Sunday, December 22, 2019
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Saturday, November 30, 2019
The sense of faith
Suppose
you were born blind. You had the other 4 senses, but, have never been able to
grasp the concept of sight. You’ve reached the age of adulthood and throughout
your young life, those around you have tried to explain what it’s like to be
able to “see” the world. Yet, the idea of sight is just not something you can
imagine because your world has been limited to sound, touch, taste and smell. The
question arises; if you’ve never experienced something, can you ever believe it
exists? That’s the question asked by those people who don’t believe in the
existence of a divine being, or a “God.” Many people who are blessed with all 5
senses have difficulty with another type of sense. Let’s call it the sense of
faith.
We
often hear about people who have a sixth sense, often referred to as extra
sensory perception, or ESP. Generally called “psychic ability,” ESP supposedly
gives the possessor the ability to foretell the future and/or “see” past
occurrences. Well, in a sense (no pun intended), those who have faith in a
hereafter may be using a form of ESP to predict the future of mortal life when
it ends. Maybe true believers have reached a level of mental competence that
allows them to clearly envision that which their counterparts have not yet reached.
Is it possible that faith is a higher level of cerebral acuity?
If
you speak to a non-believer he might tell you he doesn’t believe in things he
cannot see. When I hear that argument I’ll ask if he’s ever seen gravity. When
he answers in the negative I’ll ask if he wants to test its existence by
stepping off a cliff. If he says he doesn’t believe that there’s power in
something invisible, I’ll counter with; can you see the wind? I’ll ask if he’s
ever seen the awesome power of gusts traveling at 60 or 70 MPH. Although the
doubter will often claim the science behind those invisible forces, he simply
cannot dispute that science doesn’t have all the answers to the universe. We
don’t even have the answers to ESP, and we certainly have no answers for what
happens to us after we shed this mortal coil.
Therefore,
using the premise that a sightless person finds it difficult to believe there
are forces around him that he can’t fathom; a faithless person may be grappling
with the same quandary. The blind man listens to the words of the sighted and
has serious doubts about whether there are emanations outside the darkness of
his limited existence. The faithless man may be undergoing a similar inability
to dig his way out of the darkness of spiritual skepticism. Personally, I’ve
always questioned the authenticity of an omnipotent and omniscient entity that
has created what we call the “universe.” My question has always been; “If God
created the universe, who created God?” In philosophy that’s what’s known as a
“first cause” question. If a chicken is hatched out of an egg; who laid the egg
that gave birth to the chicken?
In
my opinion, that’s a serious question if we are to use our innate intelligence.
It’s undeniable that life is complex and fraught with mystery. If you believe
in evolution it’s likely that our brains are still evolving, adding more
understanding of the world we were born into. According to evolutionary theory
we didn’t have 5 senses in the beginning, but accumulated them over the course
of tens of thousands of years as organisms changed and acquired the necessary
components to sustain life. How long has the concept of faith been around?
Let’s
say it began a few thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ. I use Jesus
because Christians, with 2.3 billion adherents, form the largest religious
group in the world. Next come Muslims with 1.8 billion; Hindus with 1.1 billion
and Buddhists with .5 billion. (Islam is the fastest growing religion and may
replace Christianity in numbers by mid-century.) Religious faith, being a
spiritual, rather than a physical entity, isn’t thought of as part of
evolutionary theory. Nevertheless, since it didn’t always exist, isn’t it
possible that it became part of our cumulative and necessary components needed
to continue the species? Where would we be in the hierarchy of human history if
we didn’t have the structured discipline of religion? Wasn’t the faith in a
higher power the result of the perils that existed in a barbaric society?
The
Bible is filled with references to infidels who paid the price for their
faithlessness. In the Old Testament, God demanded allegiance to his word and those
who denied him suffered grievously. Although replete with parables, the Scriptures
appear to be a road
Moreover,
in case you think religion belongs in the past because we live in a new age of
“reason,” the fact is that 84% of the planet’s population identifies with a
religious group. Furthermore, members of that demographic are generally younger
and produce more children than those who have no religious affiliation. Hence,
the world is getting more religious, not less. Accordingly, that “sense of
faith” may become the ESP of the future.
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Monday, November 18, 2019
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Monday, August 26, 2019
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Monday, August 12, 2019
Friday, August 9, 2019
Monday, August 5, 2019
Friday, August 2, 2019
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Friday, June 28, 2019
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
The primal scream of climate change fanatics
In 1968,
Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich wrote “The Population Bomb,” which
became a bestseller. The premise of the book was that worldwide famine was going
to destroy humanity. According to the professor, this frightening scenario was
scheduled to happen in the 1970s and 1980s, due to overpopulation, as well as other
major societal upheavals. Hmmm…, sounds like he was giving mankind about 12
years before Armageddon would occur. Who does that remind you of? Anyway, his solution was immediate action to
limit population growth! We know how well that worked out!
