tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84522404372755510742024-03-13T07:11:00.483-04:00phelpspeakwords by scott edward phelpsScott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.comBlogger568125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-76308437828327765172017-01-27T12:23:00.001-05:002017-01-27T12:23:09.053-05:00"...Hashtag Redux..."Not a day passes, these days, that I don't find yet another thing that Donald Trump and I don't have in common.<br />
<br />
Today's discovery isn't fresh out of the muck, but it's timely and topical by my chronometer.<br />
<br />
He is incapable of ever being wrong, ever admitting he doesn't know better about anything and everything and, rest easy, chronic worriers, his wall will be built, get old and fall to dust before he ever admits that he has ever made a mistake about anything.<br />
<br />
As for me, well, I'm more than ready to admit that I made a serious mistake .<br />
<br />
Three weeks ago, give or take, I posted the following on my primary Facebook page<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>a legitimate case can be made that the hashtag <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/notmypresident?source=feed_text&story_id=10155212199763268"><span class="_5afx"><span class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">notmypresident</span></span></a>
is inappropriate under any circumstance, given that respect for the
office is, and should be, separate from respect for the person occupying
the office.....</i><br />
<i> that said, for those of us who wish to respect
the office while expressing our displeasure (and/or rejection) of the
occupant.....</i><br />
<i> ladies and gentlemen.(drum roll...)</i><br />
<div class="text_exposed_show">
<i> this citizen, and I invite you to join if you feel so moved, believes the incoming occupant to be</i><br />
<i><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/notpresidential?source=feed_text&story_id=10155212199763268"><span class="_5afx"><span class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">notpresidential</span></span></a></i><br />
<i> he has the opportunity to prove otherwise.</i><br />
<i> breath, to date, not currently being held.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
It took me less than a month to realize:<br />
<br />
a) I was still making an effort to speak on behalf of taking the high road.<br />
b) my own personal respect and reverence for the office of President was factoring into my judgement<br />
c) I was, foolishly, given my own life experience and the perspective gained accordingly, sub-consciously playing "peace maker" in a tsunami sized cess pool of rancor, venom, vitriol, disgust and demagoguery.<br />
<br />
I freely admit, at this writing, that I made a mistake in suggesting that Donald Trump be given anything even remotely resembling respect.<br />
<br />
He was unfit and unqualified to be President the moment he set foot in the race.<br />
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He remains, clearly and egregiously, unfit and unqualified to be President. <br />
He was, and is, a reprehensible human being who I would go to extraordinary lengths to exclude from my personal and/or professional life, were I to encounter him in more "civilian" circumstances.<br />
<br />
His behavior, since his swearing in, has done nothing to indicate there will be any improvement in his presentation and has done EVERYTHING to indicate that his damaged personality will become more unwieldy and harmful to this nation and the world <br />
<br />
His election to the nation's highest office represents what , I feel confident, will eventually be judged as one of the lowest, most disgraceful moments in the history of the United States of America.<br />
<br />
All that is necessary, it was wisely said, for evil to flourish, is for good men to do nothing.<br />
I harbor no illusions about my editorial two cents having any kind of impact whatsoever on the fate of a nation or the world.<br />
<br />
That said, I reiterate that my previous post was an error in judgement, a betrayal of my own intellect and an indifference to the gut instinct that has served me reasonably well as a man, husband, father, grandfather and friend for the past 65 years.<br />
<br />
I am an educated man. I am well above average in intelligence. I have no deeply rooted or blinding prejudices that would taint or mutate my willingness and constant desire to be accommodating, reasonable, compromising and/or ready and able to see all sides, in hopes of finding common ground on this planet we all share in our mortal lifetimes.<br />
<br />
And I harbor no personal ill will, nor wish for harm, toward Donald Trump.<br />
<br />
But, for the record, if only for my own sense of speaking the truth as I know it, he is, now, and for the remainder of the time this nation is afflicted with his emotional and psychological state of being.....<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>#notmypresident</b><br />
<br />
Here's an additional bonus I will be freely sprinkling around.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>#unacceptable</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Note: if you are reading this piece and are, either, a Facebook friend or found your way here via Facebook and you disagree with my comments, spare yourself the time and bother of replying or commenting here, or there, in any way. </i><br />
<br />
<i>In the spirit of the man elected to sit in the Oval Office, I'm only interested in hearing from people who agree with everything I say or do every hour of the day.</i><br />
<br />
<i>And, I will delete any comments that are not in sync with my own.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Fact is, actually,, that if you are still endorsing this man and the things that he represents, again, save yourself the bother of reply and unfriend me on social media immediately.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Given the outrageously obvious obscenity of this man's presence in our national life, your continued endorsement and/or support of him pretty much guarantees that you and I are done anyway.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>God bless you and yours.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</div>
<br />
<br />Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-1862956067074741892015-11-22T12:44:00.001-05:002015-11-22T12:44:15.737-05:00"...For One Brief, Shining Moment...Every Twelve Months..."<br />
November 22.<br />
<br />
To most people born after, say, 1955. just another number on the calendar, inspiring little or no emotion with the possible exception of the first tremblings of the hustle and bustle of holiday madness just up the road.<br />
<br />
For those born before that year, though, some inevitable thought and reflection.<br />
<br />
Bobby Braddock is an acclaimed, award winning country songwriter and a Facebook friend.<br />
<br />
He posted this articulate and moving remembrance on his page today.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i> Fifty two years ago today,, around noontime, on a sunny but slightly
chilly day in Dallas, the 35th President of the United States was
assassinated at 46 years of age. I was a very young piano player, about
to drive away from the motel where I was living in Orlando, Florida, on
my way to a band rehearsal at the El Patio Club where we were playing.
The lady who ran the motel yelled out that Kennedy had been shot. Her
live-in boyfriend, a grizzly old redneck guy, hollered, "I <span class="text_exposed_show">hope
they killed the n*****-lovin' sonofabitch!" By the time I had driven
the two-minute ride down Orange Blossom Trail to the club, they
announced on the radio that the president was dead. That night, the
normally-packed club had a sparse crowd. We played mostly slow dance
numbers and knocked off early. On the day of the president's funeral, I
went into a jewelry store in my hometown to pick up a watch that had
been repaired. A TV set was on, and the only sound was that of drum
rolls and horses' hooves. I listened to network radio on my 45-minute
drive back to Orlando, and except for the occasional soft voice of the
announcer, it was those same sad drum rolls and horses' hooves the
entire trip. I was an infant when Pearl Harbor was bombed, so the JFK
assassination was the first national tragedy in my memory. It was a
time I will never forget.</span></i><br />
<br />
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<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Other Facebook pages, especially those devoted to either Kennedy nostalgia or assassination minutiae, are offering up a lot of reminiscence today.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">None of the major news sites and/or sources have much to say about the date, a random mention of it and its historical significance, here and there, the only acknowledgment to be seen or heard.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Inevitable...and understandable.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Because there comes a time, with every event in this life, when that event, without fanfare, sometimes with no notice at all, quietly slides over from the here and now to the once upon a time. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Even the most dynamic, dramatic, even history altering moments have a way of, slowly but surely, moving from the front pages to the back pages to the little cards in the drawers with the Dewey Decimals printed on them.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">Or tagged links on Google, as the case, and the forward march of technological advance, may be.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">November 22 has become one of those events.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">That's the paradox of the blessing of time healing all wounds.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Scars remain for the life of those who felt the blade.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">But memories fade. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Tears of grief and loss eventually dry to be replaced with tears of joy and laughter. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">And lives sometimes become legend.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Nobody understood that better than Jackie Kennedy.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">"...so now he is a legend," she remarked sometime during that emotional and historic weekend, "when he would have preferred to be a man..."</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">And part of that legend was the framing of that life in the romantic haze of Camelot.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">That framing done by Jackie herself in an interview with author Theodore White some weeks after the assassination.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">The nation was stunned and needed to be consoled and soothed.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">The thought of a young King, complete with beloved Queen, adorable Princess and Prince, struck down in blinding Texas sunlight at the height of his powers and the peak of his youth was just Shakespearean enough to be both crushing...and consoling....sorrowful...and soothing.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">As memories faded.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">Tears of grief and loss dried and were eventually replaced with tears of joy and laughter.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">And life became legend.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">The day John Kennedy died, two reporter acquaintances of the murdered President were consoling one another.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">"We'll never laugh again," she remarked.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">He replied, "oh, we'll laugh again. We'll just never be young again."</span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Those of us who were alive at the time will surely agree that, of the two of them, he was right.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">We started laughing again.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">But we did get, and are still getting, a little older every day.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">And, as it happens with getting older, we forget things from time to time.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">Like names...and numbers...even dates.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">But some things we still manage to remember, too.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">Like names...and numbers...</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show">...and November 22.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"> </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"> </span><i><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></i>Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-29748490293589028172015-09-11T10:35:00.003-04:002015-09-11T10:56:36.904-04:00"...The Fundamental Things Apply..."<br />
"You must remember this", the classic song begins.<br />
<br />
A lot of that mindset appearing in print, on air and online today.<br />
<br />
September 11.<br />
<br />
9/11 in the more iconic presentation.<br />
<br />
And on this 14th anniversary of that September 11, we are reminded, among the many things of which we are reminded today, that we should ever and always remember.<br />
<br />
"Never forget" in the more iconic presentation.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Couple of inevitable truths about life, though.<br />
<br />
Never is now, as it has always been, a long, long time.<br />
<br />
And "never forgetting" is not something we're known for doing.<br />
<br />
Double negatives, notwithstanding.<br />
<br />
The history books are full of catastrophic events in the timeline of man that resulted in expressions of tribute meant to serve as mental post-it notes.<br />
<br />
Remember The Alamo.<br />
<br />
Remember The Maine.<br />
<br />
Remember Pearl Harbor.<br />
<br />
And, truth be told, we do, in fact, remember them. But, rarely, on our own. Most often, not without some outside stimulation that triggers a memory or, at least, an awareness.<br />
<br />
A classroom discussion.<br />
<br />
A "moments in history" meme inserted amidst the commercial break of a favorite TV or radio program.<br />
<br />
A post or a tweet or a blurb on one social network site or another.<br />
<br />
The thing is that time, as we are taught early on, heals all wounds.<br />
<br />
And one inevitable side effect of that healing is the fading of the memory of the injury.<br />
<br />
Even if the event occurs in our own life time, the process is predictable and unavoidable.<br />
<br />
I wasn't alive when Crockett and company tried to ward off Santa Ana's advancing troops. I wasn't yet a living being when the ship named after the state was blown up for, well, whatever reason in was blown up.<br />
<br />
And I was still ten years away from being bottom slapped into breathing for the first time, when the first wave of Japanese planes appeared on an early Sunday morning horizon with their payloads of death and destruction.<br />
<br />
I was, though, a reasonably cognizant pre-teenager when the junior high school public address system was commandeered to announce that the President of the United States had been shot to death in broad daylight on a busy street in Dallas, Texas.<br />
<br />
And I lived through a period of some years after, surrounded by fellow citizens of the time who were all convinced that an event so horrific and history altering would surely be a part of our everyday thoughts for the remainder of our lives, if not the remainder of time.<br />
<br />
Because if ever there was an American event that deserved our complete and continued remembrance it was the brutal murder of John F. Kennedy.<br />
<br />
It took about twenty years for the memory to go from vivid to vague, from rigidly recalled to reverently, but subtly, "oh....yeah.....that was a terrible thing wasn't it?..."<br />
<br />
And two years ago, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination, the airwaves and print pages were filled with mention and memory.<br />
<br />
For about thirty six hours.<br />
<br />
After which the event returned to its resting place in the inevitably dusty pages of history.<br />
<br />
Along with the Alamo.<br />
<br />
And the Maine.<br />
<br />
And Pearl Harbor.<br />
<br />
Chances are good, too, that the "60th" anniversary of 11/22/63 won't be a big deal.<br />
<br />
Likely, no deal at all.<br />
<br />
Time marches on. <br />
<br />
Today is only 14 years since that September morning.<br />
<br />
And social media is filled with observance and reflection and tribute and tears.<br />
<br />
But, already, there are signs that "never forget" is evolving into "let us remember".<br />
<br />
Maybe the thing to do with the emotional energy generated by this historic loss is take advantage of an opportunity lost after past historic losses.<br />
<br />
Find a way to capture, and keep, the sense of pulling together and putting aside pettiness and <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">moving forward in that spirit of
"one for all" that was so passionate and powerful and unbreakable on
that day.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And let's "never forget"
that we have the capacity to do that.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Every day.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All the time.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Because we've done it before.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When the Alamo fell.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And Pearl Harbor burned.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We just didn't keep that momentum
going.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We let it turn into
reminiscence...and reflection...and memory.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The kind of memory that fades...</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">...as time goes by.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-42684364693436091782015-03-08T09:55:00.002-04:002015-03-08T09:55:13.941-04:00"Nicky Arnstein's Big Number "You Are Woman, I Am Man" Will Be Next To Go...Mark Our Words...."<div itemprop="articleBody">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-E3S8NeXWBg4/VPxUTkc8l1I/AAAAAAAAELc/otos6199UAo/s1600/are%2Byou%2Bboy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-E3S8NeXWBg4/VPxUTkc8l1I/AAAAAAAAELc/otos6199UAo/s1600/are%2Byou%2Bboy.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
Old saying.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Where there's smoke, there's fire.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
New saying.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Where there's smoke, get over it.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i> </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>A Michigan woman's Planet Fitness membership was revoked after she
complained about a transgender person in the women's locker room. </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
Yvette Cormier, a 48, said she was walking into the Midland Planet
Fitness locker room last Saturday when she saw someone "dressed like a
man." </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
The person was wearing a wig and "a little bit of blush," but was "huge" and appeared "very manly," Cormier told ABC News today. </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
"I just stopped right there in my tracks," she said. "It was a man for sure." </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
Cormier, who had been a Planet Fitness member for two months, said she
went to the front desk immediately. The man at the desk told her that
Planet Fitness policy is "whatever gender you feel you are, that's the
locker room you're allowed to go in," she said. </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
"And then he said, 'We've had lots of complaints about him but we told him to go change in a stall,'" Cormier said. </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
"He said, 'if you're uncomfortable with that you can wait until he's
done in there,'" she said. "I stood back and said, 'How about he waits
until I'm done in the women's locker room. Or get a unisex bathroom.' He
asked if I would like to talk to the manager and I said, 'I'm calling
corporate.'" </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
When she called the corporate offices, she said, someone there confirmed
that the person at the front desk was correct about Planet Fitness
policies. </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
"I wouldn't have signed up for this gym if I knew that ahead of time,"
Cormier said, adding that the gym is "failing to protect me if anything
happens in those locker rooms with a man." </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
She said she went back to the gym the next few days and "told everyone
in the locker room what happened." She said everyone she talked to "was
appalled." </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
On Thursday, Cormier said, Planet Fitness Corporate called and revoked her membership immediately. </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
"They said, 'You are talking to people about him in the women's locker
room. You are making people upset.' That's my whole point," she said.
"I'm telling them and warning them because you are not doing that. You
allow men in there, and we are appalled by it." </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
Planet Fitness Director of Public Relations McCall Gosselin said the gym
is "committed to creating a non-intimidating, welcoming environment for
our members. Our gender identity non-discrimination policy states that
members and guests may use all gym facilities based on their sincere
self-reported gender identity." </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
The statement continued, "The manner in which this member expressed her
concerns about the policy exhibited behavior that management at the
Midland club deemed inappropriate and disruptive to other members, which
is a violation of the membership agreement and as a result her
membership was cancelled." </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i>
Gosselin added, "As our statement outlines, her membership was not
cancelled as a result of complaints about our policy, as we welcome all
feedback from our members. Rather, it was the manner in which her
concerns were expressed that club management felt was inappropriate,
which resulted in the cancellation."</i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Hidden, not so well, it turns out, amidst the ostensibly good intentions of the Planet Fitness corporate policy here is an attitude that could, arguably, be offered as evidence of the real problem.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Loosely translated, it goes something like this:</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
"...We don't really have the time, energy, patience or, frankly, ability to deal with the demands of so many individual preferences and their accompanying demands, so, in the hopes that it will be seen as our best effort to be all things to all people at all times, primarily out of fear that the chances are less that one average, everyday housewife type will make our public relations life miserable as opposed to dozens or, God help us, hundreds of gays, lesbians, transgenders, etc, potentially picketing outside our front door , we suggest you suck it up and realize that what's going to happen here is we're going to pretty much leave it up to all of you to work it out amongst yourselves. Because, you see the real, unspoken truth of the matter is that we are sincerely sorry you feel uncomfortable with a policy that pretty much opens the locker room door to anyone anytime, but we're not scared of you. We are, truth be told, scared of them. Thank you for choosing Planet Fitness and we hope you'll just turn a blind eye, turn your IPod up loud to drown out any male sounds you might hear in the locker room and shut the hell up about it."</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
This more and more standard approach to this kind of thing is, in fact and unfortunately, what "political correctness" is, too often, really all about.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
The Quixotic quest to literally offend no one at any time by, literally, attempting to be all things to all people.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
At worst, nothing less than surrender.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
At best, an exercise in futility.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Because this approach fails to take into account the fly that inevitably shows up in any ointment intended to sooth any irritation.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
In mathematics, it's known as the lowest common denominator.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
In our day to day lives, it's the he/she/and/or it who would take advantage of a situation for no other reason than they are self absorbed and that presents in the form of being self centered and selfish.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
C'mon over baby / whole lotta selfish goin' on.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Reasonable people of any and all stripe (the key, and unintentionally hilarious, word being "reasonable" here... ) would, let's assume for the sake of our discussion here, have no problem with doing their best to accommodate others where possible.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Reasonable people would try, again we assume, to have, if not a sympathy, then, at least, an empathy for those who find themselves in the position of living a life filled with confusion and/or consternation about their gender identity.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Even reasonable people, though, would, once again, we assume, find themselves lining up on the "lock and load" side of any battle line resulting from having their own lives rudely and crudely disrespected by those who insist on exercising their rights by shoving them down the collective throat and/or using said "rights" as a justification for exhibiting not a moment's hesitation to live their lives in full tail mode, ready, willing and, even anxious, to wag the living shit out of the dog.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
The fault, dear Brutus, isn't so much the presence of militancy.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
The fault is the absence of manners.<br />
<br />
And, at least until America joins other nations who have welcomed the 21st Century and starts thinking safe, practical unisex facilities, absence of manners will continue to be the fault line. </div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
Which brings us back to smoke. </div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
There was a time, in the not so distant past, that those who wanted to indulge their need for nicotine managed to feed their habit without flipping off those around them.<br />
<br />
And nowhere in the exchange was there any mention of ridicule, chastisement or judgement of the smokers on the part of the smokees.<br />
<br />
People were simply considerate of other people.<br />
<br />
Both ways and all ways.<br />
<br />
Simplistic as it might seem, this business of gender identity bringing a big brouhaha into the locker rooms and bathrooms of America is, whatever else it may or may not be, just another page from that very long and very established book.<br />
<br />
How To Be Courteous, Vol 1. <br />
<br />
Why, reasonable people ask reasonably, should it be a problem for those who "feel like a woman" but still possess the physicality of a male to simply do the courteous thing and use the male facilities?<br />
<br />
The oft offered reason (read: excuse) is that ridicule, chastisement and judgement await the aforementioned Man! Who Feels Like A Woman! in that male facility.<br />
<br />
So, let's see. What's really going on here is that the women's locker room isn't so much a place of actual, and rightful, belonging as much as it is a refuge from the bully faction?<br />
<br />
Well, gee, that really is unfortunate, but, reasonable people once again interject, why should women be put in the position of having to deal with wondering whether that male standing next to them in the locker room or bathroom is a female feeling male or some red blooded peeping Tom male who knows a advantageous loophole when they come across one?<br />
<br />
And let's not even go to the extreme of the child molester who uses this "gender equality" schtick as an E ticket to work his way into the ladies room and choose from any number of elementary school age opportunities that might come in.<br />
<br />
Reasonable people are, for the most part, inclined to be understanding, conciliatory, even empathetic to males who, once committed to their sense of self, make the actual, complete move from male to female.<br />
<br />
Or vice versa.<br />
<br />
I doubt Chaz Bono creates much of a stir at his local Planet Fitness.<br />
<br />
And Bruce Jenner will probably not be given much of a second thought.<br />
<br />
But an actual male, regardless of his inner struggles, who wakes up on any given morning, feeling pretty, oh, so pretty and finds the door to the women's locker room open to him because of some cowardly avoidance of any reasonable stance by a fitness center.....<br />
<br />
Well, now...that's a horse, or mare, of a different color.<br />
<br />
Which, one more time, brings us back to smoke.<br />
<br />
Reasonable people have no problem with someone asking them if lighting up a cigarette would be a bother.<br />
<br />
Reasonable people have no problem with women being in the women's locker room.<br />
<br />
Whether they started out in life as a woman or not.<br />
<br />
But, reasonable people would agree with Yvette Cormier.<br />
<br />
That a policy that is, underneath the jockey shorts or panties, as the case may be, no policy at all is, simply, an abdication of responsibility.<br />
<br />
And those males who "feel like a woman" on any given day and choose to consider that feeling and no one else's?<br />
<br />
Whatever else it may, or may not be, it's simply rude.<br />
<br />
Was a time when folks asked "do you mind if I smoke?"<br />
<br />
This man in a woman's locker room scenario is just a different plot twist in the same play.<br />
<br />
And it's hard to disagree with a reasonable person who has a problem with someone saying to them.<br />
<br />
"I'm lighting up and probably going to blow smoke in your face...get over it..."<br />
<br />
The controversy is seemingly about chromosomes.<br />
<br />
When, in fact, it's about courtesy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i> </i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<i><br /></i></div>
Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-27814182755015252052015-01-18T07:26:00.001-05:002015-01-18T07:26:17.245-05:00"...One Assumes It's Only A Matter Of Time Before NASCAR Will Be Expected To Stop Calling It A Race....."<div class="el__leafmedia el__leafmedia--sourced-paragraph">
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
There's a problem with pendulums.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
The not so good thing about their swing in a few moments.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<cite class="el-editorial-source"><br /></cite></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<cite class="el-editorial-source"><br /></cite></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<cite class="el-editorial-source">(CNN)</cite><i>You
go for some target practice, look down the firing range and see at the
other end that one of the targets is -- your brother, an old photo of
him.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>National Guardswoman Valerie Deant was devastated to see her brother Woody's image pierced by police sniper bullets, she told NBC6 in an exclusive report.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i> </i> </div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>But
his photo wasn't the only one of an African-American being used for
target practice last November. There were six bullet-riddled mugshots of
black males at the range.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="el__image--standard js__image--standard">
<img alt="" class="media__image media__image--responsive" data-demand-load="loaded" data-eq-pts="xsmall: 0, medium: 460, large: 780" data-eq-state="xsmall" data-src-full16x9="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150117000811-north-miami-beach-police-targets-second-photo-full-169.jpg" data-src-large="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150117000811-north-miami-beach-police-targets-second-photo-super-169.jpg" data-src-medium="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150117000811-north-miami-beach-police-targets-second-photo-exlarge-169.jpg" data-src-small1x1="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150117000811-north-miami-beach-police-targets-second-photo-large-11.jpg" data-src-small="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150117000811-north-miami-beach-police-targets-second-photo-large-169.jpg" itemprop="image" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150117000811-north-miami-beach-police-targets-second-photo-large-169.jpg" /> </div>
<div class="el__image--standard js__image--standard">
</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>Racism?</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>No,
says North Miami Beach Police Chief J. Scott Dennis. Two of his snipers
were using them for target practice -- one of them is Hispanic, and the
other a black male of Haitian descent. </i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>Their
target, a row of black men, which the snipers left behind at the stand,
was one of many. There are also groups of white males, Hispanic males
and white women.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>There
are 22 images in all, including a white man holding a gun to a white
woman's head and one of now-dead al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "The
same target inventory has been used for more than a decade," Dennis said
in a statement.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>The idea is to have an
array of photos with faces that look similar, so the sniper can
practice exactly picking out the right target and avoid killing the
wrong person in a real-life situation, Dennis said.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>The
department uses mugshots of people they arrested 10 to 15 years ago,
and Woody Deant was one of them. Deant told NBC6 that he was booked
after a deadly drag race. He has walked the straight and narrow ever
since, he said.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>"I can sympathize with the family discovering their brother's photo on the target," Dennis said. </i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>Dennis
became aware of the family being upset in late December and ordered an
investigation. It turned up no violations of law or department policy.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>But things will change. "We realize how important this issue is during today's climate," Dennis said.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>Snipers
will no longer use mugshots of people they have arrested, but instead
will buy practice pictures from commercial vendors.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>And they are instructed from now on to destroy their targets after they're done.</i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
There was, of course, a time when racism, in whatever form it happened to take, was not only prevalent but, arguably, intrinsic in the American way of life.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
And, although all that needs to be overcome has yet to be overcome, we continue to hope and believe that it shall be overcome some day..</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
Not to mention that which has, to date, been overcome.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
Given the history, so far, though, it's inevitable that society would have to experience some backlash, payback or, in a more family friendly term, a little swinging of the pendulum when it comes to racial </div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
expression.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
It may be neither pleasant or appreciated, but when a group of people is required to shut the hell up and stay in the back of the bus for generation after generation, it's equally inevitable that when those shackles come off, there's going to be a lot of making up for lost time and diatribe.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
To wit, the pendulum swings.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
Martin Luther King articulated it very succinctly in 1955</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<i>And you know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of
being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.
