Motley Moose – Archive

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

Part 1 of this premier episode of Fun With Food shows how to use that odd peeler tool in the back of the kitchen drawer. You know, the one with the sharp hook at one end and the curved flat thing at the other end. It lets you peel an orange in two perfect hemispheres. Impress your friends. They will be amazed at your talent and skill.

I’m hungry for more. Show me Part 2.

Interrogatories

For National Egg Day, how do you like your eggs?

Who is your least favorite (most hated) politician?

Who is your least favorite pundit?

Who is your favorite politician?

Who is your favorite pundit?

The Twitter Emitter

It’s like you have to win a major election these days to score some crack.

— William K. Wolfrum (@Wolfrum) May 31, 2013

Austerity = I can buy your home real cheap because the bank illegally foreclosed on it.

— Tom Wellborn (@TLW3) May 31, 2013

What if the arc of the moral universe bends toward derp?

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 31, 2013

Mitch McConnell: “Obama is like Nixon! You know, the President Republicans have been telling you ‘wasn’t so bad’ for the past 40 years”

— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) June 1, 2013

Horrible tornado disasters: Too steep a price to pay for NOT having “Lockup” on MSNBC?

— Ray Radlein (@Radlein) June 1, 2013

Monsanto is different from Frankenstein because Frankenstein had ethics.

— Chris Dashiell (@cdashiell) June 1, 2013

Planned Parenthood tries to help women with MEDICINE, when we all know PRAYER works better.#exposePP

— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat) June 1, 2013

Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that sending ricin letters to Obama over gun control is political speech and is protected under Citizens United.

— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat) June 2, 2013

Daughter said new Walmart slogan should be “Lower prices means lower wages.” #nerdland

— Blair LM Kelley (@profblmkelley) June 2, 2013

I wish vacuuming was a sport so that I could play it recreationally a few times a year and talk about how good I used to be at it.

— Jesse Taylor (@jesseltaylor) June 2, 2013

John McCain wants to pick a fight with Iran. Someone please check his diaper.

— Tom Wellborn (@TLW3) June 2, 2013

Good morning Motley Meese! Hope your weekend was lovely. Remember to let your peeps know where you are!

This week’s shot of the week was taken at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. Because I thought it was cool, mostly. (It’s not a Moose! Look at the antlers. Besides you can’t hunt there so I’m sure it died of natural causes or a long time ago.)

This is the second part of two posts describing a fascinating election in Georgia: the 1980 Senate election, in which Republican Mack Mattingly beat scandal-ridden Democrat Herman Talmadge. This was the first time that a Republican Senator was elected in Georgia for more than a century. Even more interestingly, the areas that the Democratic candidate won tend to vote strongly Republican today, and vice versa.

The Black Vote in 1980

The previous post ended by bringing up the role of the black vote:

In 1980 Republican candidate Mack Mattingly won areas with substantial black populations, most notably the heavily-black city of Atlanta itself. Surely Democratic Senator Herman Talmadge’s dedicated support to segregation wouldn’t have appealed to the black vote.

So did Republicans win the black vote in this 1980 election?

More below.

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”. For example …..

SEPARATED at BIRTH – from the Korean peninsula: hip-hop singer Psy (with the hit “Gangnam Style” about a neighborhood in the south’s capital city of Seoul) and the (relatively new) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

   

OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

In a 2 row table with text control in row 2

Jim in IA

As an embedded image

by Jim and Melanie in IA

“I get to live in an airport,” he said. “How cool is that?” With a few words he brushed off Jim’s sentimentality of a moment before, signaling it was time for us to leave. The message was clear: he’s an adult now. We weren’t leaving him at band camp, or at his first dorm room, for crying out loud!

Crying silently, tears filling her eyes, Melanie hugged him longer than he expected, and Jim did, too. And we left him at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma.

The journey to get there was long, much of it described here. Since his commissioning ceremony on Saturday, May 18, he had a few days to sort his possessions, collect his paperwork, and pack. We left for Enid on Monday, May 27, Memorial Day.

The midwest storms had already begun, and that morning we drove through rain and stiff winds for six hours. We were spared rain for the rest of the trip, but the wind never let off. With two cars and three drivers, each of us drove a large portion of the 600 miles. The directions were simple: take I-80 to I-35, and keep driving through Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma until you’re a few miles east of Enid.

Once we reached base, we went to the visitors’ center for security clearance and passes. Closed for the holiday, the next option was the gatehouse. We handed the guard our driver licenses, car registration, and proof of insurance. He had us park and enter the guardhouse, where two other men worked at computers. “They’ll take care of you in here, Lieutenant,” the young man said, addressing Son by his officer’s rank for the first time.

Monday night we checked into a motel room at the Cherokee Lodge, while Son was assigned a “dorm room.” Like a miniature apartment, it consists of a large bedroom and a very small kitchen, a two-sided closet in the hallway to the bathroom, and a small full bathroom. It’s enough, considering how busy he’ll be.

Below, the yellow arrow points to his room, on the north side of the building.

Here you can see his room circled.

The view out his window.

The next morning Son reported for duty after breakfast. While he began his paperwork and long list of tasks, we had some time to explore. According to the Vance Air Force Base site,

Vance has nearly 1,200 active duty and Reserve military, as well as approximately 1,300 family members here. The base also employs more than 1,300 Federal civilian employees, non-appropriated fund civilian employees, contractors and private business employees.

Base housing includes more than 240 family homes, more than 300 “unaccompanied” housing units, and visitor and temporary lodging. Besides that, there is an elementary school, day care, and a teen center, an arts and craft building, the commissary and exchange, to help make residents more comfortable.

Of course, it isn’t just a small town. The primary purpose is to train pilots.

Vance is the U.S. Air Force’s only Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (JSUPT) wing, training over 400 Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and allied student pilots each year. The wing flies over 55,000 sorties (81,000 flying hours) per year, and owns and operates a fleet of over 200 T-1, T-6, and T-38 aircraft.

With more than 200 airplanes, the facility needs an air tower, hangars, and maintenance buildings. And runways. The main runways are parallel to the rest of the base, running north and south. Every couple of minutes, a plane takes off or lands. Here is a satellite view of the whole base.

On Tuesday, all the planes were taking off into the south wind. We watched from behind a fence for a few minutes, and then left the base. On a red dirt road south of the runways, right under the jet runway path, we watched them zoom over, bank hard to the west, and fly back around.

“I get to live in an airport,” he said. “How cool is that?”

Yeah, pretty cool.

  Make sure you let your peeps know where to find you!