The story of another Christian graduate student being expelled
from the counseling program because she refuses to counsel
homosexual clients based on her "religious" beliefs was in the
news. Julea Ward, a purported counseling major, lost her
lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University which she filed
because she was expelled. Students under the ACA code are
required to counsel clients without imposing their personal
values. Ms. Ward could not refrain from imposing her world
views on her clients.
Paraphrasing, the university apparently realized that Ms.
Ward was never going to change her behavior and would
continue to refuse to counsel clients who did not meet her
"Christian" standards before she would consent to counsel
them. (And of course, if they're already good Christians,
what do they need counseling sessions with her for?)
There's another virtually identical case going on in Georgia
right now with another purportedly "Christian" grad
student, who also refuses to counsel homosexuals.
(Allegedly, the Georgia girl is also no great shakes at
written communication either, as she's been ordered into
so remedial training for that as well.)
This is the same Fundamentalist tactic that has some
pharmacists trying to refuse to give the morning-after
pill to people with valid prescriptions because they don't
believe in abortion. The rationale these "Christians" are
using is that making them comply with the ethical codes
of the professions they have chosen is an infringement on
their religious freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
These hard-core, hard headed Fundamentalists don't see
their behavior as infringing on the rights of the clients, who
have a reasonable expectation of receiving services from a
certified member of a given profession. They don't see the
invidious divisiness of cherry-picking which people are
entitled to professional services. Suppose they were
indulged in their fanaticism so they don't have to counsel
anyone who doesn't meet their Christian standards. Should
we then allow only homosexuals to counsel homosexuals
heterosexuals need not apply? And only Jews can counsel
Jews, Muslims for Muslims, and only women can counsel
women, and on and on.
And then we can just isolate people in their own separate
little ghettos so they don't have to run into any of "those
people." And it depends on which ghetto you live in as to
who "those people" might be. And then eventually, we can
each only obey those laws which we think apply to our
ghetto and then find ways to punish "those people" so
they'll see our way is the only way. And maybe we can
rename ourselves something like, oh, I don't know, the
Taliban, and make sure EVERYONE knows the
consequences of not believing like we do.
Or we can be Americans and practicing Christians and say,
"There but for the grace of God go I" and reach out with
compassion and kindness to those in need and leave the
religious drumbeating to the intolerant jackasses of the world.
Florida Cracker
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Monday, August 09, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child." - Ron Wild
Friday, August 06, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction; for we have made fiction to suit ourselves." - G.K. Chesterton
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Ghostery
"Be a web detective.
Ghostery is your window into the invisible web – tags, web bugs, pixels and beacons that are included on web pages in order to get an idea of your online behavior.
Ghostery tracks the trackers and gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity."
Ghostery is your window into the invisible web – tags, web bugs, pixels and beacons that are included on web pages in order to get an idea of your online behavior.
Ghostery tracks the trackers and gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity."
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
RANT # 2 More on Immigration Reform
The biggest negative consequence of illegal immigration we
can show with hard data is financial. And the financial impact
is disparately suffered by the middle-class Americans who
pay the largest portion of this nation’s taxes. And that’s not
to say illegals don’t pay tax; they do. But they don’t kick in
as much as they take out of the system. As a group, the
illegals represent a part of the U.S. population which is
poorly educated, earning less, paid less by corporate
America to maximize profit while evading taxes on that
profit and often collecting taxpayer-funded government
subsidies for businesses. Furthermore, a big part of what
the illegal immigrants earn is not spent locally but is sent
back to other countries to support families there. That’s
products we’re not selling locally by local businesses and
sales and income taxes we’re not seeing in local communities
because the consumers aren’t citizens spending their income
in our communities.
Meantime, the American consumers continue to pay for
over-priced goods produced by corporations with underpaid,
illegal labor, while simultaneously shelling out the taxes
which support the social program expenses incurred by
“undocumented workers.” And corporate owners pocket
their inflated profits, tax-free government subsidies, and
deposit their inflated incomes in tax shelters not available
to the American middle-class.
The other negative of rampant immigration that’s harder
to measure, except anecdotally, is the impact of the third
world cultures which refuse to assimilate in modern
American society. We see it in the high domestic violence,
street crimes, rampant thievery and other stats; the
unwillingness to promote education or to ensure their
children participate in and complete school; the social
expectation that the girls will not finish school, but start
popping out babies in their teens, almost guaranteeing a
lifelong embrace of poverty; the culture of extortion,
corruption and bribery among government employees
and a general attitude of take what you can get and live
for the moment. You don’t build anything for the future
with that kind of value system.
There’s also the immigrant community leadership which
is increasingly demanding its own separatist courts and
governing bodies for determining matters which are
currently exclusive to the jurisdiction of U.S. and local
governments. In Europe , national governments are
already struggling with a highly vocal and disruptive
foreign immigrant community which insists that it
govern itself – yet benefit from the host countries’
economic successes – which were created by the
culture which the immigrant community disdains
and actively seeks to undermine.
We have residents of the United States , some citizens,
who don’t speak English, who have lived in this country
for upwards of 30 years and never learned English
because they live in isolated foreign-language speaking
communities within communities. They don’t regard
themselves as Americans and see no loyalty to a nation
that protects and provides for them, nor any loyalty to
their English-speaking neighbors – however, they’ll fight
you to the ground for what they have come to perceive as
their “entitlements” under the very U. S. laws they flout.
And middle-class Americans taxes pay for those so-called
“entitlements” of food stamps, health care, welfare, child
services, subsidized housing, criminal justice proceedings,
legal aid, and on and on.
In Orlando , there’s the Chamber of Commerce – and,
believe it or not, there’s the Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce; and they are separate entities, with separate
memberships and separate agendas within the same
geographical community. There’s the Orlando community
and there’s the Haitian community in Orlando or the Puerto
Rican community in Orlando or the Mexican community in
Orlando . It’s not one community. It’s not one language.
There’s no unity of purpose or focus or function. It’s a
bunch of vying interests, clawing for local middle-class
American tax dollars to promote their separate agendas
at the expense of, and with total disregard for, the whole.
This nation is in trouble. It’s time to enforce the laws –
all of the laws on all of the people, all of the businesses,
all of the time; time to break up these conclaves of
foreign influence and bring them into mainstream
American values and standards or expel them from our
country; time to put an end to the deficit social costs of
immigration and end automatic citizenship for any child
born on U.S. soil, with attendant “entitlements” just for
sucking U.S. air. It’s time to make corporate America
pony up when they employ illegals at reduced wages for
the sole reason of padding their profits and avoiding the
tax consequences for themselves and their owners, leaving
the hard-pressed middle-class to pick up the tab
consumer goods and social services costs.
If you’re a middle-class American, you better start
fighting for yourself and the hard-working ethics that
made this country the envy of the world or be prepared
to hand over everything you’ve ever worked for to a
Big Business-controlled Big Government that’s trading
your children’s legacy of American self-sufficiency and
self-government to buy the reduced-rate labor of any
Joe Snuffy the Ragman who staggers across our border
with his hand out.
Florida Cracker
The biggest negative consequence of illegal immigration we
can show with hard data is financial. And the financial impact
is disparately suffered by the middle-class Americans who
pay the largest portion of this nation’s taxes. And that’s not
to say illegals don’t pay tax; they do. But they don’t kick in
as much as they take out of the system. As a group, the
illegals represent a part of the U.S. population which is
poorly educated, earning less, paid less by corporate
America to maximize profit while evading taxes on that
profit and often collecting taxpayer-funded government
subsidies for businesses. Furthermore, a big part of what
the illegal immigrants earn is not spent locally but is sent
back to other countries to support families there. That’s
products we’re not selling locally by local businesses and
sales and income taxes we’re not seeing in local communities
because the consumers aren’t citizens spending their income
in our communities.
Meantime, the American consumers continue to pay for
over-priced goods produced by corporations with underpaid,
illegal labor, while simultaneously shelling out the taxes
which support the social program expenses incurred by
“undocumented workers.” And corporate owners pocket
their inflated profits, tax-free government subsidies, and
deposit their inflated incomes in tax shelters not available
to the American middle-class.
The other negative of rampant immigration that’s harder
to measure, except anecdotally, is the impact of the third
world cultures which refuse to assimilate in modern
American society. We see it in the high domestic violence,
street crimes, rampant thievery and other stats; the
unwillingness to promote education or to ensure their
children participate in and complete school; the social
expectation that the girls will not finish school, but start
popping out babies in their teens, almost guaranteeing a
lifelong embrace of poverty; the culture of extortion,
corruption and bribery among government employees
and a general attitude of take what you can get and live
for the moment. You don’t build anything for the future
with that kind of value system.
There’s also the immigrant community leadership which
is increasingly demanding its own separatist courts and
governing bodies for determining matters which are
currently exclusive to the jurisdiction of U.S. and local
governments. In Europe , national governments are
already struggling with a highly vocal and disruptive
foreign immigrant community which insists that it
govern itself – yet benefit from the host countries’
economic successes – which were created by the
culture which the immigrant community disdains
and actively seeks to undermine.
We have residents of the United States , some citizens,
who don’t speak English, who have lived in this country
for upwards of 30 years and never learned English
because they live in isolated foreign-language speaking
communities within communities. They don’t regard
themselves as Americans and see no loyalty to a nation
that protects and provides for them, nor any loyalty to
their English-speaking neighbors – however, they’ll fight
you to the ground for what they have come to perceive as
their “entitlements” under the very U. S. laws they flout.
And middle-class Americans taxes pay for those so-called
“entitlements” of food stamps, health care, welfare, child
services, subsidized housing, criminal justice proceedings,
legal aid, and on and on.
In Orlando , there’s the Chamber of Commerce – and,
believe it or not, there’s the Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce; and they are separate entities, with separate
memberships and separate agendas within the same
geographical community. There’s the Orlando community
and there’s the Haitian community in Orlando or the Puerto
Rican community in Orlando or the Mexican community in
Orlando . It’s not one community. It’s not one language.
There’s no unity of purpose or focus or function. It’s a
bunch of vying interests, clawing for local middle-class
American tax dollars to promote their separate agendas
at the expense of, and with total disregard for, the whole.
This nation is in trouble. It’s time to enforce the laws –
all of the laws on all of the people, all of the businesses,
all of the time; time to break up these conclaves of
foreign influence and bring them into mainstream
American values and standards or expel them from our
country; time to put an end to the deficit social costs of
immigration and end automatic citizenship for any child
born on U.S. soil, with attendant “entitlements” just for
sucking U.S. air. It’s time to make corporate America
pony up when they employ illegals at reduced wages for
the sole reason of padding their profits and avoiding the
tax consequences for themselves and their owners, leaving
the hard-pressed middle-class to pick up the tab
consumer goods and social services costs.
If you’re a middle-class American, you better start
fighting for yourself and the hard-working ethics that
made this country the envy of the world or be prepared
to hand over everything you’ve ever worked for to a
Big Business-controlled Big Government that’s trading
your children’s legacy of American self-sufficiency and
self-government to buy the reduced-rate labor of any
Joe Snuffy the Ragman who staggers across our border
with his hand out.
Florida Cracker
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Thought For Today
"My notion of a story is an interesting situation in which a human being has to cope with a problem, does so, and thereby changed his personality, character, or evaluations in some measure because the coping has forced him to revise his thinking. How he copes with it, I can't plot in advance because that depends on his character, and I don't know what his character is until I get acquainted with him." - Robert A. Heinlein
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
RANT # 1 Immigration Reform (# 2 next Wed.)
I’m tired of the term “racist” when applied to Arizona ’s
stance on immigration, or for that matter, when used to
describe anyone who opposes our current policy of
immigration non-enforcement. If, as an American citizen,
I am required (as determined by Supreme Court case law)
to show valid ID if stopped by the police conducting a
legitimate investigation, why should an illegal immigrant
not be required to present valid ID? What gives an illegal
immigrant more personal freedom than I have as a
tax-paying, hardworking citizen of the United States ?
And if you live in a community of mostly “brown” people,
how can it be “racist” to stop and address “brown” people
while conducting a valid investigation? It would be weirder
if you lived in a mostly brown community and only stopped
the white or black people. That’s not profiling to stop
brown people while conducting legal investigations in a
brown community – that’s common sense. Of course,
if we only let the brown police stop the brown people
and the white police stop the white people – but isn’t
that definition of real racism and a de-facto disregard
of “all are equal under the law?”
I think George Orwell had it right in Animal Farm when
the sheep were trained to bleat “two legs bad; four legs
good,” in an endless drowning chant every time someone
brought up a subject the minority demagogues didn’t
want discussed. Freedom of speech by the American
taxpayer majority is likewise being held hostage by the
minority because all the anti-immigration enforcement
group has to do is start shrieking “Racist” to derail any
reasonable analysis of our current immigration disaster.
The cold hard basic truth is: Big Government doesn’t want
to enforce immigration laws on the books because Big
Business profits outrageously from illegal employment.
And Big Business owns the movers and shakers of Big
Government, one dirty hand washing the other. And
most illegal immigrants don’t want to be citizens of the
U.S. ; they just want the American standard of living
without embracing the culture or credos that created it.
Too apt an analogy is locusts; they come with all of their
neediness, lack of education or forethought, breeding
indiscriminately children they cannot support; and
when the American middle-class tax base is drained,
the community their rampant influx creates will be
ultimately just as bad in the poverty and corruption as
that they profess to be escaping.
And as for the rest of the bleating herds opposing
immigration enforcement, they’ll apparently be happy
when everyone is sitting naked in a circle in the dirt,
celebrating that we’re all equal – because none of us
has anything that others can’t take away.
It’s up to us middle-class American taxpayers at the
grassroots level to oppose illegal immigration at every
level and vote out any politician who refuse to enforce
immigration law if we want to survive as a nation.
Florida Cracker
I’m tired of the term “racist” when applied to Arizona ’s
stance on immigration, or for that matter, when used to
describe anyone who opposes our current policy of
immigration non-enforcement. If, as an American citizen,
I am required (as determined by Supreme Court case law)
to show valid ID if stopped by the police conducting a
legitimate investigation, why should an illegal immigrant
not be required to present valid ID? What gives an illegal
immigrant more personal freedom than I have as a
tax-paying, hardworking citizen of the United States ?
And if you live in a community of mostly “brown” people,
how can it be “racist” to stop and address “brown” people
while conducting a valid investigation? It would be weirder
if you lived in a mostly brown community and only stopped
the white or black people. That’s not profiling to stop
brown people while conducting legal investigations in a
brown community – that’s common sense. Of course,
if we only let the brown police stop the brown people
and the white police stop the white people – but isn’t
that definition of real racism and a de-facto disregard
of “all are equal under the law?”
I think George Orwell had it right in Animal Farm when
the sheep were trained to bleat “two legs bad; four legs
good,” in an endless drowning chant every time someone
brought up a subject the minority demagogues didn’t
want discussed. Freedom of speech by the American
taxpayer majority is likewise being held hostage by the
minority because all the anti-immigration enforcement
group has to do is start shrieking “Racist” to derail any
reasonable analysis of our current immigration disaster.
The cold hard basic truth is: Big Government doesn’t want
to enforce immigration laws on the books because Big
Business profits outrageously from illegal employment.
And Big Business owns the movers and shakers of Big
Government, one dirty hand washing the other. And
most illegal immigrants don’t want to be citizens of the
U.S. ; they just want the American standard of living
without embracing the culture or credos that created it.
Too apt an analogy is locusts; they come with all of their
neediness, lack of education or forethought, breeding
indiscriminately children they cannot support; and
when the American middle-class tax base is drained,
the community their rampant influx creates will be
ultimately just as bad in the poverty and corruption as
that they profess to be escaping.
And as for the rest of the bleating herds opposing
immigration enforcement, they’ll apparently be happy
when everyone is sitting naked in a circle in the dirt,
celebrating that we’re all equal – because none of us
has anything that others can’t take away.
It’s up to us middle-class American taxpayers at the
grassroots level to oppose illegal immigration at every
level and vote out any politician who refuse to enforce
immigration law if we want to survive as a nation.