There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged
across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of
nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired
of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left
standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time. </i></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
That was 1955.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
It's now 2015. </div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
And you know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of every little stumble being trumpeted as yet another trampling by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of anything and everything, no matter how minute or trivial, being associated with some new attempt at racial humiliation, where those who read and hear those associations experience the annoyance of despair at being nagged. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the sunlight of cooperation and humanity and left standing amid the piercing chill of yet another attempt to cry racism where none exists.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
And there comes a time when those who make big deals out of absolutely nothing, who exploit every opportunity, who, in fact, even create opportunities where no reasonable person would think to create one, do a grave injustice to not only those who are still working tirelessly to eliminate that which divides us but to those who spent their entire lives doing just that.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
There comes a time.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
A time to take matters into our own hands.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
And, even perhaps, grab a hold of that pendulum.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
Stopping it's inevitable swing.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
Because there's a problem with pendulums.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
They simply cannot swing one way without swinging the other.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
And, at some point, enough is enough.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
There comes a time.</div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph">
</div>
Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-11702966393012049392015-01-10T08:06:00.002-05:002015-01-10T08:12:22.728-05:00"...There's A Reason We Use The Term 'Without Rhyme or Reason...."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7ZVjEdm7TK4/VLEjnLmhHTI/AAAAAAAAEGs/Kkd2txZlpEQ/s1600/Charile-Hebdo-pathetic-losers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7ZVjEdm7TK4/VLEjnLmhHTI/AAAAAAAAEGs/Kkd2txZlpEQ/s1600/Charile-Hebdo-pathetic-losers.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">12 people are shot to death in a Paris office.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">The rest of us, obviously, react with shock, dismay, distress, fear, even a little anger.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">And an almost instant need for answers.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">Turns out that the fundamental answer is actually readily available.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">
</div>
</div>
<div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">The psychologically damaged zealots who carry out these heinous attacks cloak themselves in the robes of righteousness, screaming out their "allegiance" to their God (in this particular incident, with the terrorist's favorite trademark phrase that pays "Allahu Akbar") neatly, almost as if it were professionally scripted, between the gunshots that took a dozen lives.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">The irony of the whole "righteous robe" metaphor, by the way, can't be lost on even the most obtuse observer when you factor in that these "brave defenders of the cause" always manage to include face masks that hide their identities in their execution/assassination/massacre wardrobe choices.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">But, that's a cowardly lion of a different color. And a topic for another time.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">In the case of the Charlie Hebdo killings, we naturally gravitate towards trying to unravel the complexities, examine the underlying causes, decipher the intricate psychology of what would drive any human being to inflict injury and death on such a horrific scale.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">Turns out it's really not all that complicated.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">Three gutless, tragically pathetic wastes of life's precious gifts killed someone because that someone made fun of something.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">And then killed eleven more someones because they happened to be in the building at the time.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">As with Aurora, as with Sandy Hook, for that matter, as with the killing of JFK fifty years ago, we are so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the event that we almost instinctively seek, if not crave, deeply layered explanations.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">When the fact is it's not at all complicated.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">It ain't brain surgery.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">And no DSM is required in order to understand what's going on here.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">All you need is a dictionary.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span><div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"><span data-dobid="hdw"><strong>rea·son</strong></span></span></div>
<span data-dobid="hdw">
<div class="lr_dct_sf_h">
<i>noun</i></div>
<div class="xpdxpnd vk_gy" data-mh="-1">
noun: <b>reason</b>; plural noun: <b>reasons</b></div>
<ol class="lr_dct_sf_sens">
<li><div>
<div class="lr_dct_sf_sen vk_txt">
<div style="float: left;">
<strong>1</strong>. </div>
<div style="margin-left: 20px;">
<div style="font-size: small;">
<div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">
a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
</span><br /></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<span data-dobid="hdw"><div class="lr_dct_sf_h" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"><strong>ex·cuse</strong></span></div>
<div class="lr_dct_sf_h" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<i>noun</i></div>
<div class="xpdxpnd vk_gy" data-mh="-1" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
noun: <b>excuse</b>; plural noun: <b>excuses</b></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span class="lr_dct_ph">ikˈskyo͞os/</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<ol class="lr_dct_sf_sens">
<li><div>
<div class="lr_dct_sf_sen vk_txt">
<div style="float: left;">
<strong>1</strong>. </div>
<div style="margin-left: 20px;">
<div style="font-size: small;">
<div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">
a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div class="lr_dct_sf_sen vk_txt">
<div style="margin-left: 20px;">
<div style="font-size: small;">
<div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-size: small;">
<div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-size: small;">
<div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
</span><div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<span data-dobid="hdw"><div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">The aforementioned gutless, tragically pathetic wastes of space who carried out this mass murder tried to cover up their gutlessness with the aforementioned standard wardrobe choices and outcries of supposed allegiance to their divine inspiration.</span></div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">And the disrespect of others toward that divine inspiration was the reason they would give for their actions.</span></div>
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<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">If they could shout a reason at us given that, of course, they have already been hunted down and most delightfully exterminated as pure evil always deserves.</span></div>
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<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">They killed twelve people because those twelve people made fun of something.</span></div>
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<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">At least, given the circumstances, that was what seems to be the reason.</span></div>
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<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">When it, arguably, wasn't the reason at all.</span></div>
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<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">They killed twelve people because those killers were gutless, tragically pathetic wastes of life's precious gifts who, for whatever reason, wanted to kill people.</span></div>
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<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">And that those twelve people made fun of something was an excuse.</span></div>
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<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">Not a reason.</span></div>
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<span data-dobid="hdw"></span> </div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">There's no excuse for that.</span></div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-2349543250706210752015-01-01T07:41:00.001-05:002015-01-01T07:41:42.944-05:00"....Sometimes Caution Shouldn't Be So Much Exercised As Given An Exhausting Workout...."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7fl8w-T5dc0/VKU_zJzs4VI/AAAAAAAAEGA/18bngfj4zvk/s1600/veronica%2Brutledge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7fl8w-T5dc0/VKU_zJzs4VI/AAAAAAAAEGA/18bngfj4zvk/s1600/veronica%2Brutledge.jpg" height="120" width="200" /></a></div>
It's one thing to armchair quarterback when a game is lost.<br />
<br />
It's quite another when a life is lost.<br />
<em><strong></strong></em><br />
<em><strong></strong></em><br />
<em><strong></strong></em><br />
<em><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- The father-in-law of a mother fatally shot in an Idaho Walmart by her 2-year-old son says she didn't have a mean bone in her body.</em><br />
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<em>"Everybody that met her, knew her, loved her," Terry Rutledge said about Veronica Rutledge, 29.</em></div>
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<em>She died Tuesday after her young son grabbed a gun that was in her purse and shot her in an apparent accident, authorities have said. The two were out shopping with other family members when the shooting occurred.</em></div>
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<em>Rutledge put herself through school and was a chemical engineer, Terry Rutledge said.</em></div>
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<em>"She was a fun-loving, outgoing, outdoorsy person. Her family liked to camp, hike, do outdoorsy things. They loved being together," he said.</em></div>
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<em>He added that she had carried a gun for years and had extensive training.</em></div>
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<em>"I cannot put any blame on my daughter-in-law because I know her, the training she's had ... I don't take it lightly ... I cannot put any negligence on her part. It was a terrible accident," said Terry Rutledge.</em></div>
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<em>He told CNN affiliate KREM 2 that the gun used in the shooting had been kept in a concealed zipper pouch in her purse.</em></div>
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<em>One gun expert described what happened as a "perfect storm."</em></div>
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<em>The toddler was able to unzip the pocket and grab the gun -- without being noticed. He was also able to grip the gun and exert sufficient force to fire, at least three pounds, Robin Ball, owner of Sharp Shooting Indoor Range & Gun Shop in Spokane, Washington, told KREM 2.</em></div>
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<em>"Murphy's law just came into play today in so many ways and there are irreversible consequences for that," Ball said.</em></div>
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Almost before this young woman's body had been gurneyed out of the store, the piling on of second guessing and shoulda coulda woulda-ing began to sprout up on line like crabgrass at the first sign of spring.</div>
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Most of the Monday morning play by play consisted of criticism of the young lady's leaving herself vulnerable by allowing a gun and a two year old to be within such close proximity of each other.</div>
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Others, more gracious in their observations, simply agreed, in principle, with what the gun expert eloquently offered. It was a perfect, and tragic, storm.</div>
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There's something both poignant and pesky in the human condition that seems to trigger when we are faced with something undeniably horrific.</div>
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The term "trigger" of course both an applicable description and an unintentional pun.</div>
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We feel the need to make sense of it, ostensibly for those who have experienced the horror but, in the clear light of truth being told, mostly for ourselves.</div>
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And that need often presents as the expression of opinion which often presents <em>itself</em> in the form of, at best, critique and, at worst, outright criticism.</div>
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As if, of course, anybody asked.</div>
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Any "chastising" of Veronica Rutledge on my part is both inappropriate and disingenuous.</div>
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At the heart of the matter, it's really none of my business.</div>
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As to satisfying my own poignant, pesky human condition, though, I'm moved to offer this.</div>
<br />
Between the calls for compassion and the cries of criticism in this tragedy lies a lesson.<br />
<br />
For me, it takes the form of remembering that I treat, and have always treated, weapons with the <br />
same attitude as I treated driving a motorcycle in the day (and, for that matter, driving a car to this day).<br />
<br />
A single moment's lapse in attention and/or diligence can result in injury or death.<br />
<br />
And I was, in a non-dramatic, non-morbid way, always aware of just enough fear of that possibility to stay out in front of the odds....it took on the form, of course, of assuming the worst, even "pessimistically" thinking of the ways in which things could go wrong and doing whatever I could to prevent them.<br />
<br />
But, because of that mindset, I never had a bike accident (although others who weren't paying attention tried to change that stat only to be thwarted by my "assumption of their carelessness").<br />
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And, to date, I've never had to face the insanity of dealing with a loved one killed by a weapon in horrific and unexpected moment.<br />
<br />
Life can be cruel. Even the most diligent of us can be blindsided.<br />
<br />
Shit happens.<br />
<br />
But if ever there is a time in our lives when it pays to be an alarmist and/or a pessimist and/or a cynic as opposed to relying on faith and optimism and good luck in life, it is when we start up the engine of that motorcycle that we are straddling.<br />
<br />
When we put that car into "D" and put our foot on the gas.<br />
<br />
And when we put a deadly weapon and a child anywhere near each other.<br />
<br />
Anywhere.Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-78034401823292642362014-11-27T13:55:00.003-05:002014-11-27T14:04:17.006-05:00"....Where There's Smoke....There's Still Fire......Ninety Nine Dollar Flat Screen Or Not...."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SA2x5c7iT1U/VHdzffqkHII/AAAAAAAAEDo/nPbobFJeaPE/s1600/black%2Bfriday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SA2x5c7iT1U/VHdzffqkHII/AAAAAAAAEDo/nPbobFJeaPE/s1600/black%2Bfriday.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a></div>
What follows is a remarkably well intended, thoughtfully considered, very good idea.<br />
<br />
That isn't going to work.<br />
<br />
First, the what.<br />
<br />
Then, the why not.<br />
<br />
<em><strong></strong></em><br />
<em><strong></strong></em><br />
<em>{</em><em>Soledad O'Brien, CEO of Starfish Media Group, produced the CNN documentary "Black and Blue," Rose Arce is Starfish Media Group's executive producer. }</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- Once again, the streets are electric with anger after a white police officer evades charges for fatally shooting a black man. Sirens screech and wood batons push back marchers protesting from Missouri to New York to Los Angeles. This time the cadence of "No Justice, No Peace" has been replaced with "Hand's Up. Don't Shoot."</em><br />
<em></em><br />
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<em>But there was another sign raised above the crowd in a recent protest in New York: "Doing Nothing with Saying Nothing. Changes Nothing." The mathematics of this one are clear. Something's gotta give.</em></div>
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<em>A loose network led by African Americans in the film and arts world has emerged from the fog of tear gas to call for a quiet riot in response: a boycott of Black Friday shopping.</em></div>
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<em>Ryan Coogler, who directed the 2013 film about police brutality called "Fruitvale Station," told us he was confounded by the eruptions of "human rights violations committed by public servants."</em></div>
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<em>"There are three ways you can express yourself," Coogler said. "You can vote. You can protest. You can choose how you spend your money that goes to America's corporations that hold a lot of power."</em></div>
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<em>"We've got to fight the powers that be!" proclaimed Public Enemy's Chuck D in 1989. With the embers of Ferguson still smoldering, it is clear that the struggle continues. But by taking their purchasing power away on retailers' favorite day of the year, the voice of blacks in America, and their allies, may echo more loudly in its absence from shopping malls and big box stores.</em></div>
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<em>Earning less than whites and unemployed at more than double the national average, African Americans still have $1 trillion in buying power, according to Nielsen. They spend more on media, watch more television, shop more frequently off and online and spend more on beauty products than any other ethnic group in the country. That is serious sway.</em></div>
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<em>People who make movies also have sway -- people such as Ava DuVernay, director of the upcoming film "Selma" and actors Michael B. Jordan ("The Wire") and Nate Parker ("The Secret Life of Bees"). #BlackOutBlackFriday has even produced its own minifilms to fuel this modern version of the bus boycotts.</em></div>
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<em>One of them features an interview with the daughter of Eric Garner, who describes losing her father to police violence. Garner was choked to death by police who suspected he might be selling "loosies" or loose cigarettes. In his grand jury testimony, Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson said the man he shot to death, Michael Brown, might have been suspected of stealing "cigarillos" at a convenience store.</em></div>
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<em>The #BlackOutBlackFriday videos alone make the case for change.</em></div>
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<em>"Social media and the technology, with respect to camera phones, empowers every single person who has access to a device," Parker told us. These are the kind of media people could be watching ahead of Black Friday, rather than falling prey to commercial plugs to shop.</em></div>
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<em>The outcry over police brutality can't end with the Thanksgiving news cycle. President Barack Obama can't just promise to take a look -- yet another look -- at how the police interact with the public. Public frustration over policing didn't boil over only because of Michael Brown's death. It did because of the daily indignities that have become common for black people. These boycott organizers feel that helplessness as they watch the police violence spinning out of control and don't know how to stop it. It's not like you can dial 911.</em></div>
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<em>To Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown "the whole thing started over 'will you just walk on the sidewalk.' " Then suddenly the man he called a "demon" was dead, he washed his hands of blood and stowed his gun. He faced no judicial accountability after 25 days of grand jury investigation.</em></div>
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<em>A 2013 Pew Research Center survey showed that 7 of 10 blacks felt they were being treated less fairly than whites by police. A Gallup poll that same year found that nearly 25% of all black males from ages 18 to 34 reported being treated unfairly by police in the past 30 days.</em></div>
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<em>"This is not a one-day thing," DuVernay told us. "What #blackoutblackfriday is trying to do is to create ongoing pressure to change the conversation among conscious people of all colors."</em></div>
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<em>They might achieve more by opting out of the system than by opposing it. Your presence is sometimes felt by your absence.</em></div>
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In the effort to find some solution, any solution, that doesn't involve physical harm, property damage and/or further violence, the idea of an economic boycott is certainly, on its face, worthy of consideration.</div>
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The concept itself has, of course, been successful in the past for a number of causes, not the least of which was the public bus boycotts in Alabama in the 1960's that impacted the profitability of the segregated bus lines in such a dramatic matter that it, literally, resulted in the first domino being tipped ending in integration of not only the bus lines but many, and eventually, all things racially segregated in this country.</div>
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As a means of putting out the fire this time, though, not so much.</div>
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In the 1960's, the civil rights movement was all encompassing with every black person in the country invested in the outcome. Moreover, though, every black person in the country, at that time, was aware that they were invested in the outcome and the degree of endorsement and participation, critical to the success of any group effort, had reached critical mass.</div>
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But, as abhorrent as these incidents of racial conflict that result in whites shooting and blacks dying are, the blacks in this country have not yet reached that critical mass.</div>
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At least not en masse'.</div>
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And the complexion of the American culture, both literally and metaphorically, in the year 2014 is markedly different than it was in 1960's.</div>
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Though prejudice and racism have not been extinguished so as to be non-existent, blacks are no longer treated, in a wholesale fashion, as an oppressed people, an enslaved people, even a minority people.</div>
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The culture has accepted, if not invited, black contribution and participation on an unprecedented scale.</div>
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Black artists sell equal amounts of music, win equal amounts of awards, even fill stadiums with equal amounts of fans as their white counterparts.</div>
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Black culture in movies, television and the other arts are prolific and plentiful, their presence such an accepted part of the mainstream that mention is no longer made of their sharing as if it were some kind of anomaly.</div>
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The percentages might still rightly be labeled as works in progress, but blacks are routinely elected to, and hold , office at city, state and national levels, head corporations, own and or manage major league sports teams.</div>
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And, then, there's that black man who has been elected President of the United States.</div>
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Twice.</div>
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Yet, with all of that evolution, hatred between the races continues to raise its ugly head in the forms of whites shooting and blacks dying and towns burning in the aftermath.</div>
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Best intentions not withstanding, convincing hundreds, let alone thousands or even millions, of blacks to refuse to shop at Wal Mart on Black Friday isn't going to stop the shooting.</div>
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Or the dying.</div>
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Or the burning.</div>
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This assuming, of course, that you could get hundreds, let alone thousands or even millions, of blacks to refuse to shop at Wal Mart on Black Friday in the first place.</div>
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Cold, even callous, as it may seem, those blacks whose children were not shot by a white police officer in the past year and are hoping for a 50" flat screen from Santa, are not going to disappoint their kids in favor of some attempt at the dollars and cents equivalent of "we shall overcome".</div>
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What happened in Ferguson was horrific.</div>
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And needs to be understood, confronted and prevented in future.</div>
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But Ferguson ain't Birmingham.</div>
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And this ain't 1961.<br />
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Here's a thought.</div>
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Maybe it's not about hatred at all.</div>
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Maybe it's about fear.</div>
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Maybe it's about black people in fear of their lives because of the incidents in the past few years that have given them every reason to fear, if not suspect, that white police officers have decided that the easiest way to deal with blacks who break the law is to simply shoot them.</div>
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Maybe it's about white police officers in fear of their lives because of a black culture that seems, even if it's only an incorrect perception, to have so little regard for simple, basic human values, regardless of color. A culture which not only permits but, from appearances, encourages its more militant role models to shove their way into the spot light, those whose anger is palpable, their contempt more than visible, their hostility, evidently and inevitably, bubbling just beneath the surface at all times. The Kanye Wests. The Al Sharptons. The Ray Rices. Pushing out of the spotlight the blacks whose sense of purpose and ambition seems to be about seeking solution as opposed to retribution. Redesign as opposed to revenge. The Julian Bonds. The Tyra Banks. The Condoleeza Rices.</div>
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Maybe it's about an atmosphere so poisoned with bad feeling and mistrust and resentment and misunderstanding and miscommunication that our white police officers are beginning to become jaded enough to assume the worst, see the glass as half empty and, because they are human and don't really want to die just to protect and serve, are growing more likely to shoot first and ask questions later.</div>
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An atmosphere so full of the smoke of venom and vitriol and hated and stored up passion that our black citizens simply assume that every white police officer is an assassin and that any encounter with a cop that results in them walking away alive should count as having beaten the odds.</div>
