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Hi folks,
Many of us by now have seen, or seen reference to, Dr. Benjamin Carson’s recent prayer breakfast attended by many pastors, and our president.
The link below provides a re-cap of the 25 minute speech, appampanied by the writer’s analysis. I find Dr. Carson to be a profoundly smart and eloquent person, and he achieved his success …the old-fashined way.
I hope you find it as informative and enlightening as I have.
http://www.care2.com/news/member/907581929/3527704
The photo serves as a sign for me to share this comment. Back in January I shared a story on the blog about an attack on my son by some young men. His trusty female English bulldog is the heroine in this story. To be short, my son had dinner & a beer in a local restaurant and when leaving was attacked by 3 young men who intended to steal his truck. Two were actually involved in the attack while another two served as lookouts. The entire incident was captured on video cameras the restaurant owner had in his parking lot. All four of the young men were arrested and interrogated. It was determined that one had no part in the attack and was released. Another confessed that the intent was to attack my son and steal his truck. He got a relatively light plea deal which involves house arrest. The two who actually attacked my son, one pulled a knife during the attack, appeared in court early yesterday. My son & I also were present. The last two also had taken plea deals. Pulling a knife during the attack made the charges much more serious than they might otherwise have been. At any rate, early yesterday the two plead guilty to a couple of felony counts and the judge sentenced them to 15 years in prison each. With good behavior they will be out in 7 or 8 years. One was 20 and the other was 21.
While I am glad the case was quickly resolved and that my son was not seriously injured, I left the courtroom feeling terribly sad. These two young men will spend the next several years of their lives in a state prison. It is my hope that somehow their lives can be changed in a positive way. However, my sense is that isn’t going to happen. I am sad because these will likely be two young lives wasted. Call me what you want, but I am saddened by wasted lives.
Fortunately, after our time in court yesteday, my son & I left and went back to our daily lives. He went back to work and I drove to Ft. Wayne to celebrate the life of a special person.
When I arrived at my current college in 2006, Bishop John D’Arcy greeted and welcomed me. He became a trusted friend and counselor as I served as president of one of “his” colleges. Bishop D’Arcy was the Bishop of the Ft. Wayne-South Bend Diocese in Indiana. He led worship in his first mass on February 3, 1957, and he departed this life on February 3, 2013. In between he lived a full and productive life. While he was a Bishop he never lost his belief that he was a priest sheparding his flock. I became a member of his flock in 2006 and he ministered and guided me subsequent to that. Given how my day started Friday and though I mourned his passing, the celebration of his life Friday afternoon at the funeral mass lifted my spirits. Leave it to Bishop D’Arcy to pick me up even after his earthly journey was done. Rest in Peace friend.
I’m sorry for the loss of your friend, Ron.
I also understand your sadness regarding the two young men. It is terribly sad when lives are thrown away. I too hope that they come to understand that, and decide to change their lives for the better. It may not happen, but hope is the only positive we have in this world.
Ron May @ 1:58 pm
Thanks for sharing.
Few folk are so blessed as to have had a shepherd such as that.
“and he achieved his success …the old-fashined way.”
If you mean having a superior IQ and unnaturally incredible hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional skills (along with hard work after he nearly stabbed a friend to death), yeah, I guess he did.
Ron, I think your reaction and empathy is the correct feeling. There are no winners in such a situation. What they hoped to gain from their crime, or worse, what could have happened if your son could not have overcome it, just makes you think of so many lives shattered by senseless violence and the disease of our society. Your son might be changed too, perhaps in a tiny unrecognizable way and perhaps profoundly, violence can do that. I am sorry he had to experience that.
We failed those two young men and that failure manifested in what could have been a true tragedy. We have to own that too. Far too many young people are in that same trajectory and we do not really seem to have any handle on that. More “reform schools”, more prisons, more intervention, less privacy, more counseling and mentoring? And who pays for all of it?
Violence, crime and being a victim are serious problems in this nation. I hope your family can find the peace that you need.
As this is an open thread, I’ll ask, “Who do you think should have jurisdiction in the following case?”
http://tinyurl.com/bgcfpbh
**
Reece Elliott in court over threats to kill US children
A British man has appeared in court charged with threatening to kill 200 American schoolchildren.
