Lynyrd Skynyrd Honored by U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C.

Lynyrd Skynyrd Honored by U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. 

WASHINGTON, DC – Lynyrd Skynyrd was honored this week by the U.S. Congress by Florida Congressman Connie Mack, and Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus along with recognizing the achievements of the band during a reception at the U.S. Capitol.
The congressional honor for the group, who are performing in Birmingham tonight, came during a visit to Washington including stops at both the Capitol and the White House.
“The Lynyrd Skynyrd band is a true voice of the South and a legend in the music world.  ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ is one of the best advertisements for my state and we now even proudly display the words on our license plates.  We deeply appreciate the fact that the band does a lot to entertain our troops and support military families.  They bring enjoyment to their many fans and it’s a pleasure to welcome them to our nation’s capital,” said Bachus, who is dean of the Alabama House delegation.
After a hosted tour of the Capitol by Bachus’ staff, Representatives Bachus and Mack presented a Congressional Record tribute to the band members, including Johnny Van Zant, Gary Rossington, and Rickey Medlocke, recognizing the band’s career and successes.

The Congressional Record tribute follows.

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

RECOGNITION OF THE MUSICAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF LYNYRD SKYNYRD BY CONGRESSMEN SPENCER BACHUS AND CONNIE MACK

 

In the music world, it is challenging enough for a band to record one hit song, much less become a voice for an entire region and a true icon.  That is why Congressman Connie Mack and I are pleased to jointly recognize the accomplishments and patriotic spirit of the legendary Lynyrd Skynyrd. 

 

From humble beginnings, Lynyrd Skynyrd has become one of the most revered and accomplished bands in the history of music, having sold nearly 30 million records worldwide in the  last four decades.  Through their live performances and the music and songs still played on radio stations around the world every day, the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd have established themselves as timeless artists who transcend any one musical era or generation. 

 

As validated by their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, Lynyrd Skynyrd has had a seminal impact on the development of rock and country music and a profound influence on the career development of many artists who followed in their creative footsteps. 

 

Through their collective voices, the band has become a beacon for regional identity and pride in the American South.  This is perhaps best epitomized by the song “Sweet Home Alabama,” an anthem so universally identified with the state of Alabama that it is the official motto displayed on license plates.

 

Since their start in Jacksonville, Florida in the late 1960s, Lynyrd Skynyrd has been a spokesman for the everyday working man and woman, the friends and neighbors of their formative years.  Their ability to capture a unique part of the American spirit has given their music emotional meaning to many fans and built a legacy that continues to grow year after year. 

  

Amid triumph and loss, these sons of the south have evolved from band to close-knit family.  A tragic airplane crash in 1977 claimed original members Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, and lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, but Ronnie’s brother Johnny carried on the tradition as the new vocalist.   Devoted fans also remember and cherish the contributions of Allen Collins, Leon Wilkeson, Billy Powell, and Ean Evans.  Today, led by core members Johnny Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Rickey Medlock, and Michael Cartellone, Lynyrd Skynyrd continues to share an unbreakable bond with the fans they count as family as well. 

 

Lynyrd Skynyrd has been a generous supporter of our men and women in the armed forces for many years.  The band has long understood that our military personnel bravely and unselfishly stand guard over our everyday security and freedom.  They have enthusiastically raised money for military families and played countless shows for our service members in uniform.  Their song “Red, White, and Blue” was written as a tribute to the men and women who serve in the defense of freedom. 

 

As representatives of timeless American values and champions of working class heroes, Lynyrd Skynyrd continues to entertain and inspire millions of fans across the world.  Along with Congressman Mack, I find it highly appropriate that the people’s House takes time to recognize this classic band for lasting contributions not just to the world of music, but to American popular culture as a whole.

Mort Zuckerman: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur - US News and World Report

Mort Zuckerman: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur - US News and World Report

I really would quit posting these little tidbits, but so enjoy the truth finally coming out about obubba.... finally America is seeing what we saw when he announced for the senate in Illinois, let alone for the Presidency.

A Snakebit President

Americans want leaders on whom the sun shines.

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  By PEGGY NOONAN

The president is starting to look snakebit. He's starting to look unlucky, like Jimmy Carter. It wasn't Mr. Carter's fault that the American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran, but he handled it badly, and suffered. He defied the rule of the King in "Pippin," the Broadway show of Carter's era, who spoke of "the rule that every general knows by heart, that it's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart." Mr. Carter's opposite was Bill Clinton, on whom fortune smiled with eight years of relative peace and a worldwide economic boom. What misfortune Mr. Clinton experienced he mostly created himself. History didn't impose it.

