POTY Roll Call

• Tom McMahon ~ 2007
• Lauren Rathbone ~ 2008
• Michael "Murph" Murphy ~ 2009
• Jeremy Johnson ~ 2010
• Tommy O'Shea ~ 2011
• Kerry D'Orio ~ 2012
• ???????????~ 2013

Who?
Who will it Be!????
This is Freaking Bewildering.

Getting Platonic

"Be Kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
~ Plato

The old Greek is on to something, isn't he?
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No matter who you are, you have your problems... and everybody that you look at has theirs.   So don't try to pile your shit onto others.  Shoulder your responsibilites.  Face your adversities.
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At least you are not alone.

Acquired Taste

I took Joanne and Grandsons Will and Ethan over to the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem yesterday, and we came home with Henry, a 1 year old, short haired, Black cat.
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Henry pooped and peed in the litterbox last night, but other than that, he seems to hate us and has stayed hidden since we brought him back to the Sundance house.
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Whatever Henry.
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The Nestor Family is an acquired taste, as many of you Peeps can testify.  It takes a while.
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Rockport New Construction Opportunity

$591,600 - 0 South Street in Rockport - 7.71 Residential acres (335847 sq.ft.)

Nanepashemet MLS Search Engine ~781-727-6516 ~ jnestor@nanepashemet.com

Merry Christmas

POTW Week 51

Peeps....
Do you hear that steady Thud, Thud, Thud in the background?
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That's the drums beating for the nomination to the year's Peep of the Year.   The reigning POTY, Kerry Russell D'Orio's special year is almost up, and she will shortly be passing her crown to another fortunate yet hapless Peep.
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Who will it be????  You know I can't answer that, yet the choice is so freaking clear this year that I can't believe that you don't already know.

ANNOUNCING....
Nanepashemet Peeps of the Week for the 51st Week of 2012

Mayor Tom Mennino
Joanna Stanton
Tony DeFillipo
Bob Wojcik
Alex Watts
Jill Phillips

Christmas shopping is done, but I'm thinking to going over to the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem and getting a cat to start off the New Year and celebrate our continuing survival.

Joy of Giving

With three days to Christmas, I'd like to wind things down... ratchet back a bit.   But I have a ton of Nanepashemet Telecom financials to get out before the end of the year, and haven't gotten any substantial shopping done.
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Glad that the Mayan prediction was a bust.
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So now we can empty our wallets and experience the joy of giving.

Beat Back Buzz Kill

Peeps....
With only a few hours to go... I think we made it.
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The only disaster seems to be President Obama's nomination of John Kerry for Secretary of State.
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Although the huge silver lining on this is the chance to see our man, Scott Brown, get the seat that he was outspent on by the first ever Native American Senator from Massachusetts, WhatsHerName.
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I hope he runs.
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Other than that, the nation gets to see our boy, "Do You Know Who I Am" Jawn "Purple Heart" Kerry wield his lovable , entitled self on the international stage.
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Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Dems.  At least we beat those buzz killing Mayans square in their tracks.

Doomsday Prediction

With the Mayan last day set for tomorrow, I guess I should sound in on the Doomsday predictions.
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Peeps... I'm not scared.   It takes more than a Mayan and his stone calendar to run a shiver up the spine of this Mountain of a Man.
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And I'm no Prepper. Won't see me stocking a concrete bunker in the backyard.  If everything goes haywire, I'll be looting and scavaging like the rest of you Bastards.  I won't be trying to fend off Peeps trying to steal my hoard, because I'll be out there trying to steal yours.
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But I kind of hope that I can scarf up a case of Scotch, build a bonfire, and sing Kumbaya at the top of my lungs with any hapless Peep that wanders near.   Then I will find a boat, and go for a long row.
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Someday this world is going to come to an end.
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But not yet, Peeps.    Not yet.

Want v. Need

Peeps...
There is a difference between want and need in our society.
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And the firearms control issue illustrates this perfectly.
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I feel like a jerk saying that at least one teacher in Newtown should have been able to bear a concealed weapon.  It's not something I want, but it obviously is something that was needed.
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I don't want teachers to have weapons... I don't want anyone to have weapons.... but this isn't a wish for "world peace" at a beauty pageant.
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Until we can control the mentally ill, and the sociopaths, and the criminals... we need to arm ourselves.
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This is an imperfect, flawed society.  You have to deal with reailty, and take responsibility for your needs rather than wish them away, or delegate to others.

Merry Christmas from Tiger Valley

Thanks to Wild Bill Hillegas for this contribution.

Smith and Wesson BodyGuard 380

At first I was moved at President Obama's speech in Newtown.  But then he said that "we haven't done enough" and "we must change".
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Sorry Peeps.... that is classic Bullshit.  It is not our fault if lightning strikes.  And more people would die if you banned lightning rods because they attracted lightning.
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I'm sure that a lot of people smarter than me could poke holes in this analogy, but my fear is that the knee jerk reaction of Obamanistas will be to try to take legal firearms away from law abiding citizens, when the reseach  shows that to defend ourselves, and lessen crime, more firearms, responsibly licensed, is the answer.
~

I'm all for banning automatic assault weapons - the guns with large bullet firing capacity that spray hundreds of rounds as the trigger is depressed.   Here in Massachusetts, and also in Connecticut, this is the case.   There is no need for this type of firepower in the public domain.

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But I'm also in favor of arming responsible citizens with concealed handguns.  In Massachusetts, you can't have a magazine of more than seven rounds.   But this would have been enough to halt the mental case in Newtown.

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Somehow, I don't think that our President had in mind that we must "change" by developing programs to insure that our citizens can defend themselves and their children.   I fear that he will call for measures that will make us more vulnerable and put our families in greater danger.

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Brave teachers in Newtown put themselves in the line of fire to save their students.  Their only weapon was the flesh of their bodies.  What if just one of them had a Smith and Wesson BodyGuard 380 and knew how to use it responsibly?

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We can't wish or legislate that sociopaths and criminals don't harm ourselves and our families.  Unfortunately, in this imperfect world, we have to take realistic measures.

Non-Political, Common Sense

Morgan Freeman's brilliant take on what happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary School:

 

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.
...

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed  people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."