Sticks and stones, buddy. You don't get to label everyone that way.

Unless you're knocking blue dogs, of course! I don't much care what you say about them. Trouble is, most of the most extreme left thinks it's better than anyone else, and good old fashioned liberals get painted with the tar brush they don't deserve. You call some people 'centrist' who don't belong in that category and you also are wrong about those who do either belong there or work there because it's the most effective way of nudging and pushing the country leftward. But just disagreeing with our own extremists doesn't make us 'lesser than thou'.

No public building should be named after any treasonous secessionist.

Like most military brats still alive, I don't really remember anything else.

There were times when we had to stay behind, and some of those occasions Catholic schools were not available. I always hated public school but that was probably due to the culture and not any racial makeup. Civilians are so fond of asking 'where are you from? what's your hometown?' that I finally realized an army base is my hometown. Doesn't matter where it's located.

Kind of funny, one time when I rode that awful OATS bus to the nearest real city for shopping, we stopped at one place and an Army chaplain was waiting when the door opened. He wanted to ask a question on behalf of his mother who lived nearby. When the driver said something cranky about me being on the bus, the chaplain bounded on board with a look of delight on his face. "Really?" he asked. "One of ours? Which one?" I waved at him.

But that's the point - no matter we'd never met before and never would again, there was a genuinely heartfelt connection. To him I was still "one of ours". It beats what I've found in much of the national culture at large, especially in xenophobic RedNeckLand. In this tiny burg I've gradually achieved a certain level of tolerance in some quarters, but no matter what, if I lived here another hundred years, I'd still be the outsider. Yet in a way I'll always have a far greater automatic acceptance with military personnel no matter what relative strangers we might be. That's what makes me a little homesick when I drive past a base.

Sounds good to me, but I needed to hear a trusted source second the motion before trying it.

As you might guess, landscaping is a passion with me and I put a lot of store in plants and trees I've worked on for almost 8 years. It would've been far simpler to go with knockout roses - just plant 'em and forget 'em - but I'm stuck on teas, which take a lot more coaxing. Well, and a few climbers, some of which now reach 12-15'. I like the challenge of growing things where they're not supposed to grow. In another 10 years we'll probably be able to grow oranges here.

The ones my neighbor offered me were already burnt.

I always burn most of mine because the nutrients are then more bio-available. But I use strawberries for a blanket around most things too, and then some unburned leaves on top of them. When it snows, I bank the snow up over the plants as well.

Question about leaf ash fertilizer

While I was away 2 weeks a neighbor burned his leaf pile; he offered the ashes to me for my roses, but someone else told me he uses a bit of gasoline to start the fire, which he denies because it's illegal. My question is, if he did start his leaf burn with a little gasoline, would the harmful elements remain in the ashes? Would they be safe to put under my roses? It's easy enough to say don't bother, but I don't want to be Nervous Nellie either. I always have lots of leaves of my own to burn; still there's never more than enough for 20 big rose bushes not to mention all the other stuff like young trees etc. I want to be careful but not ignorant.

Wish I COULD forget who/what they are.

But it's impossible in RedNeckLand.

But that is a good idea - celebrate their self-cancelling idiocy while you work like hell to drive a stake through their 'heart'.

I'm sure it's an interesting read;

but even as a practicing cradle Catholic, I don't tend to get hot under the collar about atheism, just the abuse of/about religion itself as typified by fundies. To borrow an old phrase, it is what it is. What I think about it won't change anything in existence, except hopefully my own humanly errant ways. I've always preferred an honest and decent atheist over some screaming nut. Likewise I don't worry a whole lot about the afterlife or whether there will be one, although I do believe the former, based partly on long experience with hospice care. It's okay regardless. It is what it is.

In a way I take great comfort in having realized that at an early age, hearkening back again to one of my father's favorite sayings. That's not defeatism by any means. We just have to do the best we can and deal with what happens. Some would call that deep faith but I assure you the fundies have consigned me to their notion of hell on more than one occasion. They would say perversely, but I take some comfort in that as well because if there's any moral/philosophical/religious trap I do fear, it's the one in which they seem to take such comfort. Something deep in my very bones cries out danger there.

I don't know for sure; however,

they'll probably be able to give you any information you need, because the insurance companies know the law very well themselves - just keep a close watch they hew to it, that's all. If I weren't already retired, I'd talk to them and take notes but maybe not sign anything until I could do so on the official government website. You know there's already a lawsuit cooking over insurance companies snookering people out of their better grandfathered clauses. But it would be worthwhile to talk to these guys anyway and get a closer look at the road ahead w/o making a firm commitment. That way it would be a safer win-win for the customer. Might save a lot of blood sweat and tears while waiting for December. Or January. Or....

Meanwhile there might well be a slowdown in denial letters too, because there's been a row about that dirty underhanded insurance business tactic. I once worked as a claims examiner (not assessor) for a particular insurance giant that was under the fed gun for reforms. Even with a federal inspector in the building, the company tried to make me turn down claims out of hand for such simple and honest customer mistakes as bad grammar and spelling.

Another dirty company trick was to write in any special promises BELOW the signature so it would automatically not be binding. That company wanted so bad to fire me for not doing what they demanded, but they didn't dare with the feds there because they knew exactly what I'd do if they fired me. Before you know it, they didn't have any more cases for me to review, though. They just moved me to a desk in a remote corner of the building and gave me busy work and tried to make sure I didn't talk to the feds. We weren't technically supposed to anyway, but you know how much respect that rule got.

As usual they've got everything bass ackwards.

They ignore the social gospel at their peril. Jesus said it would be better to have a millstone wrapped around a man's neck and have him thrown in the river than to harm 'the least of these', which stands for more than just the children, important as they are. The first shall be last and the last, first. etc etc etc.
That's not to say it's ok for the 1% to abuse the rest of us at all, but I have actually heard fundies use it as an excuse for predation on the weaker; "Don't worry, you'll get your reward in heaven!"

The easiest way not to be taken in by their blather is to know that every word out of their mouths is a lie. If you're not a bible scholar, oh the tales I could tell you about the trouble they're in for!