But Mr. Obama is starting to look unlucky, and–file this under Mysteries of Leadership–that is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines.


It isn't Mr. Obama's fault that an oil rig blew in the Gulf and a gusher resulted. He already had two wars and the great recession. But the lack of adequate federal government response appropriately redounds on him. In a Wall Street Journal investigation published Thursday, reporters Jeffrey Ball and Jonathan Weisman wrote the federal government at first moved quickly, but soon "faltered." "The federal government, which under the law is in charge of fighting large spills, had to make things up as it went along." It hadn't anticipated a spill this big. The first weekend in May, when water was rough, contractors hired by BP to lay boom "mostly stayed ashore," according to a local official. "Shrimpers took matters into their own hands, laying 18,000 feet of boom," compared to about 4,000 feet by BP's contractors.

The administration's failure to take impressive action after the spill dinged its reputation for competence. The president's failure to turn things around Tuesday night with a speech damaged his reputation as a man whose rhetorical powers are such that he can turn things around with a speech. He lessened his own mystique. Reaction among his usual supporters was, in the words of Time's Mark Halperin, "fierce, unforeseen disappointment." Dan Froomkin of the Huffington Post called the speech "profoundly underwhelming," a "feeble call to action." Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich called the speech "vapid." Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times said the president looked "awkward and robotic." MSNBC's Keith Olbermann famously said "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days." Chris Matthews scored "a lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk." Mr. Olbermann, on Mr. Obama's well-written peroration: "It's nice but, again, how? Where was the 'how' in this speech when the nation is crying out for 'how'?"


As for the center, Nielsen reported that 32 million people watched the speech, as compared to 48 million viewers that watched the State of the Union. Ronald Reagan once said you should never confuse the reviews with the box office. This was the box office voting with its clickers.The right didn't like the speech either.

No reason to join the pile on, but some small points. Two growing weaknesses showed up in small phrases. The president said he had consulted among others "experts in academia" on what to do about the calamity. This while noting, again, that his energy secretary has a Nobel Prize. There is a growing meme that Mr. Obama is too impressed by credentialism, by the meritocracy, by those who hold forth in the faculty lounge, and too strongly identifies with them. He should be more impressed by those with real-world experience. It was the "small people" in the shrimp boats who laid the boom.

And when speaking of why proper precautions and safety measures were not in place, the president sternly declared, "I want to know why." But two months in he should know. And he should be telling us. Such empty sternness is . . . empty.

Throughout the speech the president gestured showily, distractingly, with his hands. Politicians do this now because they're told by media specialists that it helps them look natural. They don't look natural, they look like Ann Bancroft gesticulating to Patty Duke in "The Miracle Worker."


The president could move his hands because he was not holding a hard copy of his speech. Normally presidents have had a printed copy of the speech in their hands or on the desk, in case the teleprompter freezes or fails. Mr. Obama's desk was shiny and empty. A White House aide says the director of Oval Office operations had a hard copy just off camera, and was following along as the president spoke so that if the prompter broke he'd be able to give it to the president at the spot he left off.

But that would look a little startling, an arm suddenly darting into the frame to hand the president a script. And the pages could fall. If one were in the mood for a cheap metaphor one would say this is an example of the White House's tendency not to anticipate trouble.

There is still a sense about Mr. Obama that he needs George W. Bush in order to give his presidency full shape and meaning. In this he is like Jimmy Carter, who needed Richard Nixon, or rather the Watergate scandal, which made him president. Mr. Carter needed Richard Nixon standing in the corner looking like he'd spent the night sleeping in his suit as it hangs in the closet. The image is from Joe McGinnis's "The Selling of the President, 1968." Mr. Carter needed to be able to point at Nixon and say, "I'm not him. He dirty, me clean. You hate him, like me." Carter's presidency was given coherence and meaning by Nixon, Watergate, and without it that presidency seemed formless. Mr. Obama, in the same way, needs Mr. Bush standing in the corner like Boo Radley, saying "Let's invade something!" But Mr. Bush is wisely back home in Texas finishing a book, and the president never sounds weaker than when he suggests his predicament is all his predecessor's fault.

Mr. Obama needs Mr. Bush in the corner and doesn't have him. That's part of why he looks so alone out there.