During the
1970s we entered a period of academic conjecture on a subject that came to be
known as global cooling. This theory was based on studies which suggested that
a buildup of glaciers was occurring and could cause imminent cooling of the
Earth’s surface leading to another Ice Age. Glaciers are made up of fallen snow that, over many years, compresses into
large, thickened ice masses. Presently, glaciers occupy about 10 percent
of the world's total land area, with most located in polar regions like
Antarctica, Greenland, and the Canadian Arctic. Glaciers are remnants from the
last Ice Age, when ice covered nearly 32 percent of the land, and 30 percent of
the oceans. At 10 percent we’re doing well.
As we moved into the 1980s another climate
scare was taking root. Acid
rain gave new meaning to the term the “sky is falling.” According to the
alarmists of that era there was a form of precipitation that contained an
acidic quality with elevated levels of hydrogen ions. They claimed that the
acid rain was having harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals and our
infrastructure. Nothing much was said about walking in the rain, or drinking
rainwater. After a series of studies and the emergence of
a new term called the “ozone hole,” life went on pretty much the same as
always.
That is until around the late 1990s when a new phrase
was adopted by the usual suspects who seem to live for the chance to predict
disaster in every human encounter with nature. This time it was global warming
that pushed their body temperature toward a steep incline. No, they admitted,
the Earth is not cooling, it’s warming. The term refers to the emission of
greenhouse gases being released by those huge, greedy and irresponsible
companies prospering in the modern industrial economy. This “warming” would,
according to the teenaged scientific experts carrying signs on college
campuses, melt the polar ice caps and flood major cities around the world. Keep
in mind; this was only about 20 years after they were convinced that glaciers
were growing sufficiently to turn all human and plant life on the planet into
icicles.
When every other catastrophic prediction failed,
the chronic complainers needed to find a descriptive term that would cover
everything bad in the universe. Voila! Around 2010, Climate Change burst onto
the scene with an evangelical fervor that would capture the imagination of even
the most committed infidels. After all, the use of such a comprehensive term
for any environmental occurrence would give them cover no matter what happened.
Devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean? Climate Change! Lower than normal
temperatures in southern states? Climate Change is the culprit! Sweltering temperatures in northern states? You wanna
guess what caused it? Tsunami in the Philippines? You know it has to be Climate
Change!
The fact that these calamities have occurred
since countries began to record weather hundreds of years ago has no effect on
those who have been systematically convinced that it all started,
coincidentally, just as they approached puberty. Armed with a new and extremely
formidable weapon, which appears to demonstrate their inflexible moral
authority over “climate change deniers,” these fanatics feel compelled to
destroy anyone who doesn’t kneel before their truculent orthodoxy. You may have
gotten a taste of it on social media if you took an opposing position when
someone declares the world will end in about a dozen years. Ruthless attacks
will be your reward for daring to have a contrary thought.
You will be verbally pummeled before being
warned of merciless violence if those arbiters of reason every run into you on
the street. They will research your background, hoping to find something to
smear you with, or, they’ll find out where you work and inundate the place with
lies and threats of boycotts and/or public demonstrations calling for your
termination. This is how the left wing wins its battles in our country today. Rational
thought is a loser for them. They can only score victories by threats and
intimidation. It’s a type of primal scream emanating from the angry mob mentality
being relentlessly nurtured by a corrupt political system, aided and abetted by
a dishonest media determined to hold onto power, even if the country is lost in
the effort.
If I should suddenly meet my maker after this
article is published, don’t believe it was an accident, a suicide, or a result
of natural disaster. Not that you’ll be able to solve the cause of my abrupt
expiration, since there’ll be more suspects than even Lieutenant Columbo could
handle. The illustrious detective only dealt with logical reasoning and
forensic science, neither of which has any influence on the mental state of a
political extremist.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Friday, June 14, 2019
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Monday, June 10, 2019
Sunday, June 9, 2019
Thursday, June 6, 2019
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Friday, May 31, 2019
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Friday, May 24, 2019
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Friday, May 17, 2019
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Friday, May 10, 2019
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Saturday, April 20, 2019
Friday, April 19, 2019
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Monday, April 15, 2019
Monday, April 8, 2019
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Monday, April 1, 2019
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Da Vinci painting of Christ sells for $450 million
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The
Louvre Abu Dhabi might seem to have all you could ask for in a world-class
museum. Its acclaimed design shades its galleries under a vast dome that
appears to hover over the waters of the Persian Gulf. Inside are works by
Rembrandt and Vermeer, Monet and van Gogh, Mondrian and Basquiat.
Yet the work that
the Louvre Abu Dhabi once promised would anchor its collection is conspicuously
absent: “Salvator Mundi,” a painting of Jesus Christ attributed to
Leonardo da Vinci.
Few works have
evoked as much intrigue, either in the world of art or among the courts of
Persian Gulf royals. First, its authenticity as the product of Leonardo’s own
hand was the subject of intense debate. Then, in November 2017, it became the
most expensive work ever sold at auction, fetching $450.3
million from an anonymous bidder who turned out to be a close ally
and possible stand-in for the ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman.
Now, the painting
is shrouded in a new mystery: Where in the world is “Salvator Mundi”?
Although the Abu Dhabi culture department announced about a
month after the auction that it had somehow acquired “Salvator
Mundi” for display in the local Louvre, a scheduled unveiling of the painting
last September was canceled without explanation. The culture department is
refusing to answer questions. Staff of the Louvre Abu Dhabi say privately that
they have no knowledge of the painting’s whereabouts.
The Louvre
in Paris, which licenses its name to the Abu Dhabi museum, has not been able to
locate “Salvator Mundi,” either, according to an official familiar with the
museum’s discussions with Abu Dhabi, who declined to be named because of the
confidentiality of the talks.
Officials in the French government,
which owns the Louvre in Paris, are eager to include “Salvator Mundi” in a landmark exhibition this fall to mark the 500th anniversary
of Leonardo’s death and say they are still holding out hope that the painting
might resurface in time. (A representative of the Louvre declined to comment.)
But some Leonardo experts say
they are alarmed by the uncertainty about the painting’s whereabouts and
future, especially after the announcement from Abu Dhabi that the painting
would go on display to the public.
“It is tragic,” said Dianne
Modestini, a professor at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and a
conservator who has worked on “Salvator Mundi.” “To deprive the art lovers and
many others who were moved by this picture — a masterpiece of such rarity — is
deeply unfair.”
Martin Kemp, an Oxford art historian who
has studied the painting, described it as “a kind of religious version of the
‘Mona Lisa’” and Leonardo’s “strongest statement of the elusiveness of the
divine.”
“I don’t know
where it is, either,” he added.
Noting that it
was never clear how Abu Dhabi might have acquired the painting from the Saudis
in the first place — whether by a gift, loan or private sale — some have
speculated that Crown Prince Mohammed might simply have decided to keep it. The
Saudi embassy in Washington declined to comment.
The 33-year-old crown prince may not be the painting’s first
royal owner. Believed to have been painted around 1500, “Salvator Mundi” was
one of two similar works listed in an inventory of the collection of King
Charles I of England after his execution in 1649, Professor Kemp said. But the
painting disappeared from the historical record in the late 18th century.
The painting sold at the record auction
later turned up in the collection of a 19th-century British industrialist. It
had been so heavily painted over that “it looked like a drug-crazed hippie,”
Professor Kemp said, and it was attributed at the time to one of Leonardo’s
followers. In 1958, it was sold out of that collection for the equivalent of
$1,350 in today’s dollars.
The claim that the painting was the work of Leonardo himself
originated after a pair of dealers spotted it at an auction in New Orleans in
2005 and brought it to Professor Modestini of N.Y.U.
She stripped away overpainting, repaired
damage made by a split in the wood panel, and restored details. Among other
things, one of Jesus’s hands appeared to have two thumbs, possibly because the
artist changed his mind about where the thumb should be and painted over the
original thumb. It had been exposed by scraping later on, and Professor
Modestini covered the thumb she believed Leonardo did not want.
Its new attribution to
Leonardo won the painting a spot in a retrospective of his work at the National
Gallery in London in 2011. Two years later, a Russian billionaire, Dmitry E.
Rybolovlev, bought it for $127.5 million — less than a third of what he sold it
for in 2017, when it was auctioned in New York by Christie’s.
Now the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s
failure to exhibit “Salvator Mundi” as promised has revived doubts about whether it is Leonardo’s at all,
with skeptics speculating that the new owner may fear public scrutiny.
An expert on Leonardo’s
paintings, Jacques Franck, sent letters to the office of the French president,
Emmanuel Macron, raising doubts about the attribution. Mr. Macron’s chief of
staff, François-Xavier Lauch, wrote back that the president “was very attentive
to the preoccupations.” Others have argued that the painting was so
extensively restored by Professor Modestini that it is as much her work as
Leonardo’s.
“Nonsense,” she said in an interview,
calling these “ridiculous claims.”
Auction house
contracts typically include a five-year authenticity warranty. But the
extensive public documentation and debate before the 2017 sale would make it
difficult for the buyer to recover the payment by challenging the attribution
to Leonardo.
The anonymous
buyer at the auction in New York, Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin
Farhan al-Saud, was a little known member of a distant branch of the Saudi
royal family with no publicly known source of great wealth or history as a
major art collector. But he was a close friend and confidant of Crown Prince
Mohammed. A few months after the auction, the royal court named Prince Bader as
the kingdom’s first-ever minister of culture.
Christie’s
initially sought to guard Prince Bader’s identity so closely during the bidding
that it created a special account number for him that was known only to a handful
of the house’s executives. But contracts and correspondence obtained by The New
York Times showed Prince Bader to be the anonymous buyer.
American
officials familiar with the arrangement later said that Prince Bader was in
fact acting as a surrogate for Crown Prince Mohammed
himself, the true purchaser of “Salvator Mundi.”
Prince Mohammed’s aggression and impulsiveness have recently
come under new scrutiny in the West after American intelligence agencies
concluded that he ordered the killing last fall of the dissident Jamal
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was ambushed and dismembered by
Saudi agents in a consulate in Istanbul. But by the time of auction, the prince
had already shown a taste for pricey trophies, paying
$500 million for a yacht and $300 million for a
chateau in France.
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne
When I was growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, there was an area, about half a mile downtown from me, known as "The Bowery." One of the most elegant areas of the city during the 1800s, by 1900, the Bowery devolved into low-rent concert halls, flop houses, beer gardens, brothels and streets that became the living quarters for hundreds of people with no visible means of support.
These days, people in those circumstances are called "homeless" or "temporarily un-sheltered." In those days they were known as Bowery Bums.
The word, bum, simply refers to someone who refuses to work and tries to live off of others. Those who either chose, or were thrust into such penury, were also called beggars and tramps. Such references were made during a time in our history when euphemisms were rare.
Today, there are euphemisms for just about every activity that, if given the specific title, would be deemed offensive to civil discourse, also known as polite conversation. Hence, in a continuing effort to soften our language and distort reality, we find words that make us feel better about who we are and how un-judgmental we can be.
Those who are extremely overweight are not referred to as obese or fat. Instead, a man would be called heavy-set or husky, while a woman would be full-figured. People who used to be called handicapped or crippled are now labeled physically challenged.
The famous comedian Henny Youngman told a joke about his brother-in-law who claimed to be a diamond-cutter. Later, it was learned that he was in charge of mowing the lawn at Yankee Stadium. Ed Norton, the famous sewer-worker from "The Honeymooners" television show, introduced himself as "an engineer in subterranean sanitation." Employees are never fired from their jobs; they are "let go."
When I was a young lad, people who were physically attracted to the same sex were known as homosexuals. Now they are gays and lesbians. The late English author Quentin Crisp, who was openly gay, was also very open about the use of softened language. "Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission; they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head," he said, adding, "Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne."
Those who are extremely overweight are not referred to as obese or fat. Instead, a man would be called heavy-set or husky, while a woman would be full-figured. People who used to be called handicapped or crippled are now labeled physically challenged.
The famous comedian Henny Youngman told a joke about his brother-in-law who claimed to be a diamond-cutter. Later, it was learned that he was in charge of mowing the lawn at Yankee Stadium. Ed Norton, the famous sewer-worker from "The Honeymooners" television show, introduced himself as "an engineer in subterranean sanitation." Employees are never fired from their jobs; they are "let go."
When I was a young lad, people who were physically attracted to the same sex were known as homosexuals. Now they are gays and lesbians. The late English author Quentin Crisp, who was openly gay, was also very open about the use of softened language. "Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission; they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head," he said, adding, "Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne."
In days of yore, we never even heard of someone being able to change from one sex to another, but when it became surgically possible it was called a sex change operation. Soon, the term was considered objectionable, so it became "gender reassignment." Once upon a time, if you supported taking the life of a child in the womb, you were pro-abortion; if you didn't, you were anti-abortion. Now, you're classified pro-choice or pro-life.
Someone who has died is said to have passed away, bought the farm, given up the ghost, kicked the bucket, or, as the great Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, "shuffled off this mortal coil." When ending the life of a pet it's called "putting him/her to sleep."
When the mob wants to put someone to sleep, they put a "contract" out on him. They don't want to murder the guy, they want him "whacked," "hit," "taken for a ride," or "fitted for a cement overcoat." The bad guys don't get sent to prison; they go to correctional institutions.
In military terms, people and places bombed out of existence have been "marginalized." When innocent civilians are killed during a war, it's known as "collateral damage."
Slums and ghettos have been euphemistically excised from the language and reborn as economically depressed or culturally deprived environments. People who violate our laws by sneaking across our borders are no longer "illegal aliens," they are "undocumented immigrants."
When taxpayers became aware of the term "earmarks," which are pork barrel projects intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, it became an epithet for wasteful spending. Therefore, it needed a new name, so it was magically transformed into "legislatively directed spending." All of the foregoing is meant to be more than a linguistic exercise; it's about questioning where we are as a society.
It's about our refusal to deal with reality, preferring instead to pretend that what is happening before our eyes can be creatively denied by the use of more "tolerant" language.
In other words, if we can find a comfortable substitute for the truth, we can avoid facing it. This doesn't make me sick; it makes me lose my lunch.
In other words, if we can find a comfortable substitute for the truth, we can avoid facing it. This doesn't make me sick; it makes me lose my lunch.
Mexico braces for new caravan
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is bracing for the possible arrival of the “mother of all caravans,” even as doubts arise over whether the group of Central American migrants will be all that big.
Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez Cordero has said a caravan of migrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala could be forming.
“We have information that a new caravan is forming in Honduras, that they’re calling ‘the mother of all caravans,’ and they are thinking it could have more than 20,000 people,” Sanchez Cordero said Wednesday.
But a WhatsApp group calling for people to gather Saturday in El Salvador to set off for Guatemala only has about 206 members.
Activist Irineo Mujica, who has accompanied several caravans in Mexico, said reports about “the mother of all caravans” were false, claiming “this is information that (U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen) Nielsen is using to create fear.”
His group, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said in a statement there was no evidence the new caravan would be that large, noting “there has never been a caravan of the size that Sanchez Cordero mentioned.” Indeed, past caravans hit very serious logistical hurdles at 7,000-strong.
He and others suspect the administration of President Donald Trump may be trying to fan fears of a big caravan to turn the U.S. national agenda back to the immigration issue.
Honduran activist Bartolo Fuentes, who accompanied a large caravan last year, dismissed the new reports as “part of the U.S. government’s plans, something made up to justify their actions.”
Later Thursday, Honduras’ deputy foreign minister, Nelly Jerez, denied that a “mother of all caravans” was forming in her country.
“There is no indication of such a caravan,” Jerez said. “This type of information promotes that people leave the country.”
A caravan of about 2,500 Central Americans and Cubans is currently making its way through Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas. The largest of last year’s caravans in Mexico contained about 7,000 people at its peak, though some estimates ran as high as 10,000 at some points.
Mexico appears to be both tiring of the caravans and eager not to anger the United States. It has stopped granting migrants humanitarian visas at the border, and towns along the well-traveled route to Mexico City sometimes no longer allow caravans to spend the night.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Thursday that Mexico is doing its part to fight immigrant smuggling.
“We are going to do everything we can to help. We don’t in any way want a confrontation with the U.S. government,” he said. “It is legitimate that they are displeased and they voice these concerns.”
Sanchez Cordero has pledged to form a police line of “containment” around Mexico’s narrow Tehuantepec Isthmus to stop migrants from continuing north to the U.S. border.
The containment belt would consist of federal police and immigration agents, but such highway blockades and checkpoints have not stopped large and determined groups of migrants in the past.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Heroes yesterday and today
I'm not old enough to remember the mood of the country during
World War 2, but America's sentiments can be readily understood by viewing any
of the movies made during the war against the Axis powers in Europe. Even
during the 50's, a decade after the troops were back home, the films continued
to portray the greatness of our country and its fight for freedom around the
world.
It was a time of John Wayne, James Stewart, and Betty Grable; major stars
whose patriotism was self-evident in the roles they played and the additional
time they spent supporting the troops.
It was a time when men shed their blood fighting on the
battlefield and women backed them up with their sweat and tears in defense
plants from coast to coast. It was a time when families prayed together and
prominently displayed flags in front of their homes to proudly show their faith
in God, their love of country and their support of the men in uniform.
Legendary comedian Bob Hope was entertaining the troops at military bases
around the world, accompanied by other major Hollywood celebrities. It was a
time in our history when we knew the good guys from the bad guys. It was the
time of heroes.
What happened to those heroes? Since the turbulent 60's with its
anti-American rhetoric and its drug induced revolution against propriety, we
have witnessed an erosion of values that has sought to turn religion into a
prohibited practice and patriotism into a foolish philosophy only engaged in by
fascists.
When Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992 it was the beginning
of a new era in politics, one in which patriotism or morality was no longer
relevant to a Chief Executive’s résumé. Clinton’s widely disclosed burning of
the American flag on foreign soil during the Vietnam War and his highly
publicized affair with Gennifer Flowers didn’t stop voters from electing him
over George H.W. Bush, a devoted family man, fighter pilot and hero in World
War 2.
