The following is an OpEd from the New York Times written by William Kristol about the 4th of July and the Declaration of Independence. I know I haven’t written in a while, but every now and then I start getting very disgusted with politics and don’t have it in me to keep following it. I will be back in full swing after the 4th. My ship is out of dry dock and ready to start sailing the seas of BS once again.

Happy 4th of July from The Tampa Pirate and Crew.

The Choice They Made

by: William Kristol

I’ve had occasion to test this claim. The last few years, we’ve spent July Fourth at the house of friends who have had the assembled company read the entire declaration. It’s a longer document than one thinks; the charges against the king take quite a while to get through.

But I can report from firsthand experience that the declaration as a whole, and not just its most famous phrases, remains remarkably immune to the degrading effects of excessive familiarity. I was doubtful at first that reading the declaration would enhance the overall beer-and-hamburger experience of the day. But the effort has proved more thought-provoking and patriotism-stirring than I expected.

So this year, perhaps pressing our luck (and patience), I’m thinking of proposing the reading of an additional text: Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Roger Weightman of June 24, 1826.

With regret, the 83-year-old Jefferson wrote that his ill health compelled him to decline the invitation to travel to Washington for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of American independence. But then, perhaps knowing this would be his final word, Jefferson sets forth in stirring prose his faith in the universal significance of the Declaration of Independence:

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government.”

Jefferson claims his faith is based on the progress of enlightenment. He is confident that “all eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.” Indeed, “The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view, the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god.”

Jefferson may have been overly sanguine that the spread of the light of science would necessarily strengthen the cause of human rights. But even the optimistic Jefferson was well aware that the enemies of liberty and equality could regroup and resist — certainly abroad, perhaps even at home.

That’s one reason he trusted that “the annual return of this day” would “forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.” Our devotion — and the sacrifices inspired by that devotion — are needed to make effectual the palpable truth of human equality.

The fate of equality, Jefferson makes clear, also depends on those who see further than, and act first on behalf of, their fellow citizens. In the letter, Jefferson pays tribute to his fellow signers — “that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword.” He wishes he could meet with the few of that band who still survived “to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made.”

So the signers of the declaration made the bold and doubtful choice for independence. Their fellow citizens ratified the choice. But they might have been slow to act if the worthies had not moved first.

For, as the declaration itself notes, “all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” The people are conservative. Liberty sometimes requires the bold leadership of a few individuals.

Perhaps that’s why the representatives, who have signed on behalf of “the good people” of the colonies, “mutually pledge to each other” their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in support of the declaration. Their pledge isn’t to the people. The pledge is an individual one by the signers to one another.

And the pledge has to be supported by a sense of honor — even of sacred honor. The declaration’s assertion of equal rights, one may say, is supported by what is necessarily unequal, the sense of honor of those acting on the people’s behalf.

Shortly after writing the letter to Weightman, Jefferson died at home in Monticello. On that very same day — the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the declaration, July 4, 1826 — in Quincy, Mass., Jefferson’s fellow drafter and signer John Adams also died. Yet as Adams reportedly said on his death bed, “Thomas Jefferson survives.”

“You got me trippin oh, stumbling oh, flippin oh, fumbling oh, Clumsy cuz I’m fallin in love, in love” ~Fergie (Clumsy)

