A to Z Challenge 2025
Sox Fam
Search Me!
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Lech Walesa stands in solidarity with Ukraine
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Team Saturdazzle: The One Where I Finally Say Something About President Trump
Wow. This year is flying by fast. It's already the last Saturdazzle of the month for the 2nd time this year.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, or if you are joining in from my Facebook page, you may be confused by the title of this post. "What?!? Roller talks about Trump all the stinking time. He even had his Dad teach him how to play bridge so he could say No Trump. more often.", you might be thinking to yourself. (You may even be thinking parenthetically, that you're not sure if thoughts should be in quotation marks).
The truth is that in this blog, I have not written a thing about President Trump all year. That isn't to say I haven't had thoughts, I've had thoughts! Here's two I'd like to share today:
1. President Trump is My President.
I don't know where it started, or where I first heard it, but it seems very likely regardless of who is the current president, or who's the governor of your state that you may hear or read someone mention, "He's not my president." or "She's not my governor". This bothers me in many ways, but mainly linguistically.
If I live in Elgin, Illinois, (#Ido), the mayor of that city is my mayor. It doesn't matter, if I don't know his or her name (#IdoIjustlookeditup) or if I voted for him, (#Idid), that's my mayor.
On January 20th 2025 10:00 A.M. central time Joe Biden was my President. No, I didn't vote for him. No, I don't agree with him on a number of issues, but I'm a U.S. citizen as he was in the last hour of his presidency for that hour he was still my president.
In the same way by noon central time Donald Trump had again become my president. I trust Trump about as far as I can throw Mount Rushmore. I didn't vote for him in the 2016, 2020, or 2024 primaries or general elections but yet he's my president.
Saying someone is not your president, when they are is not to me an act of defiance, nor a nod of a disapproval. It's more like saying I'm only part of my country when I agree with their choices. I understand the voting process the way we elect our public officials but then those elected officials work for all of us and represent all of us. This is why they are our elected officials. While it's an essential part of our democracy to speak up when we disagree with our elected officials, disagreeing with them in no way makes them no longer our leaders. It's because they are our leaders that we can ask them to change. I live in the state of Illinois and a Republican presidential candidate has not won the state of Illinois since 1988. Does that mean that President George W. Bush or President Trump aren't the President in Illinois. No! Nor does it matter that I haven't voted for a winning presidential candidate in over 2 decades. The President of the U.S. is my president and this brings me to my second point.
2. President Trump is not my savior, but he's not the devil either.
As stated before, I have not posted on this blog about President Trump all year. This can not be said when it comes to posting my Facebook account. Several times I have written there about our current president. A few weeks nto his most recent term, I asked my FB friends to mention one thing Trump had done in those two weeks which they liked and one thing he had done which they didn't like.
I have 441 FB friends. Two gave me one thing they liked and one thing they didn't like. My submission made for a total of three. 3 out of 442? Wow!
I'm not exactly sure why it was this low. Many people on FB say good things about him and many people say bad things about him. How come so few can mention both the good and the bad?
We are all created in God's image, so we all have good inside of us. We also are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God so we all have bad coming out of us. Finding both good and bad should not be that hard of an exercise. And if it is, then since we are called to pray for our elected officials maybe we should spend more time trying to think about good and bad things that they are doing to aid in our prayers.
One of my FB friends asked why I hadn't done such an exercise when Biden was President. I had in fact done a very similar exercise when Biden was president. But I'll go ahead and conclude this segment by saying one good and one bad thing about both President Trump and former President Biden.
Donald Trump
Good: When he was on The Apprentice, I liked how in the board room segments he would make the contestants take responsibility for their actions. There was one episode where a project manager was talking about how great he ran his team for that week. Trump turned it around on him and asked, Did you win? Which of course he had not, which is why he was in the board room to begin with.
Bad: As a candidate and as president I have never seen him follow his own advice and admit a mistake. This is shown most in his inability to concede the 2020 Presidential Election.