And seems so snakebit, so at the mercy of forces. When you're snakebit you get some sympathy, and some will come. With all the president's woe there will be some counter-reaction among commentators, journalists and others. There will likely be among the Democratic leadership, too. "Love him or not he's what we've got, and he's what we have for the next two years. Help the guy, cool the criticism, punch back for him." But it's also true that among Democrats—and others—when the talk turns to the presidency it turns more and more to Hillary Clinton. "We may have made a mistake. She would have been better." Sooner or later the secretary of state is going to come under fairly consistent pressure to begin to consider 2012. A hunch: She won't really want to. Because she has enjoyed being loyal. She didn't only prove to others she could be loyal, a team player. She proved it to herself. And it has only added to her luster.

As for the president, the great question is what you do when you start to feel snakebit. Maybe he'll start to doubt his own moves and instincts. Maybe not. Jimmy Carter didn't. He fought hard for re-election in 1980, and until near the end thought he'd win. He trusted the American people, and in an odd way he trusted his luck.

St. Mary's Hospital

Saw Uncle Mike last night. He is doing great, looking like his old self... great spirits. Told him Ann and I were going to come up on our bike, but decided against it since it was so windy, and he laughed, knowing better!

Happy Birthday Number 28 Jacob (but who is counting?)...and many many more... may all the years after roll down hill.... Taken by Phillip Moffat - Jake, Trisha and Isabella Moffat - sorry don't know when...

another AWESOME photo by Phillip...

stolen from buzz....

This is one of Heather Ann's photo's from the 'Wooden Bat Tournament 2010' in Stillwater. If you think little league is just boys being boys... study the intensity of the faces, and all he is doing is sliding into home... Heather, GREAT JOB!!

Unknown boys of summer at a baseball tournament in Stillwater that Andrew played in. What is known is this photo was taken by Heather Ann B. and it's a great photo that sums it all up! The call does not matter, it's about playing the game, and how you play... and these young men are in fact playing for keeps!

She has many more in her photo albums on dotphoto.com. check them out! (Click the photo to enlarge!)

Way to go Heather!!

west side of Edmond, east side worse

deep fork river and semi, guess who won?

across from penn square

63 and classen okc!

For my fellow firefighter friends and those who support them... oh my goodness...

Years ago, a feed client of ours, walked into our business talking on the phone just a laughing up a storm.... I mean belly laughing... and handed me the phone... and I heard hello, this is Jerry... nough about me, how bout you?... and then started telling me about his good friend Wes Thurman who had just handed me the phone... needless to say - I was speechless... and something I will remember till I die... his laugh, etc... and then Wes had him tell me this story...

I had forgot about this till a friend of mine posted it on line this am....

one never knows who or where... sometimes the world gets real small... haha...

but nough bout me... how bout you?

If you know Wes, this is his saying too... it's seems I now know where he picked it up.. haha..
Wes and Jerry grew up together, and needless to say, there are many stories shared over this call...

From Jonathan this am.... I want to hire this drummer for a client's band I am working with.. haha.. now that would be a show!!

watch the drummer.... he is GOOD!!

I am sorry if you find this boring or mundane or don't agree... but I feel this President is KILLING America and I want something left for my family and their families... I have never seen such a lack of leadership, nor of concern for the American people as he brings to the table. It's as if he is in another world. Well Mr. Obubba... I care. I love this country, and I don't like your obubbaism!

Obama and the Trouble With Voting 'Present'

Weak and radical, the president looks more like Jimmy Carter all the time.

By KARL ROVE

When Barack Obama announced he was running for president in February 2007, Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report wrote "Obama's history of voting 'present'" in Springfield, Ill.—even on some of the most controversial and politically explosive issues . . . raises questions . . . Voting 'present' is one of the three options in the Illinois Legislature (along with 'yes' and 'no') but it's almost never an option for the occupant of the Oval Office."

Mr. Gonzales's words were prescient. Barack Obama may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present. That has been the case with his response to the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. The president was late recognizing the disaster's magnitude, late in visiting the region, late in approving requests by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and late in feigning outrage. He has never offered an independent plan to stop the leak.

Mr. Obama also seems disinterested in hearing from experts about the spill. The White House's "Deep Water Horizon Response Timeline" doesn't list a single meeting between Mr. Obama and industry experts, though he did send Energy Secretary Steven Chu and others to Houston May 12 to meet with BP and others.

