Prepping the packing -- clothes, computers, books-to-purchase list [Hey, Larry!], books to bring for autographs.

  Be there in 8!

JJB

  Today marks the 21st anniversary of my daughter Kayleigh's birth.

  I've never held her, touched her, hugged her, dyed Easter eggs with her, helped with her homework, played catch with her, read bedtime stories to her, kissed her goodnight, or watched over her as she slept, as I did my stepchildren Lisa and Aaron, my son Matthew, or my many nephews, nieces, and young cousins.

  Kayleigh, conceived and born in Delaware, was parentally kidnaped -- that's the Federal legal term when one parent causes unilateral removal of a child from her "Home State", another legal term that refers to the State -- again under Federal and all 50 States' law -- when a child is under 6-months-old at the start of a legal action.

  My daughter was born on a Friday evening at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware.
( The rest of the story...Collapse )

   Several years ago, when on his AOL Community forum, Michael Francis Flynn m_francis asked his ever-bickering faithful fans if they would care to assist him in a story he was writing.
( Secret Mission exposed...Collapse )

On Thursday my 8-year-old cousin Gabriel Fennemore was recognized by the State of Delaware's Governor Jack Markell for his environmentalism accomplishments.

Gabriel, who is home-schooled, spent the last two years photographing animals and plants.  With his father Bart's help setting up the template and teaching him how to upload, Gabriel produced an online nature journal, "The Young Naturalist".

http://www.theyoungnaturalist.com/

Because of a summer cold, Gabriel was not able to attend the ceremony but his family is sure that opportunities in the future will present themselves for such a naturally curious young investigator.

http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/News/Pages/Gov-Markell-joins-DNREC-Sec-OMara-to-honor-Delawares-2012-Young-Environmentalists-of-the-Year.aspx?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter


JJB

  My cousins -- the brilliant, beautiful, gracious Elizabeth and her nearly as brilliant, artistic, good-natured, loving husband Christopher -- introduce their most recent collaborative effort, Aria Elizabeth Rose, born approximately 5 PM today, 18 July 2012.  Weighing in at 7 lb 2 oz, reaching 21", she's a contendah!
( Pictures below...Collapse )

My daughter's uncle's business partner of 55 nearly 50 years [from when the former was a boyish Al Pacino-ish appearing CPA and the latter a raffish rogue radio personality from NYC], who became the Young Turks of the Philly Scene and the later Boy-Conquerors of the American Music Nation, died today.

He was 82.

Rock & Roll is said to have started, if the disparate charges can be hazarded to have any single ignition point, across from Philly in Gloucester City, NJ, where from 1951 Bill Haley & His Saddlemen [later rechristened the Comets] played an 18-month engagement as the Twin Bar house-band, fine-tuning their sound.  Wildwood politely disagrees, asserting priority.

Regardless, if South Jersey offered reasonable claim to be the lead torch-bearer of a national movement, its metropolitan brother Philadelphia [of all cities, Philly cannot be said to be sisterly] sealed the deal in 1957 with Dick Clark and American Bandstand.  It's early emcee forgotten, Dick was the face of vibrant youth and a youthful sound.

Farewell and thank you for bringing the music into our homes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E5xy6gjnt4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR_rYLx_2RQ

and an article quoting my daughter Kayleigh's elusive, camera-shy great-uncle:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/47100931/ns/business-us_business/

JJB

Until 1977, I had no recall of encountering the name Anatole France -- great French writer -- until a reference in Carl Sagan's Dragons of Eden where he mentions that Lord Byron possessed one of the largest brains [2200 cc] on record while Anatole France had one of the smallest [1000 cc] for a grown male, despite Byron not being twice as intelligent as France.

However, Anatole France had a profound influence on my life.

As my sixth birthday approached, experiencing my first winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, I encountered this spare, magical eight-minute cartoon, unlike anything else witnessed by me before or thereafter.  I saw it exactly once in my life until this afternoon when it struck me that on the cyber-realization of Gordon R. Dickson's Final Encyclopedia I might relive this moment of my boyhood.  Several months ago, in relating a story to my friend SF writer L. Jagi Lamplighter arhyalon about my childhood in the Great White North, I used GoogleMaps to explore the street level of the church my family attended in the forested outskirts and traveled back in time it seemed to gaze upon again the silver birches I played amongst with my brother.

So, with trepidation, that even though I have been told by a child psychologist that I had close to what is described as an eidetic memory, I feared the reality of the animation would fall short of the wonder of my experience as viewed through the eyes of the child I had been.

Because this cartoon altered the course of my life and shaped my philosophy to this day.

I was not disheartened.

Let me share this very personal epiphany with you:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8s7e2_juggler-of-our-lady_creation

Here's the story behind it, by one of its creators:

http://genedeitchcredits.com/roll-the-credits-01/29-r-o-blechman/

As a member of the Heinlein Society and a lifelong reader of Robert A. Heinlein since stumbling upon one of his Juveniles in the school library when I was eight, it came as no great surprise when revealed by Spider Robinson in his The Best of All Possible Worlds anthology that this tale was a favorite of RAH.

JJB

Cross-posted from comments on Karen Healy's LJ: http://karenhealey.livejournal.com/956059.html

Lacking a dog in this hunt -- not residing in Tucson nor even Arizona -- I'm not overly concerned about the outcome, especially as I must aim a baleful eye at the Orwellian Newspeak utilized by the protesters.

Usually, in cases such as this, I employ the goose-gander substitution of terms test.

So, if the State of Massachusetts, USA, passed a law prohibiting Massachusetts public schools, funded by taxpayers, to establish classes intended predominantly for one ethnic group -- White Anglo-Saxon Protestants [WASPs], forex -- that promoted ethnic divisiveness [by singling out blacks or immigrant Vietnamese Hmong, f'rinstance, for lost jobs and decreased property values], sedition, and overthrow of the government to oppose this other targeted ethnic group AND such ordered that any so described public, taxpayer-funded school system must desist in such practice or lose portions of critical funding for all programs as a penalty, would there be an equal outcry?

Would the shutting of the program in response to the law constitute banning when copies of the books remained available in the school library system?

I don't know enough of the on-the-ground details beyond a casual glance to judge whether my parallel suffices, yet -- from gut instinct honed over years dealing with courts and as a discivil libertarian -- my guess is the district Federal courts will apply an "equal protection" standard to the matter, upholding the law; the 9th Circuit will narrowly overturn those decisions; and SCOTUS will affirm the district court's original ruling.


JJB

Here are the books I read this year, if that's of any interest to anyone.
( Read'em & weep...Collapse )

Happy New Year,
JJB