"Special" Election Doesn't Quite Describe It!

Photo from The State newspaper

   


         This is gonna upset some of my Republican friends, but that’s certainly not the intent.

            It’s like this: for several years, I’ve been saying I’m tired of so much partisan politics and so much partisan bickering.  And I really, really am. 

            That’s the same thing I’ve heard loads of other folks fussing about also.  They’re tired of everything in Washington having to do with party lines.  They’re tired of partisanship in our state legislature.  They want what’s good for the people to be put before what’s good for one party or the other.

            But, have we looked at our own back doors or front doors or wherever we generally look?  Don’t we put party before consideration of individual candidates when we vote straight party tickets?

            And, now, here we are faced with a special election (May 7th) in our own first congressional district – a race pitting former Governor Mark Sanford (he of Appalachian Trail fame) against Elizabeth Colbert Busch, businesswoman and sister of comedian Stephen Colbert. 

            Guess what we’re hearing and reading now from people who are sick and tired of partisan politics?  Here are a few of the comments:

            “No, I don’t like Sanford, but he’s the Republican, so that’s how I’ll vote.”

            “Forget a third-party candidate or a write-in, because that would just hand the election to the woman instead of a Republican.” 

            “I didn’t want Sanford to be the Republican nominee; he’s a scoundrel but I just can’t vote for a Democrat.” 

            “Yeah, Sanford was wrong to leave the state, to lie about his whereabouts, to not leave anyone in charge.  Yes, he was wrong to violate a court order.  But he’s the Republican.”

            Those are just samplings.  In the last two weeks, people who used to talk about character, honesty, integrity and such, are listing reasons they don’t like Sanford.  They are not questioning Colbert Busch’s character and integrity --- yet, they’ll likely vote against honesty, character and integrity because of party loyalty. 

            What’s right for the country, what’s right for the citizens – these take precedence over what’s right for a particular political party. 

            Just callin’ it like I see it, folks.

PH: Triangles: They're Everywhere!

This week's theme for the blogging world's Photo Hunt is "triangle."  My first thought was that I didn't have pictures of triangles, but then I looked in my files and found them in all kinds of places.

This is in the lobby of the Courtyard by Marriott in Washington, DC.  Do you see the triangles in the light fixtures?  In the chains holding the fixtures?

                                                                                                   

 This house that's for sale has triangular features, as do many homes and other buildings.

 

This gorgeous photo was taken by a friend, Sparky Witte, and shared on Facebook a while back.  Dramatic photo showing triangles under the pier, huh? 

  

                                   

Daughter Tiffany's napkins were folded in triangular shapes when she prepared a delicious Thanksgiving meal for us. 

                                                                                                 

Sticking with holidays, there are triangles in some of the Christmas stockings we hang each year.    

  

One of our local newspapers did a feature on our two-faced governor, Mark Sanford, last year.  Do you see a triangle formed by his nose in the profile photo?

What about famous triangles?  Here's information (from Wikipedia) about two of them: 

BASS RED TRIANGLE

The Bass Red Triangle is one of the world's oldest logos but the brewery's labels had been copied without permission, both at home and overseas. The Red Triangle was the first trademark to be registered under the Trade Mark Registration Act 1875, as trade mark number 1. The 1875 Act came into effect on 1 January 1876 and that New Year's Eve, a Bass employee waited overnight outside the registrar's office, in order to be the first in the queue to register a trademark the next morning. In fact, Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton Limited received the first two registrations, the first being the Bass Red Triangle for their pale ale, and the second the Bass Red Diamond for their strong ale.

BERMUDA TRIANGLE

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and surface vessels are alleged to have disappeared in mysterious circumstances which fall beyond the boundaries of human error, pirates, equipment failure, or natural disasters. Popular culture has attributed some of these disappearances to the paranormal, a suspension of the laws of physics, or activity by extraterrestrial beings.

