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A reminder from the 1944 East Ohio Gas Company Explosion outside of Cleveland, Ohio. The reason laws were passed removing dangerous items away from residential areas. More disheartening images here…
My friends, we are gathered here today to celebrate one of life’s greatest moments, to give recognition to the worth and beauty of committed marital love, and to add our best wishes to the words which shall unite these two people in marriage. In the words of our Creator, what God hath brought together, let no one cut asunder.
The commitment that the two of you are about to make, is the most important commitment that two people can make; you are about to create something new, the marriage relationship, an entity that never ends.
As you stand here today, are you now prepared to begin this commitment to one another? (I am)
Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage? (I have)
I would ask that you both remember to treat yourself and each other with dignity and respect; to remind yourself often of what brought you together today. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your marriage deserves. When frustration and difficulty assail your marriage – as these do to every relationship at one time or another – focus on what still seems right between you, not only the part that seems wrong. This way, when clouds of trouble hide the sun in your lives and you lose sight of it for a moment, you can remember that the sun is still there. And if each of you will take responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.
Will you have this person to be your wedded partner? (I will)
Will you love and comfort then, honor and keep them, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto them as long as you both shall live? (I will)
Will you have this person to be your wedded partner? (I will)
Will you love and comfort them, honor and keep them, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto them as long as you both shall live? (I will)
Since it is your intention to enter into marriage, join your right-hands, and declare your consent (before these witnesses) by repeating after me:
I, take you to be my partner, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live. Take this ring as a sign of my commitment and fidelity to you. …
I, take you to be my partner, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live. Take this ring as a sign of my commitment and fidelity to you.
In so much as the two of you have agreed to live together in Matrimony, have promised your commitment to each other by these vows, (and) the joining of your hands (and the giving of these rings), by the authority vested in me by the State of Delaware, I now pronounce you a married couple. Congratulations, you may now kiss as a married couple….
Ladies and Gentlemen here who are witnesses. May I present to you the world’s newest couple….
Awwwww. How can anyone vote against something as wonderful as that?
This is the first thing I saw as I began my day, and that day is ruined already…. On Delaware Liberal this is what greeted me….
Whole Jewish families lined up against the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto, and shot
Courtesy of Mirror.co.uk
Iranians Don’t Have Pigeons
Courtesy of 4.bp.blogspot.com
Nazi’s Idea of Crossing State Lines to engage in sport shooting illegal in their own state.
Courtesy of 4.bp.blogspot.com
What happens when one callously equate human life with pigeons.
Courtesy of TheIndyChannel.com
You do not have to draw the same conclusion I did from this video. If you try to equate the two then the onus is on you. This is just a portrayal of how the video made me feel…
That shot of the pigeon still alive, going “why are you doing this! why are you doing this!” would have been just like one of those first graders looking up at Adam Lanza. Sigler and Lanza are alike. It is a free country and I can say so…
If we’d had mandatory background checks, and a registry, Adam Lanza might be on medication right now…..
This is the head of Delaware’s Republican Party. How can anyone ever vote for a Delaware Republican ever… again?
This is post number 2000.
The only real significance is it is 150 posts more than where Tommywonk stopped exactly one year and fifteen days ago…
If some future historian looks back, I can only guess they may kindly make some note of the quality of thought that underlies these efforts, but my guess, is no one will ever notice…
Irregardless, as long as the urge to put thoughts down for others continues, we will go on. As usual, with no goal, no direction, and no ulterior motive. Probably upon reflection, my biggest surprise, right here, right now … is that I still enjoy it so much, and can’t wait to jot my thoughts down, click the button, and send them off to where ever cyberspace and the vast internet ocean, lets them drift….
For each of you who have become regular over the years, … thank you friend…
Katie Hanson; Miss Delaware USA (photo’s courtesy of Miss USA Pagent
I really don’t know why it gets to me,… but it does… My state, the first state to enter the Union, the second smallest but still, the one state with the fewest counties, my state, the one our nation’s Vice President calls home…… My state, the one poised to be the first state in the union to have an offshore wind farm…. has, never… not recently, not even in ancient history, … ever won a title in a national beauty pageant….
