History Repeated? The Media's Influence in Vietnam & Iraq

This article was written in 2004, and I found it fascinating. I've heard the author interviewed recently, and in my opinion has a really balanced non political view of the middle east situation.

This article focuses on how he feels the media influenced the outcome of the Vietnam War, and how it can once again have the same affect. Note that it was written in 2004 as well, and he was a non-war supporter prior to the beginning of the war. It's a less than five minute read and really worth your time.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/4/18/192250.shtml

"Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large for The Washington Times and United Press International. He covered Tet as Newsweek's chief foreign correspondent and had seven tours in Vietnam between 1951 under the French and 1972, during the U.S. involvement."

Eagle

I saw him/her up in the Napa Valley sitting on a road sign watching the traffic go by.

Did I call it or what?

Please see the Post titled "It's a riddle."

If you look hard you'll see that Sam has soccer cones in his hands. He's wearing the red shirt. Patrick there has the Soccer ball at his feet. Looks like to me that took exactly one day before they got kicked out of the front yard and sent over to the elementary school to play soccer.

I shot this picture on my way home from work today when I was rolling past the school.

It's a Riddle

"Honey why don't my flowers grow?" I answer "I haven't a clue." Fortunately for the boys Mom only reads my blog once every week or so. Looks like they have a couple more days to play in yard until they get banish to the elementary school to play.

One of these things is not like the others

School uniforms.

When we first moved to Lodi I hated the idea. After a while it grew on me, and I now like the idea. The other day Patrick was headed to school, and he wasn't in uniform. So I asked him what was up, and he told me that 2nd semester 6th graders no longer have to wear uniforms. In Jr. High, and High school the kids don't wear uniforms. So I guess during the end of elementary school they begin the transition to "regular clothes".

OK that makes no sense to me. Have you seen high schoolers? If anyone needs help dressing themselves it's not elementary school children. It's Jr. High, and Highschoolers.

Here are some of the reasons given to me that school uniforms are to help address:

• Scholastic Performance
• School Morale
• Reduced Cost to Parents
• Helps eliminates many dress code issues
• Improved self image for student

Well it seems to me that if those things are important for elementary school students they would be just as important, and in some cases much more important for Jr. High, and High school students.

That being said, Patrick states that he doesn't care one way or the other. But it's interesting to me that he chooses not to wear the uniform now that he doesn't have to wear it.

Inversion? How about temps dipping into the 60's

I remember when Suzi, and lived in Utah we had these weather events called inversions. They would last for days. The sky would be gray, and it would get so bad at times I couldn't see the mountains. The pollution (inversion) would get so bad at times that children would have to stay inside at school.

Suzi was talking to her sister Steffanie, and apparently the current inversion is so bad they can't see the Mt. Timp temple from their house. The temple is probably less than a mile from their house as the crow flies. Sounds pretty bad.

Well I feel horibble for you all! To make my friends in Utah feel better about their current weather situation I took this picture outside today of Georgia. As you can see she is wearing pants. So as you can see things are not so perfect here either. 65 degrees is not what I would call California weather. We aren't very happy about it to the point of considering a move. This type of weather is crazy.

Mormons on PBS

Should be interesting.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650222861,00.html

Mitt On CBN

The CBN isn't usually a place where I go to get my news however I had this link forwarded to me.

Part of the knock on Mitt isn't that he can't win in Blue states, he is a Republican governor in the bluest of blue states (Mass.) The knock is that some conservatives think he can't win over conservative christian red states.

I thought it was interesting for that reason that he was interviewed on the 700 club.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTBqnZ7SLn4

Soccer is Serious Business

Patrick and his buddy Tommy.

Tommy, and Patrick have been classmates and Soccer teamates for a couple of years now. Tommy is in the GATE program as well, and that has kept them both in the same class. They have just lucked out to be on the same soccer team during regular season. The both are on the Lodi allstar team now.

Lodi Crushers

Patrick's team had a tough weekend. They lost their first game 0-1, and that really took the wind out of their sails. They scored first in their second game (Patrick had the assist on that goal), but ended up losing their second game 3-1.

Patrick's team was much better than the first team they played. They spent 80% of the game on offence, and out shot the other team probably 20 to 1. However that one shot the other team took hit the goalie in the hands pasted through his hands and into the goal. Some many great life analogies can be made out of a game like that.