SNIP
**
English citizen
English citizen making threats in England
English citizen making threats via the internet.
Not the US.
The decline of Ancient Rome and other great civilizations due to internal decay makes a good story. I ink the evidence is just as strong that military overreach is the bigger culprit. Rome could not afford the military necessary to defend its vast empire. More recently, England and the continental European powers suffered the same fate. I recommend reading American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips for a thorough treatment of this. Just for reference, Mr. Phillips worked as a Republican Party strategist during the Reagan years,, so he is hardly a liberal.
Excellent read IMO:
“Again, it’s not the difference of opinions across party lines that matters but the inability to understand and value what the other side is saying. The ideological gridlock that plagues our government and politics now has multiple sources and is beyond the scope of this book. However, I believe that such an inquiry should start with the changes in the nature and reliability of work, particularly for American men, over the past four decades. Those changes are undermining the ability of individuals to control their own destiny. Yet economic dislocation and fear of change seem to be reinforcing attachment to the core American value of individualism and breeding hostility to collective action.
Whatever the socio-economic factors that feed our discontent, our system of government was designed by James Madison and the founders to foster sustained deliberation by representatives of the people who would be committed to acting in the “permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Too often, the Congress in which I served responded to the short-term interests of particular industries and groups. The Senate, once recognized as the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” hardly warrants that title today.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/09/former_congressman_tom_allen_gop_speaks_a_different_language/
Between SheVaCon and the rodeo, the Hotel Roanoke is the place to be this weekend. Where else can you see Storm Troopers rubbing shoulders with cowboys.
Re: Hillary @ 4:31 pm
My thought, exactly.
For the life of me, I don’t understand, “Northumbria Police said it was working with authorities in the United States and seeking advice as to who had jurisdiction in the incident.”
In part, the USofA needs to get out of the mindset of policing the world.
As we enter the Year of the Snake, I wonder who on the blog was born in 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, etc.
Who here puts great value on material wealth, is acute, aware, cunning, proud, vain, vicious, etc?
Dave Hicks, unless they wish to classify him as a “terrorist” there is no jurisdictional issue. And since he did not make terroristic threats against the US government or its facilities, the case is all English criminal law – analogous to making threatening phone calls [or through electronic means] which in VA, is a felony.
Sorry Dave Hick I wasn’t born in any of those years.
Sorry that should be Hicks.
Re: Ron May @ 8:36 pm
Surprise, surprise
[/sarcasm font]
1958, Year of the Dog. I put no great value in such things but I do enjoy reading what I am “supposed” to be.
Re: Sandi Saunders @ 8:53 pm
+1 here
Gee Sandi I’m a year of the dog person too. Not 1958 though. You females born in 1958 are supposed to have a pretty good year this year.
Re: my last two
I assume folk know that the day and time of birth also play into it for the true believer and that if they were born January to mid-February of the Western calendar, they need to check the Sexagenary cycle [see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle ], as they may be in the prior year.
Oh heck, I was born in the Year of the Ox…rather an unflattering name to be connected to…
Dave the snake be I
Actually to tie two together, I am a Leo Snake
Leo (the Snake) sounds like a made-man in the Cosa Nostra.
Ops.
Hit submit before adding a
So her is one.
.
.
Dave Hicks, you may be right
13.”As we enter the Year of the Snake…Who here puts great value on material wealth, is acute, aware, cunning, proud, vain, vicious, etc?”
Comment by Dave Hicks
Who here puts great value in either their Chinese year symbol or their conjectured Myers-Briggs Personality Type (besides Dave Hicks)?
I ask because like the Chinese year symbols and astrological signs too, the Myers-Briggs contains enough open ended imprecision, variability and subjectivity to allow one to see what they’d prefer to think of themselves, and is not as immutable than M-B salesmen claim. That’s why Myers-Briggs is not considered reliable or assigned proven validity by most of the professional psychological community, despite its’ popularity among the lay public and HR folks to whom it’s been aggressively sold. (The most common personality assessment tools used by psychologists are the MMPI-2 or the MCMI-III).
http://www.recruiter.com/i/critique-of-the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-critique/
So what the pseudo-sciences of Chinese year symbols, Myers-Briggs and astrological signs test most of all is one’s need to claim a particular identity, with their self-reinforcing mechanisms.
