Two Years of Husum BBQ

Yesterday all the locals and friends came out to celebrate the two year anniversary of the Husum Roadside BBQ. Now, anyone who has had the pleasure of consuming pulled pork sandwiches, ribs and chicken from the hillbilly smoker knows how SMALL the dining area is in the building. OK, maybe COZY is a better word. Summertime soirees mean we expand into the parking lot, but whatever could we do in winter?

Put up a MASH tent. String up party lights and install a wood stove. Run some power out there for the amps, add some chairs and tables. Voila! Husum, we have an event center for the winter.

Then you invite Joel to set up a Wind River Cellars tasting area, where the customers can buy a bottle of deliciousness to wash down their BBQ. He even had a thermos carafe of hot Bad Seed Cider to warm us up!

Add local troubadour Bob Connolly to entertain us with his ballads and bad Irish jokes.


Put the Husum Yacht Club members on notice for an All Hands on Deck meeting to coincide with the festivities.

John and friends have been working all fall to figure out a way to get the surplus tent up. Judging by the happy faces I'd say this is a huge success. Next up for the MASH tent: movie and popcorn night, showing, of course, the original MASH movie. Come as your favorite 4077th character. Details soon.

Junk Mail

I was almost done writing this when Microsoft decided my computer needed updating, and closed it down without warning. I lost my whole story. So I'm trying to recreate the brilliant writing that has disappeared. I hate it when that happens. Curse you, Microsoft!

Somehow I got on the mailing list of someone who blasts Obama lies. Not exactly somehow...he found my chair@ email on the County Dem website. I like to think he is just letting me know what is going around. But I doubt it. There is a blind cc mail list. So we play a little game. He sends me his crap, and I send him back links debunking the crap, showing him how quick and easy it is to check these things our. And politely request he verify before forwarding said crap 'to everyone you know'. He shouldn't take offense. I do this to everyone who sends me crap. Even my mother has been the recipient of my little push backs. I feel like it is the least an honest person seeking truth can do in this day and age.

Today's email was a combination of disinformation. A claim that Obama is a Manchurian Candidate, that 'no one' at Columbia knew him so he couldn't have gone there, and that he uses a stolen Social Security number. Really? Faux News interviewed 400 people who were at Columbia at the time and no one remembers him? I don't think I even KNEW 400 people when I was in college, never mind 400 knowing me...some classes where so big, it was easy to remain anonymous. It's all so very silly. And hateful.

Last week a friend forwarded me a hit piece supposedly by Thomas Sowell that a prolific sender of crap sent to her. I sent her the link sorting out the truth from the fiction, which she forwarded to the sender. He agreed to check before sending in the future. Good on him.

Instead of spending so much time and energy circulating lies and misrepresentations about the President, they should think about the things that have been accomplished in these last three contentious years, with full obstruction from their party. Here is a handy site to get started. A little more irreverently named WTF has Obama done so far can also help your perspective. And maybe spend a little more time looking into their candidates, who have plenty of honesty problems themselves. Spend a little time perusing Politifact. Michele Bachmann is the Queen of False and "Pants on Fire" ratings. Learn more about Rick Perry, "retired" governor of Texas, who may have more going on in the hypocrisy dept. than they might realize. Or look more closely into one of the biggest egos and hypocrites around, Newt Gingrich. Politifact also has a nifty list of Obama promises kept.

Full disclosure, I was a Hillary supporter in 2008, but I think she got the best end of the deal and has done a great job as Sec State. I am not 100% happy with President Obama. But he has to consider more than just MY opinion. The man has a big country to run. He came into a big mess that required everyone on board to start fixing. With half of our elected representatives doing more to make him a one term president, and to get themselves reelected than working with him to make our country a place of which we can all be proud.

So keep sending me your crap, sir. I'll keep sending it back, corrected, in hopes that you will share more honestly with your blind cc list.

Comment on Comment Trolls

I like a good 'discussion' as much as anyone, but if I ever read the comments that follow a news piece or editorial, I begin to fear for our civilization (or lack thereof). It's one thing to be funny, or even sarcastic, but more often than not there are any number of truly mean and nasty comments. People who write publicly need thick skins. Which is one reason I've been reluctant to put what I really think 'out there'. But my skin is getting thicker as I become more and more disgusted with the rampant ignorance and inhumanity in our society.

Today's Oregonian had a follow up piece by Steve Duin. I like Steve's commentaries. He wrote one for Thanksgiving about an eighth grader, Nikita Wolf, who was on a field trip into Portland with her class. One stop was the library. When she went to check out her books, she found out she had fines for some overdue books from her local branch she'd forgotten about. The librarian wouldn't let her check out the books. A stranger in line paid her fines. She was so surprised (after being totally humiliated-remember, she's 13). When she got back to school, she wrote

"As I walked out of the library, my new book at my side, I was reminded of a quote my mom used to tell me: 'Blessed are those who give without remembering. And blessed are those who take without forgetting'."

And so she made a promise to herself that she would help others so they could feel what she felt that day a stranger paid her fine.

Duin goes on to post some of the nastier comments written after his original post. Go here to see for yourself. Some people have way too much time on their hands and no compassion in their hearts. He was so taken aback at some of the comments, and worried about Nikita would feel if she saw them, so he sent her teacher a note. The teacher shared it with his student, who answered Duin personally. After thanking him for the first article, and how much it meant to her, her family (especially her grandmother) and friends she wrote

"I would also like you to know that I saw the stream of comments online. When I let the whole world see what I write, I expect that everybody will interpret it differently. Because of my ability to understand this, you do not have to worry about whether or not I was wounded by the sometimes harsh opinions of others. If getting some of my writing published did anything to me, it just made me want to write more."

Nikita, I hope to see your name on a byline someday. And may the classless, cynical comment trolls learn something from you.