Little Girl, back when she was a Little Girl.
Little Girl said something important today.
Little Girl isn’t so little these days … she’s home from college now, and working at a day care business here in Santa Clarita. She’s now in charge of the kindergarten; a promotion she recently earned. My Little Girl is doing very well these days.
Her kindergarteners don’t call her Little Girl, but I do. And I always will.
In her room at the day care, she decorates the walls with a variety of stuff. She’s got a “me display” that includes pictures of her family. There’s a picture of her niece, Payton, among others.
Little Girl relayed a conversation she had with a kindergartener in her charge, and it brought a smile to my face. Twice.
Kindergartener: Who’s that?
My Little Girl: That’s my boyfriend, Eric.
Kindergartener: You’re not married?
My Little Girl: No, we’re not married.
Kindergartener: But you have a baby? You can’t have a baby if you’re not married.
My Little Girl: No, that’s not my baby. That’s Payton, she’s my niece. She’s my brother’s baby.
Kindergartener: Oh…. You have a brother?
My Little Girl: I have two brothers and two sisters.
Kindergartener: You have two brothers and two sisters?!!??
My Little Girl: Well, my two brothers are both married. And their wives are my sisters-in-law. They are my sisters.
Kindergartener: Ohhhhhh.
OK, so I love this Kindergartener. Can’t have a baby if you’re not married? Love it.
The big idea here, though, is Little Girl describing her relationship with her sisters-in-law. They are sisters.
They were all 3 in the weddings for the 2 that are married, and I’m sure that Lauren will have her sisters in her wedding (whenever that might happen).
Sisters. Family.
Isn’t that the way that it should be?
Here’s Little Girl … the blonde! … and her two sisters. That’s the very important mother of my Granddaughter on the left, and MrsMowry on the right. 2006.
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What’s a yucca? A shrub – or tree. There are 40+ different species, which have rosettes of evergreen, sword-shaped leaves. They have large terminal panicles of whitish flowers. A panicle is a compound raceme — a loose, much-branched inflorescence with pedicellate flowers.
Don’t you love it when botanists talk all technical?
Here’s what they’re talking about … a part of roadway landscaping in Santa Clarita, CA.
Wikipedia provides this curiosity:
… in the Midwest United States as “ghosts in the graveyard”, as it is commonly found growing in rural graveyards and when in bloom the flowers appear as floating apparitions.
I’m from the midwest … never saw a yucca in a graveyard. Never heard anyone talk about ghosts in the graveyard … and refer to this succulent, anyway.
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Only known portrait of Mary Ball Washington. Quoth her son, our first President, “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.”
Abigail Adams, to her son John Quincy Adams, during his first semester at Harvard, “If you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world, and obtaining a knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries. That you have never wanted a book but it has been supplied to you, that your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. How unpardonable would it have been in you to have been a blockhead.”
Statue of the Lincoln family, with Mary Hanks Lincoln holding Abraham. Abraham’s law partner quoted him as saying, “God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her.”
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The Huffington Post is at it again … now they are trumpeting the cause of the anti-Koch brother factions that are lobbying to keep the non-left-leaning Kochs from buying the Tribune Company. They ran a copy of the above ad in a story this week, all a part of their coverage of the movement to make sure the Koch brothers are not allowed to purchase the eight newspapers owned by the Tribune Company.
Here’s what the Huffington Post had to say:
The fight is on against possible Koch Brothers ownership of the Tribune papers, which include the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune.
Unions and liberal advocacy groups are planning protests and running ads (see photo below) on the Los Angeles Times and New York Times websites starting Thursday, according to liberal groups Courage Campaign Institute and Forecast the Facts.
And they have the leaders of the California state legislature behind them. Darrell Steinberg, the California Senate President pro Tem, and John A. Pérez, the speaker of the California Assembly, said Wednesday that they would oppose the sale, the New York Times reports. Both men control seats on the boards of California’s major pension funds.
“I oppose it,” Steinberg said of a possible sale to the Los Angeles Times. “I believe newspapers are a public trust. The Los Angeles Times has a long and respected tradition of community leadership and impartiality. The Koch brothers have a long and demonstrated history of a rigid political ideology.”
About one-quarter of the assets held by Oaktree Capital Management, the leading shareholder in the Tribune Company, comes from public pension funds, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. In a letter sent Thursday to Bruce Karsh, president of Oaktree and chairman of Tribune Company, ten public employee unions warned that a sale to the Koch brothers “would be adverse to the retirement security of public employees whose pension funds you are responsible for managing and investing.”
The letter said the Koch brothers are “anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-public education and anti-immigrant.”
My favorite, though, is their quote from an LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl:
Rosendahl also introduced a motion last week to pull city pension money from the investment firms that own the Los Angeles Times if they sell the publication to buyers who do not support “professional and objective journalism.” The motion was also signed by Councilman Dennis Zine and Councilman and mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti.
The statement that whoever owns the LA Times must be dedicated to “professional and objective journalism” … is just political-speak for they just can’t want journalism that conflicts with the interest groups running scared from a potential sale to the Libertarian, anti-government Koch brothers.
Nowhere in the Huffington Post do they offer any sort of contrary opinion. Nowhere in the article is there any attempt to give the opinion of the Koch brothers. Buried in the 14th paragraph is a quote from a spokesperson for the Kochs … that was addressed to the LA Times. The Huffington Post, apparently can’t be bothered to speak with the Kochs, and they certainly haven’t quoted anyone speaking to the advantages that might be gained through their ownership.
Current management of the LA Times seems to be on board, too. They’ve accepted an ad from the same CourageCampaign.org that created the above ad … here’s what LATimes.com looked like Friday morning:
Click through the ad to their website, and here’s the lead paragraph:
The Koch Brothers are the worst of the worst. Oil and gas billionaires, they’re known for buying elections, funding anti-science organizations, union busting, dodging taxes, and twisting democracy any way they can to promote their personal agenda.
The truth is, I’m totally neutral in this ownership controversy. I am a daily subscriber to the LA Times. I do want truthful, objective journalism. I have no faith I’m going to get that from the current management of the Times, when they’ll take ads with hyperbolic rhetoric fighting against their potential future employers. What are those people thinking?
Journalism, I mourn for thee.
More
Journalism, I Mourn For Thee (Part 2)
Journalism, I Mourn For Thee (Part 1)
Huffington Post
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