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Using bio degradable trash bags, however well intended, isn't going to make much of a dent in global warming.</div>
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Random, un-organized, essentially minor boycotting of the neighborhood Costco isn't going to do much to clear the air.</div>
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And the air is what needs to be cleared.</div>
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Not only the atmosphere.</div>
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But the atmosfear.</div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-51416375110861880742014-11-27T08:11:00.002-05:002014-11-27T08:11:16.261-05:00"....R-E-S-P-E-C-T....Actually, Not So Much......"<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lOKWSix9Ggg/VHci26eQt0I/AAAAAAAAEDY/qllqR6chPmk/s1600/respect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lOKWSix9Ggg/VHci26eQt0I/AAAAAAAAEDY/qllqR6chPmk/s1600/respect.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
Lesley McSpadden is absolutely right.<br />
<br />
No respect.<br />
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<br />
<strong></strong><br />
<em><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- Michael Brown's mother says hearing that a grand jury had decided not to indict the officer who killed her son felt like getting shot.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
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<em>"We heard this and it was just like, like I had been shot. Like you shoot me now -- just no respect, no sympathy, nothing," Lesley McSpadden told CNN's Sunny Hostin on Wednesday. "This could be your child. This could be anybody's child."</em></div>
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<em>A New York Times video captured the moments after McSpadden heard about the decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the white officer who killed her son, Michael Brown, a black teen. She stood with protesters outside the Ferguson police department, sobbing uncontrollably.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>McSpadden's husband, her son's stepfather, wrapped her in his arms before turning to the crowd, screaming: "Burn this bitch down."</em></div>
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<em>
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<em>"He just spoke out of anger. It's one thing to speak and it's a different thing to act. He did not act. He just spoke out of anger," McSpadden said about her husband, Louis Head.</em></div>
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</em><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="em6"></a><em> </em></div>
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<em>"When you're that hurt and the system has did you this wrong, you may say some things as well. We've all spoke out of anger before," she told CNN.</em></div>
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<em>Both McSpadden and Brown's father, Michael Brown Sr., sat down with Hostin. Neither believes Wilson's version of events, saying their son would never have taunted the officer, nor reached for his weapon.</em></div>
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<em>They remembered their son as humble, silly and soft spoken. He could fix almost anything and loved animals, his siblings and being a grandson.</em></div>
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<em>"He was different, but he still was like any other teenager -- wanted to explore different things, do different things, be around different people," McSpadden said. "He's young. He's growing up. He's finding himself."</em></div>
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<em>Brown's father didn't mince words when he spoke about Wilson: "He's a murderer."</em></div>
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<em>"He understood his actions. He understood exactly what he was doing. You know, he didn't have a second thought, a pushback thought, or nothing. He was intending to kill someone. That's how I look at it," Brown said. "He was going to kill someone at that point."</em></div>
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<em>Earlier, he'd said the grand jury's decision changed his view of America.</em></div>
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<em>"I was upset. I didn't understand," Brown said in a conversation with the Rev. Al Sharpton on Tuesday on MSNBC. "It just let me know that where we live is not what we thought, or what I thought. It's what people have been saying all the time, for a nice little minute: that this was a racist state."</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>Sharpton accused Prosecutor Robert McCulloch of trying to disparage Michael Brown Jr. He asked Michael Brown Sr. how he felt about the prosecutor attacking "the character of the victim."</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>"They crucified his character," Brown said.</em></div>
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Whatever else is true or not true in this case, one thing is irrefutable.</div>
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No respect.</div>
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A black kid with no respect for the law whose encounter with Darren Wilson began only as a result of his act of theft in a local convenience store and the assault of the store's proprietor while, if not incapacitatingly stoned, then certainly, at least, under the influence .</div>
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No respect for the authority of a police officer that, whatever else did or did not take place after that, did NOT begin with the young man's following the directions and instructions given him by that police officer in order to peacefully resolve the confrontation and either be found free to go or to be held accountable for his actions and activity.</div>
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No respect for the common sense of anyone being asked, by his mother, to believe that her son was <em> "....humble, silly and soft spoken. He could fix almost anything and loved animals, his siblings and being a grandson...."</em> given that, even allowing those were, in fact, some of his qualities, all evidence and information suggests that was not the Michael Brown that Darren Wilson encountered that night.</div>
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No respect for a stepfather who, regardless of his personal pain and/or anger, cried out in a crowd already ready to explode his wish that they "burn" the town down.</div>
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No respect for the memory of a dead kid, let alone simple, human values, from the hundreds of "protestors" who leapt at the chance to cash in on the atmosphere of anger and hurt and confusion and express their indignation at the legal system by burning, smashing, breaking, injuring and even killing while filling their arms, shopping carts and even their vehicles with the contents, products and property of every local business whose windows were sacrificed first in the "cause of justice and freedom" </div>
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No respect for a situation from a prosecutor and town officials who, inexplicably and tragically, chose to pass on an opportunity to make what was guaranteed to be a violently controversial announcement in the clear light of day as soon as the decision was made and opted, for reasons, defying logic, to announce later that night, allowing light to fade, crowds to gather, emotional momentum to build and darkness to provide cover for the aforementioned guaranteed violence.</div>
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No respect for the intelligence of any reasonable person who was, and is still being, asked to believe that a police officer with no record of impropriety would suddenly put six bullets into someone, in full knowledge that accountability would immediately follow, motivated by absolutely nothing more than the color of someone's skin.</div>
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No respect from bottom feeders like Sunny Hostin and Al Sharpton, among dozens, even hundreds of other second guessers, commentators and/or "experts", who recognize an opportunity for self aggrandizing and agenda pushing a thousand miles away.</div>
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And no respect for the process of law, in this instance in the form of a grand jury, made up of an economically, educationally, sexually and, more critically, racially diverse cross section of citizens whose time spent and efforts put forth give every indication that pain staking care was taken to investigate the incident and come to the fairest conclusion that logic and law provided.</div>
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Lesley McSpadden lost her son.</div>
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And, regardless of Michael Brown's character, or even his actions on that night, it's understandable that, as a mother, she would be blinded by the tears, anguish and pain of that loss.</div>
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But there's one thing she saw with an almost crystal clarity.</div>
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No respect.</div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-56621448333583016922014-11-11T11:05:00.000-05:002014-11-11T11:05:09.766-05:00"...As In ..'It Ain't The School...It's The Principal Of The Thing..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sjyDaN8mMWQ/VGIyr-3HlKI/AAAAAAAAEBA/X6RLRxvFvE0/s1600/grammar%2Bsymbol.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sjyDaN8mMWQ/VGIyr-3HlKI/AAAAAAAAEBA/X6RLRxvFvE0/s200/grammar%2Bsymbol.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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What difference does it make?</div>
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More then you think.</div>
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Been a lot of back and forth in recent times about the correct use, or lack, as the case may be, of grammar.</div>
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And/or punctuation.</div>
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</div>
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But that's a other topic for an different time.</div>
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</div>
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Judging from some of the pushback on social media, a lot of people take exception to having it pointed out to them that they are guilty of incorrect usage.</div>
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</div>
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The cutesy (and meant to be denigrating) term "Grammar Police" popped up pretty quickly as if those who were inclined to not use correctly were ready to compare those who pointed out said incorrect usage to some Orwellian Big Brother bunch, storm trooping through the streets, torches ablaze, a copy of Mein Kampf under one arm and the Oxford Dictionary under the other, ready to kick your door down and drag you away into the night to some dark, damp dungeon.</div>
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</div>
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Or a seat, front and center, in the closest university level English course.</div>
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(They'll probably want to take your guns away from you, two, but that's to be expected from some wild eyed group who thinks it matters a hoot in hell that your not crazy about the fact they don't do things you're way..)</div>
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</div>
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Those who are perfectly okay with there use of there in place of their seem to be pretty sensitive to any enlightenment shined in their direction.</div>
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They can't be faulted. After all, nobody likes to have their ignorance pointed out to them.</div>
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Sheldon's wise mama Mary explained it best.</div>
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"Shelly, I've been telling you since you were five years old that it's okay to be smarter than everybody, you just can't go around telling them."</div>
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"Well, why not?"</div>
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"Because they don't like it."</div>
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Jokes, and irrational, satirical fears of being imprisoned for a spell for failure to spell, aside, the refusal, or inability, of so many to use correct grammar, punctuation, et al, is so much more than just an intellectual burr put under the saddle of those less sophisticated.</div>
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</div>
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But, let's be fair here.</div>
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There was a time in this nation's history when "ignorance" did not necessarily equate to a lack of intelligence.</div>
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</div>
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Our first settlers and those who lived in rural areas, those who did not have access to organized schools and good old fashioned book learnin' were probably atrocious spellers, folks who wouldn't know an apostrophe from an antelope, a participle from a plow.</div>
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But that didn't prevent those who possessed wisdom from expressing it, those who were savvy from sharing it, those who were, simply, smart from passing it on from elders to youngers in a perpetual circle of the life educational.</div>
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That said, we simply do not live that life anymore.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yONnJHcVsTg/VGIy9GE20sI/AAAAAAAAEBI/7173etMclcU/s1600/Grammar%2BTWO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fmfP2vDF7wg/VGIQ4y9Eb-I/AAAAAAAAEA0/HmfjeqYX0YI/s1600/Grammar%2Bpeeves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fmfP2vDF7wg/VGIQ4y9Eb-I/AAAAAAAAEA0/HmfjeqYX0YI/s320/Grammar%2Bpeeves.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Education, knowledge, information that wasn't available at all to those who plowed those fields and built those houses and essentially laid the foundation for the country as it exists today is now not only available through long established fine institutions of higher learning.....</div>
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...it's available to every and all, at any time, with no more than the click of a button, or mouse as it were, on the very screen where you are reading the words I am typing.</div>
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Or the phone that you will almost certainly check at least once before you finishing reading what I have typed.</div>
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And while that aforementioned inability, or refusal, to use proper grammar, correct punctuation, etc. is not a disease, it most certainly is a symptom.</div>
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</div>
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Of the more malignant malady.</div>
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ADD.</div>
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American Dumb Down.</div>
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Spreading like a virus from sea to shining sea, already permeating the culture, our television programming, our movie production, even our popular music. </div>
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Rampant and feverish in our political parties and governing bodies.</div>
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Each and every day, the energy put into raising our bars higher is replaced by the "anti-energy", a minimum amount of effort resulting in a maximum output of apathy, indifference, casual, even sloppy, attention to quality and/or detail.</div>
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A growing population of citizens less inclined to put shoulders to the wheel of progress and advancement than to use said shoulders for nothing more than a lah-dee-dah shrug and a "whatever" when it comes to more traditional values and not only a willingness to settle for less than best, but an almost automatic deference to whatever requires less energy, commitment, devotion, effort.</div>
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Not just acting fat and lazy.</div>
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But actually becoming more fat and more lazy.</div>
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"For want of a nail", the classic tale begins.</div>
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Or want of the correct use of a single word.</div>
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What difference does it make?</div>
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All the difference in the world.</div>
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Because knowledge is power.</div>
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And power drives the engine.</div>
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The engine essential to us ever again getting anywhere.</div>
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Unless, of course, your one of those people who could care less.</div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-24337904441393979032014-11-09T08:23:00.004-05:002014-11-09T08:24:18.136-05:00"...Try To Imagine Uncle Sam Hanging From A Pole Saying "And, Of Course, Some People Do Go BOTH Ways'..."<div class="cnnEditorialNote">
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Every now and then, no matter how rare a find it might be, one can, if diligent, stumble across a perspective that actually turns out to be both measured and reasonable.</div>
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In this age of "pick one side or the other, people" extremism, such a discovery is a little like seeing something genuinely shiny in the bottom of the pan.</div>
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Eureka.</div>
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<em><strong>Editor's note:</strong> Paul Waldman is a senior writer with </em><a href="http://prospect.org/magazine" target="_blank"><em>The American Prospect magazine</em></a><em> and a blogger for The Washington Post. He is also the author of "Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success." Follow him on </em><a href="http://prospect.org/voices/paul-waldman" target="_blank"><em>his blog</em></a><em> and on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/paulwaldman1" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.</em></div>
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<em><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- If you were observing American elections from the outside, you might be asking yourself the following:</em><br />
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<em>Can't these people make up their minds? Four out of the last five elections (2006, 2008, 2010 and now 2014) were "wave" elections in which one party won a sweeping victory. They elect a president of one party, then two years later almost inevitably give the other party a huge victory in the midterm election. Why do they expect things to change?</em></div>
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<em>Good question. It's always dangerous to speak of a country of 319 million as having a singular will, or of an election expressing that will. That's particularly true when only about 40% of eligible voters show up for midterm elections. Like every party that wins, the GOP will claim that "the American people" have endorsed its agenda in full, and therefore if President Barack Obama stands in its way, then he's thwarting the public's desires.</em></div>
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<em>We've established that the </em><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/09/politics/cnn-poll-congress/"><em>public is fed up with a Congress</em></a><em> seemingly incapable of getting anything done. The trouble is that the voters -- unanimous in their abhorrence of gridlock -- just delivered a result almost guaranteed to produce more gridlock.</em></div>
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<em>To be fair, there was one party assuring them that their votes would do just the opposite. Republican candidates promised voters that they'd stand in Obama's way, and also promised that they'd "get things done," sometimes in the same sentence. As </em><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/what-will-the-gop-senate-be-like/381860/" target="_blank"><em>The Atlantic's Molly Ball reported</em></a><em> last week, "these two seemingly contradictory messages are at the heart of Republican Senate campaigns across the country. I've heard them from candidate after candidate.</em></div>
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<em>It's one thing to vote Republican because it's the party that reflects your beliefs. But if you're voting Republican because you want to see Congress become more conciliatory and productive, you really should have been paying closer attention the last six years.</em></div>
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<em>That's because obstructionism hasn't been an accident, or a reaction to moves on Obama's part that Republicans found objectionable. It was a strategy they employed from the outset. Literally on the day Obama was inaugurated, Republican leaders gathered over dinner and made a decision to oppose everything he proposed, to deny him both substantive progress and whatever political benefits might accrue to a president who looks like he's accomplishing things.</em></div>
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<em>In 2010, </em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/politics/17mcconnell.html" target="_blank"><em>Mitch McConnell explained to The New York Times</em></a><em> how important it was to present a unified front of opposition to the President's proposals, because then the public would dismiss the debate as just partisan bickering. "Mr. McConnell spent hours listening to the worries and ideas of Republicans," the paper reported, "urging them not to be seduced by the attention-grabbing possibilities of cutting a bipartisan deal."</em></div>
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<em>As political strategy, it was extremely astute and executed to near perfection. McConnell understood well that the President gets credit when Washington works and blame when it doesn't -- whether he deserves it in either case. So Republicans could pour sand in the gears of government and watch Obama suffer for it.</em></div>
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<em>And it worked. What was the result of six years of unprecedented filibusters, debt ceiling crises, a government shutdown, 50 futile Affordable Care Act repeal votes, endless conspiracy theorizing and a dramatic increase in general buffoonery? Republicans took back the House in 2010, and have now taken the Senate.</em></div>
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<em>And now </em><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/05/politics/elections-wednesday/index.html"><em>politicians in both parties</em></a><em> are saying they want to come together to accomplish things for the public. The problem is that they don't agree on the things they'd like to accomplish. The argument isn't over means; it's over ends. That'll be even truer when the new Congress is inaugurated in January than it is now.</em></div>
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<em>The new class of freshman Republicans in both the House and Senate is even more conservative than the existing GOP caucus (if you thought such a thing was possible), and to them, "getting things done" means slashing environmental protections, taking away health coverage from the millions who have obtained it through the Affordable Care Act and cutting taxes on the wealthy.</em></div>
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<em>If those new representatives actually managed to turn those beliefs into law, the public would say, "Hey, we didn't vote for that!" And they didn't, even in this Republican-leaning year.</em></div>
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<em>Voters in four deep-red states -- Arkansas, Alaska, Nebraska and South Dakota -- used ballot initiatives to approve one of the Democratic Party's highest economic priorities, increasing </em><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/05/news/economy/higher-minimum-wage-2014-elections/"><em>the minimum wage</em></a><em>. </em><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/05/opinion/kohn-ballot-intiatives-where-gop-didnt-win/"><em>"Personhood" initiatives</em></a><em> that would ban abortion failed, not only in the swing state of Colorado but in conservative North Dakota as well.</em></div>
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<em>In other words, where voters had the chance to decide policy issues, they chose the Democratic position even as they were voting for Republican candidates.</em></div>
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<em>So what do the American people want? They want to have their cake and eat it, too. As political scientists have known for decades, Americans are "symbolic conservatives" but "operational liberals" -- they like things like small government in the abstract, but they also like all the things government does.</em></div>
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<em>They elect Democrats who try to accomplish complex policy goals, then turn around and elect Republicans when things don't work perfectly. They say they hate gridlock, then elect people who will give them more of it.</em></div>
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<em>And two years from now, a whole new crop of candidates will barnstorm the country, saying, "Elect me, and we'll clean up this mess." And the voters (or at least enough of them) will, despite all evidence and experience, actually buy it.</em></div>
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Couple of random impressions......</div>
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First.... wow, Paul Waldman, you got some kind of balls and/or nerve, spreading around vicious and obviously outrageously logical common sense like that. I'd lay low for a while if I were you because the snap back is gonna be a bitch.</div>
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Second...reminded of a little truism I heard somewhere along the way in the just completed "campaign" I think applies to the logic applied here:</div>
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"People hate Congress.....and love their Congressman/woman".</div>
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Finally, and certainly qualifying as comic, yet appropriate, irony, I'm reminded of something the comic Gallagher offered a long time ago that I think further underscores Waldman's assessment of the American voter and their "push/pull" proclivities.</div>
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"what is the deal with iced tea in this country?.......first we boil it to make it hot, then we put ice in it to make it cold, then we put lemon in it to make it sour and then we put sugar in it to make it sweet...."</div>
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One could read either Gallagher's or Waldman's words and, the case could be successfully made, respond with pretty much the same question.</div>
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WTF?</div>
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Not to mention that politics, at least in this country at this time in history, seems to be exhibiting at least one of the major symptoms of that wacky, zany personality quirk.....</div>
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...shiny thing syndrome.</div>
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Eureka.</div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-87388651347385257962014-08-23T08:33:00.000-04:002014-08-23T08:33:01.420-04:00"...Sunshine...On His Shoulders...Makes Us Happy...."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Believe it or not, Dan Page has done all of us a solid.<br />
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Don't hurt yourself going all up in arms until you've reached the exciting conclusion of our story.<br />
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<em><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- A Missouri police officer involved in maintaining security in troubled Ferguson was put on administrative leave Friday after a video surfaced showing him railing about the Supreme Court, Muslims, and his past -- and perhaps, he said, his future -- as "a killer."</em><br />
