A sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy and the mother-in-law of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Mrs. Shriver never held elective office. Yet she was no stranger to Capitol Hill, and some view her work on behalf of the developmentally challenged, including the founding of the Special Olympics, as the most lasting of the Kennedy family’s contributions.
“When the full judgment of the Kennedy legacy is made — including J.F.K.’s Peace Corps and Alliance for Progress, Robert Kennedy’s passion for civil rights and Ted Kennedy’s efforts on health care, workplace reform and refugees — the changes wrought by Eunice Shriver may well be seen as the most consequential,” U.S. News and World Report said in its cover story of Nov. 15, 1993.
Edward Kennedy said in an interview in October 2007: “You talk about an agent of change — she is it. If the test is what you’re doing that’s been helpful for humanity, you’d be hard pressed to find another member of the family who’s done more.”
[….]
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Among the awards Mrs. Shriver received for her work on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities are the Legion of Honor, the Prix de la Couronne Française, the Albert Lasker Public Service Award, the National Recreation and Park Association National Voluntary
Service Award and the Order of the Smile of Polish Children. She was also made a dame of the Papal Order of St. Gregory. On Nov. 16, 2007, she was honored with a personal tribute at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, with many Kennedy family members present.
In 1984 President Ronald Reagan awarded Mrs. Shriver the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
In an interview with CBS News in 2004, Mrs. Shriver’s son Robert said: “My mom never ran for office, and she changed the world. Period. End of story.”
Sister Toldja reports the following:
She was a kind-hearted person who supported her Democrat-dominated family for decades, and even though she was a Democrat herself, she and her husband both were pro-life, and during the first presidential campaign of then-Governor Bill Clinton, she – along with several other prominent pro-life Democrats, signed a letter than was published in the NYT protesting the Democratic party’s pro-choice platform.
Let me simple add something. As much as I despise the current state of the Democratic Party’s far left socialism; As a nephew of the developmentally disabled (AKA Mentally retarded) aunt, I can appreciate what this woman has done.
May her legacy be carried on for as long as this world may exist.
First there is the funny. This, I feel is the quote of the year; or at least the month!
Finally back at the office we’re finishing up one of the reports in my office. Now, I’m right on the street side. Every damned semi that drive by sounds like it’s coming THROUGH my window. One time, it was particularly loud and my guy jumps.
Him – Damn….that’s annoying as hell.
Me – yeah…figures. Only I would be given an office with a vibrator.
It was at that point I announced it was time for everyone to go home. I had completely lost my ability to think or speak clearly….
Then there is the completely serious and quite sad, of Tammi. It is the story of how Tammi lost her Dad. I read this originally in 2005, when Tammi first posted it. I nearly lost it then and I still get misty-eyed when I read it. Tammi’s a tough lady; she’s been through royal hell. She has my respect.
It just shows you how someone, who has been through hell and back, can have a good sense of humor. I God Bless her for that. 🙂
As you all know, I am a child of the late early 1970’s and grew up in the 1980’s. So, this one is kind of personal.
John Hughes, who captured the zeitgeist of 1980s teen life as writer-director of “The Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles” and produced and scripted family hits such as “Home Alone,” died Thursday of a heart attack in Manhattan while taking a walk. He was 59.
After an impressive string of hits — “Home Alone” is one of the top-grossing live-action comedies of all time — Hughes, who never won a major show business award, stopped directing in 1991 and virtually retired from filmmaking a few years later, working on his farm in northern Illinois.
The filmmaker, whom critic Roger Ebert once called “the philosopher of adolescence,” was a major influence on filmmakers including Wes Anderson, Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow, who told the L.A. Times last year, “Basically, my stuff is just John Hughes films with four-letter words.”
“I feel like a part of my childhood has died. Nobody made me laugh harder or more often than John Hughes,” said Apatow in a statement.
