Muslims in Ohio

We have thousands of foreign born Muslims in Central Ohio and many born here. I haven't seen any bullying or discrimination. I'm sure it exists--especially on the internet. I get nasty, unkind remarks for being an old White lady. That said, I have seen university employees who won't come to private homes for parties, women who won't join exercise classes if there are men in it, special accommodations for them in churches that provide education classes, men who have more than one "wife," and women who must always be accompanied by a male relative when out of the home.
However, I used to help with English classes for mixed ethnicities sponsored by our church, mostly Muslim but from a variety of countries. I thought the women were delightful, eager to learn, devoted to their families and fun, but some didn't like each other because of grievances in "the old country." One dear soul told me in her home country she was considered a descendant of slaves (she had blue-green eyes) and wasn't allowed to go to school.
Anyone with half a brain knows that all American Muslims aren't like the couple who killed Christians and Jews at a holiday party and had an arsenal in their home. But with their other half brain they aren't using, they'd better dust it off and understand that the President's party is leading them astray about the real danger of Islamic terrorism.
All the murdered people in San Bernardino were Christians and Jews, but in a show of concern for the "real" victims, "A handful of House Democrats will meet early Friday afternoon at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a Northern Virginia mosque that has controversial ties to terrorists who have engaged in terrorist acts against the United States,” reports The Washington Examiner.

Daily News lies—God can fix this

Our free and independent (from government control) press

Did you notice that CAIR already had family members of the shooters on hand for interviews by the time the rest of us were told their names?

Please:  it’s media ARE.

False positive mammograms

Women with positive mammography screens ultimately judged to be false were still at significantly increased likelihood for developing invasive breast cancer within the next 10 years, a study involving 1.3 million women showed.

So what is happening? Lots of things. Read this:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/BreastCancer/54978?

She can move quickly when an election is at stake

Wealthy liberals could just fire their accountants

Today I got an e-mail from  “Patriotic Millionaires,”  a group of more than 200 Americans with annual incomes over $1 million and/or assets of more than $5 million. (I’m not on the list as a millionaire, but am a gapper.) They are looking at the Forbes list and see too few blacks and Hispanics.  Well, there are more Blacks than Bruces!  Look, patriots.  All you have to do is fire your accountants—just skip over those loopholes that you’ve lobbied for.

* America’s 20 wealthiest people now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households.
* The wealthiest 100 households now own about as much wealth as the entire African American population in the United States. Among the Forbes 400, just 2 individuals are African-American.
* The wealthiest 186 members of the Forbes 400 own as much wealth as the entire Latino population. Just 5 members of the Forbes 400 are Latino.

San Bernardino and Colorado Springs

Catching up on the news coverage of the horrific events in San Bernardino, I see that no liberal wants to call this act terrorism and they are seeking a motive why a married couple, both Muslims with middle eastern names and dressed for assault with multiple bombs and guns, would kill people in a government building.  Whereas last Friday in a shooting in the parking lot of a Planned Parenthood building in Colorado, a man crazy as a loon was described within hours on national TV by prominent liberals as a terrorist, a conservative and a Christian, with nothing to back it up. They blamed the GOP, the NRA and “toxic” language arguing against our Bill of Rights.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has done an extensive background check on Dear and learned of his history of crime and assault on women, a pot head with bizarre behavior particularly on-line. NYT leads with the “Christian” angle, even though he was about as “christian” as the Westboro Baptist group that protests at funerals of soldiers, a group smaller than our church choir. Liberals in the press and on twitter are also criticizing those who are praying for the victims and their families.

Andy Griffith, Little Brown Church

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcyRWlJHHY

How lovely.

No blogging today

I’m at the library.  No wireless connection today.  Guess I’ll have to invite my daughter over to check, and if she can’t get it going, I’ll have a service call.  Hate when this happens.

Imaginary Enemies

“Hunger in America is an imaginary enemy. Liberal advocacy groups routinely claim that one in seven Americans is hungry—in a country where the poorest counties have the highest rates of obesity. The statistic is a preposterous extrapolation from a dubious Agriculture Department measure of “food insecurity.” But the line gives those advocacy groups a reason to exist while feeding the liberal narrative of America as a savage society of haves and have nots.”

Liberal advocacy groups need problems.  If poverty were solved tomorrow, millions of well-paid, middle class bureaucrats, social workers, and non-profit fund raisers would be out of work.  Then we’d have a problem. . .

