Merry Christmas wishes from a preacher
This Christmas wish was posted on the
HuntingtonNews.net Bulletin Board: Let me be the first to wish everyone a blessed and Merry Christmas. In the spirit of the Season, let me say that, if I have offended any Demagogicrats: perversion facilitators or pro-abortionists, then let me say that I have meant every word I said; and, since I offended you, I am especially merry this year. HO! HO! HO!
The message was written by a poster who calls himself Kilohana. But longstanding readers of the Bulletin Board know he is Terry K. Hagedorn. He is a preacher at Calvary Baptist Church in Reedsville, WV.
He is one of the primary reasons I stay away from all churches. Imagine being sucked into a church where a guy like this is a preacher, then being mesmerized by him. It can happen. I've seen it happen.
I have never seen such a mean streak in so many people. Bloggers are mean. Radio talk show hosts are mean. Politicians in Congress are mean. People in the President's office are mean.
Preachers are mean.
I used to post occasionally to HuntingtonNews.net but I have stopped. I posted what I thought was a rather innocuous message there a couple of months ago. I was attacked by someone who was so vitriolic, I sensed he was dangerous. So I stopped. I have responsibilities and I don't have time to be killed right now.
Can't we all just get along?
Apparently not.
So be it.
Just leave me out of the loop when it comes to hateful speech.
All I can say is - Wow!!!
If you live within 50 miles of Huntington and its bedroom community of Proctorville Ohio, you need to get there before New Year's Day to see Art Suiter's light spectacular at his house.
The more than 20,000 lights pulsate in time to the rhythms of music played on your car radio.
It you want to know the show times and get a preview of the light spectacular see Suiters Web page at
http://www.christmaslights2006.com/ You gotta see it.
My Grandpa's Fiddle
This is one of the best Christmases ever for me. I have my Grandpa John Duncan's fiddle. You can read more about it in the Christmas Day Charleston Daily Mail. Meanwhile, you can see pictures of it by clicking on the picture below.
Thanks to my cousin, Patsy Black, for giving it to me and to Joe Dobbs of the Fred 'N Fiddle in St. Albans for refurbishing it
Ahhh, to be in Barrow, now that winter's here
If you had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), be glad you don't live in Barrow, Alaska.
Here's the sunrise-sunset report for Barrow for today.
Civil Twilight 11:58 AM AKST 2:50 PM AKST
Nautical Twilight 9:45 AM AKST 5:03 PM AKST
Astronomical Twilight 8:18 AM AKST 6:31 PM AKST
Moon No Moon Rise No Moon Set
Length Of Visible Light: 2h 52m
Length of Day 0h 00m
Tomorrow will be 0m 0s shorter.
Unbelieveable
"Parents always talk about their kids! In fact, people like me that don't have kids, you get sick of hearing about it. I don't want to see the pictures anymore! I don't want to hear about the honor roll! I don't want to hear about the latest poem. I don't want to hear about it! They never stop talking about their kids."
In case you don't know, it comes from none other than Rush Limbaugh. In fact, he's so proud of the quote, it's
part of his "quotable quotes" on his Web site.
Is there an alternate universe where Rush Limbaugh and his hateful right wing friends don't exist. If so, can I get a ticket to go there?
By the way, I'll quit talking about my kid when Limbaugh stops talking about Obama's big ears.
But I don't think we have much longer to put up with him. The recidivism among drug addicts is more than 80 percent.
The Best "We Are Marshall" Movie Search Site
My friend, Charlie Bowen, is a dynamite Web designer. He has recently acquired the job as developer of the City of Huntington Web site.
Charlie is more than Web designer. He's a writer as well. And he knows the Web. I mean he really knows it.
Charlie has recently added a search site for all the stuff about the movie "We Are Marshall" that you can find on the Web. He's done it on the City of Huntington site and you'll find it
here.Take a look, especially if you want to know what folks everywhere are saying about the movie.
And believe me when I say that, if the City of Huntington were run the way Charlie manages the City of Huntington Web site, Huntington would be sittin' on top of the world instead of where it is.