Just as we are the only state without a National Park; we are also the only state that has never won a national title… Wikipedia almost gloatingly points out, “The least successful states are Delaware, the only state that has never placed;”
How come? Did any of you know this?
It’s obviously not because of our women! We have some amazing women here… Why is Delaware the ONLY STATE TO HAVE NEVER PLACED IN A NATIONAL COMPETITION?
To be honest, it’s because we don’t care. until of course, we happen to catch a glimpse on TV of our stunning candidate, and say wow, they really do look better than the competition…. By then, it’s too late.
No matter how you feel about beauty competitions… they do represent your state.
and Delawareans should begin getting mad that we are always left out…
When the Miss USA of Texas gets crowned, she is given a line of prizes a mile long.
Usually the family of the Delawarean contestant must pay out of pocket for the privilege to fly out and compete…. One would think, someone here in Delaware, would want provide some help to sponsor her? In return for advertising, if nothing else?
Is there anything we can do?
Yes, there is… For the first time in history, citizens of Delaware can go online here and vote 10 times a day for the candidate of their choice… Of course with our few citizens, compared to the numbers of New York and California, only a ambush will give us any chance… But ambushes are the American way.. Look at the Battle of Trenton, and Princeton!… We have a shot…to change history, at least get Delaware into the semi finalists, if everyone reading this votes, and votes often….
Why?
Primarily because we are a small state, one with few sport’s hall of famers… Often the butt of national jokes, we usually simply have no choice but to dismiss them… Now, before us is an opportunity to brag a little if we can pull this off.. Do we have a great candidate? Yes!.. Look at the competition on the site above..
We have a contender….
Delaware has never placed… Let’s do something about it?
What if we all petitioned David Letterman, to negotiate with Donald Trump, ( the owner of the Miss USA pagent) live on air, to give Miss Delaware a fair shot at righting this dubious distinction? Of course, Delaware will have to take some pings in the process ( that’s what comedy is all about) but to see one of our own as a finalist, would still send chills up our spines, irregardless of what we normally profess to think of beauty pageants.
It’s Delaware we’re talking about…
A brief note should turn the tide; something like this:
Dear Dave: Often you make Delaware the butt of your jokes. That is probably because we deserve it. But did you know, Delaware is the only state that has never placed in a national beauty pageant? Now, we know you are good friends with Donald Trump and he runs the Miss USA pageant. Could you do our humble state a favor and introduce Miss Delaware USA to Donald Trump on your show? We are not expecting miracles… but she IS beautiful…. and we could use some extra publicity so the world knows it… After all we are the only state that has never, ever placed… even Wikipedia makes fun of us…
If you can help us, thanks…
Here is the site for the David Letterman show... please include any jokes their writers might enjoy…. The email address is: lswdl@aol.com
5 or 10 won’t do it; I figure the minimum to be noticed is around 30,000… It will take some enthusiasm, some selling, and some enthusiastic supporters to make a dent in a contest that is obviously stacked against us, like a Republican Congress is stacked against John Carney!…
If you can spread the word, please do… and vote… and yes, vote often…. It’s our state pride that’s on the line here…..
It is that time again. Everywhere one turns one sees someone’s sign… Candidates are hoping we will remember their name just long enough to push the “x” for them when we step into the voting booth… Most of us, however, see the signs as clutter….” Oh, I hate those things” we’ll hear our friends say if we driving in their company …. By the time November rolls around, there will be several letters in the News Journal, complaining about excessive signage. Again before November rolls around, there will be finger pointing among several candidates playing with each others signs……
It happens every season… But if one knows how to read them, they can be quite fascinating…sort of like going on a date with Paris Hilton, or Brittney Spears. For signs, if you really look at them, can tell us a lot about a candidate…
I know… you are thinking “that is silly”.. But it is not if you think about it, …. . For how many of you choose to wear a certain “look”? We all know that what type of dog a person has, tells us much about them…..
