Saturday, March 31, 2018

How to deactivate or delete your Facebook account

https://www.wsj.com/video/ready-player-one-can-spielberg-film-speed-up-adoption-of-vr/A211E35C-2E9A-4642-90AE-DFB89233D0E3.html

Cambridge Analytica, Catalist and Soros

The media are trying to make a scandal where there is none.  The same media that swooned over Obama’s use of technology for data mining in 2012 and 2008.  Scott Walter of CRC reports:

“Obama’s 2008 social media juggernaut was powered by a little-known entity that my organization, the Capital Research Center, has reported on extensively: a for-profit (therefore non-disclosing) data firm named Catalist.

Catalist is arguably the professional Left’s best-kept secret. The company was started in 2006 by two Clinton operatives with $1 million in seed money from George Soros. Because Soros and groups like the Tides Foundation keep Catalist well-funded, it can apparently afford to sell its political services to Democratic campaigns at below-market rates, which led to complaints being lodged with the Federal Election Commission in 2015, claiming Catalist violated campaign collusion laws.

This data giant enjoys close ties to the Democracy Alliance, a network of the biggest donors in left-wing politics. In-house Democracy Alliance strategy slides obtained in 2014 by the Washington Free Beacon show how the “legal firewall” separating campaigns from outside nonprofits can be bypassed by friendly “data, analytics, and research LLCs” like Catalist (and by political “investors”).

. . . In short, don’t buy the story that Zuckerberg and the mainstream media are peddling. It’s just untrue that one political outfit uncorked a genie in 2016 that no one had ever seen before”

http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/26/hey-zuck-cambridge-analytica-wasnt-the-first-of-its-kind/?

New Hampshire, Ohio, and West Virginia experiencing the highest drug overdose death rates

“Death rates for overdoses involving highly potent synthetic opioids other than methadone -- including illicitly manufactured fentanyl as well as the prescription kind -- more than doubled from 2015 to 2016, propelling an overall increase in opioid deaths of 27.9% in that one-year period, according to the CDC.

Synthetic opioids were present in 19,413 overdose deaths in 2016, up from 9,580 deaths in 2015, reported Puja Seth, PhD, of the CDC in Atlanta and colleagues in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. They accounted for 30.5% of all drug overdose deaths and 45.9% of all opioid-involved deaths in 2016.”  Summary from Medpage Today. https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/opioids/72068

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/fentanyl

At least in Ohio, where we often hear evening news reports on the problems of drug abuse in the suburbs, there needs to be a new approach and for researchers to do something other than looking at poverty, lack of education, various political disparities, and ghetto or rural life styles.  Researchers have pathologized certain races, neighborhoods and income groups for so long, they’ve lost their way or just have no new ideas to meet this crisis.

Here’s an example from NIDA: “Opioid addiction is often described as an “equal opportunity” problem that can afflict people from all races and walks of life, but while true enough, this obscures the fact that the opioid crisis has particularly affected some of the poorest regions of the country, such as Appalachia, and that people living in poverty are especially at risk for addiction and its consequences like overdose or spread of HIV. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers people on Medicaid and other people with low-income to be at high risk for prescription drug overdose.”  That may be true—but that doesn’t answer what’s happening in Worthington and Upper Arlington.

Read the comments to this NIDA explanation. It’s worth your time.

This Columbus area rehab center has an interesting blog. https://www.columbusrecoverycenter.com/2018/03/

Friday, March 30, 2018

Soros tentacles are everywhere

When the U.S. destabilizes other governments with the help of George Soros funded organizations, refugees flood other countries—even our own.  https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-soros-documents-files-foia-lawsuits-state-department-usaid-records-funding-political-activities-george-soros-open-society-founda/

Our tax dollars go to NGOs such as:

The Soros Open Society Foundations of Romania

The Romanian Center for Independent Journalism (Soros funded)

The Soros Open Society Foundations of Colombia

“Judicial Watch is pursuing information about Soros’ activities in Macedonia and Albania, as well. The former Prime Minister of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski reportedly called for a “de-Sorosization” of society. In February 2017, Judicial Watch reported that the U.S. government has quietly spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia in collusion with George Soros.”

Sugar or starch

“The distinction between sugar and starch is largely meaningless from a biological perspective. The key public health challenge today is to reduce intake of all highly processed carbohydrates in favor of whole carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, legumes and minimally processed grains) and healthful fats (like nuts, avocado and olive oil).”  I think he doesn’t want me to enjoy French Fries at the Rusty Bucket (our Friday night date site).

Dr. David Ludwig

See entire interview about refined carbs. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/12/16/dr-david-ludwig-clears-up-carbohydrate-confusion/

He says you can eat cereal without sugar, or sugar without the cereal, but below the neck, it’s all the same.

Why privacy matters

Some people say, I'm not doing anything illegal, why does Facebook privacy matter?

Watch this YouTube video by Glenn Greenwald to find out why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=pcSlowAhvUk  It's 4 years old and yet really applies to millions of people giving up not only their own privacy, but that of their friends.

Watching HGTV—and all that stuff

We have friends whose mother lived in Arizona in a tiny mobile home the last decade of her life. She used to come and spend several weeks at Lakeside with them in the summer in her 90s. Just as sharp as a tack. She had so pared down her material goods, that she had almost nothing—by choice. She said when she died, they should just roll her “home” over a cliff. Now obviously, they didn’t do that, but she’d had a full life, and at the end, didn’t want to spend her moments left taking care of things.

I’m not there yet. Still have a problem with print and paper. . . everywhere. Every time I pull books to donate (like this week)  I can always suggest things for Bob to toss, but Monday he asked me about my Latin I and II books from high school, and they are still here on the shelf. But it did get me to thinking. Don’t know if the library sale really wants textbooks from the 1950s when I used to scribble in margins.