Here's Why I Love West Virginia
...and why I'll never leave
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
This from the Marijuana Policy Project:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 18, 2006
Marijuana U.S.'s Top Cash Crop, New Study Finds
U.S. Marijuana Crop Worth More Than Corn, Wheat Combined
CONTACT: Bruce Mirken, MPP director of communications, 202-215-4205 or 415-668-6403
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Marijuana is now the most valuable cash crop in the U.S., exceeding the value of corn and wheat combined, according to a new study released today. This is so despite decades of marijuana "eradication" campaigns in which over 100 million marijuana plants have been destroyed.
"The fact that marijuana is America's number one cash crop after more than three decades of governmental eradication efforts is the clearest illustration that our present marijuana laws are a complete failure," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "America's marijuana crop is worth more than our nation's annual production of corn and wheat combined. And our nation's laws guarantee that 100 percent of the proceeds from marijuana sales go to unregulated criminals rather than to legitimate businesses that pay taxes to support schools, police and roads."
The report -- prepared by researcher Jon B. Gettman, who has a doctorate in public policy and specializes in economic development -- can be downloaded at at http://www.drugscience.org/bcr/index.html. Key findings include:
**Using conservative price estimates, marijuana is America's top cash crop, with a value of $35.8 billion this year -- exceeding the combined value of corn ($23.3 billion) and wheat ($7.45 billion) combined.
**The top marijuana producing states are California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii, and Washington. Marijuana is the top cash crop in 12 states and among the top three cash crops in 30 states.
**Despite intensive marijuana eradication campaigns that seized over 103 million cultivated marijuana plants and wiped out an average of nearly 36,000 cultivation sites per year, U.S. marijuana production increased tenfold from 1981 to 2006, from 1,000 metric tons (2.2 million pounds) to 10,000 metric tons (22 million pounds), according to U.S. government estimates.
**This enormous growth in marijuana cultivation, despite massive eradication efforts, indicates that "marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of our national economy" that should be put under a system of legal regulation.
With more than 21,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit www.MarijuanaPolicy.org.
####
So marijuana growers will have a merry Christmas in more ways than one.
When is this country going to come to its senses and both regulate and tax marijuana?
Sorry, No Match
Those who continue to tell us that our post-war nation building stay in Iraq is short compared to our post-war nation building in Germany after World War II need to (a) take a break and (b) stop trying to re-write history.
Slate Magazine offered a comparison of these two experiences three years ago at a time when Condi Rice was trying to tell us that American soldiers faced death and other dangers in Germany after we conquered the Hitler machine. You can read the article
here. .
Here's the nut graph:
According to America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, a new study by former Ambassador James Dobbins, who had a lead role in the Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo reconstruction efforts, and a team of RAND Corporation researchers, the total number of post-conflict American combat casualties in Germany—and Japan, Haiti, and the two Balkan cases—was zero.
Get that? No deaths of American soldiers. In fact, it appears that the biggest problem in Germany after the war apparently was soldier fraternization with the former enemy.
Now, can we move on to something else besides re-writing history?
Newt Is A Piece of Work
I watched Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press this morning,
and I also read the story about his appearance before some Republicans in New Hampshire. He says that the imams who were praying in the airport in Minneapolis should have been arrested because they were acting like terrorists. And, he says, if you act like a terrorist in America, you should be guilty of being a terrorist until you prove yourself innocent.
Huh?
Then he goes on to say that we're going to have to abridge free speech in America in order to save ourselves from terrorism.
The scary part of this is there are thousands who probably agree with him.
Well, I have news for Newt. It's too late to abridge free speech. Pardon me for sounding like some sort of radical, but I believe free speech is no longer a function of the First Amendment. It's a function of the Internet. Sure, the authorities can try to put the fires of free speech out. But they will fail. Here, in America, free speech is more genetic than constitutional, there's no way to stop it.
And, I think, Newt knows that.
The Marshall Plane Crash: Beyond the movie and the hype
You might not expect to find this on the popular Web site "How Stuff Works" but it's there.
It's the real story of the Marshall Plane Crash told tastefully and thoroughly. Kudos to the Web site.
Se it
here.
I feel a little like Dr. Zhivago
Time magazine has told us what many of us already know.
You are the Person of the Year. The Internet has liberated you to make a statement that is as accessible to the world as the statement of any politician. Or any columnist.