But in sheer numbers of adherents, Chinese year symbols may be more popular than either astrological signs or M-B types anyway, so I’ll just stick to believing in the unique self; Ronnie Self, that is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhZRvyvzi7M
To quote Dr. Pittenger, [ http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/Articles/develop/mbti.pdf ]
“The MBTI reminds us of the olvious truth that all people are not alike, but then claims that every person can be fit neatly into one of 16 boxes. I believe that MBTI attempts to force the complexities of human personality into an artificial and limiting classification scheme. The focus on the “typing” of people reduces the attention paid to the unique qualities and potential of each individual.”
Gee, sounds like what I said at http://tinyurl.com/b67vx4g
—-
Again
“Because the MBTI is a typology, we would expect that its scores would be distributed bimodally and not be normally distributed. … The data indicate that there is no evidence of bimodal distributions for the MBTI. Instead, most people score between the two extremes. This means that although one person may score as an E, his or her test results may be very similar to those of another person’s, who scores as an I.”
Dang, that sure sounds like what the PhD psychologist that we used cautioned. In fact, he (and I understand other professionals) would “x” out factors where folk score near the center of a factor.
Yup, I do believe that Warren is on to something. Folk should not get to obsessed about something that in which they have not had extensive training.
Pisces/wood horse.
Re: Richard J Beason — February 9, 2013 @ 10:06 pm
Hum?
Good thing I threw you a couple of winks, eh?
*
.
Dave Hicks – Indeed Lol
Dave, are you related to Vernon and Jim?
Re: Richard J Beason @ 9:41 am
Not that I am aware of.
However, it is a very large and extended family — Va, NC, Tn, Ms, Ar, Tx
If their roots are long time Virginia, there is a good likelihood of us being related. If they trace back to Robert Hicks, of Hicksford (now known as Emporia), yup.
As this is the latest “Open” thread, I throw this out here:
http://tinyurl.com/alvl3ne
**
Privacy invasion on a parking ticket?
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (UPI) — A little noticed privacy case, seemingly insignificant but with large implications on how Americans actually live, is simmering away at the U.S. Supreme Court like a pot of hot coffee.
At issue is the personal information put on parking tickets in thousands of communities across the country, in this case the Village of Palatine, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.
SNIP
**
Thoughts?
Extension to other situations?
For example, reports of other pre-conviction personal information?
Couldn’t help think about some of the folk here when I saw this week’s Police Limit Comic
****** WARNING ******
“Police Limit Comic is published on PoliceOne every Sunday. For more than a decade, the strip’s cast of unnamed characters has been constantly struggling with stresses, not only from the criminal element on the street, but also from the upper echelons of the police department’s top brass, clueless judges, and the liberal media.”
**********************************
http://tinyurl.com/akyojc5
Hum?
http://tinyurl.com/bhkmkcl
**
Feb 10, 8:31 AM EST
How Obama is wielding executive power in 2nd term
By CALVIN WOODWARD and RICHARD LARDNER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — This is what “Forward” looks like. Fast forward, even.
President Barack Obama’s campaign slogan is springing to life in a surge of executive directives and agency rule-making that touch many of the affairs of government. They are shaping the cost and quality of health plans, the contents of the school cafeteria, the front lines of future combat, the price of coal. They are the leading edge of Obama’s ambition to take on climate change in ways that may be unachievable in legislation.
Altogether, it’s a kinetic switch from what could have been the watchword of the Obama administration in the closing, politically hypersensitive months of his first term: pause.
Whatever the merits of any particular commandment from the president or his agencies, the perception of a government expanding its reach and hitting business with job-killing mandates was sure to set off fireworks before November
SNIP
**
Dave Hicks,
In addition to what the obama administration is doing in other areas by regulatory decree, their assault on the working poor and part-time workers is a horrible thing to watch.
obama allowed the payroll taxes to increase on the working poor, and their beloved obama-care is REDUCING part-time workers’ work hours through-out the economy…including the bastions of liberal power, namely educational institutions and local and state government.