I’ve always wanted to be married.  When I was a kid there was no doubt in my mind that I would someday be a wife and mother.  I was your stero-typical teenaged girl, decorating my folders with my first name and his (whoever “he” was at that moment) last name every way imagineable, til death do us part…or at least until someone else would steal my heart.  My first such love was Ted.  Ted E. Bear.  Well that wasn’t really his name, but it became how my friends and I referred to him after he shaved his head because when you touched it, it felt just like a teddy bear.  Ted was a preacher’s son, a football player and the resident ”bad boy” at school.  He was also on the wrestling team and I was a wrestlerette (read: towel girl).  I met him through my best friend Gayle who sat in front of him in math.  I was turning 16 and having a party.  She, knowing I had a crush on him invited him to said party.  He being gorgeous (note the gorgeous part)  and super sweet, showed up at that party bearing a single red rose and a birthday card.  To me that was monumental!  I mean c’mon, the guy I’d been harboring a crush for my entire sophomore year, ended up being MY date at MY sweet 16 party.  No one could have written a better script than that one!  That was probably my best summer ever.  He lived pretty far from me, and had a car that never seemed to work, so he used to ride his bike to come and see me.  In retrospect, he set the romance bar pretty high for crushes that followed.   However, the romance was short lived as once school started he went back to his on again, off again girlfriend “Shark” (not her real name either, but OH so fitting.  Did you see what just happened there?  Just the thought of that girl still makes me cringe.)  So even though he was back to dating Shark, we remained friends and I secretly loved/lusted him through most of my junior year.  Hence, my becoming a wrestlerette (read: towel girl) just so I could watch him roll around on the ground wearing those….ahem…but I digress.  Ted was followed by Rich C., Anthony A., Rob C. and Anthony M.  In that order.  Rich was a green eyed Cuban boy (Oh Lucy, you got some ’splaining to do….) who used to call me at 10:35 beacuse odd numbers are more believeable.  Anthony A. loved my lips and used to let me know it…often.  Rob(bie) called me Annie(cris) and used to make me laugh.  Anthony M. was my best friend’s older brother and protected me from sharks when we went water skiing in the summer.  (Not that there actually were any sharks that I was aware of, but I certainly didn’t mind him being in the water with me, just in case.)  Oh how I loved each and every one of them with a Romeo and Juliet  kind of intensity.  They were all beautiful, charming and all left me with some very idyllic notions about love and marriage; wholly unprepared for the reality. 

” ‘Cause when it comes to being lucky he’s cursed.  But when it comes to loving me he’s worst…the first cut is the deepes.  Baby I know, the first cut is the deepest.”  ~Sheryl Crow (The First Cut is the Deepest)

Mark was my first true love, my first time and eventually my first husband, I won’t go into all the details of our marriage, because a) it just annoys me and b) He’s SO not worth the effort.  Suffice it to say that Mark didn’t get the concept of no more dating once you’re married.  No, he didn’t have AN affair.  He just never stopped being single.  He was in the Army and we were young (19 and 20), but in my mind age is not an excuse for immaturity, stupidity, or being a man-ho.  To say the relationship was volatile, is like saying Katrina was a pretty bad storm.  We separated 6 weeks after my eldest daughter was born and I haven’t looked back since.  And honestly, I don’t even really consider that experience to be that of married life.  How could I?  I was married, but he wasn’t.  At least not as far as he was concerned.  But even that relationship did not prepare me for how difficult marriage really is.  

“I’m not gonna write you a love song ‘ cause you asked for it ’cause you need one, you see, I’m not gonna write you a love song ’cause you tell me it’s make or break in this…Imma need a better reason to write you a love song, today” ~Sara bareilles (Love Song)

 
I used to think that love was the answer.  That LOVE could conquer all.  What I discovered is that love doesn’t do the dishes, pay the rent or change diapers.  In the movie The Break-up, Jennifer Anniston and Vince Vaughn are arguing after a dinner party they had, which she had been planning and preparing for, for weeks and cooking and cleaning for, for hours.  After the party, he wanted nothing more than have a well deserved relaxing bit of video game down time.  Which she wanted him to have AFTER they did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen.  In the midst of their argument she exclaims “I want you to WANT to do the dishes!”  To which he responded “That’s crazy.   Why would I WANT to do dishes?”  The answer seemed pretty obvious to me and probably to almost every woman who ever watched that movie. 

