Thursday, February 5, 2015

YOU'RE A COOL CAT...

WHO'S TURNING 24!!!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU !























HAPPY BIRTHDAY,

DEAR RICHARD







 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU !


Friday, January 30, 2015

IT'S NOT JUST RESTRICTED TO RED WHEELBARROWS , (DON'T 'CHA KNOW ?)

·     An objective correlative is a literary term referring to a symbolic article used to provide explicit, rather than implicit, access to such traditionally inexplicable concepts as emotion or color.
·     The most often cited 'objective correlative' of the poet is the red wheelbarrow glazed with rain.



Pursuant to the array of emotions portrayed above, let's start with 'SAD' correlatives and ultimately finish with 'HAPPY' ones:


...








ANGRY ...

FRIGHTENED...

SNEAKY...


...

















 FINALLY...WE GET TO
 " H-A-P-P-Y" ...




KNOW WHAT? How about blissful?

Now that's spending quality time between my two favorite states' "rhodies" !


My cherished rhododendrons: our Savannah residence (top) and a propos Michigan (bottom)





TWEET ALL YOU WANT: WE'RE [SO] ON TO YOU


The latest Tweets from Brandon Vandenburg (@Vandenburg85) contain this choice tidbit: "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man". 
Psalm 118:8.






























MY NOTE:  What this sad individual is doing (via his twitter communication) is commonly referred to as 'gas-lighting'. The latter is a technique employed by narcissists and sociopaths to fool you into second guessing yourself. I've been the recipient of such deceit myself and its nothing short of horrendous.




That said, this former Vanderbilt student is an addict of the "good times"... his (prior) acts thus demand both forfeiture and steep fines.






He worships at the shrine of power ... as do almost all narcissists and sociopaths...






Taking 'depravity' as his main course 
Now, he must slither down his high horse...




Don't be in denial of your past deeds, young man;
Plus, you've sharpened your OWN dirty knife 
Now awaits the sentencing phase...
(Good God, what you've done with your life !!) 



Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Truly, 'Satan's Spawn': Brandon Vandenburg



'Satan's Spawn': a.k.a. Brandon Vandenburg

























Vandenburg (above) condescendingly shook his head and at one point even rolled his eyes as he was declared guilty...

Vandenburg's father could be heard crying out as the guilty charges were read against his son; (note how he hugs the female who spawned the evil prince of darkness pictured above). Really? I can't believe you two would wish to show your faces or even acknowledge that this piece of pure garbage is genetically related to you. Yuk! I would hate to meet the rest of your family ... you know what they say, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree"!


The jury saw surveillance footage showing the young lady (i.e., the victim) being dragged to Vandenburg's dorm room. Inside the room, Vandenburg switched on porn and encouraged Batey and two others to assault the woman with a water bottle and rape her. The jury was shown graphic cell phone footage of part of the sexual attack, which the men had recorded. Vandenburg then sent some footage to friends. One of the men, Brandon Banks, allegedly anally raped the woman with the water bottle as Vandenburg yelled, 'squeeze that s***', the video showed. Batey then urinated on her.' It wasn't just about sexual gratification and fun, it was about degrading her, humiliating her,' Deputy District Attorney Tom Thurman said in his closing arguments on Tuesday.

"The woman was then thrown in the hall  like a piece of trash by the man she trusted and dated, Brandon Vandenburg", Thurman said. "She's not a piece of trash" , he continued. 'She's a victim. Not an alleged victim. A victim. A victim that had the courage to take that stand and face her attackers. A victim that had the courage to come in here and fight for justice.'

A jury in Nashville, Tennessee found Brandon Vandenburg, 21, and Cory Batey, who turned 21 on Tuesday, guilty of aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery.


Devil: [noun]: A perversely bad, cruel, or wicked person.



Devil parents: not entirely free of blame.





Tuesday, January 20, 2015

COULD YOU MAYBE HUM A FEW BARS?

SONG OF OURSELVES

In my honest opinion, your deepest ancestral roots are also your ultimate symphony of life. That said, how could one NOT wish to identify the panoply of genetic notes or simply hum the inherited melody...in essence, one's very own opus of UNIQUE DNA composition! My husband and I have come to appreciate ours: I'm basically 60% Northern European and 40% Eastern European, with an extremely tiny amount of Asian. He's approximately 55% Eastern European, 40% Southern European and 5% Northern European but also with an [equally] extremely tiny amount of Asian. But here's the kicker, his "Asian" is not my same Asian! Moreover, we are both totally lacking in Arabic and sub-Saharan African DNA. Shocking as it may seem, many apparent 'Caucasians' do have DNA profiles that include the aforesaid sub-types (including my maternal uncle's wife and she's a very pale, 100% natural red head!).