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<em>The officer, Dan Page of the St. Louis County Police Department, became something of a familiar face to many earlier this month when video showed him pushing back CNN's Don Lemon and others in a group in Ferguson. At the time, CNN was reporting on the large-scale and at times violent protests calling for the arrest of a white Ferguson police officer who shot and killed African-American teenager Michael Brown.</em></div>
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<em>But it's another video that led St. Louis County police officials to say they had removed Page from his post and had started a process that will likely include the department's internal affairs unit investigating and a psychological evaluation of the officer.</em></div>
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<em>"(I) apologize to the community and anybody who is offended by these remarks, and understand from me that he ... does not represent the rank-and-file of the St. Louis County Police Department," county Police Chief Jon Belmar told CNN. Belmar called the video "so bizarre."</em></div>
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<em>CNN placed several phone calls Friday to what's believed to be Page's home number seeking comment on the video and disciplinary action against him, but never got a response.</em></div>
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<em>Posted to YouTube and highlighted by CrooksandLiars.com, the video shows the military veteran talking for about an hour to an Oath Keepers group. According to its website, Oath Keepers is "a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to 'defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'"</em></div>
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<em>The president of the Oath Keepers' St. Louis/St. Charles chapter, Duane Weed, told CNN that Page was a guest speaker and is not a member of his group. A link to the video of his speech was posted to the local chapter's Facebook page on April 23 -- a day after it happened -- along with text that highlighted what Page had to say about the dangers of private contractors in war zones.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>That was just one of many topics Page touched on, sometimes jokingly and at other times very seriously</em></div>
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</div>
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<em>In his rambling remarks on the video, he talks about what he describes as a draft replacement for the U.S. Constitution, the "four sodomites on the Supreme Court," and a visit to Kenya "to our undocumented President's home." He refers to Barack Obama as "that illegal alien who claims to be our President."</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>Page frequently references violence, including nine combat tours in the Army, during which he did "my fair share of killing."</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>Speaking about Muslims, he says pointedly: "They will kill you."</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>On domestic disputes, he opines: "You don't like each other that much, just kill each other and get it over with. Problem solved. Get it done."</em></div>
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<em>On urban violence, he predicts that "when the inner cities start to ignite, people are going to start killing people they don't like."</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>And lastly, Page says, "I personally believe the Lord Jesus Christ is my savior, but I'm also a killer. I've killed a lot and, if I need to, I will kill a whole bunch more."</em></div>
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</div>
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<em>"If you don't want to get killed, don't show up in front of me."</em></div>
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<em>Belmar, the head of the St. Louis County police department, said all the talk about killing was especially disturbing to him.</em></div>
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<em>"As a police chief, that's something I'm not going to be able to endure," Belmar said.</em><br />
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<em></em> </div>
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<em></em> </div>
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The first reaction most reasonable people have to this kind of "sharing" is something along the lines of abhorrence, astonishment, even aghastness.</div>
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Well, okay, aghastness isn't actually a word.</div>
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But if it was, you can bet the bank that said reasonable people would experience it..</div>
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</div>
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Meanwhile, most reasonable people who have, for one reason or another, done their homework re' the history of mankind, will almost always find, sprinkled amongst their feelings of outrage, offense, even horrifiedness (okay, truth be told, I'm shooting for some additions to the Scrabble dictionary cause the point totals have been pretty impotent lately), a sense of satisfaction in the wide spread attention that this kind of lunacy gets.</div>
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</div>
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For a couple of reasons.</div>
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First, because while, ostensibly, what we don't know can't hurt us (next to "check's in the mail" and/or "ladies and gentlemen, the family friendly dance stylings of Miley Cyrus", one of the great true lies of this life), what we don't know is broken cant be fixed, either.</div>
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</div>
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Second, to put the same point in a more relatable everyday sort of way, ain't no gettin' rid of the cockroaches in the kitchen if'n the cockroaches don't come crawlin' right out on ta' the sink, there.</div>
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</div>
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Regardless of what sensationalism driven media would probably like to have us believe, psychotic, neurotic, despotic, hell, all the "otic" behaviors are absolutely nothing new.</div>
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</div>
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This bounces back to the earlier reference to those who have done their history of mankind homework.</div>
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</div>
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Dan Page is clearly a lot of things.</div>
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</div>
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At the very least, I think it not unfair to call him, by literal definition, a zealot.</div>
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</div>
<div class="vk_ans" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span data-dobid="hdw">zeal·ot</span></div>
<div>
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</div>
<div>
<div class="lr_dct_sf_h">
<i>noun</i></div>
<div class="xpdxpnd vk_gy" data-mh="-1">
noun: <b>zealot</b>; plural noun: <b>zealots</b></div>
<ol class="lr_dct_sf_sens">
<li><div>
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<div style="margin-left: 20px;">
<div style="font-size: small; margin-left: -20px;">
<div data-dobid="dfn" style="display: inline;">
a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.</div>
<div>
<table class="vk_tbl vk_gy"><tbody>
<tr><td class="lr_dct_nyms_ttl" style="padding-right: 3px;">synonyms:</td><td><a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1T4RNQN_enUS480US480&q=define+fanatic&sa=X&ei=J4H4U9zpAc__yQSi3YH4Bw&ved=0CCEQ_SowAA"><span style="color: #1a0dab;">fanatic</span></a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1T4RNQN_enUS480US480&q=define+enthusiast&sa=X&ei=J4H4U9zpAc__yQSi3YH4Bw&ved=0CCIQ_SowAA"><span style="color: #1a0dab;">enthusiast</span></a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1T4RNQN_enUS480US480&q=define+extremist&sa=X&ei=J4H4U9zpAc__yQSi3YH4Bw&ved=0CCMQ_SowAA"><span style="color: #1a0dab;">extremist</span></a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1T4RNQN_enUS480US480&q=define+radical&sa=X&ei=J4H4U9zpAc__yQSi3YH4Bw&ved=0CCQQ_SowAA"><span style="color: #1a0dab;">radical</span></a>, young Turk, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1T4RNQN_enUS480US480&q=define+diehard&sa=X&ei=J4H4U9zpAc__yQSi3YH4Bw&ved=0CCUQ_SowAA"><span style="color: #1a0dab;">diehard</span></a>, true believer, activist, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1T4RNQN_enUS480US480&q=define+militant&sa=X&ei=J4H4U9zpAc__yQSi3YH4Bw&ved=0CCYQ_SowAA"><span style="color: #1a0dab;">militant</span></a>;</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
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And those of us who have a soft spot for Bugs, Daffy, Yosemite and/or Road Runner would likely suggest another moniker for the man.</div>
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</div>
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Looney Tune.</div>
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</div>
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But he really is doing us a favor.</div>
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</div>
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Because his fanaticism isn't being spewed in some unknown out of the way tavern, bar or honky tonk.</div>
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</div>
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No beer hall putsch going on here, kids.</div>
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</div>
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Nope.</div>
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</div>
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There he is in all his Huey P. Long meets Adolf Shicklgruber meets Rush Limbaugh glory, a 35 year veteran of a highly populated county police department, a supposed trusted member of the community and, theoretically, a role model/influence on generations of citizens, right there in plain cinder block adorned sight on the trusty You Tube allowing everyone, convert, supporter and/or reasonable person overcome with aghastness, to see and hear who he is, where he is, what he is, exposing his venom and vitriol and viciousosity (now that ought to be good for a Triple Word Score) in the clear light of day.</div>
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</div>
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A cockroach scurrying out from under the sink and walking ever so brazenly across the Formica topped counters of our psyches.</div>
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</div>
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By now, to any of the aforementioned reasonable homework doers, the moral of our story will, of course, be obvious.</div>
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</div>
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Dan Page has done us a service.</div>
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</div>
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By putting his zealotry right out here in plain sight.</div>
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</div>
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Where it can be bathed in the blinding light of what reporters like to call "the best antiseptic".</div>
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</div>
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Not to mention bug killer.</div>
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Sunshine.</div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe frameborder="0" height="234" src="http://www.cnn.com/video/api/embed.html#/video/us/2014/08/23/ctn-pkg-valencia-suspended-officer-video-comments.cnn" width="416"><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</iframe><br /></div>
Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-9241173406450697302014-08-03T10:22:00.000-04:002014-08-03T10:23:11.495-04:00"...Listen, I'm Willing To Reach Out To You As Long As You Don't Touch Me In Any Way...."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cpj5RgLkrK4/U95Fbw6CHDI/AAAAAAAAD7E/uRap6QrYfeA/s1600/ebola.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cpj5RgLkrK4/U95Fbw6CHDI/AAAAAAAAD7E/uRap6QrYfeA/s1600/ebola.png" height="178" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph22">
Selfies are the thing these days.</div>
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</div>
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Pictures we take of ourselves at any given moment almost inevitably posted to one social media site or another, a running photographic "commentary" on our lives, delightfully, if not just a little narcissistically, shared with any and all who come across said snaps.</div>
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</div>
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From driving to eating to chatting to mugging for the camera, these little tiles of our respective life mosaic offer little glimpses of the minutiae as if it were essential that everyone we know have the opportunity to see "behind the scenes" of our daily adventures.</div>
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</div>
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There's one thing these little exercises in personal promotion don't show, though.</div>
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</div>
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Our amazing sports skill.</div>
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</div>
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In a manner of speaking.</div>
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And there's one thing even the most sophisticated smartphone camera still can't do.</div>
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</div>
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More on those in a moment.</div>
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<em><strong>Atlanta (CNN)</strong> -- A medical plane whisked an American infected with Ebola from Liberia to Georgia on Saturday, the latest leg of a race to save the first known patient with the deadly virus to be treated on U.S. soil.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
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<em>Shortly after the plane landed, an ambulance rushed Dr. Kent Brantly from Dobbins Air Reserve Base to Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. He's one of two Americans sickened by the deadly viral hemorrhagic fever last month while on the front lines of a major outbreak in West Africa.</em></div>
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<em>Video from Emory showed someone in a white, full-body protective suit helping a similarly clad person emerge from the ambulance and walk into the hospital.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>Emory has said it will treat Brantly, 33, and fellow missionary Nancy Writebol in an isolation unit</em></div>
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<em>The plane equipped with an isolation unit can only transport one patient at a time. It will now pick up Writebol in Liberia and bring her to Georgia early next week, said Todd Shearer, spokesman for Christian charity Samaritan's Purse, with which both Americans were affiliated.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>Brantly's wife, parents and sister cried when they saw him on CNN walking from the ambulance into the hospital, a family representative said on condition of anonymity. His wife, Amber, later said she was relieved that her husband was back in the United States.</em></div>
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<em>"I spoke with him, and he is glad to be back in the U.S.," she said in statement. "I am thankful to God for his safe transport and for giving him the strength to walk into the hospital."</em></div>
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<em>Brantly's wife visited with him from behind a glass wall for about 45 minutes, the family representative said. Kent Brantly was described as "in great spirits and so grateful."</em></div>
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<em>Brantly, who has ties to Texas and Indiana, and Writebol, of North Carolina, became sick while caring for Ebola patients in Liberia, one of three West African nations hit by an outbreak.</em></div>
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<strong><em></em></strong> </div>
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<em>This will be the first human Ebola test for a U.S. medical facility. The patients will be treated at an isolated unit where precautions are in place to keep such deadly diseases from spreading, unit supervisor Dr. Bruce Ribner said.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>Everything that comes in and out of the unit will be controlled, Ribner said, and it will have windows and an intercom for staff to interact with patients without being in the room.</em></div>
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<em>Ebola is not airborne or waterborne, and spreads through contact with organs and bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and other secretions of infected people.</em></div>
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<em>There is no FDA-approved treatment for Ebola, and Emory will use what Ribner calls "supportive care." That means carefully tracking a patient's symptoms, vital signs and organ function and taking measures, such as blood transfusions and dialysis, to keep patients stable.</em></div>
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<em>"We just have to keep the patient alive long enough in order for the body to control this infection," Ribner said.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>Writebol was given an experimental serum this week, Samaritan's Purse said, though its purpose and effects weren't immediately publicized.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding.</em></div>
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</div>
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<em>Early symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. They later progress to vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function -- and sometimes internal and external bleeding.</em></div>
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<em>Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA, a Christian mission organization with which Writebol also is linked, said Saturday that both were seriously ill but stable.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>"My last report (on Brantly) was yesterday. ... He was ambulatory, being able to talk, converse, and get up. So that was encouraging," Johnson said Saturday morning</em></div>
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<em>On Writebol, Johnson said: "She's responsive, and we're encouraged at how she's doing."</em></div>
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<em>Emory's isolation unit was created with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based down the road. It aims to optimize care for those with highly infectious diseases and is one of four U.S. institutions capable of providing such treatment.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>The World Health Organization reports that the outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is believed to have infected 1,323 people and killed more than 729 this year, as of July 27.</em></div>
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<strong><em></em></strong> </div>
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<em>As officials worked to bring the two Americans home, the idea of intentionally bringing Ebola into the United States has rattled many nerves.</em></div>
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<em>"The road to hell was paved with good intentions," wrote one person, using the hashtag #EbolaOutbreak. "What do we say to our kids When they get sick& die?"</em></div>
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<em>On the website of conspiracy talker Alex Jones, who has long purported the CDC could unleash a pandemic and the government would react by instituting authoritarian rule, the news was a feast of fodder.</em></div>
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<em>"Feds would exercise draconian emergency powers if Ebola hits U.S.," a headline read on infowars.com.</em></div>
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<em>Ribner repeatedly downplayed the risk for anyone who will be in contact with Brantly or Writebol.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em>"We have two individuals who are critically ill, and we feel that we owe them the right to receive the best medical care," Ribner said.</em></div>
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<strong><em></em></strong> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph33">
<em>All concerns about the United States pale in comparison to the harsh reality in the hardest-hit areas.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph34">
<em>Even in the best-case scenario, it could take three to six months to stem the epidemic in West Africa, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph34">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph35">
<em>There's no vaccine, though one is in the works.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph35">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph36">
<em>There's no standardized treatment for the disease, either; the most common approach is to support organ functions and keep up bodily fluids such as blood and water long enough for the body to fight off the infection.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph36">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph37">
<em>The National Institutes of Health plans to begin testing an experimental Ebola vaccine in people as early as September. Tests on primates have been successful.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph37">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph38">
<em>So far, the outbreak is confined to West Africa. Although infections are dropping in Guinea, they are on the rise in Liberia and Sierra Leone.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph38">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
<em>In the 1990s, an Ebola strain tied to monkeys -- Ebola-Reston -- was found in the United States, but no humans got sick from it, according to the CDC</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
To any reasonable observer, the "big story" here should be the revolutionary measures being taken to try and save two lives and, ideally, in the process, find a cure and/or prevention for this latest viral assault on mankind, the latest arrival in a long line of lethal potentials, from smallpox to polio, malaria to leukemia, influenza to HIV.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
That story, sadly, obviously gets trumped by the more "human" angle.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph26">
<em>As officials worked to bring the two Americans home, the idea of intentionally bringing Ebola into the United States has rattled many nerves.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph26">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph27">
<em>"The road to hell was paved with good intentions," wrote one person, using the hashtag #EbolaOutbreak. "What do we say to our kids When they get sick& die?"</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph27">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Ask any one, in the course of passing conversation, if they believe they would be willing to die for someone.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
With apologies for speaking for you and/or anyone else, I'm willing to bet that we would all like to think that we have that capacity for sacrifice in our natures.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Fact is, though, our willingness to give our all is, at best, conditional.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Because, judging from the majority of comments being made in public, in print, online, on TV, on radio talk, we might be prepared to affirm our willingness to die for God and/or country and/or family.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
But for a couple of doctors who screwed up and got themselves infected with some incurable, contagious disease?</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Fuck em, man.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Shit happens.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Not a very pleasant representation of our supposedly better angels, huh?</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Not to mention a pretty unflattering portrait of our true natures.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Something that we always manage to magically leave out of frame when snapping the selfies.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Along with that aforementioned sports skill we all seem to possess.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
The ability to talk a good game.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
While patiently waiting for the next and newest smartphone, the one whose camera will finally allow us to photograph that which, to date, we have not been able to photograph.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
The selfie that shows us turning our backs.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
An image not yet available to our own eyes.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
But one that is, come to think of it, currently visible to, at least, a few people.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
The families of Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
Not at all a pretty picture.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">
</div>
Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-15231001979420131202014-07-26T07:33:00.001-04:002014-07-26T07:36:46.958-04:00"The Fault, Dear Brutus......."<br />
<br />
<br />
We used to be explorers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CbIZU8cQWXc" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Somewhere along the way, it became more important to look inward than outward, to be self absorbed, self interested, self aggrandizing, self serving, to fixate on building newer and bigger and more grandiose stadiums to watch grown men play games instead of fixing our eyes on the next star and the one after that and the one after that , to bail out greedy and/or incompetent corporations and banks and other businesses instead of sailing out to places and spaces yet to be discovered, to give up looking up with imaginations filled with possibilities and take up keeping up with Kardashians.<br />
<br />
To turn our backs on our better angels, as our vision became, and becomes, ever more myopic with each passing day.<br />
<br />
Rather than seek out the next horizon, because that's what we do.<br />
<br />
Or used to.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/oHGK96-WixU" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
We used to be explorers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-1358157165426616852014-07-01T19:43:00.001-04:002014-07-01T19:43:49.916-04:00"...A Long Time Ago, On Some Memorial Steps Far, Far Away....."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LpEw_d2um6A/U7NHYmkfE6I/AAAAAAAAD5g/LRsUYkFjENs/s1600/kanye-west-interrupts-martin-luther-king.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LpEw_d2um6A/U7NHYmkfE6I/AAAAAAAAD5g/LRsUYkFjENs/s1600/kanye-west-interrupts-martin-luther-king.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a></div>
Had a train of thought that went a little off course.<br />
<br />
Earlier today, I wrote a piece that ended up over on my media blog, Phelpsounds.<br />
<br />
The gist of that essay was my enjoyment of the CNN Original Program, "The Sixties", produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog.<br />
<br />
One episode in particular, though, flipped my "talkback" button and had me logging on to lay it down.<br />
<br />
Somewhere along the way, said train took a different track and ended up being an opine as regards "critics" and the presentations of their profession.<br />
<br />
Here's a link to that piece.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://phelpsounds.blogspot.com/2014/07/thinking-we-need-to-re-think-whole.html">http://phelpsounds.blogspot.com/2014/07/thinking-we-need-to-re-think-whole.html</a><br />
<br />
Feel free to ride that particular club car to its conclusion.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, back to the original point of departure.<br />
<br />
The fifth installment of the 10 part documentary is entitled, "A Long March To Freedom" and is, in my humble o, one of the best video/audio histories of the civil rights movement I've seen.<br />
<br />