“You must not know about me, you must not know ’bout me.  I could have another you in a minute…matter of fact, he’ll be here in a minute, baby”  ~Beyonce (Irreplaceable)

(Stay with me here for a second…) Have you ever really listened to the wedding vows?  Okay so here’s the thing… a vow by definition is not something that should be taken lightly.  When we were kids, we took vows all the time.  We even pinky swore on most of them!  Pinky swearing is a huge deal when you’re 10!  And the wedding vows don’t play.  Not even a little bit.  For better or worse (whether you’re happy or not), richer or poorer (even if you’re broke and owe your right arm), in sickness and in health (even if the illness is something self inflicted like addiction), til death do us part (DEATH!  Did you catch that one?  Only death shall part you).  Biblically, you’re only off the hook if your spouse cheats or leaves, other than that, you’re in for the long haul.  Those are some tall orders and they don’t really leave any loopholes.   And what they translate to is doing whatever it takes to keep the marriage whole.  Whatever it takes is a HUGE commitment.  It sometimes means sacrificing one’s own wants and/or needs for those of the other person.  But who wants to do THAT all the time?  Right?  No one does…duh-uh.  It’s why it’s called sacrifice.   I heard about a woman who’s husband of 36 years recently told her that he’s found someone else and is leaving her. The woman telling me the story exclaimed, “You’d think a person could get comfortable with the relationship after that long!” But, society tells us that everything is disposable and replaceable.  And guess what?   It is!  Nobody keeps anything for any length of time anymore.  It’s much more cost effecient to buy a new one than to fix or upgrade the old one.  I’d like to think that no one goes into a marriage thinking “Hey, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just get a divorce.”  And perhaps for most people that isn’t the case but marriage is tough.  The toughest job you’ll ever love.  No wait, that’s the Army, isn’t it?  Nonetheless, it requires so much more than love and even though it’s all spelled out in the vows, sometimes the concept is just not grasped.  It may have something to do with the backwards ass way marriage is looked at anymore.  I personally know some people who spent tens of thousands of dollars on weddings for their kids.  Both marriages lasted all of a few months.  Personally, I’d want my money back if I were mom and dad.  It seems to me that too much focus was put on the weddings and not enough was put on the marriages.  And in their euphoric states of pre-nuptial bliss, they totally missed the part about not parting.  But Anacris, they fell in love!  “Falling in love”.  You know, I really, really don’t like that phrase.  It sounds like something that is involuntary.  And while I firmly believe that one cannot control feelings.  I DO believe that one CAN control how one reacts to said feelings and THAT my friends is a choice.  For example when someone cuts you off in traffic, you might not be able to control becoming furious, but it is up to you whether you cultivate that emotion and allow it to dictate whether or not you will just sit clench fisted and mumbling under your breath through gritted teeth, or whether you’ll get out and beat the everlovin’ tar out of that @#$%$#@.  With that said, love should be treated as a verb, not a noun.  Don’t just talk about how much you love, rather, actively LOVE.  I’m not referring to the mushy love stuff.  I’m talkin’ about the stuff you do that makes him or her FEEL loved.  Like, oh, say…wanting to do the dishes or listening to him prattle on about sports. 

It’s tricky though isn’t it.  That whole whatever it takes thing.  I mean, how long is one supposed to do whatever it takes when the marriage is one long excercise in misery…for whatever reason?  OR, what if you are the ONLY one doing whatever it takes.  I watch a lot of movies and another favorite scene of mine, is from a movie called The Last Kiss.  The character Jenna finds out that live in boyfriend Michael, has had an affair and wants nothing to do with him and so throws him out of the house.  The one piece of advice her father offers him, is to do whatever it takes.  So he parks himself on the front stoop outside their front door and tells her he’s not leaving…ever.  The film doesn’t really define a timeline, we only know that it’s at least more than 1 day, but he doesn’t leave.  She steps over him going in and out, it rains for a while and he just stays until she accepts the fact he’s not leaving and deals with him.  There is of course a happy ending, but how close to reality is that scenario?  I suspect that in a real life situation, he would have given up pretty quickly, or she wouldn’t have come around so soon, or at all.  I am by no means suggesting that a person should do whatever it takes one sidedly forever.  Or should they?

