Jun. 8, 2008 at 14:34
by BrendaBee
Yep, I got fried in the last big thunder and lightning storm. I had left my computer on. I just forgot to turn it off. Anyhow, when I went back after the storm it was on and acting really, really weird: desktop rearranged, colors all different, and altho it would come on after two or three times of correctly following my instructions it would freeze. I think I read the Dummies book from front to back and tried everything I could think of and the book could suggest. This all punctuated with words I am not known to use often, and sometimes not even muttered but shouted at full voice. Nothing worked.
My husband, Lew , made the final and most logical suggestion. This one worked very well. He told me to just go buy a new one. I did. The best deal was on line and so it will be a week or so before I have my own computer. Am sharing Lew's. This arrangement didn't work when he was sharing mine and is a bit of a hardship now. I don't think it will lead to divorce however.
I am able to keep up with e-mail and favorite blogs but not much else. So my fans and friends will be denied my wit and wisdom for a few days. Just hang in there Dear Ones, I shall return . BB
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Jun. 2, 2008 at 17:29
by BrendaBee
There is a difference in being a Christian nation and having a state mandated religion. The United States is a Christian nation because the majority of its citizens practice the Christian faith, however there has never been a state mandated religion. All who reside within our borders are free to worship God in their own way. Ostensibly all religious beliefs and practices are honored and protected by law.
Christ demanded his followers love thy neighbor as thy love thyself and do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Our Founding Father remembered this injunction. They remembered also the countries they came from had mandated state religions and people were persecuted for believing and practicing another way of worshiping God. They remembered that this country was first populated by people leaving their homes to come to a wilderness for the freedom to practice their beliefs. They also remembered that these groups which came for religious freedom failed to extend that same freedom to others who wished to come and settle near them. This is why it was felt a specific law be written into our Constitution mandating there never be a state sponsored religion in the United States.
It wasn't until almost two centuries later our federal government felt the need to specify in no uncertain terms that an individual could not be persecuted for his religion, his race or gender. This need came about with the Civil Rights movement and the need to give Blacks a law to invoke in instances of racial discrimination. At this time the feminist movement was also beginning as women were rebelling against the male dominated attitudes which had always been the way of society making women more or less chattel of men, so Congress tried to make an all encompassing law against any sort of discrimination.
It was this "need to be non-discriminating towards all" which led our nation to mandating that God must be hidden away and only brought out on Sunday mornings when we attend the church of our choice. I have for a long time now realized the mistake that was made when we the vast majority gave in to the tiny minority of non-religious atheist and more liberal thinkers in their demands to take God out of our daily lives. A mistake that changed the character of our nation and the attitudes of it's people. Ours has become a Godless society and I have watched this come about from the time the first strictures against religious displays were enacted into law.
We removed all public displays of religion such as prayers in the schools, removing even the Pledge of Allegiance to our Flag from our schools because of the words "under God", removing such harmless things as Nativity scenes in public parks and not allowing the display of the Ten Commandments, which were laws the Old Testament tells us were given to Moses by God Himself. In fact the Ten Commandments are not only accepted by over half the world's population by Christians, Jews and Muslims, but they have been the basis for all civil laws of the nations. But because they are made known to us in The Old Testament they are to be removed from public view.
There is much to be learned from a display that signifies the belief an all knowing God is watching over us at all times. Such displays reminds the good not to be tempted by evil, and puts some restrains on the bad behavior. The greatest harm came about because when God's influence was removed from our daily lives and public areas we left the door open for any and all influences both good and bad; mainly bad came in unfortunately.
For some time there it seemed to become a witch hunt and more liberal thinking people argued that any public policy is disqualifying if it has a basis in a religious stricture thus making it an imposition of religion on others. It seemed that logic had no sway in minds at that time. This careful watch against any show of religious belief is still with us and from time to time some one person or group makes a big noise against some policy. Most laws and policies and even political movements, in fact the very law against all and any type of discrimination is based on religious teachings or interpretations. It can be logically argued that the abolition of slavery, civil rights laws, opposition to the death penalty, and many others are all an imposition of religion on others!