The rich and wealthy were made out to be the boogey-man by the libbers, but what they ended up doing was smacking the middle-class right in the face, and for some inexplicable reason, doing the same to the poor and working poor…followed by a sucker punch to the gut.
Am I wrong?
33. Dave – Vernon was a dellow Roanoke CPA, his son, Jim was/is? a Va Tech accounting professor. Nice guys.
LOL
http://tinyurl.com/a3hfloy
**
Free divorce for Valentine’s Day
WDIV
Added on February 9, 2013
An attorney in Michigan is giving away a free divorce in a Valentine’s Day contest. WDIV reports.
[video]
**
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/28898_420947377986562_1950651900_n.jpg
You’re wrong, Frank.
“obama allowed the payroll taxes to increase on the working poor, and their beloved obama-care is REDUCING part-time workers’ work hours through-out the economy…including the bastions of liberal power, namely educational institutions and local and state government.
The rich and wealthy were made out to be the boogey-man by the libbers, but what they ended up doing was smacking the middle-class right in the face, and for some inexplicable reason, doing the same to the poor and working poor…followed by a sucker punch to the gut.
Am I wrong?”
–Frank
Yes, Frank, you’re wrong — again. That is a regular thing.
First, you left out one very important consideration: Obama said he was going to temporarily cut payroll taxes for two years. He cut them first.
Second, he stuck to his promise that this would be for two years.
Third, you deceptively claim, he “allowed the payroll taxes to increase on the working poor.” Well, that doesn’t tell the whole story, does it? He allowed them to increase on everyone, not merely the working poor, as you’re attempting to frame it. That was part of the “temporary” promise he made.
We realize this stuns you. When the GOP enacted the Bush tax cuts, those were supposed to be temporary as well. But the GOP reneged on its promise and wanted to make them permanent. Obviously, you’re so unused to politicians sticking by their words that you lionize the ones who renege and demonize the ones who don’t.
And that topsy-turvy mentality is characteristic of pretty much everything you post here.
Be-Bop-A-Lula, Warren! Good choice.
So Dan, are you saying that the Democrats didn’t want to extend the Bush tax cuts?
The more this LA sniper study goes on, the weirder it gets. A $1million bounty? I guess when cops are threatened, you get some attention.
Am I wrong?
Comment by Frank — February 10, 2013 @ 11:36 am
Always and indubitably.
Lindsay Graham has lost what ever mind he ever had. Now he’s threatening to block Obama’s cabinet appointments for Defense and CIA until he finds out “what time the President went to sleep that night” referencing the Benghazi consulate attack. I once had a modicum of respect for Graham. No more.
http://news.yahoo.com/senator-vows-delay-obamas-nominees-over-libya-160603738.html
The joke of the day. Dick Cheney calling ANYBODY second rate!
http://news.yahoo.com/cheney-criticizes-obama-nominees-wyoming-speech-050746215.html
Hey. If anyone’s an expert on “second rate” -or third -it’s Dick.
dano, wayne, and gdad…hi there, ….it’s the three stooges!
hey all you stooges:
obama didn’t warn his low-information supporters about their fica tax going back to “normal”, you know, the folks who swallowed his campaign promises to “make the rich pay their fair share”, and “he wasn’t gonna fix the financial mess on the backs of the middle-class and working poor”. he shouted those phrases, or words similar to, at about every campaign opportunity…which was every day, all day, for over a year. you know, SOME of you folks took him at his word, and got a big surprise in their first paychecks in 2013, ….and you don’t care. oh, my, gosh! YOU are not a bleeding heart lib! Holy cow! Who knew?
oh, i almost forgot. the young workers gaining their initial employment during 2010 and 2012, …precious few black workers at that, comparatively, got hit with a fica tax increase, didn’t they?
i think the three of you ought to right a great big column for the RTs, explaining why those folks ought to (as J.M. White believes…) be happy that they are contributing to fixing the mess we’re in, by having smaller pay checks.
i fully expected that obama would carve out some fica relief for the $50k and less income workers. and, i think he would have gotten it passed…probably with an increase in the upper imcome limits.
oh, and dano,
did the limit on the Bush tax cuts have a time limit which couldn’t be extended? after you answer, could you please correct what you said about that earlier this afternoon, at 2:41 pm?
wayne,
with grahamn’s most recent threat, i might end up having a modicum of respect for graham….if he sticks to his guns.
