1. My Dad- WWII

2.My Grandfather- WWI

3. My Great Uncle – WWI

3+. My father-in-law   WWII (photo not available yet.)

I am grateful for their courage to fight for our freedom, and for the fact that they survived.

(I am also grateful to Rational Jenn for the idea of this tribute.)

Addendum 11/13/09: Catching up on my reading, I came across the following excellent summary of “What We Owe Our Soldiers“:

What we owe these men who fight so bravely for their and our freedom is to send them to war only when that freedom is truly threatened, and to make every effort to protect their lives during war–by providing them with the most advantageous weapons, training, strategy, and tactics possible.

Yesterday I went  to the SF-MOMA special exhibit of the photography of Richard Avedon.  What a fabulous way to spend the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

1) 3 good friends

2) A walk through Yerba Buena Garden memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr.

“And we are determined…to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

3) The Richard Avedon exhibit itself.  3 of my favorites:

And a bonus:
In a display case, there was a book of Avedon’s portraits opened to a 2 page spread which I thought was rather prescient: Senator Obama on one page and Jimmy Carter on the other.

1. On rainy days, its so much easier to get motivated to do those in-door tasks that really need to be done–like laundry, and a letter to my Congresswoman.

2. Something about clouds and rain are oddly calming and contemplative—a nice rest from the usual frenzy.

3. It’s a great excuse to build a fire and eat soup.

1. It’s November, 60 degrees, yet  sunny and warm on my deck.

2. The wind is strong, and ocean’s the sapphire-brilliance is speckled white.

3. I actually have the time today to sit and listen to Yaron Brook’s lecture series “The Corporation” which UPS delivered yesterday.

I had a great Halloween!

At the local thrift store, Twice As Nice, I stumbled on a spooky, fun and inexpensive find: 69 cent electric eyeballs that fade from red to blue to green to orange and back. Initially I bought 10 for my daughter’s birthday to give away as a party favor, but we forgot to give them out. The day before Halloween, I went back, expecting them to be all sold out but hit the jackpot. Nobody else seems to have discovered just how cool these eyeballs are–so I bought the rest, about 40 in all. I placed them all along the walk and the stairs up to our front door, and then around the corners of our front porch. Here’s a part of the effect:

The rest of the porch is “decked out” with a variety of ghouls, ghosts and skeletons which I have purchased through the years–almost always the day after Halloween at 50% off. The pirate head is sound-activated and drops down on a string then slowly ascends while calling out gruff and nasty warnings: turn back or face your DOO-O-O-O-O-M. etc.  The bat actually flaps its wings and flies around in a circle. And of course there are the obligatory fake spider webs draped all over everything, conveniently sticking to the stucco and hanging potted plants. The more benign decorations are left over from when the kids were younger. It seems their fascination with ugly and dead has only grown through the years.

Just as last year, my kids had great costumes.  This year, Eva was a 1940’s pin-up girl, complete in black and white. Ben was another anime character, this time  Wolfwood from Trigun.

For the past few years, they’ve gone out on their own with friends while Jon and I get to stay at home and hand out candy, checking out all the creative costumes as the kids traipse through our neighborhood. For two hours, the doorbell is constantly ringing, and the street is flowing with trick-or-treaters. We probably had over 100 come to our door. I am always careful to buy lots of candy, saving all the good stuff (Heath bars, Reece’s cups, dark chocolate kisses) for last so if when I over estimate, it’s only another plus!

As a final treat for you readers, I link to an article that looks at Halloween as a lesson in economics: an opportunity to experience the value and benevolence of free trade!
Halloween and its Candy Economy

I know I sure got my share of enjoyment in exchange for the sweets I gave away!!

I did end up taking that walk in the fog yesterday accompanied by my dear spouse. And then went again at 10:30PM under full moonlight–bright enough to cast sharp shadows and walk without flashlights, but too dark to capture on my camera. Another time-change gift was waking this morning at 5AM with the full moon setting over the ocean. Here’s a photo essay of those three walks–all withing 24 hours. Really! It was almost magic.

Fellow Travelers in the Fog

Quiet.  Calm. Foggy.