One of our favorite cable channels is HGTV (particularly Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna) and although it’s been an evolution, I can hardly believe how much more luxuriously Americans live than in the 1970-1980s when everyone was talking about how we had too much stuff!  Fixer Upper has its own blog.  We just loved the show this week about redoing a 100 year old restaurant. https://www.hgtv.com/shows/fixer-upper

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Cleaning out the book shelves--again

3 novels in Secrets of Mary’s Bookshop, HC

Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, PB

Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, PB

Alan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind, 1987, HC

Ulrich  Kellerer, One moment can change your life, 2017, PB

Viral Dalal, Choosing light, 2017, PB

Rebecca Smith|Galli, Rethinking possible, 2017, PB

Bret Stephens, America in retreat, 2014, HC

And one in the pile went back on the shelf as I was typing the list.  That’s what’s so hard about clearing out my office.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Sex is not a social policy

“Modern science shows that our sexual organization begins with our DNA and development in the womb, and that sex differences manifest themselves in many bodily systems and organs, all the way down to the molecular level. In other words, our physical organization for one of two functions in reproduction shapes us organically, from the beginning of life, at every level of our being.

Cosmetic surgery and cross-sex hormones can’t change us into the opposite sex. They can affect appearances. They can stunt or damage some outward expressions of our reproductive organization. But they can’t transform it. They can’t turn us from one sex into the other.”

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/03/21151/

You’re missing the point if you believe this is about Trump’s campaign

Eight years ago, Ian Bogost created a silly app for Facebook called Cow Clicker, and inadvertently collected a lot of data on people who signed on the play his time waster (by his admission). He still has it. This is not, in my opinion, about the Cambridge Analytica “scandal.” That hyperbolic hysteria only exists because of Trump’s presidency. Obama’s campaign did the same thing in 2012.   It’s a problem because millions of apps have been created, so no one really knows what has happened to that data Facebook users willingly gave away. If they weren’t trying to bring down Trump, it probably would have become an issue, although it shouldn’t have been happening.

He writes, “Cow Clicker’s example is so modest, it might not even seem like a problem. What does it matter if a simple diversion has your Facebook ID, education, and work affiliations? Especially since its solo creator (that’s me) was too dumb or too lazy to exploit that data toward pernicious ends. But even if I hadn’t thought about it at the time, I could have done so years later, long after the cows vanished, and once Cow Clicker players forgot that they’d ever installed my app.

This is also why Zuckerberg’s response to the present controversy feels so toothless. Facebook has vowed to audit companies that have collected, shared, or sold large volumes of data in violation of its policy, but the company cannot close the Pandora’s box it opened a decade ago, when it first allowed external apps to collect Facebook user data. That information is now in the hands of thousands, maybe millions of people.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/my-cow-game-extracted-your-facebook-data/556214/

In some ways, this reminds me of the Henrietta Lacks story, where her cell line was used without compensation to her and her dependents.  FB users gave away the data; FB then sold them and Zuckerberg became one of the richest people in the world.

Baltimore has highest murder rate—helps illegals with special fund

“Less than a year after Baltimore prosecutors ordered staff not to charge illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes because it could get the offenders deported, Maryland’s largest city will hire immigration attorneys to help those facing removal. It’s important to note that Baltimore has the nation’s highest per capita homicide rate and has been coined the deadliest big city in the United States by a mainstream newspaper. Nevertheless, a city panel approved spending $200,000 this month to pay for lawyers to represent illegal aliens with deportation orders. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh says in a local news report that the goal is for everyone to get due process. “We’re not making a decision as to their status, we’re making the decision to be supportive of individuals who live in our city,” according to the mayor.”

https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2018/03/city-highest-per-capita-murder-rate-starts-defense-fund-illegal-aliens/

Sentences that make you go, Hmmmm.  “During the early years of the Obama administration, Highlandtown residents were occasionally targeted, though by the end of his second term, Martinez and other immigrants here said, they felt more at ease.”  Yes, I imagine they did.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/05/20/529176360/facing-a-population-decline-baltimore-set-up-a-legal-defense-fund-for-immigrants

The mayor of Baltimore needs an expensive PR campaign to explain all of this. https://baltimorebrew.com/2018/01/10/pugh-hires-240-per-hour-media-consultant-with-city-funds/

Comparing Trump to Reagan--Heritage

“2017 was a banner year for conservative policy victories. On that score, President Trump can confidently stack his record right up there next to President Reagan’s first year.”

https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/the-incredible-trump-agenda-what-most-americans-dont-know-about-the-war-the

“By year’s end, the Trump administration had withdrawn or delayed 1,500 proposed regulations. It has made a difference. On Dec. 14, the administration reported that the regulatory rollback had saved the American economy $8.1 billion, and would save another $9.8 billion in fiscal 2019.”

Toys R Us eliminated its customer base—blames low birth rate!

“Competition is fierce among retail stores, and Toys R Us tried to respond.

“Just a few months ago,” reports USA Today, “Toys R Us CEO David Brandon had mapped out a goal of upgrading online sales, renovating stores and introducing augmented reality into the shopping experience.” It didn’t work. And in any case, that’s only part of the story.

Toys R Us did not just fall behind its competition. It promoted the eradication of its future customer base. One doesn’t need a Harvard MBA to see that that’s a bad idea.

You see, for years, Toys R Us funded Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading promoter and provider of abortions and contraception. This is a company that has many stores called Babies R Us!”

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/toys-r-us-contributes-to-its-corporate-death-wish

Also supports gay marriage. https://www.2ndvote.com/business-entity/toys-r-us/

https://www.mrctv.org/blog/toys-r-us-who-donated-planned-parenthood-blames-low-birth-rates-bankruptcy

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Facebook, Zuckerberg and data mining for votes

"In the last two elections, Facebook has sold its user data to Democratic and, apparently more controversially, Republican campaign affiliates. Google, Twitter, and Facebook have often been accused of censoring users’ expression according to their own political tastes. Civil libertarians have accused social-media and Internet giants of violating rights of privacy, by monitoring the shopping, travel, eating, and entertainment habits of their customers to the extent that they know where and when Americans travel or communicate with one another."


And or course, the Democrats weren't outraged when it was Obama and Zuckerberg getting together frequently.

"Unprecedented capital and revenue matter — both the fear of governments’ losing it and the hope of acquiring it. Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, is the world’s richest person, worth $112 billion. Bill Gates of Microsoft is second, at $90 billion, Mark Zuckerberg ($71 billion) is fifth. Civilization has never seen such Croesus-like concentration of personal wealth, and we are dumfounded by it."