Joe Biden
Good: Biden thought about the good of the country and the good of his party before choosing to drop out of the 2024 election.
Bad: I didn't mind that he pardoned his son Hunter, I just don't like that he did it after saying that he wasn't going to.
Note: The things I mentioned about Trump are not the same things I mentioned on my Facebook Page. Here is what I said on Facebook:
A good thing I think Trump has done is pardon the 23 people who were being prosecuted under the F.A.C.E act Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances. A bad thing Trump had done is the pardoning or commuting the sentence of all 1500 people convicted of crimes during the events at the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021
Coming Soon: Levi A to Z
Sometimes I like to use Team Saturdazzle as a place to start the conversation about topics I'm preparing future posts about.
A to Z challenge Update. I believe I have a topic for the upcoming challenge. I am in the process of preparing posts and making a theme reveal post as well.
Speaking of Alpha and Omegas: I have some future posts featuring a pair of Levi's. This pair is well worn on the pages of my blog. The first is Allen Levi, a member of my Big 5 list of favorite musicians. Actually I have 2 upcoming posts featuring Allen. The second Levi, is Chuck Bartowski, Flynn Rider, Captain Marvel and Kurt Warner rolled into one, Zachary Levi. I watched The Unbreakable Boy earlier today and hope to post a short review before the next Saturdazzle.
There are 24 hours in a day but only 24 minutes left of this particular Saturdazzle. So on that mathematical non sequitur, I bid you farewell.
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Jimmy Carter's eulogy for Gerald Ford
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Jimmy Carter on What's My Line
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Who I'm Not voting for in the 2024 Presidential Election and Why not.
The U.S. Presidential election is a week away, and I wanted to explain how I am voting in it. This is not an endorsement; I don't expect anyone to vote like I am. However, I do feel that I am making a logical and sensible decision, given the choices before me.
If you were not aware, the election is between Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. In the state of Illinois, where I reside, one other candidate is also listed on the ballot.
I have quite a bit of history when it comes to voting in elections. I turned 18 in 1982 and voted officially in that election and voted in my first Presidential election in 1984. Before that, I had voted in 2 mock elections, one in 1976 at Grove Jr. High School where I voted for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter, and one in 1980 at Elk Grove High School where I voted for Carter over Ronald Reagan. Incidentally, I voted for Carter for the same reason I voted against Carter: I thought that the incumbent candidate needed more time to complete their work. On both these occasions my views were in the minority.
My procedures for choosing who to vote for have evolved since those mock elections days. I take the responsibility to vote very seriously. Initially, I try to pick between the majority party candidates, and if neither stands out to me as the best choice I may vote for an independent or write-in candidate. I believe one time, four years ago, when I found no candidate worthy of my vote, I just skipped down to the next race in the election.
The first thing I try to determine is whether the candidates are credible. That is to say are they believable? Will they do what they say they are going to do? It may surprise some people that this is the first thing that I try to determine. Why not look at what the candidates say they believe and vote on the one I agree with the most? Why not? Because, if the candidate is not credible it doesn't matter whether I agree with what they are saying if I don't believe they can or will do it.
Among the two major party candidates, there is only one credible candidate and that is Vice President Harris. When I read the issues page of her website I believed her when she said these are the issues that are important to her. So, she is credible in that regard.
Unfortunately, there is very little that Donald Trump says that I believe. To me, he is not a credible candidate. He says that he won the last election, In fact, 3 minutes into his Jan 6th, 2020 speech at the Capitol Mall, he stated "We won this election, and we won it in a landslide". This was never a credible statement. Trump has been creating a false narrative since he first declared in 2015 that he was seeking high office and that the only way he could lose is if other people cheated. So naturally when he lost the election it was because of massive fraud.