“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is  done by only me is your doing,my darling) ” ~e.e. cummings

Marriage is a union.  Through it we become as one.  The dissolution of a marriage is like the amputation of oneself.  I’ve always been aware of the terms, heartache and heartbreak.  But never realized how phisiologically real the pain was, until I felt it.  When a limb becomes gangrenous it is amputated.  Can the same theory be applied in a union such as marriage?  Going into my marriages, I believed in doing whatever it takes, no matter what.  Now I don’t know what I believe.  I am jaded and without answers.  I have only endless questions. 

Well tomorrow marks the beginning of the hurricane season. Yup June 1st is already here. For peeps up north and out west hurricane season doesn’t really mean that much, to us in the South East US and Gulf states it means months of anxiety and stress. Will keep you posted when a storm is approaching and I will try to give a play by play if a storm is hitting. We have an area of disturbed weather off the Central American coast, interests in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean need to keep and eye on this system. HT to The World According To Carl.

Useful hurricane links:
FloridaDisaster.org
Hurricane City
Weatherman911
UNISYS Weather
FUNET Hurricane Hunter report decoder
Links to Maps and Charts

I have to thanks Voxpopuli of Tampa’s Back Door Ways blogsite for posting about this movie. I watched it and all I can say is wow. It is exaggerated dark comedy, but there is a lot of truth in it. I leaves you thinking. Here is an interview with the creators of the movie Mark Leynar and John Cusack.

A Call to Revolution

John Cusack and Mark Leyner, co-writers of the new movie War, Inc., explain why rebellions should be frequent and fun.

By Annika Carlson
May 21, 2008

John Cusack stars as a hit-man Brand Hauser in wartorn Turagistan in War, Inc. John Cusack is perhaps most fondly remembered as the lovesick Lloyd Dobler in 1989’s Say Anything

Since then, Cusack has starred in dozens of movies, produced several films, blogged intermittently for the Huffington Post, and has become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. Cusack’s political passion has been reflected in his recent films—he starred in Grace is Gone, an award-winning film about an Iraq war widower, andhis forthcoming satire about war profiteering, War, Inc.

Campus Progress recently spoke with Cusack and his War, Inc. co-writer Mark Leyner—a prolific postmodern author who has written several novels, short story collections, and nonfiction works, as well as columns for Esquire and the now-defunct George magazine—about war profiteering, Naomi Klein, and NASCAR branded guns.

Campus Progress: You’ve made two very different movies about the war in Iraq recently: Grace is Gone, a drama, and War, Inc., a dark satire about a war run by a corporation. What prompted you to take such different approaches?

Mark Leyner: With War, Inc. we wanted to make something that was unnervingly entertaining. Grace is Gone is a much more a somber, and in a way, sort of dignified, look at the terrible suffering that war creates for its victims. The victims of [the war] are in Iraq, and the victims of it are young people coming back here, and people that are widowed. War, Inc. is not a dignified movie; it’s really a celebration of rebellion.

John Cusack: [Grace is Gone] is a meditation on grief from the soldier’s family, and the families at home—for the people paying the ultimate sacrifice for this kind of insane ideology … [War, Inc.] is a much broader indictment, lambasting, of the ideology that unleashed these forces and exploited them—the illusion of this neoconservative, fundamentalist free market, where the official narrative is that freedom follows the markets. This is called “spreading freedom.”And then these statesmen come on, and they also sit on the board of major defense organizations.

No one asks, “Well, shouldn’t you be either making defense policy or profiting from it? Why should you be treated as a statesman…when you’re other things as well? Didn’t you make a case for war? Didn’t your stock go up 145 percent and you were handed $2.3 billion in contracts?”

