Stuff below the fold

For later reading: Strategy Page on what's really going on in Syria,


and on China's long term plan to take over the ocean in the Philippine's legal economic zone.

--------------------------------------
When one of my classmates, a winner of the Medal of Honor, was reburied in Arlington, a biker's organization accompanied the body/funeral cortage along with family and friends in cars.

Yet this year, on 911, a patriotic bikers group asked for, and were denied a permit just to "ride through" Washington DC.  Yeah. Can't remind Congress of all those folks from the hinterlands (including the neighborhoods of Philly), but the "official" reason was that they would disrupt traffic.

Ah, according to Gateway pundit,  another group protesting the Benghazi deaths had a permit, and offered: well, if the bikers wanted to join them, no problem.
more HERE.

Slate takes photos at 10 am and says only a "modest turnout" at the Benghazi protest, but since the bikers won't arrive until the afternoon, the story is developing. LINK

and no, I'm not afraid of these bikers: I've visited Sturgis and although some drug use was up, the local rally in Oklahoma was on the whole peaceful...but I don't like bikes: I've treated a guy in one of these type rides who hit a deer and had severe brain damage.

--------------------------------------------

Our Lady of Peace: Atlas Obscura has a photo of a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, constructed in Indiana, as a thanksgiving for the end of World War I.

You wouldn't know it, but large grottos are quite common: some on church grounds, like the one I spotted in Northern Minnesota, and others, like the one in the mountains of Western Pennsylvania, were constructed and cared for by ordinary folks.

This doesn't count the many "Madonnas" in front of houses, in both rural and urban settings. In rural areas, often they are shielded by a partially buried bathtub, hence the name "Bathtub madonnas", which are so common that Wikipedia has an article about them.

And no, they aren't all erected by sweet old fashioned Italian ladies: our neighbor in Pennsylvania erected one, and he was a coal miners...

Here in the Philippines, middle class homes often have a small grotto in their yard too...and of course, we have the "ugly madonna" at the Our Lady of Peace Shrine on EDSA: where a "beautiful woman in white" stopped Marcos soldiers from attacking the demonstrators of the People Power revolution. As Cardinal Sin (!) noted when a sceptic said it wasn't the Virgin but one of the white clad nun: he agreed, but noted: none of the nuns was that good looking.



-----------------------------------