There are very few things that Trump has said that I have believed. Most of his few credible statements are not positive. He said recently that if reelected he will consider arresting his opposition. As scary as that image is and how undemocratic it seems, I can totally believe that he would consider that. When he was caught on a hot mike saying he wanted to force himself on women, I found that credible. Morally reprehensible, yet credible. When as President, he maligned the countries that were sending us the most immigrants, I truly believed that he could be so mean-spirited and uncaring. Unfortunately, all those statements match to what has already been revealed by his character. When he makes positive claims, his character, and his history of previously false claims, make it virtually impossible for me to believe a word he says.
This is why when he claimed to be pro-life when running in 2016 I did not believe him. When he actually did appoint conservative judges and justices I was surprised. Those appointments did lead to Roe vs. Wade being overturned in 2022. So you might think that I would now find Trump credible at least on this issue. No, Trump has backpedaled on his abortion views for the 2024 election and so I can't find him credible on that issue either. I chalk it up more to political expediency than anything else.
In most Presidential elections since I started voting in 1984 there have been (in my opinion) 2 major party credible candidates running against each other. The only exceptions are the aforementioned Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. In Clinton's case, I never found him to be a trustworthy candidate.
If there are 2 credible candidates I don't then try to decide who's more credible. I decide who's more worthy of my vote. Only credible candidates are worthy of anyone's vote, and then I am free to decide from who's left.
The Republican Party has done the country a great disservice over the last 3 election cycles by not putting a credible candidate on the Presidential ballot, Fortunately for them, most voters look for a candidate who purports to match their views first and then judge the character of that candidate. This puts the voter in a difficult situation by looking for candidates who agree with them they open themselves up to be maneuvered by master operators like Clinton and Trump.
In 1992, it seemed like the Republicans saw Clinton for who he was, but the Democrats failed to grasp that. They were enamored with the idea of putting the first Democrat in the White House since Carter won in '76. In 2016 despite a field of credible Republican candidates, the Republicans reimagined themselves in the worst possible way picking a bully who could win and make populist gains at the risk of the party's soul.
I think it might be easy to think that if there is only one credible candidate that is the candidate you should vote for. But this has simply not been true for me. I could have gladly supported Joe Biden years ago when he was a Pro-Life Democrat, especially over Trump. Biden decided to believe that a Pro-Life Democrat could not elect his President and changed his stance so he could get the job he always wanted. Biden abandoned his beliefs for the expediency of office for the same motives that the Republicans abandoned their integrity to embrace Trump. In the 2016 and 2020 elections, this put me in quite a pickle. I didn't believe that anyone should vote for Trump and I could not bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. While I found both these candidates credible, my conscience would not let me support them.
People would tell me you must choose the lesser of two evils. I would say why should I choose evil? Also, if I had to choose the lesser of two evils in those elections it would not have been Trump. I'm not even sure that Trump would ever admit that he was the lesser of two anything. "People are always telling me Don you're so evil. Frankly, If I was going to be evil I'd be amazing at it."
Adam Kizinger made an impassioned speech at the 2024 DNC urging his fellow Republicans to vote for Harris in the election, It is tempting but the truth is that the 2024 election has me in the same pickle. I won't consider Trump and when I do consider Harris, I can't get past her pro-choice positions. It's frustrating because I would have gladly supported someone like Nikki Haley or Kizinger and will probably end up writing one of their names on my ballot. I'm not picky, I just want to be able to choose between two credible candidates and the Republican party keeps on robbing me of that opportunity.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Monday, October 7, 2024
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Thoughts on the Jimmy Carter Legacy on his 100th birthday.
Monday, September 30, 2024
A Clip from the 1982 Eureka College Commence Speech by then Presdident Ronald Reagan
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Z is for the Zenith of the American Revolution

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George Washington |
By Gilbert Stuart, Public Domain, Link
Saturday, April 13, 2024
A tp Z: 2024 L is for Last Weekend of Cherry Blossom Festival

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Lucy, Amy & Kermit Smithsonian Museum 2010 |
April 13th 2024 is the last Saturday of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C.