Yet while the president says his Noble Prize-winning energy secretary has been "examining every contingency," Mr. Chu was clueless about BP's plans to install a cap over the well to funnel oil to a vessel on the surface. As the New York Times reported last Saturday, "After the cap was successfully placed, Mr. Chu wondered aloud why oil was still spewing." BP engineers had to explain that oil was still coming from vents that "would be closed very slowly to ensure that mounting pressure would not force the cap off."

Even now, Mr. Obama looks like a spectator, albeit an angry one, barking at White House aides to "plug the damn hole" (now that's a good idea no one has thought of) and telling NBC's Matt Lauer he's in search of an "ass to kick."

But the main political behind that's being kicked is Mr. Obama's. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll says Americans give the federal government a 69% negative rating for its handling of the spill, compared to a 62% negative rating for Washington's handling of Katrina in August 2005.

This pattern of being merely present has been apparent almost since the first days of the Obama presidency. He may unveil his mighty teleprompter to help pass what Congress has drafted, but this White House seems strangely disconnected from crafting legislation.

For example, last year's stimulus was largely drafted by House Appropriations Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, one of Congress's most liberal members. As a result, what passed was a wasteful spending bill rather than an economic growth package.

And faced with a growing mountain of debt, Mr. Obama passed the issue off to an ineffectual commission whose report is due after the election. After growing the size of the federal government by a quarter in just over a year, he now says he'd like agencies to try to find 5% cuts in their budgets.

On other controversies—the attempt of high-ranking aides to entice candidates not to challenge incumbent Democratic senators, the details of cap-and-trade legislation, the resolution of big conflicts between the House and Senate versions of financial regulation, and the drafting of comprehensive immigration reform—Mr. Obama appears to be removed, distant and detached, unwilling or unable to provide the adult supervision Washington requires.

The result is that he receives a 38% approval and 52% disapproval rating on his handling of the economy in the latest Economist/YouGov poll. The GOP enjoys a nine-point lead over Democrats in Rasmussen's latest generic ballot.

This is causing the public to revisit concerns it's had about Mr. Obama since he clinched the Democratic nomination in March 2008. Then the ABC/Washington Post Poll reported that 46% of Americans found him too "inexperienced" to be an effective president, the highest number ever for a major party presidential nominee. In October, just before the election, ABC/Washington Post asked the question again: 44% called Mr. Obama too inexperienced. On issue after issue, Mr. Obama is providing plenty of evidence to validate those concerns.

Americans might hope the president's diffidence when it comes to the hard work of government might mitigate his more extreme liberal tendencies. No such luck. Mr. Obama is an odd mixture of passivity and radicalism. He's happy to be a cheerleader for policies (like nationalizing health care) that many Americans find dangerously liberal.

The country has had another president both weak and radical at the same time: Jimmy Carter.

Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).

The Alien in the White House - from Wall Street Journal today.

The Alien in the White House

The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.

One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.

Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The president's appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they confirm about our current guardians of law and national security.

Consider the hapless Eric Holder, America's attorney general, confronting the question put to him by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) of the House Judicary Committee on May 13.

Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of "Allahu Akbar!"), that radical Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by the question. "People have different reasons" he finally answered—a response he repeated three times. He didn't want "to say anything negative about any religion."

And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr. Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."

He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam. How then might we be permitted to describe our enemies? One hint comes from another of Mr. Brennan's pronouncements in that speech: That "violent extremists are victims of political, economic and social forces."

Yes, that would work. Consider the news bulletins we could have read: "Police have arrested Faisal Shahzad, victim of political, economic and social forces living in Connecticut, for efforts to set off a car bomb explosion in Times Square." Plotters in Afghanistan and Yemen, preparing for their next attempt at mass murder in America, could only have listened in wonderment. They must have marvelled in particular on learning that this was the chief counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.

Long after Mr. Obama leaves office, it will be this parade of explicators, laboring mightily to sell each new piece of official reality revisionism—Janet Napolitano and her immortal "man-caused disasters'' among them—that will stand most memorably as the face of this administration.

It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.

It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.

It was why this administration tapped officials like Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Among his better known contributions to political discourse was a 2005 address in which he compared the treatment of Muslim-Americans in the United States after 9/11 with the plight of the Japanese-Americans interned in camps after Pearl Harbor. During a human-rights conference held in China this May, Mr. Posner cited the new Arizona immigration law by way of assuring the Chinese, those exemplary guardians of freedom, that the United States too had its problems with discrimination.