There are 123 wealth transfer programs, where is this money going if the poor don’t get it? TANF, SNAP, EITC, Section 8 Housing, Medicaid, WIC, SCHIP, and other disability from Social Security. 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/liberalisms-imaginary-enemies-1448929043

World AIDS Day

Approximately 70% of the new HIV/AIDS cases are in sub-Saharan Africa. Most people living with HIV or at risk for HIV do not have access to prevention, care, and treatment, and there is still no cure. I wonder if Africans think the billions being pledged in Paris to be spent on the fool's errand to stop the weather is well spent? Perhaps they remember (if alive) the malaria fiasco when millions died because of a foolish American author's testimony before Congress.

https://www.aids.gov/news-and-events/awareness-days/world-aids-day/

Rape in the Peace Corps

Yesterday I watched a CBS report on rape in the Peace Corps. ABC had done extensive reporting on this in 2011. Oversight of the Peace Corps is technically not Obama's job, not like cleaning up the VA (which he campaigned on in 2008) because commander in chief is his job description in the Constitution. But it is under the executive branch and he does appoint the director. However, if these two huge scandals had been reported in the Bush years, the media would have at least had his name in the story.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-finds-peace-corps-volunteers-blamed-fired-after-reporting-sexual-assault/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/us/11corps.html?_r=0

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/16/the-peace-corps-awful-secret.html

And so my liberal “friend” who reads my blog and only comments if I say something about Obama will then say, why must you blame him for everything?  You racist!  I’m only doing the job our media used to do for us—holding the president accountable when he doesn’t do his job.  And they should do that in a country where the “free” press keeps a protective eye on our liberties. They did that very well during the Bush Administration.  They didn’t let him get away with anything, and when they did support him, he usually got flak from his own party.

Plant yourself.

Connie, a friend from high school, posted this on Facebook about planting seeds in your own biodegradable urn. If you've ever visited an old cemetery with a lot of trees, you see nature has already taken care of this--just a little longer span of time.

In the United States, which contains 8 percent of the world's forests, there are more trees than there were 100 years ago. That's a lot of coming and going. Trees store CO2, produce oxygen, remove toxins from the air, and create habitat for animals, insects and more basic forms of life.

My high school class of MMHS 1957 has donated several trees to the town  campus to replace those that have died or been lost to storms, but even in Mt. Morris, there are far more trees than when the town was founded. The “reforestation” of the former Mt. Morris College campus effort was largely led by Lynne Fleming Wilburn and other local class members, who also tended our first tree in its very young years. (Source)

MMHS 1957 newest trees.

MMHS 1957 tree marker.

It’s a 2-fer for the left—attack free speech and religion

At this point, I doubt you can trust anything you hear or read about the crazy Mr. Dear who shot 9 people, none of them staff or clients at the Planned Parenthood Clinic. But that hasn't stopped all the leftist MSM, so I might as well take a stab. I've also heard his police record involves animal cruelty, domestic assault, smoking pot and being involved in bondage. Also he's never been a registered Republican, no sign of being a Christian, and his voter registration says his gender assignment may have failed. I haven't researched this carefully, as I don't have access to his records, but then neither do the New York Times or our Attorney General or PBS, and it hasn't stopped them.

There's no information at all on the shooter Dear's intelligence, state of mind, or what he said, and the media have already blamed Republicans for a "toxic" environment and no safe places for this man to go to not hear about dead babies. They don't blame hip hop for assaults against women, or Tarantino for gun violence, or the inflammatory speech from black lives matter for the cop he killed He’s some kook who lives in the woods and probably doesn't own a TV, but somehow is inflamed by rhetoric about killing the unborn. He shot nine people, none of them clinic workers or clients of Planned Parenthood. One report says he killed two in the parking lot then ran into the building.  If he was inflamed, he was also blind.

There was a family of 4 shot by a neighbor on the Hilltop of Columbus, Ohio last week. Hillary has not gone on national TV and the President has not said the dead boy could be his son. I’m guessing all these people are white, if you haven’t seen it on the national news. A man yesterday shot up and vandalized our most famous art center here in Columbus, then killed himself; no one has said he hated art or that it's terrible what toxic things are said about shocking edgy art displays because it inflames people.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/planned-parenthood-exec-blames-hateful-language-hateful-speech?

Stop setting goals and pushing sentimental posters

             

Nice thoughts, but really inaccurate with maudlin generalities. Setting goals is way over rated, and my favorite book is "Stop setting Goals." Many successful people watch TV; but they're even more successful if they produce, direct and act in TV shows.  I've always been a reader, and am a retired librarian--how many famous, rich librarians do you know--they don't even get appointed to be "librarian of Congress." Fearing change is a political statement--liberals fear some—like having a baby when not prepared, conservatives fear others like having liberals run the colleges. I'm a saver and investor, but have never gotten the hang of a budget. I don’t hold grudges, but I know extremely successful people who do. I like to talk about ideas, others like to share photos of grandchildren and pets.  Who is right and successful?

That said, I’m guessing a conservative, or right of center, person wrote it.

It seemed reasonable to remove Confederate flags, and then . . .

But the left eats its own.  Any appeasement just makes them more hungry.  The fragile students we’ve been laughing at on college campuses demanding “safe spaces” have become neo-fascists.

First, protests gradually grow more extreme. Venom is directed at fellow leftists who are deemed insufficiently radical.

In revolutionary France, wild-eyed Jacobins soon guillotined reformist Girondins, who were considered passe. During the Russian Revolution, extremist Bolsheviks marginalized liberal Mensheviks. In the 1960s, many members of the SDS and Black Panthers hated liberals who disapproved of their violence.

A group called the Black Justice League wants the name of liberal-but-bigoted President Woodrow Wilson removed from Princeton University.   [and the leaders are wealthy . . .]