Clinton’s continuous immorality in the Oval Office soon became
regular headlines and fodder for late night comedy shows. Finding humor in a
President’s infidelities and sexual harassment of interns seemed to blend with
the moral tenor of the times. In 1996, his reelection over Bob Dole, another
hero of WW2, further exemplified the cultural decline of our country.
Voters
preferred youth over experience; decadence over decency. Once again, our
country had made its choice, signifying that people were rejecting the
principles that formed the foundation of our society.
This is not to suggest that former presidents were completely
virtuous in their private lives; a short history lesson would disabuse us of such
naiveté. However, most mature Americans can understand, albeit, not approve of,
the rapacious appetite of people high on the food chain. What’s most important
for our future is to trust that our leaders truly love our country.
When
President Obama traveled the world telling foreign nations that the US is not an
exceptional country he was attempting to embarrass the very country that gave
him the megaphone to voice his lack of gratitude.
When the Clintons began padding their foundation with mega-bucks
from foreign entities, with quid pro quos attached, they were selling out the
country that gave rise to their predatory influence. Not coincidentally, the
Clintons and the Obamas were conspicuously contemptuous of our military. That’s
not surprising when you realize that the military’s purpose is to defend us
against enemies, foreign and domestic.
Yet, what happens when the domestic
enemies are occupying the highest positions in our government? I’m proud to say
the answer to that question occurred on November 8, 2016, when voters, aka,
“the deplorables,” fed up with the leftwing orchestrated demolition of the US,
elected Donald Trump to breathe new life into a once thriving capitalist republic
that was being systematically suffocated by the malignant purveyors of global
socialism.
After 8 years with a President and a First Lady who evinced shame
for their country, and faced with a successor that would follow the same path
toward deterioration and mediocrity, America looked for a leader that would
restore patriotism, with all of its bountiful rewards, to the bloodline of that shining city on a hill.
It was a time
when leadership was needed; a time to eschew the political correctness that was
crippling us. It was a time for speaking clearly and acting decisively. The
vicious rage against Trump’s election is merely the embittered rejoinder of a corrupt
institution which, hitherto, felt certain they were invulnerable to exposure.
Thankfully, the United States of America, that glorious beacon of freedom in a
hostile world, has always found its heroes in times of need.
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Democrats desperate to find something on Trump
Now that the Mueller Report couldn't find anything to pin on President Trump, some Democrat members of the House have decided to pry into every move he's made and everything he's done since he was born. Rep. Adam Schiff has accused him of being a hitman for the Mafia; being a leader of a Mexican drug cartel and of being a stepchild of former Russian Dictator Joseph Stalin.
It's been obvious since the beginning that they are desperate to find something, but they are really pushing it with this latest charge.
It's been obvious since the beginning that they are desperate to find something, but they are really pushing it with this latest charge.
Red light cameras - Highway robbery!
You've easily reached the other side of the street before the opposing traffic gets the green go-ahead signal. You continue along, confident that you cleared the byway lawfully. About a week later, you find a traffic summons in your mailbox ordering you to pay $150 fine for passing a red light.
According to the edict, you were caught by a camera that has your picture and plate number branding you as a red light-runner. Stunned, you stare at the legal notice and try to remember when this so-called violation occurred. That may not be easy because the set of facts described above is a common driving pattern that most people engage in without a second thought.
The yellow light is a warning that the red light will follow in a matter of seconds; therefore, if the driver is near enough to the cross-street to pass it within seconds, he/she is most likely to continue driving, rather than jam on the brakes and perhaps get rear-ended by another car. Nevertheless, you've been summoned by the Big Brother of that city, and you can either mail in the money or plead not guilty and try to fight it in court.
That could mean taking a day off work, sitting around in a crowded courtroom, and pleading your case against an intractable video that will coldly indict you for something you barely remember doing. If you had been pulled over by a police officer, you could have debated the reasonableness of being ticketed under the circumstances.
Furthermore, if you lost the debate, you would at least have recalled the incident. Inasmuch as taking a day off work may cost you more than the ticket price, you're likely to simply grimace and pay it. It seems to me that being convicted by a machine is antithetical to everything we learn about fair play and justice.
You can't argue with a contraption if the authority paying for the robotic tyrant is determined to agree with the judgment made by the device. We're told it saves money because it requires fewer cops to enforce traffic laws, allowing them to stay vigilant for more serious crimes. Using that logic, we should have numerous cameras in high-crime areas to assure the public that felony prevention is more important than minor traffic infractions.