So there we were: America and China, in the same boat on human rights, two buddies struggling for reform. For this view of reality, which brought withering criticism in Congress and calls for his resignation, Mr. Posner has been roundly embraced in the State Department as a superbly effective representative.

It is no surprise that Mr. Posner—like numerous of his kind—has found a natural home in this administration. His is a sensibility and political disposition with which Mr. Obama is at home. The beliefs and attitudes that this president has internalized are to be found everywhere—in the salons of the left the world over—and, above all, in the academic establishment, stuffed with tenured radicals and their political progeny. The places where it is held as revealed truth that the United States is now, and has been throughout its history, the chief engine of injustice and oppression in the world.

They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.

The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.

Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

My friend and fellow Jaycee and Officer put a photo of these glasses from my year as President of the Oklahoma Jaycees... sure brought back a lot of memories... Steve Elwart lived in Nash and worked for Champlin in those days... a very honorable and distinguished man, good times.

If you look around.. seems....

you might want to click here to see the latest on how obamacare is messing up the system...
Simply put, when broke, stop spending! This stupid bill needs to be repealed for one reason. We can not afford it. It was poorly crafted, poorly written and will not help anyone. It makes things worse. Even the uninsured will find this out. They are supposed to be the ones this bill helps, but right now as in the days gone by, no one is turned down.

In my close family I know of two who have been insured fully for last 30 years and have not been to doctor for physical!  I know of some without insurance who have had!  I saw my own father spend time in 2 hospitals, and one nursing home and one rehab center. They could have paid for every bit of it, but he was treated equally with those who had NO insurance, or perhaps a bit worse as they left a rectal tube inside him for two weeks and nearly killed him with that!

All this will do is cost money, create government jobs putting IRS into our lives even deeper, and provide us less coverage with less providers than we now have. If you think I am kidding, think it through. This is to provide insurance for millions more... and there are less and less doctors, and hospitals struggling now to keep doors open due to poor slow payments from government with what is now provided.

I am sure this payment process is much like I encountered in the feed business. We provided feed to many government operations, state and a few federal, and the payment was always 120 to 160 days behind... and in some cases over a half year late. Yes, we carried the government on our backs as a small business owner!

ObamaCare Watch  check this link out to keep watch on. might not mean much today, but just wait!

Did you catch this past week when China, our major lender, stiffed Gates on a major meeting with them, telling them the timing was not quite right... haha... or did you hear how Australia, when asking China for more money, was told to fix some things in their nation first before they loaned them more money? They did, they devalued their money some and China stepped up and loaned them more! Who rules Australia?  Is America next?

Doesn't matter how we got here... it was both party's who screwed us up and got us into this mess. What we need now is to 'set the reins'... put the stop on - spending! It has to come to a halt.  We need leadership, solid leadership. I honestly didn't like McCain and felt o'bubba was a flash in the pan... spent a lot of my life with folks JUST like him... lots of BS and no original thoughts or leadership. He has to be a one termer!

Both party's need to fix this by finding very smart women or men with leadership abilities and the word NO in their vocabulary, and we as Americans need to be able to accept NO. The next set of presidential candidates needs to have some practical experience in the business world, need to be a leader, not say they are but actually be a leader! and be honorable. and be someone who's word is his/her bond!

You may have hated Bush - but you always knew where he stood and that he would not change. Today that is not a bad character flaw, haha... this obubba can't tell the truth on any issue, and has flip flopped more on all issues than anyone I have ever seen in my life in any position. Most kids are better at this than he is! And man can obubba pick losers to surround himself with! How about a tax cheat for Sec of Treasury, or Head of Ways and Means or second in command being a tax cheat, and ... oh well just check them out.. great cast of misfits...

I have six wonderful, heck, even outstanding and amazing grandchildren, and I pray every night they will be able to enjoy this great country without being taxed to death.. but probably won't happen.

I promise you there is 20 to 25% interest coming. Inflation like we have not seem before... and unemployment will not decrease for some time. It would be just awesome if we could find out the truth from our government! We need to have term limits and throw out the old dogs who do nothing but suck off the public teat!