Why? Because the person putting his name out there, chooses the sign…. Each sign represents the candidate, and much fussing is spent over how to make it appear… What colors, what style, what background, etc… Each of those choices symbolizes something for the candidate… Campaigns can be won or lost, because voters love, or hate, a sign…. For small time candidates, they are the first wave of getting ones name out. Only later, when calling on social clubs to speak at, will you get in, once they recognize your name….. that is of course, provided the candidate has a good sign…..
The key elements to look for are clutter, style, color, and symbolism… Between all four, one can grasp much from a simple sign as he is passing…
So let’s begin…. For starters we will take a tour through Chateau country, which is the Senate 4th District, highly favored by Republicans… (apologies to Dr. Katz, his did not survive) As you may notice, the formatting does not fit on the page…I left it that way on purpose. To access the picture, right click on the picture, then click View Picture.. You will be able to zoom it at that point… On some the zoom will be needed to demonstrate some features, and that is why the initial format looks kind of odd… Now you know…
First off, Rich Abbot. We see he has done this before. We have his name, his expected office, and he is advertising that he is a Republican..Probably a good idea in a district that is mostly Republicans. His colors, green and black, are the color of money, which is not a bad choice up in Chateau Country…
Next we see Dee Durham. She is new, and tried the rookie approach of putting everything she could need on her sign. We see this and say, oh first time politician.. Secondly, her sign is hard to read… The message is hard to follow… The colors, lime green and lapis blue, show us she wants to be jarringly different, and wants to stand out as such in a crowd… No party affiliation is on her sign; she’s a Democrat in a Republican district. Her strategy is getting you to know her first, liking her, then finding out too late that she’s a democrat…. She may be a clear thinker, but one would never know it from her sign. Someone should have told her that when judging a design, she should close her eyes, open and shut them as fast as she can, then go only with what she can remember… The is the amount of time a motorist will have to view your sign…
Fleming has a clear theme. White is his principal color. Like a bride wearing white, he see’s himself as pure. He is saying I’m not a “red” Republican.. (They seem to be out of style this year…for some reason..) His sign is crisp and clean, with only his name, aspirant office, and a slogan he want you to remember… “New Republican Leadership…” He is going with the bride’s tabla rasa theme, hoping this district will jump to the idea of a fresh start…
Clatworthy is putting his family out there, literally… We see it here, blown up, and it looks good. The sign has the party emblem, his name, and his aspirant office. The main feature is his family… This is quite appropriate, for if it were not for his family name… he would not be running. But when driving by, the details are lost…Perform the rapid blink test and you will see what I mean… No one says “ah, how cute” when driving by; more like “oh”… Nothing against the family. It IS a beautiful picture… but since all one will see is a blurry group when driving by, (it could be anyone’s family) the picture is a waste of money and detracts from the message… It’s a common mistake made by new candidates… They try too hard to design the perfect sign in a static environment, without realizing most people are traveling 35 mph or faster…and will see none of the details at all… Such a mistake can be construed by motorists as unclear thinking. Again, its his first time in office.
So based on the signage, Rich Abbot, with his color of money signs, will probably pull the district. Up there they put money first, country second….. And Rich knows it, too. After all, he’s Rich.
That in a handy guide form, is why signs are fun…. True, they are a diversion, but like guessing a horse’s handicap by a previous race, you can often base a candidate’s chances, by just how well their sign is likely to go over…..
Ok, now its your turn…. We’ll jump to Newark…. 6th Senate District.
Again we have a first timer….notice the odd Netherlands flag color arrangement, What else is seen? Is it clear, concise? Is there too much information? Why is it necessary to put which district one is running for? When one votes, only those in that district, are on the ballot….Try the blink test, can you read the slogan? Again, being new, planning and staring at the sign, he forgot that only a hundredth of a second, was all anyone would ever see of it…..
