41st Annual Yellow Daisy Festival

41st Annual Yellow Daisy Festival
Dates: September 10-13, 2009
Location: Special Events Meadow

Thursday, September 10: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Friday, September 11: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Saturday, September 12: 10 a.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, September 13: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

FREE WITH PARK ENTRY! Voted the Nation's #1 Arts & Crafts Show SIX YEARS IN A ROW by Sunshine Artist Magazine, a Southeast Tourism Society Top 20 Event and winner of multiple awards by the Georgia Festival and Events Association.

More than 500 artists and crafters from 38 States and two countries display their works for your appreciation and purchase. Daily live entertainment, Children's Corner activities, clogging and crafter demonstrations throughout the event as well as fabulous festival foods.

Vehicle entry to Stone Mountain Park is $10.00 for a one-day permit during the festival or $35.00 for an annual parking pass. No coolers or pets can be brought inside the festival.


The folks and I plan on going on Saturday if the weather is clear. Looks like a lot of fun, I love craft fairs.


Yellow Daisy Shopping Tips
Tips for the Inexperienced(and Professional)Yellow Daisy Shopper


The many shopping, food and entertainment options can be overwhelming to any shopper, whether a long time attendee or brand new to the festival. To minimize anxiety, tips on the best way to delight in the Yellow Daisy Festival are provided.

1.Gather your shopping posse. Whether it is your mother, grandmother, daughter or best friends you will want to make sure you experience the Yellow Daisy Festival with your best pals.

2.Prepare for your Yellow Daisy Festival shopping weekend by checking the weather forecast, and then choosing appropriate clothing. Clothing that is light and comfortable along with walking shoes will suffice.

3.Prepare a bag with essentials that you will need through-out the weekend. This bag should include: cash, credit card, check-book, sunscreen, lip gloss, compact and cell phone. Shoppers are welcome to bring their own shopping bags for purchases, or they can pick up a free biodegradable one at the Yellow Daisy Festival merchandise shop.

4.Plan your shopping route. With an estimated 200,000 shoppers over the four day festival, it is easy to miss artist booths. Blackberry Lane is the suggested beginning; a map can be found here.

5.Arrive thirty minutes before the festival gates open. Hours are 10a.m.- 6p.m. Thursday, Friday and Sunday and 10a.m.- 7:30p.m.on Saturday.

6.Visit the featured artist, Vikki Mancil Weigel, at booth A35. Vikki is a self-taught artist and is recognized for her brilliant color palette and childlike spirit.

7.Send your husband, brother or father to the Men’s Den where they can relax in recliners while watching fall football games on a big screen TV.

8.Send your kids to the Children’s Corner where they can participate in crafts, rock walls, face painting and crazy hair.

9.Take a break from shopping and indulge in the fried candy bars, roasted corn and fresh cut fruit located at the many vendors. While on your break, enjoy the live bands providing entertainment at the Yellow Daisy Main stage.

10.End your weekend by taking inventory of all your purchases and plan next year’s Yellow Daisy Festival trip.

Why we don't heckle the president

Commentary: Why we don't heckle the president

Editor's note: John Feehery worked for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans in Congress. He is president of Feehery Group, a Washington-based advocacy firm that has represented clients that include News Corp., Ford Motor Co. and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He formerly was a government relations executive vice president for the Motion Picture Association of America.


John Feehery says heckling the president is showing disrespect for the office.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When I worked in the House of Representatives in the mid-'90s, Congressional Republicans grew enamored of the idea of replicating the tradition of "Question Time" that was popular in the British House of Commons.

C-SPAN had just started broadcasting "Question Time", where the British prime minister thrusts and parries with colleagues on the other side of the aisle, while hoping for supportive statements from those on his side of the aisle.

It seemed like a lot of fun, most of all because the party out of power could show their disdain for the government's leader in no uncertain terms, and best of all, face-to-face.

The proposal to do an American-style question time, with Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich as the principal antagonists, died, mostly because the president had little interest in subjecting himself to that kind of ridicule on a weekly basis.

I thought of that episode in congressional history when I heard the immortal words of Joe Wilson, who impolitely called the president a liar Thursday evening. Unlike in the House of Commons, where the governing minister is part of the parliamentary body, in America, the president represents both the government and something more exalted.

While Congress is the first branch named in the Constitution, the president is the commander-in-chief, the leader of the country, and in many unspoken ways treated as a king.

We stand when the president enters the room, no matter who the president is. He has his own tune when he goes anywhere. When he gives a speech, his seal is on the lectern. The president is treated with royal respect, even though he is overtly not a royal. Ever since George Washington declined to become a king, we have established traditions that give the president all the kingly trappings.

That is why when Joe Wilson blurted out loud about the president, it was so jarring. Wilson is a very nice guy, very earnest, conscientious, hardworking and unfailingly polite. He is not one to do this sort of thing. He is not a protester, a demonstrator, a conscientious objector or a nonviolent resistor.

So when he blurted out what many other Republicans probably were thinking, he crossed an invisible but firm line of decorum on the House floor. Under House rules, you are prohibited from casting aspersions on the motivations of your colleagues. There is even a procedure for punishing those who do. You can be stripped of your right to speak for the rest of the day on the floor if your words are taken down and ruled out of order. No such specific prohibition exists in the House for when a president is speaking because, well, it is just not done. Members understand that presidents, no matter who they are, deserve respect.

