My I love America junk journal – changed the closure to an old button and different ribbon
Before rambling on with my blog post, here are two links, on two completely different topics worth reading:
WHEN MARSHALL MET PERSHING – an excellent article at War On the Rocks, written by Benjamin Runkle.
‘Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia – a thought-provoking article by Paul Lewis at The Guardian.
Now, let me step onto my soapbox and ramble on about politics.
Since the horrific attack in Las Vegas, like millions of other Americans, I’ve been waiting to find out why Stephen Paddock carried out this attack. So far, the small bits of information, on the attack itself and on Paddock’s bio, don’t make sense to me and there’s nothing meaningful I can write about it.
President Trump went to Las Vegas. He stuck to a prepared statement, made visits to wounded Americans and he “acted” presidential. That’s the thing about President Trump – he can “act” presidential, but he chooses to go the “just Trump being Trump” route most of the time, because it adds drama, creates media feeding frenzies and steals the show (which is now the 24/7 news cycle). His actions are deliberate choices he makes and calculated to evoke a response from his “enemies”.
The Left immediately went off the rails with their gun control hysteria. The Right attacked the Left for politicizing this tragedy.
If you want to know who President Trump is waging information war against, just listen to Sean Hannity’s opening diatribe any weeknight. My husband only watches FOX news, so I can’t avoid hearing Hannity’s Dear Leader monologues occasionally. I try to avoid it, by working in my sewing/craft room.
Despite Sean Hannity going on a “Hail Trump the Uniter” propaganda blitz , praising the president’s effort to unite America this past week, Hannity has coupled that message with stinging attacks on the Left, the mainstream liberal media, Robert Mueller, Republicans who don’t back Trump, the elusive Deep State and anyone else who doesn’t support “our President”.
Hannity always makes sure to cast aspersions on Americans who don’t support and respect “our President”, even though Hannity’s career was built on viciously attacking President Bill Clinton and he was just as rabid at berating President Obama for 8 years.
Respect is earned. Supporting our president is a choice Americans are free to make; it’s not required. I respect and support The Constitution always, but I do not respect President Trump and I will never vote for him. I support the Office of the Presidency and hope whomever that officeholder is, he or she works diligently in the best interests of the American people and to preserve, protect and defend The Constitution. A president consumed with his own popularity and waging a no holds barred, scorched earth information war is not working in the interests of the American people and is actually corrupting our constitutional republic.
Among conservatives, Liberal hypocrisy was considered the greatest political sin and casting stones to publicly repudiate Liberal hypocrisy built the careers of pundits like Sean Hannity and so many other conservative mouthpieces.
Hypocrisy exposes liars and frauds. President Trump has exposed a long list of conservative frauds, who built their careers lecturing on civility and proselytizing about the moral bankruptcy of the Left. Hannity is not alone. Look at Bill Bennett, who now lectures conservatives, who refuse to board the Trump train, about their “virtue-signaling” and “moral-preening”.
In 1992, we returned from 5 years of living in Germany, where my husband was stationed in the Army. During those 5 years we lived in leased government quarters and we did not have American TV. Our kids watched movies, but mostly they played outside a lot with other kids, read a lot, talked a lot, and did crafts.
We moved to Fort Leonard Wood, MO, which around the Army is referred to as Fort Lost In The Woods, and I was happy to have American TV again. Politics had changed a lot during those 5 years and there was an American presidential election in full-swing. During that time, Rush Limbaugh had a TV show and his provocative presentation was new and interesting. I listened to his radio show some during the 90s, but by the late 90s, I had gotten tired of his diatribes, his bombast and his entire schtick.
Limbaugh became an iconic figure in conservative circles, but President Trump has exposed Limbaugh’s conservatism as, to use Trump’s favorite word, “fake”. The Trump info war shock troops are all “fake” conservatives. Despite Hannity’s preaching about President Trump working to unite our country, the real objective of Hannity’s propaganda is to fuel distrust of all those other Americans, whom Hannity lists constantly as “enemies of our President” Kurt Schlichter, a devoted Trump Twitter Trooper and writer at Townhall, frames all political issues in America, as being between “we normals” and “those crazies” on the Left.
That’s some unifying message President Trump and his information warriors lob at not only those on the president’s “enemies” list, but at other Americans who don’t support President Trump…
I’m trying to wean myself off of spending so much time online and I’ve been working on my needlework and crafts more. I’ll be posting pictures of more “junk journals” soon. I decided to make some out of altered books, even though it’s very hard for me to tear apart any book.
Years ago, when I first became interested in altered books, I bought several books about how to make altered books, but I also bought 2 hardcover books in a craft store, that were sold as “alterable books”. Just like with scrapbooks, I never made any altered books. So, now I started using one to try out some painting and craft techniques, but I decided to actually “alter” some hardcover books. I used the other one for an autumn-themed journal, which is still a work in progress. Part of my personal challenge is to make these junk journals with craft stuff I already have and not buy stuff for in them. This autumn journal is my 8th junk journal, made with stuff I already had in my craft room. Here are a few photos:
Since I don’t want to go buy books to “alter”, which requires removing a lot of the pages and gluing in scrapbook paper and embellishments, I started looking around at the books already in my home. In the spare bedroom, I found some old Rush Limbaugh books and my one son used to read Ann Coulter’s books. I took off the dust jackets to look at the books. See I Told You So is in the process of becoming a Christmas junk journal for my daughter and Coulter’s Godless, is becoming my second autumn junk journal.
It felt good tearing pages out of those books and it will be even more fun when I glue pretty scrapbook paper over all the text in both books.
I’ll post photos of those finished journals.
libertybelle diaries 