Florida Cracker
Monday, July 26, 2010
I Write Like
"Check which famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers." And before you ask, Harry Harrison. I LIKE Harry Harrison.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Thought For Today
"To betray a source would be to betray myself, my career and my life. I cannot do it."— Daniel Schorr
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Thought For Today
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries " - Winston Churchill
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Thought For Today
"If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance." - Bern Williams
Thursday, July 08, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Albert Einstein
Thursday, July 01, 2010
The Thought For Today
"When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self." - Confucius
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Rec: Santa Fe Wraps
12 oz. ground beef (or turkey)
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) Diced Tomatoes
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 can (15 1/4 oz.) Whole Kernel Corn, drained
1 pkg. (3 oz.) cream cheese, cut up
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
6 (8 inch) flour tortillas
Brown meat in large skillet; drain. Stir in undrained
tomatoes, chili powder and cumin. Bring to boil; reduce
heat. Simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes. Stir in corn,
cheese and jalapeno; stir until cheese melts. Spoon
mixture onto tortillas and roll up or fold. Serve with
shredded lettuce, shredded Cheddar cheese and salsa,
if desired.
Serves 4 to 6
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) Diced Tomatoes
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 can (15 1/4 oz.) Whole Kernel Corn, drained
1 pkg. (3 oz.) cream cheese, cut up
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
6 (8 inch) flour tortillas
Brown meat in large skillet; drain. Stir in undrained
tomatoes, chili powder and cumin. Bring to boil; reduce
heat. Simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes. Stir in corn,
cheese and jalapeno; stir until cheese melts. Spoon
mixture onto tortillas and roll up or fold. Serve with
shredded lettuce, shredded Cheddar cheese and salsa,
if desired.
Serves 4 to 6
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude." - Dr Martin Luther King
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Re: Seattle Police Officer Ian P. Walsh who punched the
17-year-old girl so squarely in the face when she physically
interfered with the restraint of another girl being detained
for jaywalking: GOOD SHOT! I bet that young woman has
gotten away with that nasty behavior all of her life. Maybe
she’s finally learned she’s not immune to what she’s been
used to dishing out. But probably not, with the majority of
the urban African American community doing what it
always does – supporting self-defeating, anti-social
behavior instead of chastising it. She’s bound to think
she’s some kind of victim, instead of a perpetrator of a
criminal act.
The National Urban League, formerly the National League
on Urban Conditions among Negroes (according to Wikipedia)
and allegedly a non-partisan civil rights organization that
advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial
discrimination in the United States, has of course denounced
the punch in the face of the girl as an “over-reaction” on the
part of the officer. They’re all for educating the white
community to recognize institutional discrimination and to
hold those in authority accountable for their behavior and
policies towards the members of the non-white community.
For them, it’s always about how their portion of the community
is being treated and never about how their behavior is creating
the very reaction they decry.
I’m always kind of amazed that organizations like this don’t
work on educating the people they purport to represent how
to behave in public places and when confronted by persons in
authority. If this organization wants to claim that a Caucasian
girl wouldn’t have been arrested for jaywalking, wouldn’t have
been punched in the face, they’re probably right. Most
Caucasian girls don’t immediately get loud, vicious, and
violent and show both lousy upbringing and poor social skills
when confronted by an officer. It’s not routinely part of
“white” American culture to get violently confrontational
with law enforcement and while “non-white” American
communities have a different history with law enforcement
in this country, modern law enforcement also reacts
differently based on ongoing experiences in those
communities.
What would be the difference in a situation like this, a trivial
little jay-walking offense? A white-bread, middle class girl
would probably ask what she did wrong if stopped – and in
a normal speaking tone, sans profanities. She would show
her ID if requested. She would most likely apologize for her
transgression, even if she didn’t know she was doing wrong.
The police officer would then probably write her a citation or
let her off with a warning. Would he do it just because the girl
is white? No. He does it because she behaved in a civilized,
compliant fashion – and not like some shrieking, ignorant
harpy who’s presenting a very real, continuing physical
threat to the officer and the community by her behavior.
The officer was there enforcing the law because obviously
there had been a complaint about persons jaywalking –
which if you live in an urban area in certain neighborhoods,
the pedestrians like to stroll in groups through the streets,
playing chicken with motorized traffic. And if you confront
them about blocking traffic, they take it as an excuse to go
bug-nuts on you – like it’s your fault they’re blocking traffic,
endangering themselves and others. And that’s what these
girls did because that’s what’s expected in their community.
So the officer confronts the girls about jaywalking, and they
do what too many African Americans have been trained to
do and that is go immediately stupid, loud and violent. And
what could have been a simple warning or citation (which
would probably be dismissed in court it’s so trivial) becomes
a felony arrest for resisting with violence, battery on a law
enforcement officer, interfering with an officer in the
performance of his duty. And I’m sure if the girls had
gotten a little crazier and escalated their resistance to an
outright attack on the officer instead of a strong shove that
resulted in a retaliatory punch, one or both of them might
have been shot or Tased – and not for jaywalking, but for
endangering a law enforcement officer in the performance
of his duty.
The Urban League should get its collective heads together
and quit protecting community scofflaws because they
happen to be the same color and get serious about a
campaign to get their communities into civil, legal and
behavioral compliance with the rest of polite society.
They need to quit promoting a culture of resistance to
persons in authority simply because they ARE in positions
of authority, because until they do, the Urban League is
part of the problem, NOT a tool for the solution.
Florida Cracker
17-year-old girl so squarely in the face when she physically
interfered with the restraint of another girl being detained
for jaywalking: GOOD SHOT! I bet that young woman has
gotten away with that nasty behavior all of her life. Maybe
she’s finally learned she’s not immune to what she’s been
used to dishing out. But probably not, with the majority of
the urban African American community doing what it
always does – supporting self-defeating, anti-social
behavior instead of chastising it. She’s bound to think
she’s some kind of victim, instead of a perpetrator of a
criminal act.
The National Urban League, formerly the National League
on Urban Conditions among Negroes (according to Wikipedia)
and allegedly a non-partisan civil rights organization that
advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial
discrimination in the United States, has of course denounced
the punch in the face of the girl as an “over-reaction” on the
part of the officer. They’re all for educating the white
community to recognize institutional discrimination and to
hold those in authority accountable for their behavior and
policies towards the members of the non-white community.
For them, it’s always about how their portion of the community
is being treated and never about how their behavior is creating
the very reaction they decry.
I’m always kind of amazed that organizations like this don’t
work on educating the people they purport to represent how
to behave in public places and when confronted by persons in
authority. If this organization wants to claim that a Caucasian
girl wouldn’t have been arrested for jaywalking, wouldn’t have
been punched in the face, they’re probably right. Most
Caucasian girls don’t immediately get loud, vicious, and
violent and show both lousy upbringing and poor social skills
when confronted by an officer. It’s not routinely part of
“white” American culture to get violently confrontational
with law enforcement and while “non-white” American
communities have a different history with law enforcement
in this country, modern law enforcement also reacts
differently based on ongoing experiences in those
communities.
What would be the difference in a situation like this, a trivial
little jay-walking offense? A white-bread, middle class girl
would probably ask what she did wrong if stopped – and in
a normal speaking tone, sans profanities. She would show
her ID if requested. She would most likely apologize for her
transgression, even if she didn’t know she was doing wrong.
The police officer would then probably write her a citation or
let her off with a warning. Would he do it just because the girl
is white? No. He does it because she behaved in a civilized,
compliant fashion – and not like some shrieking, ignorant
harpy who’s presenting a very real, continuing physical
threat to the officer and the community by her behavior.
The officer was there enforcing the law because obviously
there had been a complaint about persons jaywalking –
which if you live in an urban area in certain neighborhoods,
the pedestrians like to stroll in groups through the streets,
playing chicken with motorized traffic. And if you confront
them about blocking traffic, they take it as an excuse to go
bug-nuts on you – like it’s your fault they’re blocking traffic,
endangering themselves and others. And that’s what these
girls did because that’s what’s expected in their community.
So the officer confronts the girls about jaywalking, and they
do what too many African Americans have been trained to
do and that is go immediately stupid, loud and violent. And
what could have been a simple warning or citation (which
would probably be dismissed in court it’s so trivial) becomes
a felony arrest for resisting with violence, battery on a law
enforcement officer, interfering with an officer in the
performance of his duty. And I’m sure if the girls had
gotten a little crazier and escalated their resistance to an
outright attack on the officer instead of a strong shove that
resulted in a retaliatory punch, one or both of them might
have been shot or Tased – and not for jaywalking, but for
endangering a law enforcement officer in the performance
of his duty.
The Urban League should get its collective heads together
and quit protecting community scofflaws because they
happen to be the same color and get serious about a
campaign to get their communities into civil, legal and
behavioral compliance with the rest of polite society.
They need to quit promoting a culture of resistance to
persons in authority simply because they ARE in positions
of authority, because until they do, the Urban League is
part of the problem, NOT a tool for the solution.
Florida Cracker
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Rec: Crawfish Pie
1 medium onion, diced
1 lb coarsely chopped crawfish tails
1/4 cup minced green onion
1/4 cup minced parsley
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
2 diced celery stalks
1/2 teaspoon red pepper
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 cup milk
1 10 inch double crust pie plate
Saute onions, garlic, bell pepper and celery in butter until
limp. Add tomato sauce, crawfish and parsley. Cook slowly for
10 minutes. Turn off heat. Add bread crumbs, salt, pepper, egg
and milk mixing well. Pour into crust and bake 35 to 40 minutes
in a preheated 350 degree oven.
Serves 6
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave or enjoyed cold
1 lb coarsely chopped crawfish tails
1/4 cup minced green onion
1/4 cup minced parsley
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
2 diced celery stalks
1/2 teaspoon red pepper
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 cup milk
1 10 inch double crust pie plate
Saute onions, garlic, bell pepper and celery in butter until
limp. Add tomato sauce, crawfish and parsley. Cook slowly for
10 minutes. Turn off heat. Add bread crumbs, salt, pepper, egg
and milk mixing well. Pour into crust and bake 35 to 40 minutes
in a preheated 350 degree oven.
Serves 6
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave or enjoyed cold
Monday, June 14, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Thought For Today
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." - Edmund Burke
The Hard Truth From Orlando
The family of Mexican youngster Sergio Adrian Hernandez
Huereka, 15 years old, are mourning the loss of their son, who
apparently put himself in harm’s way when he and some
buddies decided to hang out near the border between Mexico
and the U.S. and throw stones at U.S. Border Patrol officers
apprehending persons crossing over the border illegally into
the U.S. A U.S. Border officer shot back when the
rock-throwing didn’t stop and Sergio died. That’s the
simple situation as reported. An unsupervised kid was
where he wasn’t supposed to be, doing what he shouldn’t
have been doing, and he died for it. It was an entirely
preventable tragedy.
But the political and legal fall-out and cross-agency finger
pointing from this incident of teenage stupidity might go
on for months, if not years. President Calderon publicly
deplores the increasing violence being exercised against
Mexican citizens who illegally cross into the United States,
but he and his government do little or nothing to stop his
citizens from routinely breaking U.S. law and the conditions
of treaty between his country and the U.S.
There’s not going to be a quick-fix for this in the big
picture. Border Agents are the first line of defense against
the drug lords of Central America and the tidal wave of
illegal immigrants who are flooding the U.S. social support
systems and draining tax dollars from a system to which
they were never entitled. And lest we think we’re alone in
fighting a battle against hordes of immigrants for which we
were not prepared, one needs only to look at the news out
of Europe ’s impending elections. There are two big issues:
economy and the underpinning immigrant flood into the
industrialized nations with the inherent problems of
under-employment, cultural clashes, poor education,
poverty, crime and the drain on social services. Gosh,
that sounds familiar.
But the root of the problem is decades of non-enforcement
of immigration laws by the federal government. This has
given rise to the porous Mexican/American and Canadian/
American borders, the casual disregard for local law
enforcement and the hitherto nearly nonexistent
consequences of violating those laws. But what we have
now is the backlash of local communities’ law enforcement
against federal non-response in the form of Arizona’s law
(with other states following suit) and local municipalities
paying to have their officers cross-certified to enforce
immigration laws and not have to wait on ICE or Border
Patrol when an illegal immigrant is apprehended in their
community. The so-called Tea Party movement is
galvanizing to support Arizona ’s call to immigration
enforcement and federal response is to increase security
and personnel along the borders.
Well, in the words of the old song, it’s tightening up time.
We can anticipate confrontations and violence increasing as
we tighten up border security. And resistance is inevitable
in the face of near non-existent enforcement for so many
years, where complacency and disregard were the norm for
generations. No one likes it when they have to change what
they’ve taken for granted. Things aren’t going to get better
for a long while; they will get worse.
But for those of us at Ground Zero, who live with the dirt and
grit on the ground reality, we can keep ourselves and our
families safer by practicing some very basic concepts, like
not going where bad things are happening, knowing where
your children are and what they’re doing. Sergio – well,
he’s paid the price for being more testosterone than brains,
like the rock-throwing adolescents in Palestine who become
casualties of Israeli bullets, like the rock-throwing rioters in
Thailand , the street-roaming kids in inner-city U.S. of A
– and on and on and on.
Mothers, if you cherish your sons, keep them home. Lead
and live the example for your children. Kick their butts if
you catch them putting themselves in opposition to law
enforcement, hanging out with idiots, and make it clear
you are NOT on their side when they deliberately put
themselves in confrontational situations. Be a parent now
and you’ll live to see yourself a grandparent, and let the
politics sort itself out.
Florida Cracker
Huereka, 15 years old, are mourning the loss of their son, who
apparently put himself in harm’s way when he and some
buddies decided to hang out near the border between Mexico
and the U.S. and throw stones at U.S. Border Patrol officers
apprehending persons crossing over the border illegally into
the U.S. A U.S. Border officer shot back when the
rock-throwing didn’t stop and Sergio died. That’s the
simple situation as reported. An unsupervised kid was
where he wasn’t supposed to be, doing what he shouldn’t
have been doing, and he died for it. It was an entirely
preventable tragedy.
But the political and legal fall-out and cross-agency finger
pointing from this incident of teenage stupidity might go
on for months, if not years. President Calderon publicly
deplores the increasing violence being exercised against
Mexican citizens who illegally cross into the United States,
but he and his government do little or nothing to stop his
citizens from routinely breaking U.S. law and the conditions
of treaty between his country and the U.S.
There’s not going to be a quick-fix for this in the big
picture. Border Agents are the first line of defense against
the drug lords of Central America and the tidal wave of
illegal immigrants who are flooding the U.S. social support
systems and draining tax dollars from a system to which
they were never entitled. And lest we think we’re alone in
fighting a battle against hordes of immigrants for which we
were not prepared, one needs only to look at the news out
of Europe ’s impending elections. There are two big issues:
economy and the underpinning immigrant flood into the
industrialized nations with the inherent problems of
under-employment, cultural clashes, poor education,
poverty, crime and the drain on social services. Gosh,
that sounds familiar.
But the root of the problem is decades of non-enforcement
of immigration laws by the federal government. This has
given rise to the porous Mexican/American and Canadian/
American borders, the casual disregard for local law
enforcement and the hitherto nearly nonexistent
consequences of violating those laws. But what we have
now is the backlash of local communities’ law enforcement
against federal non-response in the form of Arizona’s law
(with other states following suit) and local municipalities
paying to have their officers cross-certified to enforce
immigration laws and not have to wait on ICE or Border
Patrol when an illegal immigrant is apprehended in their
community. The so-called Tea Party movement is
galvanizing to support Arizona ’s call to immigration
enforcement and federal response is to increase security
and personnel along the borders.
Well, in the words of the old song, it’s tightening up time.
We can anticipate confrontations and violence increasing as
we tighten up border security. And resistance is inevitable
in the face of near non-existent enforcement for so many
years, where complacency and disregard were the norm for
generations. No one likes it when they have to change what
they’ve taken for granted. Things aren’t going to get better
for a long while; they will get worse.
But for those of us at Ground Zero, who live with the dirt and
grit on the ground reality, we can keep ourselves and our
families safer by practicing some very basic concepts, like
not going where bad things are happening, knowing where
your children are and what they’re doing. Sergio – well,
he’s paid the price for being more testosterone than brains,
like the rock-throwing adolescents in Palestine who become
casualties of Israeli bullets, like the rock-throwing rioters in
Thailand , the street-roaming kids in inner-city U.S. of A
– and on and on and on.
Mothers, if you cherish your sons, keep them home. Lead
and live the example for your children. Kick their butts if
you catch them putting themselves in opposition to law
enforcement, hanging out with idiots, and make it clear
you are NOT on their side when they deliberately put
themselves in confrontational situations. Be a parent now
and you’ll live to see yourself a grandparent, and let the
politics sort itself out.
Florida Cracker
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
The Thought For Today
"In Germany, they came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists but I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time nobody was left to speak up." - Reverend Martin Niemoeller, Dachau, 1944
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Rec: Quick And Easy Stuffed Peppers
2 large red bell peppers, halved and seeded
1 (8 oz) can stewed tomatoes, with liquid
1/3 cup quick-cooking brown rice
2 tablespoons hot water
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed and drained
1/2 (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
Arrange pepper halves in a 9 inch square glass baking dish.
Cover dish with plastic wrap. Poke a few holes in the plastic
wrap for vents, and heat 4 minutes in the microwave, or
until tender. In a medium bowl, mix tomatoes and their
liquid, rice, and water. Cover with plastic, and cook in the
microwave for 4 minutes, or until rice is cooked. Stir green
onions, corn, kidney beans, and red pepper flakes into the
tomato mixture. Heat in the microwave for 3 minutes, or
until heated through. Spoon hot tomato mixture evenly
into pepper halves, and cover with plastic wrap. Poke a
few holes in the plastic to vent steam, and heat in the
microwave 4 minutes. Remove plastic, sprinkle with
Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese, and allow to
stand 1 to 2 minutes before serving.
Serves 2 to 4
1 (8 oz) can stewed tomatoes, with liquid
1/3 cup quick-cooking brown rice
2 tablespoons hot water
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed and drained
1/2 (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
Arrange pepper halves in a 9 inch square glass baking dish.
Cover dish with plastic wrap. Poke a few holes in the plastic
wrap for vents, and heat 4 minutes in the microwave, or
until tender. In a medium bowl, mix tomatoes and their
liquid, rice, and water. Cover with plastic, and cook in the
microwave for 4 minutes, or until rice is cooked. Stir green
onions, corn, kidney beans, and red pepper flakes into the
tomato mixture. Heat in the microwave for 3 minutes, or
until heated through. Spoon hot tomato mixture evenly
into pepper halves, and cover with plastic wrap. Poke a
few holes in the plastic to vent steam, and heat in the
microwave 4 minutes. Remove plastic, sprinkle with
Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese, and allow to
stand 1 to 2 minutes before serving.
Serves 2 to 4
Rec: Hasty Lasagna
1 can/bottle (15 1/2 oz.) spaghetti sauce with meat
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1 package lasagna noodles (6 oz.) cooked and drained
1 cup cream style cottage cheese
1 package (6 oz.) sliced Mozzarella cheese
Combine sauce and oregano in bowl. In a greased (Pam'd)
baking dish alternate layers of noodles, cottage cheese,
Mozzarella and sauce, using sauce as top layer. Microwave
12 to 15 minutes on MEDIUM-HIGH until center is heated.
Serves 4
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1 package lasagna noodles (6 oz.) cooked and drained
1 cup cream style cottage cheese
1 package (6 oz.) sliced Mozzarella cheese
Combine sauce and oregano in bowl. In a greased (Pam'd)
baking dish alternate layers of noodles, cottage cheese,
Mozzarella and sauce, using sauce as top layer. Microwave
12 to 15 minutes on MEDIUM-HIGH until center is heated.
Serves 4
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave
Rec: Basic Microwave Risotto
3 tablespoons butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup uncooked Arborio rice
3/4 cup white wine (or white grape juice)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
In a 3 quart casserole dish combine butter, garlic and
onion. Place dish in microwave and cook on HIGH for
3 minutes. Place vegetable broth in a microwave safe
dish. Heat in microwave until the broth is hot but not
boiling (approximately 2 minutes). Stir the rice and
broth into the casserole dish with the onion, butter
and garlic mixture. Cover the dish tightly and cook
on HIGH for 6 minutes. Stir wine into the rice. Cook
on HIGH for 10 minutes more. Most of the liquid should
boil off. Stir the cheese into the rice and serve.
Serves 3 to 4
Refrigerate remainder
Can be carefully reheated in microwave
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup uncooked Arborio rice
3/4 cup white wine (or white grape juice)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
In a 3 quart casserole dish combine butter, garlic and
onion. Place dish in microwave and cook on HIGH for
3 minutes. Place vegetable broth in a microwave safe
dish. Heat in microwave until the broth is hot but not
boiling (approximately 2 minutes). Stir the rice and
broth into the casserole dish with the onion, butter
and garlic mixture. Cover the dish tightly and cook
on HIGH for 6 minutes. Stir wine into the rice. Cook
on HIGH for 10 minutes more. Most of the liquid should
boil off. Stir the cheese into the rice and serve.
Serves 3 to 4
Refrigerate remainder
Can be carefully reheated in microwave
Friday, May 28, 2010
The Thought For Today
"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. " - Marie Curie
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Thought For Today
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself." - Thomas Paine
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Thought For Today
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon." - Thomas Paine
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Illegal immigrant 22-year-old Jessica Colotl is being sought
by law enforcement of Cobb County , Georgia . Apparently,
Ms. Colotl was brought to this country illegally about age 10
by her parents from Mexico , also in the country illegally.
Ms. Colotl was attending university in Georgia , claiming
residency – which is a lie by virtue of the fact she’s not a
legal resident of the U.S. -- which let her pay less tuition
for classes. But she has no driver’s license because she’s
not legal, and she’s driving anyway and probably has for
years, but she got caught by a minor traffic infraction.
Then she lied to the police about where she lived, got sent
to immigration, who turned her loose pending a hearing, and
now she’s ducking law enforcement again to evade deportation
and the new felony charge of lying to law enforcement on a
sworn affidavit – which lie she told because she’s illegally
here in the country and knows it and has always known it.
Now, the apparent weirdness of her thinking is evident in
that she wanted to go to school to become a lawyer. How
she’s supposed to get certified by any state bar association
when she’s not a legal citizen, cannot truthfully take the
oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and
all local and federal laws when she’s not a citizen and is
continuing to break the law of the land every day and
every minute, awake or asleep, seems to have escaped
this young woman and her supporters who decry Cobb
County’s “harsh” treatment of her. Who would want to
hire any woman whose life is lying and cadging and ducking
– and yet she expects to obtain a lucrative, professional
position in the upper echelons of law enforcement which
by its very definition represents the highest standards of
integrity and legal conformity, none of which can be said
of Ms. Colotl.
She’s had 12 years and her parents have had at least 12
years to petition for legal status. Instead, she chose to lie
her way into university, lie on every application, every
form – and finally commit a felony by lying to law
enforcement when apprehended. She’s conducted herself
with oblivious disregard for violation of the rights of the
citizens of Cobb County and everywhere else she’s resided
– residents whose tax dollars help support her spurious
claim to residency. Residents who stood to face financial
ruin and personal injury and damage when she’s operating
a motor vehicle on public roads without legal license or
insurance. If she’s obtained student loans, she’s committed
fraud at the expense of taxpayers whose children were
entitled to those increasingly limited funds and whose
entry into college might well have been impacted by her
fraud.
The long and the short of it is, we don’t need Ms. Jessica
Colotl. And we certainly don’t need what she represents.
She’s not a shining example of anything but what’s wrong
with illegal immigrants in this country. They act as if
they’re entitled to all the benefits of our country and
Constitution, yet they make not the slightest effort to
come into compliance with our laws and regulations.
They claim “civil rights” when civil rights belong only to
legal residents and citizens of the United States . They
cheat and expect to be rewarded for it instead of owning
up to their crime and making reparation.
When Ms. Colotl is apprehended, I hope it’s a swift
one-way ticket back to Mexico so we can quit supporting
this cheat. And she can be mad at the people who really
put her in this precarious position and encouraged a
lifetime of lies and fraud – her parents.
Florida Cracker
by law enforcement of Cobb County , Georgia . Apparently,
Ms. Colotl was brought to this country illegally about age 10
by her parents from Mexico , also in the country illegally.
Ms. Colotl was attending university in Georgia , claiming
residency – which is a lie by virtue of the fact she’s not a
legal resident of the U.S. -- which let her pay less tuition
for classes. But she has no driver’s license because she’s
not legal, and she’s driving anyway and probably has for
years, but she got caught by a minor traffic infraction.
Then she lied to the police about where she lived, got sent
to immigration, who turned her loose pending a hearing, and
now she’s ducking law enforcement again to evade deportation
and the new felony charge of lying to law enforcement on a
sworn affidavit – which lie she told because she’s illegally
here in the country and knows it and has always known it.
Now, the apparent weirdness of her thinking is evident in
that she wanted to go to school to become a lawyer. How
she’s supposed to get certified by any state bar association
when she’s not a legal citizen, cannot truthfully take the
oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and
all local and federal laws when she’s not a citizen and is
continuing to break the law of the land every day and
every minute, awake or asleep, seems to have escaped
this young woman and her supporters who decry Cobb
County’s “harsh” treatment of her. Who would want to
hire any woman whose life is lying and cadging and ducking
– and yet she expects to obtain a lucrative, professional
position in the upper echelons of law enforcement which
by its very definition represents the highest standards of
integrity and legal conformity, none of which can be said
of Ms. Colotl.
She’s had 12 years and her parents have had at least 12
years to petition for legal status. Instead, she chose to lie
her way into university, lie on every application, every
form – and finally commit a felony by lying to law
enforcement when apprehended. She’s conducted herself
with oblivious disregard for violation of the rights of the
citizens of Cobb County and everywhere else she’s resided
– residents whose tax dollars help support her spurious
claim to residency. Residents who stood to face financial
ruin and personal injury and damage when she’s operating
a motor vehicle on public roads without legal license or
insurance. If she’s obtained student loans, she’s committed
fraud at the expense of taxpayers whose children were
entitled to those increasingly limited funds and whose
entry into college might well have been impacted by her
fraud.
The long and the short of it is, we don’t need Ms. Jessica
Colotl. And we certainly don’t need what she represents.
She’s not a shining example of anything but what’s wrong
with illegal immigrants in this country. They act as if
they’re entitled to all the benefits of our country and
Constitution, yet they make not the slightest effort to
come into compliance with our laws and regulations.
They claim “civil rights” when civil rights belong only to
legal residents and citizens of the United States . They
cheat and expect to be rewarded for it instead of owning
up to their crime and making reparation.
When Ms. Colotl is apprehended, I hope it’s a swift
one-way ticket back to Mexico so we can quit supporting
this cheat. And she can be mad at the people who really
put her in this precarious position and encouraged a
lifetime of lies and fraud – her parents.
Florida Cracker
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The Thought For Today
"The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object." - Thomas Jefferson
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Yeardley Love and George Huguely at UVA – the latest names
in the never-ending saga of date and acquaintance violence
ending in murder, and I have to wonder, why is it all the
hard-charging, smart young women pick such losers for
boyfriends? And make no mistake, Georgie-boy was a loser
and he chose to be a loser. He chose to lose his temper, he
chose to lose control of his drinking, he chose to lose control
of his life and he chose to beat his girlfriend’s head in. That
qualifies him as a loser. But picking him and putting up with
his bad behavior for even a minute made Yeardley a loser, too.
Unfortunately, she’s paid the final price for her poor decision,
while Georgie-boy keeps sucking air and being a threat to the
community.
No, it’s true she didn’t go out and pick a guy who she thought
might beat her head in one day. But the first time Georgie-boy
took her cell phone and went through her messages without her
permission, she had all the information she needed about him.
The first time he got in her face or made a nasty, cutting
remark about her person, friends or family because she was
paying attention to someone other than him, she had all the
information she needed. The first time she opened her email
to a threat from him, she had all the information she needed.
The first time she was afraid of his anger because she had to
tell him something he wasn’t going to want to hear, she had
all the information she needed. The first time he got into a
scuffle over some triviality or threw a tantrum because things
didn’t go his way, she had all the information she needed.
Under any of those circumstances and a thousand other cues,
she knew or should have known he was never going to be a
partner, not a friend – he was a threat to her and everything
she hoped to have for herself and her future and she should
have cut him out of her life then and there. And she should
have and probably did recognize he was horribly flawed before
she became intimate with him but she continued in the
relationship like most women do, convincing herself – well,
he’s not that bad, it’s just sometimes, he didn’t mean it –
until it got so bad she couldn’t believe the excuses she was
making for him and tried to walk away while still “being
just friends.”
She probably broke their relationship off just when he
believed he had her firmly under his control because she’d
let him get away with his behavior for so long. She didn’t
file a complaint; she didn’t get a restraining order; she
didn’t relocate or even contact his or her parents about
his behavior and why she didn’t want him around any
more. Acquaintances and family might be saying they
didn’t know she was being abused, but the fact that
Georgie took her computer from her room after beating
her to death plainly indicates he knew what threats he’d
been making and that they would be used against him.
And so passes another promising young woman who made
a really crappy decision in her choice for companionship and
paid for it with her life. And society is stuck with the loss of
another productive citizen and the burden of a man-shaped
monster that never was worth the powder to blow him to hell.
And maybe it’s just Darwin ’s theories at work; we’re culling
the herd by getting rid of the females too silly to evade the
predators and preventing reproduction of the idiocy into
another generation.
I’m sorry for both families. Sorry for Georgie-boy’s
parents who didn’t seem to recognize how much of a
danger their son had become. Sorry for Yeardley’s
parents who have lost a bright and promising daughter
who didn’t realize the level of danger from such a
self-centered freak. Nobody wins. And nobody learns
a thing.
Florida Cracker
in the never-ending saga of date and acquaintance violence
ending in murder, and I have to wonder, why is it all the
hard-charging, smart young women pick such losers for
boyfriends? And make no mistake, Georgie-boy was a loser
and he chose to be a loser. He chose to lose his temper, he
chose to lose control of his drinking, he chose to lose control
of his life and he chose to beat his girlfriend’s head in. That
qualifies him as a loser. But picking him and putting up with
his bad behavior for even a minute made Yeardley a loser, too.
Unfortunately, she’s paid the final price for her poor decision,
while Georgie-boy keeps sucking air and being a threat to the
community.
No, it’s true she didn’t go out and pick a guy who she thought
might beat her head in one day. But the first time Georgie-boy
took her cell phone and went through her messages without her
permission, she had all the information she needed about him.
The first time he got in her face or made a nasty, cutting
remark about her person, friends or family because she was
paying attention to someone other than him, she had all the
information she needed. The first time she opened her email
to a threat from him, she had all the information she needed.
The first time she was afraid of his anger because she had to
tell him something he wasn’t going to want to hear, she had
all the information she needed. The first time he got into a
scuffle over some triviality or threw a tantrum because things
didn’t go his way, she had all the information she needed.
Under any of those circumstances and a thousand other cues,
she knew or should have known he was never going to be a
partner, not a friend – he was a threat to her and everything
she hoped to have for herself and her future and she should
have cut him out of her life then and there. And she should
have and probably did recognize he was horribly flawed before
she became intimate with him but she continued in the
relationship like most women do, convincing herself – well,
he’s not that bad, it’s just sometimes, he didn’t mean it –
until it got so bad she couldn’t believe the excuses she was
making for him and tried to walk away while still “being
just friends.”
She probably broke their relationship off just when he
believed he had her firmly under his control because she’d
let him get away with his behavior for so long. She didn’t
file a complaint; she didn’t get a restraining order; she
didn’t relocate or even contact his or her parents about
his behavior and why she didn’t want him around any
more. Acquaintances and family might be saying they
didn’t know she was being abused, but the fact that
Georgie took her computer from her room after beating
her to death plainly indicates he knew what threats he’d
been making and that they would be used against him.
And so passes another promising young woman who made
a really crappy decision in her choice for companionship and
paid for it with her life. And society is stuck with the loss of
another productive citizen and the burden of a man-shaped
monster that never was worth the powder to blow him to hell.
And maybe it’s just Darwin ’s theories at work; we’re culling
the herd by getting rid of the females too silly to evade the
predators and preventing reproduction of the idiocy into
another generation.
