Thursday 12th June

As usual this morning I was out early at Kiwanis, and midday I went to the hospital chapel.  Chaplain Bill had to go to the City but was hoping to be back in time but he rang my cell phone just after I got there, asked me to relay the message that he wouldn't be able to make it.    So the 9 of us who were there organised ourselves into a little Prayer Service.

Afterwards went home and glued myself to the television news, and there is so much of it.
I am sure you have seen this yourself....

Is this Armageddon, I ask myself.   As of this minute we don't know what the US is going to do, but it has to do something.  If it doesn't hurry to fill the vacuum in Iraq, then Iran will, and Iran has nuclear weapons.  And although no one has said this, I think the first will be dropped on Israel  And that WILL be Armageddon.

And predictably, in the light of this crisis fuel prices have shot up.

Yesterday in Shawnee it was about $3.20 something a gallon.   Passing a filling station this afternoon it had gone up to $3.62 a gallon, £2.13.   And I know it is about £10 a gallon at home so I am not asking for your sympathy.

I was also looking at fuel prices in California and Hawaii, the two most expensive states in the nation, comparing them with Oklahoma - because this is what you do when you haven't got anything approaching a real life - in CA the average is $4.87.   In HI it was $4.14, but in the last ten hours has gone up to $4.50. 

 

The deserter is on his way back to the US - not that anyone else is calling him that, but I don't have to be politically correct.  Of course, when he is in the White House, receiving a Purple Heart, because all the time he was really a double agent, carrying out acts of extreme heroism, I'll have egg on my face won't I.

 

 

His comrades - who have come on television and confirmed he walked off the base and deserted, because they were sent to look for him - are all being rubbished by the left wing media, who say it was a very ill disciplined, raggedy unit.  They wore cut off tee shirts and bandanas.  Well, that's a crime against humanity.

 He is expected to land very shortly from Germany, and will be taken to a psychiatric military hospital in Texas.  Usually, when prisoners are handed over they are returned very quickly to be reunited with their families, and people were demanding to know why this guy was still languishing in Germany, not wanting to see his parents.

It has been disclosed that he was formerly in the Coast Guard (which over here is a branch of the armed services) and he was discharged because of psychiatric problems.   So he joined the army - which has provoked a great deal of amazement, it is very unusual for another branch of the military to take someone who had been discharged - and they sent him to Afghanistan.   Did they think that would cure his psychiatric problems, I wondered.

I can hardly wait for it all to come out.

This is another scandal that is going from bad to much worse.  Very widespread corruption and cover up, involving the department of Veterans Affairs, I mentioned it last week.

It has nothing to do with Mitt Romney, by the way.  He was being interviewed because he is hosting a conference of top Republicans.  And he is not going to run for President, he is busy with his 22 grandchildren.

I know we complain at times about our government, but looking at this I can't help thinking how much better our Parliamentary system is.   There would be a vote of 'no confidence' in the House, the government would be out, and we'd be setting a date for a General Election.   But this is just going to drag on, and on, and on, until the end of Obama's Presidency.  

So, let's have some light relief.

It is called a Strawberry Full Moon because in north America June is the peak time for harvesting strawberries.

I thought this was quite interesting -

Full Moon names have been used by many cultures to describe the full moon throughout the year. Specifically, Native American tribes used moon phases and cycles to keep track of the seasons by giving a distinctive name to each recurring full moon, including the Strawberry Moon. The unique full moon names were used to identify the entire month during which each occurred.

Although many Native American tribes gave distinct names to the full moon, the most well known full moon names come from the Algonquin tribes who lived in the area of New England and westward to Lake Superior. The Algonquin tribes had perhaps the greatest effect on the early European settlers in America, and the settlers adopted the Native American habit of naming the full moons.