“Dick Cheney calling ANYBODY second rate!”
Fossil got a heart meant for a 40 year old. Money talks.
And crickets from Dan . . .
Did everyone see in the Roanoke Times how obamacare is forcing colleges to get rid of full time teachers and hire part time? Virginia Western will be hit especially hard. That’s great for education, isn’t it? I wonder if Ancilla will be in the same boat.
So many unforeseen consequences of this cancerous law.
“So Dan, are you saying that the Democrats didn’t want to extend the Bush tax cuts?”
Chuck I’ve written about this at least 99 times on this blog already. Some Democrats chickened out on letting the cuts expire in 2010. That doesn’t necessarily mean they WANTED to extend the cuts — what it means is they were afraid not to. Don’t you grasp the difference? They were craven and cowardly.
So Obama knew he was going to be served up a bill that would extend them. He could have vetoed it; instead, he bargained to get the TEMPORARY FICA tax cut as part of the extending the Bush tax cuts deal. But at the same time, he loudly and clearly said the FICA cuts were temporary AND the extension was, too. He warned he wasn’t going to sign a bill extending all the tax cuts again.
And he kept his word on both, which is more than I can say for the Republicans.
And you and some others are criticizing him for keeping his word. It makes no sense.
Four more years!! Hay!! Four more years!!
Chuck
Your graphic.. ( https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/28898_420947377986562_1950651900_n.jpg).. will not get any response because it is total truth and nothing a liberal can say will help it to make sense.
“Did everyone see in the Roanoke Times how obamacare is forcing colleges to get rid of full time teachers and hire part time? Virginia Western will be hit especially hard.”
suzie, you should least least try to get it right when you comment. Or are you just lying on purpose again? Get back to us when you have the facts right.
As predicted by me, Frankie has yet another dead horse to pummel.
“:suzie, you should least least try to get it right when you comment. Or are you just lying on purpose again? Get back to us when you have the facts right.”
Mr. Full of facts gdad:
Why always a response about someone else’s lack facts and never post your own? A much better argument is to respond with those facts that YOU say haven’t been discussed. Ready, Set, GO!
PP, I admire suzie SOOOOO much that I’m just following her example of demanding that people do their own homework. She didn’t on this one. Besides, I’m not real sure why suzie is so worried about the community colleges. She considers it a supreme insult to suggest that that’s the ONLY place somebody’s child could get in.
BTW, PP, I was kind enough to help YOU out over on another thread where you posted a link to a story about the pollution crated making solar panels. I thought you’d appreciate it if I highlighted the part about how solar is still MUCH, MUCH cleaner than fossil fuels. No doubt you appreciate me digging that fact out of the article you posted to in an apparent effort to make solar look bad.
pistal pete,
well said. gdad just shoots his pea-shooter from concealed holes, then ducks back inside.
Many of us by now have seen, or seen reference to, Dr. Benjamin Carson’s recent prayer breakfast attended by many pastors, and our president.
The link below provides a re-cap of the 25 minute speech, appampanied by the writer’s analysis. I find Dr. Carson to be a profoundly smart and eloquent person, and he achieved his success …the old-fashined way.
I hope you find it as informative and enlightening as I have.
http://www.care2.com/news/member/907581929/3527704
That was a great speech, Frank. Carson talked about people being in control in control of their health care–right in front of obama. Needless to say, obama didn’t agree. He doesn’t want the people to be in control of anything.
Why always a response about someone else’s lack facts and never post your own? A much better argument is to respond with those facts that YOU say haven’t been discussed. Ready, Set, GO!
Gdad isn’t interested in discussion, PP.
I see that suzie still hasn’t gone back and reread the article.
suzie has absolutely no interest in “discussion” about this, as we all know. All one needs do is read the lie in her original post and her comment about Ron’s college.
Can’t speak to the impact of ACA on the VCCS colleges. However, ACA will not force Ancilla to lay off full time faculty or staff to hire part time replacements. It’s not how we deal with situations.