The second game was a similar story. Patrick's team spent most of their time on offense, but gave up two corner kick goals and a fast break goal.

It's a big problem when your good enough to control the ball most of the game, but can't put in the goal. I think the issue at hand is that when you spend so much time on offence the other team crunches their defence down tight around the goal. When the other team does push to offence the field is so spread out nicely it gives them a good scoring opportunity if they shoot quickly.

Sam's team had a 1-1 tie, and a 0-0 tie. Sam had the one goal his team scored this past weekend. I wasn't there, Suzi was, but Sam tells me that he scored in the second half of the first game to tie up the game. He explained it like this: "The center forward shot the ball it bounced off the goalie to him, he juked one guy shot again and scored." Sam plays a mid fielder. Probably for the same reason I did. We can't seem to stay in our own position. We want to cover the whole field.

Family Trivia

Who is the only child in the Kelly clann that never complains of hunger because she makes her own toasted bagel with cream cheese, or gets out the frozen OJ and makes it her self, or her own peanut butter and honey sandwich. One hint, her name starts with a G ends eorgia.

SF

Chocolate

I'm not a big fan of chocolate, but everyone else in the house loves it. Whenever we go to San Francisco a mandatory part of the trip is a stop at Ghirardelli square.

Hair Battle!

Baby Wins!

The kids think Uncle John, and Conjontim (aka Connor John Timothy) have the same hair cut. I think that's debateable. They do both look handsome as can be.

Congratulation Johnnie! Suzi wants me to make sure I congratulate Andrea as well. I won't forget Aunt Annie. Well done Annie, look at that beautiful baby. Welcome to the gang Conjontim.

Scotty!

I saw Scott Parker while I was up in Seattle this week. We had breakfast, and caught up. Way over due! Scott and I were high school buddies.

Scott started his own circus clown supply store serving most of the western US based circus's (there is about 4 or 5 of them). That business has developed into so much more. He now also supplies carnival prize goodies to a few of the traveling carnivals here in the in the western US as well. He was saying margins, and the amount of volume of circus clown supplies wasn't large enough to keep his business headed toward being in the black(who knew?). It really forced him to branch out into the carnival prize goodie part of his business. Since branching out he has seen his business take off. He's been doing this for about 6 years now, and he expects to be headed toward profitable in the next 2 or 3 years. People said it couldn't be done! So far their right, but you'll show them. Maybe.

I'm kidding Scott's a Dentist up in Seattle, and has a practice called Redmond Smiles. He's worth the drive my friends.

It's nice to know that after spending all those years in prison he picked up a great trade as a dentist. Something he can do the rest of his life to keep him away from his strange compulsion of stealing AMC Pacers and crashing them into Radio Shack stores. Fortunately for him there aren't too many of those left on the road. He really has to seek them out these days. Good luck buddy, we're all cheering for you. Fight that urge. If you really want to deal with the root issues of your compulsion my Dad said he'd cut you a deal if you'd whiten his teeth.

Seattle

I was up in Portland, and Seattle this week. I remembered my camera this trip. Shot this on a walk I took Thursday night.

Heck yeah he's tough

Last week Sam and I drove down to Modesto for Sam's soccer games. He had one at 9 and one at 1:30. In order to be there we left the house a little before 7am. Little rough on the Dad having to get up that early on a saturday, however the games are fantastic to watch.

Sam had a goal in the second game. He should have had 2 had his coach let him shoot a well earned penalty shot. Sam out ran a defender with the ball, so the defender tripped him in the penalty box from behind. Sam fell on top of the ball, and got the wind knocked out of him. My philosophy at this age is to let the kid who earned it, shoot it. I'm not the coach, and I'm learning how to be a good parent and keep my mouth shut on such matters. It's just a little hard for me.

Tomorrow Sam has his games in Lodi, so Patrick and I will be hitting the road and driving to Turlock. That's past Modesto if your keeping notes, and Patrick's 1st game starts at 8:15.

Remember to Floss

One week of not remembering to floss.

Sewer

FYI hold your breath as you walk by steamy sewer man hole covers.