It is impossible to know where the government ends and these companies begin.

The hypocrisy is so wild.

A journalist, a friend of mine, said they would go meet with these Iraqis. Once they bombed the shit out of the place—and killed all these people—while the city is still burning, they’d turn all state-owned companies, make them available…for foreign investment,
and then they would make all the money on rebuilding it. Then people who aren’t dead or had to flee, who were still there—they would have the privilege of working for these companies, and for the U.S. government who takes over the resources. That’s [the neoconservative] version of democracy and free markets, right? They seem entirely unconcerned by the dark irony that Halliburton, Bechtel, KBMG, and Blackwater were all in Iraq madly going off this vast protection racket, in which the U.S. government created the market for war, barred the competitors from playing, and then made their favorite corporations and themselves work on cost-plus contracts which guaranteed profits for them, all at our taxpayers’ expense.

That argument is also behind Naomi Klein’s latest book, The Shock Doctrine. Did her work inspired you to create War, Inc.?

JC: She was actually writing her book while we were doing this. I find her to be a wildly brilliant person.

ML: One of things that I think causes people to laugh so much when they watch this movie is that all of things we are talking about are stated in the movie matter-of-factly. Many of the characters in the movie don’t question any of it. The extremity of the satire is such that people accept, for instance, that phase-one weapons would be sold to companies for advertising, things like that that.

JC: Like NASCAR.

ML: Bombs and tanks and bullets and every possible inch of space on instruments of suffering and maiming and death would be sold.

JC: None of the stuff we’re saying is new. The hypocrisy is so wild. These are people who supposed to believe in restrained government spending, individual liberties, and getting government off out back. Yet, at any time, they will expand the state, gobble up private property, and violate your privacy and make a profit off of it.I mean, even calling people ideologues is a joke. That’s one thing. When you add into it killing…all these people, two million refugees—can you imagine the ripple effect of death and destruction and disease that this war has caused?

Where does it end? I don’t know who gave Blackwater the license to kill—it wasn’t the government or the constitution. Should corporations be able to have their own private, roving armies? I don’t know. It’s interesting. I have a corporation—only three, four people work for it—but should I be able to hire somebody from the studio I’m making a film with, pay them, and have them walk around with flame-throwers?
(EXACTLY!!! I too have a corporation and we don’t even requisition flame throwers; why do DICK AND GEORGE get to do so>???)

The film’s concept is uncomfortably realistic—NASCAR guns and corporate armies don’t seem outside the realm of possibility in the future.

ML: We would write something and then in five, six months we see that it would come to be. We are not oracles. There is nothing in the movie that if you did a little digging, you couldn’t find a basis for.

JC: Naomi was kind—she called the movie “reality-plus-plus.”How did we get to the point where a corporation-run war doesn’t seem out of the question? And where do we go from here?

JC: The other day Bush admitted that he approved torture. I looked at Hardball and all the shows …There were no follow-up questions about the fact that our president allowed torture, state-sponsored torture. Forget the fact that it’s been out-sourced to private enterprise at a cost-plus basis. That’s the stuff for a revolt in the country.

I can remember watching Tim Russert. You’d watch him. He’d have Cheney come on. And Cheney would lie. Again, again, and again. They never challenged him in any fundamental way.

Do you think the media is getting better at holding officials accountable?

JC: No.

ML: John is absolutely right. Some of these people come on—not even the most egregious criminal elements in the Bush administration—but anyone. People are allowed to say anything and they’re not challenged. It’s almost as if they’re some boy band. It’s good to have them on. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna make you feel uncomfortable.

JC: What is good about art is it’s kind of like science in a way. There’s still a way for artists to question the authority and find the truth. I think journalism has some proximity to power. I’m sure that Russert and Mary Matalin and James Carville all go to the same cocktail parties. I still get most of my news about this from courageous journalists. They’re printing them in magazines and on the Internet…There’s Bill Moyers and Naomi Klein. And you can’t tell me the McClatchy newspapers aren’t good—they are. But the MSM has been horrible. The real info we’re getting is from independent journalists.