The cleansing of religious displays up to this a point has been lead by liberal thinking individuals demanding all policies be given the "religious sniff test". The most recent opposition however is now coming from the religious amongst us in an ironic turn around. Embryonic stem cell research is promising the discovery of cures for all sorts of terrible afflictions from Alzheimer's to nerve re-growth allowing the paralyzed to move again to cell rejuvenation enabling the replacement of organs. But due to some people's religious belief in the soul's entering the physical at conception this research and possible miracle cure is seen as violating the separation of church and state.
Saner heads seem not able to prevail in this argument from whatever source and can not convince others that imposing religion means the mandating of religious practice. It does not mean the mandating of social policy that some people may have come to support for religious reasons.
And still the debate goes on and on into every area of our lives even a half century after we first began bowing in to the demands of the minority at the expense of the vast majority. There always seems to be one more item or idea that "offends" the beliefs or sensibilities of these others who have turned from God's teachings; or insisting on an interpretation of God's teaching based on their own thoughts.
The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts have been attacked for their pledges, the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) and the YWCA have been attacked for their name and their by-laws. And yet no child has been denied the right to join the scouts and no one has been turned away from the Y. All are welcome and if there is something that personally offends an individual that the vast majority of the members believe in and are doing then it should not be for them to change, but for individual to decide whether to tolerate peacefully or go elsewhere.
At first like most people I didn't think there would be any harm done in removing these things from the public places if it would bring peace. Anything to bring peace! It didn't change my religious views not to see these things. I miss them yes, but it had no real affect on my religious views as I had religion as a part of my up bringing. It was a part of my daily life.
What I failed to understand at the time was the millions of children and adults who did not have religion and God as a part of their daily life making these public displays the only influence and reminder of God and Godliness and Christian principles they would have. These basically good, but non-religious individuals, were now left with nothing to counter balance the effects of the evil that liberalism unleashed on the public. The movies and music and general degeneration that has now become a large influence in our everyday lives.
In fact, the more degenerate the more revered things seemed to become. The picture of a crucifix in a jar of urine being considered by liberal critics as high art! How low can we go?
And sad, so very sad that we deprived our children of the stability of knowing and having the laws of goodness made a part of their lives. We left them without guidance or standards of beliefs and behavior for their day to day activities and choices. It is perfectly acceptable for our children to listen to the vile lyrics of rap music, but an offense to let them see the rules for behavior given in the Ten Commandments! Children must be taught and shown what is acceptable. Children have to be protected from the base and immoral until they have gained the knowledge to choose for themselves. We adults in our head long search for a religiously non-intrusive society took this guidance away from our most vulnerable.
From the benefit of 20/20 hindsight I see the horrific damage that has been done. Now and perhaps too late I have been stepping forward and condemning actions or speeches or even Letters to the Editor of our local newspaper when they are showing intolerance for a morally right or religious speech, sign, movie, display or what ever. I intend to spend the rest of my life being intolerant of the "intolerant", the "offended" and the "my way only".
There should be no conflict with anyone's beliefs if we are but tolerant of each others. Many work places are offering their Muslim workers time off five times each day to say their prayers to their God as required by their religion. This is as it should be. So why is it against the law for one short time period to say the Lord's Prayer or recite the Pledge of Allegiance? A Christian Nation that will not allow a state mandated religion should, and must, extend all courtesies to all of our brothers, even our Christian brothers, as Christ admonished us to do. BB
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May. 27, 2008 at 14:35
by BrendaBee
Is it in the water? Is it in the air? Or is stupidity just highly contagious?
In the Local section of today's N&R two articles got my attention. On p[age B2 above the fold Headlines: Gas Prices put police on new wheels. It seems the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is putting police officers on bicycles in order to save money now that the price of gas has gone so high and threatens to go much higher. In fact many cities are turning to or returning to bike patrols in these times of higher gas prices, higher all over prices and tightened city budgets. Greensboro has according to the N&R about 10 officer bikers that are used mainly downtown. It is proven that beside saving money the Bike Patrols are much better for community policing because bikes can go just about anywhere whereas the patrol car is limited to streets.
Bike Patrols are not a novel idea and have always been around to some degree. They became especially popular and their effectiveness was proven in the 1980's and 1990's. Then for some reason they went out of style. Some have claimed it was because the police officers themselves disliked being on a bike because of their exposure and the safety hazard of being on the streets with autos.
Now here is where the water, the air or the highly contagious comes in. On page B1 above the fold is the headline: Offer may help mount horse patrol. It seems the Downtown Greensboro. Inc is willing to chip in $25,000 a year to set up and maintain a mounted patrol for down town. (Downtown Greensboro Inc. is the downtown municipal taxing area where the people living in the area or in this case having businesses in the area have agreed to tax themselves for specific improvements they want for their area. The tax is collected with the property taxes and spent by the city exclusively on downtown projects the MTU asks for.)
It seems Fayetteville has a mounted patrol and got our city fathers all excited about the idea. Greensboro invited the Fayetteville Mounted Patrol over to demonstrate the patrols effectiveness even being able to catch speeders. (Yep! I'm sure any horse out there can catch any automobile with four flat tires any day of the week. Now four inflated tires just may make a big difference.)
So the idea was looked at and shelved for a very good reason: mounted patrols are not cheap! The $25,000 the Downtown group is willing to cough up even yearly won't come near even helping with the costs of maintaining the patrol. There is the usual costs for stable, food, hay, veterinary bills and officer training. Then there is the costs of land to put these stables and corals on which will be somewhere out in the country because no inner city neighborhood is going to allow a smelly stables in their area. This will make transporting the horses to where they will be used an expense (gasoline at $4+ a gallon.) And these are just the minor expenses, as the huge expense is the horses themselves. They must be very highly trained animals to be safe to use in noisy crowds of people pushing up against them and sometimes even poking at them or loud noises such as autos backfiring or horns or even gun shots without the horse reacting in any way until given a signal by the rider. (The rider must also be highly trained.) And these very highly trained horse do not come cheap. The $25,000 wouldn't come close to purchasing one horse I am sorry to say. Google police patrol horses and check out the prices. And other more pungent costs (or maybe not).
Now since we have established that $25,000 won't be much more than a drop in the proverbial bucket just what might the costs be and where will our city fathers get it? Mitch Johnson, albeit not the most reliable source for anything, says the city estimates it might take up to $250,000 to set up. No figures were given in this news report for yearly upkeep.
And where is the money for this set up to come from? Well Johnson claims the city will use the federal forfeiture funds. That's money made when the assets confiscated during drug investigations. Now far be from me to put a damper on this source of money, but it is hoped that the amount of forfeiture funds will decline from year to year as the GPD (in regular squad cars) makes some headway in eliminating the very active and well organized drug scene in Greensboro. Then again given our city fathers mentality it might be that they plan to maintain the drug industry in Greensboro in order to maintain the Mounted Patrol for downtown Greensboro. Ya think?
People, here we are as a nation (perhaps world) hovering on a deep recession heading for a depression as prices of just about everything continues to climb at alarming rates, the voters in Guilford County just passed a huge bond debt, 250,000 of us in Greensboro are being made to pay thru the nose to keep 1000 of us from smelling our garbage even when they built their home next to an already operating landfill, city and county taxes have gone up for the past five years with no let up for property owners to be seen any year soon and we are now considering the possibility of giving our downtown a fancy spancy mounted patrol for the weekends and special events when crowds gather.
I think it is about time for the saner individuals in Greensboro ( all 2 dozen of us) to demand that the city fathers and elected officials and special interest groups be made to stop drinking the water, stop breathing the air and all of them most especially should be made to quarantine themselves in their homes. BB
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May. 24, 2008 at 13:08
by BrendaBee
Will the United States as the only super power left standing attack Iran or at least remove the threat of a nuclear Muslim state from the world by bombing their nuclear facilities? Well, the pressure is surely on to do so. Israel and the Middle Eastern countries are quite open in their requests. The rest of the world is sitting back assuming two postures while lending their own pleas undercover. Russia, China, North Korea and France are outwardly vehemently opposed to the United States attacking Iran. The rest of the world is holding to their silence. While behind the scenes ALL I am sure are begging us to go forward.
