So there!!!!

Happy Hallows evening

The origins of modern-day Halloween date back to ‘samhain’, a Celtic celebration when the realm between the living and the dead overlapped and ghosts could be commonly encountered.  In 601 AD, to help his drive to convert northern Europe to Christianity, Pope Gregory I directed missionaries not to stop pagan celebrations, but rather to Christianise them.  The celebrations of samhain became All Souls’ Day and All Saint’s Day, when speaking with the dead was considered religiously appropriate. All Saint’s Day was known as All Hallows’ Day and the night before became All Hallows’ Evening, or ‘Hallowe’en’.

enjoy the halloween

Thank all those mothers

university choir dublin

surprisingly excedllent...worth the listen       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxjvNUNXhkU

Now they come in multiples

We are raising a nation of demons! We own these folks. They are family, neighbors, coworkers. They are one with us...we must overcome this with better governance and bring faith back in the public life!

Bridget Regan

Irish American actress....did a fine job on Halmark's Christmas Getaway...couldn't take our eyes off her.

rhonda sciortino

Abandoned as an infant, raised in abusive foster care, she became a millionaire! She tells that as a child her body and her cloths were not cleaned for months. Her first tooth brushing occurred at 13
her first experience at being looked at in the eye was at 14.

Wisdom 7:22-8:1

There is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible,beneficent, humane,
steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle.

For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.

For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.

For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.

Although she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.

She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior,
for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail.


JPR: worth the keepnig.

I am a DEIST

I no longer want to be a Catholic.  The endless scandals have
convinced me the Church is a scam, functioning merely for the
benefit of the clergy.  I doubt all of it, every principle, every
supposed revelation. I understand Luther’s complaints. Like
the ancient Irish, I am now a DEIST.  I believe in God who
created the universe, gave man reason, governs human behavior
through natural law, but otherwise does not interfere
directly with the world of Its creation.  I reject ‘divine revelation,’
the absurdity of organized religion, and assert that reason
and the observation of the natural world reveal God and God’s
truths. All that is bad, i.e. war, famine, disease, is man made.
God plays no role.

There's stupid, then there's STUPID

Five desperadoes entered a shop in Denmark the other morning to rob it.  The owner convinced them to come back at closing time when there would be more money.  They returned an hour before the shop closed.  The clerk told them they were too early.  They left and came an hour later.  And the police were waiting.  Combined IQ - 9.

some Irish

What's Irish and stays outside all year long?
Patty O'Furniture

Murphy says to the old man sitting in the corner of the pub, Were you in the war ? Aye said 
the old man, I was an Irish kamakazi pilot, Wow! said Murphy, what a hero, Aye said the old man, 44 missions in 15 days and it never did me a button na harm...

 humor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT0FFSlF5_w
slang http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1qxsHqkg4c
irish faces http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_37A8vbmK8
speaking irish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsBv1ukVp9U

Another Ridiculous English Sport = Bolving

Competitors have been meeting in the Peak District ENgland  to make bizarre bellowing calls across the moors in the hope of getting a call back from a rutting stag.  The unusual contest happens every year on the Eastern Moors on the Derbyshire-South Yorkshire border.  The aim is to mimic a red deer's call with points awarded for volume, authenticity and whether a stag replies.  Are they a boring people ot what?

sir john falsatff

He's fat, he's round, his social footing is unsound. Not only that, Sir John Falstaff is drunk, dishonest, debt-ridden, whining, manipulative, self-deluding and cowardly. Mind you, he is witty and sly as a fox.

Does he not fit the politics of our...nah anyone's day?

berenice marlohe

French beauty

little girls picking wild flowers

jpr: I have a large field behind; wooded with acres of  mowed ground. All in all I have some 20 wild flowers scratches. One such sits at the field's southern edge. Last evening three (3) young girls [ages, 6,7,8] ish discovered this bit of one garden and its treasures in assortment. Readily they  picked the lot to ferry them home to their mothers. How scrumptious! I picked wild flowers for my mother until she passed.

Netherlands has issued its first gender-neutral passport.

Leonne Zeegers, 57, received a passport with the gender designation X, instead of M for man or V for woman.  Born male, in 2001 Zeegers had surgery to become female, but now identifies as intersex.  About 4% of the Dutch public identifies as neither male nor female.  What a world.  

Morris Birdyellowhead

The best in the film Apocalypto!

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier

He is considered to be the "Father of Modern Chemistry".  Antoine met the guillotine during the French revolution.

The Mrs was spared execution but died quite young.

The Skarsgard Family -

to see some of famous children link: Swedish Family of Actors

One of the most prolific and gifted actors in the past 20 years.  He has 6 children, including four actors, a model, and a doctor, all of them pretty and tall. If you list the roles they've had you're listing some of the best movies and tv shows in recent years:  Thor, Avengers, the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (Swedish version), the Way Back, Vikings, Anna Kareina, Pirates of the Caribbean, and on and on.