Do you plan to continue to make political films to push the dialogue to the extreme?

JC: I think this is a rebellious film. To me it’s not political in a left-right sense. I’ll write what ever Mark wants to write with me. It will depend on Mark’s mood.

ML: I hope there will be many more. And I hope they all reek of rebellion.

What would you have young people do to participate in that rebellion?

ML: That’s a profound question. Try to become a free person. Try to evade mainstream American culture—the commerce of culture. It’s an important distinction: Militancy and rebellion and free thinking shouldn’t be sad. It should be an enormous exaltation and celebration of being a human being.

JC: Express yourself. In whatever it is. Whatever creativity. Doesn’t have to be art. Doesn’t have to be literature. Doesn’t have to be politics. The right-wing can wrap itself in the flag and tell the crowd to be obedient. But I have to keep paying my taxes and I don’t have to do that. Tell these people to go fuck themselves. Subversion should be fun.

Notice how everyone is jumping on the “Green” bandwagon lately? Everyone running for office, politicians, teachers and corporations. No matter how much research goes to disprove the fables alleged by Al Gore the loyal masses just keep marching in lock step. Many of the same people who accuse the Bush administration of profiting off of oil and war, don’t see how corporate America and Al Gore are also cashing in. This time however it is on the American peoples naivety and sheep like behavior that is sweeping across America.

An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings has a great article about the same topic. Check it out HERE.

I read this post on the Old Solider website. It is a sad case of a child and her stepfather, the step father is also an illegal alien and a CPS department that didn’t do their job. It is pretty self explanatory.

When 3-year-old Catherine wet her pants on Monday afternoon, her stepfather got so frustrated that he made her stand in a corner for an hour, soaked in urine.
But after the hour was up, police say, Camilo Garza was still angry. So he started spanking her. His anger turned to rage as he began to hit and kick her tiny frame for nearly an hour, authorities said.
His patience short-circuited by cocaine, Garza beat his young stepdaughter to death over a potty-training accident, police said.

A judge this morning denied bail for Garza, 41, who was charged Tuesday with capital murder in Catherine Martinez’s death. The child — beaten until she was black and blue — was pronounced dead Monday at Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital.
State District Judge Brock Thomas said he will appoint an attorney for Garza because he is indigent.
The girl’s mother told Child Protective Services workers that after the toddler stood in the corner for an hour on Monday, Garza, who had been using cocaine and taking pills, started to spank her. He then made her stand on a rail about four feet off the floor in their one-room shack, CPS officials said.
The little girl tried to sit down. He made her stand up. She fell off the rail.
He started slapping her on the back of the head, according to the mother’s report. His fury built with every blow.

“The mother described everything from grabbing her by the neck and smashing her head into the wall to kicking her while she was down,” said CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin.
The beating lasted for about 45 minutes, police said. When it ended, the girl was turning blue. Her mother tried CPR, then called 911.

“That’s when the mother realized it had gone further than she had originally thought,” said Officer L.K. Lovelace, a homicide investigator who is working the case.

At a hearing Tuesday afternoon, the mother was denied custody of her two other children: a 6-year-old girl and a 10-month-old boy. They are in foster care and will be kept from seeing their mother and other relatives, for now, Olguin said.
Catherine’s mother and grandmother declined to comment Tuesday, on an attorney’s advice. At the custody hearing, the mother pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. Police are considering possible charges against the mother, Lovelace said.
An affidavit filed with CPS after Catherine’s death told of bruises from head to toe, in various stages of healing.

“When they examined her she had old and new injuries,” Olguin said. “Bruises on her forehead, back of the head and behind the ear, on the clavicle, back, thighs, shins, feet … ”
There was also bruising that could signify sexual abuse, Olguin said. The other two children will also be examined for possible abuse.

