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December 30, 2012

Happy New Year!

Hi there. Making your New Year’s resolutions? Wishing you the best with those…

 Here’s a link to my huffpost piece

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anita-thompson/is-doug-brinkley-right-ab_b_2357560.html

 Oh how I would appreciate any acts of kindness to LIKE  it on facebook and or comment on huffpo link. A girlfriend of mine beat me up for cheeleading a shoo-in.

In the piece I am pointing out the connections between Hunter’s dear friend Doug Brinkley, and John Kerry. Cheerleading is a great American pastime. And, it’s a good summary of Senator Kerry’s qualifications.

Thanks for your help! And Happy New Year!

Your friend in Woody Creek,

Anita Thompson





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December 23, 2012

Doug Brinkley is Right: John Kerry Was Born to Be Sec Of State

Doug Brinkley is right. John Kerry should be confirmed, ASAP, to the Secretary of State; a position he was born for. In the latest
The man has already been the Foreign Relations Committee for 3 decades. And as recent Chairman, he has proven time and again that his negotiator’s mindset can be a skill to save American lives by avoiding unnecessary battles.

Doug Brinkley’s

Senator Kerry’s doctrine of peace-if-possible started long ago, when John Kerry testified before Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971. He was an eloquent spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), a group whose singular mission was to end U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. Famously asking; "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" But in that very testimony, Kerry offered other powerful observations about a war he felt had gone off course.

This same attitude shows in his current involvement in the Middle East. With a keen eye for opportunity out of chaos, Kerry, breaking the mold with odd talk for a Washington insider, won’t utter the phrase "Arab Spring." He prefers "Arab Awakening." His reasoning is simple: Seasons like spring come and go. An "awakening" is the beginning of a true democratic reform movement that is just getting started.

Hillary Clinton has done an exemplary job, no doubt. And she traveled more than any Secretary of state to-date. The world is changing and Hillary Clinton needed to be on the ground with sleeves rolled up. She represented the USA with grace and strength.  Hers are big shoes to fill.

With everything from Syria to Iran to North Korea changing at light speed, we need a diplomat who will be equally, if not more tenacious than Hilary Clinton. Kerry has been tried and tested in this too.

Just as he learned everything he could about Southeast Asia from the 1960s to the 1990s, Kerry has amassed an encyclopedic and instinctual knowledge of the Middle East – at times even ahead of President Obama on the region’s urgent crises. He was the first senator to call for President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to step down, called on the administration to set up a no-fly zone in Libya to topple Muammar al-Qaddafi, and has been outspoken of Syria’s murdering of its own citizens, having meticulously tested Bashar al-Assad’s willingness to change his ways in 2009 and come away unimpressed.

What Doug Brinkley doesn’t mention of course, is John Kerry’s personality in a room. Some say he’s Stoic. Some say he’s a diplomat who can’t relate because of his chronic "senatease talk." But let’s not forget that in delicate situations in the Middle East or any other hot zone, the USA is being represented by one person – the Secretary of State.

Hillary Clinton is formidable. John Kerry is 6 foot 4, lions mane and so distinguished that his 50 years of Foreign relations experience is compacted, for just a moment, in that first handshake. Trust me, I’ve been at the other end of the handshake a several of times. As dignified as he is, I wouldn’t mess with the man.

He’s the man we need. As Doug Brinkley said, there’s no learning curve at Foggy

Bottom. Brinkley’s argument is the best so far on who the 4th in line to the president should be. John Kerry was made for the job, and the current World stage job was made for John Kerry.

Your friend in Woody Creek,

Anita Thompson





All comments are subject to review before being published.

December 22, 2012

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It, And I Feel Fine

Good morning!  Look! We’re still here. I can’t wait to see what the New World Order will bring.  Back on the Farm, everything is the same.

The roosters were the first to wake me – at 5:30. I kept my eyes closed enjoying my new humidifier hum until 6:30 when my German Shepherd (Athena) was ready for her dog door to be opened.

Caesar, my oldest Siamese, who has a condition called much-attention-needing-disorder (MAND), meowed, as always, until I turned the faucet. Owl Farm sits below thousands of acres of protected Forest Land. So the water is so delicious that it’s like a drug. Clean water? Who can blame Caesar for demanding that he get it fresh out of the faucet? Hunter gave him that habit so many years ago that, well, you understand. Right?

Jesse, my “special” peacock, snuck into the house and ate Athena’s food while I was outside in parka and boots fussing over hen eggs, feathers and beaks.

Pele, the small Siamese, is still sleeping.

Exciting life. Oh ya! This is life in the fast lane. but for some reason, I’m back in my bedroom. The humidifier still bubbling and Pele still purring. I snuck back here to avoid life’s other duties for the next hour or two.  Angst.

Why the anxiety? Is it because I realized, almost suddenly, that  I’m now a middle aged woman, 40, with cats? Although there are great benefits to turning 40: No pressure to look 29, no pressure to act giggly or even better … no pressure to act hip. I’m 40!

I’m engaged to a lovely man named Jim Caruso. Yes! Jim proposed over Thanksgiving. He watched me turn 40 while on a trip to Athens and Istanbul. After 4 years of friendship and a few months of romance, he still doesn’t seem to mind that I come with a truck-load of animals, boxes of old clothes, books, unpredictable decision-making process, other “baggage”, and more personality flaws than Courtney Love and Ann Coulter combined.  And, did I mention that I’m a middle-aged woman with cats?