What a sad set of employment numbers. No private sector jobs being created, but hundreds of thousands of government jobs being created! And you and I pay for them! Right now if you add up IRS and State Taxes and are self employed you pay 58 cents on the dollar. Then you pay about 10% sales tax when you buy something and property taxes when you own something and tag and tax and ........     it blows me away. And I was thinking this is why American came to be, to get away from all the taxes???  Did I miss something here?

As a nation, we do nothing for ourselves. We produce nothing. Almost all we buy is imported. How can jobs be created in this environment? We need the age of entrepreneurship to come back - folks to start new businesses, tax incentives to help them start up, hire workers... and get to producing things HERE in USA.

One does not have to look far to see that this lack of leadership at the top mimicks our own top leader here at home. Look at the leadership from Gov on cleaning up Med. Ex. Office, or other boards or agencys... lots of problems and NO leadership. Lots of BS and no 'get'er done'....

ok.. off soap box.  I write these to stir comment... and those are welcome too..  loved to know your thoughts, or if I am way off base here and all by myself... or swimming with most of you....

My My My... rock star baseball player... gett'em Dylan....

Jon's Blog...

OPHS!.... that boy has some power behind that bat!

Heather's Red Dirt Diaries

Another awesome photo from Phillip Moffat.

Phillip's Flickr Photo Stream.... go to see the real deal!

June Family Birthdays and Anniversaries sure there are many I missed...

June 1 - Ivan and Freda Moffat - 65 years this date
June 3 - Roxann and Lary Weeks - 33 years this date
June 3 - Clinton and Joanna Wilson - 55 years this date
June 9 - Emily and Molly Siegrist - 18
June 18 - Jake Moffat - 28
June 23 - Elinore Moffat - 91
June 25 - Fannie Moffat - 97
June 26 - Paul and Heather Blankinship - 17 years this date
June 28 - Uncle Mike - 66

send email to stanmoffat@gmail.com to add dates missed to this month, please. thanks...

Uncle Mike

As of last evening, Mike had been moved to a normal hospital room, had a new addition in his side, a tube to eliminate some internal bleeding pushing against his lungs, only 10% deflation of his damaged lung, and they were going to get him up to walk last night. Last we talked with Uncle David, he and Aunt Terry were on their way to grab a bite to eat and pick up a shake for Uncle Mike.. and he was very happy to hear that!

David picked up the bike from the lot in Enid where it went after the accident and quickly decide the nice folks running it were crooks... NEVER call Direct Towing in Enid for any reason!
He reported the bike is in three pieces and is completely messed up on the side we could not see, including a broke frame. I believe he reported the bike to be in three pieces and nothing moved, with most damage on side we could not see or that was not shown in the photos from Saturday.

As of last evening we believe he will be in St. Mary's for at least another week, and then to rehab but this is very fluid and subject to change hourly or more often.

His attitude is great. His memory is a bit improved, amazingly on some things and lacking in places, like mine on a normal day, haha....

Not sure his room number... Ann knows it...

but to send cards... use:

St. Mary's Regional Medical Center Attn: Patient Mr. Mike Shaklee 305 South 5th Enid, OK 73701

and phone to call and talk... main number is (580) 233-6100  and I be they will transfer you to his room.


All I know for now.... 

Mike heading home in 2008....

Ann and Mike... wonder if she needs a bike...

the helmet that saved a life, and the rider who was wearing it!

  

Mike took this photo of his bike on June 6th, 2008 at his home with his new camera.

Mike update.. 9:30am

Mom just talked via phone with Mike, and David.

He told her he was told he had a motorcycle wreck and that maybe he was getting to old for that... haha...

He was eating broth and ice fed to him by David.

Ann and Heather are going over this afternoon, I think.. such great news.

This event could have been easily very different if he had not had his helmet on.

That one piece of equipment saved his life... NO DOUBT about it!  It is cracked from top to bottom on backside and had the strap torn away, and while it was black, we were told there was red paint all over it, but then had that correct to blood all over it.

He has a mark around his face where the force of the wreck threw him into the front of the helmet.

His Dr. is Dr. Pollard, and he told us while showing us the exrays... just how easily it would have been different outcome without helmet, and we all agreed that if he did not have his helmet, yesterday would have been planning a funeral instead of visiting him in ICU.

So... good news today.. let's hope it stays on this course...

Photo from Tammy....

Ed's note:

Wow....
There is quite a tale here to tell.. haha...

I think after this time, I have learned my lesson.

I used to never ever ever plan a thing, knowing it would be changed at the last minute.
But, even knowing this, I decided back in the late winter to change my thinking regarding this and start planning things like most normal folks...