Home visit in AprilCatherine’s death came in the midst of a CPS investigation into the family, following an anonymous report of child abuse last month.

A report filed in November had not led to any disciplinary action. At the time, Garza and the mother had separated but were seeking counseling and working toward reconciliation.
The last time a case worker visited the home, on April 25, she reported no visible injuries on any of the children.

“She didn’t see any signs of abuse, but she still wanted to follow up and talk to family members,” Olguin said. “That case had not been completed when this happened.”

CPS officials will review the case to make sure workers didn’t overlook signs of abuse or miss any steps that could have prevented the girl’s death.

In the rural community, south of Hobby Airport, where Catherine and her family lived, 92-year-old Paul E. Paulson wondered Tuesday whether there was anything he could have done differently.
Paulson had let the family stay in the 20-by-20 foot shack in the pasture behind his house after they showed up on his doorstep in February. He said he’s a minister who takes in families like this one, who find themselves in dire straits. They paid a token rent.

Garza did odd jobs, as a plumber and electrician, and the mother stayed home with her children, Paulson said.

The shack had basic amenities — water, electricity, air conditioning, a bathroom. The family of five had a queen-sized mattress that everyone slept on, Paulson said.

Paulson and his wife got along well with the mother and adored the children, but found Garza abrasive, he said. Garza complained often about the difficulties of potty-training the toddler.

“He’d say, ‘That 3-year-old is really tearing me up,’ ” Paulson said.
Still, he had no idea about the alleged child abuse or drug use, Paulson said.
“I wish I’d have known he was on drugs. They wouldn’t have been here,” he said. “I thought I was helping them.”

NASA has released some pics from Phoenix as well as an amazing photo taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters’ HiRISE Camera. Check out all the photos HERE. Below find the amazing pic from the MRO. This marks the first time a spacecraft has photographed another spacecraft on final decent.

Indian Jones wasn’t 100% made up. The inspiration for the character was one Otto Rahn, a mousy archeologist who also had problems with Nazi. The Telegraph.co.uk has a great article on old Otto. I want to add I am glad Spielberg changed the name of the character or this weekend we would have seen “Otto Rahn and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”Read all about it HERE.

The time asked question whether we are alone in space can be answered now that NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft has landed on the surface of Mars after 10 months and almost 400 million miles. The Phoenix is on the northern polar region of Mars where scientist believe that life may be trapped in the ice. Scary!

NASA has published Phoenix’s first Mars photos. Check them out HERE.

Many here in the Tampa Bay Area have no idea where Upham Beach is. When you tell people it is a place with great surf when the conditions are right they think you are crazy. Well trust me, Upham Beach is an awesome place. The restaurants and bars around the area give locals and tourist a place to go wind down after a day on the beach or out riding waves.

Upham Beach however has been a source of controversy for quite some time, and now it is time to do what is right for the beach. Upham is located in an awkward position (see below) and that position causes beach erosion. For years the erosion was combated by beach renourishment which cost about $1.5 million each time it is done. The last time they got sand with oil in it from Blind Pass which resulted in an oil spill cleanup, the final price tag was $6.3 million. The city legislators decided to find a more economical way to keep the sand in place, after much research they decided on Geotubes or T-Groins as the solution. Since then the Geotubes have done nothing except screw up the beach break, destroy the aesthetics of the area and have become a safety hazard.

The locals, surfers and the Surfrider Foundation chapter in the area have united to “FREE UPHAM” from the Geotubes. There is a petition in place that lets your voice be heard. Visit the Petition site and let your voice stand united. There are many other alternatives out there and for the sake of one of our beautiful beaches and our legacy we need to thoroughly check them out.

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Links and more info on Upham:
Free Upham! petition
Gulfster
Article from the St. Pete Times from 2002 warning about the Geotubes.
Info from the local Surfrider Foundation Chapter and how to get involved.

How T-Groins Work: