In My Mind's Eye

This weekend was full of news stories, the biggest one being the U.S. and several other countries reaching a deal with the Iranian Government over it's nuclear program.  I'm not going to talk about that.  I think the deal speaks for itself.  I've decided to take on another, far less covered story. Crystal Mangum was convicted of Second Degree Murder.  (If you don't know her name, it's okay.  She faded into oblivion after April 11, 2007. Most of the major media outlets are not going to give her top billing.  It wouldn't really do much for their reputations.) Let me diverge off course for just a moment.  Not too long ago, my daughter was in a discussion with her TV Media teacher.  The teacher requires the students to have a news story to discuss every day, and this day, one of the students mentioned the miscarriage of justice in the Steubenville Rape case.  In the course of the discussion, my daughter mentions how false rape accusations lea...

In Three Years.  “If I didn’t care so much about our country, I would hope he would get the Republican nomination for president, because that would mean the end of the Republican Party." (Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, Rachel Maddow Show, October 31,2013) The next Presidential election is 3 years away.  The Primaries for that election are 2 years away.  And yet, I've seen a bunch of headlines in the last few weeks about Ted Cruz, and his ability to be nominated and to be elected President of the United States.  It's possible I'm suffering from Post Presidential Campaign Syndrome.  I'm tired of the campaigns and the politics of personal destruction that come with them.  Maybe that's why I'm trying to figure out why the Democrats are on a rampage against Ted Cruz running for President...in two years.  It seems that even though we just elected a President a year ago, we are still in campaign mode, and people like Harry Reid want you to know ...

I love football.  For six long years, I gave it up in protest.  Protest of both a quarterback and a coach, who I thought received far too many accolades for missing the coveted prize in the NFL:  The Superbowl.  I was ecstatic when the Eagles fired Andy Reid, and despite the team's less than stellar start this season, I firmly believe it was a decision that should have been made a long time ago.   I love football.   I have a passionate dislike for several teams in the NFL.  Most of this is due to a conference rivalry that dates back to when the NFC East was the hardest division to play in.  The Dallas Cowgirls (oops...boys), the NY Giants, and the Washington Redskins.  You can't be an Eagles fan and not hate those teams.  It's just not allowed. I love football. What I don't love is smarmy commentators who decide to use their national airtime, during a sport that remains the most popular in the U.S., to score political points, or wo...

At no point since it's passage, has the Affordable Care Act ever been approved of by a majority of the American people.  When it was passed, a majority of the American people didn't want it.  And while the numbers have fluctuated somewhat, it's always been majority against. The House of Representatives recently passed a Continuing Resolution to fund every aspect of government but the Affordable Care Act.  The Senate added an amendment restoring funding.  When sent back to the House, they compromised.  They delayed the implementation of the individual mandate for a year.  The Senate is saying they will table the bill, and the White House is saying if it passes the Senate it will be vetoed.   Who would be responsible for shutting down the government? By all measures of sanity and logic, it would appear that it is the Senate and the White House, not the House, that is perfectly happy to let the government shut down all over a health care bill that a...

I posted Steve Taylor lyrics to facebook last night, from his song "Whatever Happened to Sin". At the time, I was thinking about the church today, and how so many churches are preaching a feel good, social justice gospel in order to make themselves more acceptable to the masses.   Today I realized how appropriate those lyrics truly were,  not just to the church, but to our political scene today. I remember after the election, seeing posts on facebook where people were talking about how they didn't really speak out during the election, but now there were things going on they just couldn't keep silent about.  Those posts made me angry.  Most of the things that were so upsetting after the election were going on well before the election and during the election.  Suddenly deciding to speak up now, when the damage is already done, seemed to me to be a case of "too little, too late".  You see, I believe we have a duty to at least TRY to make a difference whe...

I am sorry if the name of this post offends my liberal friends.  Wait.  Nevermind.  No I'm not sorry.  The story I am about to share with you is a classic example of liberal logic at it's best. If You Send Your Kid To Private School, You Are A Bad Person. Yes, that really is the title of an article written and posted on Slate this morning.  The title itself is a joke, but surely the article can't be as bad as it's title makes it sound.  Right?  Wrong. If you feel up to reading it, please do so.  If not, I'm here to point out some of the more asinine statements made by Ms. Benedikt.   You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like  murderer bad—but bad like  ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid  bad. So, pretty bad. Let's start with the opening sentence.  You aren't as bad as the Ft. Hood Shooter, or even George Zimmerman, ...

My daughter was looking through posts on facebook the other night when she came across a term she didn't know:  Cisgendered.  I didn't have a clue either, so we looked it up. Cisgender  and  cissexual  (often abbreviated to simply  cis ) describe related types of  gender identity  where an individual's self-perception of their gender matches the sex they were  assigned  at birth. So we need a term to describe people who are okay with either having male sex organs or female sex organs.   I look around our country and watch politicians and regular people alike assign everyone they know to a group.  White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Male, Female, and now we have....Cisgender. There used to be a time when we encouraged our children not to label people based on the circumstances of their birth.  We told our kids not to judge a book by it's cover.  Now, all we do is separate our socie...

For two days now, I've debated on whether or not to write this blog.  There is way too much animosity and emotion in the subject I am about to discuss. On July 11th, the body of Darryl Green, 17 year old black male, was found rotting face down on the floor in Chicago.  Cause of death?  Gunshot wound.  His family says Darryl disappeared after refusing to join a gang. On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, black male, age 17, was shot and killed at close range after an altercation with neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman.  This happened in a gated community  in Sanford, FL. Both of these deaths are tragedies.  Both are young men snuffed out before their life ever really began.  Only one made national news, occupied the airwaves for months, and has resulted in the most vile language and threats. Why?  Because one of them involved a Hispanic male, the other was most likely black on black violence in a city where kids dying has become n...

How many people reading this truly remember September 11, 2001?  Do you remember exactly how you felt, or has the passage of time muted those feelings? My daughter said this past year, on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, that really, her class was the last one that truly remembers anything about that day.  She may be right, but even then, I think most of us have forgotten so much.  Especially those of us who weren't in New York City, Shanksville, or Washington D.C.   We were scared, in a way I don't think the American public has been scared since Pearl Harbor or the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Pearl Harbor was our entry to World War II.  The Cuban Missile Crisis gave stronger legs to the Cold War and also to our involvement in Vietnam.  9/11 gave us the ongoing war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act.   If you look at the numbers, at the time, for the approval of the Patriot Act, they were high.  People wanted to be safe. ...

I'm sure a lot of my more conservative friends will  take issue with what I'm about to write, but I've always been more interested in truth than in appeasing someone. I watched portions of the most recent Benghazi hearings. Several news organizations revealed the trail of emails that led to the final talking points released on the Benghazi hearings.  I think we can safely assume at this point, that the President isn't the one who ordered the talking points changed.  Whether or not he knew about it, whether or not he deliberately lied, are questions left for another day.  The orchestration of the lie, however, can be laid directly at the feet of the State Department.  Simply put, emails reveal that the State Dept. had issues with the the talking points, because they feared what Congress may say or do if it became known that we were well aware there was terrorist activity, and it was prevalent, in Benghazi.  One of the emails came right out and said it. ...

If you've been living anywhere outside of the Philadelphia area, odds are you know little or nothing about the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell that's been taking place the last few months.  You may not even realize that he was arrested in 2010, and that a horrific report by the Grand Jury was released in January 2011. Yesterday he was convicted on three counts of first degree murder in the deaths of 3 babies, who were born alive in his Philadelphia abortion clinic.  He snapped their spinal cords with scissors.  According to testimony, he did this to hundreds of babies, because it was easier to deliver them and kill them afterwards.   Late term abortions are difficult and dangerous, despite what the Pro-Choice movement would have you believe.  After suffering several lawsuits for malpractice, which he settled out of court for around 1.7 million dollars, Dr. Gosnell decided it was more profitable just to kill babies after they were born.  No chance of punctur...

I'm awake far too early on Saturday morning.  My oldest pet, Chewbacca, a typical dachshund, is in his twilight years.  I think he hurt his back again, because every once in a while he moves and lets out a yelp.  He woke me up.  So while I was sitting on the couch petting the little old man, I was thinking about Ed Schultz, President Obama, and the sky-is-falling crowd. We've heard multiple claims over the last few weeks about how bad Sequestration is going to be.  I guess the President forgot about his interview with the Des Moines Register, back in October, where he said this: So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place ... we're going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business. It will probably be messy. It won’t be pleasant. But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain. That sounds like someone who is so very much ups...