The Teachable Moment

Now THIS is what I'd call a definite "teachable moment." Nice Deb: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.

This picture tells the story, but if you’re interested in a good verbal beat down, Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker can oblige:

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?’

Compare to President Bush.

Spread this around, people! More bloggers need to see it!

Hat Tip:

Nice Deb

American Thinker

More Than a "Beer Summit"

Let’s Talk About Race



“Blah, blah, blah, blah,” said President Barack Obama for 55 minutes. What was being said were important answers to questions about the need for health care reform, but all the reporters and viewers seemed to hear was, “Blah, blah, blah, blah.” Then, the president took one more question. Forget the past 55 minutes. Even if he had not used the adverb “stupidly”, it still would have been the headline. Why? It was about race. Race is always better than “blah, blah, blah, blah” where the media is concerned. Commentators and reporters went nuts. Headline writers had a field day.

Further it was something new. The old saw says there are several things one shouldn’t watch while they are being made. Among them are laws and news. The health care debate is a process, not easily understood while watching and reporting. This confrontation between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley was already national news. The president admitted that he fanned the flames with his comments. The story grew legs.

The media, however, for the most part missed the point. The question posed the president probably would not have been asked to an Anglo president. If it had been asked to an Anglo president, it would have been brushed aside. Some say Obama should have done just that, but Obama does not run from the tough stuff. It was really remarkable that an African-American sitting president would weigh-in on what would seem to be a local issue involving a police officer who conducts classes on racial profiling and a scholarly professor who has researched and written extensively on the subject of being black in America. They may be the right people for what the president called a "Teachable Moment".

The media even coined the name of the afternoon meeting between the sergeant, the professor, the vice president, and the president, calling it the “Beer Summit” at the White House, something Obama attempted to dismiss. Once again, the media missed the point. No other president, except one who is African-American and also a former member of academe, would have set up such a gathering.

After the early evening meeting Thursday, July 30, 2009, the media set about to make something out of what beer was ordered by each one present, as if it somehow mattered. (Notably, Vice President Biden ordered a non-alcoholic beverage.) The Austin American-Statesman tease on the Friday front page asked, “With the suds, was there substance?” Good question. It comes closer to getting at the truth. The page A2 story taken from the New York Times, while short, reported the good news that there was “thoughtful conversation.”

Why is this Cambridge Mass./Beltway story worth discussing in Austin, Texas? The issue of race divides us here, just as it does in Cambridge and the rest of the country, and the media may be feeding the flames with less-than thoughtful, sound-bite reporting. And the viewers, readers, users of the media respond in kind.

American-Statesman readers took a dim view of Thursday’s “happy hour”. “Wow! Now this is something in which the president of the United States really needs to involve himself,” one reader wrote in the online comments. “My wife and I had a disagreement several days ago. Should the president invite us to the rose garden for a beer and reconciliation?” Another said, “Obama is the one who acted ‘stupidly’, and this is his way of sloughing it off on his friend in a media ploy. "Agree to disagree" is just another formidable way of saying the race card still gets played in [sic] Amerika.”

Who is playing the race card? I am afraid we all still do in one way or another. An African-American friend, a former news photographer, and a native Austinite worked the morning show at one of Austin’s TV stations. He’d ride his bicycle or walk to work in the early morning hours around 4 a.m. He would tell me wearily, “It happened again.” Even though he walked the same route every morning, police would stop and “ID” him every few months, asking him why he was out that time of the morning. One day, I felt compelled to day, “I’m sorry” because nobody else would.

Race is still a wedge, and there are those who would use it to divide us. Rush Limbaugh is on the air here on KLBJ-AM (Fox Radio). Tell me he does not fuel the furnace. The president with no apologies had the will to take on this all-too-familiar issue, talk about it public instead of whispers, and attempt to address it on the front page or as the lead story in national and local media.

Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports:

Based on what people have heard about the incident
in Cambridge, 27% of blame Gates, 25% fault the police officer, 13% volunteer both or neither, and 36% offer no opinion. However, more people disapprove (41%) than approve (29%) of the president’s handling of the situation. And by a margin
of about two-to-one, more whites disapprove (45%) than approve (22%).

Yet Obama is widely liked by the public on a more personal level, with close to three-quarters (74%) saying they like the kind of person he is and the way he leads his life. Asked why, among the most frequent responses offered are impressions that he is honest, has integrity, is a good father and is intelligent.

Looking through different lenses, racism may be a bigger issue in many ways than “blah, blah, blah, blah” (Health Care Reform). Both issues need serious, transparent attention. Much of the media wouldn’t/couldn’t focus on the most pervasive part of the story. It was not a “beer summit”, but it might be a new beginning.

© Jim McNabb, 2009

Another week comes to a close..

Okay,


So, another week draws to a close; it was a amazing one for me. We celebrated my mom's birthday and I was able to spend some time relaxing because I didn't have any appointments. That allowed me some time to recharge for the weeks ahead. Although, I have to admit I haven't done very well when it comes to exercise and stretching my muscles. There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to do it all, as I have explained in previous posts.. I guess I have to set new priorities.


Today, I had a interesting morning. Previously, I had set the 6: 30 am episode of Joni and friends to tape on my TiVo. Surprisingly, I woke up just as it started to tape. This episode featured a new hero of mine, Robin Hiser who up until today I didn't really know her. You see, Robin was born with down syndrome and like some friends I know, she is doing some remarkable things despite her disability.


But first, let me ask you a question.. What do you honestly think of when the word Down Syndrome comes into question? Mental retardation, low IQ, are some of the common responses when asked such a question. But like most people with disabilities, Robin strives to break down said barriers within minutes of meeting someone.

When she was born, doctors immediately brought up the idea of putting her into an institution. This was the typical recommendation of the times, considering that most people with down syndrome wouldn't be able to contribute to society. Her parents disagreed.

Please take the time to view this story.. I know you will be truly blessed. In fact, I know I was. So much so that I tried to paraphrase her story. But I just couldn't. It's better if you hear it straight from her mouth

I encourage you to visit the website and watch this video

http://www.joniandfriendstv.org/video.php?id=5

Speculation That Will Give You the Shivers

Disclaimer: Just as the author of this article and the creator of the video each individually state, I am NOT claiming that Barack Hussein Obama is THE antichrist. I have certainly written plenty of posts that reveal the fact that he has "the spirit of antichrist," but I would not go so far as to claim that he IS THE antichrist.

Keep in mind that this is another "Talk Wisdom Reports - You Decide" post.

With that said, please read the following World Net Daily article and view the video there: TESTING THE FAITH
Did Jesus actually reveal name of the 'antichrist'?
Viral video makes Hebrew word connection to latest White House occupant

There are several more videos below, on the menu of the initial Youtube video that are creepy to view and think about as well.

One is called, "Obama Tells America - "Serve Satan." This will floor you!

Those who grew up in my generation may recall the uproar over a certain Beatles song. When it was played backwards, the message said, "Ha ha Paul is dead." If I remember correctly, it was the "I am the Walrus" song. When you click on the video here, you will know why I brought this up.

From the beginning (re: the speculation that Obama is the antichrist), I have maintained the belief that he is not. However, I could be wrong. The truth is, pre-tribuation Christian believers do not think that they will be here when the antichrist is ultimately revealed. We believe that the Rapture occurs first.

This does not mean that we can't call Obama's policies evil. Perhaps we can even go so far as to call Obama, the person, evil.