Maximilien Robespierre, the spear point of the French Revolution, was an upper-middle-class lawyer. Russian revolutionaries Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were the sons of prosperous Russian families. Former 1960s terrorist bomber Bill Ayers was the scion of a wealthy corporate executive.
Read More At Investor's Business Daily:

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/112715-782779-victor-davis-hanson-as-they-have-throughout-history-the-extreme-left-directs-its-hatred-at-others-on-the-left.htm

Obama can say we’re not a Christian nation, but that’s not how ISIS understands who we are.

“Secularists rush to deny the religious aspect of the conflict with jihadists. Whenever possible they talk about “extremists” or “terrorists” and try to avoid the obvious conclusion that the Islamic terrorists are motivated by their religion. Likewise, when the victims are clearly Christian, and have been targeted for torture and death because of their faith in Christ the secular news media will spin the story and relegate the horrors to “ethnic conflict” or “tribal wars.”

The fact of the matter is that Islamic terrorists are targeting Christians in specific attacks. Furthermore, we may not regard the countries of Western Europe and North America as particularly “Christian” countries, but the Islamic terrorists of ISIS do. They speak enthusiastically about the coming war with “Rome”, which is their shorthand for what they perceive as the Christian powers of the West.”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/longenecker/are-we-witnessing-the-start-of-a-new-crusade/#ixzz3svE4MAO9

Decorating the tree for 2015

Bob put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. We love looking at the old, tired ornaments--like the one our daughter's first grade teacher made (can teachers do that today?) and the little wood guitar I bought for our son, the cute wood ornaments purchased from a disabled woman (Jodi) at the UA Labor Day art show in the 1970s, and the various mementoes from our travels. We probably bought this tree in 1993 or 1994 at our daughter's urging--and have certainly gotten our money's worth. I suggested we go to a small table size tree like my parents did in their later years, but he said an emphatic NO.

When we moved to Columbus in 1967, I remember I went to the hardware store in the little Tremont shopping center behind our apartment complex and bought a package of gold painted angels which we used for years.  They are still in the box of decorations, but we haven’t put them on for a few years—the tree is a bit crowded.  We also have some table decorations we can hang from our years in the FCC Couples Circle 50 now about 48 years old. Of that couples group, I think Bob is the only man still living. We have some little cloth birds made by my mother into which she tucked money for the children.  The tree scarf was made by my sister I think for Christmas 1976, and we use it every year.

Same tree, 2010.

Same tree, 2012, with our niece and nephew, Julie and Joe from Indianapolis.

Same tree 2006, different glasses.

Same tree, 2000, with Dad, his first Christmas without Mom since 1934.  He made the “grand tour” and visited his children in three cities.

Computer scams and hoaxes

The last several days I've been getting phone calls from people with accents and noise in the background telling me they want to help me with my "windows" problem, or my reported computer problem. Usually I just hang up, because callers sitting in booths reading from a script need to earn a living and move on to the next sucker. But I've played along for a few questions then I ask them why they are running this scam. I chastise and castigate them before hanging up. Feels good. The economy has been completely restored, we're told, so no one needs to be working jobs like this even in India.

Non-use of technology

Periodically, I do a “fast” of Facebook or Blogging.  I sign off.  But when I return, there’s just as much posting as before.  Maybe more.  It’s a bit like a diet.  I can do it for awhile. In the “old” days, people gave up watching TV.  I can see myself in most of these studies.  Read on.

Resistance, addiction, and identity

“There are a number of studies that have focused on cases of deliberate, even conspicuous, non-use, as in when people swear off e-mail during their vacation or give up Facebook for Lent. In these cases of deliberate refusal of a technology, one of the key traits of the individual is her or his ability to resist the temptation of using technology. Approaches that frame (social) media and technology use as addiction fall into this mold (e.g., Andreassen, et al., 2012; Stieger, et al., 2013).

In other cases, non-use may represent an individual’s attempt to regain (a sense of) self-control over their own technology use (e.g., Ames, 2013; Baumer, et al., 2013; Schoenebeck, 2014). In many of these cases, the discourse is one of control. Because the resulting non-use may be partial or negotiated, these kinds of studies tend not to frame “use” as a monolithic concept for which non-use is the binary opposite.

Moving beyond the individual, the voluntary non-use of technology may function as the production or performance of a particular sociocultural identity. For instance, abstention from Facebook becomes an act of performing a particular identity, one bound up with “conspicuous non-consumption” and a rejection of neoliberal values of commodification (Portwood-Stacer, 2013).

Non-use (and use) of the smartphone app Grindr also figures prominently in partners’ negotiations about the status of their own relationship (Brubaker, et al., 2014). In another example, the Christian period of Lent becomes, for some, an occasion to limit use of social media (Schoenebeck, 2014).”

I tried to resist and regain power over my life, but just now I posted on Facebook:

Donald Trump is such a jerk, and he's the perfect Trojan Horse (for those who haven't studied history, that is not a condom but a trick) that the Democrats will use to elect Hillary. This woman has committed more crimes than most people already incarcerated, and will complete what Obama has left unfinished.