  She gave as well as she got and more.

Her instincts re human nature were incisive.  Yet she overlooked the flaws in her own family.  That was part of her inclusive nature.

Her door was always unlocked, well til real late at night.  People all day long would come and pay their respects.  And she always had time for all of them.

When I visited her, quite frequently, I never felt jealous of that.  She had time for all.  Old friends and new, family, folks she influenced, they all came.

When I visited, I often ran errands for her.  I'd go from the grocery store to the bank and anywhere else she bade me.  Returning, Grandma always had lunch ready, for she loved to cook.  And that included breakfast, lunch and dinner, which she called breakfast, dinner and supper.

I'll never forget she would say I could sleep as late as I wanted.

Then , invariably, at between 6-7am, she'd yell, 'Mike, Mike MIKE!'

We'd sit down to an old fashioned farm breakfast and talk.  And talk.  And learn of family, friends, clan, as well as what was important.  That was mostly to be honest and face problems with no excuses. 

She had a most incisive view, not only of individual people, but of events

I'm going to write a memoir about her, my relationship with her, and how it all plays out.

At night, in the bedroom upstairs, I would sometimes stand at the window, gazing down on Main Street.  Quiet, streetlights shining, I was able to be peaceful, to sort things out.

Grandma Hiland's place was a peaceful nest in a sea of turmoil.

There is no coincidence the place is now called Serenity.

Rosebush

They are resilient, beautiful and represent love.  The sturdiness has been hijacked by collectivists as a symbol of 'socialism'.  Symbols are just that for weal or woe.

In this particular instance, I'm thinking of my ex's front yard.  She is doing well, btw.  In law school, determined to help children who have been sexually abused.

There is a lot of work to be done round her place.  I have helped as best I can.  This particular work was the other day.

Sunday 8/23 was her birthday.  I decided to clear a rosebush in her front yard.

It had been there for decades, planted originally by her Mom.  It used to thrive, then fell into stagnation.

As dawn approached, I tore into the vines and reedy weeds which were threatening it.  The bush seemed overcome, barely discernable, in a mass of choking weeds.

Before I started, I noted at the top there was a tendril poking out.  It was a new branch, with fresh leaves and thorns, green and springy.

It poked out and up, seeming to seek sunlight and moisture, even when the weeds were trying to engulf it in order to take its essence.

That tendril appeared to say, 'F*** you weeds!  I'm alive!  And I'm gonna live!'.

I cleared best I could, displaying the top tendril and two lateral ones.

A neighbor, on disability yet a landscaper, finished the process, til the rosebush was left alone, pristine in its renewed life, for all the living tendrils were green and fresh.

I will nourish it with plant food.  There is hope it will grow and thrive like it had for decades previously.

Need I say anything about analogies even metaphors?

To our enemies I say, F*** you collectivist weeds!  The Republic is Alive!  And it's gonna LIVE!