According to the Bible, Jesus told us that there are many with the "spirit of antichrist" already in the world. I personally think that this is very true about Obama.


1Jo 2:18
¶
Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

When I first started protesting against Obama as a candidate, the main reason was because of his hideous pro-death-to-unborn babies stance.

Jesus certainly didn't parse any words when he spoke of those who would offend "one of these little ones." Killing them in the womb is drastically offensive to them - it ends their lives before they are even born! Jesus spoke harshly of such people:


Mat 18:6
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and [that] he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Mar 9:42
And whosoever shall offend one of [these] little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
Luk 17:2
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

Today, there is information being debated about the current health care (a.k.a. the ObamaSCARE HELLcare) bill and whether or not it includes additional taxpayer monies going to fund abortions.

The outrageous audacity of Congressmen who could vote for such a horrible holocaust astounds me!! The fact that they would use OUR MONEY - through taxation - to fund more abortions just makes me absolutely ill!!!

If this monstrosity of a bill passes, only Jesus will be able to come to the rescue and save our nation from doom and peril. Of course, only He can save these people (who will vote for it) from their hideous sins.

Jesus: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

That's it for now. Perhaps I will return to this post to include more detail later.

Monkey King

Obama Exposer Disappears Off Internet

I noticed this last night but was too tired to do an additional post. Today, WorldNetDaily has an article about it.

TheObamaFile.com, an extensive information depot questioning Barack Obama's eligibility to hold the office of president, has vanished off the Internet, and its publisher believes the political end is also near for the commander in chief.

"This guy is coming down, there's nothing anybody can do about it," declares Parker Shannon, a 70-year-old retiree who has documented alleged violations by Obama for the past two years from his home in suburban Boston.

But Shannon stresses his decision to shut down the site had nothing to do with any kind of pressure from the government.

"The Obama camp didn't get to me. They can't," he told WND. "What got to me is my fellow Americans, the cheap bastards."

"I'm disappointed," he said, explaining he lives on Social Security and a small amount of retirement money. "I just am tired of doing what I'm doing, and I get 50 e-mails a day telling me I'm a great patriot and they're praying for me. I don't want to hear it. Just send me $10."

Shannon says he spent 60 to 70 hours a week on his efforts and received only $240 in the entire two years despite displaying prominent donation buttons. The home page now just has a logo and the words, "Closed. Lack of support."

"There was no warning. This is freaky scary. " said Tony Licursi of Kennesaw, Ga., of the sudden shutdown. "There was more info there than [Roman historian] Tacitus could've ever dreamed."

Shannon says he decided to pull the plug on the Obama File after celebrating his 70th birthday last night, and he is now going to reassess what to do with his reams of information, including the possibility of writing a book.
"I've got more stuff on Obama than anybody on the planet. I'm not gonna let it go to waste," he said, adding, "I'm not doing it for free anymore."

Shannon's site didn't claim Obama is not an American citizen. In fact, it clearly stated, "Obama is a citizen. He's just not a natural born citizen."

The phrase "natural born citizen" is key, because the Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

I wonder. Despite his protest to the contrary, did the ObamaBORG thugs get to him? Or, is it more plausible to speculate that maybe he was paid off to remove it from the Internet?

One of the reasons that I happen to think it is the latter is because the site was chosen to be a part of the National Archives (can't recall the exact title) regarding Obama's presidency. Why would a "patriot" take down a site so quickly - without warning (and without posting any additional pleadings for donations) and take such a library of information away from public view?

Perhaps the author does want to write a book (he certainly has accumulated a huge amount of information to do so) and taking the information off the Internet is the only way to be able to sell such a book in the future.

In addition to this development, I have also found a WorldNetDaily radio broadcast that discusses Lou Dobbs demand for Obama to show us the birth certificate, plus more about the overall issue of eligibility for POTUS.

More:

BORN IN THE USA?
Guess how many ways to get Hawaii 'birth certificate'
Some required nothing more than assertion from an adult

Hat Tip:

WorldNetDaily

Buttology 1

(Perhaps the next time the space toilet needs fixing, like what had to be done last week, astronauts may be required to take a spacewalk. Image courtesy of NASA.)

A fantasy table of contents for the fantasy first issue of BUTT, now renamed Buttology, a fantazine for the spatial study of waste.

*

The Rise of Public Composting Toilet  Freshkills Park Blog
“Installation of composting toilets in public facilities is catching on. In New York City, The Bronx Zoo and Queens Botanical Garden have been operating restrooms with composting toilets, with no need for sewer lines, for the last few years. The technology in both facilities is made by Clivus Multrum and resembles a conventional toilet, except that it uses only 3-6 ounces of water, in combination with a bio-compostable foam, for flushing.”

*

Montreal’s Wastewater Treatment: A History of Problems  Spacing Montreal
“While it’s an impressive system in terms of its scope and capacity, the treatment process itself leaves much to be desired. In fact, it’s actually one of the worst in Canada. A national ‘report card’ issued by the Sierra Club in 2004 gave the city’s treatment process a grade of F-. The only other city to receive a grade worse than Montreal was Victoria, a place which doesn’t even have a treatment process in place yet.”

*

Nomadic Spaces: The Afghan Sewer Kids of Rome  BBC
“Italian police have found more than 100 immigrants, including 24 Afghan children, living in the sewer system beneath railway stations in Rome.”

*


(Image courtesy of MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory.)

Trash Track  MIT
“Trash Track relies on the development of smart tags, which will be attached to different types of garbage in order to track in real time each piece of waste as it traverses the city's sanitation system. The goal of the project is to reveal the disposal process of our everyday objects and waste, as well as to highlight potential inefficiencies in today's recycling and sanitation systems. The project will be exhibited at the Architectural League in New York City and in Seattle starting September 2009.”

*

LooWatt  Virginia Gardiner
“Today, 40% of the global population lives without toilets. In most places, scarcity of water renders sewer systems impossible, while ad hoc human waste disposal spreads waterborne illnesses that prey upon millions, and cripple developing economies. It is crucial to address the global sanitation crisis with creative solutions. While many NGOs are hard at work installing composting eco-toilets for those in need, a continual challenge is to motivate communities to look after their new toilets. By turning human waste into a high-value commodity, energy, the Gardiner CH4 offers plenty of incentive to sustain itself.”

*

The Geopolitics of Space Toilets  The Guardian
“[Veteran cosmonaut Gennady Padalka] told Novaya Gazeta newspaper that officials had rejected his request to work out on the American exercise bike during their pre-training mission. Worse than that, they had also ruled that American and Russian crew members should use their own ‘national toilets’, with Russian crew banned from using the luxurious American astro-loo.” The situation may have improved since reading this.

*

Religious Freedom vs. Sanitation Rules  NYT
“For the last two and a half years, Mr. Crislip, a planning supervisor for the state’s Environmental Protection Department, and local sewage authorities have had more than 30 meetings in a futile effort to persuade members of the sect here in Cambria County, about 80 miles east of Pittsburgh, to upgrade outhouses next to a schoolhouse so they comply with state sanitation codes.”

*


(Image courtesy of Bureau E.A.S.T.)

Fez River Project  Bureau E.A.S.T.
“The City of Fez Department of Water and Power (RADEEF) is currently implementing a new system which will channel the city’s water sewage towards two treatment plants. Thereby, the Fez river will soon stop receiving backwater and regain its potential as a public amenity. If rehabilitated, its impact will be inordinately salient to the unique urban context of Fez. Indeed, the medina’s intra-mural population not only lacks public open spaces, but is also experiencing a rapid deterioration of its environment due to over-densification and aging public infrastructure.”