Crafted in a viewer friendly style, but compelling enough to take what, after fifty plus years. could rightly be described as somewhat dusty history and make it all worth the time to watch and listen and, in my case, re-visit.<br />
<br />
The segment of the program dealing with the period from 63 to 65, especially, including the iconic I Have A Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial and the brutal, venomous hatred that resulted in the death of the three young civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1964, found me both moved again by the power and poignancy of those difficult days, but, now, today, by a feeling of irony, even a little sadness.<br />
<br />
And thinking a little about legacy.<br />
<br />
No sermon, no preaching, no long peroration in the spirit of Dr. King or any of his contemporaries.<br />
<br />
Simply an observation from a now sixty-ish, middle class white guy who lived through those years and has both the benefit, and disadvantage, of hindsight.<br />
<br />
And thinking a little about legacy.<br />
<br />
The courage and sacrifice it took to walk streets and highways knowing that insult was certain, injury was likely, death was easily possible.<br />
<br />
The bones and hearts and lives broken in the effort to simply afford one race of people the same respect as other races of people.<br />
<br />
The sweat, tears and blood shed in that cause.<br />
<br />
And now, fifty plus years later, I find myself moved again in an older, hopefully wiser, way by those sacrifices and that courage.<br />
<br />
And thinking a little about legacy.<br />
<br />
From Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King to Vivian Malone to James Hood to Medgar Evers to James Meredith to Malcolm X to Coretta Scott King to Myrlie Evers to three little girls in a Birmingham church on a Sunday morning..........<br />
<br />
to.....Rhianna.<br />
<br />
Nicki Minaj.<br />
<br />
Kanye West.<br />
<br />
Chris Brown.<br />
<br />
Thinking a little about legacy.<br />
<br />
Very little.<br />
<br />
Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-66051620449525884672014-06-29T09:28:00.002-04:002014-06-29T09:28:25.986-04:00"...We're Looking For Someone With A Winning Smile, A Way With People...And Very Limber and Flexible Shoulder Muscles..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K4lUFmoz088/U7AUQAb5qDI/AAAAAAAAD4k/DD5N_dwN0nI/s1600/customer+service.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K4lUFmoz088/U7AUQAb5qDI/AAAAAAAAD4k/DD5N_dwN0nI/s1600/customer+service.jpg" height="294" width="320" /></a></div>
There's a new dance sensation sweeping the nation.<br />
<br />
And, as the kids like to offer, it's going viral, baby.<br />
<br />
In it's more playful moments, it can actually appear to be cute, charming even a little coquettish.<br />
<br />
But in it's more often than not usage these days it's simply, at best, annoying and, at worst, infuriating.<br />
<br />
So listen everybody / there's a brand new drug<br />
makin' people apathetic/ till they do the shrug /<br />
do the shrug<br />
<br />
Ah, the shrug.<br />
<br />
Not familiar with this latest massively manifested move?<br />
<br />
Sure you are.<br />
<br />
Think back, pilgrim.<br />
<br />
You walked up to the hilariously, obviously satirically named customer service desk at your local big box store and spoke thusly....<br />
<br />
"Hi, I want to return these __________"<br />
<br />
"Uh, do you have a receipt?"<br />
<br />
"Sure do. Here it is."<br />
<br />
"Oh, okay. Oh, uh, I can't take these back."<br />
<br />
"Oh, really. And why not?"<br />
<br />
"Says right here on the bottom of the receipt that all returns must be made within three working minutes of one working day after purchase."<br />
<br />
"Well, surely a bright, engaging young hilariously, obviously satirically named customer service representative can see that that policy is, well, just silly."<br />
<br />
Then comes the shrug / she's doin the shrug.<br />
<br />
This buoyant little be-bop even works when you can't actually see it.<br />
<br />
"Hi, I'm trying to find out why my cable bill has me charged with fourteen viewings of "John Carpenter's Hamlet starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rob Kardashian and Nancy Allen" when I know better than to EVER get near a button that might even accidentally have me ordering "John Carpenter's Hamlet starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rob Kardashian and Nancy Allen". Could you help me?"<br />
<br />
"I'm sorry you've having a problem with that and I can help you today. Could I get the last four numbers of your Social?"<br />
<br />
"- - - - "<br />
<br />
"Thank you for that information. Could I ask you to please hold for a moment while I bring up your account and verify that you are not a member of any subversive organization, do not subscribe to the teachings of Buddah, Islam or Dr. Oz and that you are, in fact, who you say you are?"<br />
<br />
"Uh, sure."<br />
<br />
"Thank you for that permission."<br />
<br />
A period of time now begins, usually running anywhere from three to eleven minutes, depending on vendor, product and/or your truthfulness about your membership in any subversive organization."<br />
<br />
"Thank you for holding. According to our information, you actually ordered this particular movie thirty six times but since you are a loyal customer, we discounted you twenty two times and only charged you for the fourteen on your bill. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"<br />
<br />
"Seriously, you're going to charge me for fourteen viewings of something I didn't order at all?"<br />
<br />
then comes the shrug/ he's doin the shrug.<br />
<br />
I honestly haven't been able to figure out if this insidious little response reflex is about incompetence on the part of those who engage in it or simply some kind of tragic neurological manifestation of the overload they, personally, suffer given the volume of customers they must deal with on a daily basis because of the rise in crappy products and/or service in the first place.<br />
<br />
Either way, it's a total buzzkill for those of us who stop by the counter or jump on the line, each time filled with a fresh optimism that whoever greets on the other end of either venue will wash our problem away with a zeal and zing that makes OxyClean look like a waste of time.<br />
<br />
And, frankly, underneath it all, I really think there's something else going on here.<br />
<br />
The shrug is more than just a sloughing off of intention to actually affect any assistance, restitution and/or repair.<br />
<br />
It's really becoming the internationally recognized symbol for "I can't really be bothered."<br />
<br />
A non verbal edition of the time honored "look, just get off my ass and suck it up, okay?"<br />
<br />
Because great customer service is perilously close to becoming a sixty two point Scrabble score oxymoron.<br />
<br />
And while there's really no excuse for their behavior, I can totally see a reason why these shruggers shrug in the direction of us shruggees.<br />
<br />
In large measure, because so often even those well meaning CSR's who valiantly lift our problem up to their own higher power are often stymied with the shake and shimmy of the supervisor shrug.<br />
<br />
Somewhere, sooner or later, up the line, far too often, any potential solution is stymied by the shrug.<br />
<br />
Ah, the shrug.<br />
<br />
What's next in the evolution of consumer assistance?<br />
<br />
Who can say?<br />
<br />
Except to note that just as the foxtrot gave way to the twist that gave way to the jerk that gave way to the hully gully......<br />
<br />
...the "happy to help" gave way to the "hmm, not sure" that has given way to.....the shrug.<br />
<br />
Annoying, frustrating, even infuriating.<br />
<br />
But, in all fairness, not as bad as what lurks just beneath the surface of that shrug.<br />
<br />
The middle finger.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2vn5p7yS9PA/U7AT3YHkqUI/AAAAAAAAD4c/9bK8qkh8LKI/s1600/rashida-shrug.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2vn5p7yS9PA/U7AT3YHkqUI/AAAAAAAAD4c/9bK8qkh8LKI/s1600/rashida-shrug.gif" height="149" width="320" /></a></div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-55067539188824742012014-06-28T10:08:00.000-04:002014-06-28T10:08:00.720-04:00"...Those Who Have Been Longing To Punch Her Out Have Probably Moved On To A Desire To Soccer...."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XV7SgE1RDGo/U67L2wdDNuI/AAAAAAAAD4E/lpaNgR93qeQ/s1600/AnnCoulterSoccerBall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XV7SgE1RDGo/U67L2wdDNuI/AAAAAAAAD4E/lpaNgR93qeQ/s1600/AnnCoulterSoccerBall.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
Thank you, Ann Coulter.<br />
<br />
I finally realize what has been bugging me for a long time.<br />
<br />
This past week, the darling of the demonic demagogues offered up the following opine as regards the game of soccer and America's current passionate embrace of the World Cup matches.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<em></em><br />
<em>I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade — or about the length of the average soccer game — so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>• Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls — all in front of a crowd. When baseball players strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms."</em><br />
<br />
<em>Do they even have MVPs in soccer? Everyone just runs up and down the field and, every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in. That's when we're supposed to go wild. I'm already asleep.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>• Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level.</em><br />
<br />
<em>• No other "sport" ends in as many scoreless ties as soccer. This was an actual marquee sign by the freeway in Long Beach, California, about a World Cup game last week: "2nd period, 11 minutes left, score: 0:0." Two hours later, another World Cup game was on the same screen: "1st period, 8 minutes left, score: 0:0." If Michael Jackson had treated his chronic insomnia with a tape of Argentina vs. Brazil instead of Propofol, he'd still be alive, although bored.</em><br />
<br />
<em>Even in football, by which I mean football, there are very few scoreless ties — and it's a lot harder to score when a half-dozen 300-pound bruisers are trying to crush you.</em><br />
<br />
<em>• The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game.</em><br />
<br />
<em>Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace. In hockey, there are three or four fights a game — and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box.</em><br />
<br />
<em>• You can't use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here's a great idea: Let's create a game where you're not allowed to use them!</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>• I resent the force-fed aspect of soccer. The same people trying to push soccer on Americans are the ones demanding that we love HBO's "Girls," light-rail, Beyonce and Hillary Clinton. The number of New York Times articles claiming soccer is "catching on" is exceeded only by the ones pretending women's basketball is fascinating.</em><br />
<br />
<em>I note that we don't have to be endlessly told how exciting football is.</em><br />
<br />
<em>• It's foreign. In fact, that's the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring Americans to love soccer. One group of sports fans with whom soccer is not "catching on" at all, is African-Americans. They remain distinctly unimpressed by the fact that the French like it.</em><br />
<br />
<em>• Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren't committing mass murder by guillotine.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Despite being subjected to Chinese-style brainwashing in the public schools to use centimeters and Celsius, ask any American for the temperature, and he'll say something like "70 degrees." Ask how far Boston is from New York City, he'll say it's about 200 miles.</em><br />
<br />
<em>Liberals get angry and tell us that the metric system is more "rational" than the measurements everyone understands. This is ridiculous. An inch is the width of a man's thumb, a foot the length of his foot, a yard the length of his belt. That's easy to visualize. How do you visualize 147.2 centimeters?</em><br />
<br />
<em>• Soccer is not "catching on." Headlines this week proclaimed "Record U.S. ratings for World Cup," and we had to hear — again about the "growing popularity of soccer in the United States."</em><br />
<br />
<em>The USA-Portugal game was the blockbuster match, garnering 18.2 million viewers on ESPN. This beat the second-most watched soccer game ever: The 1999 Women's World Cup final (USA vs. China) on ABC. (In soccer, the women's games are as thrilling as the men's.)</em><br />
<br />
<em>Run-of-the-mill, regular-season Sunday Night Football games average more than 20 million viewers; NFL playoff games get 30 to 40 million viewers; and this year's Super Bowl had 111.5 million viewers.</em><br />
<br />
<em>Remember when the media tried to foist British soccer star David Beckham and his permanently camera-ready wife on us a few years ago? Their arrival in America was heralded with 24-7 news coverage. That lasted about two days. Ratings tanked. No one cared.</em><br />
<br />
<em>If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<br />
Hmm.<br />
<br />
Okay.<br />
<br />
First, a necessary disclaimer.<br />
<br />
I'm not a big fan of soccer. But it should be noted that I've never really been much of a sports fan in general.<br />
<br />
I can enjoy a good game with the best of them but my interests, as a rule, tend to run in other directions.<br />
<br />
To each his, her and/or their own.<br />
<br />
That said, here's some random thoughts as regards our always amazing Ann's soccer slant.<br />
<br />
Let's see.<br />
<br />
An internationally recognized sport, popular in countries all around the world.<br />
<br />
An opportunity for Americans to be a competitive and spirited contributor to a global activity.<br />
<br />
An activity that, for the most part, injects positivity and sportsmanship, even worldwide camaraderie into a global culture often dehydrated from the lack of the cool, refreshing waters of positivity, sportsmanship, even worldwide camaraderie.<br />
<br />
An activity that, dare we whisper it out loud, actually brings people of all races, creeds, colors and/or international origins together for brief periods of time.<br />
<br />
Well, hell's bells, no wonder Coulter's six foot long knickers are in a twist.<br />
<br />
What kind of devil's work is afoot here?<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, here's one more thought.<br />
<br />
Ann Coulter is a doorknob.<br />
<br />
And while this piece isn't even close to the first I've ever written either preaching, pronouncing and/or pillorying the supposed wit and questionable wisdom of this Lenny Bruce in drag wannabe, it is the first written since the little intellectual itch I've had for such a long, long time has finally been scratched.<br />
<br />
For the first time, I now realize who Ann Coulter is.<br />
<br />
Andrew Dice Clay.<br />
<br />
Whether solely for the purpose of furthering an entertainment based career or just to poke people with a stick to see what kind of reaction will result, Coulter is operating, almost line item by line item, right out of the playbook of the "shock comic" whose presentation consisted of simply spewing whatever foul, flaming, incendiary, obnoxious, even just plain tastelessly rude thing that came into his head out of his mouth presumably to further his entertainment based career by poking people with a stick to see what kind of reaction would result.<br />
<br />
And morons, dimwits, idiots, any member of any cast of any TV show that's title begins with the words "The Real Housewives of" and, one can imagine, pretty much the lion's share of the populations of Mississippi and Alabama practically made the master of misogyny a god on the order of those who fling fire to write rules on stone tablets and send misbehaving couples packing from gardens of goodness.<br />
<br />
For the longest time, despite my basic disdain for Coulter's cacophonies and my "mama didn't raise no idgit" awareness that she wasn't exactly Eleanor Roosevelt, I have made an honest effort to get past her snarky and seek out the pearls surely hidden amongst the swine.<br />
<br />
Right up to early this past week when she kicked just a little too high, leapt just a little too far, let one idea too many bounce off of her head and into the big net that will, hopefully, some day be used to gather all the wack jobs of the world and put them in the happy place they really were meant to be.<br />
<br />
Ann Coulter, it turns out, is neither prophet nor priestess.<br />
<br />
Neither tribal elder nor middle aged twit.<br />
<br />
Neither prescient political pundit nor pompous pontificator.<br />
<br />
She's just a shock comic in heels.<br />
<br />
And making a pretty damn good living at it, too.<br />
<br />
So spew on, there, superstar.<br />
<br />
Make hay while the sun shines.<br />
<br />
And the idgits are listening.<br />
<br />
As for me, I finally get it.<br />
<br />
And for that, I have to sincerely say....<br />
<br />
thanks, Andr.......<br />
<br />
uh....Ann.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iACO5_i9xDE/U67MM5NWubI/AAAAAAAAD4M/Bw6yVoaoNug/s1600/Andrew-Dice-Clay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iACO5_i9xDE/U67MM5NWubI/AAAAAAAAD4M/Bw6yVoaoNug/s1600/Andrew-Dice-Clay.jpg" height="320" width="317" /></a></div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-80342498285034328482014-06-14T08:36:00.001-04:002014-06-21T09:51:02.107-04:00"....School Used To Be A Place To Shoot For The Stars......"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LMS4QhNHmhQ/U5xAx581DpI/AAAAAAAAD3Q/RN1W7CKiq5g/s1600/school-bus-stop-shooting-prohibited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LMS4QhNHmhQ/U5xAx581DpI/AAAAAAAAD3Q/RN1W7CKiq5g/s1600/school-bus-stop-shooting-prohibited.jpg" height="320" width="233" /></a></div>
Getting tougher to be a teacher.<br />
<br />
Truth told, it was never the easiest of occupations, this noble quest to bring young people to some level of knowledge and ability, all the while having to struggle against not only the bureaucracy that inevitably thwarts and inhibits progress in the name of organization but the culture that, for each generation, distracts, even discourages, any allegiance to whatever manifesto the applicable "establishment" is offering up.<br />
<br />
And now, of course, you have to factor in the occasional to semi-often prowling of the school hallways by some psychologically malformed malcontent who has decided to depart this cold cruel world but not before inflicting as much as pain as possible with the assistance of a few well thought out weapons of one effective caliber or another, a couple of hundred, or thousand, rounds of flesh tearing ammunition, the 2nd Amendment and, of course, that vanguard of our Constitutional rights, the NRA.<br />
<br />
It's not all gloom and doom news, though.<br />
<br />
Still a little learning going on in our institutions of learning.<br />
<br />
Some Shakespeare.<br />
<br />
And a little Einstein, too.<br />
<br />
That's all just ahead.<br />
<br />
First, though, here, now, the news...<br />
<br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>MUSCATINE, Iowa — It’s the last thing a teacher wants to have to think about: what to do in case a shooter is in the building.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Mass shootings in the past year like Sandy Hook, and the one at an Oregon high school on Tuesday, have led a few Iowa middle school teachers to take action, and invent a device that will protect their classrooms.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“The Sleeve” is a 12-gauge carbon steel case that fits around the door’s closer arm, securing the door from the inside. The Sleeve can withstand more than 550 foot-pounds of force, making it nearly impossible to open from the outside.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Teacher Daniel Nitzel got the idea from the school’s active shooter training.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“We were instructed to tie a belt or a cord around the closer arm. It seemed like a logical way to secure a door without having to go into the hallway, [but] it took us a long time to get a cord, stand on a chair, and tie a knot, which could potentially be the most important tie of your life.” said Nitzel.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“I can tell you in our training, all five rooms that the teachers were trained in; the doors were breached, the cords were ripped, and the officer who was portraying the active shooter came in and killed all of us,” Nitzel said.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>That’s when Nitzel and his colleagues formed the company, Fighting Chance Solutions, and began designing blueprints for The Sleeve. He said it’s been ten months in the making, but they finally have it ready and waiting for patent.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E4XJDTQtGk4/U5w95o3GCOI/AAAAAAAAD20/_93AHThTjnU/s1600/sleeve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E4XJDTQtGk4/U5w95o3GCOI/AAAAAAAAD20/_93AHThTjnU/s1600/sleeve.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“We look at it as a cheap insurance policy. If you have someone out in the hallway, and you have an active situation, a dangerous situation unfolding and [don't] want to go out into the hallway and lock your door, we want to provide you with a way to close that door,” said Nitzel.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>The Sleeve is lightweight and compact, so it can be quickly applied and removed from the door’s opening mechanism in case of an emergency. It also allows the teachers to keep the door closed without having to enter the hallway to lock it from the outside, keeping them safe from harm.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“I think it’s a great product. It’s going to buy kids and teachers time for shootings,” said Muscatine Police Chief Brett Talkington. “These shooters [are] going to be pulling on the door. If they can’t get in, they’re going to move on.”</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>The Sleeve still awaits patent, but a local community college is fitting buildings across campus with the device.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, a little further down Resilience Road....<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>In the wake of dozens of school shootings over the last year and a half, many schools and parents have decided to turn to bulletproof school supplies in order to save children from unexpected disasters, most recently embracing beefed-up blankets.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em> According to the Huffington Post, an item called the Bodyguard Blanket has not even been available to purchase for two weeks, but sales for ProTecht’s product are incredibly strong. In fact, the company’s managing partner, Stan Schone, stated the safety device has already “far exceeded our wildest expectations.” </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>"We have been contacted by several private and public schools that have shown great interest and by many concerned parents wanting to purchase them as well," he told the Post in an email. "Private sales have been very spirited and far greater than anticipated." </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em> Originally designed as a way to offer students more protection in the event of a tornado, the $1,000 blanket resembles a padded mat with straps that can be worn like a backpack. The blanket is 5/16-inch thick and covers a student’s entire backside. When a child ducks and covers, the pad is strong enough to protect users from 9mm bullets as well as falling debris like metal shards and nails. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em> The Bodyguard Blanket is just the latest in a line of bulletproof school supplies by various manufacturers, many of which see sales spike following school shootings. Following the Sandy Hook massacre, for example, the Washington Post reported sales of bulletproof backpacks and other supplies doubled or tripled, in some cases rising more than 500 percent. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GJsFdyW7Ncc/U5w95vKRgeI/AAAAAAAAD3A/VIiyq5cbEqo/s1600/BodyguardBlankets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GJsFdyW7Ncc/U5w95vKRgeI/AAAAAAAAD3A/VIiyq5cbEqo/s1600/BodyguardBlankets.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<em></em><br />
<em> As noted by NBC News, events like the Sandy Hook massacre and the Virginia Tech shooting have lingered in the minds of schools, and they have proven willing to spend money in order to protect their students. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em> Yet for schools that, on average, the National Center for Education Statistics says spent about $11,000 per student as of 2010-11, adding $1,000 each is a significant expense. For ProTecht’s Schone and Steve Walker, the Bodyguard Blanket may not be able to deliver all the benefits of safe rooms or tornado shelters, but they are still cheaper alternatives for institutions short on money. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“By no means would we ever say that this is more protective,” Walker said to the Oklahoman. “But when you have budget constraints, this might be a viable alternative.” </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>That sentiment is not shared by many safety experts, however. With so many products on the market – bulletproof whiteboards, binders, even pencils – school safety consultant Ken Trump from Ohio argues they are taking time and money away from establishing much better safety procedures. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>"It may be well-intended but it’s not well thought-out," Trump told NBC. "I would ask this question: If you need a bulletproof backpack, wouldn't the child also need a bulletproof front pack and a helmet and a Captain America shield?" </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em> Trump, along with Michael Dorn of the school safety group Safe Havens International and Gregory Thomas of Alan Thomas Security, also said that that enhancing school drills and investing in prevention would go much further than purchasing bulletproof objects. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>"In the past five years we’ve seen draconian cuts to school security and emergency planning programs," Trump added to NBC. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>"Schools have limited resources and they ought to use that money very wisely, put it into an additional school psychologist or a school police officer, train your staff and work with first responders. The most valuable school security tools are invisible</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
Meanwhile, on the stupid side of the street...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1402741568044_755">
<em>How many school shootings have there been since Sandy Hook? It depends on who's doing the counting.</em></div>
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1402741568044_1344">
<em>After the deadly shootings at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon, Everytown, the grass-roots gun-control group launched earlier this year by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, published a list of what it says is every American school shooting since the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. There have been 74, by Everytown's count.</em></div>
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1402741568044_1346">
<em>The group defines school shootings as incidents in which "a firearm was discharged inside a school building or on school or campus grounds" and includes "assaults, homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings."</em></div>
<em></em><br />
<em>Mark Gongloff, a Huffington Post editor, used Everytown's list to create a map and posted it on Twitter, where it was quickly retweeted more than 1,000 times.<br /><br />Media outlets, including CNN, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Yahoo News, published stories citing the map and Everytown's figure.</em><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-haBAZ2C2fFw/U5w-dxCYPkI/AAAAAAAAD3E/Y2FAZQ61hb8/s1600/school+shootings+map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-haBAZ2C2fFw/U5w-dxCYPkI/AAAAAAAAD3E/Y2FAZQ61hb8/s1600/school+shootings+map.jpg" height="210" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1402741568044_1348">
<em>Charles C. Johnson, a conservative journalist and former contributor to conservative website the Blaze, took to Twitter in an effort to debunk Everytown's list, claiming many of the incidents the group classified as a school shooting — including suicides and gang-related violence — should not have been included.</em></div>
<em></em><br />