Hmmmmm. So it has come to this? Yes, it has. And I am so glad I am no longer dependent solely on my job as a newspaper columnist. Don't tell anyone, but it appears that newspaper columnists - people who make their living telling the masses what they think - is a dead-end career.
These days, anyone with access to the Internet can be a columnist. It's amazing, isn't it? People with ideas they want to share with the world have the capability of sharing them with an audience that's a thousand - no a million - times larger than most columnists who are is fortunate enough to still publishing a newspaper.
I love the movie
"Dr. Zhivago." A scene from that movie comes to mind. After the Russian Revolution, Zhivago returns to his spectacular family home in Moscow. He discovers that the expansive mansion is inhabited by 15 families of Russian peasants who have "liberated" it in the name of the people.
When confronted by the fact that the revolution has changed things, Dr. Zhivago tells one of the peasants "It's much better this way, comrades...really it is."
Did the good doctor really mean it or was he simply trying to pacify "the majority" that had taken over his house?
Well, does it make any difference? That's the way it was in Russia and Zhivago knew that he simply had to deal with it.
So it is with the Internet revolution. Nothing can stop it. Like the Russian Revolution that was inevitable, so is the Internet Revolution. My ideas are no more important than anyone else's.
The fact I had access to the major distribution system for years, while others didn't, made all the difference to me. Now everyone has access to an idea distribution system that's many times more potent than an ink-on-paper distribution system that is rapidly disappearing as a major force.
But I really don't have to worry about the demise of one system in favor of another, at least when it comes to ideas. I can sit back and enjoy the chaos it has caused while I collect my Social Security check and revel in the joys of writing two columns a week for the
Charleston Daily Mail because someone up there still thinks they matter. And who am I to argue with them?
Are we about to become Nazis?
This is very disturbingIf we let these people become a majority, we will become a Nazi state for sure.
We never seem to learn from ours and others mistakes.
The greatest threat to America is NOT from external forces, but from inside our own society.
If we buckle under to the belief that all Muslims are terrorists, and shouild be branded, we have lost the fight to keep ourselves free.
The Cruel War is nearly over, thank God
So now it appears that everyone in the world wants to change dramatically the course of the Iraqi War except President Bush. And even he appears to be caving a little.
I've been relatively civil during this war. I haven't exploded all over the blogosphere with the rage of a peacenik. I haven't hit any of the neocons who call folks like me an idiot. Generally, all I have done is sat quietly and waited for the truth to come bubbling to the surface. And now it has all but arrived.
Fifty hears from now, the Iraqi War will be tagged a big mistake. It won't be the first time America has screwed up militarily and it probably won't be the last.
But here's what they'll be saying in 2050: A group of Arabs commandeered airplanes and used them as bombs to kill more than 3,000 Americans back in 2001. Most of the Arabs were Saudi Arabians. So what was our response? We attacked Iraq while our leaders held hands with the Saudi royalty and called Saudis our friends.
It won't make much sense until those folks a half century from now understand that our peculiar ways were brought about by our love - no, our lust - for oil.
Every time America flips reality the bird and embraces some pie-in-the-sky ideology, we screw up. Iraq is no different. After we learned there were no weapons of mass destruction in that country, our leaders decided that we were there to impose democracy.
How in the name of all that is sane can democracy be imposed on a people whose majority wants a theocracy, not a democracy? But I didn't even ask that question of the hawks. You see, I have been called "stupid" and "idiot" more times than I can count. I don't have to set myself up for that any more, nor will I.
I knew that all I had to do was bide my time and we would fail miserably in Iraq. And that's exactly what has happened.
As for the threat of terrorism, this country had better take seriously the worldwide threat. Sure, there are terrorist in Iraq, especially now that we have created the atmosphere there in which terrorism can bloom. But there are countless countries worldwide where terrorists are eager to kill us. Iraq is simply another blip on the radar screen, but it's a blip where thousands of Americans have died because of a failed idea that we could somehow bring democracy to a county that doesn't want democracy and thereby democratize the Middle East.
I'd like to tell the hawks to sit down and shut up, but it would do no good. They're not going to do it. Like the old confederate soldiers of long ago, they'll go to their grave believing they were right and everyone else was wrong.
So be it. It's their problem, not mine.
Labels: Iraq