*

Soft Disaster  NYT
“The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm. But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.”

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Poo Power to the People  The Guardian
“Lünen, north of Dortmund, will use cow and horse manure as well as other organic material from local farms to provide cheap and sustainable electricity for its 90,000 residents.”

*


(Community urinalysis, one of NYT Magazine's ideas of the year in 2007.)

Mapping Urban Drug Use  OSU College of Agricultural Sciences
“A team of researchers has mapped patterns of illicit drug use across the state of Oregon using a method of sampling municipal wastewater before it is treated. Their findings provide a one-day snapshot of drug excretion that can be used to better understand patterns of drug use in multiple municipalities over time. Municipal water treatment facilities across Oregon volunteered for the study to help further the development of this methodology as a proactive tool for health officials.”

*

Tips for the next issue will be much appreciated. We're especially looking for built works, thesis projects, entries submitted to (ideas) competitions and proposals of a highly speculative nature.

Obama's Citizenship Questions Heating Up

Be sure to look at the videos over at Repubx: Media Coverup Over Barack Obama Birth Certificate Revealed

According to Alan Keyes' Loyal To Liberty blog, there is a standing challenge to debate the Obama eligibility issue.

I am happy to read that despite great pressure to "JUST SHUT UP," Lou Dobbs of CNN is not backing off of the demand to see Obama's Certification of Live Birth.

The Canadian Sentinel: Lou Dobbs Not Backing Off Obama B.C. Demand

Hat Tips to all blog links above.

*******

Update:

Take a look at Leo Donofrio's latest blog post:

Natural Born Citizen: The Relevant Obama Admission

Excerpt:

With all the new media attention swirling around the issue of Obama’s eligibility to be President, I thought it might be helpful to re-release an important blog post I created back when my law suit was pending before SCOTUS. I’ve done this for two reasons.

1. The image that contains Obama’s admission of his birth status having been governed by Great Britain is being scrubbed from the web. It was highlighted originally at Obama’s own Fight The Smears website which has now vanished. The relevant admission appeared just below the Certification of Live Birth which he used to declare he was born in the US.

2. The admission by Obama that his birth status was governed by Great Britian is the one fact which the main stream media has NEVER acknowledged. In all of the coverage on the web and on radio and TV nobody will talk about it. Instead of discussing this admission openly, they mock the entire movement. It’s the new Soviet form of sarcasm. They’ve found a new way to censor people, just act like a bunch of bullies in a sandbox and pretend you are in kindergarden. Kick sand in the face of those who won’t do your bidding and threaten anybody else with sand in their face if they don’t laugh along.

And here's more:

It’s hardly a fringe concept to expect and demand that the Commander in Chief was never a citizen of another nation.

It was Obama who originally said his birth status was governed by Great Britain, not me. He said it. He proved it. Now it’s like the emperor’s new clothes. Nobody in the main stream media has the guts to discuss it openly.

I originally posted the following on December 5, 2008 – the date SCOTUS discussed my case in private conference.


‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

Read that last line again.


“That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…”


That’s an admission that Great Britain “governed the status” of Barack Obama, Jr. He has chosen to highlight this on his own volition.
And this leads to the relevant question:

HOW CAN A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN’S STATUS BE “GOVERNED” BY GREAT BRITAIN?

A natural born citizen’s status should only be governed by the United States. This is the core issue before the Supreme Court of the United States.

*******
Evening Update:

Cross Action News: Birther Issue Explodes

Encouragement: Just Be Yourself

Welcome Back~

Over the years, I continue to be amazed at how much God has blessed me in my life. All too often, people go through their life wondering what their to do in this world. I am very grateful that God allowed my gift for writing to surface right away; that way, I was able to harness my craft as well as see my personal growth through it all. I am not the only person to be blessed with this gift. A recent article highlights the remarkable story of a 12-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who undergoes art therapy. During this process, not only does he discover a God given talent, but realizes the importance of being yourself.

A basic note:Typical art therapy consists of a therapist helping the patient maneuver through the strokes and movements required to complete the drawing. The trouble with this is the therapist finds themselves doing most of the work, while the patient is along for the ride!

Take a look at this story here: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09204/985720-58.stm?cmpid=news.xml

Outrage! Flight 93 Islamic Hijackers "blocks" in Memorial!

Memorial Project still helping the hijacker fix his disguise



After denying for 4 years that the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 will contain 44 inscribed memorial panels (equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists) the Memorial Project has announced a new design that appears to collapse three of the panels into one:


Artist's depiction of the slightly altered design for the Sacred Ground Plaza.

[If you are a newcomer, the Plaza sits in the position of the star on architect Paul Murdoch's giant Islamic crescent and star flag. They call the giant crescent a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle--what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11--is completely unchanged. It is still a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, still pointing to Mecca.]

The focus of the Plaza is the two part Memorial Wall that follows the path of Flight 93 down to the crash site. As before, the lower section of wall contains 40 memorial panels, inscribed with the names of the 40 heroes. Instead of being small translucent panels set into the wall, they will now be 8 foot tall slabs. Nice.

The symbolically significant change is in the separate upper section of Memorial Wall that will be inscribed with the 9/11 date. In the original design, this separate upper section of wall contained three additional inscribed memorial panels:


Elevation view from original Sacred Ground Plaza design PDF.

The wall on the left is designated: “WALL WITH INSCRIBED NAMES ON FOLDED BAND OF TRANSLUCENT MARBLE.” The opening between the two sections of wall is marked “TRAIL,” and the wall on the right is designated: “WALL WITH INSCRIBED DATE.”

The three translucent panels inscribed with the 9/11 date were a problem because further up the flight path, at the upper crescent tip (where Flight 93 symbolically breaks the circle, turning it into the giant Islamic shaped crescent), sits one more inscribed translucent memorial panel:


At the end of the Entry Portal Walkway sits a huge glass panel that dedicates the entire site. In the original design, this brought the total number of inscribed translucent memorial panels on the flight path to 44, with the number of "extra" blocks matching the number of Islamic hijackers on Flight 93.

The enabling legislation for the Flight 93 Memorial specifically bars the Park Service from memorializing the enemy, but architect Paul Murdoch has other ideas. He doesn't just include them in some kind of can't-we-all-just-get-along multiculturalist fantasy. He depicts them as triumphant warriors, placing the capstone of his terrorist memorializing block count at the exact point where, in Murdoch's description, the terrorists' circle-breaking, crescent-creating feat is achieved. They explode through our peaceful circle, then die along with their victims. The capstone block commemorating this glorious martyrdom will be inscribed: “A field of honor forever.”

The Memorial Project is okay with all of this, but thanks to our blogbursts, too many people OUTSIDE of the Project also know about the terrorist memorializing block count, so they decided to fix up architect Paul Murdoch’s disguise, telling a caller two years ago that they were going to turn the three panels with the 9/11 date into one large panel. That would change the memorial block count from 44 to 42. Here is Mountain Goat's report on that 2007 phone call:

The gentleman did add, that the translucent blocks are actually white marble, and that the one with Sept. 11 inscribed on it will be one block, although it will be roughly the length three of the other blocks would have been.

This seems to be the change that is depicted in the new design image, though we will have to see the construction drawings to be sure. (An FOIA request for the recently completed construction drawings was submitted to the Park Service earlier this month.)


