Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Articles Telling Family Stories
August 6, 2005
As a Republican I have long worried about the erosion of freedom in America. It was a concern for freedom that propelled me into politics when I was eleven, having read Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater. It was a desire to leave a more civil America for my five children that has kept me in politics all of my life...MORE
August 21, 2006
“Mom, when did Congress pass the Oil Plundering Act?” Arthur surprised me while I was busy at the computer with the above question. I paused. I had been wasting a moment reading the posts on the purported affair between Lew Rockwell, and Cindy Sheehan. Libertarianland is a small world where everyone pretty much knows each other. “What did you say?” I was sure I had misheard him. When I am reading I have been known to ignore earthquakes, even when it isn’t gossip about someone I know. I got to know Lew when... MORE
July 13, 2006
On Friday morning, in the Superior Court of Manhattan, John Fund will face the consequences for his own actions. John Fund lied, slandered, libeled, and used his power in concerted attempts to destroy those who refused to be silenced. He is practiced in the skills of deception having studied under a master of that political art form, Karl Rove. Our trust in justice does not die all at once, it seeps out through hundreds and thousands of small wounds over a long time. The process of Justice in America has not been swift;... MORE
July 13, 2006
The long awaited trial arising from the accusations that John Fund, then and still, the mind behind the editorials pumped out by the Wall Street Journal, convened to impanel a jury on Tuesday, July 11th and today is expected to begin hearing evidence. The trial, which Fund told associates would never happen, is expected to run until Friday of this week but may stretch out longer. Fund was charged with abusing his long time live-in girl friend, Morgan Pillsbury, in early 2002 and managed to evade prosecution on criminal charges... MORE
April 27, 2006
In Justin Raimondo’s article titled, John Fund vs. the Truth, online yesterday morning at antiwar.com, Justin illuminates the many failings of Fund, former WSJ editorial page editor and now columnist for that increasingly questionable publication. If you examine the publications that have been used as tools for planting opinion and values useful to NeoCons for the past 50 years the WSJ will always be high on the list. In the first paragraph of his article Justin links to an article by John Connelly titled, Sex, Lies,... MORE
April 18, 2006
On April 18, 2006, San Francisco will commemorate the centennial of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, an event that leveled that city. The number of people who died has never been more than estimated. The other loses of various kinds ran into what today would be billions of dollars. On that first day this photo was taken from the St. Francis Hotel, showing the city in flames. Less than 24 hours later the St. Francis would also have been gutted. Behind that crumbling facade of human invention stood a man with an active,... MORE
March 7, 2006
How can it be that a long time member of the National Federation of Republican Women and member of the Daughters of the American Revolution could be Threat To National Security? This came as one of those moments when you are sure they must be talking about someone else.
This was especially shocking to me since I seem to be the Threat. I was very surprised that my blog had elicited so much attention from the Powers That Be this morning. I learned about this when a friend called me and said her attempt to get on and read my latest scribble was been greeted with the warning, 'FORBIDDEN!!!!' Other calls came in rapidly...MORE
December 23, 2007
We all go through some hard times. Perhaps not like we are about to experience, but hard. Hard times teach us things that otherwise we would not probably learn. This Christmas many people are buying less. Many families are buying just one gift for each child instead of filling up the places under the Christmas tree. All of us will learn unexpected lessons in the months and years to come as our nation is humbled. If you had not guessed, that is going to happen. I suspect that those lessons learned will eventually be viewed... MORE
October 30, 2007
When the kids were little we used to spend a lot of time in the car together on the way to school, lessons, and such. To make sure that those times were not a total loss, and to distract them from the sort of behavior that makes kids, kids, I used to sing. Or, rather, to be entirely accurate, I taught them the lyrics to songs. No one could have accused me of being able to sing...MORE
July 19, 2007
Ronald Reagan was a wonderful, warm man. He made you love him by small acts of kindness and beautiful gestures. Raspberry Gumballs and the President. But what America needed was the simple truth and a champion for individual rights and the Constitution; That Ronnie did not have to give. Today we need that individual even more desperately. We have that in Congressman Ron Paul. United Republicans of California (“UROC“) was founded on April 22, 1963, by then State Senator Joe Shell (see footnote) and Assemblyman... MORE
June 30, 2007
My family has been celebrating the 4th of July with a reading of the Declaration of Independence for a long time now. I am descended from many families; all of them include individuals who participated in the American Revolution. My application to the Daughters of the American Revolution used Benjamin Pillsbury, who served at Valley Forge. The stories you hear about Valley Forge were designed to keep people away from the training camp being run that winter. General Washington was getting some professional pointers from Baron... MORE
May 28, 2007
“Mom, is George Bush a terrorist?” Sometimes an unexpected question really clarifies one’s thinking. This afternoon I experienced one of those moments. My son, Arthur, asked me the question while I was busy tapping away on the computer. I paused; this also happens occasionally. Arthur, continuing in the absence of my tapping clarified that he was not saying that George Bush lurked in airports with bombs strapped to his torso or any other part of himself. He meant that George Bush, by enabling the rape of America... MORE
December 15, 2008
Christmas is coming and with the joy most of us experience the stress of not having finished our buying. This year most of us are also suffering through the pangs of not having enough money to buy the gifts that would we would normally give. Across the country people are reexamining the choices they would have made and finding a wealth of possibilities that change their relationships with each other in unexpected ways. Instead of giving from the wallet they are giving from their hearts. This trend made me smile, recalling... MORE
