I LOVE A PARADE

I spent Thanksgiving morning watching the Macy's Parade, flipping back and forth between the coverage by NBC and that of CBS. When it came to the musical numbers, NBC cornered that market. (Out of the selections which included 'Hair', 'Bye Bye Birdie', and 'Billy Elliot', it was "I'm A Believer" from 'Shrek' that worked best in that setting.) However, CBS did have nice presentations for their Broadway tunes in appropriate settings around the City: Battery Park with Lady Liberty in the background for 'Ragtime', a tenement-like rooftop for 'West Side Story', and 125th Street outside the 'Dreamgirls' theater.

But as far as covering the actual parade, I have to give it to CBS. On NBC, the balloons and the marchers seemed like an after-thought, only seen when leading out to the commercial breaks. Since NBC gave up the Times Square location to broadcast from outside Macy's (which actually does make sense), CBS set up camp at one of the theme restaurants (the Hard Rock?) with another camera at the Marriott Marquis. So they showed all the new balloons first, including the Pillsbury Doughboy, at least ten minutes before NBC. And they spent time on most of the floats, which I was not getting for the most part from the Peacock network.

As for the expected reports farther north along the parade route, it was a draw. Jamie Kennedy's spots were kind of stupid, to my mind, while Al Roker's interview/plugs were kind of sad. A couple of actors from 'Law & Order', 'Parks & Recreation', and 'Days Of Our Lives'. Jillian Michaels from 'The Biggest Loser' proved to be a real ass when she suggested people should throw away their leftovers. I don't know if a food bank would have taken them, but at least she might have suggested that people could look into that option instead of wasting food.

CBS had the quality interview/plugs though back at their booth, with mostly theater actors - Christine Lahti and Jimmy Smits as half of the new cast in "Gods Of Carnage" and Michael McKean of "Superior Donuts". As for their in-house promotions, they had Bruce Greenwood who plugged Sunday night's Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation, "The Dog Who Saved Christmas".

My favorite moment in the parade coverage was due to the rivalry between both networks. Jimmy Fallon was on a float with the band for his 'Late Night' show, The Roots. But he never faced the CBS camera and Dave Price of CBS only referred to them as a rock band, never naming any of them.

All in all, a pleasant way to waste a few hours while my brother bawled buckets making his onion pies.....

BCnU

Traditionally, Santa's arrival caps off the parade, and this year he had a new float..... And now, I accept that it is Christmas season!

AS SEEN ON TV: SAINT ELIGIUS

SAINT ELIGIUS

AS SEEN IN:
'St. Elsewhere'

AS PLAYED BY:
Robert Evan Collins

December 1 is the feast day for St. Eligius, which is why he's being honored today in Inner Toob........
St Eligius is particularly honored in Flanders, in the province of Antwerp, and at Tournai, Kortrijk, Ghent, Bruges, and Douai. During the Middle Ages his relics were the object of special veneration, and were repeatedly divided and transferred to other resting-places, in 881, 1066, 1137, 1255, and 1306. A mass of legend has gathered round the life of Saint Eloi, who as the patron saint of goldsmiths is still very popular. He is the patron of goldsmiths, blacksmiths, and all workers in metal. He is generally represented as a bishop, a crosier in his right hand, holding a miniature church of chased gold on the open palm of his left hand. St. Eligius is also the patron saint of cattle and horses. (Dr. Wayne Fiscus, an intern at St. Eligius Hospital, would say that he was the patron saint of longshoremen and bowlers.)

Fiscus "met" St. Elligius in a coma dream after he was shot in the episode "After-Life"......

And to make this a "Two For Tuesday", here is the Boston hospital that was named after him..... My Iddiot friend and companero Brian Leonard secured for me these images of Saint Eligius and my VERY grateful thanks go out to him.....

BCnU!

Cloyhes Line Club (part2)

Sandra started her Yoyo quilt...It looks so good.



Shanna's Grandmother's garden.


And her signature quilt....they signed by the stems.




Close up of Shanna's grandmother's garden....

