Link Log Day: July 10

This is it...the day when I have two hours to explore and recommend links. Please don't be discouraged by the current limits on my opportunities to surf the'Net. This situation will change in time, so please keep the links coming. Today's Categories: Animals, Christian, Food, Frugal, Funny, Grandmothers, Health, Politics, Thank a Veteran, Writing.




Animals




This one's not cute, but some people need the reminder: Even cats and parakeets trigger phobic reactions for a few sad, sick souls, but yappy little fluffy dogs have been known to bite people, inflict injuries, and spread diseases. If your dog runs toward strangers, barking, you may feel sure that his little dominance display is friendly, but the strangers do not know this. Protect your pet. Keep it behind a barrier or on a leash where it won't frighten strangers. Some people don't just kick yappy little dogs; they shoot them, or flatten them under motor vehicles.




http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/09/shock-footage-shows-ups-driver-kicking-small-dog-moments-before-he-clobbered-the-animals-owner/?


Now, two cute dog posts from +Ruth Cox :


http://ruthcoxpoetryprose.blogspot.com/2015/07/sunny-side-up.html


http://www.dogpawsitivetidbits.com/2015/07/dog-walking-mirror-reflections.html






Christian






Liz Curtis Higgs' publisher is offering shiny new perks to those who respond to this uplifting blog post..






http://www.lizcurtishiggs.com/gentle-shepherd/


Food


Want the taste of barbecue sauce without heating up the actual barbie? +Sandy KS shares a recipe with many variations:


http://foodrecipesandmore.blogspot.com/2015/07/bbq-chicken-in-crockpot.html


Frugal


This whole web site is about being frugal, but here's a more specific frugal post from +Marsha Cooper :


http://marshasspot.blogspot.com/2015/07/frugal-friday-with-marsha-week-in.html




Funny






Occasional blog with mostly satirical takes on news stories:






http://jbw53191.blogspot.com/


Grandmothers and the Things They Get Up To


Grandma Bonnie Peters (she's not my grandmother, that's her official screen name) took a day job. A fun, easy summer job...that's normally done by teenagers: delivering telephone directories. One day last week she came in lamenting the decline of manners because "a man, a Southern man, just stared at me and didn't even say 'Good afternoon'." He was speechless. Though people like him have found words when talking to her young relatives: words like "How can you let her..."


GBP would immediately snap back, "My children don't 'let' me do anything! I'm the mother, don't you know!"


Apparently the phrase "let her" brings to her mind what my statement that my husband didn't let me drive, vacuum, or (usually) ride Metro, obviously brought to the minds of some people we knew. I could tell that they were trying to imagine him dragging me out of the car, locking me in the closet. "I told you not to touch that vacuum cleaner..." No such thing. Actually, he just voluntarily did the vacuuming and the driving himself.


Which is how it went with the telephone directories, actually. I said, and a neighbor who's not even related to her said, "If [your unemployed daughter] isn't going with you, I will." Delivering telephone directories efficiently calls for precision driving skills; GBP was free to pick the best precision driver from a group of four volunteers. And people who sat down to talk with her packed a lot of the books in those little plastic sleeves, too. Nobody orders or forbids eighty-year-olds who have all their wits about them to do whatever they jolly well want to do. Nobody "lets" them go out to work alone on ninety-degree afternoons, either.


+Allen West Republic shared a photo that seems germane:


https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+AllenwestrepublicAWR/albums/6169666051487077777/6169666050147502914?pid=6169666050147502914&oid=103421917501836640130


Anyway, here's a more traditional take on what grandmothers do:


http://www.allcraftconnection.org/2015/07/grandma-what-do-you-do-when-were-not.html




Health




A reminder: it's rare, but it's possible, to over-hydrate.




http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/10/you-can-actually-be-in-danger-of-drinking-too-much-water-heres-when-you-should-stop/?






Politics 






Carol Stopps shares a messy-looking temporary link to the Center for Self-Governance, advertising classes in Virginia law they will be presenting this summer. (If you're a Virginia voter but the link doesn't work for you, it's probably been taken down because registration has closed; these classes are likely to fill up fast.)






Center for Self-Governance






Robert Romano's take on the Obama administration's plan to reconfigure neighborhoods across the U.S. is different from mine. He writes as a stereotypical Republican who's most concerned that shoving cheap, ugly, slum-type apartment blocks into neighborhoods will affect the resale value of houses. Actually, since I think our "homes" are for living in and working with and passing on to our children, not for selling, I'm all in favor of lowering property value taxes...but not by turning residential neighborhoods into overcrowded, rat-and-disease-infested, hostile, potential-death-trap slums. I like a law Clarksburg, Maryland, used to have, requiring a maximum housing density of four single-family houses per acre (enough to assure every child a yard to play in, if not a garden). But, does anybody out there not realize that the expectation that it will be "Black and Hispanic" families who are packed into these housing projects is profoundly racist?






Yes, I could just about believe that a rich, privileged, cosmopolitan African-American like President Obama could be all that far out of touch with welfare-class Americans (of any ethnic type). I hate to believe it, and wouldn't have believed it without a solid body of evidence that's been building for years.






Well...if you are not a racist, and think "Black and Hispanic" children deserve yards or even gardens as much as other children do, here's what to do: Tell your local government, "Just Say No to all those 'block grants' of money." It won't be easy, but neighborhoods full of decent, principled people may be able to do it.






http://netrightdaily.com/2015/07/obama-finalizes-racist-plan-to-redraw-your-neighborhood/


If you know people who persist in associating fiscal conservatism with racism, you might want to print out and display this graphic from +Allen West Republic . (It does not feature a picture of Sarah Palin.)


http://www.bb4sp.com/sarah-palin-annihilates-liberals-%e2%9e%a0-theyre-famous-for-rewriting-history/




Republicans contemplating their prospective presidential candidates appear to be...even more dismayed by the infighting than I am. What else can we say?




http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/07/trump-wins-poll.html




(I don't want to copy the poll data Norb Leahy shared...I'm sort of pleased that Rand Paul tied with Him Who Would Be The Next Walking Target. Jim Gilmore announced his candidacy only last week so it's not a great shock that he's not even showing up on this poll.)




Should the President attend the funerals of private citizens? asks +Theresa Wiza




https://theresawiza.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/dear-president-obama-why-arent-you-attending-every-funeral-of-every-united-states-citizen/


Is same-sex marriage "the law of the land"? (Hairsplitting, but it might be useful or interesting...)


https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/same-sex-marriage-is-now-the-law-of-the-land-not-so/


Thank a Veteran


Allen West has managed to block comments from his Google +. This image doesn't really need one.


https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+AllenwestrepublicAWR/albums/6169895350392296161/6169895347463059490?pid=6169895347463059490&oid=103421917501836640130


Writing


Weekly link to promote online writing:


http://marshasspot.blogspot.com/2015/07/writers-unite-7915.html


...and suggestions to prompt some:


http://challengeyourwriting.blogspot.com/p/july-challenges.html


...and contests to enter, if you've written something really good:


http://www.writingcreatively.org/2015/07/writing-contests-2015.html