Amazing nature

A  Utah forest is the single largest organisim in the world.  The Pando quaking aspen colony, also known as the "Trembling Giant," has existed for thousands of years.   The forest has 47,000 trees covering 106 acres.  But in fact they are all one tree, all genetically identical stems of  a single underground parent clone.  

a mother's humor

jpr: surely these photos will grow in enjoyment  year after year.

Woman paralysed after being 'catapulted' off bed during sex

Claire Busby, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK, is suing a bed firm for damages.  She alleges that her supersized king bed catapulted her off during sex causing paralyzing spinal injuries.  Can you imagine.

oldest known flower

A hundred-million-year-old flower trapped in amber  that looks like it was blooming last week.  Micropetasos burmensis, is made of bunches of very tiny flowers no more than 0.03 inch (a millimeter) wide.

                     

http://rt.com/news/oldest-flower-silene-reanimate-837/

jpr: One wonders who was there to enjoy these plants.

More Great Drunkards

No one in recorded history could drink as much as Andre the Giant. The pro wrestler – and actor who stood 7’5″ and weighed over 500 pounds – routinely shocked friends and spectators with his insane tolerance for alcohol. Consider the following:

• Andre the Giant consumed, on average, 7,000 calories of alcohol a day.
• He would routinely drink a 12 pack of beer before a wrestling match.
• On road trips to wrestling matches, Andre would average a case of beer every 90 minutes. Andre consumed sixteen bottles of plum wine before wrestling three matches shortly thereafter. The wine showed no discernible effect whatsoever.
• Andre rarely drank enough to pass out. One of the few times he did was after consuming 119 beers in six hours. That’s roughly one beer every three minutes… nonstop… for six hours straight. Incredible.
• When asked how much it took him to get drunk, Andre replied “It usually takes two liters of vodka just to feel warm inside.
• Need I say it, a personal hero.

The Republican Club

Called The Republican Club, the artwork was created by Andy Thomas. The artist was "ecstatic" to discover his art displayed in the White House.   Evidently the President likes it too.

martian sighted

"The illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator. At last... " Marvin

jpr: This should dispel  all skepticism.

Marriage Material.

The future Mrs JP?

Truth

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
there is rapture in the lonely shore, 
there is society where none intrudes, 
by the deep sea, and music in its roar; 
I love not Man the less, but Nature more. 

Lord Byron

She walks in Beauty by Byron

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Everything alright Nanah?

Guess not.

student test answer

Great Drunkard Series

Earnest Hemmingway isn't read much today.  Too masculine I am told.  But I grew up on his work and loved it. .  He normally started drinking at 4:30 am when he began writing and worked at it all day.   While covering WWII from the front lines, he kept his canteen filled with gin and personally liberated (with the help of his private army) the Cambon Bar of Paris’ Ritz Hotel. On a typical evening he started out with absinthe, drank a bottle of good red wine with dinner, shifted to  vodka then battened it down with whiskeys and sodas until 3am. 

 I remember his suicide.  Sobriety killed him.  He pulled the trigger after three months of forced abstinence.  In lieu of alcohol, he was force-fed a steady diet of shock treatments and promises he would never be allowed to drink again. Hem’s son wrote, “He might have survived with alcohol, but could not live when deprived of it.”   What a man. 

looking for shade???

seems like someone  is always eating the shade

Bigfoot in Hawaii

Rob Carlson grew up at Schofield Barracks, graduated from Leilehua High School and attended the University of Hawaii. In a personal story that he recorded in 1973, he described his own encounters with a Hawaiian "bigfoot."

One night he had gone to the river in Whitmore Village, by the Wahiawa Mountains, with his friends to catch catfish. As they were busy putting in their traps, they heard a bloodcurdling screams. The boys ran up the side of the embankment. An 8-foot tall man was walking down the trail, heading right for them. He was naked except for a cloth around his waist.

Later they found huge footprints in the ground near the place where they had been laying the traps. Giant footprints at least two long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ICcha5bsSE. 

Great Drunkards series

Churchill is one of my heroes.  Born rich, he volunteered to serve in the front lines of the Boer War, escaped from a POW camp, livid a life of high adventure,  achieved political success at 40, was a smart ass, and went on to led the free world to victory against the Nazi's.  And the man could give a speech. All fueled by a quart of Johnny Walker every day.  Starting before 9 am he would sip a small amount of whiskey is a glass of soda all day  He had a bottle of champagne with each meal and drank brandy in the evening.  What a character. 

dog in trouble

My pup must be from the same litter!

Love poem by a young girl

I LOVE JOSH

I love you Josh,
I love you so much,
I love your so soft skin,
I love your tender touch.

I love your baby blue eyes,
I love your winning smile,
I love your personality,
I love to hold you a while.

I love the way you laugh,
I love your very sweet heart,
I love the way you love,
I hope we never, ever part.

anonymous...except to Josh 

jpr: love as seen from the other side!

Banksy does it again.