Primping Murdoch’s disguise does not stop his terrorist-memorializing plot, but only helps him to get away with it

The Park Service assumes that the 44 blocks were a coincidence and that by eliminating the coincidence it has eliminated the problem, but the 44 blocks were not a coincidence and changing the number of blocks to 42 does nothing alter the terrorist memorializing intent. Also, because the Park Service has been trying NOT to see Murdoch is up to, they left other terrorist memorializing features of the inscribed panels completely intact.

Notice, for instance, that the separate upper section of memorial wall, inscribed with the 9/11 date, is centered on the centerline of the giant crescent:


The trail that divides the Memorial Wall into two parts is marked in purple. The section of wall with the 9/11 date is marked in aqua.

You can see just by looking that the upper section of wall is centered on the center line of the crescent. That is the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag. Thus the 9/11 date goes to the star on the Islamic flag. The date goes to the terrorists.

Changing the number of panels used to inscribe the 9/11 date does nothing to alter this terrorist memorializing feature. Not that Murdoch really cares whether the Park Service executes his design with proper Islamic precision.


To Murdoch, it is the plan that matters

Murdoch made clear from the beginning that it is the plan that matters, not whether the memorial is actually built exactly to his specifications. We can tell that he fully expected at least one of his terrorist memorializing features to be caught and stopped because he left provision for his “mistake” to be easily corrected. This was the so called “40 Memorial Groves." There were supposed to be one for each of the 40 infidel heroes, but Murdoch's site-plan only shows 38 groves:



Why 38? Try to figure it out for yourself, then look here. As usual, Murdoch provides multiply redundant proof of intent, once you figure out what he is up to.

Notice that Murdoch left room for two more Memorial Groves, one at each end. But just as the 38 Groves “mistake” is easy to fix, it will also be easy to un-fix it later. Indeed, failure to follow Murdoch's exact design is not a bug. It is a feature.

Islamic fundamentalists have been citing control of the al-Aqsa mosque as a grounds for waging war against Israel since the founding of the modern Jewish state. If we fail to be true to the glorious design of Murdoch's terrorist memorial mosque, that will just be one more reason for Murdoch's co-religionists to conquer The Great Satan, so that this death-penalty insult can first be avenged ("It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land" 8.67), then corrected.

Murdoch has not admitted to being Muslim (never mind a fundamentalist Muslim), but he HAS demonstrably designed an al Qaeda sympathizing memorial to Flight 93, all according to the established principles of proper mosque design (chapter 5), so there is no doubt of his ambition. Anyone who tries to sneak an al Qaeda memorial onto the Flight 93 crash site IS al Qaeda.

In 2005, the Park Service helped Murdoch hide his giant crescent by calling it a broken circle instead (as Murdoch had described it all along). Now the Park Service is helping to disguise yet another of Murdoch's terrorist memorializing design features, but without even acknowledging this time that the changes are in response to anything troublesome about the original design.

So tell us Park Service: if there never were 44 memorial panels on the flight path, as you have been telling the press for almost four years, why did you change the number of panels? And do you really think it is wise to help a hijacker improve his disguise?


To join our blogbursts, just send your blog's url.




Hat Tip:

Error Theory

Best ObamaScare Photo!

You know the old saying - sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words! When it comes to the disaster of the crazy ObamaScare HELLcare plan, the photo at the top of this article tells all - HILARIOUS!

Recall the brief song and lyrics that were sung before the "Candid Camera" show?

"It's fun to look at yourself the way other people do...it's fun to laugh at yourself..."

Unfortunately, our narcissist usurper can't seem to muster up the ability to laugh at himself - or APOLOGIZE like he SHOULD HAVE to the police officer who WAS JUST DOING HIS JOB! Just sayin...

The following commenter gets it:

Posted by ( dobefan ) on 07/24/2009 at 02:02 pm.

It seems that a large majority of the white community has gotten over racism by supporting Pres Obama...now it is the Black community's turn to do likewise. If you think that the image of Pres Obama shown in this article is offensive, then that would make you racist toward the white community. Its all in fun. Who on this blog has never poked a little fun at someone, white or black? You all need to start seeing each other as human beings, not colors.

Only read the first few comments. So far, this is one of the best:

Posted by ( exciledknight ) on 07/24/2009 at 11:54 am.

Barack Obama has been disrespectful to the American Constitution. Can he be expected to apologize to the founding fathers and the American people? As a citizen, I urge President Obama to apologize to the signifigance of the Constitution and the American people for his egregious deeds! He needs to apologize for increasing the deficit without concern, for lying about what he would do and how he would do it, and for his lack of knowledge about all requirements important to the Presidental office. He can apologize all over the world for America, so I'm sure he can muster an apology to America for just misleading us about who he is!!!

Yep...

More good comments:

Posted by ( stpetecitizen ) on 07/24/2009 at 12:43 pm.

Yet Mr. President has free rein to stand up in his press conference and accuse physicians of making treatment decisions based solely on income to them. That's a much more egregious insult than some damned cartoon which every president before him has been open to. Seems that HE is above reproach or criticism, and the press falls right in line.

Posted by ( wonderful ) on 07/24/2009 at 12:46 pm.

While we are "focusing on Obama's health care" plans...can the media finally report how his wife lost her law license due to, in essence, insurance fraud? And after only 4 years of being licensed. Oh no - we can't report the truths about these people - it would be racial.

Posted by ( demarini_26 ) on 07/24/2009 at 01:30 pm.

Why does someone have to apologize for their opinion and resign from his post? He feels like the health plan Obama and the Dems are trying to cram down our thoughts will amount to nothing more then a nightmare! What a bunch of crap! If this would have been George Bush, I guarantee people would be laughing at it and wouldnt find it offensive, but since the great one is black, oh, you cant speak your mind otherwise you are racist. What a crock!

Posted by ( exciledknight ) on 07/24/2009 at 02:00 pm.

RWR; Your comments all center on egos. Your man, Odumbo, has the biggest ego I have ever come across. DOPamine; its not racist.. The picture stands for what he is promoting ("Obamacare") and also for the "VooDooEconomics" he already has pushed on us. "Porkulus" Package, bailouts, Earmarks...aren't going to work no matter what kind of spell the "witch doctor" weaves!

Posted by ( Mouthpiece6916 ) on 07/24/2009 at 02:59 pm.

It's not worse than the Obama Chia pet you can order now!!!

Posted by ( LC ) on 07/24/2009 at 03:01 pm.

It's funny...I would LOVE it if it wasn't so scary true!

*******
Now that you have had a few laughs, here comes the more serious stuff. A copy of The Obama File Latest News:

Quote:

Obama Media Machine Rushing to Derail Treason Charges

JB Williams, writing at CanadaFreePress.com says that the massive effort to force Barack Hussein Obama to become "transparent" about his birth place and circumstance, his college years and his passport records is gathering steam. Despite a million dollars in legal fees aimed at keeping Obama’s entire life history Top Secret, a relentless pursuit of the mystery messiah not only persists, its going viral on the web and main stream in the press…

CNN news anchor Lou Dobbs put his career on the line by even mentioning the topic of Obama’s apparent constitutional ineligibility for the office of Commander-in-Chief. After almost two years of reports and law suits regarding Obama’s secret past, the pursuit of truth is finally reaching critical mass among American voters and the mainstream press is being forced to address the matter.

But don’t get too excited just yet. The Obama media machine is spinning around the clock to derail all efforts to smoke Obama out into the open, where he may soon have to answer the questions he has spent years and millions dodging. Is he a "natural born citizen" eligible to hold the office of president, or is he the greatest political fraud ever perpetrated on the American electorate?