The reason that won't happen is because a city can bring in a lot more revenue by picking off the errant motorist, who is most likely able to pay the fine, than by arresting itinerant dirtbags for burglary or purse-snatching, since they are most likely to be unemployed and, hence, unable to contribute to the local treasury.
Simply put, the hardworking, law-abiding taxpayer is a lucrative target for municipalities that are always looking for more cash to feed their insatiable appetite for other people's money. Thankfully, people are fighting back against this legalized robbery of the citizenry. Lawsuits have been filed in several cities not only claiming, but proving that some cameras have shorter yellow-light durations than state law requirements in order to catch drivers running red lights and boost ticket revenue.
The implications of those findings are frightening when you realize that a city can increase revenue enormously simply by tweaking the time frame by a split-second, thereby making violators out of lawful citizens and ripping them off with impunity. In some areas of the country people are becoming violent, vandalizing the pole-mounted cameras by literally shooting them off their lofty perches.
One notorious resistance operative has been wearing Halloween masks to keep the authorities from proving who was operating his vehicle. Some of these tactics, assisted by other forms of public outrage, are working. Two large cities, Los Angeles and Houston, have recently banned the red light surveillance systems.
Yet New York City, where I worked as a cop for 20 years, has increased the number of metallic peeping Toms. In the past, when the city wanted people to pony up more dough, the word came down from the mayor's office to the police commissioner's office to the division office to the precinct captain that there was dissatisfaction with the lack of "traffic enforcement" in the city.
Those were code words for "tell your subordinates to get those pens working or expect a lot more supervision!" Now, it's all done with the click of a camera.
City to die for
Weir takes the reader back 60 years to the gangster heydays of Dallas and astounds him with the vivid images of the underworld and police workings only a former cop might know.
Tommy Crandon is the lead mobster of the time, while Harold Battle runs a gambling unit with a cut going toward Crandon. When Crandon demands a bigger piece of the pie, Battle has no choice but to stand his ground or look the fool in front of his own minions.
But Crandon can't stand the affront to his power-he owned the Dallas underworld and most of the police force-so he puts a price on Battle's head, and the novel becomes some freakish event after event of surviving an assassin's tool.
This is how Battle gets the nickname, Cat. There is, of course, the "incorruptible" cop, James Huntley, who joins with Battle in the struggle against Crandon.
Theme:
During the 1940s, the virgin territory of Dallas, Texas, was being set up as a prime target for invasion by Mafia bosses from New York and Chicago, including Lucky Luciano, the "capo di tutti capi."
Conspiring with a recognized leader of a petty gang of gamblers and hoods in Dallas, Luciano intended to move in with drugs, prostitution, gambling, union infiltration, and other rackets.
However, another Dallas gambler, Harold Battle, engaged in a continuing struggle to keep his city free from a Mob stranglehold. Together with an incorruptible police detective, Battle fought back against incredible odds to save his city and his life.
Available in paperback at Amazon.com
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Police work in black and white
It was about 3:00 am, and I was working the midnight shift with my partner on radio motor patrol. Suddenly, as we turned a corner, we saw a car at the next intersection slowly moving past the red light. As we drove up on the auto, it had come to rest halfway across the avenue and stopped, as if it were parked.
We exited our car and approached carefully. The man behind the wheel was slumped over it and appeared to be sleeping with his foot on the brake. Luckily, there was no traffic at that late hour on the side street in the middle of the single-family-home area. Afraid to alarm the man, I reached into the car and turned off the engine, while my partner placed our car in the intersection with the roof lights on.
When the engine stopped, the man jumped in his seat, slamming his foot on the accelerator, confirming my reason for grabbing the keys. It was evident the man had been drinking, stopped at the light, and fell asleep. I ordered him to slide over, and I drove the car to a space across the street. After checking his license, I found that he lived just a few houses away. He was apologizing for his actions and pleaded with me not to arrest him.
My decision was to give him a ticket for passing the light and let him off down the street at his driveway. After receiving the summons and walking unsteadily toward his front door, he made some kind of snide comment toward me as he looked back. I dismissed it as someone who should have been grateful instead of angry, and I continued on patrol with my partner.
A few days later, while working a day tour, I received a command to report to the station house. When I did so, I was ordered to report to the division office in regard to some sort of investigation. My partner was assigned a foot post until my return. I was ushered into an office and seated in front of a desk being occupied by a ruddy-faced lieutenant in civilian clothes. He was holding a crumpled piece of paper on which was scrawled a letter of complaint against me.
"Officer Weir, do you have a problem with black people?" he asked. "Excuse me, Sir?" "I have a letter here from a man who says you used a racial slur when giving him a ticket," he growled, tossing the letter on the desk for me to read.
