Humble Pie

Only Theo's grandmother sees the truth about the boy: He's as spoiled as a rotten old apple!
That is why, on one of Theo's naughtiest, grabbiest, mouthiest days, Grandmother decides to bake him a pie.
Young Theo has never seen the like. Its crust is as big as a bedsheet; its filling of plums, cherries, peaches, pears, apples, and quince is as tempting as any sweet feast ever set before a boy. But when he greedily reaches out for a taste, little Theo bites off a lot more than he can chew!
Jennifer Donnelly's wise and funny tale has inspired pictures of modern-day wit and medieval charm from a master of artistic antics, Stephen Gammell.

I guess we were we unhappy with King George III.... Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such disolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. A world class whine we actually did something about. Happy Indepe

I realize i just used this same pic not long ago but this fits the story so here it is again (besides i'm too lazy too do another one right now THIS HAS TO HAPPEN ,'CAUSE THIS MAN WHO CALLS HIMSELF PRESIDENT AND HIS WIFE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH COMMON SENSE TO DO IT THEMSELVES: The beauty of our governing system of checks and balances is that presidential overreach can be curtailed by Congress. To borrow the president's own analogy, the voters decided to ditch Obama's drive to take the country on the road to the farthest reaches of the left's progressively ideological hopes and dreams. They instead elected legislators who represent the more reasonable values of mainstream Americans, who reside on the center-right side of the highway. We can therefore expect that over the last two years of what is expected to be Obama's only term in office, Republicans will keep Obama in check, making the passage of any further ideologically driven domestic legislation highly unlikely. And as Republicans promise to end the earmarks that infuriate so many Americans, the "Young Guns" should add one more notch to their holster. They should draft a bill that prohibits the profligate spending of Obama, who, in addition to misunderstanding the mandate of the American people upon his election in 2008 as well as the "shellacking" of the 2010 midterms, completely misunderstands that he was hired as an executive to run the country, not anointed a king to feed on the fruits of the labor of hardworking taxpayers. Headlines scream of offensive details regarding Obama's trip to India. Much of the reports is speculative, including the exact number in the entourage (while the White House denies that there are 3,000 individuals on the trip, reports indicate that the security detail alone includes 600 Secret Service and FBI employees) and the number of planes, helicopters, and other armored vehicles brought along to ensure that the president travels in the style to which he is accustomed. Furthermore, it appears as if coconuts have been removed from trees, outposts have been erected to watch for aggressive monkeys, and a bomb-proof tunnel was built to enable the Obamas to safely visit the Gandhi Museum. Apparently, the news that the entourage would be accompanied by 34 warships was a rumor, while the story that the president took over the entire Taj Mahal Palace Hotel was not. And while the White House denies that the trip will cost American taxpayers $200 million a day, officials have refused to reveal the total cost, claiming such information is confidential. The point really is not the exact figure. The point is that the citizens (and the world) not only believe the obscene $2-billion estimate, but they have also come to expect this from the Obamas. Americans have come to expect Michelle to wear $500 sneakers and carry $2,000 purses while dining on lobster and caviar prepared by her personal chef and traveling to five-star hotels on the Spanish coast. They are used to her wastefulness -- and her hypocrisy, considering the lavishness that occurs while the Obamas ask Americans to make sacrifices for the good of the nation, vacation on oil-stained beaches off the Gulf of Mexico, and have patience while the president socializes the economy against the will of the people. It is time for Congress to intervene and put the kibosh on the spending of a president who has no idea, or who does not care, that his behavior is highly inappropriate. He parties continuously at the White House, entertaining his Hollywood supporters with music, dance, fine food, and wine. One would have expected that the 2010 midterms would have provided a much-needed reality check and led to the end of the glitz and glamor. Apparently not, and it is therefore time for the parents to cut off the apron strings, tear up the credit cards, and budget the children who seemingly were never taught the value of a hard-earned dollar. Americans do not begrudge their chief executive for taking vacations or entertaining heads of state who visit the White House. But they do resent a president who lacks the humility to recognize the state of the U.S. economy, lacks the empathy to feel for the country's unemployed, and reeks of self-entitlement. The Obamas continually miss the message the American people raised during the controversy over the building of the Ground Zero Mosque -- just because something is legal, that does not make it ethical. From Charlie Rangel to Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi to Barney Frank, the Washington establishment's cluelessness is astonishing. But the cleanup must start at the top. So it is time for the Republicans who took control of the House and weakened the Democrats' hold in the Senate to put an end to this nonsense. In Obama's post-election speech, he mentioned that he was humbled by the results. But the president has proven that he lacks the humility that a man of his stature should have, that he is incapable of le

“Top Secret” mystery missions, many without other ships in support, were becoming uncomfortably familiar for the crew of the USS Nashville CL43. It started like a Hollywood thriller, secretly transporting from England $25 million in British gold bullion, delivered to the ship in unguarded bread trucks, a pre-war “Neutrality Patrol” that was really an unofficial hostile search for the far bigger and more powerful German battleship Prinz Eugen, and sneaking through the Panama Canal at night with the ship’s name and hull number covered for secrecy. Now, with the ship bulging with an unusual load of fuel and supplies, in the company of a large fleet quietly passing under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the crew was about to learn of their latest (but not last) and most improbable adventure yet as the captain made an announcement that would change the war and their lives forever, “We are going to Tokyo!”. Over three years, scores of battles and hundreds of thousands of ocean miles later, the Nashville and her crew had earned 10 Battle Stars, served from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, from the Aleutians to the Yangtze River, as McArthur’s flagship and suffered heavy casualties from a devastating kamikaze attack. Tokyo Rose reported her sunk, repeatedly. Earlier, with goodwill trips that included France, England, Scandinavia, Bermuda and Rio de Janeiro, the new, sleek Nashville built a pre-war reputation as a “glamour ship”. But with war came the secret missions, capturing the second and third Japanese POWs of the war, having a torpedo pass just under the stern, being strafed and bombed by Japanese planes, losing a third of the crew in a single Kamikaze attack, swimming in shark infested waters protected by marines with machine guns, enjoying the beauty of Sydney and her people, planning a suicide mission to destroy the Japanese fishing fleet, and bombarding Japanese troops and airfields across the Pacific. The Nashville crew served their ship and country well. They came from Baltimore rowhouses, New York walk-ups, San Francisco flats, Kansas wheat farms, Colorado cattle ranches, Louisiana bayous and Maine fishing towns. Many had never traveled more than 25 miles from home and had never seen the ocean until they joined the service. They were part Irish, part Italian, part Polish and All-American. Battered, burnt and bombed, they made the USS Nashville their home and lived and died as eternal shipmates. This is the story of their beloved Nashville and their personal experiences. A hardcover version is available on Booksurg.com (866-308-6235), an Amazon company.