If Obama is what so many Americans assert, an unconstitutional fraud, then the appropriate charge for his actions, and the actions of those who have "aided and abetted" the fraud, would be no less than "treason," a crime punishable by death.

The implications are extraordinarily serious!

Eligibility
7/28/09
I Told You So

Janice Okubo, the Communications Officer officer for the Hawaii Department of Health, has been quoted as saying, "I am not aware of any birth certificate records that have been destroyed by the department. When the department went electronic in 2001, vital records, whether in paper form or any other form, [were] maintained. We don't destroy records."

She explained that, "Any records that we had in paper or any other form before 2001 are still in file within the department. We have not destroyed any vital statistics records that we have."

Last Thursday, Klein, CNN's U.S. president, told staffers of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" that the issue of Obama's birth certificate and his eligibility to be president is a "dead" story.

Two days ago, this item described Klein as an Obama agent and propagandist, and this item documented why Hawaii still has the sensitive documents.

Klein's email conclusions that the computer-generated abbreviated version that has been promoted on the Internet is the official record -- "It seems to definitively answer the question. Since the show's mission is for Lou to be the explainer and enlightener, he should be sure to cite this during your segment tonite. And then it seems this story is dead, because anyone who still is not convinced doesn't really have a legitimate beef." -- is nonsense.

I identified Klein as an Obama agent for claiming the story is dead. Klein -- meet Lazarus!

Eligibility
7/28/09
Fukino Throws Another Log Onto The Fire

USA Today reports, that in an attempt to quash persistent rumors that Obama was not born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, Hawaii's health director reiterated this afternoon that she has personally seen Obama's birth certificate in the Health Department's archives.

"I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai'i State Department of Health verifying Barrack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago...."

Now this is a subtle change from Fukino's previous statement. In the original statement, Fukino says that she has personally seen the original birth certificate. OK, lets' take her at her word. Hawaii has the original document.

Now, watch the language Fukino uses in her latest declaration -- "I...have seen the original vital records maintained on file..."

Those are two completely different statements. In the first, she is describing a document -- a piece of paper. In the second she is describing an electronic data set -- data stored on a disc. Fukino is carefully parsing her words and clearly dissimulating, but why?

Now let's examine what USA Today is reporting: "Hawaii's health director reiterated this afternoon that she has personally seen Obama's birth certificate in the Health Department's archives."

That statement is false. It is not what Fukino said. Fukino did not say, "she has personally seen Obama's birth certificate in the Health Department's archives" -- and USA Today even put their made-up statement within quotes.

See how the game is played? See how words are substituted to subtly change the meaning of Fukino's statement? USA Today has hundreds of wordsmiths. Why would USA Today change Fukino's statement -- and then put its fabricated statement within quotes?

Why? Because USA Today has joined CNN, MSNBC, and others as Obama agents and propagandists. In the last couple of days, these "responsible" news organizations have all knowingly published comments that are provable lies in defense of Obama. Why is everybody lying? Why are these organizations putting their credibility on the line?

If Hawaii really does have a document that proves Obama is a "natural born" citizen, then Obama should have no problem in releasing his vault-copy birth certificate today.

That simple act will end all this nonsense.

I'll bet you a buck he doesn't.

There is no doubt in my military mind that this is a coordinated media campaign. The question is, who's behind it -- beside Obama?

Eligibility
7/28/09
Hey guys! Guess what?

In 1961, the Public Health Services, U. S Department of Health, Education and Welfare, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Division published the "Vital Statistics of the United States -- Volume I -- Nativity."

Here is a .pdf copy of the 246-page document -- if you don't have high-speed Internet connection, go get a cup of coffee when you click the link.

Section 5, the Technical Appendix, contains text discussion of factors affecting the collection, classification, and interpretation of the natality statistics published in this volume.

Subsection 5-7 contains the requirements for "Sources of Data," and contains an image (page 228) of the "Standard Certificate of Live Birth," issued by the National Vital Statistics Division.

The Standard Certificate of Live Birth (page 227), issued by the National Vital Statistics Division, which has served for many years as the principal means of attaining uniformity in the content of the documents used to collect information on this event. It has been modified in each state to the extent necessitated by the particular needs of the State or by special provisions of the State vital statistics law. However, the certificates of most States conform closely in content and arrangement to the standard certificate.

The "Standard Certificate of Live Birth" contains the father's race in block #8 and the mother's race in block #13. Hawaii's "Certificate of Live Birth" contains the the father's race in block #13a and the mother's race in block #12a.

Now, here comes the good stuff. Page 231 contains the requirements for "Race and color."

"Births in the United States in 1961 are classified for vital statistics into white, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aleut, Eskimo, Hawaiian and Part-Hawaiian (combined), and "other nonwhite."

Do you see a classification for "African?" I certainly don't.

Now, let's look at the document that Obama has provided for certifying his eligibility for the Office of the President of the United States and that is displayed on Annenberg FactCheck.org.

FATHER'S RACE is "African" -- an incorrect entry for that data field. Just a typo? I don't think so. The Obot who created the bogus Certification of Live Birth just couldn't type the word "Negro." Negro is just not politically correct, don'tcha know.

Oh, what tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

This information was provided by Steve Cee, a genealogist, who has also authored this new analysis (graphics-heavy MS Word document) of the Obama Certification of Live Birth (COLB). Steve's contribution adds to Dr. Ron Polarik's extensive forensic examination.

Obama's COLB is demonstrably counterfeit. It's a fraud -- as is Obama. /quote

Thanet Earth and the Crystal Palaces of the Coming Salad Crisis Era

(Photo courtesy of Thanet Earth.)

A passing scene or two in a British police drama of the garden variety gritty kind — no need to name the show, but the scenes involved its Northern Irish anti-hero of an undercover cop discovering illegal aliens from Eastern Europe arriving by boats on the blue-toned, cinematically tempestuous North Sea and then being sent off, if not to the brothels, to work unsurprisingly at slave wages in the commercial greenhouses of a light-deprived Norfolk, where the glass-walled foliage provides as much cover from the Home Office as the urban jungle of council estates — those scenes reminded us of Thanet Earth.


(Photo courtesy of Thanet Earth.)


(Photo by Henry Browne for The Guardian.)

Thanet Earth, as described by The Guardian last year, is “Britain's biggest greenhouse development.” Located in Kent, “80 football pitches' worth of greenhouse” will accommodate “1.3 million plants, growing in seven greenhouses, each up to 140m in length and fed by its own reservoir.” The entire complex will be heated by seven power generating stations located on site, and any excess supply of electricity will be sent to nearby towns. It is estimated that when all the greenhouses are completed, the UK's crop of salad vegetables will increase by 15%.

It's huge, massive, perhaps so gargantuan that illegal migrant workers might go undetected among the wild thickets of cucumbers and peppers, lost in the din of pneumatic harvesters, sonorous simulant thunderstorms and the reverberated rustlings of tomato leaves. It's just huge, massive, gargantuan.


(Photo by Henry Browne for The Guardian.)

Or maybe Thanet Earth is so technolicious, so heavily under surveillance that no stray variable can ever escape its sensors. Speaking to Will Wiles of Icon Magazine, Steve McVickers, Thanet Earth's managing director, says, “We're measuring all the time. Temperature, humidity, the amount of water in the Rockwool; we're looking at the growth of the plants, we're looking at the ventilation, we're looking at where the sun is, we're looking whether it's raining, we're looking at the wind direction. The greenhouse is constantly adjusting itself.”