Bruce Berman, who was VP of production at Universal and president of production at Warners when Hughes made several films with those studios, told Daily Variety, “He was one of the most challenging relationships an exec could have, but one of the most fun, most talented and gifted.” Berman said that although Hughes was one of the fastest writers in the biz — “He could write a draft over a weekend — he didn’t like to be rewritten.”
Born in Michigan, Hughes used his high school town of suburban Northbrook, Ill., as a location for many of his films. He got his start as an advertising copywriter in Chicago and started selling jokes to performers such as Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers. Hired by National Lampoon magazine after submitting his short story “Vacation ’58,” he wrote his first screenplay, “Class Reunion,” while on staff at the magazine, and it became his first produced script in 1982. His next, “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” based on his short story, became his first big hit and spawned several sequels.
Hughes’ first film as a director was 1984’s “Sixteen Candles,” starring Anthony Michael Hall, John Cusack and Molly Ringwald. The teen romance introduced several of the actors who would make up Hughes’ “stock company” of thesps, several of whom became known as the Brat Pack.
In 1985, “The Breakfast Club” became the era’s iconic and influential high school film. It starred Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Hall and Judd Nelson as teens who must learn to get along when thrown together during Saturday detention.
Hughes wrote and exec produced Ringwald starrer “Pretty in Pink,” which felt of a piece with his directing projects, then directed “Weird Science,” starring Hall, and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” starring Matthew Broderick. He also wrote “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “She’s Having a Baby,” heartfelt adolescent stories that both bore his stamp.
He branched out with 1987’s more grown-up “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” starring Steve Martin and John Candy, then directed just two more films, “Uncle Buck” and “Curly Sue,” his eighth and final film as helmer.
His films were the basically the soundtrack of my life. At some port or another; I have most likely seen them all. Not much when they first came out mind you. At that time, I was still totally wrapped up into the whole Pentecostal Christan thing. Something that I sometimes feel stole my childhood from me. My parents are not to blame; I am. I was never forced to do anything at all. I wanted to be where I was and what I was involved in. Because I thought it was right. Looking back however, I tend to believe that what I went through was nothing more than glorified brain washing.
Hughes films captured the 1980’s, in all its splendor. The whole innocence of being a kid in that era. It was a magical time to grow up; a Republican was in the White House. The Republican Party was a force to be reckoned with, Liberals tried and failed to change the course of the Country. Reagan brought optimism back to America and it trickled out of the White House and on the silver screen. Hughes channeled that whole era into film, for people like me to relive, time and time again.
I hope the man knew God, May he rest in peace.
Update: A very good Blog posting from fan of Hughs.
I post this because I believe that it is interesting. Alex Jones has always struck me as a kook. Someone amongst the “Tin Foil Hat” crowd. However, it is something interesting to watch.
Enjoy…
What do you think? Do you think that there is any truth to this?
Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and first president of The Heritage Foundation, died this morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old. Weyrich was a good friend to many of us at Heritage, a true leader and a man of unbending principle. He won Heritage’s prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Award in 2005.
I think, if you’re a Christian, This would be a good time to say a prayer for his family.
I will not lie about it. I did not know the man, or anything about him. But from what I read he was quite the leader. Conservatism, is a bit dimmer today. 🙁
As 13 electors cast ballots Monday for the nation’s first black president in the Confederacy’s old Capitol, Henry Marsh emotionally recalled the smartest man he ever knew – a waiter, who couldn’t get a better job because of his race.
“He waited tables for 30 years, six days a week, 12 hours a day, from 12 noon to 12 midnight, and he supported his family,” Marsh, 75, a civil rights lawyer and state senator, said of his father as he fought back tears. “He suffered a lot. He went through a lot.”
In all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the 538 electors performed a constitutional process to legally elect Democrat Barack Obama the 44th president.
More than 131 million voters cast ballots – the most ever in a presidential election. But Obama’s election is not complete until Congress tallies the outcome of Monday’s Electoral College vote at a joint session scheduled for Jan. 6.