I’m sorry for both families. Sorry for Georgie-boy’s
parents who didn’t seem to recognize how much of a
danger their son had become. Sorry for Yeardley’s
parents who have lost a bright and promising daughter
who didn’t realize the level of danger from such a
self-centered freak. Nobody wins. And nobody learns
a thing.
Florida Cracker
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Thought For Today
"When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred." - Thomas Jefferson
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
LOSERS AWARDED $2.25 MILLION DOLLARS FOR
BEING LOUSY PARENTS
“It was a mistake of the parents to not remember the kids
might be in the car, but that's what the professionals are
there for, to save you from those basic everyday mistakes."
(From ABC news article)
What a crock of crap. The three families whose unsupervised
children died when they got trapped in the trunk of their own
Camry on their own property and the bodies weren’t found
for days have been awarded $2.25 million dollars because the
Camden police didn’t find their kids for them.
All right, the police didn’t follow all the “search for
children” protocols. They might have found them if all
protocols had been followed – already dead probably,
but they didn’t and the bodies weren’t discovered until
days later. Of course, if the parents had opened their eyes,
quit the handwringing, and gone out to look, they’d have
found them too – and probably still alive.
What did the parents fail to do? Well – how about
everything? They failed to train their children in
appropriate places to play. They failed to have someone
keeping the children within earshot or line-of-sight while
they played. They failed to keep the children from going
places where they couldn’t readily be seen by an adult.
When they didn’t see or hear their children, they didn’t
do an immediate and complete search – particularly
knowing their own children’s habits and proclivities.
Instead, they sat back, went hysterical, and waited for the
police to figure out where their untrained, unsupervised
miscreants had wobbled off to.
Too bad about the kids. This kind of crappy, disinterested
parenting is epidemic in America and become worse since
the influx of immigrants with the “it takes a community to
raise a child” mentality. Yeah, it takes a community, but first
the kid is supposed to have a parent, whose priority is the
safety, training and well-being of the child they bred so they
can be a positive influence in the community and not a
community burden. And because these parents oftimes
aren’t legally married or have some pretty loosey-goosey
living arrangements with “cousins” and “friends” whose
last names they don’t even know, you’ve got a pretty good
idea of what kind of self-awareness and discipline the parents
have – never mind what they instill in their children.
So now we reward these piss-poor excuses of parents by
giving them money, on top of whatever social services and
welfare moneys they were receiving for not taking care of
their children, and simultaneously reinforcing the “blame
the cops because I acted like an idiot” mentality rife in
America.
But I don’t feel like the parents have really profited.
These people are born losers. You could give them the
keys to the National Treasury and they’ll blow it. But
maybe they’ll take that 2.25 million dollars and get some
parental training to go along with their grief counseling.
And maybe they’ll buy enough mirrors so they can plainly
see who to blame for the loss of their children, instead of
pointing the fingers at everyone else.
The cops, who take responsibility seriously and who failed
to find these children, will punish themselves forever. I’m
glad I wasn’t there. But you know it doesn’t take a lawsuit
to get the attention of a responsible person. It just takes an
in-your-face failure, someone else to pay for your mistake
and you’ll never forget what you failed to do. And I don’t
think that’s something those poor excuses for parents will
ever learn however much money we throw at them.
Florida Cracker
BEING LOUSY PARENTS
“It was a mistake of the parents to not remember the kids
might be in the car, but that's what the professionals are
there for, to save you from those basic everyday mistakes."
(From ABC news article)
What a crock of crap. The three families whose unsupervised
children died when they got trapped in the trunk of their own
Camry on their own property and the bodies weren’t found
for days have been awarded $2.25 million dollars because the
Camden police didn’t find their kids for them.
All right, the police didn’t follow all the “search for
children” protocols. They might have found them if all
protocols had been followed – already dead probably,
but they didn’t and the bodies weren’t discovered until
days later. Of course, if the parents had opened their eyes,
quit the handwringing, and gone out to look, they’d have
found them too – and probably still alive.
What did the parents fail to do? Well – how about
everything? They failed to train their children in
appropriate places to play. They failed to have someone
keeping the children within earshot or line-of-sight while
they played. They failed to keep the children from going
places where they couldn’t readily be seen by an adult.
When they didn’t see or hear their children, they didn’t
do an immediate and complete search – particularly
knowing their own children’s habits and proclivities.
Instead, they sat back, went hysterical, and waited for the
police to figure out where their untrained, unsupervised
miscreants had wobbled off to.
Too bad about the kids. This kind of crappy, disinterested
parenting is epidemic in America and become worse since
the influx of immigrants with the “it takes a community to
raise a child” mentality. Yeah, it takes a community, but first
the kid is supposed to have a parent, whose priority is the
safety, training and well-being of the child they bred so they
can be a positive influence in the community and not a
community burden. And because these parents oftimes
aren’t legally married or have some pretty loosey-goosey
living arrangements with “cousins” and “friends” whose
last names they don’t even know, you’ve got a pretty good
idea of what kind of self-awareness and discipline the parents
have – never mind what they instill in their children.
So now we reward these piss-poor excuses of parents by
giving them money, on top of whatever social services and
welfare moneys they were receiving for not taking care of
their children, and simultaneously reinforcing the “blame
the cops because I acted like an idiot” mentality rife in
America.
But I don’t feel like the parents have really profited.
These people are born losers. You could give them the
keys to the National Treasury and they’ll blow it. But
maybe they’ll take that 2.25 million dollars and get some
parental training to go along with their grief counseling.
And maybe they’ll buy enough mirrors so they can plainly
see who to blame for the loss of their children, instead of
pointing the fingers at everyone else.
The cops, who take responsibility seriously and who failed
to find these children, will punish themselves forever. I’m
glad I wasn’t there. But you know it doesn’t take a lawsuit
to get the attention of a responsible person. It just takes an
in-your-face failure, someone else to pay for your mistake
and you’ll never forget what you failed to do. And I don’t
think that’s something those poor excuses for parents will
ever learn however much money we throw at them.
Florida Cracker
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Thought For Today
"To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girl friends." - Benjamin Franklin
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Delighted! I am delighted to see that in the vicious bully-cide
death of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old Irish girl who hanged
herself after relentless months of bullying, cyberstalking,
physical intimidation and harassment, NINE of her school
mates have been indicted on charges relating to her death.
And finally, the State of Massachusetts had the gumption to
do what most state prosecutors won’t and charged the 17
and 18 year old who had sex with Phoebe with statutory rape.
And I feel no sympathy for them. Some official apparently said
“their lives, too, are forever changed” – or whatever. And my
response is, well, they still have lives, don’t they? They went
out of their way to tear Phoebe’s apart. They gloated over her
suicide. Time for the wheel to come around and their ugly,
sociopathic selves to be exposed to the world the way they
exposed Phoebe’s pain for ridicule.
I hope they don’t get anything as simple as probation and to do
community service. I hope they do some detention time,
removal from public school and loss of scholarships and a tag
that haunts them for the next 50 years. I hope they get a big
black stain on their names – as a warning to their peers on the
consequence of viciousness towards classmates.
Bullying in schools is completely out of control in every state
in the Union . I don’t know if it’s because we no longer
“weed out” the kids with emotional problems but insist on
mainstreaming them with others, or if kids today just have
no sense of perspective. Every bullying action has the potential
for criminal charges. School administrators who fail to protect
their charges from bullies on their campuses need to face
criminal charges as well. I’m tired of bullies hiding out on the
campus because the campus is “off limits” to normal law
enforcement. If an action is illegal in the work place or on a
city street, it should be illegal on our school grounds and
school officials need to be put on notice that they’re liable.
I do know that it’s the failure of parents to instruct and
protect their daughters and further to educate their sons
which has resulted in rampant sexual activity among
underage children. And let’s face it, there’s a reason the
age of consent is 16. It’s to protect children from sex with
persons who might be a year or two older, but who are years
ahead in maturity and ability to manipulate their younger
classmates.
And what is it with these girls nowadays? Used to be if the
guy was dipping his wick, you got mad at him – not the girls
he was using like toilet paper. I think the girls and young
women of today have gotten so used to being treated like
“bitches” by their “dog” boyfriends that they feel they have
to fight like bitches. What happened to the boys and young
men nowadays that they have absolutely no sense of honor
or responsibility? Were there always so many low-lifes in
our society or have we just had a bumper crop of them lately?
It’s because parents have failed. Parents and courts
consistently fail to respond to youthful sexual predators.
And they are predators when they target younger children for
sex – for the sake of sex. It’s time the States pick up the
challenge and enforce the law when parents refuse to press
charges. And if necessary, States need to charge the parents
with negligence, or aiding and abetting if they fail to report
the sexual abuse of their children by other youngsters.
Every girl under 16 who turns up pregnant should have a
criminal complaint attached to the boy or man who got her
that way, as used to be the case (unless you were just dumb
trash from a dumb trash neighborhood). Because the people
who weren’t trash taught their children better and held them
accountable for their actions. You knocked the girl up, you
had to marry her. You’re lucky now if he even pays child
support – forget behaving as a responsible father or decent
human being; these guys don’t have a clue and no one will
hold their feet to the fire to make it happen.
We’ve traded freedom for license; equality for entitlement.
Time to adjust our thinking and make the consequences dire
enough that even a dumb kid will think twice about crossing
some lines.
Rest in Peace, Phoebe Prince. I’m sorry it had to cost another
young life to get the adults to pay attention.
Florida Cracker
death of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old Irish girl who hanged
herself after relentless months of bullying, cyberstalking,
physical intimidation and harassment, NINE of her school
mates have been indicted on charges relating to her death.
And finally, the State of Massachusetts had the gumption to
do what most state prosecutors won’t and charged the 17
and 18 year old who had sex with Phoebe with statutory rape.
And I feel no sympathy for them. Some official apparently said
“their lives, too, are forever changed” – or whatever. And my
response is, well, they still have lives, don’t they? They went
out of their way to tear Phoebe’s apart. They gloated over her
suicide. Time for the wheel to come around and their ugly,
sociopathic selves to be exposed to the world the way they
exposed Phoebe’s pain for ridicule.
I hope they don’t get anything as simple as probation and to do
community service. I hope they do some detention time,
removal from public school and loss of scholarships and a tag
that haunts them for the next 50 years. I hope they get a big
black stain on their names – as a warning to their peers on the
consequence of viciousness towards classmates.
Bullying in schools is completely out of control in every state
in the Union . I don’t know if it’s because we no longer
“weed out” the kids with emotional problems but insist on
mainstreaming them with others, or if kids today just have
no sense of perspective. Every bullying action has the potential
for criminal charges. School administrators who fail to protect
their charges from bullies on their campuses need to face
criminal charges as well. I’m tired of bullies hiding out on the
campus because the campus is “off limits” to normal law
enforcement. If an action is illegal in the work place or on a
city street, it should be illegal on our school grounds and
school officials need to be put on notice that they’re liable.
I do know that it’s the failure of parents to instruct and
protect their daughters and further to educate their sons
which has resulted in rampant sexual activity among
underage children. And let’s face it, there’s a reason the
age of consent is 16. It’s to protect children from sex with
persons who might be a year or two older, but who are years
ahead in maturity and ability to manipulate their younger
classmates.
And what is it with these girls nowadays? Used to be if the
guy was dipping his wick, you got mad at him – not the girls
he was using like toilet paper. I think the girls and young
women of today have gotten so used to being treated like
“bitches” by their “dog” boyfriends that they feel they have
to fight like bitches. What happened to the boys and young
men nowadays that they have absolutely no sense of honor
or responsibility? Were there always so many low-lifes in
our society or have we just had a bumper crop of them lately?
It’s because parents have failed. Parents and courts
consistently fail to respond to youthful sexual predators.
And they are predators when they target younger children for
sex – for the sake of sex. It’s time the States pick up the
challenge and enforce the law when parents refuse to press
charges. And if necessary, States need to charge the parents
with negligence, or aiding and abetting if they fail to report
the sexual abuse of their children by other youngsters.
Every girl under 16 who turns up pregnant should have a
criminal complaint attached to the boy or man who got her
that way, as used to be the case (unless you were just dumb
trash from a dumb trash neighborhood). Because the people
who weren’t trash taught their children better and held them
accountable for their actions. You knocked the girl up, you
had to marry her. You’re lucky now if he even pays child
support – forget behaving as a responsible father or decent
human being; these guys don’t have a clue and no one will
hold their feet to the fire to make it happen.
We’ve traded freedom for license; equality for entitlement.
Time to adjust our thinking and make the consequences dire
enough that even a dumb kid will think twice about crossing
some lines.
Rest in Peace, Phoebe Prince. I’m sorry it had to cost another
young life to get the adults to pay attention.
Florida Cracker
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The Thought For Today
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Rec: Microwave Cornbread Eggs Benedict
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons white vinegar
4 strips bacon
1 package microwave cornbread (or premade English muffins)
4 slices American cheese
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon mustard
kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
chives, chopped for garnish
Fill a 1 quart microwave bowl 1/2 full with water and add vinegar.
Carefully crack the eggs into it and poke a hole in the yolks with a
skewer or toothpick. Remember, you're poaching and not
scrambling them. Microwave on HIGH for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes until
the whites are set and the yolks are still soft. Remove from oven
and set aside. Put 2 layers of paper towels on a paper plate with
the bacon on top. Microwave on HIGH for about 3 minutes until
crisp, then set aside. If you purchased muffins, put on plates and
skip the next sentence. Mix the microwave cornbread according
to the package directions and cook 2 muffin sized portions in
microwave safe cups as directed and put on plates. Tear the
cheese into small pieces and put into microwave bowl and add
the milk, hot sauce, mustard and season with salt and pepper.
Microwave on HIGH for 1 minute, stirring half way through,
or until the cheese is melted and smooth. Put 2 slices of bacon
on each muffin and top with an egg. Add half the cheese sauce
to each and garnish with chives. Enjoy.
Serves 2
Recipe may be doubled if very hungry
2 tablespoons white vinegar
4 strips bacon
1 package microwave cornbread (or premade English muffins)
4 slices American cheese
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon mustard
kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
chives, chopped for garnish
Fill a 1 quart microwave bowl 1/2 full with water and add vinegar.
Carefully crack the eggs into it and poke a hole in the yolks with a
skewer or toothpick. Remember, you're poaching and not
scrambling them. Microwave on HIGH for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes until
the whites are set and the yolks are still soft. Remove from oven
and set aside. Put 2 layers of paper towels on a paper plate with
the bacon on top. Microwave on HIGH for about 3 minutes until
crisp, then set aside. If you purchased muffins, put on plates and
skip the next sentence. Mix the microwave cornbread according
to the package directions and cook 2 muffin sized portions in
microwave safe cups as directed and put on plates. Tear the
cheese into small pieces and put into microwave bowl and add
the milk, hot sauce, mustard and season with salt and pepper.
Microwave on HIGH for 1 minute, stirring half way through,
or until the cheese is melted and smooth. Put 2 slices of bacon
on each muffin and top with an egg. Add half the cheese sauce
to each and garnish with chives. Enjoy.
Serves 2
Recipe may be doubled if very hungry
Rec: Fluffy Sausage Omelet
1/4 pound bulk pork sausage
2 tablespoons chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped sweet red pepper
1/4 cup sour cream
3 eggs, separated
3 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon butter
Crumble the sausage into a small microwave-safe dish;
add onion and red pepper. Cover and microwave on HIGH
for 2 minutes; drain. Stir in sour cream; set aside. In a
bowl, whisk the egg yolks, milk, salt, baking powder and
pepper. In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks
form. Gently fold into egg yolk mixture. Place the butter
in a Pam'd 9 in. microwave-safe pie plate. Microwave on
HIGH for 30 seconds. Pour egg mixture into plate.
Microwave, uncovered, on MEDIUM for 3 to 5 minutes
or until partially set. Lift edges, letting uncooked portion
flow underneath. Cook on MEDIUM for 2 to 3 minutes
longer or until eggs are set. Spoon sausage mixture over
one side; fold omelet over filling.