Banksy is an anonymous England-based street artist, vandal, political activist, and film director. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a  distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world and are now valued by collectors. . Here one of his rare sketches, Girl with a Balloon, was actioned at Sothbey's for 1 mil plus.  Just as the hammer went down someone activated a shredder Banksy had hidden in the frame destroying the work.

file under Nostalgia, Melancholia, Maudlin, Self-pity, cry-in-your beer stuff and so on. I actually love this song and though it seems like a apogee of boy meets girl, then dies, kind of lament; I find it a source of metaphysical, and spiritual energy that applies mainly to life itself. If you disagree, go to hell; If you agree, lets go fishing.

wow to Mark Knoffler

skip ad

My famous last words
Are laying around in tatters
Sounding absurd
Whatever I try
But I love you
And that’s all that really matters
If this is good bye
If this is good bye

Your bright shining sun
Would light up the way before me
You were the one
Made me feel I could fly
And I love you
Whatever is waiting for me
If this is good bye
If this is good bye

Who knows how long we’ve got
Or what were made out of
Who knows if there’s a plan or not
There is our love
I know there is our love

My famous last words
Could never tell the story
Spinning unheard
In the dark of the sky
But I love you
And this is our glory
If this is good bye
If this is good bye

dog dirt and more

I often wonder about small business's that add to their product "and more".  For example:  "Leather stuff, and more"; or "hair salon and more".  It seems to my observations that these places frequently go out of business.  I think it may have to do with the amorphous addition of "and more"  to their masthead.  More what? Maybe someone came into the store/business for say a haircut.  And off to the side you see that they sell "live bait".  Hell, I'm going straight to a shop that sells only haircuts. 

my back and balance is getting back to health somewhat, so when I was walking this am and hit a muddy spot I fell/slid/broke my ass.

fall caterpillar

Caterpillar
Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.
~Christina Rossetti

jpr:  Hill folk predict the coming winter from the bands of this caterpillar: Dark for periods of  harsh winter,  light for mild.

The Irish Do A Monster Movie

The Irish Film Board funds about 13 movies a year.  This was their recent and first attempt at a horror flick.  Kinda cute, but typically Irish. Beautiful scenery, lots of inside jokes, a love story, and a typically Irish plot.  Aliens invade, live on human blood, but are poisoned by blood with high alcohol content. And from there goes the story.

Ancient Bog Girl

The identity of Moora —nicknamed after Uchter Moor, where the remains had been found in 2000 —remained a mystery until 2005. That year, peat workers found a hand at the same spot where the bog body had been found and scientists  were called in. The hand was physically a good fit for the body, they found. What's more, by radiocarbon-dating the peat on the hand determined that Moora died about 650 B.C

Cleopatra and sister

Forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago. The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified. The breakthrough, by an Austrian team, has provided pointers to Cleopatra’s true ethnicity.. Evidence obtained by studying the dimensions of Arsinöe’s skull shows she had some of the characteristics of white Europeans, ancient Egyptians and black Africans, indicating that Cleopatra was probably of mixed race, too.

Cleopatra Reconstruction from Coins and Sculpture

What is one billion?

According to a recent government publication ...

A billion seconds ago Harry Truman was president.

A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ.

A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth.

A billion dollars ago was late yesterday at the U.S. Treasury.

a billion in $100 bills

Only in West Virginia Series

Meet the West Virginia Supreme Court.   Actually, the former WVa Supreme Court.  All of them, yes all of them, have just been impeached by the state senate on grounds of corruption,  False expense accounts, misuse of state vehicles, computer equipment and more.   The Governor has appointed two emergency justices so that the court may continue to function.  Only in WVa.

Amazon Kindle

All nine ( 9) j p Ronan books are now available on Kindle.  Help ur  blogger get brandy money.

                                                                                                                        sketch by jpr

War in the Vendée

The War in the Vendée (1793 to 1796;  was a Royalist rebellion and counter revolution in the Vendée region of France during the French Revolution. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk8ORQZUdqs

Math seems to be behind EVERYTHING in the Universe!

the hierarchy of science as I understand it (all you four-eyed geeky nerdo einsteins can correct me where I err)
11 David Blaine
10. Alchemy
9. Astrology
8. Humanities
7 Biology -
6. Chemistry
5 Engineering
4 Physics
3 Cosmology
2 Math
1 Wizardry
0 Wayne Newton

It seems that Plants are able to do Math. Read this junk:

Scientists at Britain's John Innes Centre said plants adjust their rate of starch consumption to prevent starvation during the night when they are unable to feed themselves with energy from the sun.
They can even compensate for an unexpected early night.
"This is the first concrete example in a fundamental biological process of such a sophisticated arithmetic calculation," mathematical modeler Martin Howard of John Innes Centre (JIC) said.
During the night, mechanisms inside the leaf measure the size of the starch store and estimate the length of time until dawn. Information about time comes from an internal clock, similar to the human body clock.

So my conclusion is that Mr Potato Head IS smarter than me.