This sign stresses classical elegance all the way. The white backdrop, again like a brides gown, symbolizes a fresh start. Notice the font chosen was Roman… The sign is crisp, clean, with only the name, aspirant office, and party affiliation… Only those extremely proud of their party, ever put their party on their signs… This sign shows a classic clear thinker, one who has his act together.
So who is your prediction in the 6th Senate Race on Tuesday? Make a prediction and see how you do…
If you look at signs a lot, you can see trends that stretch from district to district. candidate to candidate… The next batch or grouping can be themed…. as the outsider trying to break in……
The last one is trying to open the door with her pretty face…
The next grouping all have the state colors as their motif… One can interpret that these are local minded individuals. There are those that aspire to go to Washington and change the world… Red, White, and Blue are their colors. There are others, who are content to stay home, and change the world they live in, day by day…making their world, and their neighbors, a little bit better… These are the workhorses…
Then there is this odd color combination that was started by Mike Castle.. I always interpreted it as a symbol of Delaware, in two parts divided by the Canal. With the colors of Grass and Water, these signe have ironically taken on a new meaning this year… More like “Oh, S$%, I’m in F@@$%^% Trouble”!
And this color combination seems to run with the “entitlement crowd.” You will recognize them also as Hillary’s colors…..
And then there are the exceptions which as they say…..prove the rule….
Notice the sky blue background, and puffy cloud white, obviously inspired by a pilot…. Notice the confidence in the rather large name, with the aspirant position being the only other thing to catch the eye.. This is a very effective sign, standing out from the rest, mostly from its difference in color. It passes the blink test very well. This result will surprise people.
For the most unusual sign, within an unusual category, the exception that proves the rule… I have not idea what this is about….
Perhaps he likes the Minnesota Vikings? No, actually, he is a member of the Lions Club.. those are his lion’s club colors…. It is…quite different…
Finally, a picture that I love and cherish…. I’ve laughed out loud for weeks as I drove by… but taking the picture to get the perfect angle, required standing in the road way…. a little too dangerous in this location…. To have serendipity put all these pieces together, it must be an omen of great importance…. Without further ado….
Exit ’08…. Copeland, Lee, and Castle……
It can only be a sign unto us……..
Courtesy of Department of Defense
The kavipsian award open-voting closes at midnight July 31st. The winner will be announced August 1st. I highly recommend that all peruse this selection since these are the best of the best of Delaware’s blogosphere. To miss it is like driving by the Louvre and not stopping in.
To navigate there easily, I have installed a page at the top of my blog. Click on the link contained within, and you will be there…
I’m surprised that some votes are in already, since the list is rather ponderous. But careful reading should be encouraged since this represents the best of what Delaware is…
Remember to post your votes in the comment section in this format: b,e,d,a,c,b,a,e,b, and to use the name anon. And yes, of course it is cool to vote for yourself….
So who is winning on the back stretch?
a,c,d,b,b,tie,d,tie,tie
Just five days left.
Courtesy of Department of Defense
Whether due to the holiday, due to Del States attempt to unseat UD, due to early morning Holiday shopping, or just too much alcohol,… there was “Little” on the local blog scenes this week…..
DWA has this interchange with Dana and Maria Evans, as well as this. Dana has this, this, this, this, and this. FSP has this, and this. Nancy had this “little” bit to say. Del Liberal adds this
There seems to be “Little” else
I have often seen Independent parties collapse on such short notice. The national Reform Party, basically due to such shennigans in 96, became a non player, as soon as Perot walked away….The independent’s have ideals, often untarnished by years of political fighting, and sometimes they can do well, if they pull a candidate who stands above the competition…. They just do not seem to be able to convince the average voter to undo years of conditioning, and vote for a color other than those two making up purple…….Also they appear strongest at a campaigns beginning, due I think to the overall dissatisfaction with either of the two main parties…. But as deadlines approach, their lack of a campaign structure to support them, causes them to flap in the wind….I guess since we already know what a Democrat or Republican stand for…..we just have to decide whether that those individual persons will meet our expectations. But with an Independent, we have to learn from scratch what they will do once elected, and to be honest……that is just too much work……….