A substantial body of documentation exists showing numerous incidents to have been inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, and numerous official agencies have gone on record as stating that the number and nature of disappearances is similar to any other area of ocean, however proponents of paranormal phenomena claim that many incidents remain unexplained despite considerable investigation.

Women Who Make a Difference!!!

ALL women make a difference.  Some make more of a difference than others and, sometimes, the difference made isn't positive, unfortunately. 

Today I'm writing about one particular woman who has made a tremendous difference in a very positive way. 

After church today, I went by the post office for the first time in a few days, and there was my very first issue of TOWN AND COUNTRY magazine.  Even though it's only January 10th, this is the February issue, and it features Cindy Crawford on the cover.

I quickly flipped through the pages, because I knew this issue was paying tribute to specific women who have had an extremely positive impact on others.  Finally, I found what I was looking for on page 44:

That woman is my baby sister, and she's one of my heroes - AND she's one of four women honored by Longines in TOWN AND COUNTRY as "Women Who Make a Difference."

Here's the introduction in the magazine: 

At Longines, "Elegance is an attitude."  It reminds us that grace, style, and soul are the qualities that make a women elegant.  Nowhere are those traits more on display than when a woman devotes herself to making a difference in someone else's life.  The following four women are the epitome of elegance.  They champion those less fortunate and tirelessly work to make this a better place to live.

The four who are recognized are these: 

1)  tennis star Stefanie Graf as the founder of of Children for Tomorrow, an organization which helps children and families who are victims of various kinds of violence; she is the Longines Ambassador of Elegance; 

2) Deloris Jordan, mother of basketball great Michael Jordan, as founder of The James Jordan Foundation, which supports academic opportunities and academic excellence through several of its programs; 

3) Leila de Bruyne, founder of Flying Kites, an organization which provides care for Kenyan children who have been abused, orphaned and/or abandoned; and

4) Lorri Shealy Unumb, my above-pictured hero.

And because she is, of course, my favorite honoree, I'm sharing what was published about her, for fear of doing too much gushing on my own:

Lorri Unumb is the driving force behind Ryan's Law - the single most influential piece of legislation for families living with the hardships of autism.  Lorri's son Ryan was diagnosed with autism in 2003.  Early in their journey, Lorri learned that insurance companies did not cover treatment for autism.  Lorri, a practicing lawyer, soon began her historic battle with insurance companies and state governments to get autism treatment covered.  Her first victory was in her home state of South Carolina, where insurance companies are now compelled to pay for the treatment of autism.  

Lorri has played an active role in changing legislation in other states, and today 15 states have enacted their own versions of Ryan's Law.  In 2008 Lorri joined Autism Speaks as its senior policy advisor and counsel, a role in which she supports and advises other activists in this worthy cause. 

 
Lorri and the many, many volunteers she recruited worked hard for over two years to get Ryan's Law passed in South Carolina.  Then, when it was finally passed, Governor Mark Sanford vetoed it!  Once again, Lorri and troops rallied; the House of Representatives voted unanimously to override the governor's veto!!   As of former state legislator, I know that it is very unusual for a legislature to do much of anything unanimously and almost unheard of for a legislative body to override a governor's veto unanimously.

During this same time period, she was voted "Professor of the Year" by the student bar association at the Charleston School of Law and was honored with the Jefferson Award by The Post and Courier, Charleston's daily newspaper.  All the while, she was traveling to other states to help with legislative efforts in those places AND she and Dan added to the family with Christopher and then Jonathan. 

If you ask me, Lorri should have been on the cover instead of - or along with - Cindy Crawford! 


I used to take care of Ryan a lot.  This collage shows several pictures of us together. The second photo is a close-up of Ryan a few years ago; the third is about two years ago at Jonathan's baptism, then one of Lorri and Ryan, followed by shots from the Autism Walk in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Visit http://www.autismspeaks.org/ for more information about autism.