Everyone else is asleep–catching up on rest after a demanding week and a fun-filled Halloween.

Thanks to setting the clocks back, we all get an extra hour of time.

What will I do with it, this gift of early morning light? What do I want to do with this extra hour of solitude?

So much I could do, want to do.

Take a walk on the ocean bluff, like yesterday, when I was able to share a magic moment, watching a great blue heron, silhouetted in the blue-grey fog,  jut and strut, stalking its meal hidden in the misty field.

Browse the web…catching up on news, or  fascinating video clips recommended by blog-friends.

Work on my next post for Wealth is Not the Problem. I love the struggle to find the best words and logic with which to communicate why I believe a people whose government limits itself to the protection of individual rights is not only the most fruitful, but the most peaceful, compassionate and respectful of human life.

Catch up on my way-over-due reading for by MOBseter’s on-line book club.

Work on my new encaustic project…sitting on my desk, beckoning–almost but not quite taunting  me,  right next to the 2-inch stack of article printouts on health-care reform, and the other 2-inch-stack on climate change.

Upload photos from last night–All Hallows Eve–and post on how much I love this holiday with its goulish trappings, which if you aren’t careful will distract you from its REAL meaning: the benevolent sharing of the bounty of our “harvests” with neighbors–friends and strangers; the childhood love of sweets–a joy not to be forgotten without the risk of turning into a scrooge; the pleasure of living out a small and secret fantasy or dream–if just for one night.

Ah, so much to do.

Life is full.

Ooooo. What a great word–even if the concept it represents is one I would never want or seek. For a great post on just what this is, and why the FTC sharpening its regulatory sword in order to protect us all from ourselves–see Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair! by Rational Jenn.

The desire for absolute power over others is as sick and evil as it is impossible. If there was such thing as a Soul-O-Meter, I envision it clicking backwards toward empty each and every time I attempted to gain power over another–for being a Master is even more self-destructive than being a slave. Both lose their independence,  but a slave, at least,  can still retain his dignity, self-respect and integrity.

Over the past 2 years of blogging, I have intermittently posted quotes which spoke bits of truth to me. They are all worth reading again and again–each one a gem worth prolonged contemplation. Here are some I gathered to think about in relationship to current attempts by the FTC to regulate bloggers. (But be sure to read Jenn’s post too as she takes a slightly different –but equally important–tact on this issue.

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. “
-Abraham Lincoln(1809-1865) 16th US President

“If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.”

– William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) American professor at Yale College

Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.

– Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish philosopher and economist

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Source: Letter, 23 December 1791

Here the great art lies,
to discern in what the law
is to be to restraint and punishment,
and in what things
persuasion only is to work.

– John Milton (1608-1674) Poet 1644

That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.

– Alabama, Declaration of Rights Article I Section 35

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.

– Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), escaped slave, Abolitionist, author, editor of the North Star and later the New National Era

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money and promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one….”

James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792

The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security is so powerful a principle that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security.

– Adam Smith (1723-1790) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776, par. IV.5.82

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too.
– W. Somerset Maugham(1874-1965)Source: Strictly Personal, 1941

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly
is to fill the world with fools.

– Herbert Spencer(1820-1903) British author, economist, philosopher 1891

If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.

– Theodore Roosevelt(1858-1919) 26th US President

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

–Milton Friedman (1912-2006) Nobel Prize-winning economist, economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan.

The battle I am fighting is not Right vs. Left or Republican vs. Democrat. The principles I believe in are all variations of one essential battle:
for Individual Rights and against Statism.

–Beth Haynes, 09-13-09, Values Clarification

Smile #1. My 91 year-old father-in-law’s, after receiving this past Friday his 6th and last cycle of chemotherapy for his marginal zone non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Smile #2. My 14 year-old daughter’s,  after attending her first ever high school (home-coming) dance.

Smile #3. My 17 year-old son’s, when last night, 10 of  his friends (several of whom graduated last year and are now away at college) snuck up behind him as he messed around on the computer– and wished him a belated  and surprise happy birthday!

Just for Fun.

HT 3 Ring Binder.