Like it or not Mr. Barack Obama is now our 44th President of the United States.  My prayers are with him.  In case you missed the speech, I will compare it with John Kennedy’s historic speech”
Kennedy:  “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
Obama (paraphrased):  Ask [...]

I picked up a daily desk calendar and it has daily quotes.  The quote from the other day was the following, which I thought was very applicable:
I never knew an early-rising, hardworking, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest, who complained of bad luck.  A good character, good habits, and iron industry are [...]

Well, Mrs. Thomas and I got a new Canon XSi DSLR camera just before Christmas.  I have been playing with it quite a bit, but due to quite a bit of rain, I haven’t really been able to get outside and play with it much.  However, I took this picture of our mantle the other day in [...]

As I blogged about HERE, “[Jose] Compean and [Ignacio] Ramos were convicted by a jury last March of violating the civil rights of Davila when they shot him on Feb. 17, 2005, in Fabens, Texas, about 30 miles last of El Paso, then tampering with evidence by picking up shell casings from the shooting.”  The [...]

Bryan Haynes of the East Tennessee Conservative appears to have broken the story about a Kent Williams radio interview.  In it, Mr. Williams says he planned to support Mumpower for Speaker of the TN House.  Of course, in a power-hungry grab, he aligned with the Democrats and voted for himself instead.
Mick Wright made a YouTube [...]

After the intermission (you can see my first half post), the full orchestra came back minus the piano.  They played Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90 in honor of what would have been Mendelssohn’s 200th birthday.  I really enjoyed this piece.  It consisted of four movements.  I particularly liked the final movement, [...]

Well, we are at the halfway point of the symphony, and so far it has been very good. It started differently with no on stage when the lights went down. Then a group of 11 (an eleventet ?) came out and played a Bach Concerto.
Then the featured pianist came out and played Mozart’s Concerto No. [...]

Thanks to posts from Doug and Byron and the fine folks at the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, my wife and I are once again attending Blogger Night at the KSO this evening.  You can see my posts from last year HERE and HERE.
I will post a review afterwards tonight or first thing in the morning.  I [...]

The Wall Street Journal has a good editorial from Friday about the novel Atlas Shrugged becoming a reality today.
[The author of the book, Ayn] Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently [...]

…Now if you are a Republican, sit down and shut up.  That is essentially what Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats said on day 1.
The rule changes passed Tuesday, on the first day of the 111th Congress, are “designed to silence” Republicans, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said.
 
“The new rules repeal term limits for committee chairman, consolidate [...]