California Winters

Man I hate winter. So cold here in California. High of 60. Brrrr. I had to wear a coat with my shorts. Doesn't Georgia look like she's freezing? Nope. Hope all you good Utah'ns are loving your 7 degree high temps this week.

In & Out

After riding we all headed over to In & Out. It just isn't a Hazelhoffer photo without bunny ears. I kid you not. One weekend I took about a thousand pictures. Every photo had bunny ears if I told them to smile. I think they think "smile" means bunny ears.

Georgia on her Quad!

One of our weekend trips out riding with our buddies. 4 families, 8 adults, 16 children. Made for a lot of fun. That's Georgia there riding like a pro on her and Hannah's Quad. We dial down her quad so it will only go less than 10 Mph when she is riding it, however as she gets older we can speed it up for her. It will do the job for many years.

One More Good Reason to Have Kids

Look how excited she is about taking down the Christmas lights. The fact that it is Jan. the 17 should tell you how not excited I was about taking them down.

Happy Birthday to Stephanie

My Shredder

Got a new shredder. Pretty excited about it. That's what it looks like. I call him "Shred". Shredded all kinds of stuff already. I keep it right next to my desk. Makes sense. I can stick just about anything into it. It says right there on the top not to put more than 10 pieces of paper in it at any one time. Man I want to see how many it can really do.

The way I see it is, I'm sure it can do 10 because it says so right there on the top. If it can do 10 regularly why not 11. It's only once more piece of paper. Paper isn't all that. Have you ever looked at 2 pieces of paper together. It's really not that thick so why not 12, it's only 2 more than 10.

See where I'm going. I could go on forever, but until I get the guts to really push it and see how much I can shove in there I guess I'll never know. Until then I'll keep shoving other junk in there. Doesn't say anything about other junk on the top. I know I just can't go sticking 11 pieces of paper in there.

I want to shove a pencil in there next. Paper is getting a little boring. Pencil are made out of wood, and so is paper. Shred should have no problem with one pencil. It can shred 10 pieces of paper. Ever rolled up 10 pieces of paper? That's much bigger than a pencil.

I've shredded all my credit cards. Not sure how I'm going to pay for anything any more. I've forgotten how to write a check. It's been years.

I Shredded all my Cd's too. Good thing I put all my music on itunes. Man I'm dieing to shove my old ipod in there! I have an old shuffle that nobody uses anymore. That plays music like a CD. Should be no problem for Shred.

I've been looking at the DVD collection. Thinking about shredding it. Kids might get mad, buttttt sounds like fun. Maybe I'll just shred the VHS movies. Nobody uses the VCR player anymore. Nobody will miss them. Those are big though. Going to be hard to get a VHS movie in the Shred. Where there is a will there is a way. I'll just have to brake up the tape a little and shove them through in parts. Sounds like fun. The VCR too.

I've got a stack of old clothes that nobody wears sitting up next to Shred. That stuff is going to take me a couple of hours to work through. Man this thing is fun.

You have got to go buy a Shredder. I think I'm going to go get a wood chipper tomorrow. You could fit car parts in the wood chippers opening. Oh, man that sound fun.

Uncle Spencer & Aunt Allie

They came out for a visit which we absolute loved! I wish they would move next door! Georgia was saying "Uncle Spencer calls me Squirt." Hannah said "Yeah he calls me that too."

I Love Her Eyes

Georgia, Hannah, and I were watching "The Parent Trap" (the new one) on the couch last night. Good movie. Made us laugh. There is a scene in it where the mother of the twins shows up drunk at the hotel (I don't remember that in the old version). One her daughters in the movie says something like "oh great mother never has more than a glass of wine, and now she shows up drunk".

Georgia says "oh.......she's drunk". To that I of course giggle, and I wonder what's going on in her little mind. So I ask "Georgia, what does drunk mean?" She answers matter of factly "It means she can't drive."

Well it's a good thing my little 5 year old Mormon girl understands the law. Perfect, she's absolutley perfect.

Ice Cream

Patrick bought his own ice cream, and told all of us here in the the Kelly home not to touch it.

Well let me be the first to tell you it was fantastic! I only had a bite.... or two. Buy this if you get the chance. All the flavor of a root beer float without the soda part. I'm telling you, go buy this right now.