Monday’s voting was largely ceremonial, the results preordained by Obama’s Nov. 4 victory over Republican Sen. John McCain. Obama won 365 electoral votes, to 173 for McCain. With every state reporting, all the electors had cast ballots in accordance with the popular votes in their states.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; Your Mission is now finally Accomplished. You may now rest in peace.
So, I am giving you, the other side of the story, from the horses mouth; without commentary from me.
I did not ask that you agree, I simply ask that you listen and hear this man out. Now I am almost sure, that the Blogs, that I have linked to, will remove my trackback, like the Neo-Con Fascists that they are. I mean, it is all about controlling the message with those guys. 🙄
Here we go:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Media Q & A:
Media Q & A Part 2:
Media Q & A Part 3:
There you have it. The other side of the story. You decide.
May God help this Country if we ever forget what happened on that dreadful and awful day. Let us always reflect on it and remember how the madness of Communism can lead to this. The Liberals should learn from this, but sadly they have embraced that terrible madness, in the form of Modern Day Liberalism, that is basically Communism-lite.
After the attack, A Brave President Addressed the Congress and The Nation:
That Speech, “The Day of Infamy” Speech:
War was declared:
and unlike today… We didn’t have spineless Liberals who do not love America. We had REAL Democrats who saw the Challenge and fought like blood hell and Won.
May the Spirit that was born at Pearl Harbor on this fateful day; never, ever fade away and die. Remember ’41 Always.
It is official in my book. Ed Morrissey is nothing more than a Republican tool. Not to mention a Neo-Conservative, Pope-Worshiping tool.
I just got done reading Ed’s rather idiotic ramblings about how we should just allow Detroit’s big three to drop dead and die.
You see, there’s a small problem with that, My Dad was employed by G.M.; He’s retired now; and when you insult G.M., The UAW, and the workers at G.M., you are insulting my Father. The last time some ignorant son-of-bitch insulted my Dad to my face; I ended up breaking his collar bone, in three places, cracked about 5 of his ribs and broke about 5 of his front teeth. Oh yeah, I was that angry. 😡
My Father and I, we’ve had our disagreements in the past and there’s been times, when he’s really ticked me off, but you let someone badmouth my Dad and it’s on. It’s a southern thing, and I highly doubt that you damned Yankees would even understand it at all. Politics is one thing, but family’s another and Ed just crossed into the “Fuck off and Die” category with me, when he took occasion to basically say that my Father and all of the Father’s at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler were nothing but pieces of shit. Yes, I am taking it personally.
I guess I’ll use this opportunity to say this publicly, I won’t be returning to Ed’s daily show. Because you see, when you insult my father, I tend to take that a bit personally and it tends to make me a little angry. No, let me rephrase that, that makes me a whole bunch of angry.
There was a period, when I thought that Ed Morrissey was one of the more level-headed Conservatives, needless to say, I was very wrong in that estimation of him. The truth is, Ed’s nothing more than your a-typical “well to do” Conservative, who’s attitude is “I’ve got mine and screw you” attitude, which is so-typical of your Republicans and most Conservatives. Much like that slant-eyed bitch that he works for.
So, Ed, if you happen to read this…. On the behalf of my Father and Family, who also worked for G.M….. two words fat boy, fuck you and the fucking horse you rode in on, asshole.
Life is too damned short, and right now Dean Barnett’s family and friends are going through hell. I hope they are able to cope, and I am going to call my parents and tell them I love them and then hug my cat. I suggest you do the same thing with the ones you love. This whole racket is just way too short, and at times is a cruel hoax. Forty-one is just way too damned young.
At times, Life is a hoax and throws us a curve like this. If you read this John, thanks for the decency. I think everyone should be little more like this. It could only help our current political divisions. After all Politics is not our actual real lives. I mean, it is one thing to bitch and rant on a Blog about the politics of the day, but real life is another.
I mean, it is tough at times, we full time Bloggers, like John and I, we wrap ourselves into this so deeply. It does help sometimes to pull back from the laptop and take a inventory of what’s around you and take time to smell the roses.