(Photo courtesy of Thanet Earth.)

Phantom EU neo-gypsies displaced by the econopocalypse, non-functioning CCTV cameras, a food crisis, humorless Dutch efficiency experts, a rogue transgeneticist, guerrilla gardeners and allotment nutters, the insufferable Jamie Oliver and the sublime Heston Blumenthal — all converging in that one giant patch of the earth excised from geography, from the cycles of time and even from itself, one day infiltrated by a Northern Irish anti-hero of an undercover (food) cop after reports that tomatoes coming out of these Crystal Palaces have suddenly and improbably started tasting better, sweeter, juicier than Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's organic heirlooms, right after the children have also started going missing. This is a story pitch to the BBC.

My reflections: Time

Okay,

So, I've been thinking a lot about my use of time lately. My daily routine consists of checking Facebook, feeding my virtual pets and then I often get sucked into playing some new game my friends passed on to me. By the end of the day, I am left wondering where the time went. No one is promised tomorrow.. That's why we should value the time we are given.

Just my thoughts for today.. I promise there will be something disability related tomorrow.

Disaster City

(Photo by Brent Humphreys.)

Popular Science paid a visit to Disaster City in College Station, Texas. It isn't a city, of course, but “a vast disaster-simulation center designed to look and feel as close to catastrophe as you ever want to be. Each hairline crack, each mangled car, all the mountains of rubble are modeled on wreckage from real disasters, like the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles that killed 72 people and injured nearly 12,000. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing inspired the collapsed parking garage, with cars dangling off the sides like spiders from a ceiling, while the 12-foot-deep rubble catacombs resemble those from Ground Zero.”

This “Jerry Bruckheimer set” is where search-and-rescue teams go to train.

Reclaiming Saemangeum

(The sea, the lake, the wall, the peninsula, the future Dubai of Northeast Asia.)

Saemangeum is an estuarine tidal flat on the western coast of South Korea, just south of the port city of Gunsan. With the completion in 2006 of a 33-kilometer seawall, perhaps the world's longest, it is now essentially a 400-square-kilometer artificial lake.

It won't be a lake for long, however, because this the site of what's been dubbed as “the world's largest reclamation project.”


(Saemangeum, South Korea.)

To put its gargantuan scale into perspective, the project site is roughly two-thirds the size of Seoul, the South Korean capital.

The last major land reclamation project in Asia was the construction of Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong's island airport. At the time, 80 percent of the world's dredging equipment was involved. But at just a little over 12 square kilometers, Chek Lap Kok is a mere sandbar compared to Saemangeum.

The current record holder for land reclamation is the Palm Deira, currently under construction in Dubai. Saemangeum will be 8 times larger.

So what will all that reclaimed land be used for?


(Saemangeum vs. London. Image by Architecture Research Unit.)

The original plan was to turn 70% of the estuary into farmland with the rest set aside for industries. Because of political and economic realities, however, the ratio of agricultural use to non-agricultural use has flipped. Instead of mainly agricultural, the new plan calls for most of the reclaimed land to be developed for industrial, financial, residential and tourist facilities.

Sure to excite many and appall the rest, Saemangeum is now envisioned as the Dubai of Northeast Asia.


(The MIT masterplan for Saemangeum. Image by ORG et al.)

Last year, several teams were invited to participate in an ideas competition and submit conceptual masterplans for this Korean Dubai. Last November, three teams were chosen as co-winners.

One team comprised of designers from MIT, ORG and Office dA. In their masterplan, Saemangeum is divided into an industrial North and a more leisure-oriented South.

The North is organized into a regimented system of 330 ‘landscape chambers’ – rooms of varying sizes, bounded by trees and canals and able to host multiple kinds of development. These chambers might contain factories, a science park, a university, or even a space port. By contrast, the South has the spatial configuration of a ‘constellation.’ Similar to stars in the sky or jewels on a crown, small cities are dispersed along the landscape on a series of small hills surrounded by areas of agriculture or nature, connected by roads and pointing to each other.

One of the advantages of this scheme is that “by spreading many cities over the land, transportation is reduced as industry grows alongside residential communities, rather than commuting-distance away from it.”


(The MIT masterplan for Saemangeum. Image by ORG et al.)

Another team was led by Jeffrey Inaba. Whereas the MIT team's scheme is both orthogonal and geomorphic, the Inaba team's scheme is wholly orthogonal, organized based on symbiotic pairings.

For instance, quoting one of the presentation boards, “wetlands are coupled with industry, agriculture and buildings to filter effluents, run-off and household grey water” and “alternative energy zones are paired with agriculture and water to harness energy through biomass processing and hydro-electric production.”


(The Inaba masterplan for Saemangeum. Image by Inaba et al.)


(The Inaba masterplan for Saemangeum. Image by Inaba et al.)

A third team was led by Florian Beigel and Philip Christou from Architecture Research Unit based at the London Metropolitan University.

As described by Kieran Long in a recent article of The Architectural Review, their scheme “envisages a city of islands that combines a self-consciously artificial landscape with a logic born of land reclamation and the depth of the lagoon. Beigel's work has always pursued his concept of ‘landscape infrastructure’, where the landscape is built first and helps to define a non-programmatic urbanism born of geography and typology.”

Kieran Long, as well as Ellis Woodman in Building Design, noted the introduction existing, Western urban typologies. Implanted into the islands are Barcelona's Cerda grid, Cambridge University's quadrangles and the “kilometre style” perimeter developments of Kay Fisker’s Copenhagen, among others. This is Collage City, and this is how one might “create a sense of place out of nothing.”


(Architecture Research Unit's masterplan for Saemangeum. Image by ARU.)

These three teams will submit their finalized proposals by the end of this month. The government will then select which of the schemes to work with. It may also elect to choose more than one team or even combine aspects from two or all three masterplans in its phased development project. Or none at all.

In any case, just a couple of decades after it's finished, Saemangeum's checkered islands and constellation cities will burst out of their seawalled compound, stimulated into runaway mitotic subdivision by population growth. Like a Suprematist painting in the works, New Saemangeum will meet up with China's own territorial expansion, sustained by immigrant soil from abraded post-glacial, post-Tibetan Himalayan mountains.

Then no sooner than the two meet, climate change will come in and undertake its own reclamation project.

In the Archives:
Flemish Island Constellation

Obama's Bad Habit: Playing the Race Card

Since I have recently returned to blogging after a brief vacation, the need to catch up on the news (via the blogs I often visit) has become necessary. This morning, I read Race Has No Part in the Obama Eligibility Issue. It seems to me that any time Obama and his cohorts are being challenged, the "race card" comes out (again and again!!) in order to defer attention from the complaint (or challenge at hand) and distract would-be inquisitive minds from the REAL story.

It is interesting to note that Attorney Mario Apuzzo has been motivated to write:

Race simply has no place in the Obama eligibility issue. The eligibility question is a constitutional one and nothing more. Those who want to bring race into the issue simply want to win without a legitimate and fair battle. That is not right and should not be tolerated in our Constitutional Republic that was founded and built on the rule of law and due process.

Especially because:

Many who supported Obama's run for the Presidency said that Obama would be a unifying force for American race relations. Frankly, from everything that I have seen so far, I think quite the opposite has occurred in our country.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq.