Serves 2
2 tablespoons chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped sweet red pepper
1/4 cup sour cream
3 eggs, separated
3 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon butter
Crumble the sausage into a small microwave-safe dish;
add onion and red pepper. Cover and microwave on HIGH
for 2 minutes; drain. Stir in sour cream; set aside. In a
bowl, whisk the egg yolks, milk, salt, baking powder and
pepper. In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks
form. Gently fold into egg yolk mixture. Place the butter
in a Pam'd 9 in. microwave-safe pie plate. Microwave on
HIGH for 30 seconds. Pour egg mixture into plate.
Microwave, uncovered, on MEDIUM for 3 to 5 minutes
or until partially set. Lift edges, letting uncooked portion
flow underneath. Cook on MEDIUM for 2 to 3 minutes
longer or until eggs are set. Spoon sausage mixture over
one side; fold omelet over filling.
Serves 2
Rec: Omelet In A Mug
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons shredded Cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons diced fully cooked ham
1 tablespoon diced green bell pepper
salt and pepper to taste
In a Pam'd microwave-safe mug, combine all ingredients.
Microwave, uncovered, on HIGH for 1 minute; stir. Cook
1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes longer on MEDIUM or until eggs
are completely set.
2 tablespoons shredded Cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons diced fully cooked ham
1 tablespoon diced green bell pepper
salt and pepper to taste
In a Pam'd microwave-safe mug, combine all ingredients.
Microwave, uncovered, on HIGH for 1 minute; stir. Cook
1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes longer on MEDIUM or until eggs
are completely set.
Rec: Microwave Breakfast Frittata
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1 cup cubed fully cooked ham
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
4 egg, beaten
salt and pepper to taste
Place butter in a microwave-safe 9 in. pie plate. Cover with
waxed paper; microwave on HIGH for 30 to 40 seconds or
until melted. Add ham, onion and green pepper. Cover and
cook on HIGH for 2 minutes. Stir in eggs, salt and pepper.
Cover and cook on HIGH for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes or until
a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand
for 3 minutes or until completely set. Cut into wedges.
Serves 2 to 4
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave
1 cup cubed fully cooked ham
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
4 egg, beaten
salt and pepper to taste
Place butter in a microwave-safe 9 in. pie plate. Cover with
waxed paper; microwave on HIGH for 30 to 40 seconds or
until melted. Add ham, onion and green pepper. Cover and
cook on HIGH for 2 minutes. Stir in eggs, salt and pepper.
Cover and cook on HIGH for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes or until
a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand
for 3 minutes or until completely set. Cut into wedges.
Serves 2 to 4
Refrigerate remainder
Can be reheated in microwave
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Thought For Today
"The greatest monarch on the proudest throne is obliged to sit upon his own arse." - Benjamin Franklin
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Well, I guess it’s news -- but it’s not like it’s the first time news.
Multiple arrests have been made in the New Jersey gang-rape
of the 7-year-old girl, who followed her 15-year-old druggie,
delinquent stepsister to some kind of party where drugs were
being handed out. 15-year-old sister was prostituting herself
for drugs and then, I guess, someone made an offer for the
7-year-old – because you always find such classy people at a
party with drugs – and the 15-year-old agreed they could
molest her little stepsister, but it turned into a gang-rape of
the 7-year-old by a 20-year-old and 17-year-old and
13-year-old and any other thing in human form with a dick
or a dildo.
And I had such an incredible sense of déjà vu, because it
wasn’t that many years ago I read virtually the same set of
circumstances in a different part of the country. The
16-year-old half-sister agreed that her 6-year-old sister
would perform oral sex on some “guys” so the half-sister
could collect her share of the drugs. And the guys decided
oral sex wasn’t enough and raped the six-year-old. The
16-year-old claimed that she tried to stop them, because
she only agreed to the oral sex, not the rest, but…
There’s a reason for capital punishment. It’s not about
justice. It’s about getting rid of human-shaped monsters with
a proven track record of preying on the helpless. New Jerseyites
are screaming for incarceration. Why continue to throw money
at the problem? Instead of welfare money, we’ll throw prison
money at the perps – cheaper and safer all the way around to
get rid of the monsters, including the 15-year-old stepsister.
And ACLU and the NAACP and the whichever alphabet
soup organization wants to decry the facts, the facts are that
both of these incidences happen in subsidized housing areas
on the taxpayers’ dime, where the poorest of the poor, the
most ignorant of the illiterate and the most vicious of lowlife
criminals perpetuate, generation after worthless generation.
These horrific incidences happen because you don’t have
families, you have a loosely-related aggregate of people,
who care little or nothing for each other, co-habitating to
maximize government benefits and freebies. They live
together in squalor; the unplanned, unwanted and
unsupervised children at the mercy of all the other freaks
in the building – their only worth in the fact that they
represent two-legged government subsidies for the
welfare parents.
And why would expect that a child’s future should be any
brighter when raised by the self-serving idiots who have
chosen this life, turned their back on education, regular
employment or anything else? So when the news article
goes on to say, the family is grieving and in shock and
whatever over the vicious rape of their 7-year-old
(engineered by their delinquent older daughter), I say,
uh-huh. And where were any of the adults supposed to be
supervising a 15-year-old who’s going to parties with
20-year-olds where drugs are being sold? And don’t tell
me they didn’t know the older daughter was into drugs
and running with scum. It’s been my experience that
everyone in the housing area knows who the bad guys
are, where they live, who they hang with and what
they’re doing.
A real parent makes sure the oldest kid knows, your
younger sibling, half-sibling, child or dog I left in your
care better be well taken care of or I will take care of you
when I get back and there won’t be anything left when
I’m finished with you. But this 15-year-old and the
7-year-old don’t have real parents. They have welfare
self-victimizers who bred them but don’t raise them.
And they’ll hand-wring and wail – for themselves, but
it won’t surprise me if the 7-year-old gets blamed for the
15-year-old’s legal woes. It won’t surprise me if the
7-year-old gets put back in the 15-year-old crackhead
sister’s care again by the same handwringing “parents”
because you don’t breed this kind of worthless,
never-going-to-be-anything-but-scum behavior overnight.
You got to start them out young and be consistent in your
lousy parenting. Give it about four years and the rape victim
will be following her stepsister and all the others into the
self-perpetuating life of crime, scum and indifference. So my
solution is, quit paying for the scum. Lethal injection, bullet
to the back of the head – but get rid of the wolves in the fold.
And for the lousy parents of the lousy delinquents living on
the welfare dime, time to terminate the payments. Taxpayers
pay so you can take care of your children while you’re moving
ahead with employment opportunities, school opportunities,
whatever it takes to get out of the welfare roles. If you’re not
making sufficient progress, time to repossess the kids and put
them in agencies that will make them got to school, conform
and perform, and be something other than fodder for freaks
or a new generation of drug-dealers and users. Without the kids,
you only have yourself to take care of and you should therefore
make tremendous personal progress.
Sorry for the 7-year-old. Sorry for the 6-year-old. Sorry that
your families and neighbors are such sorry excuses for human
beings. Look at them and vow to be something else and live
somewhere else far away if you survive this experience. And
don’t tell anyone from the “hood” where you’ve gone. You’ll
be surprised how much better your life will be when you’ve
scraped off your sorry family and acquaintances and struck
out on your own.
Yeah. It’s not New Jersey . It’s the welfare state that breeds
such crimes and such poor excuses for people…
Florida Cracker
Multiple arrests have been made in the New Jersey gang-rape
of the 7-year-old girl, who followed her 15-year-old druggie,
delinquent stepsister to some kind of party where drugs were
being handed out. 15-year-old sister was prostituting herself
for drugs and then, I guess, someone made an offer for the
7-year-old – because you always find such classy people at a
party with drugs – and the 15-year-old agreed they could
molest her little stepsister, but it turned into a gang-rape of
the 7-year-old by a 20-year-old and 17-year-old and
13-year-old and any other thing in human form with a dick
or a dildo.
And I had such an incredible sense of déjà vu, because it
wasn’t that many years ago I read virtually the same set of
circumstances in a different part of the country. The
16-year-old half-sister agreed that her 6-year-old sister
would perform oral sex on some “guys” so the half-sister
could collect her share of the drugs. And the guys decided
oral sex wasn’t enough and raped the six-year-old. The
16-year-old claimed that she tried to stop them, because
she only agreed to the oral sex, not the rest, but…
There’s a reason for capital punishment. It’s not about
justice. It’s about getting rid of human-shaped monsters with
a proven track record of preying on the helpless. New Jerseyites
are screaming for incarceration. Why continue to throw money
at the problem? Instead of welfare money, we’ll throw prison
money at the perps – cheaper and safer all the way around to
get rid of the monsters, including the 15-year-old stepsister.
And ACLU and the NAACP and the whichever alphabet
soup organization wants to decry the facts, the facts are that
both of these incidences happen in subsidized housing areas
on the taxpayers’ dime, where the poorest of the poor, the
most ignorant of the illiterate and the most vicious of lowlife
criminals perpetuate, generation after worthless generation.
These horrific incidences happen because you don’t have
families, you have a loosely-related aggregate of people,
who care little or nothing for each other, co-habitating to
maximize government benefits and freebies. They live
together in squalor; the unplanned, unwanted and
unsupervised children at the mercy of all the other freaks
in the building – their only worth in the fact that they
represent two-legged government subsidies for the
welfare parents.
And why would expect that a child’s future should be any
brighter when raised by the self-serving idiots who have
chosen this life, turned their back on education, regular
employment or anything else? So when the news article
goes on to say, the family is grieving and in shock and
whatever over the vicious rape of their 7-year-old
(engineered by their delinquent older daughter), I say,
uh-huh. And where were any of the adults supposed to be
supervising a 15-year-old who’s going to parties with
20-year-olds where drugs are being sold? And don’t tell
me they didn’t know the older daughter was into drugs
and running with scum. It’s been my experience that
everyone in the housing area knows who the bad guys
are, where they live, who they hang with and what
they’re doing.
A real parent makes sure the oldest kid knows, your
younger sibling, half-sibling, child or dog I left in your
care better be well taken care of or I will take care of you
when I get back and there won’t be anything left when
I’m finished with you. But this 15-year-old and the
7-year-old don’t have real parents. They have welfare
self-victimizers who bred them but don’t raise them.
And they’ll hand-wring and wail – for themselves, but
it won’t surprise me if the 7-year-old gets blamed for the
15-year-old’s legal woes. It won’t surprise me if the
7-year-old gets put back in the 15-year-old crackhead
sister’s care again by the same handwringing “parents”
because you don’t breed this kind of worthless,
never-going-to-be-anything-but-scum behavior overnight.
You got to start them out young and be consistent in your
lousy parenting. Give it about four years and the rape victim
will be following her stepsister and all the others into the
self-perpetuating life of crime, scum and indifference. So my
solution is, quit paying for the scum. Lethal injection, bullet
to the back of the head – but get rid of the wolves in the fold.
And for the lousy parents of the lousy delinquents living on
the welfare dime, time to terminate the payments. Taxpayers
pay so you can take care of your children while you’re moving
ahead with employment opportunities, school opportunities,
whatever it takes to get out of the welfare roles. If you’re not
making sufficient progress, time to repossess the kids and put
them in agencies that will make them got to school, conform
and perform, and be something other than fodder for freaks
or a new generation of drug-dealers and users. Without the kids,
you only have yourself to take care of and you should therefore
make tremendous personal progress.
Sorry for the 7-year-old. Sorry for the 6-year-old. Sorry that
your families and neighbors are such sorry excuses for human
beings. Look at them and vow to be something else and live
somewhere else far away if you survive this experience. And
don’t tell anyone from the “hood” where you’ve gone. You’ll
be surprised how much better your life will be when you’ve
scraped off your sorry family and acquaintances and struck
out on your own.
Yeah. It’s not New Jersey . It’s the welfare state that breeds
such crimes and such poor excuses for people…
Florida Cracker
Friday, April 09, 2010
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been, and there you long to return." - Leonardo da Vinci
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
The Thought For Today
Believe nothing, No matter where you read it, Or who has said it, Not even if I have said it, Unless it agrees with your own reason, And your own common sense. - Buddha
Monday, April 05, 2010
The Thought For Today
"You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand." - Leonardo da Vinci
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself." - Robin Williams
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Thought For Today
"She is not perfect. You are not perfect. The question is whether or not you are perfect for each other." - Robin Williams
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Article in the news about the North Carolina English teacher
Rex Roland who labels his students’ homework with LOSERwhen they make a mistake caught my attention. Apparently,
that’s not all he reportedly does. He allegedly threw a
student’s property into the hallway and is otherwise verbally
abusive. More important, it’s not the first time his conduct
has been brought to the school’s attention. The victim he’s
selected – and apparently is bearing the brunt of his disdain
– is a pretty little blonde, blue-eyed 11 year old girl. How
interesting. I wonder if he always selects pretty little girls
to torment. I wonder if his torment ends with degrading
remarks or if he’s grooming her for additional, more
physical abuse?
You know what I expect the school administrators to do?
Nothing. After all, it’s only one kid that’s complaining –
there’re however many other kids in his class that he’s not
abusing, so that kid must be wrong, or just too sensitive, or
just too dumb to keep up. Of course, the mother of this little
girl has hopefully been contacted by an attorney or two, and
the school and Mr. Roland are about to find out just how
expensively not funny and unacceptable his “loser” labels
and meanness really are.
Education was a priority in our household. I liked school.
I liked learning, but I have to say to this day, almost 40
years later, I remember my abusive teachers, not
lousy teachers, there were a few – but the truly abusive
ones. I was a good student. I was consistently at the top
of my grade, dean’s list, annual awards in languages, good
attendance, NEVER a disciplinary report. And you know,
I have always believed myself to be dismal in math and I
can tell you why; lousy, abusive teachers – which is ironic
as I was responsible for payroll preparation for hundreds
of government employees for years and years. And it’s
probably due to my lack of confidence that I triple-checked
and then re-checked every calculation – and had very few
errors in all those years of multiple payrolls. I went to college.
I took the minimum, dumbest math class I could and still got
my degrees – made deans list most of the time, too. There
were careers I was interested in, but the prerequisites
involved math – so I skipped them. I often wonder what
else I might be doing with my life if not for “loser” teachers
who got their kicks out of mangling kids instead of teaching.
My fourth grade math teacher, Ms. Clements, once pulled
me up in front of the class to tell me how difficult and sulky
I was when I repeatedly asked for help because I didn’t
understand the “New Math.” To my knowledge, I never
did anything to warrant her displeasure. Thereafter, she
made a point of ridiculing me in class. Her constant picking
at me didn’t stop until my mother started calling her every
day to get a progress report – in person – from Ms.
Clements. When my mother started making her explain
my progress and report on my classroom behavior every
single day, Ms. Clements left me alone. I got passing grades
and I never understood a thing that was being taught in her
class. And frankly, I never caught up and I never felt the
slightest confidence in my ability to learn math after that.
Then there was my 6th grade pre-algebra teacher, Mr. Riley.
He had a disparaging nickname for almost every one in the
classroom. He liked to walk by the desks and slap the long
wooden pointer against your chair to make you jump. He
enjoyed sending you to the blackboard to do the algebra
problems in front of everyone, especially if you were one of
the ones he recognized wasn’t getting it – then he’d get a good
five minutes worth of enjoyment by telling you how stupid
you were when you didn’t get it right. To my memory, he
never explained how to do a problem himself once. He left
up to you and the textbook to decipher. You know what I
learned about in his class? Nothing, except how much I hated
math and him. I don’t know how I passed his class, but I
hope to be around when his obituary is in the paper so I can
go spit on his coffin. He was a sorry excuse for a human
being and a teacher.
My brother and cousin, and later a nephew, all fell afoul of
another teacher named Mr. Griggs, the one who told my
mother that my brother was retarded and had no business
in school. This is the same brother who became project
manager of overseas armored vehicles assembly and
maintenance programs for a DOD-contracted American
corporation. What I find unbelievable is that the
administration kept this poor excuse of an instructor,
even after receiving reports of him having parties and
serving alcohol to his students at his residence.
I hope this child gets out of Mr. Roland’s class and gets
a decent representative of the teaching profession before
her confidence is destroyed. And I hope Mr. Roland gets
some serious psychotherapy. That guy’s a wrong one.