My highly inquisitive nature is such that if there's a skeleton 

or ghost in the proverbial closet, I WILL seek such an 

entity out!




Both my husband and I are members of the 23andme family. Interestingly, part of the 23andme information gleaned from an individual's DNA also allows for a list of associated surnames; these are culled from the inter-related top ten and further arranged by "most common to least common". The 1st and 2nd surnames germane to my DNA data are  Stack and Connell, respectively. The latter name I could understand as I WAS already aware that I had 2nd cousins with this surname...but the former(?), this totally threw me for a loop! Other prominent surnames in my list included Hay*, Hall, and Hamilton (also similarly astounding me a bit). No where on this surname list was my maiden name of Porter, nor the surnames from any [of my] more 'recognizable' family tree. But given that I thoroughly enjoy the pursuits of investigation and discovery, supplementary information a propos my genetic legacy is always most welcome and accordingly appreciated...



Stack
This is a rather famous Anglo-Irish name, even though the surname's factual origin is pre 7th Century Norse-Viking, a derivative of the term "Stakkr". Essentially, this is a name depicting a builder of Stacks (specifically 'hay stacks') and, in effect, really alluding to a prototype of agricultural contractor. NOTE: At first, I automatically assumed that the surname of Hay must share a similar origin, but it doesn't appear that it does.


Yet, the moderately serene occupation of hay-stacking appears discrepant with the "Stacks" of later renown. Specifically, the Irish holders of the name, originally forming part of the English 14th century colonist rule, turned against England and were her brutal opponents in the Elizabethan Wars. On another note, this name is considered an early definitive surname: some recordings include Simon Stakke of Hampshire in 1244; in Ireland, John Stack was Bishop of Ardfert in 1588, while General Edward Stack lead the Irish Brigade (a.k.a.'The Wild Geese') in the Napoleonic Wars of 1792 - 1815.


MY NOTE: No wonder I love the Cotswalds!

 The other family surname of mine, Connell (or O'Connell), is an Anglicized form of the famous Gaelic clan name O'Conaill, meaning "strong as a wolf", and from the Gaelic siol cuin which translates as "descendant of Connall or Con." The name possibly derives from cú (con) meaning "hound" or "wolf," and gal meaning "valour." Of the three distinct O Connell clans that exist (i.e., these located in the provinces of Connacht, Ulster, and Munster), I know mine is related to county Clare in the province of Munster. My father's mother's side is from Cork, Limerick and Munster. My father's father's side is Protestant through and through and THEY were from Ulster, being post-plantation people originally from the Cumberland region of the British Isles.

**********************************************

On the other hand, my husband's top surname (by way of the 23andme data) is 'Goldstein' and this is the far and away front-runner vis-a-vis his complete surname list. Now, having known his late father, I'm not totally surprised. By way of background, his father knew of 'some' Croatian roots (he was raised as a Catholic) but, for centuries, Croatia belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it was only after World War I that it joined the 'new' Yugoslavia. The surname 'Goldstein' was not uncommon within the Austro-Hungarian empire either. Moreover, my husband's current surname of Grenn was actually a name derived from Gludowitz (sometimes spelled Gludowatz) and Krenn. His genetic [DNA] breakdown truly reads like a mini United Nations but with very strong contribution from the Carpathian mountain region(s) as well as Ukraine and Russia. What is interesting, though, is the moderately significant sprinkling of Finnish; yet, I would totally surmise that this has to be from his mother's father's side even though the Whyte surname was originally something like Bialyik.
However, through my own mother's DNA legacy, I am Russian, Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian with a minor amount of German (with some Ashkenazi Jewish), as well. But my biggest surprise was the inclusion of Yakut blood within my DNA profile. I would have totally expected Saami, but not these people!  In looking up their history, though, I've also arrived at the conclusion that the late Natalie Wood likely had some of this Asian sub-type in her history. Wouldn't you concur?

Yakut girl on left. Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko


Our personal innate building blocks...what a fantastic story they truly are!


*Although Hay is now seen as a quintessentially Scottish name, its origins are in northern France, and branches of the family settled in England shortly after the Norman Conquest.