An article in Time/CNN reports is informative reading on this subject. Time (as in minutes, hours, days) is of the essence as all know that after the November presidential elections President Bush will be unable to act, and if a Democrat is elected there is really not much hope of stopping Iran. There is also the fact that President Bush has General David Petraeus on board an in a position to oversee this operation. His being located next door in Iraq is precisely where American troops will be needed to put down any Iranian backlash.
Some analyst feel General Petraeus was in effect warning Congress and the world of possible attack in the near future when speaking before Congress this past Thursday. He was grilled by the Senators who are more favorably assured of a need for such an attack by answering their questions regarding the dangers to the area and to the world of an nuclear Iran. The General having at stake his appointment as the U.S. Central Commander answered the questions as truthfully as possible while still trying to assure the more timid Senators of his caution in using any kind of force in Iran.
I personally have little doubt that the time has come when the US will have to act finally because otherwise Iran will not be stopped. And the very real possibility that they are within weeks of having the capability of at least taking Israel out and threatening the other Middle Eastern States rather forces the Presidents hand. All other nuclear countries are held in check by a neighbor and/or their growing economic power that precludes their harming themselves by going to war. This simply is not the case with Iran.
I was saying as early as January 2006 that the US would eventually have to go to war, or at least a limited bombing war with Iran. Negotiations just would not stop[ them. And it seems I was correct in my thoughts. Negotiations and stalling by Iran as they continued their quest to join the World Nuclear Brotherhood is all we have seen accomplished by any country who stepped up to the plate to talk sense to them. Of course their membership will be a short one and last only until their leaders decide it is time to adhere to what they believe is Allah's command to wipe out the Infidel. It won't matter that they too will be annihilated since they will all enter Paradise as holy martyrs. Their leaders have openly stated their ultimate beliefs and goals for the destruction of the world, so why are we not believing them? Their action have been consistent with the goal of destroying the world, so why are we not believing them?
Apparently the Iranians, the other Middle Eastern Countries and Israel believe that only President Bush has the fortitude to act to stop these fanatics, so why are we not also backing the President and encouraging him to save the world from the Iranian's bid for leadership in the world of the hereafter? BB
You might want to glance as the related articles as suggested as good points are made in them also. BB
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May. 24, 2008 at 03:22
by BrendaBee
Have the suing renegade cops gone too far finally in their greed? YES! GPD Police Officers Julius Fulmore and Brian James are suing the Rhino Times, Hammer Publications, John and William Hammer, and Jerry Bledsoe for defamation. Defamation of their dubious character no less in the publication of the expose series of articles by Jerry Bledsoe and published in the Rhino Times as "Cops in Black and White" Now this is "Comedy in Black and White"!
One really gets a kick out of this coming on the heels of the announcement by Chief Bellemy that not 50 boxes of vital information on the 1979 incident, but only 5 to 10 of newspaper clippings were thrown out in 2001 or 2002. He of course didn't mention that Fulmore was a liar and an instigator and had cost the police department big bucks to investigate these allegations. Nor was it mentioned that the Pulpit Forum members who made these false allegations following Fulmore's lying tip and the NC State NAACP who wrote to the FBI demanding an investigation into this outrage have been made to look like the fools they undoubtedly are. No this wasn't mentioned and we can be sure it will be ignored as if it never happened by the Pulpit Forum and the NAACP with no apologies for what they have done as this is the usual method of operation with these people. And the whole incident will be swept under the rug by the GPD and of course the Greensboro City Council. After all no harm was done except to waste more of the tax payers money, and that certainly is no big deal.
With all the opposition by the status quo seekers and the City Council to the Bledsoe series and the information it has revealed about the GPD I am sure the Hammer Brothers are ecstatic over this opportunity to get these two GPD police officers and many more involved "witnesses" on the witness stand under oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God".
Might this be the beginning of the end? The final chapter in the Bledsoe series "Cops in Black and White"? I am surprised no savvy lawyers stopped these two before they could get to this point. Surely no one believed the Hammers would cave in and pay off without going to court like the City Council is doing.
I just wish it could all be televised. Here Greensboro has been treated to its own little "Peyton Place" drama for over two years and will be deprived of viewing the outcome of all the lying, cheating, sex, drugs, scandal, racial pandering and greed that has taken place within it's city limits. Now that is sad; really, really sad. BB
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