The past few days at school there has been growing excitement for the 8th grade field trip to Washington D.C. which is coming up soon. My Nephew was over yesterday and he is also is super excited about his 8th grade field trip to Washington D.C. So, when trying to decide between all the April 13th holidays and events I chose an event and a birthday related to D.C.

The Nationals Cherry Blossom Festival commemorates the gift of Japanese Cherry Trees in 1912 from the Mayor of Tokyo City to the city of Washington D.C.
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
D is For Dave
A to Z Challenge
A Month At The Movies

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies, my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.
This year I am copying from a myriad of other a to z challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter. You can skip over this part if you want to.
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
Leap of Dave Summer Reading Blog: Book # 9: Between Heaven & Hell (Plus Next Ten)
Sunday, April 4, 2021
1921 A Tale of 13 Presidents
Happy Easter!
Sundays are traditionally days off for the A to Z challenge and while this Sunday is no exception, I have decided to include an A to Z Easter egg today by listing all the presidents of the U.S. who were alive in 1921 either before, during or after their presidency. I have the two presidents who were in office in 1921 in bold.
1921 President Chart
#. President (date of birth-date of death) | Time in office | Years lived prior to 1921 | Years lived after 1921 |
26. William Howard Taft (9/15/1857-3/18/1930) | 1909-1913 | 64 | 9 |
27. Woodrow Wilson (12/28/1856-2/3/1924) | 1913-1921 | 65 | 3 |
28. Warren G. Harding (11/2/1865-8/2/1923 | 1921-1923 | 56 | 2 |
29 Calvin Coolidge (7/4/1873 - 9/5/1933 | 1923-1929 | 48 | 12 |
30. Herbert Hoover (8/10/1874-10/20/1964) | 1929-1933 | 47 | 43 |
31. Franklin Roosevelt (1/30/1882 - 4/12/1945) | 1933-1945 | 39 | 24 |
32. Harry S Truman (5/8/1884 -12/6/1972) | 1945-1953 | 37 | 51 |
33. Dwight D. Eisenhower (10/14/1890 -3/28/1969) | 1953-1961 | 31 | 48 |
34. John F. Kennedy (5/29/1917 -11/22/1963) | 1961-1963 | 4 | 42 |
35. Lyndon B Johnson (8/27/1908 -1/22/1973) | 1963-1969 | 13 | 52 |
36. Richard M. Nixon (1/9/1913 -4/22/1994) | 1969-1974 | 8 | 73 |
37. Gerald R. Ford (7/14/1913 -12/26/2006) | 1974=1977 | 8 | 85 |
39. Ronald Reagan (2/6/1911 - 6/5/2004) | 1981-1989 | 10 | 83 |
Saturday, January 30, 2021
12 from 2020
It may be difficult to imagine a hopeful piece about house arrest. Steve West talks about his life in an early covid lockdown and by using his and other's memories talks about doing far more with far less.
My ally stands. “Here’s a place—a fragile, earthen vessel, admittedly, yet one that will hold you, for now,” it says
And yes, I just did order Diane Keaton's book House which D.J. Waldie wrote the text for from my home librray.
Blog: Desiring God
Policies, Persons and Paths to Ruin: Pondering the Implications of the 2020 Election October 22, 2020
Author and Pastor John Piper is not the only contributor to the blog on the Desiring God but his posts are generally the ones I most appreciate. This post I found especially gratifying as I had decided on the same course of action for the election as he did. Well approximately the same, he chose a write in candidadte, I just moved on to the next race. Piper makes a very good defense of not voting for Trump or Biden without mentioning either by name.
Favorite Line: In fact, I think it is a drastic mistake to think that the deadly influences of a leader come only through his policies and not also through his person.
Something similar is happening now in the presidential election. Trump has predicted that he will win when the votes are counted OR if the tally shows him losing, it will be because of vote fraud. He has also affirmed that he would take the election to the Supreme Court if he loses. This is dangerous for our country. If there is a fair election AND Trump actually loses, many of his more devoted followers might protest the counting of mail in votes and declare fraud. Some of these followers might turn to violence.