Jim is a great guy. He’s in Chevy Chase today for the opening of a new restaurant owned by his friends Hilda Staples and Brian Voltagio, while I work out my “commitment” fears.  I do miss the city. And I love Jim very much. So, I look forward to splitting my time between East Coast and Owl Farm.

Hunter is always near me. And Jim seems to accept that with a kind of grace and confidence that only a man with 2 black-belts can.  15 years ago, I set foot here for the first time, fell in love, and it has become part of me ever since.

And my nephew is coming for the holidays to snowboard with me. You can’t help but loosen your grip on fear-of-the-future, when you look at the mountain-tops of the Rockies. These white peaks have seen kingdoms come and go, been photographed more than any mountain range in the USA, and still maintain a sense of uprightness (call it beauty), that let you know they’ve been looking out for us all our lives. It’ll take a few more million years for real change. How much more stability can one ask for…

I’m a lucky woman.  It’s the New World Order and I Feel Fine.

Your friend in Woody Creek,

Anita Thompson





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December 19, 2012

Hey, Jim Irsay is a good guy

Whoa. Careful people… blogging can be a glorious blood sport…but watch out.

Because of its second-rate nature to actual journalism, blogging can fall under the weight of its own self-importance.

Same here. I have fallen and can’t get my links up — rusty indeed. 

Links aside, I can tell you, without doubt, that Jim Irsay of the Indianapolis Colts is one of the good guys. And without a doubt, blogger Matycamp http://www.battleredblog.com/2012/12/14/3763628/jim-irsay-is-an-inveterate-liar is being a petty viper.

If you have beef over football, that’s your thing, MDC, but back off the personal attacks; those are THE inveterate lies. Really.

Blogger back up: http://www.nuvo.net/Hoppe/archives/2012/12/07/props-for-jim-irsay by David Hoppe.

And happy holidays to everyone else! Ho. ho. ho.

Your friend in Woody Creek,

Anita Thompson

Also, want to wish Paul Kelly http://www.redskins.com/team/coaches/Paul-Kelly/3df9c9c8-3a34-4123-92de-a086f79dc1f4 of the Washington Redskins and his family merry Xmas too!

 





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December 17, 2012

Transcript of President Obama’s Remarks

 

"…we, as a nation, we are left with some hard questions. Someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around. With their very first cry, this most precious, vital part of ourselves — our child — is suddenly exposed to the world, to possible mishap or malice. And every parent knows there is nothing we will not do to shield our children from harm. And yet, we also know that with that child’s very first step, and each step after that, they are separating from us; that we won’t — that we can’t always be there for them. They’ll suffer sickness and setbacks and broken hearts and disappointments. And we learn that our most important job is to give them what they need to become self-reliant and capable and resilient, ready to face the world without fear."

— Obama Speaking to the families of Newton. read the rest of it here http://www.npr.org/2012/12/16/167412995/transcript-president-obama-at-sandy-hook-prayer-vigil

 

From Woody Creek, sans TV,

Anita Thompson





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December 16, 2012

The staff that tried to save the children

http://now.msn.com/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-says-mom-of-mentally-ill-son 

The children:

Charlotte Bacon, 6

Daniel Barden, 7

Olivia Engel, 6

Josephine Gay, 7

Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6

Dylan Hockley, 6

Madeleine F. Hsu, 6

Catherine V. Hubbard, 6

Chase Kowalski, 7

Jesse Lewis, 6

James Mattioli, 6

Grace McDonnell, 7

Emilie Parker, 6

Jack Pinto, 6

Noah Pozner, 6

Caroline Previdi, 6

Jessica Rekos, 6

Avielle Richman, 6

Benjamin Wheeler, 6, Allison N. Wyatt, 6

The staff: Rachel Davino, 29

Dawn Hochsprung, 47

Anne Marie Murphy, 52

Lauren Rousseau, 30

Mary Sherlach, 56

Victoria Soto, 27

 

It is unimaginable that something like this could happen until it actually does. Everyone will remember where we were when we heard that a gunman had opened fire on children and teachers at an elementary school. Generally, children are off limits, even in war.

With mental illness combined with assult weapons created the most nightmarish event that I’ve witnessed on the news in my lifetime. Images of children shot multiple times in a sacuary of school speaks to the subconsious brain. The subconcious and the collective subconcious is not assuaged by the even the most powerful drug known to man: Words.

I don’t know what the subtle effects of this tragedy will be on families in the future. But now that the national psychy is sensitive to the notion that our children have even a slight chance of being hurt or killed in there school will reverberate for years to come on an almost-unnoticabe level.

We have been aware that our children are in harms way via the chemicle companies that have released 75,000 chemicles, wholesale, into the environment since 1940 without understanding the consequeces of those down the line.

All we know is that now, more than ever, is that able bodied, qualified people have realized that those of us who can, must get in the business of protecting kids — from guns, from chemicles in their food, air, water toys, and toxic messages to their minds.

We mourn with Newtown Connecticut and we work for the safety and wellbeing of the rest of our beloved kids.

In kitchens, subways, social media, cafes, and phone talks often come right back to those kids. Of course it is easy dive into politics and gun control, but here’s a less knee-jerk, thoughtful take on mental illness when moms know.

here http://now.msn.com/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-says-mom-of-mentally-ill-son is an article by a Boise woman in similar situtaions as thousands, or hundreds of thousands (we don’t know) as Adam Lanza"s mother.

Your friend in Woody Creek,

Anita Thompson





All comments are subject to review before being published.


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