Florida Cracker
Friday, March 05, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." - George Bernard Shaw
Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Pretty little Shannon Marie, age 17, of Marion County, Florida,
is charged with aggravated cyberstalking, a felony, for targeting
a 15-year-old girl who USED to date the guy that Shannon is
going with now. Shannon was apparently so insecure in her
relationship with this new guy that she posted the 15-year-old’s
phone number and photo on an Internet porn site with
suggestive messages to call the 15-year-old, she does great
phone sex, etc.
Wow. Shannon sounds like a winner, huh? Sounds like
another Amy Fisher, the kind you want to bank your future
on. She dates a guy, probably a senior like her, who dates
the sophomore girls – girls who are miles behind his female
peers in maturity if not actual physical age, which doesn’t say
much good about what kind of guy he is. Well, now he’s
going with that 15-year-old girl, he’s going with Shannon .
But Shannon isn’t content with that; she’s got to destroy any
previous rivals. Sounds to me like boyfriend is one of those
who keeps dipping his wick where it’s not supposed to be.
But isn’t this such a typical deadly scenario anymore that
we’re seeing played out across the nation? Used to be if the
guy switched partners, the new girl was the one preening
and the old one was the one crying – or supposed to be crying
Very few recognized it was usually a step in the right direction
when they got Mr. Liability out of their lives. Nowadays, it’s
like a pack behavior. He switches partners and the new
partner has to prove she’s queen bitch of the pack and tear
out the throat of any rivals because she knows her mate
can’t control himself and never will, so she takes it out on
any possible competition. We’re seeing it in the news more
and more frequently where the girls are beating the hell out
of each other over some guy who can’t keep it in his pants –
instead of beating the hell out of the guy who can’t keep it in
his pants and dumping him as the loser he is.
The second part of this little nightmare was little Miss
Insecurity’s choice of weapons, one that’s all too common
with the cell phone/Internet generation. She chose to put
her rival in the crosshairs of every pervert and freak who
has access to cyberspace by putting the girl’s face and
phone number on that porn site. When confronted by law
enforcement, Shannon Marie point-blank says she’s not
going to stop the harassment, either. Take that as a red
flag. There’s no remorse, no comprehension, no sense of
perspective with this one.
Please let someone be paying attention. This callous and
calculated viciousness because Ms. Shannon Marie feels
romantically threatened goes way beyond cyber-bullying
and harassment. Shannon Marie is pathologically jealous
and possibly psychopathic. She needs a psych eval, and
students at her school need to be carefully interviewed –
this will not be the first time she’s done something like this.
She’s a bully and a danger to the community. She needs to
be tagged by law enforcement and labeled by the community
so everyone knows what they’re dealing with – a malicious
psycho. And her parents – guarantee you they’re gutless
wimps or she’d never be playing these kinds of games with
other’s lives.
I hope the 15-year-old’s parents sue Shannon ’s family and
take everything they own. It might make a dent in Shannon ’s
complacent sense that nothing can happen to her - loss of
possessions might scare her where the police and the loss
of future jobs and income due to her criminal behavior
haven’t. We’ll see this little monster again in the system.
She won’t stop; she’s hardwired to destroy and there are
no brakes.
Florida Cracker
is charged with aggravated cyberstalking, a felony, for targeting
a 15-year-old girl who USED to date the guy that Shannon is
going with now. Shannon was apparently so insecure in her
relationship with this new guy that she posted the 15-year-old’s
phone number and photo on an Internet porn site with
suggestive messages to call the 15-year-old, she does great
phone sex, etc.
Wow. Shannon sounds like a winner, huh? Sounds like
another Amy Fisher, the kind you want to bank your future
on. She dates a guy, probably a senior like her, who dates
the sophomore girls – girls who are miles behind his female
peers in maturity if not actual physical age, which doesn’t say
much good about what kind of guy he is. Well, now he’s
going with that 15-year-old girl, he’s going with Shannon .
But Shannon isn’t content with that; she’s got to destroy any
previous rivals. Sounds to me like boyfriend is one of those
who keeps dipping his wick where it’s not supposed to be.
But isn’t this such a typical deadly scenario anymore that
we’re seeing played out across the nation? Used to be if the
guy switched partners, the new girl was the one preening
and the old one was the one crying – or supposed to be crying
Very few recognized it was usually a step in the right direction
when they got Mr. Liability out of their lives. Nowadays, it’s
like a pack behavior. He switches partners and the new
partner has to prove she’s queen bitch of the pack and tear
out the throat of any rivals because she knows her mate
can’t control himself and never will, so she takes it out on
any possible competition. We’re seeing it in the news more
and more frequently where the girls are beating the hell out
of each other over some guy who can’t keep it in his pants –
instead of beating the hell out of the guy who can’t keep it in
his pants and dumping him as the loser he is.
The second part of this little nightmare was little Miss
Insecurity’s choice of weapons, one that’s all too common
with the cell phone/Internet generation. She chose to put
her rival in the crosshairs of every pervert and freak who
has access to cyberspace by putting the girl’s face and
phone number on that porn site. When confronted by law
enforcement, Shannon Marie point-blank says she’s not
going to stop the harassment, either. Take that as a red
flag. There’s no remorse, no comprehension, no sense of
perspective with this one.
Please let someone be paying attention. This callous and
calculated viciousness because Ms. Shannon Marie feels
romantically threatened goes way beyond cyber-bullying
and harassment. Shannon Marie is pathologically jealous
and possibly psychopathic. She needs a psych eval, and
students at her school need to be carefully interviewed –
this will not be the first time she’s done something like this.
She’s a bully and a danger to the community. She needs to
be tagged by law enforcement and labeled by the community
so everyone knows what they’re dealing with – a malicious
psycho. And her parents – guarantee you they’re gutless
wimps or she’d never be playing these kinds of games with
other’s lives.
I hope the 15-year-old’s parents sue Shannon ’s family and
take everything they own. It might make a dent in Shannon ’s
complacent sense that nothing can happen to her - loss of
possessions might scare her where the police and the loss
of future jobs and income due to her criminal behavior
haven’t. We’ll see this little monster again in the system.
She won’t stop; she’s hardwired to destroy and there are
no brakes.
Florida Cracker
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not." - George Bernard Shaw
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
Anyone who read the ABC news article this week on the
increasing violence in sorority hazing has to be sickened by
the vicious acts of these young women, supposedly the cream
of our society, practicing every kind of abuse, from demeaning,
malicious verbal assaults to physical violence to calculated
sexual abuse of the young women seeking to become
members/pledges. I mean, we've heard about the fraternity
hazing violence, the alcohol poisoning deaths, the rites of
humiliation, and just plain criminal acts which have led to
some campuses banning fraternities and sororities from their
educational institutions. Why does it continue despite
institutional policies and protocols on hazing?
It continues because it's institutionalized bullying. It
continues because it happens on school campuses, just
like elementary, middle school and high school bullying,
and therefore law enforcement defers to the campus
authorities first instead of taking immediate outside
criminal action against the perpetrators of these abuses.
And campus authorities are loath to admit their institution
has these types of criminal behaviors occurring on their
grounds. For institutions of higher learning, bad press
equals loss of revenue by students changing their choice
of university or college. Bad press means a loss of revenue
from former alumni and financial subsidizers. So
universities and colleges are highly motivated to whitewash
or hide the questionable, if not outright illegal and
discriminatory practices of these "fraternal" organizations
and to make it difficult, if not impossible to report these
abuses by students. Sure you see little real action taken
-- until there's a high profile case that makes the local news.
But there's almost nothing substantial done to change the
culture of the frats and sororities themselves.
Some would say it's up to the youngsters themselves to
refuse to participate in these rites of humiliation. But why
are rites of humiliation the source of determining who will or
will not be admitted into a sorority or fraternity? If these
"Greek" system organizations want to represent the best,
then let them recruit by grade point averages, recruit by
special artistic or academic talent, and leave the sadistic
silliness elsewhere. Let them open their doors to external
reviews and have outside supervision of their initiations.
That won't suit the "it's a secret" mantra which these
organizations embrace to prove their exclusivity and which
the bullies hide behind.
Frankly, as a young college student, I thought about
pledging to a sorority. But I wasn't at the university for
a four-year social event. I wasn't at the university for
parties, dating or hanging out. I had a lifetime goal ahead
of me. I went for an academic education that was going to
get me a chance at the best paying job in a professional field
I enjoyed. And I let that be my all-consuming focus, rather
than "belonging" to a crowd I was most likely never going to
see again once I graduated. So I never joined. I went to
school, I got good grades and I put my energy into living
my life independent of others and their opinions of me.
I recognize not everyone is that sturdy. A lot of students
are desperate for peer acceptance and validation, so they
subject themselves to figurative slaughter by frat house
and sorority conscienceless sadists, protected by a tradition
of secrecy and rampant peer pressure.
If we keep the antiquated and increasing influence of
sororities and fraternities on campuses, then the campus
authorities need to do more than pay lip service to the
no-hazing policies. They need to define hazing, they need
to make it plain that many actions which currently pass for
"hazing" are in fact criminal acts and that any complaint
of hazing will see the sorority or fraternity closed down and
participating individuals (and their Greek chapters) facing
criminal and civil prosecution. That's the punitive measures.
The positive measures should be banning pledging. Sororities
and fraternities need to set public written requirements for
membership and recruit accordingly, the same as you would
for any professional organization. And the organizations
themselves need to set a standard for courtesy, honesty and
a few other virtues which seem to have gotten lost in the
animalistic clawing for supremacy.
To paraphrase the article, this ain't reality TV where you're
going to get some prize for survival; this is the real world and
living means more than staying alive. Show you have enough
personal integrity to stand up for yourself and the guts to say
"no" to abuse by these bullying creeps and walk out. You'll be
surprised how many will follow you out the door. And when
enough young people show they're not interested in being
victims, the frats and sororities will stop the hazing and
become the positive social organizations they were once
purported to be.
Florida Cracker
increasing violence in sorority hazing has to be sickened by
the vicious acts of these young women, supposedly the cream
of our society, practicing every kind of abuse, from demeaning,
malicious verbal assaults to physical violence to calculated
sexual abuse of the young women seeking to become
members/pledges. I mean, we've heard about the fraternity
hazing violence, the alcohol poisoning deaths, the rites of
humiliation, and just plain criminal acts which have led to
some campuses banning fraternities and sororities from their
educational institutions. Why does it continue despite
institutional policies and protocols on hazing?
It continues because it's institutionalized bullying. It
continues because it happens on school campuses, just
like elementary, middle school and high school bullying,
and therefore law enforcement defers to the campus
authorities first instead of taking immediate outside
criminal action against the perpetrators of these abuses.
And campus authorities are loath to admit their institution
has these types of criminal behaviors occurring on their
grounds. For institutions of higher learning, bad press
equals loss of revenue by students changing their choice
of university or college. Bad press means a loss of revenue
from former alumni and financial subsidizers. So
universities and colleges are highly motivated to whitewash
or hide the questionable, if not outright illegal and
discriminatory practices of these "fraternal" organizations
and to make it difficult, if not impossible to report these
abuses by students. Sure you see little real action taken
-- until there's a high profile case that makes the local news.
But there's almost nothing substantial done to change the
culture of the frats and sororities themselves.
Some would say it's up to the youngsters themselves to
refuse to participate in these rites of humiliation. But why
are rites of humiliation the source of determining who will or
will not be admitted into a sorority or fraternity? If these
"Greek" system organizations want to represent the best,
then let them recruit by grade point averages, recruit by
special artistic or academic talent, and leave the sadistic
silliness elsewhere. Let them open their doors to external
reviews and have outside supervision of their initiations.
That won't suit the "it's a secret" mantra which these
organizations embrace to prove their exclusivity and which
the bullies hide behind.
Frankly, as a young college student, I thought about
pledging to a sorority. But I wasn't at the university for
a four-year social event. I wasn't at the university for
parties, dating or hanging out. I had a lifetime goal ahead
of me. I went for an academic education that was going to
get me a chance at the best paying job in a professional field
I enjoyed. And I let that be my all-consuming focus, rather
than "belonging" to a crowd I was most likely never going to
see again once I graduated. So I never joined. I went to
school, I got good grades and I put my energy into living
my life independent of others and their opinions of me.
I recognize not everyone is that sturdy. A lot of students
are desperate for peer acceptance and validation, so they
subject themselves to figurative slaughter by frat house
and sorority conscienceless sadists, protected by a tradition
of secrecy and rampant peer pressure.
If we keep the antiquated and increasing influence of
sororities and fraternities on campuses, then the campus
authorities need to do more than pay lip service to the
no-hazing policies. They need to define hazing, they need
to make it plain that many actions which currently pass for
"hazing" are in fact criminal acts and that any complaint
of hazing will see the sorority or fraternity closed down and
participating individuals (and their Greek chapters) facing
criminal and civil prosecution. That's the punitive measures.
The positive measures should be banning pledging. Sororities
and fraternities need to set public written requirements for
membership and recruit accordingly, the same as you would
for any professional organization. And the organizations
themselves need to set a standard for courtesy, honesty and
a few other virtues which seem to have gotten lost in the
animalistic clawing for supremacy.
To paraphrase the article, this ain't reality TV where you're
going to get some prize for survival; this is the real world and
living means more than staying alive. Show you have enough
personal integrity to stand up for yourself and the guts to say
"no" to abuse by these bullying creeps and walk out. You'll be
surprised how many will follow you out the door. And when
enough young people show they're not interested in being
victims, the frats and sororities will stop the hazing and
become the positive social organizations they were once
purported to be.
Florida Cracker
Monday, February 22, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life." - Jean Paul Richter
The Hard Truth From Orlando
And the tragedies continue. While we’ve come a long way in
recognizing domestic violence, legislating against violent crimes
targeting women and children, the murder of 23 year old Alissa
Blanton in Orlando, Florida, this week by 61 year old stalker
Roger Troy, highlights how much further we have to go in
getting the judiciary and law enforcement proactively on the
side of the human targets of random dysfunctional freaks. Who
knows what Brevard County’s Judge Dean Moxley was thinking
– or even if he was thinking – when he denied Ms. Blanton’s
petition for an injunction against her stalker-murderer, Roger
Troy. Plainly there was enough to send up alarm bells if the
judge was paying attention, and certainly enough to err on the
side of caution in issuing an emergency injunction. The
stalking/harassment had gone on for two years, and if
that wasn’t enough, the emails and complaint plainly
indicated that Troy was willing to travel over 40 miles
in one direction from his home in Cocoa Beach order to
stake out Ms. Blanton’s home and work place in Orlando.
That alone shows a real obsession and scary determination
on the part of this fruitloop which should have triggered
all kinds of alarms in Judge Moxley’s mind.
But I bet I can guess what Judge Moxley was thinking. He’s
a white, older, middle-class male – deep down, he doesn’t get
it. He’s never been victimized by a member of the opposite
sex; never been stalked; never been put in daily fear for his
own safety simply because of his gender. He looked at this
petition, as he’s looked at dozens of others, said, well, she used
to work at Hooters, and she can’t be that nice, not and be a
Hooters girl. And the stalking has gone on for two years and
she’s just now getting upset? There’s something wrong with
her. And it’s not like a domestic violence case where there are
mandatory legal requirements – this guy is just someone who
used to be a customer where she was a waitress, no reason for
them to be in contact.
So he denied the emergency injunction, scheduled a hearing
two weeks out, notice was sent to the bad guy, and Alissa died
at the hands of her stalker. And, even if Roger Troy didn’t
receive the notice of the pending action against him, chances
are that, in effect, such notice would have signed Alissa’s
death warrant, just as it has in so many other cases where
the victims had active injunctions in place against their killers
and the paperwork proved the trigger to the final violence,
rather than the solution.
Advocates are trying to end the legal notification of abusers
until the restraining order is a done deal. And that’s for the
protection of the petitioners. It doesn’t mean the respondent
– the accused – doesn’t have any rights. They absolutely
have the right to legally challenge the restraining order in
court. But frankly, there’s no reason they can’t challenge
the order after it’s issued. Civil rights advocates would say
that’s a violation of the respondent’s Constitutional rights to
confront witnesses against them in court. Well, an injunction
is a civil action – not a criminal action, and it’s there simply
to give the police legal backing to confront an abuser and
probable cause to arrest if necessary if the situation merits.
And I wouldn’t be too concerned about the perpetrator’s
rights when he’s so patently in violation of his victim’s rights.