More housecleaning

We took a load to Volunteers of America this morning, saying good-by to:

Kitty carrier—served our 3 cats from 1976-2016

Kitty litter box with detachable lid, bright pink

Small pillow with sides for the cat

Black drapery pole

Black men’s dress shoes size 8

Robert Bruce label sweater

Singer Sewing machine purchase in 1960

Rubber ring chair seat for surgery

puppy pads

small coffee maker

And then on to the Lane Rd branch of our library to drop off recent issues in big boxes of

various artist magazines

Architect

Preservation

JAMA

At the last minute I pulled out the 12 cup coffee maker that my mom gave me in the 1970s.  Not for sentimental reasons, but we have company coming, and I can always give it away later.

The bathtub grab bar will go up to the lake house.

My friend Sue wants the toilet seat and Marti wants the 4” rise for a toilet seat.

Monday, March 26, 2018

The children of Parkland

Parkland kids 

Actually, a lot of them are--but the MSM don't want to interview them because it might hurt the anti-gun lobby. Layers and layers of government failed them. Laws are useless if no one from the criminal to the sheriff to the school board don't follow them.

Sonja Ness says, “Why aren’t the folks marching to protest the complete and utter failure of “see something, say something”?
Why aren’t they marching in support of kids that have been bullied to the point of mental breakdown?

Why aren’t they marching for the repeal of the law that forces schools to turn a blind eye to corrupt students because Obama ruled it racist? (Oh wait, they did address this by going after Marco Rubio and his faith, who is leading the way in trying to get Obama’s law repealed)

Guess it makes way more sense to march to take away a Constitutional right for millions of Americans than to address the real problems..."

Washington Post—hysterical as usual

I could only laugh when WaPo's headline flashed on my I-pad. Cambridge Analytica had sent foreigners (gasp) to work in the U.S. Isn't that a racist allusion? Doesn't the Left love foreigners coming to our country, especially without "documents" and doing the work of Americans? Don't Google and Facebook hire foreigners with special visas to do jobs Americans are too dumb and uneducated to do, like computer programming, data mining and app design? And the very MSM folks who want global government and global economy are horrified that in 2014, before Trump was even in their sights and playing with their minds "Whistleblower Christopher Wylie said the “dirty little secret was that there was no one American involved in it, that it was a de facto foreign agent, working on an American election.” Obama's campaign had raised the bar for data mining in 2012, and WaPo just can't imagine that anyone could be more clever or devious than Obama!

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Reflections on the Pied Piper March

Pied Piper

The majority of gun deaths are suicides, not homicides. And the suicide rate for older white men is higher than any other group. Just keep that in mind as you reflect on the time media spent covering the march yesterday.  It's as true today as it was 26 years ago when this article was written.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1578415

You won't see any people organizing for men, but you will see them demonized and ridiculed in our media, in academe and by the left. Yesterday's march was solicitation for Democrat voters, not a response to a tragedy. (Never waste a crisis.) We saw children used and manipulated by the very organizations that have put them at risk.

On Valentine's day there was a massive failure of federal, state, county, and local governments. Yesterday we saw the pink hats, Planned Parenthood, the anti-gun and anti-Trump forces. That said, children are safer at school than anywhere else; but many are not safe at home. A child is more likely to be injured or killed by the fists and feet of a parent/guardian than a rifle smuggled in to his school.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Spring cleaning, 2018

I like to think I'm not a hoarder, but you should see what's coming up from the basement! A sewing machine (purchased in 1960) that I haven't used for 30 years. It was called a "portable," but could be used in a weight lifting class. I remember walking into a store in downtown Indianapolis and buying it, but have no idea how I got it home.  A 12 cup coffee maker that I haven't used in this house where we've lived since 2002.  A gift from my mother who was so sure I could make a good cup of coffee if I just had the right maker. A bread maker—don’t know where the directions are.   A bathtub grab bar that I bought for my dad's visit in 2000. Two very large pots for making chili (or something big like canning), never used. An electric skillet received as a wedding gift--1960. Punch bowl with 12 cups, maybe used twice in 50 years. A toilet seat, still in the box.

The rest of the accumulation under the stair well will have to wait for another day.  We’re tired. 

Listen to this NPR interview with the author of “Coming Clean,” and what it was like to live with parents who were hoarders.

https://www.npr.org/2013/07/29/206654538/-coming-clean-about-growing-up-in-a-hoarding-household

"Call Me By Your Name" and the phony MeToo movement

I guess with boys it’s OK?  This movie normalizes having sex with kids.

Matt Kessler, guest blogger,  writes”

I saw this Oscar-nominated movie and I can't live with myself if I don't warn you all about it.

I was aware that it dealt with a gay relationship, but not that it glamorizes pederasty: A 17-year-old boy has sex with a man about twice his age.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it 95% (critics) and 86% (audience), but I don't believe that. In fact I don't believe *anyone* could like this movie. Milo Yiannopolous would find it offensive. Kevin Spacey would walk out.

It literally normalizes sex between a man and a boy. It's set in Italy; was it easier to shoot it in a country where that's legal, than to change one digit in the dialogue to make the boy 18?

The setting and atmosphere are the only good things about the movie. Oh and there's a pretty waterfall in one scene.

The dialogue is tedious, and the pacing would bore a sloth.

In one scene near the end, the boy's father takes five minutes to say "I know and it's OK." He's the worst imaginable parent, and sitting through that speech was the longest five minutes of my life (and I've had root canal).

The best character in the movie was a photograph of Mussolini.

If the two main characters in "Call Me By Your Name" were edited out, leaving only pretty shots of the Italian countryside, the movie would be just a few minutes long and much better.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Today’s new robber barons

"The robber barons of the nineteenth century are disparaged today for their greed and power. But Amazon, Facebook and Google operate virtual monopolies, the influence of which exceeds the oil, rail, steel, and banking trusts of the Gilded Age. The chief difference is that companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, or Apple are worth more in inflation-adjusted dollars than were Standard Oil or U.S. Steel, and their global reach now affects 6 billion people, not a continent of 60 million." Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.hoover.org/research/camouflaged-elites

I can do This!


Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Prime age men not in the labor force

“ . . . the nonparticipation rate for prime-age men with only a high-school degree rose from 8.8 percent in 1996 to 14.9 percent in 2016 (a 70.3 percent increase), while the nonparticipation rate for prime-age men with some college or an associate’s degree rose from 6.8 percent in 1996 to 11.0 percent in 2016 (a 61.7 percent increase). The nonparticipation rate for prime-age men in the highest education group, who had a bachelor’s degree or higher, increased more modestly, from 4.1 percent in 1996 to 6.0 percent in 2016 (a 45.9 percent increase). Similarly, the nonparticipation rate for those in the lowest education group, who had less than a high school degree, rose only slightly, from 18.3 percent in 1996 to 20.3 percent in 2016 (only a 10.6 percent increase). “

https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev/econrevarchive/2018/1q18tuzemen.pdf

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Shipping books

Don't look under the bed; it's expensive. I found a few children's books that belonged to my uncle Leslie who died in 1999. I think I inherited them from my mother, some years before, and they had been in the family home.  Since I'm trying to clean out items, I decided to mail them to his daughter, Sharon, my cousin, who lives in Canada. Do you know how much it costs to send a package at "international" rate? It cost me over $37!!!  If I’d put them in the book sale at the library, she would have never known.  Freckles and Return of Tarzan plus a book of Bible stories and a cut out from a magazine.

image    

image

Monday, March 19, 2018

What would “basic income” look like?

basic income

The usual "welfare" consists of 6 or 7 programs, although there are actually about 120 transfer programs--TANF, Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, housing, Utilities, CSFP (packaged commodities for low income), School breakfast, lunch and snacks. That doesn't count all the non-profits and church programs. There are 8 states where this amounts to earning more than $25/hour, and no taxes. In most states it's worth more than a $15 minimum wage since it's tax free. It's a high of about $49,000 in Hawaii and low of $17,000 in Mississippi. Poor people aren't dumb--they'll probably object to their Democratic congressman if he tries to fool them with that.

TANF provides financial assistance to help pay for food, shelter, utilities, and expenses other than medical.

Medicaid coverage provides all-inclusive care for eligible children younger than the age of 19, with particular emphasis on primary and preventive care in keeping with its Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) methodology.

Other types of Medicaid insurance, such as the Healthy Start/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provide enrollees access to equivalent Medicaid coverage. CHIP is a bridge program that extends Medicaid enrollment to low-income or at-risk children and pregnant women who would not otherwise meet the eligibility requirements. CHIP covers nearly all costs associated with pregnancy, prenatal care and birth for income-qualified pregnant women of any age.

SNAP means supplemental nutrition, but you can eat quite well with it. You’d need a PhD in government speak to figure out the rules. https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility#What are the SNAP income limits?

WIC is Women Infants and Children as supplement for mothers with young children.

There are numerous housing programs.

Utilities is to help with costs of heating.

The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or  free lunches to children each school day. The program was established under the National School Lunch Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946.

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Don’t underestimate yourself or your audience

Wikipedia: "Saint-Saëns was adamant that the work, (Carnival of Animals which he wrote for fun in 1886)  would not be published in his lifetime, seeing it as detracting from his "serious" composer image. He relented only for the famous cello solo The Swan, which forms the penultimate movement of the work, and which was published in 1887 in an arrangement by the composer for cello and solo piano (the original uses two pianos)." He died in 1921, it was published in 1922, now one of his most popular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LOFhsksAYw

I no longer have a piano, so I enjoyed reading along with this.

World War I, an American soldier’s diary

At the end of this Library of Congress blog  https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2018/03/world-war-i-an-american-soldiers-journey-home/?loclr=ealocb  is a link to the amazing performance by Douglas Taurel based on the diary of a WWI soldier, Irving Greenwald.  It’s very moving and quite vivid.  You almost feel like you’re on the battle field with him.  We’re in the midst of remembering the centennial of WWI—and this is a worthy project.  At Lakeside last summer we had a week devoted to WWI.

This website explains how the author/actor Taurel prepared his script from the diary, which he says was extremely well-written. http://www.theamericansoldiersoloshow.com/a-soldier-life-in-word-war-i-irving-greenwald/

“Reading a soldier’s diary requires a tremendous amount of patience. For the soldiers of the First World War, the actual fighting took up a very small amount of their time. In reality, the life of a soldier in war is filled with a tremendous amount of minutia.  Reading a soldier’s diary requires time to digest all of that soldier’s life while in service, from his day-to-day life in training, through what it means to endure life in the trenches, to mustering heroic courage in combat.

For the Library of Congress’s commemoration of the centennial of the First World War, I was invited to write a new play based on the life of Irving Greenwald, a soldier from WWI. Greenwald was part of the Lost Battalion, and his diary is preserved by the Library’s Veterans History Project. I will perform a one-man play on Veteran’s Day.

Irving Greenwald left 465 days of his diary’s entries, and I set out in May to read all of them, with a goal to read ten days’ worth of his diary entries each day. I aimed to complete the entire diary in a little over a month. Some days I read more, and some days I read less. “

Because of my age, I did know veterans of WWI, although my earliest memories are of WWII. When I came across this blog, I thought about some of them that I knew, then pulled “War Record of Mount Morris” (1947) from my shelf, and although it covers about 500 soldiers that had a WWII connection to Mt. Morris, it includes a list from WWI, The Civil War, and Spanish American War.  Frank Aufderbeck lived next door to us on Hitt St. Don Clark was the grandfather of my nieces and nephews. Harold Knodle was the husband of one of my teachers. Many names on the list are familiar, although I didn’t know them personally.

Friday, March 16, 2018

Coffee and donuts helped us along

"Many hands make light work" has so many people credited with the saying, I don't know who originated it. But it's true. This morning I was part of a well organized Conestoga membership to hand address envelopes which were then inserted with invitations and information about our annual fund raiser for the Ohio History Connection added by others, then stamped by yet others, then boxed and taken to the post office. We were finished in two hours. Big job,and I have writer's cramp. Don't do much with penmanship anymore. A happy group.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Have low to middle income families recovered?