Keri's beginnings too...

I loved this one too....oh heck I loved them all...

The following are Sandra's christmas stockings....you are going to want to run up to Shepard's Bush and make you own.

Clothes Line Club (part 1)

This is this month's project...isn't it cute.

Show and tell is my favorite part. But I took so many pictures this month I will have to do it in 2 parts. So keep going a enjoy the pictures.....

Darling bonnet.....

These squares are from a Buggy Barn book And they are so cute.
I wanted to run home and start one.


How fun!

Signature quilt.

Tina is making this for the Festival of Trees.

The easiest and cutest apron.

Quilt square for our exchange.

I love all the colors.

I wish I had a better picture this is so pretty.

Her Mom's wedding dress.

I just love going to club. We have so many talented women it makes show and tell worth the trip to club. There is always something you would to make or see. The quilts are all so pretty and everyone has a different eye for color. I just love seeing what they come up with. And some I wish could sew faster since I love to see theirs. Watch for part 2.

Floyd Hand: 'Spiritual vampires' desecrate sweatlodge way of life

BLACK HILLS SIOUX NATION TREATY COUNCIL
MEMBER RESERVATIONS
Cheyenne River
Crow Creek
Fort Peck
Lower Brule
Pine Ridge
Rosebud
Standing Rock
Yankton
Contact: Natalie Hand @ 605-867-5762
November 24, 2009
By Natalie Hand
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

On November 2, 2009, Floyd Hand, Jr., (Oglala Lakota Sioux) Oglala Delegate to the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council, along with Ivan H. Lewis (Pima/Maricopa/Yavapai), filed a lawsuit (Case No.: CV-09-8196-PCT-FJM) in the U.S. District Court in Arizona against James Arthur Ray and the Angel Valley Retreat Center.
In the petition, Hand and Lewis assert that Ray caused the desecration of the sacred Lakota ceremony, “Inikaga,” commonly referred to as sweat lodge, by causing the deaths of three participants. The suit contends that Angel Valley Retreat Center is culpable for allowing individuals like Ray to rent their property which offers a sweat lodge for paying participants. Furthermore, Ray and Angel Valley Retreat Center committed fraud by impersonating Native Americans and must be held responsible for causing the deaths of the victims and serious injuries to the survivors.
In the immediate aftermath of the deaths, Ray fled the scene and Angel Valley Retreat Center staff dismantled the sweat lodge, thus tampering with a crime scene.
Hand contends that the “Inikaga” and other ancient Lakota rituals is a way of life, not a religion.
“Ray is a spiritual vampire who will use whatever means necessary to turn a profit. He and others like him that profit from our culture must be held accountable for their continual fraud and desecration. This ceremony comes from the Lakota. We maintain our cultural identity today and people like Ray are trying to mock it as a means to acquire material possessions. They cannot hide behind the Religious Freedom Act. This is NOT a religion," stated Hand.
The Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868 between the United States and the Great Sioux Nation is a legal binding agreement that is the “supreme law of the land."
Article 1 of the Treaty states that “… if bad men among the whites or other people subject to the authority of the United States shall commit any wrong upon the person or the property of the Indians, the United States will … proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained …”
For Ivan Lewis, this lawsuit is a long overdue. “I joined with my Lakota brothers to stop the desecration. These new-agers have been selling our native ceremonies for years here on our homeland. The non-natives are taking everything from us. Ray and the Angel Valley folks are a dime a dozen in Yavapai territory. My hope is that this lawsuit will put light on our treaties with the U.S. and will show the people of Arizona that we have sovereign rights," stated Lewis.
Importantly, Hand and Lewis want to emphasize that they are not affiliated with a group calling themselves the “Council of Indigenous Traditional Healers."
“This group claims that they will authenticate and qualify individuals, including non-Indians, to conduct our ceremonies. Our people know who is a real healer and who isn't. Yes, everyone is entitled to pray, but our ceremonies belong with us in our native tongue," noted Lewis.
To date, the plaintiffs have received notification that a judge has been assigned to the case. The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office's homicide investigation continues and hopes to submit evidence to the County Attorney's Office in December.