So, I bought Alice in Wonderland 3D tickets for me and my family to see the movie in Tulsa at IMAX....  Ann and I did not get to go and those tickets were lost...

Then, I bought tickets to see Ellis Paul for Ann and I and we did not get to go to this show but unlike last time and tickets lost.. our tickets were used by Jake and Trish, so not all lost...

but I would love to have been on this trip and to eat here... etc..

maybe in another life... where nothing is planned... again... haha... rock on.. glad you guys had a great time! Dad M

Ellis Paul, by Phillip Moffat, at concert in El Reno last night... amazing story teller and songwriter...etc...

James Seals, by Phillip Moffat, Ellis Paul concert last evening, he will be in Studio soon recording new record

From Phillip: Enjoying James Seal at The Oklahoma Vintage Guitar summer showcase series... 

Andrew Paul Blankinship, by Phillip Moffat

Austin Lee Moffat, by Phillip Moffat

This was the motorcycle that Mike Shaklee was riding on a nice Friday evening ride over to Nash to fuel up... after a young lady from Jet pulled out in front of him.

nothing pretty after a near death van vs. cycle experience for 65 year old Mike Shaklee, who has his 66th birthday this month.

Ann and brother Mike... David was there,  but all I had was my phone camera and didn't think to get a photo him and Mike ... darn it!
Anyway... what we know ....
Mike had been working on a water line all afternoon, and his neighbor on the hill east and his wife road into Helena to fuel up their bike and were returning home and stopped to visit with Mike, who had gotten the fever to ride too and had saddled up and was heading out too.  Jerry LaGrow had been checking cattle and drove by his home and saw the two sets of bikes and folks visiting. About an hour later, the call came in. Connie LaGrow had gotten the call first from a friend of hers that had been following Mike when the van pulled out in front of him and had stopped to help till first responders got there. Connie called Grandma Moffat to get our number and then called us. quite an evening.... after that...
Today we know
He has many 'splintered' ribs, a really bad messed up right eye and fractures of the bones around it, his brain in the center left rear lobe has some leakage behind it, and his back has some twisting, and he has a very swollen left hand and fingers and his collar bone is hurting, and he is in lots of pain and heavily sedated.
As to how the wreck happened...
Might was headed West on 64 out of Nash back to Jet and home. He was following a truck, and it was 7ish... with sun in his eyes.... at the intersection of 132 North, the trucked passed and a young lady from Jet was sitting getting ready to turn west into sun on 64. She waited on the truck and then pulled out in front of Mike, not seeing him, thinking the truck went now my turn... and Mike hit her as she pulled out. We heard he was 60 feet from point of impact and 20 feet off the road. The lady in the van, who's air bag went off, was taken to Bass Hosp in Enid, and she kept wondering who the cyclist was. When they later told her, she passed out. She knew Mike!
The lady who was following stopped to render first aid (a nurse I believe) was later joined by another lady who stopped to help her...

And if you were listening to the news this past week, the fire in Jet OK that killed two... was fought by Shane, Amber's husband... and it was the former home of Edith Shaklee, Fred's wife, Harold's Mom. Amber and family live just to the east and saw the flames, from their home. Shane is on the fire dept and turned out to help.
Edith lived there when Ann and I were first married, and we visited her only a couple of times before she moved.

This is for Butch and Rose Young... our world famous hog auctioneer ... and neighbor... and the story goes...

Isabella Ann Moffat  26 Months

Butch has auctioneered hog sales forever... and almost all the great show pig auctions in the USA. Many years ago when Jake was this size, he would accompany Butch...  on some of his shorter trips... to bordering states, and Jake loved fries and nuggets, but especially fries.

Butch and Rose drifted over the other evening and if you know Butch he loves a great story and even more he loves telling them, and he is very good at it. He starts telling about how he remembers all the trips with Jake and how he loved his fries and how you could not even when he was asleep get the bag from him or the fry from his hand... haha.. and I thought he was going to hit the floor he was laughing so hard... as we all were...

So, this photo and it's story.  On Memorial Day, Ann with Jake and Trish and Isabella went up home to the cemetery to put out flowers, and hit McDonald's on the way out of town, and here is the result...

So this is for you Butch, Jake lives on... through his daughter, haha...     Isabella Ann and her French fries.

Uncle Mike...

For those of you who read this from afar... some sad news this evening...