In a brief Google search to see if the low-income quintiles had yet recovered from the 2008 recession, I found a plethora of late 2017 articles in left leaning journals/websites, allowing the authors to cast blame on Trump. Then I lucked out and found a Kansas City Federal Reserve (10th district) study done during the Obama terms, but other Feds were doing similar studies. By the end of 2012, NO quintile had recovered, with the richest taking the biggest hit early in the recession, but low and middle income recovery just slid lower and lower. Low skills, prison records, drugs, the loose mortgage standards of the Bush years and the lack of resources to relocate all made a perfect storm for many low income workers. People who were previously middle-high income, were pushed into the low. A good review of recent history to keep your thinking clear. As near as I can tell from the secret code, this is 1st quarter 2013. Author is Kelly Edmiston.

https://www.kansascityfed.org/QcNUW/publicat/econrev/pdf/13q1Edmiston.pdf

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Can you fathom this level of evil?

Torres 

I wonder if we could get teens to march in front of her office to protest the killing; 30 N 1900 E # 2B200, Salt Lake City, UT 84132. Think of the classmates missing from their schools because of doctors who perform abortions and call it "medicine," or "women's health."

"Confronted with the idea that children subjected to partial-birth abortion — a procedure that allows doctors to kill a baby mere moments before birth — feel pain, and even cry during the process, Dr. Torres shared her secret for scream-free murders: you cut the child's vocal cords before you complete the rest of the "procedure."" Daily Wire.

How biased is your news source?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-biased-is-your-news-source-you-probably-wont-agree-with-this-chart-2018-02-28?

This chart for instance, is.  There’s no way that Washington Post can be considered an objective source.  .  . especially where Trump is concerned.

A good example of news selectivity based on politics is two current stories: 1) the prostitute and Trump and 2) NYC pulling armed security from the public schools.

The MSM cable and alphabet news will feature the prostitute story with interviews, discussions, panels, and Fox will report it as news with little additional stuff.  The issue of armed guards in schools and removing them will be a featured story on Fox with interviews with New York City parents and students whereas if it is mentioned on other cable channels, it might be a tag end after reporting the student walk out which is being funded by celebrities and various leftist organizations (that part won’t be mentioned, however).  So both stories are reported, selectively, and with different amounts of time and different “experts” and concerned.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

The perfect storm damaging boys who become stunted men

From the book by Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, “Boys Adrift: the Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men”

“Here’s a quick run-down on the five factors which are disengaging so many boys:

1) Changes in education. Over the past 30 years, American education has undergone three major changes which have had the unintended consequence of turning boys off school. Here we have space just to talk about one of those changes, namely: the acceleration of the early elementary curriculum. Thirty years ago, kindergarten typically was about activities such as fingerpainting, or playing duck-duck-goose, or singing in rounds, or going on a field trip to splash in a pond or chase after tadpoles. No longer. Today, kindergarten is first and foremost about learning to read and write. In other words, the kindergarten curriculum in 2007 looks suspiciously like the first-grade curriculum in 1977. Likewise, we’re now asking 1st-graders to do what we asked 2nd or 3rd-graders to do thirty years ago. And so on.

That acceleration of the early elementary curriculum took place without any awareness of recent neuroanatomical research showing that the different regions of the brain develop in a different sequence in girls compared with boys. The language area in the brain of a typical 5-year-old boy, according to a large NIH study published in 2006, looks very much like the language area in the brain of a 3½-year-old girl. Many 5-year-olds are simply not ready to sit for hours, learning to read and write – not because they’re dumb, but because they are BOYS. The result is that for many young boys, the first experience of school is a turnoff. I’ve watched this happen countless times. “Jason honey, why are you squidgeting and widgeting in your chair like that? Please stop, it’s very distracting. Damien, are you making that buzzing noise again? Please. Jason, what did I just tell you! Now look at Emily, she’s being so good, she’s sitting still and being quiet. Is that so hard for you boys? Can’t you please just SIT STILL AND BE QUIET!” The boys get the message that doing well in school means being more like a girl and less like a boy. But boys don’t want to be girls (just as girls don’t want to be boys). As a result, many boys develop hostile attitudes toward school – by the age of 6! – which are hard to change, particularly if parents and teachers don’t understand where those attitudes came from.

2) Video games. The average American boy spends 13 hours a week playing video games, compared to less than 5 hours per week for girls. That figure does NOT include time spent watching television. And that’s just the AVERAGE: many boys spend 15 to 20 hours a week, which means on a typical day they’re spending two hours or more in front of the PlayStation or the Xbox or the GameCube. We now have some extraordinary brain research demonstrating that boys who spend more than eight hours a week playing video games – which means, the majority of American boys – actually atrophy the area of the brain involved in motivation and concentration. They are more likely to prefer video games to reading a book, and more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, which leads to the next factor:

3) Medications for ADHD. In affluent suburbs, as many as one in three White boys today is taking a medication such as Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, or Metadate. Recent research from Harvard University and other prestigious research institutions suggests that when these “academic steroids” are administered at an early age, the end result may be damage to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens plays no role in cognition. The function of the nucleus accumbens is to translate motivation into action. If a boy has a damaged nucleus accumbens, he’ll look fine and he’ll feel fine. But he’ll be lazy – particularly if he stops taking those medications.

4) Endocrine disruptors in the environment. The average young man in the United States today has a sperm count less than half what his grandfather had at the same age. And, a typical boy in the United States today is more than twice as likely to break a bone compared with a boy thirty years ago – despite the fact that the boy today is less active. Researchers such as Dr. Shanna Swan at the University of Rochester have traced these changes to endocrine disruptors in the food our children eat and the water they drink. For example: what’s the composition of that clear plastic bottle that your bottled water is in? That bottle is made out of polyethylene terephthalate, a substance which mimics the action of female hormones. The result of drinking water out of clear plastic bottles is not only lower sperm counts and brittle bones, but diminished motivation and drive. That effect is seen only in boys, not in girls. Recent studies which I cite in the book show that endocrine disruptors lead to derangement of the motivational system in boys, but not in girls. (In girls, these same substances accelerate the onset of puberty, and may increase the risk of breast cancer later in life.)