Lots of good comments and links at the blog. I especially liked these two:

mtngoat61 said...
Professor Gates and Obama play the race card and get caught at it:http://countryfirst.bravehost.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=4581&p=17026#p17026M Publius GoatGoat's Ledge
July 25, 2009 12:27 PM

Teo Bear said...
Mario, You're right on the money. The Obots continually use the race card to stifle free speech and an open debate of the Constitutional issues America is facing.Please look at Why are the Birthers the ones being labeled Racists?
July 25, 2009 12:34 PM

It is well known that Google owners supported Obama for president. Therefore, it is exceedingly egregious that they would pull a stunt like this:

Note from the moderator and contributors: A notice has been received from Google and Blogspot that this blog may be deleted in 20 days based on complaints (probably phony spamming and TOS violation charges filed by the Obots or concerns being passed down from the top itself). If this blog is taken down or deleted in the next few weeks, please move to the parallel/mirror blog which has copies of the posts posted here. It is located at: http://puzo1.wordpress.com/

Please make a note of that URL. However, do not post any new comments there at that site until such time as we have to abandoned this blog due to this obvious attempted harassment and censorship by Google and BlogSpot staff disguised and hiding behind the guise of it being anonymous unnamed "robots" having flagged and locked this blog. Note: Google's CEO is a member of the Obama technology team and a major funds contributor to Obama. Google has changed their "robot" algorithms to protect Obama and are censoring and "sand boxing" conservative websites such as WorldNetDaily.com. See this post at WND.com for more details: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104947

They must be highly worried about this pending lawsuit against Obama! It is proof that Obama is in trouble!!

The post was updated on July 26th and it appears that their "threat" against Apuzzo's blog has been rescinded.

Update 26 Jul 2009: The threat and warning message in the owner and moderator's screens that this blog is being reviewed as a spam blog and if found to be so would be deleted in 20 days was addressed by Atty Apuzzo, the blog owner, and the warning message has now been removed.
Posted by Puzo1 at 10:46 AM

Be sure to read Kerchner v Obama & Congress DOC 34 Plaintiffs Brief Opposing Defendants Motion to Dismiss

I just finished reading it and it appears to be a solid case against Obama. This one lawsuit has a great chance of being heard in court!

Hat tip:

A Place to Ask Questions To Get the Right Answers

*******

As always, keep up with the latest on Obama via The Obama File: Latest News

*******
Related posts:

Gateway Pundit: Obama Pal Henry Gates: "As Always, Whitey Now Sits in Judgment of Me Preparing to Cast My Fate"

Gateway Pundit writes:

Honestly, does Barack Obama have any close friends who are not race-baiting, anti-white, America-haters?
Obama's pal Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. has a long-long history of bashing whitey.

I'm wondering the same thing...

Unreported Stories

Reporters


Needed




One of the better reporters in Austin asked me, what are some of the under reported stories in Austin? Under reported in Austin? I'm shaking my head. Staffs have been cut, and the "beat" system may be dying in all media. KXAN TV (NBC), News 8, and KVUE TV (ABC) seem to have a beat system still. It takes a budget commitment. I'm a great believer in the beat system. Yeah, it's "old school", but it still works. It works if the report is on the right beat. Sometimes, management will think it is filling that slot only to find out that the reporter really wanted to do features.


Jim Swift (KXAN) is one of the last feature reporters standing. It's a dying breed nationwide. Make no mistake; however, Jim can cover hard news.


There is only one (1) health reporter in traditional media to my knowledge. She's at the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. What is, perhaps, the most reported issue at the national level right now? Health Care. Further, I'm aware of several health developments in Austin, but it is reporting via news release. That's not even a niche beat. Health used to be far more important. Perhaps it doesn't research well right now, but Austin never conforms to research elsewhere.


There are few, true education reporters. If a medium wants to grow an audience, produce compelling content about schools, not just the obvious ones like the closure of Pearce Middle School. There are few better pictures on TV than those of little kids. People always ask, why don't you show us some good news? There are many of these "good news" stories.


This leads me to say again and again that it IS legal to take pictures of students in the course of telling a story related to education. It's state law. SB 521 took effect more than a decade ago with the 1997-98 school year. It was signed into law by then governor George Bush. According to the bill, school districts are not required to get written parental consent before recording video or pictures, including a student's voice, if the recording is to be used only for media coverage of the school. If there are children in custody battles, etc., they can be identified easily, and removed from the setting.


The law allows wiggle-room for individual districts and campuses. Some, such as Eanes ISD, deny access to students. That means that Eanes does not the coverage that it once did. One thing I do find interesting--Eanes student athletes seem to get on TV a lot. Do we have our priorities right.


Another sadly under reported area is as they used to say “Under the Dome”. There are fewer and fewer members of the Capitol Press Corps. This is another area where, for many, is journalism by news release. Again, KXAN and KVUE have capitol reporters. This deserves more than a paragraph in a future post.


I'm a former crime reporter, and I think there is FAR too much crime coverage. We get enough violence in prime time. At one time KXAN did VO/Bites (voice-over/sound bites) on the crime and PKGs on some more meaty, related issue.

Under reported? Why does TV news leave it to the printed media to cover the music and entertainment industry in Austin. The moniker "Live Music Capital of the World" is wearing a little thin. City Hall reporters have done stories on the noise ordinance enforcement, most recently at the Unplugged at Shady Grove series. There have been other stories about a city Music Office. There are other under reported stories. Right now during the national debate about health care, maybe it's time for another story about health care for musicians? The minimum wage rose this past week as Austin musicians and singer/songwriters try to scratch out an existence. There isn't a reporter on that beat, and management apparently doesn't see it as an ongoing source of stories. It is, but, of course, I'm prejudiced.

Whenever someone moves on in a newsroom, that reporter's knowledge, contacts, and goodwill go too. Ideally, those beat positions should be filled with some overlapping allowing the new reporter a chance for some introductions.


Sure, there may be under reported niches. I think the media is straining to cover the basics right now.


© Jim McNabb, 2009

With all these questions....

Is all the playoff hype warranted?

[John McClain, Chron.com]

If you're like me, you've got a lot of questions about the team going into Gary Kubiak's fourth season as its coach. For instance, will they have their first winning record? Will it be good enough to make the playoffs for the first time? Will they play better on the road? Will they play better in the AFC South? Will they improve their red-zone problems on both sides of the ball?



Now, let's break down the team and start with the rookies: Will first-round pick Brian Cushing sign on time, and what kind of impact will he make on the front seven? Will second-round pick Connor Barwin contribute off the bench to the pass rush despite playing defensive end only one year in college?

Will third-round pick Antoine Caldwell make enough progress to compete for a starting job at some point this season at center or guard?

How fast will fourth-round pick Glover Quin and sixth-round pick Brice McCain develop in the absence of the team's best cornerback, Dunta Robinson? How much of a contribution will fourth-round pick Anthony Hill and fifth-round pick James Casey make as a blocker and receiver? Will Casey develop fast enough to earn playing time?

Local experts and pundits are already beating the playoff drum for this team and while there's plenty of evidence that makes this a possibility (the projected decline of the Colts and the Titans, the teams good play in the second half of last season) there's also plenty of reasons to question whether or not they can get over the hump. (Schaub's fragile frame, scoring in the red zone, can the defensive backfield shut anyone down)

I'm looking forward to this NFL season for two reasons:

1. The Chron's coverage of the Texans is full of hilarious bi-polar writing. Both Justice and McClain are rapturous after wins and despondent (or, in the case of Justice, angry to a point that he loses his professionalism) after losses. I haven't gone through the Texans' schedule with a fine-toothed comb yet, but I'm guessing there will be opportunities for both. It makes for entertaining reading (and blogging)

2. The 49'ers have Mike Singletary back as Head Coach, this time for a full season. Now...if they can just find and offense to go with their improving, young defense they have a good chance at making a playoff run in the weak NFC West.