<em>“It’s not a school shooting when someone goes and shoots a specific person on campus," Johnson wrote. "It’s a shooting that happens to take place at school."<br /><br />By Johnson's count, just seven of the 74 incidents listed by Everytown should have counted as school shootings. (The rest, as Johnson put it on Twitter, were "fake.")</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Several conservative outlets — including the Blaze, Hot Air and the Daily Caller — picked up Johnson's criticism of Everytown's "inflated" list.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1402741568044_1295">
<em>On Wednesday, CNN.com publishedan article concluding that "15 of the incidents Everytown included were situations similar to the violence in Oregon — a minor or adult actively shooting inside or near a school" — and tossed out shootings that involved "personal arguments, accidents and alleged gang activities and drug deals."</em></div>
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1402741568044_1296">
<em>That didn't sit well with Annette Holt, Chicago Fire Department battalion chief and the mother of one of the victims of a shooting excluded by CNN.</em></div>
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1402741568044_1349">
<em>"Whenever a gun is fired at school, parents are rightfully terrified," Holt wrote onthe Huffington Post. "Students are rightfully terrified. Try explaining to a shocked and devastated community that the school shooting it's mourning is disqualified because the gun was fired as the result of a 'personal argument.'"</em></div>
<em></em><br />
<em>Holt continued:</em><br />
<blockquote>
<em>I suppose if your innocent son is shot by a gang member, it doesn't make the cut. Or if he was shot in an "accidental" shooting (how it's an accident that a gun wound up on school grounds to begin with is beyond me). Or if he pulled a gun out in a classroom and shot himself. Or if he got into a "personal argument" and was shot down in the type of mild playground fight that happens every day in schools, but turned deadly in that instance because a gun was present.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<em>Maybe I should be giving CNN credit because they've managed to do something Washington politicians could not. They've reduced the number of school shootings across the country. But their insistence that 59 school shootings — which have killed 25 people and injured 40 others — don't matter isn't much consolation to parents like me.</em></blockquote>
<em>Everytown, meanwhile, is standing by its list.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1402741568044_1350">
<em>"We use very clear criteria for what constitutes a school shooting and we state exactly what we do and don't count," Erika Soto Lamb, communications director for Everytown, wrote in an email to Yahoo News. "[CNN's] analysis makes light of the 60 other school shootings where fatalities and injuries occurred — not that they had to, ANY gun going off in ANY school should be cause for alarm."</em></div>
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Remarkable thing, the human spirit.<br />
<br />
A horrific, and increasing, threat to our students.<br />
<br />
In response, two inventions designed to counter that threat.<br />
<br />
Even if both are, admittedly, properly filed in the folder marked "something better than nothing".<br />
<br />
Because if a suicidal shooter wants in, they're going to find a way to get in.<br />
<br />
And a "blanket" that leaves any part of the human body vulnerable leaves the attached human vulnerable.<br />
<br />
At least, though, Daniel Nitzel and the people at ProTecht are trying.<br />
<br />
And, at the very least, they are talking about the problem.<br />
<br />
Which is more than can be said for a lot of people whose sole response to any comment regarding weapons is a passionate, even angry, and, yet, now wearying few minutes of rhetoric as regards their right to bear arms.<br />
<br />
Blah.<br />
<br />
Blah.<br />
<br />
Blah.<br />
<br />
Here's a thing.<br />
<br />
Seeking solutions to, as opposed to Band-Aid patching of, the problem is, for now, an exercise in futility.<br />
<br />
Because solutions cannot be discovered if no one is willing to actually have the conversation.<br />
<br />
Sputtering and spewing about 2nd Amendments is not the same thing as conversing.<br />
<br />
And let's don't even waste a moment's breath talking about the unconscionable insanity of debating what does, or does not, constitute a "school shooting".<br />
<br />
Let's just be thankful for small favors.<br />
<br />
That some kids may actually get all the way through the educational process without ever having to slide a sleeve on a door or cower beneath a bulletproof blanket.<br />
<br />
And that, for now, despite bureaucracies and bullets, a little schooling actually occurs at school.<br />
<br />
Some Shakespeare.<br />
<br />
"...the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars...but in ourselves..."<br />
<br />
Along with a little Einstein.<br />
<br />
"...you cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it...."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" class="styled-table" style="border-width: 1px; width: 100%;"><tbody>
<tr><th><h2>
#</h2>
</th><th><h2>
Date</h2>
</th><th><h2>
City, State</h2>
</th><th><h2>
School Name</h2>
</th><th><h2>
Type</h2>
</th></tr>
<tr><td>1.</td><td>1/08/2013</td><td>Fort Myers, FL</td><td>Apostolic Revival Center Christian School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>2.</td><td>1/10/2013</td><td>Taft, CA</td><td>Taft Union High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>3.</td><td>1/15/2013</td><td>St. Louis, MO</td><td>Stevens Institute of Business & Arts</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>4.</td><td>1/15/2013</td><td>Hazard, KY</td><td>Hazard Community and Technical College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>5.</td><td>1/16/2013</td><td>Chicago, IL</td><td>Chicago State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>6.</td><td>1/22/2013<br /></td><td>Houston, TX</td><td>Lone Star College North Harris Campus</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>7.</td><td>1/31/2013</td><td>Atlanta, GA</td><td>Price Middle School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>8.</td><td>2/1/2013</td><td>Atlanta, GA</td><td>Morehouse College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>9.</td><td>2/7/2013</td><td>Fort Pierce, FL</td><td>Indian River St. College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>10.</td><td>2/13/2013</td><td>San Leandro, CA</td><td>Hillside Elementary School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>11.</td><td>2/27/2013</td><td>Atlanta, GA</td><td>Henry W. Grady HS</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>12.</td><td>3/18/2013</td><td>Orlando, FL</td><td>University of Central Florida</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>13.</td><td>3/21/2013</td><td>Southgate, MI</td><td>Davidson Middle School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>14.</td><td>4/12/2013</td><td>Christianburg, VA</td><td>New River Community College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>15.</td><td>4/13/2013</td><td>Elizabeth City, NC</td><td>Elizabeth City State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>16.</td><td>4/15/2013</td><td>Grambling, LA</td><td>Grambling State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>17.</td><td>4/16/2013</td><td>Tuscaloosa, AL</td><td>Stillman College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>18.</td><td>4/29/2013</td><td>Cincinnati, OH</td><td>La Salle High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>19.</td><td>6/7/2013</td><td>Santa Monica,CA</td><td>Santa Monica College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>20.</td><td>6/19/2013</td><td>W. Palm Beach, FL</td><td>Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>21.</td><td>8/15/2013</td><td>Clarksville, TN</td><td>Northwest High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>22.</td><td>8/20/2013</td><td>Decatur, GA</td><td>Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>23.</td><td>8/22/2013</td><td>Memphis, TN</td><td>Westside Elementary School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>24.</td><td>8/23/2013</td><td>Sardis, MS</td><td>North Panola High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>25.</td><td>8/30/2013</td><td>Winston-Salem, NC</td><td>Carver High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>26.</td><td>9/21/2013</td><td>Savannah, GA</td><td>Savannah State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>27.</td><td>9/28/2013</td><td>Gray, ME</td><td>New Gloucester High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>28.</td><td>10/4/2013</td><td>Pine Hills, FL</td><td>Agape Christian Academy</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>29.</td><td>10/15/2013</td><td>Austin, TX</td><td>Lanier High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>30.</td><td>10/21/2013</td><td>Sparks, NV</td><td>Sparks Middle School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>31.</td><td>11/1/2013</td><td>Algona, IA</td><td>Algona High/Middle School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>32.</td><td>11/2/2013</td><td>Greensboro, NC</td><td>North Carolina A&T State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>33.</td><td>11/3/2013</td><td>Stone Mountain, GA</td><td>Stephenson High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>34.</td><td>11/21/2013</td><td>Rapid City, SD</td><td>South Dakota School of Mines & Technology</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>35.</td><td>12/4/2013</td><td>Winter Garden, FL</td><td>West Orange High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>36.</td><td>12/13/2013</td><td>Arapahoe County, CO</td><td>Arapahoe High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>37.</td><td>12/19/2013</td><td>Fresno, CA</td><td>Edison High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>38.</td><td>1/9/2014</td><td>Jackson, TN</td><td>Liberty Technology Magnet HS</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>39.</td><td>1/14/2014</td><td>Roswell, NM</td><td>Berrendo Middle School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>40.</td><td>1/15/2014</td><td>Lancaster, PA</td><td>Martin Luther King Jr. ES</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>41.</td><td>1/17/2014</td><td>Philadelphia, PA</td><td>Delaware Valley Charter HS</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>42.</td><td>1/20/2014</td><td>Chester, PA</td><td>Widener University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>43.</td><td>1/21/2014</td><td>West Lafayette, IN</td><td>Purdue University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>44.</td><td>1/24/2014</td><td>Orangeburg, SC</td><td>South Carolina State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>45.</td><td>1/28/2014</td><td>Nashville, TN</td><td>Tennessee State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>46.</td><td>1/28/2014</td><td>Grambling, LA</td><td>Grambling State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>47.</td><td>1/30/2014</td><td>Palm Bay, FL</td><td>Eastern Florida State College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>48.</td><td>1/31/2014</td><td>Phoenix, AZ</td><td>Cesar Chavez High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>49.</td><td>1/31/2014</td><td>Des Moines, IA</td><td>North High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>50.</td><td>2/7/2014</td><td>Bend, OR</td><td>Bend High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>51.</td><td>2/10/2014</td><td>Salisbury, NC</td><td>Salisbury High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>52.</td><td>2/11/2014</td><td>Lyndhurst, OH</td><td>Brush High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>53.</td><td>2/12/2014</td><td>Jackson, TN</td><td>Union University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>54.</td><td>2/20/2014</td><td>Raytown, MO</td><td>Raytown Success Academy</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>55.</td><td>3/2/2014</td><td>Westminster, MD</td><td>McDaniel College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>56.</td><td>3/7/2014</td><td>Tallulah, LA</td><td>Madison High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>57.</td><td>3/8/2014</td><td>Oshkosh, WI</td><td>University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>58.</td><td>3/21/2014</td><td>Newark, DE</td><td>University of Delaware</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>59.</td><td>3/30/2014</td><td>Savannah, GA</td><td>Savannah State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>60.</td><td>4/3/2014</td><td>Kent, OH</td><td>Kent State University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>61.</td><td>4/7/2014</td><td>Roswell, NM</td><td>Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>62.</td><td>4/11/2014</td><td>Detroit, MI</td><td>East English Village Preparatory Academy</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>63.</td><td>4/21/2014</td><td>Griffith, IN</td><td>St. Mary Catholic School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>64.</td><td>4/21/2014</td><td>Provo, UT</td><td>Provo High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>65.</td><td>4/26/2014</td><td>Council Bluffs, IA</td><td>Iowa Western Community College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>66.</td><td>5/2/2014</td><td>Milwaukee, WI</td><td>Marquette University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>67.</td><td>5/3/2014</td><td>Everett, WA</td><td>Horizon Elementary School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>68.</td><td>5/4/2014</td><td>Augusta, GA</td><td>Paine College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>69.</td><td>5/5/2014</td><td>Augusta, GA</td><td>Paine College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>70.</td><td>5/8/2014</td><td>Georgetown, KY</td><td>Georgetown College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>71.</td><td>5/8/2014</td><td>Lawrenceville, GA</td><td>Georgia Gwinnett College</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>72.</td><td>5/21/2014</td><td>Milwaukee, WI</td><td>Clark Street School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
<tr><td>73.</td><td>6/5/2014</td><td>Seattle, WA</td><td>Seattle Pacific University</td><td>College</td></tr>
<tr><td>74.</td><td>6/10/2014</td><td>Troutdale, OR</td><td>Reynolds High School</td><td>K-12</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-78362450954177970872014-06-01T20:19:00.001-04:002014-06-01T20:19:10.736-04:00"...To The Stars, Alice....To The Stars....."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nmegVAe-uck/U4u8DymWP1I/AAAAAAAAD1s/oE5bZF6j_Is/s1600/Ann_B__Davis_1973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nmegVAe-uck/U4u8DymWP1I/AAAAAAAAD1s/oE5bZF6j_Is/s1600/Ann_B__Davis_1973.jpg" height="320" width="247" /></a></div>
Odd are this news will cause the Brady Bunch theme to pop into most people's heads.<br />
<br />
Me?<br />
<br />
Well, turns out what rang my bell was a little Rodgers and Hammerstein..<br />
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<br />
<em><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- Ann B. Davis, known for her role as housekeeper Alice Nelson on "The Brady Bunch," died Sunday, close friend Bishop William Frey said. She was 88.</em><br />
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<em>According to Frey, Davis fell and hit her head Saturday morning in her bathroom. She suffered a subdural hematoma and never regained consciousness.</em></div>
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<em>Appearing in her trademark light blue maid's uniform with a white apron, Alice anchored "The Brady Bunch" with her cheerful attitude and witty one-liners.</em></div>
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<em>In a 2004 interview with the Archive of American Television, Davis described how she created the character.</em></div>
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<em>"I made up a background story. I did have a twin sister, so I used that as a basis. ... I cared very much about this family. It was my family. It was close to my family as Alice would ever get. I would have died for any single one of them at any point," she said. "You know, they wrote me such gorgeous things to do, as the intermediary between the kids and the adults, and between the boys and the girls.</em></div>
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<em>And they gave me funny things to do.</em></div>
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In real life, Davis said she wasn't quite as handy around the house as her beloved character.</em><br />
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<em>"I basically don't do that well with children, although my sister says I'm a great aunt," she told People, adding that she hates to cook.</em></div>
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<em>"When it's my turn in the house," she told the magazine, "we just eat out."</em></div>
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<em>Davis had planned to study medicine at the University of Michigan but caught the acting bug from her brother, who was a dancer in the national company of "Oklahoma," according to a biography of the actress on IMDb.com.</em></div>
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<em>Her big break in Hollywood came when she won the role of Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz, the secretary on the 1950s sitcom "The Bob Cummings Show," IMDb said.</em></div>
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<em>But to generations of American TV viewers, she was best known as Alice.</em></div>
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<em>Frey, who knew Davis for 38 years, said fans often told her that they felt like they'd been raised by the character of Alice.</em></div>
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<em>"Look how well you turned out," she would reply.</em></div>
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<em>"All of us wish we had an Alice. I wish I had an Alice," Davis told People magazine in 1992.</em></div>
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<em>"What you see on 'The Brady Bunch' was who she was," Frey said. "She was a very faithful Christian person."</em></div>
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<em>Davis mostly retired from show business in the late 1970s to settle down in an Episcopal community.</em></div>
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<em>"I'm convinced we all have a God-shaped space in us, and until we fill that space with God, we'll never know what it is to be whole," she told People.</em></div>
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<em>Even as she turned her focus more toward religion, she appeared in commercials and several stage productions.</em></div>
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<em>In the 1995 "The Brady Bunch" movie, she played a truck driver, persuading a runaway Jan to return home.</em></div>
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<em>She told the Archive of American Television that she loved working on the small screen.</em></div>
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<em>"The neatest thing about television is that they write for you. ... They find out what you can do, what you do best, how it works, and how they can use you. And so from there on, it's wonderful. Because it's different. It's not like playing the same play forever and ever and ever," she said. "But the character's still the same. It just gets better and more developed. So that's great fun."</em></div>
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I was, and always will be, a fan.</div>
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But as much for the class, dignity, graciousness, et al that Ann B. showed throughout both her personal and professional life as for the wonderful characters she created and left with us.</div>
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I watched "Schultzy" as a kid on the family black and white Emerson console.</div>
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By the time that whole bunch of Bradys came along, I was at an age where "family entertainment" more often than not set off my "schlock" alarm.</div>
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But even as I traveled through my rebel without a clue phase, I knew, instinctively, that, schlock or not, Ann B. was doing the work with class, dignity, graciousness, et al.</div>
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Twenty or so years ago, during my Nashville songwriter by night, music store manger by day period, I was gifted with the chance to meet the lady, as she came through town doing a book promo appearance to hype her "Alice's Brady Bunch Cookbook".</div>
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Only had the chance to chat with her briefly but everything I had ever suspected about her turned out to be spot on.</div>
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She was gracious to the max. Classy without pretense. Dignified without airs.</div>
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Which is why when the news came along today and people almost automatically found the "story / of a lovely lady /" playing in the background of their respective reminiscences, I was hearing Richard and Oscar.</div>
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Because this was one wonderful lady.</div>
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And, at the same time...</div>
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<em>There is nothin' like a dame,<br /> Nothin' in the world,<br /> There is nothin' you can name<br /> That is anythin' like a dame!</em></div>
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Susan Olsen, one of the original Brady kids and a Facebook friend, offered this post just a little earlier today.</div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><em>I was waiting for it to reach the news before saying anything. Yes, it's true, our beloved Ann B. passed away this morning. I loved her work even before I knew and loved her. When I was five, I got the Hong Kong flue. I missed a lot of school and stayed in bed watching TV. I loved the Bob Cummings Show because I enjoyed Ann B. in the role of his secretary "Schultzy". I was overjoyed when I learned<span class="text_exposed_hide">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show"> that I would be working with her on Brad Bunch. Already a fan, it was only icing on the cake to get to know her. She always treated us kids with respect and we knew we were working with greatness. I'm happy to know that she never lost her beautiful mind and razor sharp wit. She will be dearly missed by the many who knew her and the many more who felt like they did. I'm sure there is now a bright red sports car tearing up the clouds in heaven.</span></em></span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">I'm happy I got a chance to meet the dame behind the wheel.</span></span></div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-87720951573803453012014-05-25T08:26:00.001-04:002014-05-25T08:26:20.761-04:00"...The Visitor From Charleston Would Be Turned Out of Most Homes Today, As Well..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Isla Vista, California.<br />
<br />
Eliot Rodger.<br />
<br />
6 dead, 13 wounded.<br />
<br />
If you started reading this expecting it to be one more log tossed on what now seems like the eternal flame of discussion/debate/argument about the 2nd Amendment, then the tree which you have upwardly barked is the wrong one.<br />
<br />
And if you think this piece will offer up yet more random quotes from individuals on either, or both, sides of the what now seems like the deeply etched in stone discussion/debate/argument about the 2nd Amendment, you have, free of charge with no shipping or handling to pay, another think coming.<br />
<br />
Given this latest killing spree and the inevitable jerking of philosophical knees on both sides of the aforementioned line, there is absolutely nothing to be said that has not already been said.<br />
<br />
Again.<br />
<br />
And again.<br />
<br />
And again.<br />
<br />
And again.<br />
<br />
With two exceptions.<br />
<br />
Because, if, by some quirk of fate, you are not a passionate advocate, either pro or con, in regards to the 2nd Amendment but are, rather, simply an everyday kind of person, weary to the bone of not only logging on to your news site of choice and reading yet another list of the dead and dying but equally weary to the bone of the endless and, obviously, useless discussion/debate/argument about constitutional rights and arms bearing and our freedom to engage in it, then you might actually find what follows to be worth a few more minutes of your time.<br />
<br />
Because this piece offers an opinion that, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to be offered in regards to the endless, and obviously, useless discussion/debate/argument about the 2nd Amendment.<br />
<br />
From a voice that, again to the best of my knowledge, has yet to be heard on the matter.<br />
<br />
Rhett Butler.<br />
<br />
And for the more quick witted, please disregard that conclusion to which you are already poised to jump.<br />
<br />
Yes, what follows is about, frankly, not giving a damn.<br />
<br />
But only in a manner of speaking.<br />
<br />
A couple of years ago, television and film writer Aaron Sorkin wrote a monologue for Will McAvoy, the fictional news anchor featured on the HBO series, "The Newsroom".<br />
<br />
The monologue begins after a female college student, watching a panel discussion on which McAvoy is speaking alongside a liberal and a conservative pundit, asks the question “What makes America the greatest country in the world.”<br />
<br />
McAvoy hedges against answering the question, not wanting to take political sides, but is pressured by the moderator to answer, when he finally delivers the words that follow:<br />
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<br />
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<div class="p1">
<em>"It’s not the greatest country in the world professor, that’s my answer.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
<div class="p2">
<em>Sharon, the NEA is a loser, yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck but he gets to hit you with it any time he wants. It doesn’t cost money, it costs votes, it costs air time, it costs column inches. You know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so god damn always? </em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
<div class="p2">
<em>*Turns to conservative pundit*</em></div>
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</div>
<div class="p2">
<em>And with a straight face you’re going to tell students that America is so star spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world that have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, BELGIUM has freedom. </em></div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
<div class="p2">
<em>So, 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom. </em></div>
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</div>
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<em>And you, sorority girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day there’s somethings you should know. One of them is there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, Number 4 in labor force and Number 4 in exports, we lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending where spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. </em></div>
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</div>
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<em>Now none of this is the fault of a 20 year old college student, but you none the less are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Yosemite?</em></div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
<div class="p2">
<em>It sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chests. </em></div>
<div class="p2">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="p2">
<em>We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men, we aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it, it didn’t make us feel inferior. </em></div>
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</div>
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<em>We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed, by great men, men who were revered.......".</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
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<em></em> </div>
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Whatever one's political, even personal, persuasions, it would be difficult to make a case suggesting that this is not a remarkable piece of writing.</div>
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</div>
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And, as history has proven, time and again and again and again, words possess a power that can turn potential into reality.</div>
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</div>
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If, though, and only if, they are heeded at the right time by enough of the right people.</div>
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</div>
<div class="p2">