November 27, 2008
This year, as we watch the world around us collapsing, we are learning that Christmas is not about money. Christmas is about loving each other, about gifts that have nothing to do with the green folding stuff, or even silver and gold. Our money is melting down into worthless goo. Stores are closing; cameras are going up at intersections across the country. This morning I received a call from a friend in Florida who argued for twenty minutes at her bank where she has done business for twenty years. The problem? They wanted... MORE
November 24, 2008
Perhaps you are too young to remember when childhood was safe; children played outside from the time they were small. We went trick or treating without thinking someone might hurt us. Doors were open in our neighborhoods; we accepted and trusted each other. Children learned most of what mattered at home and in their neighborhoods before ever starting school and old people were sources of amazing stories. I learned about the Pony Express from Mr. Black across the street who had, at 16, been a Pony Express Rider. His eyes... MORE
November 19, 2008
When my son, Justin, was around 12 he saw a movie about Houdini. Fired with a sense of emulation he told his sisters, then in their late teens, that he could do anything Houdini could do. Determined to prove this he followed them around demanding they duct tape him to a chair. They declined, for all the reasons you can imagine. But Justin persisted. Eventually, they complied. Justin then told them not to release him no matter what because they would be interfering with his demonstration. He told them if they released him he would nag them forever. They believed him, having been his sisters all of his life...MORE
October 4, 2008
In real life, James Dean was much like the character he played in Rebela psychologically troubled young man raised in a broken family. Known mostly for his attitude, Dean’s life was marked by pain. Sullen and painfully vulnerable, he was tormented by an offensive world and his own internal desolation. I try so hard, Dean once wrote to a friend, to make people reject me. Why? The above quote came from yet another article published this time by John W. Whitehead at Rutherford Institute. Again it mischaracterizes a man... MORE
May 11, 2008
Two women, Michelle Hammond, and Lynn Sears, accompanied by a sheriff, Deputy Kemmerling, drove up to the house in two white cars, one a patrol car and the other a government vehicle. They asked to see Arthur, my son. Arthur is 30, but disabled. Arthur had left to take a short constitutional after having lunch, he had then been gone for about 15 minutes. I told them he would be back shortly and went inside, leaving them to wait on the driveway. The house is a cabin located in a small subdivision. Most of the cabins are occupied... MORE
April 19, 2008
Carrots can fight back. I remember when my youngest daughter, Ayn pulled out one carrot and it suddenly let go after resisting. Plump, she went right on her bottom, looking surprised. Then she started to laugh, still holding on to that carrot. Then she ate it. It was a long time ago. Back then I tried to grow all of our food because I knew it was much healthier. Also cheaper. That meant time in the garden with the kids. Those were good times that still make me smile. Such are the moments you treasure, along with the luminescent... MORE
October 27, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Falcon Heene did not ride the winds in a balloon, soaring to over 10,000 feet. The six year old was never in danger, the staged event costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, stealing the time and abusing the trust of millions of Americans. But one century ago a man was carried off in a run away balloon, his death reported in the afternoon newspapers in San Francisco. His wife was besieged by reporters eager for the sensational story and were disappointed when he walked in, covered with... MORE
August 17, 2009
Connecting the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, April 18, 1906 - First nature movie October 1909, Yosemite - Centennial U.S. Air Show, Dominguez Hills, Jan.10-20, 1910.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Oct. 31, 1909) — The Fairy’s first flight had taken its aeronaut 10,000 feet into the sky in uncontrolled motion. The aeronaut, Arthur C. Pillsbury, had been finishing up a day’s photography, teeth chattering, when the white balloon had been driven by a sudden violent wind across the Bay, towing the small boat to which it was tethered in its wake. The Fairy, ripped from its anchorage, shot into the air. No one thought Pillsbury would survive. The Fairy was not designed for free flight, the flight community knew that. What we know can change rapidly...MORE
March 3, 2009
This last January a baby girl was born. Her parents named her April and hope mightily that the world she grows to know will be one of hope and prosperity. We can make it so for her and all our children. That matters to me very personally because little April is my first grand daughter. Her mother looked just like her and worrying about April’s future causes fractures in my heart. The world today is growing very personal, we are all frightened. As the meltdown continues we look into the eyes of our children and cannot... MORE
January 16, 2009
If the media had followed the clear rules they had written for themselves, would we now be on the express down elevator to a meltdown of global proportions? Likely not. We would have problems, but we would have seen them more clearly. We needed the truth. We did not get it, for perhaps as many reasons as there are individuals in journalism. The first problem was that journalists so blithely ignored the standards of their profession. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has established a code of ethics. The tenets... MORE
May 11, 2013
Last night mothers and daughters gathered at St. Peter’s Church for the annual Mother – Daughter Dinner. Dads and men cooked, dished up, and served the meal, comprised of several courses. Garden Salad, fresh and tangy, a main dish comprised of a d’Poulet au Croissant, Sweet Corn Collage and fresh vegetables. Dessert was Velvet Chocolate Cake. The service was astonishing. Plates were placed in front of each lady with a smile and attention to our every need. Amidst the happy voices and drawings for prizes, talk... MORE
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