Comments:

Alex White Plume, Lakota
"Thank you for this. The elders in a meeting at Billy Nills Hall discussed this. They said, we never say no, now they are getting out of hand with our ways. The Lakota make wopila, not to charge for personal gain. A society leader was acknowledged. This society is created to stop people from this type of outright capitalization of ceremonies. They are young, sober, and strong Lakota. We know they will defend our way. This society is sovereign, and can act any where they see our ceremonies being violated. I think the concept will grow across our country."

Too Much Riding Haiku

Once each day for four

Just shy of two hundred miles

A good kind of sleep

Thirty Days Later

Right about now-ish marks thirty days to the minute since Mongo gave up his beloved Ben & Jerry's ice cream for the entire month of November. Except for the previously mentioned "Klondike Incident", Mongo has succeeded in what turned out to be not that hard of a struggle.

I have estimated that I saved 18,360 calories and 850 grams of fat over the course of the month. That's approximately 5.25 pounds that I either didn't gain or have to work off.

Game on!

The old guy on the left who looks like an itinerant sterno bum -- I wonder if there are any other kind? -- is Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He said yesterday that There is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair said today.

Hey, old guy, get out your umbrella because the sh*tstorm is only beginning.

I have a programming assignment I have to complete this week, but when I get some time, I am going to take a look at the hacked data and some of the e-mails. Personally, I'd like to get a handle on the sloppy programming that some of those clowns did. (I never did have a high regard for Fortran programmers, anyway.)

If anyone else wants to contribute, offer technical comments and support, etc., the more the merrier.

Private correspondence can be sent to voyskapvo@yahoo.com if motivated.

DOUBLE PLUS UPDATE AND COMMON SENSE OBSERVATION: Ed Morrissey, one of the tireless hosts of Hot Air! hosted Kevin McCullough on his noontime show this afternoon and, among the subjects discussed, was this sack of crap CRU stink bomb. It turns out that my challenge/promise/pledge to get into this matter as a concerned private citizen/citizen programmer has been rendered moot because the CRU bozos have revealed that they no longer retained the underlying raw data from which they squeezed, cajoled, manipulated, and otherwise extorted their hocky-stick results:

"The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building."

The significance of this is rather obvious:

"It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. "

So, I guess the only thing that is left over are the data that they have crapped upon. So, this scientists' version of "the dog ate my homework" is kinda like like going to an IRS audit without all of the proper receipts. (Here's hoping they get a good stiff term for tax evasion.)

Anyway, Kevin McCullough makes the excellent point that, since they have discarded about two-three decades of raw data and with it their credibility, all of the Warmists should shut their big pie-holes until they amass another two-three decades of data to re-establish their shattered credibility.

..sure am looking forward to Algore sticking a sock in it until 2029, aren't you?

ANOTHER GRATUITOUS UPDATE: Ya gotta see this one. Hat tip to Hot Air!

FROM THE PIE POOL HE RISES!

On the night before Thanksgiving, I found a little shout-out for myself as well as for my late Dad while watching 'The Late Show with David Letterman'.

At the end of his annual pie-guessing chat with his Mom back in Indianapolis, Dave held up the Pie Pool chart for 2009 to show who had the winning combination this year. (The pies baked by Dave's Mom were the usual pumpkin and a raspberry pie.)

Among those who entered in the competition was a "Tom O'B". In fact, he bought a chance on two squares.

My actual name is Thomas O'B, but I'm also Thomas O'B III in my family. Even before birth I was being called by the sound-out of my initials: TO'B... Toby. I've always preferred being known as Toby and would have legally changed it long ago, except that I hold my original name in trust and in memory of my Dad.

I'm pretty sure I haven't done a very good job in keeping it with honor.... Oh well. Anyhoo, all O'Briens are kin (Nuts to you, Hugh O'Brian!) so I'm claiming this particular Tom O'B as a cuz!

BCnU!