5) The decline and disintegration of the masculine ideal. Forty years ago, popular evening TV shows included Father Knows Best and My Three Sons. Twenty years ago, The Cosby Show was a leading sitcom. Today, the most successful evening comedy show is The Simpsons. We’ve gone from Father Knows Best to Homer Simpson in a little more than one generation. I don’t believe that these shows caused the change in the way that men are viewed in our culture, but I do think that television and other aspects of popular culture reflect changing views of masculinity. Today, a boy doesn’t get much constructive guidance about what it means to be “a real man.” He can choose between boobs like Homer Simpson or slackers like the Matthew McConaughey character in Failure to Launch, or he can choose a thug or a bully as his role model – such as the personae portrayed by male pop stars Akon, 50 Cent and Eminem.”

http://www.singlesexschools.org/ultrashort.htm

Monday, March 12, 2018

The Loyal Judith has arrived. . . 1732

Just browsing around an internet site called e-books and texts (15 million books) and clicked on the University of Illinois collection and noticed an old government document for Pennsylvania about foreigners who'd taken an oath of allegiance to the province in the 1700s and to King George II. I checked my own record and found the Loyal Judith had docked in Philadelphia on Sept. 25, 1732, so I flipped the pages and there they were: https://archive.org/stream/namesofforeigner00egle#page/62/mode/2up/search/Judith. Different libraries submit their special collections, and U. of I. had 80,000+ in Illinois history, railroads, agriculture, rural studies, et. Lots of Canadian libraries, gov't libraries, special collections like comic books and children's, and special libraries For all its problems, the internet is amazing. Still, serendipity and flipping pages is not very efficient. Maybe there's a finding tool or index.


Sunday, March 11, 2018

Statistical outliers—The Swamp

I guess we know now how federal bureaucrats (aka The Swamp) came up with redefining Title IX and wanting mixed locker rooms. "The percentage of individuals living in the District of Columbia who identify as transgender is 2.8 percent—more than triple the percentage of those living in the next highest states of Hawaii or California (.78 percent and .76 percent respectively). And, the percentage of transgender individuals in the District of Columbia is more than nine times greater than the .3 percent living in North Dakota or .31 percent in Iowa." (Williams Institute, UCLA data)

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Churches founded by Jesus’ disciples or their disciples—the Other Catholics

The Coptic church in Egypt used to be one of the largest and best known Christian churches, second only to Rome, until the Arab invasion in 641. It was founded by the gospel writer, Mark, the disciple of Peter, and Coptic Catholics still have the succession of their Patriarch (Pope) from him to this day. The current patriarch is Anba Ibrahim Isaac. The 200,000-member Catholic Church has 14 dioceses in Egypt, including pastoral services for Latin, Melkite, Armenian, Chaldean, Maronite and Syriac Catholics. The Coptic Orthodox church is much larger--I'm assuming both claim St. Mark and all the early church fathers. Since the 1940s, many Coptic Christians have settled in the U.S., more are Orthodox than Catholic.

 https://aleteia.org/2016/12/13/5-things-to-know-about-coptic-christians/

The first European monarch to accept Christianity was King Tiridates IV (also called III) of Armenia. This church was established by Jesus' apostles, Thaddaeus and Bartholomew. Known today as The Patriarchal Armenian Catholic Church. Gregory Peter XX Ghabroyan was elected Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians July 24, 2015. He succeeds former patriarch Nerses Pierre XIX Tarmouni, who died June 25, 2015.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/april/documents/papa-francesco_20150409_sinodo-chiesa-armena-cattolica.html

http://www.lastampa.it/2015/09/07/vaticaninsider/eng/the-vatican/francis-condemns-complicit-silence-over-christian-persecution-36TPZflUNfin9JBkgoyXDL/pagina.html

A vacation from politics

A man from Ohio decided to give it all up because Donald Trump won--a stay at home version of moving to Canada. And he found peace, and a lake. He blocks all news from TV, radio, newspaper—won’t even allow his friends to discuss anything political.

Before our summer home in Lakeside on Lake Erie became expensive and modern, we used to have a peaceful week as renters with no TV, no radio, no newspaper, and no phone--and the car remained in the drive-way. The peace was a shock to the system. News addicts can do this any time, but once you take that first looksee, you're a goner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-too-little.html

Friday, March 09, 2018

Not quite Mom’s salmon patties

Salmon patties were a wonderful comfort food my mom often fixed—usually with creamed peas.  This isn’t her recipe, but sounds yummy.

6 oz. can skinless/boneless pink salmon, drained
2 T. diced onion
good pinch each of salt and pepper
1 large egg
1 T. buttermilk
2 T. cornmeal
4 T. all purpose flour
Veg. oil for frying

How to make it :

In a bowl, combine the salmon, onion, salt and pepper. Stir in the egg, buttermilk, cornmeal and flour. Combine well. Heat about 1/4″ oil in the bottom of a med. size iron skillet over med. high heat. Drop spoonsful of the salmon mixture into the hot oil and flatten out just a tad. Fry, in batches, about a minute per side or until golden brown. Drain on a paper sack or paper towel lined plate. Makes 10 patties.

Found at http://recipescup.com/attie/

Today is National Meatball Day

We’re going to the Fish Fry at Our Lady of Victory tonight so I’ve decided to have meatball sandwiches for lunch.

These are my favorite meatballs, although not what we’ll have for lunch today.

Sweet Sour Meatballs
(Christmas Eve 2000)

3 lbs. ground chuck
1 pkg. dry onion soup mix
2 eggs
1 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1 can (8 oz) sauerkraut, drained
1 can (8 oz.) whole cranberry sauce
1 bottle (12 oz.) chili sauce
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

Mix meat, onion soup mix, eggs and bread crumbs and form into meatballs. Brown the meatballs. Combine the sauerkraut, cranberry sauce, chili sauce and brown sugar.  Pour over the meatballs and bring to a boil. Turn into a casserole and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.  12 good size servings. This made a nice change from the usual roast or ham.  Was served with a potato casserole and a green beans/onion casserole.  From Columbus Dispatch.

[My notes: I couldn't find cans of the size requested, but I used the correct number of  ounces.  I would think the jellied sauce would work also--especially if you have someone in the family who doesn't like the texture of whole pieces of fruit in with the meat (I have such a person.)  I didn't use the sugar--cranberry sauce is pretty sweet, but taste it to see if yours needs it.  Mine made 24 big meatballs--if you made them smaller, would be more like appetizers.  I prepared the sauce the day before and just warmed it up and poured it over the browned meatballs after I put them in a 9 x 13 dish.  Froze the left-overs and they were fantastic in January.]

