Povey Prattle

We need a President who will......? Without equivocation or obfuscation condemn racism, white supremacy, white nationalism, the resurgent KKK, and neo-Na-ism. Don't hold your breath. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We need preachers who will....? On Sunday August 13th   resist the temptation to utter pious pablum about "God Loves Everyone", or "We must strive for reconciliation". Rather, they should w ithout equivocation or obfuscation condemn racism, white supremacy, white nationalism, the resurgent KKK, and neo-Na-ism, noting that such beliefs are incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Again, don't hold your breath. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I won't be in any Church tomorrow, nor will I listen/watch the Talk shows.  I cannot hold my breath that long.

Field of Roses/Roosevelt Having just waded my way through a a comprehensive biography of Alexander Hamilton (see my earlier blog) at http://jmichaelpovey-retiredpoveinsarasota.blogspot.com/2017/08/its-big-book.html I am now enjoying a biography (published in 1992 and written by Nathan Miller) of President Theodore Roosevelt. Published by Quill//William Morrow1992 I'll bore you later with details of the boo k , but for now here is a bit of trivia. The surname  Roosevelt  is Dutch by origin,  It arises from the town/area from which the family grew. Roosevelt, and  its   alternative spellings,  means (in English)   FIELD OF ROSES. Makes sense n'est pas? But I wager that many Brits, Americans, and Europeans (apart from the Dutch)  have never made this connection. (I saw my Dutch/South African friend Pal Van D. this afternoon and he confirmed the meaning/origin of the Roosevelt name/)

I had an exceeding good night's sleep yesteryear (Wed 9th to Thurs 10th), but on the couple of occasions I stirred it was to encounter an ear worm. I have no idea why but the song I "heard" was an the one-hundred year old  English Music Hall "My Dear Old Dutch". I kept coming back to the line "I call her Sal, her proper name is Sarah". It reminded me of my confusing as a young kid about my paternal grandmother's first name. Sometimes she would tell me that it was Sarah, but on other times she said it was Sally. So I thought that her name was Sally-Sarah, not knowing that Sal and Sally are diminutives for Sarah. Which take me back to my ear worm.  The song was written by the Londoner (maybe Cockney) Albert Chevalier, with music by his brother under the pen name of Charles Ingle. It's a tender, albeit sentimental song about  the 40 years of marriage of a working class couple. Sentimental or not, I love the refrain: We

"Somewhere along the Road" -  Steeleye Span.   (I've probably posted this before) So wistfully lovely. https://youtu.be/Zk8YB3lMmms

Retail grocery stores binge on plastic.  It's not good for consumers, or for the planet. For this reason I am rapidly falling out of love with Trader Joe's. Their cheeses are good, their frozen foods are mostly fine, and their inexpensive wines are worth buying. BUT  Oh, Trader Joe's is addicted to plastic . So much of their "stuff" (especially produce) is packaged in "clamshells", in cellophane bags. or on Styrofoam trays covered with plastic wrap.  Such a waste! Maybe it's because their nearest distribution centre is in Daytona Beach, some 200 miles away. Thus Trader Joe's offers very few foodstuffs if any  (especially produce) which are  locally sourced . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a somewhat  jaundiced view of the "Fresh Market" chain, founded in Greensboro, N.C. "Fresh Market" has an abundance of unpacked produce, meat, and

Since so few of you respond to my utterly wise, well researched, historically  accurate, and undoubtedly perspicacious historical and political posts (ahem!)  I decided this day to tickle your funny bone. "When stores in eastern Massachusetts understand how we talk there".

On this day in 1945 the United States Air Force dropped an atomic bomb over the City of Hiroshima in Japan. The City of Nagasaki suffered the same fate on August 9th. Estimates of civilian deaths are hard to come by, but a consensus is that between 90,000 and 146,000 perished in Hiroshima, and between 30,000 and 80,000 in Nagasaki. Tokyo had been taken off the list of prospective targets because that City was largely a forest of rubble following the firebombing on 9/10 March earlier that year - resulting on some 100,000 deaths and 1,000,000 people rendered homeless. See this for the background to the atomic bombings.  It makes for chilling reading. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/hiroshima-nagasaki-atomic-bomb-anniversary/400448/ Allied carpet bombing and firebombing had been perfected by the wartime chief of the R.A.F's Bomber Command Air Chief Marshall Arthur "Bomber" Harris.  "Bomber"   When he arrived at Bomber Command,