Ann's brother Mike Shaklee was involved in a motorcycle vs. vehicle this evening around 7ish east of Nash, OK at the intersection of 132 and the highway that goes into Jet. As luck would have it, the nurse on Ambulance was a friend of Connie LaGrow's and called her after getting Mike to St. Mary's in Enid. She called us with the news.

He was wearing his helmet and we know now he has at least four broken ribs that have punctured his lung on one side, he has a nasty injury over an eye on his head and the cat scan showed he has some brain bleeding, but they are keeping him in Enid for now to see how he does. He will be in ICU after he gets out of emergency and they will keep him sedated for a while. He will be in hospital for some time, they thought. Right now, they don't know much else so we don't either. David did get to see him for a bit but only a short time and he and Terry are there now. We offered to come but he thought the need was not there to rush over, and Aunt Mert and Rodney, and some other family and friends are there now too...
We will keep you informed as we learn more with time.
Please keep him in your prayers...

Jerry and Connie LaGrow were out checking cattle this evening and drove by Mike's and he was out front talking to another bike with a man and woman on it... maybe his neighbor to the east that lives where the Timberlake Church was on the corner east... anyway, Jerry said Mike headed west after they passed and the other bike went on East...  about an hour before the accident...


Again... please lift up your prayers for Mike... I know he would appreciate it. He is in fact a cornerstone for all of us in our times of need....

May 28, 2010

Stillwater gospel group seeks to bring community together through concert

By Chelcey AdamiStillwater NewsPress

STILLWATER, Okla. — The Stillwater gospel group, the Messengers, will present “God’s Message in Our Music” Gospel Explosion Concert beginning at 3:30 p.m. June 5 at the Seretean Center 225 S. Knoblock. The concert will feature about a dozen gospel groups from all over Oklahoma including Yale, Oklahoma City and Cushing. Admission is $10, and proceeds go toward area churches.

“It’s the way the Lord gave me to show faith. A lot of people preach the Word, we sing the Word to people,” The Messengers member Jerry Owens said.

Nearly 500 people are expected in attendance, The Messengers member Steven Murray said, and they hope that this concert will be the beginning of several annual events to pull the community together through faith and music.

“We want to make the world a better place than we found it,” Murray said. “They can come in sad and leave glad.”

The Messengers gospel group is made up of nine men from various churches in the Stillwater community. The group originally began as the Inspired Gospel Singers and later became The Messengers in 2008. Their drummer, Bobby Thomas, died last July, and the group’s trip to his services in Louisiana has inspired lots of their music and songs, Owens said.

Murray said that the last time there was a large gospel concert open to the community of Stillwater was in the late 60s. Most gospel concerts now are held privately in churches, he said.

“This generation needs to know what brought them here today,” Owens said.

Several members of the group said that they hope their gospel music can be spiritually therapeutic to people.

“Hopefully, this can help people in the street who might be having problems,” Darroyl Garrett said.

“There might be a word or part of that song that soothes you,” Owens said.

“If you can touch one or two, three people, we have accomplished our goal to bring the Word of God to them,” The Messengers member O’Neal Smith said.

Gospel music groups performing in the concert include The Messengers, The Friendly Oklahoma Jubilees of Tulsa, Back Porch Gospel Singers of Yale, Tangi and Submission of Oklahoma City, Elder Azel Higgs and Sons of Oklahoma City, Flying Clouds of Cushing and others. The concert is expected to last into the evening, and food and refreshments will be available.

Halfway through the concert, awards will be presented to legendary and outstanding gospel singers. The event is open to the public.

“We want everybody to know, to see and to feel what this is about,” Owens said. “We’re out here, because the Lord wanted us to be here.”

Call 405-762-2880 or 405-624-0525 for tickets or information.

another view.. this shows the guage that the driver uses to make sure the platform is level while workers work away... Goober Drilling schooling...

Jake and his crew ... working for PC Steel Buildings in Stillwater, were in OKC working on the new transit authority maintenance building... a big building... He said there are many workers and contractors working and it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes for some of the workers... but if you know Jake.. he thrives in those situations.. haha...  and I think today he gets his first paycheck in almost 18 months without one. He said he might have to take a photo of it just to hold onto, but reports it will be awesome to finally get one and know there are others coming!  He was hired on as a welder and you can see here some of his other skills... haha... If I sound like I am gushing, I am. I am excited he has a job too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

another view

Jake's view....