Thursday, March 08, 2018

Prager University videos that went viral in 2017

• Was the Civil War About Slavery? Col. Ty Seidule - 26.5 MILLION VIEWS

• War on Boys Christina Sommers - 17.8 MILLION VIEWS

• The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party - Carol Swain - 13.6 MILLION VIEWS

• Why I Left the Left Dave Rubin - 12.6 MILLION VIEWS

• How the States Can Save America - Jim DeMint - 10.8 MILLION VIEWS

• Black, Millennial, Female and... Conservative - Antonia Okafor - 9.8 MILLION VIEWS

• How Socialism Ruined My Country - Felipe Moura Brasil - 7.9 MILLION VIEWS

• Why Isn’t Communism as Hated as Nazism? - Dennis Prager - 7.6 MILLION VIEWS

• There Is No Gender Wage Gap Christina Sommers - 5.9 MILLION VIEWS

• Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings Ben Shapiro - 5.6 MILLION VIEWS

https://www.prageru.com/

Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Playing board games

Sometimes I'm really surprised at how "old" some of our problems are. Like face to face interactions. I wrote this at my coffee blog 9 years ago.
----------------------------------
I had the most delightful, surprising conversation with a clerk at Panera's this morning.

"Did you have a nice Christmas?" (me)

"Yes, we had a wonderful time? And you?" (him, 20-something, but looks younger)

"Yes, we did."

"Plans for New Year's?"

"Well, I'll just be doing things with the family. We're going to try out the board games we got Christmas."

"You mean, real board games, not computerized games?"

"Oh yes. My wife got Scattergories and my sister got the new Monopoly. Have you seen it? And I got (couldn't understand what he said)."

Imagine. An evening with family playing board games.

Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Celebrities more important than children

Medved show on reparations—click bait?

I like Michael Medved show, but he's dropped the ball on today's show which is about slavery, reparations and income disparity. It's beginning to sound like the radio equivalent of on-line click bait. His callers are poorly informed, repeating every meme they’ve seen or heard, and he's not doing much to correct them.

1) Slavery is a bigger industry today than in the 18th century and is still world wide, still primarily Africa and Asia. https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/region/middle-east-north-africa/ CNN estimates 40 million.

2) Reparations--how to hand out wealth for work your ancestors did when the U.S. has a million African immigrants a decade in the late 20th- 21st century who choose this as their country, but only 300,000 Africans came as slaves. Barack Obama would not get any reparations under the plan--no slavery in his background, yet 99% of blacks voted for him.

3) Income disparity between blacks and whites, or blacks and Hispanics virtually disappears if you control for marriage and education. A single mom with 3 children and a high school degree won't match or even come close to the income of a lawyer and doctor and 2 children, but that's who gets thrown in the mix when "households" are factored in these studies of income. Wealthiest households in the United States are not white, but Indian-American and Filipino-American.

Monday, March 05, 2018

What’s that smell?

In this week’s newsletter from World’s Healthiest Foods we find out what that strange odor is from urine after eating asparagus.

http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=12#healthbenefits

“One of the unique phytonutrients in asparagus is asparagusic acid. Asparagusic acid is the compound responsible for the urine odor that many people associated with asparagus. In chemical terms, asparagus acid (1,2-dithiolane-4-carboxylic acid) is unusually reactive due to the two sulfur atoms that are positioned adjacent to each other in the molecule. Among other things, this increased reactivity helps asparagusic acid break down rapidly and its derivatives are what researchers believe we smell after asparagus has been consumed.

However, it's important to note that people differ in three basic ways in terms of asparagus consumption and urine odor. First, there are differences in digestion while asparagus is inside our GI tract and differences in the absorption of asparagusic acid. Second, there are differences in the way we metabolize asparagusic acid if it gets absorbed up into our blood steam. And finally, there are differences in our ability to detect the presence of asparagusic acid derivatives. These factors can combine in such a way as to produce some unusual results. For example, one person might end up with significant amounts of asparagusic acid derivatives in his or her urine, but be unable to detect the odor, even when another person can!

There is one further important point that we would like to make about the urine odor of asparagus and asparagusic acid. This molecule has as its core component a sulfur-containing structure called 1,2-dithiolane. We have included asparagusic acid as a key nutrient in asparagus and we have placed this content about asparagus odor within our Health Benefits section because 1,2-dithiolane is a key structure for the formation of a key sulfur-containing organic acid and antioxidant called alpha-lipoic acid. In fact, it is the presence of 1,2-dithiolane that allows alpha-lipoic acid to participate as a cofactor in the enzyme activities of pyruvate dehydrogenase and alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase. Both of these enzymes and their activities help provide a critical doorway into the pathways of aerobic metabolism, which requires special antioxidant protection. While researchers do not yet have a complete picture of asparagusic acid in terms of its antioxdant function, the presence of 1,2-dithiolane in its structure suggests that this function will be involved in a major way. “

According to the newsletter, asparagus now has its own plant family named after it—the Asparagaceae family.

Read the rest of the newsletter (above link) for more details about the nutritional value of asparagus.

Sunday, March 04, 2018

Such a bargain, $1600!

I used to have a coffee blog and noted interesting things I overheard or saw at the coffee shops. I gave up adding to that blog sometime in 2014 because I gave up a habit of 60 years--I rarely go out for coffee anymore, so I don't have much to say at that blog. But I have a new source now of odd and unusual things. Things I hear at the gym. Like Friday. "So there was this watch for $3,000, but I got it for only $1600."  And here I was feeling smug for getting 1/2 price at Volunteers of America on a cute pair of corduroy jeans, name brand.  They had been $2.00, and I got them for one dollar.  A little snug—I prefer jeans with a little more space in the legs, but for $1.00, not bad.

image

Nikolas Cruz’ birth mother was drug addicted

Drug addiction problems followed Nikolas Cruz from before birth. He was violent even as a toddler. Very sad story.  His adoptive parents where older and paid $50,000 to the lawyer for the medical care and legal fees to adopt him, but he was a problem child from the beginning.  The Cruz family also adopted his half brother when the birth mother was in prison.

https://nypost.com/2018/02/27/alleged-school-shooters-mom-paid-50k-to-adopt-him-from-drug-addict/?