"Lieutenant, I assure you that's an outright lie," I protested after perusing the ragged document. "Really?" he replied, furrowing his brow. "I doubt the man would go through the trouble of sending a letter unless he was outraged by your insult." "Sir, I was very respectful toward that guy." I went on to explain what happened, but the lieutenant seemed intent on finding me guilty.
"Who were you working with that night?" he asked. "Officer Parker," I replied, as he picked up the phone and called my precinct. "I'll find out what your partner has to say, because let me tell you, he could be in as much trouble as you if he didn't report your actions."
For the next 30 minutes, he read me the riot act, determined to add my scalp to his belt. "Lieutenant, Officer Parker is here," said the woman on the intercom. "Send him in," he barked. The door opened, and my interrogator looked up in shock.
"You're Officer Parker?" he said to the tall black man standing in the doorway. "Yes, Sir. I was told to report here." Looking as though his fish had just popped off the line, the supervisor was at a loss for words. "Er...were you with Officer Weir when he gave a ticket to this man the other night?" "Oh, yes, I remember this," Parker said confidently. "This guy is saying Bob called him what? That's baloney! I've worked with Bob long enough to know that's a lie, and I was there that night. This man was lucky he wasn't arrested."
The lieutenant glared at me and snatched the letter back. "Officer, why didn't you tell me your partner was black?" "Sir, you didn't ask me. You just assumed I'm guilty because the complainant is black and I'm white." "Get the hell out of my office!" he sneered, unwilling to admit his own knee-jerk bigotry.
On the way back to our precinct, I told my partner that lunch was on me. "Why?" he inquired. "To thank you for being black," I replied with a grin. "Aw, don't mention it," he quipped. "It's my pleasure.”
Rackets, scams and con men
Several scenarios were used to show how often people are defrauded out of their savings. The presentation reminded me of a TV series from the 60s called “Racket Squad.” At the opening of each show, the narrator began with this warning: “Confidence games are the carefully worked out frauds by which con men take more money each year from the American public than all the bank robbers and thugs with their violence.”
When the luncheon ended I asked Brian Wolfe to come over for a video interview because the essential info he and Mr. Johnson imparted just might educate some people about the cunning tactics of con artists. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, which may save unsuspecting potential victims a lot of grief. The following are some examples of the type of schemes used to defraud decent people who may be looking for love in all the wrong places.
One variety of scams takes advantage of people looking for romantic partners, often via dating websites, apps, or social media, by pretending to be prospective companions. They play on emotional triggers to get their victims to provide money, gifts or personal details. Dating and romance scams often take place through online dating websites, but scammers may also use social media or email to make contact. They have even been known to telephone their victims as a first introduction. Scammers typically create fake online profiles designed to lure you in.
They may use a fictional name, or falsely take on the identities of real, trusted people such as military personnel, aid workers or professionals working abroad. Dating and romance scammers will express strong emotions for you in a relatively short period of time, and will suggest you move the relationship away from the website to a more private channel, such as phone, email or instant messaging. They often claim to be from other countries, but travelling or working overseas.
Scammers will go to great lengths to gain your interest and trust, such as showering you with loving words, sharing “personal information” and even sending you gifts. They may take months to build what may feel like the romance of a lifetime and may even pretend to book flights to visit you, but never actually come. Once they’ve gained your trust and your defenses are down, they will ask you (either subtly or directly) for money, gifts or your banking/credit card details.
They may also ask you to send pictures or videos of yourself, possibly of an intimate nature. Often the scammer will pretend to need the money for some sort of personal emergency. For example, they may claim to have a severely ill family member who requires immediate medical attention such as an expensive operation, or they may claim financial hardship due to an unfortunate run of bad luck such as a failed business or mugging in the street.
The scammer may also claim they want to travel to visit you, but cannot afford it unless you are able to lend them money to cover flights or other travel expenses. To protect yourself from these scams, never send money to someone you haven’t met in person. Always consider the possibility that the approach may be a scam, particularly if the warning signs listed above appear.
Try to remove the emotion from your decision making no matter how caring or persistent the “prospective partner” is. Be cautious when sharing personal pictures or videos with prospective partners, especially if you’ve never met them before. Scammers are known to blackmail their targets using compromising material. Be wary of requests for money. Never send money or give credit card details, online account details, or copies of important personal documents to anyone you don’t know or trust.
Avoid any arrangement with a stranger that asks for up-front payment via money order, wire transfer, international funds transfer, pre-loaded card or electronic currency, like Bitcoin. It is rare to recover money sent this way. Do not agree to transfer money for someone else: money laundering is a criminal offense.
If you think you’ve been a victim of a scam you can contact the Denton County District Attorney’s Special Crimes Unit at 940-349-2725
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)