But the other lesson from this hideous event is simply, an
injunction does not make you bullet-proof. If you’re waiting
for the police or the judicial system to save you, you’re dead.
Safety is in your hands. Pacifist idiots preached the juvenile
silliness of maybe getting in trouble for standing up to bullies
until law-abiding, decent citizens are afraid to do more than
cringe, lock their doors and try to hide from the predators.
If we’re going to curtail this phenomenon of people being
casually murdered by losers who kill because they’re too
dysfunctional to get a date, maintain a relationship without
violence, or just plain socialize in a general population, then
instead of trying ineffectively to play protector, we need to
teach our daughters to be aware and to get tough. A
predator needs to know if he reaches out and the touch
isn’t welcome, he’s going to pull back a bloody hand – and
his target will be the one drawing blood. An obsessed freak
sending emails and hatching bizarre plots in his twisted brain
needs to be brought sharply to reality with criminal, not civil,
charges shining a public spotlight on his destructive activities.
And rest assured, there was any number of criminal charges
that could have been leveled against Mr. Troy early on in
preceding two years which would have been much more
effective in stopping his vicious campaign of intimidation
and eventual homicide than a civil injunction.
Our daughters need to know that being nice doesn’t have to
mean being weak. Our daughters need to know more than
how to dial 911 on a cell phone if they’re in a dangerous
situation. And when all is said and done, if every legal
means is ineffective or impractical and the wolf is at the
door, our daughters need to know they should tell the bad
guy to come on in while she has her finger on the trigger –
and pull it point-blank. It’s not a pretty solution, but it
beats the alternative of her family in mourning, playing
forever the woulda, shoulda, coulda game that resolves
nothing and brings no one’s daughter back.
Prayers for Alissa Blanton and her family and all the
victims of self-absorbed losers everywhere.
Florida Cracker
recognizing domestic violence, legislating against violent crimes
targeting women and children, the murder of 23 year old Alissa
Blanton in Orlando, Florida, this week by 61 year old stalker
Roger Troy, highlights how much further we have to go in
getting the judiciary and law enforcement proactively on the
side of the human targets of random dysfunctional freaks. Who
knows what Brevard County’s Judge Dean Moxley was thinking
– or even if he was thinking – when he denied Ms. Blanton’s
petition for an injunction against her stalker-murderer, Roger
Troy. Plainly there was enough to send up alarm bells if the
judge was paying attention, and certainly enough to err on the
side of caution in issuing an emergency injunction. The
stalking/harassment had gone on for two years, and if
that wasn’t enough, the emails and complaint plainly
indicated that Troy was willing to travel over 40 miles
in one direction from his home in Cocoa Beach order to
stake out Ms. Blanton’s home and work place in Orlando.
That alone shows a real obsession and scary determination
on the part of this fruitloop which should have triggered
all kinds of alarms in Judge Moxley’s mind.
But I bet I can guess what Judge Moxley was thinking. He’s
a white, older, middle-class male – deep down, he doesn’t get
it. He’s never been victimized by a member of the opposite
sex; never been stalked; never been put in daily fear for his
own safety simply because of his gender. He looked at this
petition, as he’s looked at dozens of others, said, well, she used
to work at Hooters, and she can’t be that nice, not and be a
Hooters girl. And the stalking has gone on for two years and
she’s just now getting upset? There’s something wrong with
her. And it’s not like a domestic violence case where there are
mandatory legal requirements – this guy is just someone who
used to be a customer where she was a waitress, no reason for
them to be in contact.
So he denied the emergency injunction, scheduled a hearing
two weeks out, notice was sent to the bad guy, and Alissa died
at the hands of her stalker. And, even if Roger Troy didn’t
receive the notice of the pending action against him, chances
are that, in effect, such notice would have signed Alissa’s
death warrant, just as it has in so many other cases where
the victims had active injunctions in place against their killers
and the paperwork proved the trigger to the final violence,
rather than the solution.
Advocates are trying to end the legal notification of abusers
until the restraining order is a done deal. And that’s for the
protection of the petitioners. It doesn’t mean the respondent
– the accused – doesn’t have any rights. They absolutely
have the right to legally challenge the restraining order in
court. But frankly, there’s no reason they can’t challenge
the order after it’s issued. Civil rights advocates would say
that’s a violation of the respondent’s Constitutional rights to
confront witnesses against them in court. Well, an injunction
is a civil action – not a criminal action, and it’s there simply
to give the police legal backing to confront an abuser and
probable cause to arrest if necessary if the situation merits.
And I wouldn’t be too concerned about the perpetrator’s
rights when he’s so patently in violation of his victim’s rights.
But the other lesson from this hideous event is simply, an
injunction does not make you bullet-proof. If you’re waiting
for the police or the judicial system to save you, you’re dead.
Safety is in your hands. Pacifist idiots preached the juvenile
silliness of maybe getting in trouble for standing up to bullies
until law-abiding, decent citizens are afraid to do more than
cringe, lock their doors and try to hide from the predators.
If we’re going to curtail this phenomenon of people being
casually murdered by losers who kill because they’re too
dysfunctional to get a date, maintain a relationship without
violence, or just plain socialize in a general population, then
instead of trying ineffectively to play protector, we need to
teach our daughters to be aware and to get tough. A
predator needs to know if he reaches out and the touch
isn’t welcome, he’s going to pull back a bloody hand – and
his target will be the one drawing blood. An obsessed freak
sending emails and hatching bizarre plots in his twisted brain
needs to be brought sharply to reality with criminal, not civil,
charges shining a public spotlight on his destructive activities.
And rest assured, there was any number of criminal charges
that could have been leveled against Mr. Troy early on in
preceding two years which would have been much more
effective in stopping his vicious campaign of intimidation
and eventual homicide than a civil injunction.
Our daughters need to know that being nice doesn’t have to
mean being weak. Our daughters need to know more than
how to dial 911 on a cell phone if they’re in a dangerous
situation. And when all is said and done, if every legal
means is ineffective or impractical and the wolf is at the
door, our daughters need to know they should tell the bad
guy to come on in while she has her finger on the trigger –
and pull it point-blank. It’s not a pretty solution, but it
beats the alternative of her family in mourning, playing
forever the woulda, shoulda, coulda game that resolves
nothing and brings no one’s daughter back.
Prayers for Alissa Blanton and her family and all the
victims of self-absorbed losers everywhere.
Florida Cracker
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense." - Robert Heinlein
Monday, February 08, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Power is not a means; it is an end...The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." - George Orwell
Friday, February 05, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to." - J.R.R. Tolkien
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Recipe: Microwave Instant Rice
2 cups instant rice
2 cups boiling water
Place the rice in a microwave safe dish (3 quart)
pour in the boiling water. Cover with a vented
microwave lid. Cook on HIGH (1200W) for 2 to 3
minutes. When it boils, reduce the power to
(30%) and cook for an additional 5 minutes.
the dish out and fluff the rice with a fork.
Makes 4 cups
2 cups boiling water
Place the rice in a microwave safe dish (3 quart)
pour in the boiling water. Cover with a vented
microwave lid. Cook on HIGH (1200W) for 2 to 3
minutes. When it boils, reduce the power to
(30%) and cook for an additional 5 minutes.
the dish out and fluff the rice with a fork.
Makes 4 cups
Monday, February 01, 2010
The Thought For Today
"The superior man seeks what is right; the inferior one, what is profitable." - Confucius
Sunday, January 31, 2010
God's Littlest Angels in Haiti
God's Littlest Angels in Haiti
Sadly, now there's a lot more orphans to care for. I donated, now it's YOUR turn.
Sadly, now there's a lot more orphans to care for. I donated, now it's YOUR turn.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
A Perfect Snow Day
This is especially for those of you who live in a warmer climate. Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman has posted a photo of the gorgeous view outside his guest bedroom window in Minnesota. Even this blog ought to have something pretty in it occasionally.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
There’s a big story on Christian Bible references engraved
on U.S. gun sights by the manufacturer is in the news today.
A practice for some years (and an open ‘secret’ on the Internet
and in military circles) is the placing of Biblical verse references
on gun sights manufactured and sold to the U.S. military by
Trijicon. It’s a clever idea – kind of like being a kid again and
decoding a message with your magic decoder ring – only in this
case, you need a Christian Bible instead of the ring. Yeah, it’s
kind of cool when you have nothing else to do and the biggest
enemy a soldier has (per Rudyard Kipling) is boredom. It
even plays to the violent video game mentality so prevalent in
our younger generation to have a reference that reads the
classic “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out” or “There
shouldn’t be any divisions among you, but you must all learn
to think the same way and share the same opinions” from 1
Corinthians or “you should hand such a man over to the
Opposer for the destruction of his flesh” – also from
Corinthians. I mean, no one can top the Bible for great
rhetoric and pithy quotes for every occasion.
But there’s a problem with the practice. It’s illegal. And
it’s illegal for a reason. It’s a violation of Constitutional
Law – specifically, the First Amendment, and the U.S.
military is supposed to be an impartial enforcement
agency of that Constitutional law. Therefore, endorsing
this practice – or turning a blind eye to it, compromises
the integrity of our military mission, at home or overseas.
Worse still, it makes us hypocrites in the eyes of the
non-Christian world.
Scarier for Americans, though, it’s representative of a
deeper, more invidious situation developed in our military
hierarchy over the last 25 or so years – the unspoken but
real culture of mandatory Christianity in the American
Armed Forces.
An officer of the Central Command orchestrating the
ongoing war against terrorist and insurgency in
Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan -- some major,
but not the commander, who’s hopefully smarter than
that -- said he doesn’t see a problem with Bible verse
references on weapons. It’s just like “In God We Trust”
on the back of the U.S. dollar bill, he says. Basically, he
implies, “What’s the big deal?” I’ll just bet he’s a
member of the Christian Officers Society and he really
doesn’t see the big deal in proselytizing, or appearing to
proselytize, when the U.S. is engaged in a war against
an enemy who recruits against us because they’re on a
jihad – a holy war. He doesn’t see the practice of Bible
verses on weapons as fuel feeding the fire – or even as
a profound violation of the civil rights of American soldiers
by the endorsement of a particular religion’s credo on the
very equipment they’re required to carry.
He’s probably the same guy who doesn’t understand why
the ACLU keeps filing, and winning, lawsuits against schools
for prayer before games and classes, nativity scenes on
government property, the Ten Commandments in
courthouses – because he’s part of what many consider
the “majority” religion in this country. He fails to see any
harm in insisting everyone and everything meet a religious
standard, because after all, his is a real religion, but theirs isn’t.
And he’s also the kind of guy who is about to cost the U.S.
a ton of money in legal fees because he is part and parcel
of a culture of Christian fundamentalist military leaders
who continually violate the Constitution of the United
States to which they have sworn an oath. A former
White House Attorney, military man from a long family
history of military service, Mikey Weinstein, founder of
the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, reports that
he has been contacted by more than 5,000 active duty
and retired soldiers, many of whom served or serve in
Iraq, who told Weinstein that they were pressured by
their commanding officers to convert to Christianity.
And we’re not talking about the minority of American
soldiers who are Muslim or Jewish or atheist – we’re
talking about soldiers who just don’t subscribe to the
particular brand of evangelical Christianity espoused
by the military commanders engaged in this
discriminatory practice.
Seems we’re doomed to keep forgetting history – and not
just ancient history. In the 1800’s, the British had one
of the bloodiest mutinies in history when they packed
ammunition in animal grease and issued it to Hindu
soldiers in the employ of the British. The British
Christian officers didn’t see the big deal – it was cost
effective to prepare the ammunition this way. To the
Hindu soldiers, it was a deadly insult and sacrilege and
just underlined the reasons why the British should not
be allowed to impose their way of life on local populations
with utter disregard for indigenous culture, custom and
religion. At Fort Hood in the 1990’s, a group of soldiers
won a lawsuit which allowed them to practice their Wiccan
beliefs and rites on post property – the same rights
always enjoyed by Christian soldiers and Christian
chaplains – but rights only won by Jewish and other
minority soldiers in previous lawsuits years before.
We can’t show the Muslim world that we’re
and we’re not engaged in a religious war with them
when we openly subscribe to practices which impugn
our impartiality and dedication to freedom. We can’t
expect respect for our religious beliefs when we fail to
respect others. When a soldier puts on the uniform, he
is now a representative of all Americans – not just his
race, culture or religious belief. He represents true
democracy.
So get rid of the Bible references on the weapon sights
or find a new secular manufacturer. Retire those sights
already issued and sell the old ones on E-Bay as
collectibles of politically incorrect military history.
American soldiers lead by example – let’s make sure
we’re setting the right one – not the religious one.
Florida Cracker
on U.S. gun sights by the manufacturer is in the news today.
A practice for some years (and an open ‘secret’ on the Internet
and in military circles) is the placing of Biblical verse references
on gun sights manufactured and sold to the U.S. military by
Trijicon. It’s a clever idea – kind of like being a kid again and
decoding a message with your magic decoder ring – only in this
case, you need a Christian Bible instead of the ring. Yeah, it’s
kind of cool when you have nothing else to do and the biggest
enemy a soldier has (per Rudyard Kipling) is boredom. It
even plays to the violent video game mentality so prevalent in
our younger generation to have a reference that reads the
classic “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out” or “There
shouldn’t be any divisions among you, but you must all learn
to think the same way and share the same opinions” from 1
Corinthians or “you should hand such a man over to the
Opposer for the destruction of his flesh” – also from
Corinthians. I mean, no one can top the Bible for great
rhetoric and pithy quotes for every occasion.
But there’s a problem with the practice. It’s illegal. And
it’s illegal for a reason. It’s a violation of Constitutional
Law – specifically, the First Amendment, and the U.S.
military is supposed to be an impartial enforcement
agency of that Constitutional law. Therefore, endorsing
this practice – or turning a blind eye to it, compromises
the integrity of our military mission, at home or overseas.
Worse still, it makes us hypocrites in the eyes of the
non-Christian world.
Scarier for Americans, though, it’s representative of a
deeper, more invidious situation developed in our military
hierarchy over the last 25 or so years – the unspoken but
real culture of mandatory Christianity in the American
Armed Forces.
An officer of the Central Command orchestrating the
ongoing war against terrorist and insurgency in
Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan -- some major,
but not the commander, who’s hopefully smarter than
that -- said he doesn’t see a problem with Bible verse
references on weapons. It’s just like “In God We Trust”
on the back of the U.S. dollar bill, he says. Basically, he
implies, “What’s the big deal?” I’ll just bet he’s a
member of the Christian Officers Society and he really
doesn’t see the big deal in proselytizing, or appearing to
proselytize, when the U.S. is engaged in a war against
an enemy who recruits against us because they’re on a
jihad – a holy war. He doesn’t see the practice of Bible
verses on weapons as fuel feeding the fire – or even as
a profound violation of the civil rights of American soldiers
by the endorsement of a particular religion’s credo on the
very equipment they’re required to carry.
He’s probably the same guy who doesn’t understand why
the ACLU keeps filing, and winning, lawsuits against schools
for prayer before games and classes, nativity scenes on
government property, the Ten Commandments in
courthouses – because he’s part of what many consider
the “majority” religion in this country. He fails to see any
harm in insisting everyone and everything meet a religious
standard, because after all, his is a real religion, but theirs isn’t.
And he’s also the kind of guy who is about to cost the U.S.
a ton of money in legal fees because he is part and parcel
of a culture of Christian fundamentalist military leaders
who continually violate the Constitution of the United
States to which they have sworn an oath. A former
White House Attorney, military man from a long family
history of military service, Mikey Weinstein, founder of
the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, reports that
he has been contacted by more than 5,000 active duty
and retired soldiers, many of whom served or serve in
Iraq, who told Weinstein that they were pressured by
their commanding officers to convert to Christianity.
And we’re not talking about the minority of American
soldiers who are Muslim or Jewish or atheist – we’re
talking about soldiers who just don’t subscribe to the
particular brand of evangelical Christianity espoused
by the military commanders engaged in this
discriminatory practice.