I am certain this is not something Lindy wanted to be right about. At least we can't say He didn't warn us.
* I've always wanted to say italics mine. As long as we are doling out punctuation marks, I'll take the ampersand.
Blog: The Aaugh Blog
Colorblind Eye Patch Dec 9, 2020
The Aaugh Blog is an independent Peanuts website that I quite enjoy. I really liked this post that talks about some of my favorite strips from when I was a kid when Sally had lazy eye. No favorite line just favorite memories.
Blog: Thinking Person's Guide To Autism
Losing Hard Won Freedoms: The Pandemics Toll on People with I/DD December 10, 2020
I hate to end on a sour note but Covid has been especially hard on people with disabilites. as I'm typing this on My daughter who has high functioning autism is playing monopoly with her Mom and sister. (More on this epic game here and here. That reminds me that she has been unable to attend her monthly game night for young adults with HFA for almost a year. As Ivanova Smith states it ican be much more difficult for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities than just missing a game night.
Favorite Line: (Smith describing the effects of the isolation that pandemic restrictions has caused her). I feel like I am stuck in a car that keeps going backwards and backwards and I can’t make it stop.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Six Word Concert Surprise Update
Six Word Saturday.
Here's our Six Words:
Eureka, We found J.J. Heller Concert.
Puppy loves a Christian music artist by the name of J.J. Heller. Whatever Puppy loves usually becomes a giant obsession with her. So when she fell in love with the song "What Love Really Means" she wrote J.J. and asked when she was coming to concert near us. J.J. wrote her back and told her to have us check the schedule at her website for upcoming concerts in the area. Months passed and Puppy diligently reminded me to check the schedule. When I did, nothing was really close. Then a few months ago, I found it, a concert 2.5 hours from our house. The concert was in Eureka, Illinois. Eureka roughly translated means I found it.
Now knowing Puppy like I do, I knew that 3 months of anticipation might not hurt her, but would probably kill us. So I planned an elaborate day trip to see some historic Ronald Reagan sites which had us ending up in Eureka, Illinois this afternoon.

Bunny and Spider Droid were in on the secret, and it took every inch of self control they had not to spoil it for Puppy.
The field trips and the concert were amazing. Here is some footage and pictures from the concert.
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JJ Heller when she found out Puppy has same birthday as her daughter |
Friday, April 20, 2012
Field Trip
As you read this we are on a family field trip. We are going to visit some Illinois towns steeped in Presidential history.
It is a Reagan themed trip with a little Honest Abe thrown in for good measure.
Today we are travelling to Dixon, where Reagan grew up. and to Eureka where Reagan went to college. I was also going to stop by Tampico, where he was born, in betwee Dixon and Eureka. I have decided to scrap Tampico and get a presidential 2fer by stopping in Galesburg. Reagan lived in Galesburg prior to Dixon. It is also one of the locations that Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln debated.
It should be fun and educational.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Puppy;s Pets on Display - Epilogue
Here are a few tidbits and pics from the experience.
Puppy was a little
1. Let her keep some of her favorites at home.
2. Bought her a new Webkinz cardinal at Target after we set the display up
3. Let her visit her animals often including visiting her turtle George Washington on February 22nd, which is George Washington's birthday.
After the month was over while we were picking all the pillow pets and Webkinz up, the children's librarian called Puppy over. She told Puppy that about 6 months ago, a child had left a pillow pet behind at the library and never claimed it. Little Miss memory chip said she remembered seeing it at the desk in her visits to the library . The librarian continued, saying that since Puppy took such good care of her animals, they thought that she could give the orphaned pillow pet a good home.
Puppy was so pleased that she named the Pillow Pet after her self and takes her every where.