Joe Wilson understands that fact, which is why he apologized so quickly to the president's chief of staff.

When the queen addresses the British Parliament, she is accorded ritualized decorum and respect, firmly rooted in history and precedent. It is not so different here in America. In our nation's rituals, we treat the president with the respect befitting the office, no matter who the current occupant might be.

Some may question why we treat the office of the president with such respect, when sometimes our presidents in the their personal or professional lives perhaps weren't worthy of that respect. After all, America was founded as a reaction against monarchy, we pride ourselves on our democratic impulses, and we have ably resisted the temptation to crown a king for more than 200 years.

I guess it is because the office of the president is one of the unifying symbols of our country, and we place our best hopes and worst fears in the lap of the occupant, hoping that whoever resides in the Oval Office will resist partisan temptation and do the best for all of our citizens, regardless of party or philosophy.

We treat the office of president with the utmost respect because we hope that the president will return the favor.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Feehery.

I'm inclined to agree with John Feehery, about heckling the President showing disrespect for the office. Since I do not know Joe Wilson personally I can't comment on whether or not he is a nice guy; but judging by his most recent public behavior I'd have to say he was a butthead. :p

A Message to the "Honorable" Joe Wilson

As you sow, so shall you reap.

I'm a fan of expendiency:

I'm a fan of expendiency:
Can we stop with all the nonsense about
Obama being a socialist, a Marxist, and a
Stalinist, and just call the man the n-word
already! Dang!
~ Dee Hill Zuganelli

I'd love to ask my great-great-grandparents 'What was it like to be a slave?'

What was it like to be a slave?
I'm black. Duh :p My great grandmother on my mothers side was born a slave. If I have to go back to great-great grandparents I'd want to know all about the horrors of that life.

I spent Friday night in the hospital!

Know how to make God laugh? Plan something. ~ Anonymous



As previously mentioned, I had a hysteroscopic myomectomy on Tuesday, August 25, 2009. Since then I have had constant pain in my right calf. I kinda figured it was a blood clot and this was confirmed by googling my symptoms. That's correct as of Tuesday of this week I knew I had a DVT- Deep Vein Thrombosis. Now here is where my normal pragmatic nature flew the coop. I didn't do anything about it until Thursday, September 3, 2009. That's right I limped around for over a week bitching about the pain and taking Motrin in hopes it would just sort of dissolve and go away on its own.

Thursday morning the pain was so intense I couldn't stand long enough to brush my teeth. I called the doc who did the surgery and left a message for her nurse. The nurse called me back within the hour and told me it sounded like a thrombosis and I had an appt. in radiology for 9:30 AM Friday at Emory to check it out.

Friday morning mom drives me into Atlanta for the ultrasound. It's a 46 mile drive door-to-door. My appt was for 9:30 AM and we were signing in at 9:10 AM, we left home at 8:30 AM! FYI-Until you have had a 79 year old woman with cataracts, who is nervous about her baby girl being sick, drive 80 mph to the hospital you don't know fear.

They had to do both legs. I guess so that they could see what normal looked like as opposed to the leg with the clot. Anyway the radiologist finished the ultrasound and asked if my doc was easy to reach? I said yes. Things moved somewhat quickly from there. Much to my chagrin, I was told I was being admitted to the hospital. Not sure why, but I just figured they would give me some pills and send me home. I was genuinely shocked to hear they needed to keep me.

They walked me upstairs to admissions, I filled out the necessary paper work. Then I was taken to the CIU which is a sort of transistional waiting area for people while they get your room ready. I was there for a few hours. They took my vitals, 7 vials of blood, and hooked up a saline IV. By 1:30 PM I was in my own room and trying to push my mom out the door. I can't speak for all cities; but you do not want to be stuck in Friday afternoon traffic in Atlanta. Add to that it was a holiday weekend and you are just pretty much screwed. I wanted mom to leave before the holiday rush hour started. It has taken us as long as 2.5 hours to get home, if we let rush hour catch us. Plus, mom sometimes gets disoriented in the city.

Why they discharged me less than 24 hours later I have no idea. They still don't know for sure why I got the blood clot. They think it might be because after the 19 day period I had in July they put me on the pill. Surgery + birth control pill can = blood clot. More importantly in my mind, I still cannot walk, stand, or sit upright with my feet on the floor for more than 5 minutes without severe pain in my right calf.

So now I have to take 5 mg of Warfarin once a day for the next 3-6 months; and Lovenox twice a day. Both are blood thinners. I dislike the Lovenox intensely because it is not a pill, but an injection which comes in a pre-loaded syringe; which I have to give myelf in the stomach twice a day. I hate needles.

About my original plans for the day: After the ultrasound I had planned on going to pick up some pantry and freezer staples at Trader Joes's, then lunch at the Majestic Diner. I was craving their chicken souvlaki gyro, which is the best I've had outside of NYC. Then we were just gonna go home, maybe swim, and relax before my cousin Malcolm (age 8)came to stay for the weekend.