Seems we’re doomed to keep forgetting history – and not
just ancient history. In the 1800’s, the British had one
of the bloodiest mutinies in history when they packed
ammunition in animal grease and issued it to Hindu
soldiers in the employ of the British. The British
Christian officers didn’t see the big deal – it was cost
effective to prepare the ammunition this way. To the
Hindu soldiers, it was a deadly insult and sacrilege and
just underlined the reasons why the British should not
be allowed to impose their way of life on local populations
with utter disregard for indigenous culture, custom and
religion. At Fort Hood in the 1990’s, a group of soldiers
won a lawsuit which allowed them to practice their Wiccan
beliefs and rites on post property – the same rights
always enjoyed by Christian soldiers and Christian
chaplains – but rights only won by Jewish and other
minority soldiers in previous lawsuits years before.
We can’t show the Muslim world that we’re
and we’re not engaged in a religious war with them
when we openly subscribe to practices which impugn
our impartiality and dedication to freedom. We can’t
expect respect for our religious beliefs when we fail to
respect others. When a soldier puts on the uniform, he
is now a representative of all Americans – not just his
race, culture or religious belief. He represents true
democracy.
So get rid of the Bible references on the weapon sights
or find a new secular manufacturer. Retire those sights
already issued and sell the old ones on E-Bay as
collectibles of politically incorrect military history.
American soldiers lead by example – let’s make sure
we’re setting the right one – not the religious one.
Florida Cracker
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
The Thought For Today
"Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain." - Friedrich von Schiller
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Hard Truth From Orlando
I like this current brouhaha about Democrat Harry Reid’s
reported racist remarks. He apparently made the statementsome time ago that because presidential candidate Obama
was a light-skinned African-American and spoke grammatically
good English with good enunciation (“didn’t sound Negro”) that
he had a good chance in the presidential campaign. Apparently,
some Republicans want Harry Reid to resign for his “racist”
remarks. Since when do people resign for telling the truth?
And which part was racist; that Obama’s light-skinned,
speaks Standard American English -- or is the word Negro
just no longer politically correct?
I didn’t vote for Obama because he was “African-American”
and we need to put an “African-American” in the White
House. And I didn’t just vote for the Democratic ticket
because I was so sick of the Bush-boys and their
hard-headed, let’s-go-back-to-the-fifties policies that
any Democrat would do. I supported Hillary first because
I thought she was the best choice of all those running for
office at the time. I still support Hillary, but Obama
wasn’t a bad second choice of the candidates available.
But I have to say right up front, if Obama had been
named something illiterate and idiotic like Anfernee
(instead of Anthony) or Dontravious (which has no
meaning in any language) and flashed gang signs during
his speech and sprinkled his oration with unintelligible
inner-city street slang and constant hip-hop references,
I would have voted for a cardboard cut-out of anybody
else. I don’t want to flinch when my president opens
his mouth in front of the world.
Does that make me racist? Possibly, but statistics are
in my favor. We needed a president who communicates
effectively with the heads of other nations, who reflects
the American ideal of equality before the law and personal
achievement. Obama does that – whether you agree that
he represents mainstream American values or not. Harry
Reid was dead on when he said Obama had a good chance
of being elected because he didn’t fit the stereotypical
African-American. And if African-Americans don’t like
the stereotype, they need to work on their image, just
like everyone else.
Frankly, though, I haven’t heard African-Americans
quibbling about Reid’s remarks, only some Republicans.
I guess nothing is too trivial to squabble about when your
party can’t come to the table with any realistic means of
tackling the big issues of recession, unemployment,
poverty, illegal immigration, spiraling international debt,
financial corruption at the top levels of our monetary
institutions, wars in multiple countries, terrorism and
illegal drug trafficking. Political correctness –
always a priority when you’re teetering on the brink of
national disaster. Uh-huh.
Florida Cracker
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Weekly World News
http://books.google.com/books/serial/ISSN:0199574X?rview=1&lr=&sa=N&start=0
Back print issues can now be found on Google Books.
Back print issues can now be found on Google Books.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
The Thought For Today
"A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences." - Dave Meurer
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Monday, December 28, 2009
The Thought For Today
"To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best." - Margaret Thatcher
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Thought For Today
"Anybody can become angry -- that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way -- that is not within everybody's power and is not easy." - Aristotle
The Hard Truth From Orlando
To paraphrase the old murder rhyme, “And Knox the girl who bought the beef.”
Well, the verdict is finally in on the Amanda Knox murder trial. She’s been tried a by a jury of Italians (I doubt we’d consider them peers) and found guilty of the murder of her British roommate. Of course, there’s reasonable doubt that she in fact committed the murder or had anything directly to do with it. But make no mistake, Amanda was guilty. She was guilty of being a typical self-centered American twit who went to a foreign country, allegedly on a study program, and instead acted like she was still attending her local community college. She partied, ran around with trash, talked trash, had sex with guys she wasn’t engaged to, and generally acted in a manner guaranteed to bring negative attention to herself. Then when her roommate was murdered and she was brought in for questioning, she continued to behave like a Barbie blow-up doll, smooching all over her boyfriend in the police station, giggling and being egocentrically stupid while her butchered roommate lay, grotesquely murdered, in the morgue.
And personally, I wonder if it wasn’t Amanda who, if she didn’t kill her erstwhile roomie with her own hands, indirectly caused her roommate’s death by drawing the murderer’s attention to herself and her residence, or – as in so many American murders, opening the door to the human riff-raff who perpetrated the crime. Most of us have had roommates like that – who welcome all comers, don’t lock up behind themselves, and invite people they’ve met in bars to “stay over.” They’re oblivious to their own safety and don’t give a damn about yours. They run their mouths about their personal business in public places and they’re not averse to telling yours at the same time. And to compound Amanda’s error, she did it in a foreign country.
What most Americans don’t realize is how poor a reputation we have overseas. Our movies portray us as drugged-out, sex-crazy, fornicating at the tug of a zipper, with no sense of shame, decorum or modesty. And then our young men and women go overseas and prove it, because – hey, I’m not home. Nobody at home is going to know what I’m doing. And the folks are not here to tell me how to behave.
Italy is not Vegas – and what happens in Italy , doesn’t necessarily stay in Italy .
Amanda’s learned what hundreds of other young Americans overseas have learned. You don’t have the same civil rights overseas that you do here in the United States . In foreign legal systems, innuendo and hearsay are treated as facts and you can be convicted solely based on the impression you make on the people around you. By Italian standards, she behaved like a common whore, cavorting with low-lifes and freaks; her reactions to the crime were callous and disaffected. Her credibility was shot before she ever came in the courtroom, due entirely to the impression she made on her Italian neighbors and the police. And no matter what her parents and country do, she’s derailed her future and her family’s with her lousy sophomoric decisions.
Amanda ostensibly went to Italy for an education. I’d say she got one. I hope others learn from her, but I doubt it.
Florida Cracker
Well, the verdict is finally in on the Amanda Knox murder trial. She’s been tried a by a jury of Italians (I doubt we’d consider them peers) and found guilty of the murder of her British roommate. Of course, there’s reasonable doubt that she in fact committed the murder or had anything directly to do with it. But make no mistake, Amanda was guilty. She was guilty of being a typical self-centered American twit who went to a foreign country, allegedly on a study program, and instead acted like she was still attending her local community college. She partied, ran around with trash, talked trash, had sex with guys she wasn’t engaged to, and generally acted in a manner guaranteed to bring negative attention to herself. Then when her roommate was murdered and she was brought in for questioning, she continued to behave like a Barbie blow-up doll, smooching all over her boyfriend in the police station, giggling and being egocentrically stupid while her butchered roommate lay, grotesquely murdered, in the morgue.
And personally, I wonder if it wasn’t Amanda who, if she didn’t kill her erstwhile roomie with her own hands, indirectly caused her roommate’s death by drawing the murderer’s attention to herself and her residence, or – as in so many American murders, opening the door to the human riff-raff who perpetrated the crime. Most of us have had roommates like that – who welcome all comers, don’t lock up behind themselves, and invite people they’ve met in bars to “stay over.” They’re oblivious to their own safety and don’t give a damn about yours. They run their mouths about their personal business in public places and they’re not averse to telling yours at the same time. And to compound Amanda’s error, she did it in a foreign country.
What most Americans don’t realize is how poor a reputation we have overseas. Our movies portray us as drugged-out, sex-crazy, fornicating at the tug of a zipper, with no sense of shame, decorum or modesty. And then our young men and women go overseas and prove it, because – hey, I’m not home. Nobody at home is going to know what I’m doing. And the folks are not here to tell me how to behave.
Italy is not Vegas – and what happens in Italy , doesn’t necessarily stay in Italy .
Amanda’s learned what hundreds of other young Americans overseas have learned. You don’t have the same civil rights overseas that you do here in the United States . In foreign legal systems, innuendo and hearsay are treated as facts and you can be convicted solely based on the impression you make on the people around you. By Italian standards, she behaved like a common whore, cavorting with low-lifes and freaks; her reactions to the crime were callous and disaffected. Her credibility was shot before she ever came in the courtroom, due entirely to the impression she made on her Italian neighbors and the police. And no matter what her parents and country do, she’s derailed her future and her family’s with her lousy sophomoric decisions.
Amanda ostensibly went to Italy for an education. I’d say she got one. I hope others learn from her, but I doubt it.
Florida Cracker
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Burger King Showercam
I can't wait until the HD version comes out...and I really, really, miss British advertising...
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
The Hard Truth From Orlando: An Open Letter
Monday, 12/7/09
XXXXXXXXXXX Street
Orlando, FL XXXXX
TO: Senator Bill Nelson
United States Senate
716 Hart Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
re: Health reform
I'm not optimistic about the healthcare bill passing. As usual, the Republicans have started waving the Anti-Abortion red flag around in order to derail any healthcare initiative. You know, I'd rather pay for abortion on demand than the endless expenses of the unwanted, abused and neglected children produced by our nation's wholly inadequate sex education and counseling programs -- inadequate because Republicans and the so-called Moral Majority and Religious Right refuse to move forward into the 21st century.
The "just say no" approach isn't and never was rational or realistic. We've restricted adequate healthcare and counseling to minors based on the faulty premise that it is the parents who are primarily responsible for their children's well-being and information. Well, statistics show that we don't have a country of uniformly responsible and rational parents. Minors need alternatives for rational, unbiased information and resources. Meaningful school sex-education has been brought to a standstill by Republicans and special religious interest groups. Access to reproductive healthcare is restricted both by gender and age -- disparately impacting underage but reproductive-age women. I would think that was grounds for anti-discrimination measures, but our patriarchal legislators don't seem to see past what they want for their affluent, educated daughters toward what's just and equable for all the young women of this country.
Arguments about my tax money being paid for abortions doesn't wash, either. Ask any tax payer, if it's an inexpensive abortion or footing the bill for 18 years of welfare programs and anti-poverty initiatives for an unwanted child and its mother, which would you rather pay? Which could you afford to pay? And healthcare for women is already biased. Many healthcare providers don't cover contraceptives and some reproductive procedures for women -- but they pay for Viagra for men. Like the cigarette industry, healthcare insurance corporations are intent on breeding an endless supply of consumers.
Well, I'm tired of footing the bill. I'm tired of the rhetoric and I'm tired of legislators who live in the rarified atmosphere of Washington deciding how best I'm to be served, based on their lifestyles and religious beliefs. Put the vote directly to us, the regular taxpayers, on whether we want the healthcare reforms. End the insurance industry's stranglehold on our financial futures, the medical profession's insane prices for service, and get us some realistic options.
And tell the Republicans, if they want to be the fathers of their country -- fine. Every woman who has a child she didn't plan for and can't afford should be able to put a Republican representative's name on the birth certificate and let him pay child support. Watch how fast abortion becomes sacrosanct.
Good luck up on the Hill. I know you're trying.
Florida Cracker
XXXXXXXXXXX Street
Orlando, FL XXXXX
TO: Senator Bill Nelson
United States Senate
716 Hart Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
re: Health reform
I'm not optimistic about the healthcare bill passing. As usual, the Republicans have started waving the Anti-Abortion red flag around in order to derail any healthcare initiative. You know, I'd rather pay for abortion on demand than the endless expenses of the unwanted, abused and neglected children produced by our nation's wholly inadequate sex education and counseling programs -- inadequate because Republicans and the so-called Moral Majority and Religious Right refuse to move forward into the 21st century.
The "just say no" approach isn't and never was rational or realistic. We've restricted adequate healthcare and counseling to minors based on the faulty premise that it is the parents who are primarily responsible for their children's well-being and information. Well, statistics show that we don't have a country of uniformly responsible and rational parents. Minors need alternatives for rational, unbiased information and resources. Meaningful school sex-education has been brought to a standstill by Republicans and special religious interest groups. Access to reproductive healthcare is restricted both by gender and age -- disparately impacting underage but reproductive-age women. I would think that was grounds for anti-discrimination measures, but our patriarchal legislators don't seem to see past what they want for their affluent, educated daughters toward what's just and equable for all the young women of this country.
Arguments about my tax money being paid for abortions doesn't wash, either. Ask any tax payer, if it's an inexpensive abortion or footing the bill for 18 years of welfare programs and anti-poverty initiatives for an unwanted child and its mother, which would you rather pay? Which could you afford to pay? And healthcare for women is already biased. Many healthcare providers don't cover contraceptives and some reproductive procedures for women -- but they pay for Viagra for men. Like the cigarette industry, healthcare insurance corporations are intent on breeding an endless supply of consumers.
Well, I'm tired of footing the bill. I'm tired of the rhetoric and I'm tired of legislators who live in the rarified atmosphere of Washington deciding how best I'm to be served, based on their lifestyles and religious beliefs. Put the vote directly to us, the regular taxpayers, on whether we want the healthcare reforms. End the insurance industry's stranglehold on our financial futures, the medical profession's insane prices for service, and get us some realistic options.
And tell the Republicans, if they want to be the fathers of their country -- fine. Every woman who has a child she didn't plan for and can't afford should be able to put a Republican representative's name on the birth certificate and let him pay child support. Watch how fast abortion becomes sacrosanct.
Good luck up on the Hill. I know you're trying.
Florida Cracker
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Friday, December 04, 2009
The Thought For Today
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Rec: Microwave Roux (no more sweating over the stove for us lazy folk)
For Four Cups Of Roux
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups onions, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green bell peppers, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1/2 cup green onions, tops included,chopped
1/4 cup hot water, approximately
Mix oil and flour together in a 4 cup glass container (I use a
Pyrex 4c. cup). Microwave uncovered on HIGH for 6-7 minutes.
Stir at 6 minutes with a wooden spoon - roux will be a light
brown at this time and will need to cook 30 seconds to 1
minute longer to reach the dark brown color so important
in making Louisiana gumbos and stews. The roux will be
VERY HOT, but usually the handle on your measuring cup
will stay cool enough to touch. When the roux has reached
a very dark brown (think a coffee grounds dark brown),
remove from microwave and CAREFULLY (remember-
the roux is very hot!) add the onion, celery, and bell pepper,
a little at a time. Stir and return to microwave. Saute' on
HIGH for 2 minutes. You should now have about 3 3/4 cups
of roux. If any oil has risen to the top, you can pour this off.
Slowly, add enough hot water to bring the roux to the 4 cup
mark. Stir and you will have a smooth, dark roux in only 12
minutes! Roux freezes very well and you are ready at any
time to put together a delicious gumbo or stew.
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups onions, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup green bell peppers, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1/2 cup green onions, tops included,chopped
1/4 cup hot water, approximately
Mix oil and flour together in a 4 cup glass container (I use a
Pyrex 4c. cup). Microwave uncovered on HIGH for 6-7 minutes.
Stir at 6 minutes with a wooden spoon - roux will be a light
brown at this time and will need to cook 30 seconds to 1
minute longer to reach the dark brown color so important
in making Louisiana gumbos and stews. The roux will be
VERY HOT, but usually the handle on your measuring cup
will stay cool enough to touch. When the roux has reached
a very dark brown (think a coffee grounds dark brown),
remove from microwave and CAREFULLY (remember-
the roux is very hot!) add the onion, celery, and bell pepper,
a little at a time. Stir and return to microwave. Saute' on
HIGH for 2 minutes. You should now have about 3 3/4 cups
of roux. If any oil has risen to the top, you can pour this off.
Slowly, add enough hot water to bring the roux to the 4 cup
mark. Stir and you will have a smooth, dark roux in only 12
minutes! Roux freezes very well and you are ready at any
time to put together a delicious gumbo or stew.
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