There, exactly there, and not hidden somewhere amongst the wires and cables and power lines of what America once represented, wires and cables and power lines that have gotten gnarled and mangled and even frayed, there lies the absolute rock bottom core of the real problem.</div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
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Enough of the right people are not heeding.</div>
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</div>
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And the reason why is both simple.</div>
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</div>
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And tragic.</div>
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</div>
<div class="p2">
We're Americans.</div>
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</div>
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And America is the greatest country in the world.</div>
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</div>
<div class="p2">
Two people, that we know of, though, realized the danger in that mindset.</div>
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</div>
<div class="p2">
Will McAvoy.</div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
<div class="p2">
And Rhett Butler.</div>
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</div>
<div class="p2">
<em></em> </div>
<em>Now, gentlemen. Mr. Butler's been up North, I hear.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Don't you agree with us?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
I think it's hard winning a war with words.<br />
<em></em><br />
<em>What do you mean, sir?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
There's not a cannon factory in the whole South.<br />
<em></em><br />
<em>What difference does that make to a gentleman?</em><br />
<div class="p2">
<!--text_box--><em> </em></div>
<div class="text_box">
It'll make a great difference to a great many gentlemen, sir.<br />
<br />
<!--text_box--><em> </em><br />
<div class="text_box">
<em>Are you hinting that the Yankees can lick us?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
No, I'm not hinting. I'm saying plainly, the Yankees are better equipped than we<em>. </em>They've got factories, shipyards, coal mines and a fleet to bottle up our harbors and starve us. All we've got is cotton and slaves......<br />
<br />
..... and arrogance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
ar·ro·gance</h2>
<h2>
<span class="main-fl"><em>noun</em></span> <span class="pr">\<span class="unicode">ˈ</span>er-ə-gən(t)s, <span class="unicode">ˈ</span>a-rə-\</span>
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an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people.</div>
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At the time, that's all Rhett Butler had to say on the matter.</div>
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</div>
<div class="bottom_entry">
Will McAvoy, on the other hand, had one more thought to offer the assembled audience and, in particular, the moderator who had insisted on an answer to his question.</div>
<div class="bottom_entry">
</div>
<div class="bottom_entry">
<em></em> </div>
</div>
<div class="p2">
<em>First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.</em></div>
<div class="p2">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="p2">
<em>Enough?”</em> </div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
<div class="p2">
Clearly, from the news out of Isla Vista, California and the already wearying to the bone, seemingly endless, but obviously useless, discussion/debate/argument about the 2nd Amendment. the answer is, just as obviously.....</div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
<div class="p2">
...not yet.</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-25550163558636264812014-05-17T06:48:00.001-04:002014-05-17T06:48:51.708-04:00"...It's A Floor Wax...AND A Dessert Topping...."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vVeLqAgs4HU/U3c-YZNF5oI/AAAAAAAAD0c/qBJYx3PuYZ8/s1600/drink-coffee-do-stupid-things-faster-energy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vVeLqAgs4HU/U3c-YZNF5oI/AAAAAAAAD0c/qBJYx3PuYZ8/s1600/drink-coffee-do-stupid-things-faster-energy.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></a></div>
Turns out that things can be funny.<br />
<br />
Or things can be sad.<br />
<br />
But logic, and, seemingly common sense, would dictate that they can't be both.<br />
<br />
No...<br />
<br />
Wait...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<em><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- A 22-year-old woman was hospitalized after she fell down an elevator shaft at Fenway Park in Boston, authorities said.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph2">
<em>The woman fell into the shaft landing on the roof of the elevator, the Boston Fire Department said.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph2">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3">
<em>Rescuers shut off power to the elevator to prevent movement, and used a small ladder to go to the roof through a hatch, it posted on Twitter. </em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph4">
<em>The woman was transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Her name and condition are unknown.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph4">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
<em>The cause of the accident is unclear.</em></div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
<em></em> </div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
Assuming, at this writing, that the injuries weren't life threatening or fatal, there is a case to be made that this incident could be seen as funny.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
And, of course, any time anyone is injured in any way, a reasonable alternative would be seeing it as sad.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
But, unless Schrödinger was catching a ball game that day, it would be hard to see it as both.</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
Meanwhile...</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
Get a load of this randomly selected, cut and pasted, edited of junk and pics but nary a word changed chunk of insight, perspective and observation on the human condition popularly known as the "comments section"</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
</div>
<div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">
(Note: the user names have also been included as they were posted on a public site and, therefore, considered public information)</div>
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⬇ Drag and drop your images here to upload them. </div>
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<header class="post-body"><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="82011473" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">dougie</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390374934" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 2:48 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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she got shafted</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="66483744" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">AgonySpirals</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390374934"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> dougie</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390461732" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 5:17 AM">an hour ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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Elevator puns are bad on so many levels.</div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="104545863" href="http://disqus.com/ronniewheeler/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="104545863" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Ronnie Wheeler</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390374934"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> dougie</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390396504" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:26 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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that not nice dougie.</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="96454527" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Mr_Wit_Is_It</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390374934"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> dougie</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390423329" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 4:15 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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I'm not even going to try to top that. </div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="72054961" href="http://disqus.com/disqus_ldaCXFjAOU/"></a> </div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="72054961" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Noumenon</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375192" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 2:49 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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From above: "The cause of the accident is unclear."<br />
My money is on stupid.</div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="44719" href="http://disqus.com/gorgegirl/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="44719" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">gorgegirl</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375192"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Noumenon</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390389980" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:18 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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My money is on DRUNK.</div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="74311797" href="http://disqus.com/disqus_dmUlPXyese/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="74311797" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Chris</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375192"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Noumenon</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390377206" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 2:53 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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c'mon how people take that 1st step w/o even thinking about it. The elevator is suppose to be there</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="82302124" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Android Rocks</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390377206"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Chris</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390378058" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 2:55 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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She will make some money by suing the owner. ..legit suit</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="103920646" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">JBrew</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390378058"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Android Rocks</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390379019" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 2:57 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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Depends. If the elevator was out of order and she ignored (or failed to see) the sign, it's not really Fenway's fault.</div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="11200914" href="http://disqus.com/Packman101/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="11200914" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Packman101</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390379019"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> JBrew</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390394621" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:22 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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If it's out of order, but you can still board it....easy lawsuit!</div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="78443526" href="http://disqus.com/disqus_KlO7Oo0JP2/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="78443526" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Razz</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390377206"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Chris</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390408171" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:44 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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If they can sit on the toilet without looking..... Just say'n...</div>
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<li role="menu"><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="36466041" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">then00b</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375192"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Noumenon</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390417771" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 4:03 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span></li>
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Probably looking at their phone rather than where they were walking.</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="84723051" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">LikeABoss</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375192"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Noumenon</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390381634" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:03 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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When in doubt, blame gravity.</div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="84723051" href="http://disqus.com/disqus_Nl3EhLsyNR/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="84723051" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">LikeABoss</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390382131" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:04 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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I'm glad the situation was updated on twitter... very helpful right there...</div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="67671106" href="http://disqus.com/disqus_0aqp1GprtV/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="67671106" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Ouchie</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390382131"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> LikeABoss</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390382877" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:05 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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#whew</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="28442238" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Bull31</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390382091" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:04 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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I hope she's going to be okay. </div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="103920646" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">JBrew</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390382091"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Bull31</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390384423" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:09 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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She fell from the 4th floor to the roof of the stopped elevator on the 2nd floor. That's a total of about 12 feet. She might have bumps and bruises or possibly a broken bone at the most. Unless she landed directly on her head, in which case she'll be fine.</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="94918493" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">bazooka j</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390384423"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> JBrew</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390411093" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:50 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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you never know</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="51951269" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">annyjay</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390384423"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> JBrew</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390408965" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:46 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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Using your math the ceiling height of each of those floors would be 5'4" - only short people would be able to attend the games. The average height of a residential ceiling is 8 feet plus the 8 or 10 inches between the floors - that's at least 17.5 feet. A commercial space might be closer to 20 feet.</div>
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<li role="menu"><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="103920646" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">JBrew</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390408965"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> annyjay</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390412633" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:53 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span></li>
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Seriously? Your math skills are great, but your reading comprehension and use of logic leaves a lot to be desired.<br />
She was standing on the 4th floor. She fell on top of an elevator car that was stopped on the 2nd floor. The distance from the floor where her feet were to where she suddenly stopped when she hit the elevator car is equal to the height of the 3rd floor, plus some structural framing.</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="67671106" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Ouchie</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390408965"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> annyjay</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390414702" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:57 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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Frigging math. You're probably wrong too. This is a stadium it's probably like 176 feet to the next floor. Maybe Walls of Jericho high. But then the elevator shafts are on the outside of the stands. They tend to be sloped at a 30 degree angle. That must be factored in too. Also this is Fenway Park. Built before current commercial code requirement. Frigging math, done me in again.</div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="104554146" href="http://disqus.com/disqus_SjlcveXFFo/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="104554146" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Kenny973</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390384423"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> JBrew</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390399198" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:27 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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You're of the mind that the floors are six feet apart?</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="67671106" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Ouchie</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390399198"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Kenny973</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390401388" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:31 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span><div class="post-body">
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No more math from you. Stick to gramer and spilling</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="103920646" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">JBrew</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390399198"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Kenny973</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390399915" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:28 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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12</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="11200914" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Packman101</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390399915"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> JBrew</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390400371" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:29 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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Bottom of the 4th - top of the 2nd </div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="103920646" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">JBrew</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390400371"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Packman101</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390400554" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:29 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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Right. One floor total.</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="11200914" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Packman101</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390400554"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> JBrew</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390401114" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:30 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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Probably fell face first (falling forward) that's still gotta hurt!</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="103920646" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">JBrew</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390401114"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Packman101</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390401435" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:31 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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Maybe it helped. After all, she was from Boston.<br />
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="11200914" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Packman101</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390401435"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> JBrew</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390401895" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:31 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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And probably sauced pretty good ( that would definitely help)<a class="dropdown-toggle" data-action="flag" data-role="flag" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#" title="Flag as inappropriate"> </a></div>
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<li class="post" id="post-1390402336"> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="67671106" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Ouchie</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390401895"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> Packman101</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390402336" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:32 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span><div class="post-body" data-role="post-content">
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Help? Makes it better. Am I right?</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="47766850" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">DKaru</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375182" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 2:49 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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I'm thinking...gravity. Yeah. That's the cause.</div>
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<span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="67671106" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Ouchie</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375182"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> DKaru</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390404417" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:37 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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Logical conclusion. However, I think that she was trying to go down on that shaft. </div>
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<li class="post" id="post-1390460492"> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="41663916" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Tom</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375182"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> DKaru</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390460492" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 5:15 AM">an hour ago </a> </span><div class="post-body" data-role="post-content">
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Rats, didn't see that you had beaten me to the punch.</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="43227641" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">DaveR</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390413159" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 3:54 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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Maybe she met a guy and fell for him. </div>
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<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="67671106" href="http://disqus.com/disqus_0aqp1GprtV/"></a> <span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="67671106" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Ouchie</a></span> <span><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390413159"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" title="in reply to"></i> DaveR</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390418301" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 4:04 AM">2 hours ago </a> </span></div>
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Maybe she really wanted to push his buttons.</div>
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<header><span class="post-byline"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-user="103299452" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#">Robert Guilfoyle</a></span> </span> <span class="post-meta"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/us/boston-elevator-shaft-fall/index.html?hpt=hp_t2#comment-1390375400" title="Saturday, May 17 2014 2:49 AM">3 hours ago </a> </span> </header><div class="post-body-inner">
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I was hoping it was Sarah Palin. Darn.</div>
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<br />
<br />
The "dialogue" goes on for what may fairly be described as an interminable time.<br />
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In fairness, there is, in this particular "excerpt", one commenter who offers a simple "I hope she's going to be okay".<br />
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Think of it as a tiny, shiny nugget discovered while panning in a large, powerful flowing stream of shit.<br />
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And even acknowledging that we all, in times of fear or anguish, sometimes resort to gallows humor, there are, at least for me, only two feelings that I find running concurrently after reading these "sharings".<br />
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The depth and texture of "stupid" at work here is, to the more satirical minded among us, in a word, funny.<br />
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The sheer number of people in this country, let alone the world, whose grasp of simple grammar, simple compassion, simple empathy, simple common courtesy, let alone any hint of an intelligence that would make Kris, Kim, Khloe or Kourtney look like a wisdom dispensing tribal council is, in a word, sad.<br />
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And this is just one comment section of one story on one news website.<br />
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The internet is flooded with comments like these every minute of every day.<br />