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Uh-oh! We Made the News Again - and Again - and Again

To be such a small state, South Carolina has certainly made its share of the news this year.  And here we go again!

Yale University (through its has just released its list of the "Top Ten Quotes of the Year."  Yep, there's a quote from a South Carolinian in those ten.  There's even a second one - and even a third one.  Three of the ten.  Can this be a good thing?

The top quote of the year was at a town meeting in Simpsonville, SC, from a constituent of SC Rep. Bob Inglis:  "Just keep your government hands off of my Medicare."  (I understand this sentiment; I want the government to keep out of a lot of what I do.)

Fourth on the Yale list was the shout heard 'round the world.  This was SC Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie" during President Obama's address to Congress. 

And, finally, another one that seems to have gotten world-wide coverage.  It was from Gov. Mark Sanford's spokesman about the governor's whereabouts when he couldn't be located in June:  "The governor is hiking the Appalachian Trail."

Fortunately, there's other news today about a South Carolina native.  Ben Bernanke, a Dillon native, has been named Time magazine's Person of the Year.  (Another tidbit of information: you may not be familiar with Dillon, South Carolina, but if you've ever driven on many parts of I-95, you've probably seen signs for a Dillon tourist trap attraction - South of the Border.)

Below is the 2009 roll of quotes from Yale:

1. "Keep your government hands off my Medicare."  Rep. Bob Inglis at health care reform town hall meeting in Simpsonville, S.C., commenting on the government-created Medicare program, quoted by The Washington Post on July 28.

2. "We're going to be in the Hudson."  Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, responding to air traffic controllers asking on which runway he preferred to land US Airways Flight 1549 on Jan. 15 before he landed in the Hudson River.

3. "There's an app for that."  Apple's advertising slogan for the iPhone.

4. "You lie!"   Rep. Joe Wilson's shouted retort to Obama's address before a joint session of Congress September 9.

5. "The Cambridge police acted stupidly." Obama, commenting on a white police officer's arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge, Mass., at a news conference July 22.

6. "I'm going to let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!"  Kanye West, interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 13.

7. "Um, you guys said that we, um, did this for the show."  Falcon Heene, during an interview on CNN about his parents' balloon hoax on Oct. 15.

8. "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel.'"  Sarah Palin, posting on her Facebook page on Aug. 7.

9. "The governor is hiking the Appalachian Trail."  Spokesman for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford regarding Sanford's disappearance on June 22.

10. "You give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."    Jesse Ventura, during a CNN interview May 11.

Do you remember most or all of the above utterances?


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PH: ORANGE - in Sports, Recreation, Nature and Even Politics???

What fun I had with this week's Photo Hunt theme.  It's orange.  What in the world would I find that was orange?

As it turns out, there's a whole lot of orange around us.  And I even came across a picture that's over 25 years old that has orange in it. 

Sometimes there's orange in beautiful sunrises and sunsets. 

Do you see the orange halo around this Summerville street lamp?

I just happened to see an orange bike in a local parking lot.

Heavy machinery might be orange, like these two pieces of equipment at a local rental place.

The name of my blog might be "EX Marks the Spot" but, in these next three pictures, orange marks the spot - or spots - for work to be done.  Orange paint, orange flags, orange signs.

Okay, here's the really old photo - over 25 years old.  Tree, my son (now an attorney in DC who will kill me if he sees this photo) is wearing an orange life jacket.  Behind him are nephews Ross and Rodney (partially hidden) and daughter Tiffany.  Yep, they'll ALL kill me!

Yes, I'm being grandma again.  Orange gave me the opportunity to share another picture of grandson Harrison.

Quite a few sports teams have orange as one of their colors.

In South Carolina, orange means the Clemson Tigers.  Their blood runs orange.

And speaking of South Carolina, here's a picture from The State newspaper of Mark Sanford, our "Luv Guv."  If you're not from South Carolina, "orange" you glad he's not your governor?

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To see other Photo Hunt participants and their orange posts, click here.