So to paraphrase William Shakespeare, even though “Much Ado about Little” dominated discourse this holiday weekend, it could have, and should have been expected to fall short, and wind up to be “much ado about nothing…..” against whomever the major parties decide upon for their candidate……(Denn takes it).
So what else? Del State? Several comments, mostly from Del Liberal, were posted on that outcome…..As could be expected, some calls of racism were bound to arise…..But police or no police, power salute or no power salute, Delaware had 66.6 % of its universities in the NCAA playoffs. What other state can match a percentage like that? Not everything is bigger in Texas……
It was an incredible Thanksgiving….as well as the anniversary of JFK’s demise…..The day was warm, almost balmy. The night was cold, almost freezing….and the wind blew….While I ate Thanksgiving dinner, my neighbors fiery orange maple, lost ALL its leaves….Fall turned to winter, as the very late foliage fell. Mike M carries some of this fall’s memories among his Musings
Thanksgiving brought several pictorial representations across the net. Dana improvised on the early American theme song, “Turkey in the Straw”, with this “Tale of Two Turkeys; (one in a bush).” Donviti’s photo may make some political hacks angry……Other Thanksgiving pictures could be found on The Colussus, the Curmudgeon, Soapbox, and Tommywonk, and Northington.
As we pull away from Thanksgiving, our eyes turn to the “real” holidays…..During this time, much will happen….Wind will be settled, December 18th. The final jostling for the Iowa caucuses will take place out of sight, as most of us fight our ways though malls, or use our heads and shop on line…..Perhaps unknown to many, but thanks to Dana and this link, we can see some of Ms. Korn’s Delaware’s artwork on display now at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. At DelLib, Donviti shows us some of his artwork as well. Another form of art, music, gives us insight into the mind of Jason330. likewise, a smattering of poetry appears, first from Alan and then from Shirley V., our favorite Curmudgeon. But the best introduction to a new art form, would be that of Matt from the Soapbox, and Dana with the link, showing us the lovely Liz Allen, demonstrating to all the gracious “art of interviewing.”
Speaking of Liz Allen, Hube, in a very nice gesture, offers up Liberals in his Thanksgiving prayer….Although amusing it touches on a common theme that those of us in Delaware’s blogosphere are familiar with….And that is that we are only as good as those we argue against…..For it is only as good as our adversaries challenge us, that we become…If it weren’t for those people who pushed us along as we developed our blogging skills, we would be half the persons we are today…..And if one looks though every other state’s blog role, provided to us all by Daily Delaware, we can see how much better our group is in quality of content, than other states who, living in the Stone(d) Age, rarely “Rove” off topic and still blog off of “talking points.”
From Delaware’s voice of Libertarianism, besides a voter’s guide, we have a new look. FSP sports another new look as well, (fall being almost over….and it has nothing to do with Mitt Romney’s 4th place standing in the national polls.)
One senses America’s infatuation with the glitz of Republican politicos like Romney has somewhat dimmed, as Shirley and those commenting describe their feelings surrounding an invitation to Republicanize the rich and powerful…..I think this piece nails just why Republicans, if lucky, may still win 5% of 2008’s votes……..
This piece by Duffy also tackles the Americans’ given right to assemble.
Finally, Delaware’s favorite son, made several showings based on his better than expected performance, each time the cameras focus on him….Daily Delaware has three: here, here, and here….
Now at least someone credible has taken on Cheney and the “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” squad…..
Sadly with all of this going on, Vision 2015 took a hit….Kilroy has more on that topic…..It seems that when one takes limited resources, and splits them up between corporations and education, the score comes out to a respective 44- 7. With or without a power salute, the kids just cannot win. Perhaps they should sue the state for not extending their education far enough……..hell it works for developers?
In the end, we can be thankful for each other, and this small state that draws us closer…..As each of us plugs forward to the beginning of 08, take a minute to look back and see just how far all of us have come in 07.
kavips 