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You gotta admit that's a little funny.<br />
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Or maybe more than just a little sad.<br />
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But, obviously, not both.<br />
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No.....<br />
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Wait.....<br />
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-69401139327016728642014-05-07T17:58:00.000-04:002014-05-17T06:08:11.567-04:00"...There Is A Fifth Dimension.....That Lies Between The Pit Of Man's Fears....And The Summit of Mt. McKinley....."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e9rLmpel1KM/U2qsWuT0I1I/AAAAAAAAD0A/z21FHQBb8UY/s1600/palin+twilight+zone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e9rLmpel1KM/U2qsWuT0I1I/AAAAAAAAD0A/z21FHQBb8UY/s1600/palin+twilight+zone.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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Submitted for your approval.</div>
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Tonight's story requires one of two conditions if it is to be totally understood and/or appreciated.</div>
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1) You must be familiar a seminal 1960's anthology series, in particular, an episode of said series entitled "The Howling Man".</div>
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</div>
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2) You must find and watch, via Hulu, MeTV, et al, a seminal 1960's anthology series, in particular, an episode entitled "The Howling Man".</div>
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</div>
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We'll be right back after these words.</div>
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<em><strong></strong></em> </div>
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<em><strong>(CNN) –</strong> With Hillary Clinton becoming a grandmother, Sarah Palin argued the former secretary of state will likely reconsider her position on abortion rights.</em></div>
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<em></em> </div>
<em>"Just knowing that her daughter Chelsea is pregnant, with a baby–It's a real baby!–It's not some disposable something, and I know that's going to be controversial," Palin said in an interview set to air Wednesday on "Extra."<br /><span id="more-301418"></span><br /> Clinton, who's thinking about running for president again in 2016, has said she supports efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions, but she also defends a woman's right to choose.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Chelsea Clinton, 34, announced last month she was pregnant with her first child. She's due this fall.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>A grandmother herself, Palin said parents and grandparents "realize that sanctity of life, how innocent, how precious it is."</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>"And of all places, it should be in the womb that these babies are protected," the former Alaska governor said. "So maybe even on a social issue like that, she'll open her eyes."</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Palin was responding to a question about whether being a grandmother will make Clinton more electable. The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee said holding the title of grandma will also help "broaden (Clinton's) world view" on other issues.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>"I think anyone who is a grandparent really starts looking even further down the road," she continued.</em><br />
<em> "We start thinking about things like $17 trillion debt that our nation is under, we're going to hand that to our grandkids for them to pay off? For our short-sighted thinking and spending today? That's not right. That's not fair to our grandkids. Hopefully she'll start thinking along those terms too."</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Palin also defended her recent controversial remarks in which she said "waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists."</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>In the "Extra" interview, which took place at her home in Wasilla, Alaska, she argued her comments were not meant to be sacrilegious.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>"Someone needs to get a Webster's Dictionary and look up what it means to 'baptize.' That means to submerge. It means to dunk," she said. "As for the sacredness of the term 'baptism,' I have such great respect for it as a born-again Christian. I was baptized in the water in a freezing cold lake, just about 10 miles up the road."</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
Now, assuming that you are either already familiar with, or have sought out and watched that seminal 1960's series, in particular, the episode entitled "The Howling Man", simply do the following:<br />
<br />
Imagine, in place of the "howling man", the former Governor of Alaska/former Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States, Sarah Palin.<br />
<br />
Now imagine, in place of the weary traveler, who, in an act of kindness, disobeys the dire warning of the residents of the monastery and sets said howling man loose on an unsuspecting society, the former senator from Arizona/former Republican candidate for President of the United States, John McCain.<br />
<br />
Tonight's tale of good intentions gone awry, of the consequences of letting the heart overrule the head.<br />
<br />
And a would be prophet whose delusions of wisdom and visions of world salvation exist only in the area between her ears.....<br />
<br />
...known as The Twilight Zone.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-23143026677224884892014-04-27T08:54:00.000-04:002014-04-27T08:54:01.761-04:00"...In Fairness, Though, The Peaches Are Very Nice..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mpqUOSHB9P4/U1z9usglZkI/AAAAAAAADyw/4RO0umZSxV8/s1600/georgia+rifle+diamond.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mpqUOSHB9P4/U1z9usglZkI/AAAAAAAADyw/4RO0umZSxV8/s1600/georgia+rifle+diamond.jpg" height="308" width="320" /></a></div>
Big news on the medical front today.<br />
<br />
More on that in a few.<br />
<br />
First, though, here's the latest from the "cold dead fingers" file.<br />
<br />
<br />
<em></em><br />
<em>A Georgia man panicked parents and children at a local park and baseball field by randomly walking around and displaying his gun to anyone he encountered in the parking lot.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>According to witnesses who spoke with WSB-TV, the man wandered around the Forsythe County park last Tuesday night showing his gun to strangers, telling them “there’s nothing you can do about it.”</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“Anyone who was just walking by – you had parents and children coming in for the game – and he’s just standing here, walking around [saying] ‘You want to see my gun? Look, I got a gun and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ He knew he was frightening people. He knew exactly what he was doing,” said parent Karen Rabb.</em><br />
<em></em> <em>Rabb said that the man’s intimidating behavior panicked parents causing them to hustle children who were there to play baseball to safety after the man refused to leave.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“It got to the point where we took the kids and brought them into the dugout and the parents lined up in front of the dugout,” Rabb said.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Police report they received 22 calls to 911 reporting the man.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>After deputies arrived, they questioned the man who produced a permit for the handgun. According to authorities, since the man made no verbal threats or gestures, they couldn’t arrest him or ask him to leave.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Forsythe Sheriff Duane Piper said that he didn’t believe the parents and children were in any danger but, even though the man was within his rights to carry the gun, he found the gun carriers conduct inappropriate.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“We support the constitutional right to bear arms. We will not tolerate bad behavior,” said the sheriff.</em><br />
<em>Parent Paris Horton, whose son was playing on the baseball diamond at the time of the incident, questioned the man’s motives.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“Why would anyone be walking around a public park, with a lot of children and parents and people here playing baseball, and he’s walking around with a gun?” said Horton. “I don’t think the parents would have been nervous had he just had the gun in his holster and was just watching the game.”</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Rabb told a reporter that her 6-year-old son Ethan, who was playing on the field, later asked her about the man.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>“When I was reading my son’s story last night, he turned to me and said ‘Mommy, did that man want to kill me?’” said a tearful Rabb.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>A reporter from WSB contacted the man, whose name was not disclosed, and he refused to discuss the incident.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>The State of Georgia recently liberalized their gun laws allowing owners to carry their weapons into churches, schools, libraries and bars.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
First, let's do our stretching exercises together so that we can, at the very least, give our best effort at bending over backwards here.<br />
<br />
And resist the temptation to waste any time attempting to scramble up and/or inevitably go sliding back down the slippery slope of what, exactly, the "right to bear arms" actually means or, more importantly, what the framers had exactly in mind when they framed.<br />
<br />
Let's try to come at it from a little different angle.<br />
<br />
Say, instead of a 45 or 90 degree, let's give .357 a shot.<br />
<br />
Pun absolutely intended.<br />
<br />
The problem with any discussion, debate, argument, et al regarding that wacky, zany fun filled piece of Constitutional comedy commonly referred to as the 2nd Amendment is that said discussion, debate, argument, et al almost always misses the target.<br />
<br />
Not to mention the point.<br />
<br />
The issue has, I strongly believe a jury could be convinced, never been about morality, legality or even politics.<br />
<br />
It's about mathematics.<br />
<br />
Long division, to be precise.<br />
<br />
And a pesky little equation entity arithmetic teachers teach us, somewhere around the first or second grade, as I recall, known as the lowest common denominator.<br />
<br />
The entity that, in fact, if you think about it for only marginally longer than it takes for the bullet to leave the barrel, is really at the heart of just about every regulation, rule, ordinance and/or law that has ever found its way into existence and/or enforcement.<br />
<br />
Put less verbosely...<br />
<br />
Laws are written for losers.<br />
<br />
35 MPH in a residential neighborhood.<br />
<br />
Not because you need to be reminded that it takes a certain amount of distance to come to a complete stop should a neighborhood child come darting into the street and a reduced speed gives you a much better statistical chance of coming to that complete stop before launching that kid from your front end to their worldly end.<br />
<br />
But because some loser will almost always tear through the neighborhood at 80 if the speed limit isn't 35.<br />
<br />
And a 35 MPH limit, at least, increases the odds that the loser will tear through at only, say, 45 or 50 max.<br />
<br />
Loud music may not be played after 10PM.<br />
<br />
Not because you need to be reminded that night time is very often the time when people give sleep their best effort so they can arise the next day refreshed and prepared to make a living to support their family and contribute positively to the community and prohibiting you from blasting "Yeezus" from your home and/or car windows late at night makes it possible for that body reenergizing to take place.<br />
<br />
But because some loser, blissfully oblivious to the fairly well known concept that there are other people in the universe, will almost always blast "Yeezus" from their home or car window late at night because they feel like it.<br />
<br />
In this case, most likely the same loser who listens to "Yeezus" in the first place and also thinks it a disgrace and denigration that Kim hasn't been given her own star on the Hollywood Walk.<br />
<br />
Were it not for the loser, there would be no need for law.<br />
<br />
Common sense, common courtesy, basic human decency, respect, even a warm embrace of the idea of loving one another as He has loved us would prevail.<br />
<br />
In this life, turns out, not so much.<br />
<br />
In fact, hell, no, not so much.<br />
<br />
Hell, as in, ice cube's chance in.<br />
<br />
And so we legislate and regulate and ordinate and mandate.<br />
<br />
Because we can't make the serious, potentially fatal, mistake of assuming that common sense, common courtesy, basic human decency, respect or even a warm embrace of the idea of loving one another as He has loved us will prevail.<br />
<br />
Some loser will always do 80 in a 35, play "Yeezus" after 10PM.<br />
<br />
And wave a loaded gun around a park filled with children.<br />
<br />
If, for no other reason, just because they can.<br />
<br />
Legally.<br />
<br />
At least in Georgia.<br />
<br />
It's about mathematics.<br />
<br />
Numbers don't lie.<br />
<br />
And every day, somewhere, it all comes down to the lowest common denominator.<br />
<br />
And losers.<br />
<br />
One other statistic bears scrutiny.<br />
<br />
The capacity for listening to reason available to those who fall into that lowest common denominator bracket.<br />
<br />
Numerically speaking, it amounts to squat.<br />
<br />
Or zip.<br />
<br />
Because experience has shown us, irrefutably, that losers, according to all available data, are, as a rule, stupid.<br />
<br />
And communicating to them the need to slow down, turn it down or keep it holstered is an exercise in wasted time.<br />
<br />
Because they're stupid.<br />
<br />
Which brings us back to the aforementioned big news on the medical front.<br />
<br />
This just in.<br />
<br />
Loser waves loaded weapon in a park full of children playing ball.<br />
<br />
Because he can.<br />
<br />
Because he's stupid.<br />
<br />
And researchers announce this to be the latest, empirical evidence of what has long been believed.<br />
<br />
Stupidity causes deafness.<br />
<br />
At least in Georgia.<br />
<br />
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-5399291345479502462014-04-23T16:19:00.002-04:002014-04-23T18:28:39.976-04:00"......The Original Groovy Chick......"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XQiJwq-2p5k/U1gbvCK0D6I/AAAAAAAADyU/IHegwhPF_VA/s1600/NEVA-ONE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XQiJwq-2p5k/U1gbvCK0D6I/AAAAAAAADyU/IHegwhPF_VA/s1600/NEVA-ONE.jpg" height="320" width="215" /></a></div>
Here's a thing.<br />
<br />
The chances are good that you and the noted author Ken Follett have, at least, one thing in common.<br />
<br />
You never knew Neva Dayl.<br />
<br />
But, of the two of you, Follett absolutely had her number<br />
<br />
And that number was called last week.<br />
<br />
Her full name was Neva Dayl Winfrey.<br />
<br />
Right from the start, that should clue you that this was no garden variety, run of the mill character from the pages of the continuing adventure that is this life.<br />
<br />
And although I had known her for all the cognizant years of my own life, I never bothered to take the time to learn about the unusual name of this most unusual lady.<br />
<br />
Today, as we are apt to do when someone passes, I found my curiosity tweaked and, high ho the derry oh , a Googling I did go.<br />
<br />
Depending on place of origin, the factoids offered a couple of choices.<br />
<br />
In Latin, the word Neva means, literally, snow.<br />
<br />
White and pure, seasonal and even festive.<br />
<br />
Yeah, I suppose if you stretched the point you could say that was her.<br />
<br />
But, turns out, in English and Gaelic communities, it means radiance.<br />
<br />
And brightness.<br />
<br />
There you go.<br />
<br />
Now we're talkin'.<br />
<br />
My awareness of the lady came somewhere in the 1950's, my nine or ten.<br />
<br />
She was the wife of a co-worker of my father, the two families socially intertwined as a result of that paternal professional camaraderie in that way that seemed so common and natural in the day, so rare and, even, nostalgic now.<br />
<br />
Walt and Neva, Ed and Barbara, two couples who were friends and/or co-workers and/or neighbors.<br />
<br />
Co-starring the assorted progeny of said couples, three boys, three girls, in total, six de facto cousins.<br />
<br />
And, in that zany, quirky way that life has of spinning the wheel, we found ourselves neighbors and friends more than once, together, then separated by the design of corporate needs, then reunited a year or years later, resulting from that same design until time and the inevitable growth of said children resulted in a seemingly final parting of the ways.<br />
<br />
Until a few years ago when the wonder of social media brought us back in touch.<br />
<br />
Through it all, whatever else could be said about the players in the play, there was one very steady, delightful, eclectic, even eccentric radiant brightness.<br />
<br />
Neva Dayl.<br />
<br />
Even as a young child, I knew, if only instinctively, that there was something wonderfully different about her. In a period when a lot of mothers stayed safely a notch left or right of June Cleaver, in appearance, manner and presentation, Neva Dayl was part house mother, part home maker and part Earth Mother, at a time when no one really knew what an Earth Mother was.<br />
<br />
From long flowing hair to long flowing skirts to moccasins and/or sandals that nudged the line of pre-hippiedom ever so gently but stayed just this side of 1950-60's middle class suburban respectability, Neva was always a source of energy and wit and light.<br />
<br />
At the same time, raising a family in a most remarkably conventional fashion, given her remarkable predisposition to the unconventional.<br />
<br />
For though I cant tell you how I knew, I knew.<br />
<br />
Even at the age of ten.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to 2010, give or take.<br />
<br />
Having long since traveled down a path that put considerable difference between our respective families, I had managed to stay aware, as many of us often do, of a general "where are they now" kind of history.<br />
<br />
Walt had passed away in the 1980's, obviously much too young, of the cancer that delights in playing the insidious villain in so many of our life productions.<br />
<br />
The Winfrey kids, our 1950-60 running buddies had gone on to accomplish and marry and reproduce and, in general, live their lives.<br />
<br />
And Neva Dayl Winfrey remained Neva Dayl Winfrey.<br />
<br />
Never remarried, another one of those "I can't tell you why but I just knew" things, staying true to both the memory of her husband and to the once in a lifetime nature of the life they were able to build and share before he passed. <br />
<br />
The temptation to over-romanticize notwithstanding, I always pictured it as a Bobby-Ethel thing. Two people who were meant to be together, separated by one of life's little moments of mean spirited ness, the remaining partner living a full, happy and un-self pitying life, all the while staying married, most certainly emotionally and spiritually, regardless of the impossibility of physically to that one and only, gleefully, even irreverently suggesting that she just wasn't jiggy wit that whole "til death do us part" rap.<br />
<br />
And staying true to herself and her family and her friends and her brightness. And her wit. And her loving light.<br />
<br />
Thanks to Zuckerberg and his book of Faces, I was able to reconnect with Neva and the kids three or four years ago.<br />
<br />
And a more wonderful opportunity for revisiting a treasured tile of my own mosaic there could not have been.<br />
<br />
She and I managed to exchange a few emails, a letter here and there, her age and self admitted difficulty with reading due to failing vision making the printed word a challenge, but still she remained interested in hearing from me and my adventures. I sent her a copy of my book "Ely", a memoir detailing a place and time that both Phelps and Winfrey families had shared, a book she shared back was meaningful to her making it, of course, more than that to me.<br />
<br />
That was the way she was.<br />
<br />
Connected. And involved. And interested.<br />
<br />
And interesting.<br />
<br />
And tuned in like nobody's business.<br />
<br />
The first time we exchanged letters, after I had reconnected with her via Facebook and email, she picked right up where she left off five decades earlier, impressing me with her ability to be with, and for, the person she was with.<br />
<br />
"....I was wondering", she wrote, "if you ever found your passion....Walt and I used to talk about you when you were a kid, noting that whatever it was you took on, you seemed to do it so well...at the same time, though, it was as if no one thing was ever enough to satisfy you...."<br />
<br />
Don't mind telling you that it was touching beyond touching to learn that not only did she and her husband understand me then, she had held that memory and awareness long enough to understand me now.<br />
<br />
The long flowing haired, long flowing skirted, moccasins and/or sandals wearing neighbor lady who nudged the line of pre-hippiedom ever so gently but stayed just this side of 1950-60's middle class suburban respectability while then, and later, always a source of energy and wit and light.<br />
<br />
The neighbor lady who, I realize now, must have intuited that the kid across the street who was bouncing from one passion to another was, in his own way, as wack a doodle as she was, who maybe even understood, in a time when no one really understood those things, that that kid, who was fifty years away from discovering that Asperger's was part of the plot, eventually, in fact, would discover that and start to make sense of a lot of things that hadn't made sense for a long, long time.<br />
<br />
Hell, maybe we even shared a similar construct of slightly dinged and dented genes.<br />
<br />
I'll never really know.<br />
<br />
Neva Dayl went on to the next adventure this past weekend.<br />
<br />
And I only really know this.<br />
<br />
That she and Walt are having a wonderful time.<br />
<br />
That I am grateful beyond measure for having had both the chance to know her.<br />
<br />
And to find her again.<br />
<br />
And that her eclectic life, her eccentric presentation, her "abnormality" made me feel better, and safer, about my own.<br />
<br />
And that I need not struggle to try and find the words to describe her.<br />
<br />
Ken Follett's got that covered.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>“She was unique: there was something abnormal about her, and it was that abnormal something that made her magnetic.”</i> <br />
<i> ---The Pillars of the Earth</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i></i><br />
Thank you, Neva Dayl.<br />
<br />
For all of it.<br />
<br />
<br />
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Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8452240437275551074.post-34495733679553760972014-02-20T09:18:00.002-05:002014-02-20T09:21:41.050-05:00"...Sticks and Stones...And Hail To The Chief..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today's pondering involves poultry.<br />
<br />
Back to that shortly.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile...<br />
<br />
He's an American.<br />
<br />
He's a Muslim.<br />
<br />
He's a Socialist.<br />
<br />
He's the Anti-Christ.<br />
<br />
He's a floor wax.<br />
<br />
He's a dessert topping.<br />
<br />
Primal instinct dictates some kind of "enough, already" at this point.<br />
<br />
But hoping for, let alone insisting on, something like that falls into the province of 60's folkie/rocker Donovan.<br />
<br />
"Ah, but I may as well / try and catch the wind".<br />
<br />
Or, as it might be expressed in a more 21st Century style......<br />
<br />
"Insistence.....is futile."<br />
<br />
Because when it comes to trashing and/or vilifying whomever happens to be picking up the mail marked "Occupant" at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at any given time, regardless of party affiliation and/or color of state stripe...fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and opponents/naysayers/doompeddlers...gotta play..."sobriquet".<br />
<br />
And while the advent of social media (to wit: Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, Pin It, Instagram and/or that oldie but goodie, Candygram) allows for a whole lot more shoveling of a whole lot more slander from a whole lot more people than ever before in our nation's history, the actual practice of applying an "AKA" to the big house of white there in downtown D.C. is as old as one of the very first incarnations of social media...<br />
<br />
...smoke signals.<br />
<br />
Here's a little proof flavored pudding for you to nosh on in the form of a name game.<br />
<br />
Actual nicknames of actual Presidents of the United States of America during the actual time that they were actually in office.<br />
<br />
And if you're going to Google, there's a name for that, too.<br />
<br />
Lame.<br />
<br />
Because all you have to do to get the correct answers is scroll a little in about twenty seconds.<br />
<br />
Okay, ready?<br />
<br />
Identify the incumbent.<br />
<br />
1) King John The Second<br />
2) Mad ___ (if I gave you the name, you'd immediately get it, so guess a little)<br />
3) His Little Majesty<br />
4) King _____ (you gotta couple of good choices, here)<br />
5) His Accidency (actually, here, likewise, you have a pretty wide choice of options)<br />
6) Napoleon of the Stump<br />
7) The Do Nothing President<br />
8) American Caesar<br />
9) His Fraudulency<br />
10) His Obstinacy<br />
11) Ted The Meddler<br />
12) Duckpin<br />
13) Teflon ____<br />
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And, the award(s) (go)es to...<br />
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(uh, this is where you scroll, frustrated Googlers...)<br />
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1) John Adams<br />
2) Thomas Jefferson<br />
3) James Madison<br />
4) Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt<br />
5) John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson<br />
6) James K. Polk<br />
7) James Buchanan<br />
8) Ulysses S. Grant<br />
9) Rutherford B. Hayes<br />
10) Grover Cleveland (and they elected this guy twice with Benjamin Harrison doing four in between times)<br />
11) Teddy Roosevelt<br />
12) Dwight D. Eisenhower<br />
13) Ronald Reagan<br />
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Almost without exception, by the way, if you do a little reading/research, you'll learn that in every presidency, some group statistically large enough to be recognized was convinced that the then current resident of the White House was, at any given time, not only going to bring about the end of life on the planet as we know it, but that he, (they) were.<br />
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An American.<br />
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A socialist.<br />
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The anti-Christ.<br />
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A floor wax. (if they had it back then).<br />
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A dessert topping (ditto).<br />
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Yet, 225 years after George Washington did the "I do solemnly swear" thing in front of a live, not pre-recorded, audience, here we are.<br />
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And here I am.<br />
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Writing about how we feel the need to give mean spirited, even vicious, nicknames to the guy in the Oval.<br />
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Convinced as we are, each and every time, that we are on the very brinky brink of investigation, incarceration, internment or, (big suck in of breath) extinction.<br />
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Which brings us back to poultry.<br />
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And Chicken Little.<br />
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Who requires no nickname whatsoever.<br />
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Cause that name pretty much covers this whole doom peddling business.<br />
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<br />Scott Edward Phelpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735565894486158633noreply@blogger.com0