Feeling rejected? You’re not alone.

The Old Testament lesson in church today was from Isaiah 53. We have pew Bibles at UALC, but I also have one in my purse, which I opened. "He was despised and rejected by men," and in the margin I had written from some previous sermon or Bible study, "Reject or its root appears 120 times in the Bible." So if you're feeling rejected, you're in good company. I checked online and found a list of 100 verses about rejection.

 https://www.openbible.info/topics/rejection

Misinformation and disinformation on social media

I wonder who has been analyzing the Russian social media interference in the 2016 election, and just how retweeting disinformation or misinformation is determined. How reliable is that source that has caused so much angst and terror among supporters of Hillary Clinton and our own media?

I've been looking at other topics in Twitter, and one study done in the Arabic language on medical topics had 51.2% false and 48.8% true information. Another on STDs and medical information also had a number of bad jokes about sex from avatar and anonymous sources. Does this mean that Arabic speaking medical people have been duped by spies and foreigners or that people who joke about STDs are somehow a threat to security? What do we actually know about all kinds of misinformation on Twitter, FB, Snapchat, etc. whether nutrition, HIV or Hillary Clinton?

Irish-American Month

March is Irish-American month. I'm guessing that's about 25% of the U.S. and Canadian population. My Irish settled in Tennessee (which was part of N. Carolina) after Pennsylvania and arrived before the rush and decades before the Revolution, so I don't particularly identify as Irish. It was fun to visit Ireland about 12 years ago.

https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2018/03/irish-american-heritage-month-new-resources/?loclr=ealocb

1890 census data on population density of Irish.

The current census says about 11% of Americans report Irish ancestry, but that's because so many people don't know their heritage. Irish were very poor, spread out all over, and many immigrants did their best to forget their past. According to Wikipedia, the population of Ireland is about 6.3 million, but it is estimated that 50 to 80 million people around the world have Irish forebears, making the Irish diaspora one of the biggest of any nation. Historically, emigration from Ireland has been the result of conflict, famine and economic issues.

Subscription databases for finding Irish American heritage. https://www.loc.gov/rr/main/irishamerican/databases.html

http://www.electricscotland.com/history/world/tennessee.htm

If you go online and check Irish immigration/slavery, you'll see the liberals and academics poo-pooing the research that the Irish were ever real slaves. Yes, bought and sold for their labor by England so their land could be confiscated, but not REAL systemic slaves like the Africans. Well, tell that today to the millions and millions of sex slaves, child labor slaves, domestic slaves and agricultural slaves in numbers greater than the transatlantic 18th c. slavery. Yes, tell them that they aren't REAL slaves.

Saturday, March 03, 2018

The trouble with excuses. . .

If there were 1) no NRA, 2) a perfect screening database for legal gun ownership, and 3) no high capacity gun magazine [and there actually wasn't one], the Parkland shooter would still have killed 17 people, or more if all his plans and gun had worked properly [it jammed].

The failures, the reasons he was not stopped, and those people are dead, are
1) Sheriff Israel and his "leadership,"
2) the school board,
3) the superintendent,
4) the federal government "Promise" program,
5) the officer who guarded the perimeter instead of going into the school,
6) the FBI,
7) security guard who hid.

No matter how much you want it to be so, the anti-gun people can't blame the President, the NRA, the shooter's age, or even legal rifles. The result would have been the same if H. Clinton were the president. The difference would have been in the news media coverage and the social media memes whipping up the hate and hysteria.

9 easy stretches for back and hip pain

I think I’ve done all of these at various times.  It’s been a long time since my horse fell on me, but all I have to do is bend over to tie my shoe to remember.

https://blog.paleohacks.com/stretches-lower-back-and-hip-pain/#

image

Thursday, March 01, 2018

Remembering Srebrenica

Mick Wenlock writes:  “Every once in a while I find myself getting mad and irritated enough to want to dust off a subject I have written about many times. Every time some tight ass smug European opines that wanting to have firearms to resist government oppression is old fashioned, out of touch, ridiculous I grit my teeth. And then I just have to bring this out.

Nearly 23 years ago, in mainland Europe 8,000 men and boys were marched out by their government and massacred. This happened 400 miles from Rome, 990 miles from London, 700 miles from Berlin. 8,000 men and boys marched out, lined up and shot.

It was in Srebrenica a part of Serbia.

If those 8,000 men and boys had all been armed - even with shotguns, the Serbs could not have done it.

It's not 'ancient history" nor is it something that only happens in places like Rwanda or Syria. it happened right under the noses of the so called 'enlightened" European governments who did less than nothing. Despite having a Dutch Battalion of soldiers in the area posted to safeguard the civilians no less, they did NOTHING.

The next time some pompous twat speaks about how not trusting the government is stupid, paranoid or silly ask them to explain this to you.

The UN promised to protect those men and boys, western Europe sent troops and they all did nothing while the local government massacred them.

Sorry - just once in a while i have to remind myself of how close it all is.”

The sheriff, the superintendent and the school board

According to an agreement Sheriff Israel had with the school board and superintendent, juvenile arrests were cut in half--those 17 deaths could have been prevented. Cruz was never arrested for his clearly illegal behavior. If the Sheriff and the school had done their jobs, Cruz could have never bought those guns. Because of a November 2013 agreement, he had no criminal record.

http://jjie.org/2013/11/05/south-florida-squeezes-school-to-prison-pipeline/

Here's how you cut juvenile arrests in half in just 3 years--long enough for Nikolas Cruz to carry out his threats:

*Sheriff Israel said that he instructed BSO deputies to issue juvenile civil citations, not arrests;
*The BCSD’s own written policy encouraged handling even criminal activity “outside the criminal justice system”;
*The BCSD’s own written policy did not actually require arrests, even for felonies and serious threats to school safety;
*Cruz’s behavior included repeated disruptive behavior, violent outbursts, threats, and physical assaults on other students; and
*Cruz was never expelled or apparently arrested for this behavior.

https://www.redstate.com/sarah-rumpf/2018/02/27/the-broward-sheriffs-juvenile-arrest-conspiracy-might-actually-be-true/