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George Washington and comapny |
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A Bird in the hand is worth 20 in the display case |
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Puppy II |
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Happy to be home. |
Monday, January 9, 2012
Election Year Coverage
Saturday, January 7 was Millard Fillmore's birthday. Today, we studied Millard Fillmore's presidency as part of school, and tomorrow we will study Richard Nixon.
In addition to Nixon and Fillmore, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and William McKinley were also born in the month of January. January isn't the month with the most presidents. That distinction belongs to October, which has six. At least one President has been born in each month. June and September only have one.
Here's a little bit more about the details of this teaching plan.
Preparation
Each Month
Get books out from library for the Presidents with birthdays in the next month.
I also start blog posts about each President scheduled to post in our Izola Becker Home School Blog on their birthday. Here is the post for Millard Fillmore.
Prior to Weeks with Birthdays
I will review the materials about the President and decide if I want to do some special project. This week, we started one of the 2 time lines we will be constructing. More on those in a bit.
Presentation
Each day on the President's birthday or school day closest to the birthday, I will give a short lesson about the President. I will have the students prepare a fact sheet. Later in the week, We will update the blog posts with more information. I will also have each of my kids who blog write a post each month with some facts about the Presidents born that month.
Today I cut 10 feet from a roll of paper and had Bunny Girl divide it into 10 inch sections. For those playing at home, that ends up in 12 sections, 1 for each month of the year. Tomorrow or the next day we will take the fact sheets for Nixon and Fillmore and assemble them on the January section of the roll. After the election, we will construct a more traditional timeline with the Presidents in chronological order.
Note: I did not realize until Today, that Nixon's birthday was today. For some reason when I looked at it yesterday, I thought I read the 19th. Otherwise, we would have studied Fillmore last Friday and Nixon on his birthday.
This is just a supplement to our curriculum. We are not studying American History at present. We just began Part II of Mystery of History today as well. I will try to post about that a little later this week.
Before I am history. Let me tell you of our HSBA featured blog. The category is Best Teen Blog. The Blog formerly known as Umbrella Girl won this year. This is a very enjoyable, fun to look at blog. The photos are excellent, as is this sample post about taking excellent photos.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Dave Out Loud Relocated
A Link Up: I am going to say something, and I don't want you to take it the wrong way. I hate Word Press. I have tried on several occasions to use Word Press blogs, even taught a blogging class using a Word Press platform. They are about as easy to use, as Millard Fillmore is easy to rate as one of the top 3 presidents ever. No offense to Millard Fillmore, in fact more on him tomorrow.
But back to my disdain for all things Word Press. The latest debacle came a few months ago, when I tried to start a vlog, called Dave Out Loud. I had a Word Press account with the nickname DaveOutLoud, so I thought using Word Press might be a good idea.
Big Mistake. Huge.
It took me almost an hour every time I posted to just put a video from my You Tube account on the blog. Yesterday, I finally stopped the madnes, and started a Dave Out Loud Vlog here at Blogger.
Here is yesterday's innuagral post. In the next few weeks I will be rerunning the videos I posted at the previous platform. Which, as it turns out, won't take an hour for all 8 episodes, let alone 1.
A Look Ahead: Tomorrow, I will be posting about a special project we will be doing at school this year regarding American Presidential History. This is one of the reasons, I had Millard Fillmore on the brain earlier. Not exactly what else I will be blogging about this week. It seems like it will be a rather eventful week, so I should have plenty of material.
HSBA Award Profile
Today's category: Best Homeschool Vlog
One reason why I started a vlog is to compete in this category next year. This year's winner, Women Living Well does so much more than vlog. Here is a sample post with an encouraging video about involving your family in your misistry.
A Quote to Start Things Off
Blog Tryouts - Commenters Edition
Snow Kidding!
These "kids" now range from 19 to 25
These Blogs Are SO 2024
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List Your Way3 months ago
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On Wednesday, after the election …4 months ago
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Grief: A Brief Description6 months ago
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Treasures everywhere6 years ago