Until then, here's a great commercial from Versus hyping (in part) their upcoming College Football coverage that's sure to get you in the mood for sports in some manner. My house goes silent every time this comes on.

Another Deception Towards Hell

I love it when Christian bloggers comment at my blog. It helps remind me to see what they are writing about at their own blogs. I especially enjoy visiting new Christian blogs and adding them to my blog roll.

Recently, Ken of The Bumbling Genius blogspot wrote a comment here at Talk Wisdom. I went over to that blog and found his latest post entitled, Hell, The Ultimate Offense.

Excerpt:

(1) There is only one way by which we may receive the eternal mercy of God, the first step being that we realize our dire need of it. By down playing that need we do save from offense, but we do so at the expense of a far greater one; for nothing can be more offensive than an eternity in Hell.

(1)While we do not have the choice of pointing out that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, it is not my intention to suggest that Christians behave in a manner consistent with the caricature of Christians that exists today. This image was perfected in the pit of Hell, and there will never be anything that the church will be able to do, barring abandoning the cross and sin altogether- as many churches have done-to win the approval of a ardently anti-Christian culture.

My comment there:


Great post! And SO TRUE! The current "I don't want to offend anyone by talking about sin" modus operandi is (unfortunately) on it's way to becoming the express train of modern Christian thought. People may think that such a worldview is an "enlightened " way to "do church." But the reality is that it is just another one of Satan's ploys to keep people out of Christ's Kingdom.

The truth is, such a mentality is just another deception and ticket to hell.

That quote at the end of your post says it all!!

Years ago, I ran across commentary that stated, "beware the crossless gospel." Such a terrible error (and heresy) is becoming more and more prevalent in many churches today.

The Bible tells us the truth about each and every matter. God's Word tells us that the cross is offensive to those who are perishing.

2Cr 2:14 (NLT) But thanks be to God, who made us his captives and leads us along in Christ's triumphal procession. Now wherever we go he uses us to tell others about the Lord and to spread the Good News like a sweet perfume.


2Cr 2:15 Our lives are a fragrance presented by Christ to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those being saved and by those perishing.


2Cr 2:16 To those who are perishing we are a fearful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?


Hat Tip:

The Bumbling Genius blogspot

Simple Lesson in Humility: Seeing beyond a Disability

Okay,

Even though it's not Friday, I thought this post was perfect for a simple and sweet lesson on humility. It's quite an eye-opener.

http://www.5minutesforspecialneeds.com/1528/seeing-beyond-the-disability/

A world of spin and flame is born in the head of the dreamer, blue suns, green whirlwinds, birdbeaks of light pecking open the pomegranate stars

(With thanks to NASA and the European Space Agency for the video, and Geoff Manaugh for the audio, Main's Haloform III. See more sunscapes.)

Facebook, Cong. John Carter, and Cognitive Dissonance

"Unfriending"




and




Polarization


“Unfriend” or “de-friend”. Verbs (neither in dictionary.com) Used in social media as a verb meaning to disassociate one’s self with another inside of that social medium’s framework. “Unfriend” is actually in dictionary.com as a noun, a synonym of “enemy”. So, why am I looking up these terms? I am witnessing an interesting dynamic in social media.



It is very similar to the detached tirades people may launch in email. As you know people will say things to other people, particularly if they don’t know them or don’t know them well, in email that they would never say to their faces. One person asserts an opinion diametrically opposed to yours, and you respond. It goes back to one of those things my mother taught me, and I am sure that her mother taught to her: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.



Recently on my favorite social medium, a “friend” was threatening to “unfriend” someone else because of a political position taken in one of the medium’s constant “polls”. My friend no longer felt friendship with that person not just because of the position taken, I don’t think, but by the way it was written.


My friend along with others began discussing the purpose of the social medium, Facebook. Wasn’t it supposed to be a fun, safe place where folks could reconnect, catch-up, and converse? Why, all of a sudden, did Facebook start including political issues that would enflame someone one the other side of the issue? Would you vote for Sarah Palin? Would you vote for Obama again? “Are you in favor of a Government run healthcare system” is the current question. [At the risk of being unfriended, my answer, were I to participate in these polls which I do not, would be “Yes”. Why? If you needed health insurance, and you had a pre-existing condition, you’d know.]


I suppose these questions give FB a new edginess. Certainly, I have learned new things about some of my friends because of these polls. Some of their responses have surprised me. Since these people are really friends, not just virtual friends, I discovered new information about them. If nothing else, I learned never to discuss (Blank) with them when we are socializing or at family gatherings. Further, I like knowing points of view that might challenge my own. It keeps me thinking.


Rather than a “social” medium, however, Facebook can become an “anti-social” medium. Yes, I have “unfriended” a few people who were not personal friends either because they went on and on and on about everything in their lives—everything. Or, I finally decided, after reading responses, I didn’t want to see that sort of response any more. Toss in some touchy political issues and this “unfriending” action leads toward polarization.


I fervently believed that the election of Barack Obama would knit the nation closer together. No. It has created a new and more frightening polarization, and the media is re-enforcing it. These annoying FB polls are part of it, forcing people to choose publically “Yes” or “No” on a potentially polarizing issue. At least the voting booth is still a private sanctuary. Why do people take these polls? Probably because they are ardent supporters of one side or the other. We choose up sides.


Further, this past week, first on the cable news networks and then in the mainstream, there was renewed reporting of the incredible question of whether Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of this country as the Constitution requires. I thought that this was settled months long ago. Reasonably rational people came out of nowhere at community town halls and otherwise to claim he is not. Irrational people like Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy was given a moment in the sunshine to raise these questions once again.


Even Central Texas Congressman and former district judge John Carter is a support of something called HR (House Resolution) 1503. HR 1503 would “… amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution.”


Do we need this? Qualifications for President are already practically etched in stone.


Before this hit the spotlight of the evening news this week, I discovered Congressman Carter’s support. I, by the way, know Congressman Carter and consider him a friend or at least an acquaintance. When I saw his endorsement of this resolution, I learned something new, and it is something that Central Texas voters should know.


I passed it along to at least five colleagues working in area newsrooms. None of them have approached Congressman Carter asking why he is supporting HR 1503. I don't know why. Doesn’t Congress have something better to do? I don't know why someone in the mainstream, local news media doesn't pursue this.


This resolution is simply a distraction to the work at hand—healthcare reform.


The “friendship” and possible polarization inside social media may be related to politics, and it all can be explained by the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance explained by Leon Festinger. If your “friend” believes (blank) and you believe (blank) then you can be friends. If your “friend” who believed (blank) and you are very opposed to (blank), either you must reduce dissonance or cease to be friends.



“Any time a person has information or an opinion which considered by itself would lead him not to engage in some action, then this information or opinion is dissonant with having engaged in the action. When such dissonance exists, the person will try to reduce it either by changing his actions or by changing his believes and opinions.” (Leon Festinger, The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance”, “The Science of Human Communication” edited by Wilbur Schramm. p. 17. Basic Books. 1963). There is much more for perhaps another time.


One way to reduce dissonance is simple in social media: Be anti-social and unfriend. Problem solved. Polarization spreads.


© Jim McNabb, 2009